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Filed under: Office, Microsoft, Beta

Once again, Microsoft puts a download page live with no downloads to back it up

by Lee Mathews Nov 16th 2009

.
There's been plenty of buzz today about the Office 2010 public beta. Download links have gone live for Technet and MSDN subscribers, but as for the general public - they're left browsing yet another Microsoft tease.

Head over to the Office beta download page, and you'll see three links to chose from. Pick any one you like. The result's the same, a redirect to a page that says "Hey, Office 2010 beta is coming soon!" I guess that's fine, right? I mean, it's not like anyone clicking a download button would expect 1) direct access to a download or 2) a form they can fill out to get at the files.

Now, I don't run a big fancy website like Microsoft's, but is it really that hard to keep pages like this offline until the files are available?

The good news in this is that yes, the public beta is coming soon. It'd be nice if that landing page actually had "coming soon" buttons instead of shiny green "download" buttons. That seems like a distinction which is important to make.

As a bonus, it might save your servers having to deal with 12,000,000 page refresh requests.

Tags: beta, download, fail, office 2010, Office2010

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Filed under: Security, News, Commercial, Freeware

Malwarebytes definition database stolen, misused by IOBit

by Lee Mathews Nov 3rd 2009

I make no bones about the fact that I'm a fan of Malwarebytes. It's easily the best free malware removal app in my toolkit, and it's the first program I turn to when cleaning up an infected system. The Malwarebytes team has worked incredibly hard since their application burst onto the scene, and countless technicians and PC users appreciate the phenomenal work they've done.

Now, for the past few weeks I've been reading numerous blog posts about how IOBit is giving away their security software for free. The offer was timed to coincide with the launch of Windows 7, and has popped up in my Google Reader several times since.

How do the two relate?

A few weeks ago, Malwarebytes staffers came across an interesting post on the IOBit forums. The post detailed a keygen for Malwarebytes and reported it using the same name MBAM reports. The crew dug further and found more evidence of copycat detections.

To confirm their suspicions, a fake signature implanted in the Malwarebytes database.
"The final confirmation of IOBit's theft occurred when we added fake definitions to our database for a fake rogue application we called Rogue.AVCleanSweepPro. This "malware" does not actually exist: we made it up. We even manufactured fake files to match the fake definitions. Within two weeks IOBit was detecting these fake files under almost exactly these fake names."
If this is proven to be true, I certainly hope that Malwarebytes is successful in prosecuting IOBit. For another company to use a tactic as underhanded as this - let's face it, it's outright theft - to build a product and label it as their own is appalling.

IOBit are, of course, defending themselves in their forums. They respond:
"We have never used the database of any other companies. And hope Malwarebytes stop spreading malicious rumors for hyping itself[...]A legal letter will be released later, which will prove that there is no problem with Intellectual Property Rights.

For the sake of avoiding dispute and possible problems, we have deleted all disputed items in our database temporarily, and have updated IObit Security 360's database."
Nevertheless, IOBit's reputation is taking a beating now on WebOfTrust - Malwarebytes supporters have been all too happy to head over and vote down IOBit's trust, privacy, and vendor reliability ratings.

Tags: fail, illegal, iotbit, malwarebytes, theft

Filed under: Security, Microsoft, Freeware

How to make Microsoft Security Essentials check for updates more often

by Lee Mathews Oct 26th 2009


I've had plenty of good things to say about Microsoft Security Essentials to this point. On my own systems, it's been a good, lightweight layer of protection.

However, the folks over at H-Online have noted a bit of a problem. There are what H-Online refers to as "certain circumstances" under which Security Essentials seems to be forgetting to 1) update definitions and 2) notify users that their definitions may be as out of date as yet another Kanye West interruption joke.

By default, MSE only checks for updates once per day - when it's working, of course. Fortunately, making it check more often is a fairly simple task.

If you're comfortable editing your registry, read on after the break. If not, it might be best to wait for Microsoft to release a fix.

Read more →

Tags: definitions, fail, free antivirus, FreeAntivirus, malware, seucirty-essentials, trojan, virus

Filed under: Business, News

BSA loves irony, disproves link between piracy and malware

by Lee Mathews Oct 17th 2009

I know, sometimes it's hard to believe that the "BS" in BSA stands for business software when they publish reports like the one Wired shared with us this week. Entitled Software Piracy on the Internet: A Threat to Your Security, the BSA's latest tour de force is fine example of propaganda gone wrong.

Wired highlights this quote from the report: "Globally, there is a significant evidence to link software piracy with the frequency of malware attacks. While this correlation has not been measured with precision, the evidence from industry sources suggests that markets with high software piracy rates also have a tendency to experience high rates of malware infection...."

