Microsoft is further investing in the to-go video market to support the Windows Mobile-based Portable Media Center. For $20 a year for a premium membership, you get content from many big name partners including Fox Network, MSNBC and so forth. Because these sources already underwrite the cost of production, they can afford to fill this market with content. It will be interesting to see how to-go videos, podcasts, and other items like this that give people alternatives to reading a magazine or the paper on their commute or wait time.

The Wall Street Journal reported last Friday that Microsoft has a special list of clients who receive security fixes before the general public. The only disclosed recipient thus far is the United States Air Force. The concern is that if anyone can intercept the update, analize it for the flaw being corrected, and beat the general release, then they have a gaping flaw that can be exploited on a major league level.

Let’s stop and think a minute. Microsoft updates software with patches every day. Not everyone goes for the latest update (indeed, how many users are still on Windows 98 as we speak in 2005?). Further, the updates are freely released. So the same risk exists with every update, just on a slightly smaller scale. If Microsoft didn’t pre-test the release — and they sometimes don’t install well — and instead sent that release to the general public to test, there would be hundreds of thousands of unhappy people when the install failed.

What major software maker wouldn’t want to release a beta or any update if they have the time to do it. Early reports were off-base (no pun intended) on this one, as this is probably a good thing. Read this later report to get a more objective view of the program and it’s value.

Linuxense has issued a hacking challenge. For the first 48 hours, if it gets that far, no shell accounts will be available. The server is at: 202.88.234.250 After that time, shell accounts will be available during the remainder of the 96 hour challenge.

If you can get to root you can either:
leave your mark, or
take down the server

There are some specific rules about how to do it — be sure to read them. Should be fun.