After 8 security fixes last year (according to Secunia) the Danish security company CSIS named Apple Quicktime as the biggest isolated security risk of 2007. Today Apple announces its third major fix this year.

The main 5 is listed below (source: Secunia):

1. A boundary error when parsing packed scanlines from a PixData structure in a PICT file can be exploited to cause a heap-based buffer overflow via a specially crafted PICT file.
2. An error in the processing of AAC-encoded media content can be exploited to cause a memory corruption via a specially crafted media file.
3. A boundary error in the processing of PICT files can be exploited to cause a heap-based buffer overflow via a specially crafted PICT file.
4. A boundary error in the processing of Indeo video codec content can be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow via a specially crafted movie file with Indeo video codec content.
5. An error in the handling of “file:” URLs can be exploited to e.g. execute arbitrary programs when playing specially crafted QuickTIme content in QuickTime Player.

As the “trend” seems to continue I’ll use alternative media players (as I’ve always done), and it appears you should do it too…

Project Honey Pot is the first and only distributed system for identifying spammers and the spambots they use to scrape addresses from your website. Using the Project Honey Pot system you can install addresses that are custom-tagged to the time and IP address of a visitor to your site.

If one of these addresses begins receiving email they not only can tell that the messages are spam, but also the exact moment when the address was harvested and the IP address that gathered it.

Help stop spammers before they even get your address!

To participate in Project Honey Pot, webmasters need only install the Project Honey Pot software somewhere on their website. We handle the rest — automatically distributing addresses and receiving the mail they generate. As a result, we anticipate installing Project Honey Pot should not increase the traffic or load to your website.

The more people that participate the better. Start now by creating an account and set up the code.

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer Touts Vista-To-XP Downgrade Program. The licensing policy for Windows Vista lets customers downgrade it to Windows XP, Ballmer notes.

CEO Steve Ballmer has a unique sales pitch for the company’s Windows Vista operating system — if you don’t like it, you can turn it into Windows XP.

Referring to Microsoft licensing policies that allow customers who purchase an operating system to legally install predecessor versions on their PCs, Ballmer noted that the program allows customers who aren’t satisfied with Vista to use XP.

“Customers get both,” said Ballmer, during a brief interview at an event Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

Ballmer was responding to a question about whether Microsoft would extend Window’s XP’s shelf life beyond its scheduled June 30 expiration for the broader PC market. The company earlier this week said it would give XP a reprieve for installations on ultra-low cost desktops.

Ballmer implied that an extension for mainstream PCs isn’t in the cards because customers who want XP past June 30 can simply purchase Vista and exercise the downgrade option. “I don’t know how you can do better than getting both,” he said.

A number of PC makers, including Dell, are offering business systems that have been “pre-downgraded” from Vista to XP.

Ballmer’s comments indicate that Microsoft does not view the downgrade program as a mere licensing loophole through which a few disgruntled customers can retain access to Windows XP. Rather, it appears that the company is now formally endorsing the program and may in fact be counting on it to spur sales of Vista, which many businesses have rejected due to its hefty hardware requirements and incompatibilities with older applications.

The situation raises questions about sales figures that Microsoft has provided for Vista. In April, the company said it had sold more than 140 million Vista licenses since the OS became available to the public early last year. But Microsoft did not indicate what percentage of those Vista licenses have been downgraded to XP.

A number of organizations in the government and commercial markets have said they may bypass Vista and jump directly from XP to Windows 7 when the latter becomes available in late 2009 or early 2010.

Oslo, Norway - It is County Championships on a Thursday evening at Romedal stadium just outside of Hamar, 100 kms north of Oslo.

An elderly distinguished gentleman is strolling the infield, Javelin in hand . He watches the competition, has advice to the various competitors of all ages & occasionally takes the time to throw himself. The arm is not as it used to be and the range of movement is now more restricted, but there is no mistaking the man who sparked the tradition of Javelin Throwing in Norway, Egil Danielsen, the Olympic Champion of 1956.

Since that famous day in Melbourne over 50 years ago, on which Danielsen threw a world record to win his laurels Norway has produced a long line of javelin competitors which impressively jigsaws into the traditions and love of the discipline across the Baltic but especially Nordic region of Europe.

Norwegian names like Terje Pedersen, who followed Danielsen’s World record example with two of his own in 1964, Willy Rasmussen, fifth at the 1960 Olympics, Per Olsen, fifth at 1983 World Championships, Arne Fagernes, fourth in the 1999 World Championships, and Trine Hattestad, women’s multiple World record breaker, World (1993 and 1997) and 2000 Olympic champion, have all been at the upper echelons in the world of javelin throwing.

The tradition in Norway continues on today at ExxonMobil Bislett Games in the form of the reigning Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen. In 2006, Thorkildsen set his personal best 91.59m at the meeting making him the sixth furthest thrower of all-time. This year the Norwegian as usual has the task of repelling the challenge of numerous world class competitors eager to defeat the defending champion in an Olympic year, including his greatest rival Finland’s Tero Pitkämäki.

Pitkämäki, whose PB is 91.53 (seventh best thrower on all-time list), is the reigning World champion and inflicted the narrowest of defeats upon Thorkildsen last Sunday in Berlin (1 June) at the start of the ÅF Golden League 2008, when the Finn prevailed by a mere centimetre. In 2007, the Finn for the second time in three years Pitkämäki also inflicted defeat on Thorkildsen in the Bislett stadium.

Good news for the fans is that Pitkämäki will start in Oslo despite the back spasm which saw him withdraw from the competition in Berlin after his first, and ultimately winning throw. So he remains a candidate for the $1 Million Jackpot of the ÅF Golden League, and Thorkildsen will be calling upon all the experience, the traditions, the spirit and the pride of Norwegian javelin history as he attempts to seek his revenge upon the Finn.

The Bislett venue has seen some magnificent javelin performances over the years with a total of three World Records for the men (two to Pedersen, one to Zelezny) and one to the women (Hattestad).

Tonight will surely be no exception and sitting in the main spectator tribune with his eyes glued to the competition will be the man who sparked the tradition off some 50 years ago, the spirit of Norwegian javelin throwing Egil Danielsen.

Source: www.iaaf.org

Ever tried to copy something on your hard disk only to get the annoying message  (on Windows) that the file is currently in use and can’t be accessed? Well now you can (including all those flash movies in your Internet temp folders)!

HoboCopy is a backup/copy tool. It is inspired by robocopy in both name and in functionality. It differs greatly from robocopy, however, in two respects:

1. It is not as full-featured as robocopy.
2. It uses the Volume Shadow Service (VSS) to “snapshot” the disk before copying. It then copies from the snapshot rather than the “live” disk.

Because HoboCopy copies from a VSS snapshot, it is able copy even files that are in locked by some other program. Further, certain programs (such as SQL Server 2005) are VSS-aware, and will write their state to disk in a consistent state before the snapshot is taken, allowing a sort of “live backup”.

Files locked by VSS-unaware programs will still be copied in a “crash consistent” state (i.e. whatever happens to be on the disk). This is generally a lot better than not being able to copy the file at all.

Download it or read more about it. I for sure found it quite useful.