An Apple eating virus and lots more in the making.

I, recently read that a small proportion of Apple's Video iPods sold recently were infected with a computer virus that targets Windows PCs. Even though it is said that a few users have suffered as a result of it I think there could be more who just hasn't found it out yet.Apple says 1% of Video iPods sold after 12 September 2006 were infected with a computer virus known as "RavMonE". W32.Rajump is the name symantec has given to the virus. And it is a worm that opens a back door on the compromised computer and may spread through removable USB drives.

As technology evolves the worms also evolve.The worm is written in the Python scripting language. Talking about python's what comes to my mind is the longest creature is not a snake but a worm. Yes guys and it is a 90-ft long worm..the giant nemertines or ribbon worms. Just thought I would throw that in here just to give us a break from all the worms that eat Apple and sticks to our Windows pc's each day. Apple warns people who may have bought an infected Video iPod to scan their PC and any mass storage devices – such as external hard drives, USB keys and digital cameras – with anti-virus software, as the virus automatically spreads to these types of hardware.

These has happened hot on the heels of the Japanese McDonald's ordeal with MP3players. They were forced to recall more than 10,000 MP3 players given away as prizes, after discovering that they were infected with a piece of spyware known as QQPass. This program records keystrokes and can be used to capture a user's passwords. In Symantec's terms the virus is called W32.Pasobir. The MP3 players were offered as a drink and I think the the japanese folks were glad that the worm was not in the drink.

Another news is that Nokia is considering building antivirus software into its latest batch of multimedia smartphones, fearing that emerging breeds of phone viruses will block users' access to thousands of paid-for music tracks or movies. F-secure and Symantec are teaming up with Nokia to work out the best method of protecting its phones.

I was just checking the symantec site just out of sheer curiosity and saw that already within this month (and it is only the 19th) there has been 24 new viruses that has emerged. That is more than one virus each day. Among that one that caught my eye was the Trojan.Flush.I virus which is a Trojan horse that modifies the DNS server settings on the compromised computer and redirects the browser to potentially malicious Web sites. Look here to see the daily updated virus threats.

Gone are the days when we could relax and listen to an I LOVE YOU (at least it had some pleasing to ears name) virus pop up once in a while. Now we have to update everyday if not every half day and it won't be long before we have to do it every second.

Leak test your personal firewall

Hey folks have you tried giving your firewall a leak test? Leak test is a simple and easy to use tool to test your personal firewall. This is one of the many tools developed by Steve Gibson of the Gibson research corporation and this one has been around for a while. This is a simple tool that asks the firewall permission to access the net and is only 25KB. To use it just go here and download it to your pc. Once it is on your pc just lick on the "test for leaks" button. If your firewall is configured properly your firewall will ask you whether you should allow permission for this programme if u say no or block the programme Leak Test will show the "unable to connect message". This means that your firewall has been successful in blocking the prog from connecting to the net. If the firewall fails it will show a "firewall penetrated" message. This tool has been around for a while and I have been using it for a while to test my outpost firewall on my personal computer and it has been successful in blocking it.

According to Steve Gibson some firewall's like blackice had failed the test. This is a free tool and will tell you if your firewall is good enough to block unauthorized programmes from accessing the net.

LeakTest can be used to expose and demonstrate the following, all too common,personal firewall application filtering weaknesses:
As you know,any program in your computer can easily learn the name of your system's registered eMail client or web browser. Does your firewall allow any program with the same name to gain access to the Internet? If so, any Trojan horse or Spyware simply needs to change it's name to send anything it wants right out of your computer. Simply rename leaktest.exe to the name of a permitted program and find out whether it's able to access our server.

Also there are some firewalls that automatically create rules for "known" applications, then any Trojan or Spy software can simply rename itself after one of those programs and your own firewall will give the Trojan or Spyware complete Internet access permission without even asking you!

And according to Gibson
"When LeakTest v1.0 was released several popular firewalls could be completely circumvented with just a few lines of simple, documented, code. When you add the command-line option: stealth or hold either "Shift" key down while starting the test, LeakTest will check for this added firewall vulnerability."
I have tried the small yet very handy tool. May be you guys might find it handy too.

Five good websites (oct 19 2006)

textamerica.com
This is a very cool site and takes blogging to the next step..mobile blogging. It is a camera phone moblog community. Here you can send images from videos camera phone, upload videos and images from your desktop or digi cam. NO mms or email needed.
The site has a free registration as well as basic and premium memberships for 24.99 dollar and 99.99 dollar per year.Free membership includes one moblog and upto 50 images or videos. So that is good enough to at least get a taste of what is in store. Once u register you get an url yourname.textamerica.com and there you have your moblog space in the net. SO when you register take care to choose a good username. It is cool..so check it out folks.

about.com
Now this is a site that I really dig. Information and advice for free on almost all the topic under the sun right from money matters to internet to health. What else can u ask for? There are some really good experts working as guides writing articles on various aspects. This site is owned by the newyork times company and hence they deliver the proffessinalism you expect from them. You can choose your topic from the left hand menu or just do a search on the site. Once a guide interests you be sure to click on the guides link to take you to the page which has all the articles written by the guide. Also if you think you can be a guide you can click on the "be a guide" link right at the bottom. Also they have some regular job openings too at
the "work at about" link.

web.archive.org
There have been many times I look for a site or a particular article and realise that the link has become extinct and the article no longer exists. So this site has come to my rescue many a times. If you have the url to the link or site you been looking for just paste it into the search bar and hit "take me back" and there you go. And if you want to check out all the links available from the same site you wish to check just put the domain address or link in the search bar followed by /* for example(http://www.cnn.com/*) or if you are looking for a particular address within a site like http://www.cnn.com/pictures/* (don't type that..am just giving an example) and that would bring up all the links related to that particular url. you can just change that in the url address bar of ur browser too instead of changing it in the search box each time. They have an advanced search feature too. You will also find archives of moving images and all. So get going folks and check out how the net was a few years back. Or how your page looked some time back.

getamused.com
Lots of pics and videos to keep you entertained for a while. But mind you even though most of the videos are funny some of the videos categorized as funny was not..instead some of them were painful to watch. Like the kick boxer's ankle getting broken like a splinter when he kicked his opponent *ouch*. But most of them are very funny and loads of funny pix too.

isketch.net
I used to play on iksketch even while I used to frequent Yahoo graffiti. Isketch offers you a different kind of sketching game experience with so many tools at your disposal and different types of rules to choose from. It is different from yahoo graffiti in many ways like once the player finds the word it is hidden from others and other players have to guess it in 20 secs and there are many variations. A good place to get some time and meet some non yahoo players. There are advance levels too.