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10. november 2005
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Last week, I wrote about the rootkit used to disguise Sony BMG's CD copy protection scheme, noting that malware could exploit lazy vulnerabilities in ths software to hide from antivirus tools and compromise computer security. It is no longer merely a threat, it is a reality.
Sony's software, installed when playing one of the record label's recent copy-protected CDs in a computer, hides itself on hard drives using a powerful programming tool called a "rootkit." But the tool leaves the door open behind it, allowing other software--including viruses--to be deeply hidden behind the rootkit cloak.
The first version of a Trojan horse spotted early Thursday, which aims to give an attacker complete remote control over an infected computer, didn't work well. But over the course of the day, several others emerged that apparently fixed early flaws.
"This is no longer a theoretical vulnerability, it is a real vulnerability," said Sam Curry, vice president of Computer Associates' eTrust Security Management division. "This is no longer about digital rights management or content protection, this is about people having their PCs taken over."
Sony BMG is already facing three lawsuits over their digital rights management (DRM) virus kit. The picture caption for the Beeb article writes:
A CD by Celine Dion is protected with the anti-piracy system
Well, those customers bloody deserve it.
11:35:18 PM 
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The slow blogging today can be partly blamed on Bruce Bawer, who had the publisher send me a copy of Pedro Sanjuan's "The UN Gang". Obviously, my continuous bashing balanced discussion of the United Nations on this blog convinced Bawer I'd love this book, and I sure do. I'm more than half-way through it, and I only received it a few hours ago.
Yes, it is in a sense yet another book exposing the corruption, nepotism, incompetence, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism at the United Nations. But this one is, as the blurb says, wickedly funny. Sanjuan's recollections of his meetings with the intentionally incompetent Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar , confrontations and liaisons with his countless Soviet counterparts at the UN, his breathtaking summary of the massive and useless UN Secretariat, and his chiding of his own country for allowing (indeed, willing) this pathetic bureaucratic monster to develop on prime New York estate, will have you alternately giggling in delight and gasping in horror.
Now I hope you'll excuse me, I have to get back to the book.
11:24:25 PM
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Jordanians protest against terrorism:
Thousands of Jordanians staged protests in the heart of the capital today against the terrorist bombings that killed 59 people and wounded about 100 when they ripped nearly simultaneously through three popular hotels on Wednesday night.
Jordanian citizens in convoys of cars and on foot filed past two of the hotels, on a central Amman street near government ministries, shouting slogans in support of the nation's unity and of King Abdullah. Black flags fluttered from closed shops. Jordanian flags were lowered to half-mast.
"We came to support our nation and our unity," said Ibrahim Haniya, 22, who was marching with a group of friends. "It was a real shock that people would blow themselves up among the innocent. This was clearly an attempt to shake our stability."
It does not appear to be successful.
The attack is now reported to have killed 56 people and left 96 wounded, less than the 300 earlier reported.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq has claimed responsibility for the murderous attack.
The claim from al-Qaeda in Iraq appeared on a website generally used to post such announcements.
It said the hotels were targeted because they had become favourites with "American and Israeli intelligence and other Western European governments". [...]
DNA tests were being used to identify at least 14 bodies, including those of the bombers, he said.
Two bombers seem to have used devices strapped to their bodies while the third used a car bomb.
Many of the casualties came at a wedding reception at the Radisson SAS hotel, which injured the bride and groom and killed both their fathers.
Athena at Terrorism Unveiled, who studied in Jordan, brings us the Jordanians' reactions in their own words.
7:47:52 PM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 29.11.2005; 04:09:04.
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