Top Items:
John Leyden / The Register:
First Trojan using Sony DRM spotted — Virus writers have begun taking advantage of Sony-BMG's use of rootkit technology in DRM software bundled with its music CDs. — Sony-BMG's rootkit DRM technology masks files whose filenames start with "$sys$". A newly-discovered variant …
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Paul F. Roberts / eWEEK.com:
Microsoft 'Concerned' by Sony DRM — Microsoft Corp. is concerned about rootkit features in CDs from Sony BMG artists and is evaluating the situation to see if any action needs to be taken, a spokesperson said. — The Redmond, Wash., software maker said that the security of its customers' information is a …
news.bitdefender.com:
First Trojan Using Sony DRM Detected — DRM Abuse — A new trojan which uses the cover provided by the Sony DRM component to hide has been detected by BitDefender Labs at 12.15 PM GMT today and is in the wild. This is the first ever observed instance of malware using the Sony DRM rootkit detected and analysed by Mark Russinovich.
Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Now the Legalese Rootkit: Sony-BMG's EULA — If you thought XCP "rootkit" copy-protection on Sony-BMG CDs was bad, perhaps you'd better read the 3,000 word (!) end-user license agreement (aka "EULA") that comes with all these CDs. — First, a baseline. When you buy a regular CD, you own it.
Mark Russinovich / Mark's Sysinternals Blog:Sony: You Don'T Reeeeaaaally Want To Uninstall, Do You?
Cindy Cohn / Electronic Frontier Foundation:Sony-BMG Rootkit: EFF Collecting Stories, Considering Litigation
Discussion:
Copyfight, Neowin.net, Supr.c.ilio.us, Boing Boing, Smart Mobs, Download Squad and The Sony Boycott Blog
Jeremy Zawodny / Jeremy Zawodny's blog:
Google is Building Yahoo 2.0 — In his posting titled Reading the Google Tea Leaves, Tristan compares various product offerings from Google against those of the "big three" (AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo!) and concludes: … I've been giving a much shorter verbal version of his post for many months now.
Business Week:
Netflix: Starring in Merger Story? — After facing down Blockbuster and Wal-Mart, the online DVD-rental company may be an acquisition target — but it won't go for cheap — It's the oldest plot in the movies: Upstart takes on the champ, wins a few rounds, gets his nose bloodied, then gets back up and wins the fight.
Kathleen Craig / Wired News:
Riya Eases Pain of Pile of Pix — The field of online photo-sharing sites is becoming pretty crowded, but a new service hopes to distinguish itself by automating the tedious job of tagging pictures by using artificial intelligence and face-recognition technology.
Discussion:
TechCrunch
David Berlind / Between the Lines:
And they said 'WebOffice' couldn't be done.. — Everytime I write about the forthcoming fat client's fall from grace thanks to a new breed of software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers, the technologists-in-denial club shows up in the comments section of our blogs with its tar and feathers to give me a lashing.
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Martin LaMonica / CNET News.com:
OpenDocument format gathers steam — Big guns in the software industry are massing behind OpenDocument as government customers show more interest in alternatives to Microsoft's desktop software. — IBM and Sun Microsystems convened a meeting in Armonk, N.Y., on Friday to discuss …
Stefanie Olsen / CNET News.com:
Friendster overture not endearing to all — Friendster recently sent a mass e-mail to try to make new friends for its social network. Instead, it made some enemies. — The one-time hot spot dug deep into its network to pull out the e-mail addresses of people who didn't initially respond …
Tony Long / Wired News:
Eat, Sleep, Work, Consume, Die — Say you live in Greenwich, Connecticut, during, oh, the early 1850s. Your older brother left home a few years back to try his luck in the California gold fields. Like the vast majority of those who risked everything to go west, he came up empty.
David Pogue / New York Times:
At Last, Phone Some Tunes to Yourself — YOU just know that certain technologies, once they become inexpensive and easy to use, will be earth-shattering hits: instant viewing of any movie ever made; nonpolluting cars; cellphones that don't drop calls. — Don't look now, but one longstanding member …
Discussion:
Michael Gartenberg, MocoNews.net, Thomas Hawk's Digital …, The Wireless Weblog and I4U News
Scobleizer / Microsoft Geek Blogger:
Paying attention to the post-memo blogs — In the aftermath of the Ray Ozzie and Bill Gates memos and emails I am seeing a few trends in the reaction. Five blogs in particular got my attention: — 1) Steve Gillmor's Don't Mention It — 2) Joshua Porter's Why Should I Trust Microsoft with My Attention Metadata?
Reuters:
IBM, Sony, Philips form Linux alliance — New organization could help ease the adoption of Linux, challenging Microsoft's software dominance. — SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Three of the world's biggest electronics companies — IBM, Sony and Philips — have joined forces …
Discussion:
OSNews.com
Lizette Alvarez / New York Times:
Got 2 Extra Hours for Your E-Mail? — EVEN in his sleep, Stever Robbins, an executive adviser, could not escape his e-mail. "I was buried under a pile of e-mail," Mr. Robbins, 41, said. "I can't remember ever having a nightmare. For my first nightmare to be about e-mail, that was pathetic."
Discussion:
Paul Kedrosky's …
