] Briefly, users make connection attempts to sequences of
] closed ports. The failed connections are logged by the
] server-side packet filtering firewall and detected by a
] dæmon that monitors the firewall log file. When a
] properly formatted knock sequence, playing the role of
] the secret used in the authentication, is received,
] firewall rules are manipulated based on the information
] content of the sequence. This user-based authentication
] system is both robust, being mediated by the kernel
] firewall, and stealthy--it's not possible to detect
] whether a networked machine is listening for port knocks.
] Port knocking does not require any open ports, and it can
] be extended to transmit any type of information encoded
] in a port sequence.

This is so very very cool

Port Knocking

] A vulnerability that involves the cross-domain security
] model of Internet Explorer. The cross domain security
] model of Internet Explorer keeps windows of different
] domains from sharing information. This vulnerability
] could result in the execution of script in the Local
] Machine zone. To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker
] would have to host a malicious Web site that contained a
] Web page designed to exploit the vulnerability and then
] persuade a user to view the Web page.

About damn time. This critical bug (their classification) took nearly 3 months to fix. 3 monthes to modify a stupid printing function. Why are these guys number 1 again? It sure aint the customer service

Microsoft finally patches IE URL Parse bug

So Microsoft in its infinite wisdom has released a notices on their Knowledge Base to help users to avoid going to spoofed pages. There are a few sentences about looking for the padlock in the lower rigth corner, what Certificates are, etc.

The rest of the articles tells users how to type in 1-2 line javascript commands directly into the address bar to make sure they are really at Yahoo. All of this is to prevent the fun %00 %01 bug in IE what can let you spoof an address.

WTF is this? Do they really expect Joe Sixpack to actually do do this? There are the same morons how say "Oh look an attachment from someone I don't know" [OPENS]. You think they are reall going to type:

javascript:alert("The actual URL is:\t\t" + location.protocol + "//" + location.hostname + "/" + "\nThe address URL is:\t\t" + location.href + "\n" + "\nIf the server names do not match, this may be a spoof.");

This is retarded. This exploit came in early December, its now nearly January, and instead of a patch, Microsoft gives us a tersely worded notice to do things no normal user would do.

Microsoft: Why patch IE when you can just issue notices?

Scary to think this is the world I am buying several grand a year to enter

PBS Cringely on IT Outsourcing

] The proposed patents apparently seek to protect methods
] other applications could use to interpret the XML
] dialect, or schema, Office uses to describe and organize
] information in documents. Microsoft recently agreed to
] publish those schemas and is looking at opening other
] chunks of Office code.

They go from not telling people about the format of their files to patenting how to _read_ the file format. How much market share is enough? They are killing innovation.

I mean look at IE. Its crap. Its more than crap, its easily the worst of the mainstream browsers. That is what we would be stuck with if it weren't for Mozilla, Opera, and Netscape. No tabs, no gestures, no ad/pop-up blocking. Just a steamy pile of shit that lets viruses propogate better than it renders HTML.

What do we get with OpenOffice? We get export to PDF/Flash, we get awesome and logical file formats (They are zlibed tar balls of XML documents). We get good excryption, PGP signing, the works. And these fuckers want to kill that. What do they offer in return? Another closed format, shit encryption (oh wait, thats right, once hacked its no longer a security feature but Microsoft no calls it a protective feature against accidental editting) and DRM. Other than that Office has not really changed much in the last several years.

My Dad taught me something long ago. He said in any industry the #2 highest seller has the best product, and #1 hs the best marketing. When a competitor releases something new, a normally company will try and improve there product and release theres. Microsoft kills the competition, normally through lies or downright illegal means (Borland compilers, Stacker, Netscape, Java), but doesn't improve their products. This pisses me off to no end because the state of software doesn't improve. Instead we get a company growing bigger and fatter off the corpses of very smart and cool ideas, and still they producing shit.

Microsoft seeks patents for Office XML file formats - RANT

About damn time. Hopefully more people will send SCO letters like this when they SCO tries to extort them through the mail

Small business response to SCO

] Google certainly isn't the only search engine whose
] results can be gamed by users acting in concert.
] President Bush's biography is also the No. 1 search
] result for "miserable failure" on Yahoo, which draws on
] Google's technology

Mentions how a small group of users can do lots of linking and manipulate the results returned by Google. However the point is that people are linking to these things and are discussing about them, and isn't that the point of the Internet anyway? Furthermore, ITs not "corrupting" the results persay, since "miserable failure" is so generic a search term anyway

Google Bombing for Fun and Political Profit