Market Power

"How to Make Your Own Security Toolkit"

Craig Newmark linked to this PC Mag article last week.  I read it and installed a couple of the suggested programs to help me clear my computer of various nasties.  If you are having problems with your computer, give it a read and make sure to click on the links which will take you to more indepth reviews of the products discussed.  For example:

Don't assume that your friend with the problem has been visiting shady Internet sites. Perfectly clean sites have been hacked in such a way that simply opening the page downloads malicious software to the victim's system. Worse, many modern threats include countermeasures to fight back when you try to install antivirus software. Some tweak the Registry to disable launching of known antivirus executables. Others monitor Internet access and specifically prevent access to security company websites, so you can't update or register the product. They're ingenious, in a bad way.

When you can't install the full power of an antivirus solution, you may be able to wipe the system clean with a free cleanup-only tool. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Free may be the best known tool in this category. Tech support agents in some security companies routinely use it to help users who run into trouble at installation. A few years ago I even encountered a Symantec tech support agent using it (strictly against Symantec policy).

The link to Malwarebyte takes you to a more indpeth review of that particular piece of software.  I downloaded the Malware piece and the AVG Anti-virus Free 2013 and those seem to be decent programs.  Since I am not a experienced computer tech guy, I did not download Norton Power Eraser because using it may direct me to delete programs that my computer will not work without.

 

Droid Incredible Now Supports Animated Radar in its Browser

Last spring I bought a Droid Incredible to replace my beloved BlackBerry Curve that I had dropped under running water.  Yeah, that's not a good thing to do.  I switched from the BlackBerry because I wanted a phone with a better browser.  I've been more or less happy with the Droid, but I've had two problems with it from the get-go.  

The first and most annoying problem is the battery.  I don't make many phone calls, but I use it mostly for browsing.  The browser itself is excellent, but the battery isn't.  I end up having to charge the Droid at least once a day and sometimes multiple times during a day.  I've found that reducing the screen brightness helps extend the battery life, but I'd like to be able to have the screen be sufficiently bright and not have to run the battery down while browsing for an hour or so.  Besides, constantly charging the battery shortens its lifetime.

The second problem is that the Incredible's browser didn't support animation of radar.  As long-time readers know, I am a severe storm enthusiast and I recently became an official National Weather Service storm spotter.  One of the things I wanted to use the Droid for was to help me get in place to spot severe weather.  Having animated radar, among other things, shows me storm motion, something I need to determine so I don't accidentally get caught in the middle of a storm.  But the browser wouldn't support radar animation.  I was left with downloading an app called Radar Now which worked OK, but I prefer a radar that allows me to see animation as well as graphics showing me where watches and warnings were placed.

Well, it seems that the animation problem has been solved.  This morning I got a notice on my phone that new software was ready to be installed and that one of the things that was being fixed was support for Adobe Flash animation.  I installed the update and now the radar that I prefer, Wunderground's, now animates.  Yay for me.

Here's some more detail about the software update.  Apparently the Incredible now supports tethering, but I'm not sure what that means.  iPhone users can tether their phones to their laptops and use the phone's cell service to access the internet from anyplace that has a signal.  As I understand it, the Incredible supports tethering, but my carrier, Verizon, charges $30 a month.  Whether "supports tethering" means that I don't have to pay the $30 is something I'll have to find out.

An Absurdly Cool Video that Will Appeal to any 1980's Era Video Game Buff

Via Eric Parsons and Mark Stratton

Fixing a Security Flaw in PDF Files

North Carolina State's Craig Newmark alerts us to a Computerworld article by Greg Keizer about a security flaw in PDF files.

A design flaw in Adobe's popular PDF format will quickly be exploited by hackers to install financial malware on users' computers, a security company argued today.

The bug, which is not strictly a security vulnerability but actually part of the PDF specification, was first disclosed by Belgium researcher Didier Stevens last week. Stevens demonstrated how a multistage attack using the PDF specification's "/Launch" function could successfully exploit a fully-patched copy of Adobe Reader.

Unlike other attacks based on rogue PDFs, Stevens' technique does not require an underlying vulnerability in Adobe's Reader or Acrobat, but instead relies on social engineering tactics to dupe users into opening a malicious PDF. In his demo, Stevens used a PDF document containing attack code that he was then able to execute using the /Launch function. Although Reader and Acrobat display a warning when an executable inside a PDF file is launched, Stevens found a way to partially modify the alert to further trick a potential victim into approving the action.

I don't have Acrobat on my home computer, so I can't help with that.  The fix, according to the article, in Reader is straightforward.  Go to Edit - Preferences - Trust Manager and uncheck "Allow opening of non-PDF file attachments with external applications".

