A malicious software program known as Conficker that many feared would wreak havoc on April 1 is slowly being activated, weeks after being dismissed as a false alarm, security experts said.
Conficker, also known as Downadup or Kido, is quietly turning thousands of personal computers into servers of e-mail spam and installing spyware, they said.
I just read a very scary advisory from a CNN report, and felt compelled to do some reports further.
As I said earlier, it has been sometime since viruses made the headlines. People will remember the IloveYou virus or the Melissa viruses which tends to shut down the use of computers and entire offices for hours, and therefore create a lot of news, headlines, and pain. But in recent years, there has not been that kind of virus although viruses keep increasing all the time. Most hackers have concentrated on making viruses that does not destroy, but rather try to hide, and now inside the computer, now try to steal information or make the computer send spam email, which practically speaking enables the hacker to make money.
However, a new virus has started spreading since last November. It is called the Conficker virus, and by various estimates, this virus has infected over 15 million computers. This virus is normally hidden, and how do you know that you are hit? Here are some symptoms:
“ You cannot update your Windows, or your domain controllers respond slowly. Most important, you cannot run Windows Defender, and you cannot access anti-virus websites to get updates.”
What worries experts at the start when Conficker started to show was that it was a very sophisticated piece
This is food for thought. As a computer reseller to both corporate and consumer, sometimes distinctions need to be made, but there has been instances when corporations choose consumer PCs and products for their company.
85 percent of Gateway’s shipments worldwide in 2008 were categorized as consumer. For Acer, 63 percent of global shipments belonged to this category. In contrast, only 24 percent of Lenovo’s global shipments consisted of consumer PCs, while Hewlett-Packard had 44 percent.
IBM is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems Inc, sources with knowledge of the matter said, a move that could bolster the technology giant against rivals in the high-end computer server market.
International Business Machines Corp is offering to pay at least $6.5 billion, or double Sun’s Tuesday closing price of $4.97, The Wall Street Journal reported online earlier. Shares of Sun jumped 64 percent in pre-market trading to $8.16, while IBM shares fell 2 percent to $90.89.
When your 88-year-old grandfather sends a request to be your “friend” on Facebook, you have two choices: Either confirm it, then quickly take down all those party pictures you thought were so funny, or plan on never coming home for the holidays.
Unemployment is now at 8.1% for the general economy and 5.4% for tech professionals, according to a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Mar. 6
There is always a tendency for us to look at computer generated statements, and it looking so flawless, believes that computers were not likely to make errors that we humans do.
So we think that things like these — like computer cameras catching cars who overspeed, or who go through red lights is not debatable.
But then again, we remember that computer programs are written by humans, and it is always possible to make the computer programs behave exactly as we want them to be….
"It’s no secret that red light cameras are often used to generate more ticket revenue for the cities that implement them, but a scam has been uncovered in Italy that has led to one arrest and 108 investigations over traffic systems being rigged to stop sooner for the sole purpose of ticketing more motorists."
One of the most notable developments last year was the popularity of a new segment called ‘netbooks’.These are very small notebooksThe original target market was based on the market information or
that normally has less than 10 inch screen, probably a few gigabytes of storage, with a corresponding small keyboard and memory, and probably a single core processor.What is significant is that while they are somewhat slow, the advantage was their small size, and light weight ( most netbooks are about 1 to 2 pounds), and the low price ( most are below400 USD while some are below 300 USD).
understanding that probably millions of people worldwide would want to have a second computer,
the Windows-maker has applied for a patent application that describes a PC rental scenario that works on a pro-rata basis. A consumer buys a computer for a discounted price, with an embedded piece of software that measures usage (things like processor load, disk space, and time spent on certain software.) The customer is billed by that usage, with low-intensity activities like email and Web browsing costing cheaper than time spent gaming or editing HD video. Microsoft says the upshot for consumers is a cheaper initial outlay for the machine.
April 25th, 2009 by 
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