Malicious code that was recently classified as a worm, surfaced in October 2008 exploits MS08-067 vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows family Operating System (surprise surprise !!). The worm is known by various names Downup, Downadup, Kido, and the most popular being Conficker.
Conflicker has gone through various stages of development that make it harder to understand; credits to the use of P2P mechanism encrypting the traffic using the latest and greatest MIT MD6 algorithm. A noteworthy mention about the client on an infected machine is that, it uses an intelligent algorithm that creates a daily list of 250 random domain names to communicate with its mother ship that advertises different domain names each day. Guess what, it gets even better, the newer variant Conflicker. C just upped that number from 250 to 50,000.
What makes this one extra special is that no one seems to still know what its gonna do on “D day”. Experts guess that April 1 could probably be that D day, but we never know…
Let the guessing games continue; in the meantime, if you don’t have the habit of installing Microsoft Windows security fixes or keep you Windows auto update OFF, it’d be a good idea to get to the Symantec website and attempt a removal of a possible infection.
I honestly don’t like to make my blog one of those Microsoft bashing portals for the fact that I admire what they did to the Zune; but sometimes I stumble on stuff that is so hilariously fascinating that they definitely are worth blogging. I must admit though, that I am a bit biased towards Open Source. :)
Ok. so here it goes… This article published on the microsoft website details the advantages of XP as a superior and secure operating system (which I would agree to an extent), and then got this article (via Wired) on the same microsoft website px that gives system administrators (or related business development owners) reasons that justify the upgrade to Vista. Of the many stupid reasons mentioned there, are also the ones related to security and maintenance costs, the same ones mentioned in support of XP. Now which do I believe…!!
On the other side of the Window, the one where the frustrated Vista user is dwelling, comes rejoice where Microsoft is silently providing the possibility of downgrade (or upgrade to be precise) from Vista to XP. OEM vendors will provide XP installation media for a minimal sum (in the whereabouts of USD 10) to users who have purchased their hardware which came pre loaded with Vista :D
The last month was a period of experiments with my computer, starting with the fact that I was running on a ‘going to break’ HDD and the DST short test was failing repeatedly. So before anything, I backed up all my data (which also includes my windows partition) after running openSUSE in recovery mode; and trust me it was quite a breeze, reinforcing my crush on Linux. Later that day I called DELL support and they promptly shipped me a replacement hard drive one working day later, but the OEM OS that id also asked them to ship was going to take a few days longer as the package which includes WinXP, device drivers, sonic, win backup and a few others were flying in from Netherlands. Nevertheless I was happy with their prompt and ‘no questions asked’ service, afterall I guess ive already paid them quite a sum when I took the 3 yr complete care support for my inspiron 6400.
A few months before this day I had installed the vista transformation pack just to see what the hype was all about. Must say, I was impressed by the freshness it gave to the aeging, yet stable XP. So I decided to head to the nearest and dearest electronics shop to get the Vista Home Premium. I like the way it installed, M$soft finaly decided to keep it simple and voila!! I also have my disk management utility inbuilt right into the installer, and without second thought retained 20gigs of free space for Linux. Two weeks passed and I liked the way vista felt, till I realized that I need more memory for what started to seem like a dying computer. I think I can quite easily point the finger at vista that required ~500 MB just to boot and get running. I ‘tried’ installing Halo for vista, and not to my surprise it didn’t quite go on well. You already get the picture, don’t you? Nevertheless 2Gigs of memory is on its way..
A jobless Sunday afternoon, and what more could I do when I find the ubuntu feisty fawn media lying around, 10GB of free space and a geeky mind. No prizes for guessing right, im now happily ubutun’d with a fresh and functional desktop. And here is a trailer of what could be done with Ubuntu and Beryl
Tell me that you still aren’t impresses by just the eye candy, and then here is more from a functionality pov. The ubuntu installation is done with a couple of user inputs that loads off a Live CD making life much easier, then comes the best part, the apt-get application is used to install any application from the command prompt, all u need to know is the name of the application and a simple `apt-get app_name` will look for the application online, download it, resolve dependencies and install the app. Ive got two words, “luvin it”
Next adventure would be tweaking and compiling the G15 drivers to get my Logitech Z10 working, and then Vmware to get virtual servers running. More later …
vinay deep 