Business security company MessageLabs has an interesting note about spam -- despite shutting down a major botnet, spam continues to increase. In fact, some 25 percent of all spam is currently coming from one source: the Grum botnet.
Another interesting finding is that the size of spam messages are shrinking. That's bad news because they are smaller, each botnet can send out more. Dang!
We have the Can-Spam Act and spammers have been shut down and prosecuted, but nothing seems to be able to stop this scourge. How should we hunt down spammers and what should we do if we find them? Sentences and punishments welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/19/2010 at 1:17 PM6 comments
Oak Ridge National Labs is doing something I assumed had already been done -- trying to find out what ISPs and networks are favored hacker hunting grounds. The idea is that prevention and forensics work can be focused on these areas, rather than wasting time on clean networks.
The research is all based on analyzing blacklists and tracing rogue IP addresses back to their hosts. They've already found 3 ISPs that are responsible for some 6 percent of addresses on the blacklist. These guys have a lot of cleaning up to do!
Posted on 03/17/2010 at 1:17 PM2 comments
Gartner is warning IT that virtual servers are simply not as secure as physical servers. Thank you, Captain Obvious! Of course a bunch of VMs on a single server are not as easily protected as a single instance. Once you crack one VM, or break into the hypervisor, it's easier to crack the rest. This is Computer Science 101.
That's why it so important to protect each VM to the hilt.
Gartner, being smarter than me (or so they tell me), takes a different tack. The whole problem is that IT doesn't take security seriously when deploying VMs. That view is condescending but probably true.
Gartner's advice? Protect the hypervisor at all costs, involve the security team (if you have one) in VM planning and don't give all VMs the same access controls.
So why am I so dismissive of Gartner? Like me, they are pretentious, but unlike me, they never ever make fun of themselves. A loveable jerk they're not! And unlike Gartner, I try to admit all my mistakes especially as you all keep me honest.
In all fairness, the Gartner author here, Neil MacDonald, seems like a pretty bright guy. He probably is smarter than me!
For more information, Gartner is more than happy to sell you a $95 report.
Which research company do you trust and which do you despise? Crunch the numbers and send your results to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/17/2010 at 4:59 PM2 comments
Here are some reader responses to your favorite companies and products that are no longer with us:
Favorite: RAE Assist.
Runner Up: ISSCO Tell-A-Graph (Later purchased and buried by Computer
Associates).
- Anonymous
I miss WordPerfect. I'm still amazed that a product that had so many
worldwide users and two magazines devoted just to the product was so
totally overrun by Microsoft Office. WordPerfect was much easier to
use than Word and more predictable.
-Brian
Here's a few I worked with over the past 44 years (and counting) that
are no longer with us:
The GE S-210 -- Bank of America used those systems for check processing
back in the mid-60's.
Philco -- The California DMV was running a Philco 900 when I started
working there. We replaced it with...
RCA Spectra 70 -- DMV's first on-line system (used mag cards for
storage).
- Jim
You're missing out on the walking dead. SCO. They once owned a huge
swath of small business, but now, after Darl McBride said "All your
softwares are belong to us," everyone hates them and they probably
haven't sold enough Unix in the past 5 years to cover their electric
bills.
And the rapidly approaching dead. 3Com. Founded by Bob Metcalfe (my
own personal industry hero!), able to piss off enterprise customers in
a big way not once but twice, about to be consumed by HP.
- Karl
What do I miss the most? It’s not really technological, but I miss
the Rubik’s cube. I could never figure them out and when I got
frustrated I would throw it on the floor or out the window. Can’t
really do that with expensive servers or routers now can we?
I do miss the Trash 80. I used to sit at the neighborhood Radio Shack
and play with their Trs-80 and program basic programming on it and
I’ll never forget the day the new Trash 90’s came out with color
screens and speakers and I programmed it to play "Flight of the Bumble Bee" over a
crappy little speaker. I had all 5 store clerks and about 20 kids
standing around me going oooh and ahhh.
- Brad
Kaypro. I had a Kaypro 2x that I wrote my Masters thesis on. It was
still running strong when I gave it to Goodwill twelve years later
(as was the Juki printer that came bundled with it).
- Brian
I bet this will be a blast from the past. One of my favorites from
the 1980s into the early 1990s is GeoWorks. At the time, GeoWorks
put Windows 2.0 and DOS to shame. Unfortunately, GeoWorks went the way
of other crusty dusty's from your list, particularly when Windows 95
hit the market.
- Charlie
We got a ton of letters on this topic, so look for even more responses in Doug's next Maibag.
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/17/2010 at 1:17 PM0 comments
If you thought things between Google and Microsoft were rough, get a load of the hostility between Google and Apple. According to the New York Times, it's getting nastier than a Donald Trump divorce between the two companies. Things were relatively smooth up until Google launched the Android phone OS and its very own phone. Jobs was incensed. How dare Google get into Apple's market!
Without giving a lot of juicy details, the Times argues that the fight is very near an obsession on both sides.