Putting off the Coming Energy Apocalypse - Again

People respond to incentives.  When a product is profitable, that gives people an incentive to develop substitutes.  These developments do not magically come about.  They are the result of hard work, luck, and opportunity, and sometimes it takes awhile.  From the Wall Street Journal:

From the time of the California energy crisis at the beginning of this decade, it appeared that the U.S. was headed for an extended period of tight supplies, even shortages, of natural gas.

While gas has many favorable attributes—as a clean, relatively low-carbon fuel—abundance did not appear to be one of them. Prices had gone up, but increased drilling failed to bring forth additional supplies. The U.S., it seemed, was destined to become much more integrated into the global gas market, with increasing imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

But a few companies were trying to solve a perennial problem: how to liberate shale gas—the plentiful natural gas supplies locked away in the impermeable shale. The experimental lab was a sprawling area called the Barnett Shale in the environs of Fort Worth, Texas.

The companies were experimenting with two technologies. One was horizontal drilling. Instead of merely drilling straight down into the resource, horizontal wells go sideways after a certain depth, opening up a much larger area of the resource-bearing formation.

The other technology is known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fraccing." Here, the producer injects a mixture of water and sand at high pressure to create multiple fractures throughout the rock, liberating the trapped gas to flow into the well.

The critical but little-recognized breakthrough was early in this decade—finding a way to meld together these two increasingly complex technologies to finally crack the shale rock, and thus crack the code for a major new resource. It was not a single eureka moment, but rather the result of incremental experimentation and technical skill. The success freed the gas to flow in greater volumes and at a much lower unit cost than previously thought possible.

In the last few years, the revolution has spread into other shale plays, from Louisiana and Arkansas to Pennsylvania and New York State, and British Columbia as well.

The supply impact has been dramatic. In the lower 48, states thought to be in decline as a natural gas source, production surged an astonishing 15% from the beginning of 2007 to mid-2008. This increase is more than most other countries produce in total.

The low-hanging fruit has already been picked.  But the more profitable it becomes to pick ever-higher fruit, the more likely it will be to be picked.  That's the profit motive at work.

Virtumonde: It's What's Been Bothering Me

Yesterday I posted about the problems I have been having with my computer, mostly unwanted pop-ups. 

I am having trouble with Firefox and it's a problem that started this morning after my mother turned on the computer and opened the program.  Whenever Firefox is open, I get pop-ups that I never used to get.  They aren't pop-ups that appear when I click on a link.  They are pop-ups that appear out of nowhere.  

In addition, I'm getting a strange thing happening when I perform a Google search and get my search results.  When I click on a link I am immediately taken to a new search engine (whose name I won't mention here for obvious reasons).  I am able to get to my desired page by clicking the back button and then clicking on the link a second time.

As It turns out, there wasn't a problem with Firefox per-se.  Instead, my computer has been infected with the Virtumonde Trojan Horse, a nasty program that causes pop-ups to appear.  It apparently also can block the Microsoft Update process.  See here for more details.  I spent the morning running spyware and anti viral programs (with my internet service disconnected), then restarting my computer,  and then repeating that process. 

I am not sure how my computer got infected, but it probably got infected on Sunday at some point.  My kids spent a good portion of the day playing online games at various sites, and it's possible they unknowingly downloaded the program.

So far, I haven't had a problem with the pop-ups since I last rebooted.  I was able to run a Google search and did not have the problem I was having yesterday.  Hopefully I have solved the problem, but I know better than to get too excited at the moment.

New Firefox Problem?

I am having trouble with Firefox and it's a problem that started this morning after my mother turned on the computer and opened the program.  Whenever Firefox is open, I get pop-ups that I never used to get.  They aren't pop-ups that appear when I click on a link.  They are pop-ups that appear out of nowhere.  

In addition, I'm getting a strange thing happening when I perform a Google search and get my search results.  When I click on a link I am immediately taken to a new search engine (whose name I won't mention here for obvious reasons).  I am able to get to my desired page by clicking the back button and then clicking on the link a second time.

Needless to say, this is annoying.  I'm running my antiviral and spyware programs as I type this and if anything is found, I'll update this post.  Until then:  DAMN YOU, POP-UP -BLOCKER GETTING-AROUNDER CODE WRITER!

You Can Test Windows 7 Until Aug 1, 2009

Story here from the Columbia Missourian.

I just got a new laptop from the university at which I work, loaded with Vista of course.  I'd heard the horror stories, but decided to take my chances.  Most of my programs worked fine on Vista, but one of the most important - SAS - would not let me install it.  So I'm going back to XP. 

The IT people say I'm "downgrading" to XP (their word, not mine).  I think I'm upgrading.

Well, Do I Want One or Not?

Well?  Do I?????

Computing Order

Mainframes:  intelligent design
Google Clouds:  spontaneous order.