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| Worst Microsoft Screw-Up In Recent Memory |
| 2005-01-14 |
| Hackers are turning digital rights management features of Microsoft's Windows Media Player against users by fooling them into downloading massive amounts of spyware, adware, and viruses, security firms said Tuesday. According to anti-virus vendor Panda Software, two new Trojan horses -- dubbed WmvDownloader.a and WmvDownloader.b -- have been planted in video files seeded to peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like eMule and KaZaA. The Trojans take advantage of the new anti-piracy features in Windows Media Player 10 and Windows XP SP2 to trick users, said Panda. When a user tries to play a protected Windows media file, the anti-piracy technology demands a valid license; if that license is not stored locally, the player looks for it on the Internet so the user can download or purchase it. However, these Trojans only "pretend to download the corresponding license from certain Web pages," said Panda in its online alert. "What they actually do is redirect the user to other Internet addresses from which they download a large number of adware, spyware, dialers, and other viruses." Others, including Kaspersky Labs and Ben Edelman, a Harvard student and spyware researcher, have confirmed the effects of the two Trojans. Edelman's test of one of the Trojans on a clean PC demonstrated its impact. "I pressed 'Yes' once to allow the installation. My computer quickly became contaminated with the most spyware programs I have ever received in a single sitting...all told, the infection added 58 folders, 786 files, and an incredible 11,915 registry entries to my computer." |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #10 Whatever you do--just don't download the "license" for the "protected content" on that smut you just pulled down. It's like screaming to the world: "I just downloaded a gig of midget porn, and I want everyone to know about it!!!" Fer cryin' out loud, if you're going to freejack files from WinMX or Kazaalite K++, you just DON'T expect them to be digitally protected, especially with a license. This isn't so much an exploit as it is a simple con job for dummies. |
| Posted by: Asedwich 2005-01-14 7:45:32 PM |
| #9 Or, just go to OS X. I'm a Unix groupie myself. (Solaris on the machine at work, and I have two shell accounts) The only Windoze utilization for me typically is dialing up/surfing, playing Doom, and editing videos. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-01-14 6:20:24 PM |
| #8 No idea. I am not a programmer myself and the only modern computer programming language I have any familiarity with is perl. Now, computers are not my day job, although for my family's company I did engineer a web-based check writing/accounting program and it works very well. Having said all that, my understanding of Java is that you program it and it can run on anything, just like perl. Java is a complete scripting language with module for databases and other things. That alone places it miles above C++. |
| Posted by: badanov 2005-01-14 4:51:55 PM |
| #7 I tell people now that web based applications are the way to go. So is it safe to assume Java will take over the lead from C++? I hope so anyway... Linux has come a long way, I must admit, with its easy (or easier) installation, cool desktop (Xorg with KDE, Gnome) etc. But it's still not entirely intuitive and as easy to use as Windows. BTW, Slackware is the only way to go :-) |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-01-14 4:44:00 PM |
| #6 I tell people now that web based applications are the way to go. Web-based applications are OS agnostic,secure, accurate and fast. I believe that IBM is pushing web based business applications (Web Sphere??) which are web based, web pages coupled with a net-aware database. If in fact companies really start moving in this direction (web based applications ), it will render OS choice irrelevant. Disclaimer: I used to be a real Linux nut, but then I discovered FreeBSD after the SCO stuffies was going on. I use Windows at home, but at work as much as possible I use a RedHat 7.3 server running Gnome and the Galeon browser as a personal internet machine. |
| Posted by: badanov 2005-01-14 3:20:47 PM |
| #5 Brett-I was a Windows user for years and years. I am also an artist. My sister, who is an artist and only uses Macs, said, "if you are an artist, you should be using a Mac". The buzz was Macs are easier, more intuitive. So dummy me, I bought a Mac. A huge mistake. Completely unintuitive, poor communication features (sending links instaed of Internet pages, document reformatting problems and garbles in transmission to Windows enivronments-but not from Windows to Mac). I will say Mac is better for music files and graphics, but other than that, I am hugely disappointed. BTW it's a G4-Mac OS X. |
| Posted by: Jules 187 2005-01-14 3:08:12 PM |
| #4 Or, just go to OS X. |
| Posted by: Brett_the_Quarkian 2005-01-14 2:56:54 PM |
| #3 If more companies were to port their applications to Linux (Adobe, are you reading this? hint hint..."Premiere"), Microsoft stupidity wouldn't be a problem. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-01-14 2:54:12 PM |
| #2 ...added 58 folders, 786 files, and an incredible 11,915 registry entries to my computer Typical activity for installing MS software. ;o) |
| Posted by: badanov 2005-01-14 1:30:43 PM |
| #1 But hey, as long as they had the licenses for them, it's okay. |
| Posted by: BH 2005-01-14 1:26:42 PM |