For those of you considering upgrading to XP service pack 2, you should read this page first:
Ms knowledge base

There is a list of some of the applications that will break when you install SP2. From the look of it though, it’s not a comprehensive list, so before loading it on I’d be firing up Google and searching for the application name with “SP2” and see what comes up.

If you have a firewall, and don’t use IE/OE/Outlook, then your probably OK to wait for a while and see what people are reporting as problems with the install. I’ve seen about a dozen sites so far talking about SP2 problems, so I’m waiting till I know more before moving everyone over. (many of my clients are using XP.)
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Today as I was quickly scanning the 300 SPAM messages my filters had caught this morning looking for false positives, I came across a blatant child porn SPAM email.
I’ve never actually received one before, and I wanted to report it. From what I’ve been able to gather, you can’t really report the email, you have to report the site that is in it. OK, so I clicked the link. The site that came up was the most depraved disgusting thing I’ve ever seen, and having used the Internet for many many years, I’ve seen allot.

OK, so I now know that this is a legitimate illegal kiddie porn site, so what do I do now? My first step was to fire up Google and do a search for “reporting child pornography” which came back with dozens of links, none of which looked at all official. I did a whois on the IP of the hosting site and found it is located in Taiwan, which led to another question, is it illegal there? If so, where do I report it in Taiwan? Or do I report it in Australia or the US? Where in Australia or the US do I report it?

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A new web standard, the purpose of which is to improve communication between web applications has been agreed to by several industry bigwigs. The three most well known of the companies in question are: IBM, Microsoft and Sun. The new “standard” is called WS-Addressing, and it has been submitted to the W3C who will be forming a board to look into it.

I’d feel allot better about it if Microsoft wasn’t involved, not that I begrudge them the right to do so, but their apparent history of agreeing to new standards, and then breaking or extending them in a proprietary fashion to make their own products look better is long and well known. (Do a Google search if you don’t believe me.) Also this is not their first involvement with the W3C on issues related to this one.. Lets hope this time is more successful.

Regards

Franki

In an apparent effort to compete against both Linux and pirate copies of their own software, Microsoft has created and released a “Windows XP starter edition” of windows.
Ironically in an effort to remove features that XP home and Pro take for granted, they have also removed many of the features that make the Linux competition particularly attractive.

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There has been an open source anti virus application for UNIX/Linux systems for sometime now, and I’ve been hoping that they would release a version for Windows for almost as long. It turns out that they have released a Windows version and I just didn’t know about it.

Before I go any further, I should explain that the reason that there was a UNIX/Linux version was not because either of those operating systems has a virus problem, in fact quite the opposite. Pretty much every installation of Clamav (the anti virus app in question) I’ve seen has been to enable Linux file or mail servers to protect Windows client machines, not to protect themselves.

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The latest Bagle virus, the 43rd in the series has hit the street, and has apparently been flourishing.

The virus arrives in an email with a blank email subject and contains a zip file in which is a html file that when opened will use a flaw in Internet Explorer to automatically install its trojan payload. In an unusual twist (for Bagle at least) the trojan then downloads the actual virus code from remote servers before installing it. The virus then starts the usual process of spamming itself to every email it can find on the infected PC. It also attempts to shut-down your anti-virus application.

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Windows XP service pack two has been released to manufacturing.

This is good news, because Microsoft have bitten the bullet and adopted security strategies that they should have adopted years ago. However, SP2 is going to cause problems, it will break applications and may interfere with applications that require unfettered Internet access.

My suggestion is that, if you already have a decent firewall and don’t use Internet Explorer for web browsing or Outlook/Outlook express for email, that you hold off installing SP2 for a couple of weeks. Wait for a while and see what gets messed up for other people before trying it yourself. In two weeks time or so, do a google search for something like “XP SP2 software break” and see what applications people are having problems with before deploying it yourself.

INSERT: even IBM have decided to hold off deploying SP2 until they know exactly what the effect will be. A wise decision.

Regards

Franki