By Gregg Keizer, Feb 2, 2009
Microsoft insisted Monday that what outsiders have called a "security flaw" in Windows 7 is not a bug, but the way the new operating system is meant to work. Last week, Rafael Rivera , a developer for a Virginia-based company that sells secure messaging software to the U.S. government, and Long Zheng, a well-known blogger who writes "I Started Something," argued that a change to User Account Control (UAC) in Windows 7 could be exploited by attackers to secretly disable the feature. UAC, which debuted in Windows Vista , is a security feature that prompts users for their consent before tasks such as program and device driver installation are allowed. The feature has been roundly criticized since Vista's launch, primarily for too-frequent nagging. Even Microsoft acknowledged UAC's problems last year when it named it one of the five factors that contributed to Vista's slow adoption pace. In Windows 7, UAC has been modified to pop up alerts less often. It also, said Rivera and Long, has been changed so that by default the feature is set to "Don't notify me when I make changes to Windows settings."
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Monday, February 2, 2009
Google Accidentally Broke The Internet
by Brian Kraemer Feb 2, 2009
Over the weekend something strange happened to Google search results. For almost an hour on January 31, every site that Google returned in a search result was tagged with the message, "This site may harm your computer." In fact, most of those sites wouldn't harm a user's computer. Instead an inadvertent keystroke deemed any Web site with "/" in the URL as potentially malicious. Writing on the Official Google Blog Marissa Mayer, vice president, search products and user experience, Google, addressed the issue. "This was clearly an error, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to our users," wrote Mayer. Google actively works to inform its users about Web sites with malicious intent. It appears that in this case an errant keystroke and a human error caused the problem to happen over the weekend. "We maintain a list of such sites through both manual and automated methods," wrote Mayer. "We work with a non-profit called StopBadware.org to come up with criteria for maintaining this list, and to provide simple processes for Webmasters to remove their site from the list." Part of the protection that Google offers dictates that the list be updated periodically. Over the weekend, it appears that a Googler included the URL of "/" to the malicious site list, which unfortunately expands to every Web site on the Internet.
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Over the weekend something strange happened to Google search results. For almost an hour on January 31, every site that Google returned in a search result was tagged with the message, "This site may harm your computer." In fact, most of those sites wouldn't harm a user's computer. Instead an inadvertent keystroke deemed any Web site with "/" in the URL as potentially malicious. Writing on the Official Google Blog Marissa Mayer, vice president, search products and user experience, Google, addressed the issue. "This was clearly an error, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to our users," wrote Mayer. Google actively works to inform its users about Web sites with malicious intent. It appears that in this case an errant keystroke and a human error caused the problem to happen over the weekend. "We maintain a list of such sites through both manual and automated methods," wrote Mayer. "We work with a non-profit called StopBadware.org to come up with criteria for maintaining this list, and to provide simple processes for Webmasters to remove their site from the list." Part of the protection that Google offers dictates that the list be updated periodically. Over the weekend, it appears that a Googler included the URL of "/" to the malicious site list, which unfortunately expands to every Web site on the Internet.
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Microsoft aims to show Windows 7 'readiness'
by Ina Fried February 2, 2009
After getting dinged for constantly changing plans with Windows Vista, Microsoft is taking the opposite approach with Windows 7. The software maker is being extremely conservative with what it says publicly about the operating system--a move it says is deliberate. "The lack of a predictable schedule combined with the churn of features late in the the process made it hard for partners to know is this the real Windows Vista," Nash said. "The result of our lack of predictability was everybody (saying) 'Let's wait for this thing to stop spinning.'" With Windows 7, Microsoft has tried to share details only as they became relatively certain. The hope is that even though Microsoft isn't talking as early about its plans, it is talking with more certainty when it does speak. That move has led to far fewer changes in plans--but also means that Microsoft is still hedging on key questions--in particular, when Windows 7 will ship.
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After getting dinged for constantly changing plans with Windows Vista, Microsoft is taking the opposite approach with Windows 7. The software maker is being extremely conservative with what it says publicly about the operating system--a move it says is deliberate. "The lack of a predictable schedule combined with the churn of features late in the the process made it hard for partners to know is this the real Windows Vista," Nash said. "The result of our lack of predictability was everybody (saying) 'Let's wait for this thing to stop spinning.'" With Windows 7, Microsoft has tried to share details only as they became relatively certain. The hope is that even though Microsoft isn't talking as early about its plans, it is talking with more certainty when it does speak. That move has led to far fewer changes in plans--but also means that Microsoft is still hedging on key questions--in particular, when Windows 7 will ship.
Read more here -->Link
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