The outcome is pretty important. Google, like Microsoft, is promoting an OS separate from the hardware, inviting third parties and OEMs to build gear. Apple is the very definition of proprietary, and this tight control leads to a smaller number of more stable and elegant offerings.
Who are you rooting for? Cheers and jeers welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/17/2010 at 1:17 PM2 comments
Chances are your budget over the last few years has been cut, slashed and cut again. If the money hasn't been restored, you might want to show your boss, CFO or CEO data from Ovum indicating that most shops are increasing budgets from 1 to 5 percent.
While not exactly whopping, it's a heckuva lot better than the carnage we've all gotten used to.
How did you weather the budget storm? Tips and horror stories equally welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/15/2010 at 1:17 PM0 comments
Nearly every name known to man has already been taken and secured with a copyright. That's why new companies these days have so many kooky, meaningless names. They have no choice.
The same is true for Bing, which had apparently been taken before Microsoft rolled out their search engine. Turns out Terabyte Unlimited has something called BootIt Next Generation, a PC boot manager that goes by another name -- Bing.
Lawyers from either side got together and agreed that both sides can use the name. Problem solved.
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/15/2010 at 1:17 PM6 comments
A few months ago I asked you, the Redmond Report reader, to name your favorite dead and defunct companies. Over a dozen of you wrote in. Favorite dead company by far? DEC. Coming in second was Commodore.
In my March editorial for Redmond magazine, I reported on these results, and quoted a few of you. Check it out here.
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/15/2010 at 4:59 PM1 comments
The best browser at preventing malware is, drum roll, IE 8! Who says? A report paid for in part by Microsoft, that's who!
NSS Labs tested IE, Safari, Firefox, Chrome and Opera. IE 8 was best at preventing social engineering-based malware, largely by virtue of IE's SmartScreen that alerts users to potentially malicious Web sites.
I'm not going to dismiss these results just because Microsoft sponsored it. In fact, a bunch of infrastructure vendors also underwrote the research. And Microsoft did work mightily to make its browser more protected. In fact, Redmond Report readers like IE 8 a lot, at least according to this cover story you all helped write.
Is IE now more secure? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/12/2010 at 1:17 PM2 comments
One reader shares his thoughts on a recent letter complaining about a Windows 7 quirk:
A couple of weeks ago you published a problem somebody had with Windows 7 not waking up cleanly and the person involved having to turn the computer off and resume Windows 7 from a reboot.
I have been having exactly the same problem along with intermittently coming back to the computer to find it had randomly rebooted itself. A few days ago I saw the dreaded BSOD and the memory dump screen.
I decided the Power Supply might be the root cause. After replacing it, I've had no repetition of the problems.
-Dave
Another reader comments on why it is that software can never truly be 100 percent flawless:
As long as software uses the von Neumann model where "code is data is code is" and there is no "hardware cop" to police the use of memory, the hardware/software combination will never be secure. Secondly, as long as one depends on OOP (with its current incarnation of classes begetting child and parent classes) where the day-to-day programmer has no clue about the mechanics of the processor's native implementation of those OOP kludges, software will never be secure. Thirdly, as long as the day-to-day programmer makes the assumption that "no reasonable user would ever do that" or "if the manual states packets are always n bytes, then EVERYONE will ALWAYS follow those rules -- DON'T need to check packet sizes," software will never be secure. In other words as long as humans and/or semi-sentient beings program machines, software will never be secure.
-Stephen
The following reader agrees with Doug's assessment of why users are switching to Google Apps:
Back in the day it was cheaper for me to setup my own servers to host my domain than is was to pay for the hosting. In December, I moved to Google Apps. I still have to pay for the domain name, but I do not pay for the server hardware or software. I also get Web and e-mail free. I've played with Google Docs. I don't need to share docs with many people, so I still use MS Office for my document heavy-lifting.
-Eric
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/12/2010 at 1:17 PM1 comments
Looks like Microsoft will indeed be out a cool $290 million after a court, for the second time, upheld a ruling that Redmond owes i4i cash for infringing on an i4i XML patent.
The judgment shouldn't affect IT since the offending code has been taken out of Word 2003 and 2007, and won't make an appearance in Word 2010.
The ever-persistent Microsoft isn't giving up, and plans to appeal once again.
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/12/2010 at 1:17 PM1 comments
CA continues its decades-long buying spree with the $350 million purchase of Nimsoft. Usually I advocate that the buying company give the buyee as much independence as possible, as Quest has done with ScriptLogic (many of you probably don't even know Quest owns ScriptLogic).
Nimsoft is in the network monitoring market, in which CA already participates. Nimsoft's edge is that the company can now monitor clouds, and is also aimed at small and medium shops, whereas CA largely plays in the large enterprise space. All this puts greater pressure on Microsoft System Center, as well as a myriad of fine third-party vendors.
In the case of Nimsoft, it should be fully integrated, if only to get rid its wacky name!
What do you use for management or monitoring? What is the worst company name you've ever heard? Answers welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/12/2010 at 1:17 PM4 comments