Not measured with precision? Adam and Jamie would call this thing busted on that point alone.

What the hell, fellas. In addition to your own admission that you weren't particularly careful in how you calculated your figures you obviously didn't look too closely at your charts.

Read more →

Tags: bsa, fail, malware, piracy, report

Filed under: News, Apple, Google, Open Source, Mobile, Lists, Android, Op-Ed

Preemptive FAIL : Five easy things Verizon isn't doing to fix Android

Androidby Grant Robertson Oct 6th 2009

It's all over the place; Verizon is embracing Android. Google loving apologist geeks everywhere are heralding the 85 million new customers -- who are obviously ready to try Android, if only Verizon would let them -- as the beginning of a new era in mobile phone competition. The cries of panacea are all I've heard all day:

"It's going to be a floodgate of new users! "

"Death to the iPhone!"

And, as one particularly difficult to satisfy commenter on another blog wrote:

"Get over yourselves apple and make a new product."

I'll have to admit, as a current G2, and previous G1 owner, I was a little excited myself. Then I read one thing from the joint Verizon/Google press call which made me crestfallen.

"Verizon also has no plans to make any changes to the Android Market."

And with that, all my dreams of an Android controlled world ran away like so much sand through my fingers. This is an enormous mistake, Verizon. Care to know why? The Android Market is terrible. It's worse than terrible, it's horrible.

Horrible, and just a little bit dangerous.

I've got a list of five things Verizon must do to the Android Market if they're to have any hope of even modest success.

Read more →

Tags: android, bad ideas, BadIdeas, FAIL, G1, G2, iphone, lists, market, verizon

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Filed under: Security, Search

Jessica Biel isn't the problem, McAfee's stupid list is

by Lee Mathews Aug 25th 2009

Big news from the folks at McAfee today. Yes, it's time once again to share that most crucial of lists, their annual "top celebrity names being used by malware pushers."

Why? Because it's important to make sure the blogosphere takes time out to warn everyone within earshot that searching for Jessica Biel could instantly give your computer a virus, start sending every keystroke to Russian cybercriminals, upload your bank account information to China, and hijack your browser so that every image is replaced with this one [sfw].

Read more →

Tags: fail, jessica-biel, malware, mcafee, search-terms

Filed under: News, Humor

Bittorrent banned from Antarctica, and boy, are the penguins pissed

by Lee Mathews Aug 18th 2009

We all had a good little chuckle when Firefox took Antarctica by storm, capturing 100% of the web browser market share. Today the news is not so rosy for bittorrent and peer-to-peer supporters.

The U.S. Antarctic Program has banned their use. From the official communique from the USAP's director of IT and communications:
There are many different Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications: BitTorrent, LimeWire, Gnutella, and KaZaa to name a few more popular ones. Some are used to download legitimate software and media, some illegitimate. None of them are permitted on the USAP enterprise network for both bandwidth and security concerns. P2P applications have the potential to overwhelm the internet connections on the Ice and inadvertently bring malicious software and traffic into the network.
An unhappy USAP employee wrote FreakBits "The gist I got from it was 'because you are all too dumb to use a computer correctly.' At least the plans for my secret uranium mine won't leak out while I'm down here freezing my ass off."

We went poking around the icy continent to see what other Antarcticans thought about the policy.

One penguin speaking on the condition of anonymity told us, "Hey, there are plenty of legitimate uses for bittorrent. It's going to take forever for our Linux group to download new distros now." He added, "We're not all trying to download episodes of The Real Housewives of Orange County like Professor Opposable Thumbs over there."

And he's right. He stinks like greasy fish, but he's right. Bittorrent and peer-to-peer apps aren't the problem. It's inappropriate use and carelessness that's the problem.

The penguins plan on staging a protest later this month, though they refused to announce any details at this point. "We don't want to jeopardize the operation," said our source.

[via FreakBits]

Tags: antarctica, bittorrent, fail, filesharing, morpheus, p2p, peer-to-peer, penguins, torrent

Filed under: Internet, Social Software, web 2.0

Warning: Facebook can get you fired and make a cop kick your ass

by Lee Mathews Aug 11th 2009

We've warned you before about the risks associated with social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. There's that nasty Koobface thing floating around infecting people left and right. There are the myriad privacy concerns. But what about some more tangible, real-life risks?

Little things, like getting fired from your new job like the poor sod who forgot she friended her boss. There's a good lesson here for all of us.

If you're still working off your probationary period and can be let go without warning you should probably 1) try not to screw up all the time and 2) not badmouth your employer on Facebook when he/she can see your updates.
It would probably be a tad humiliating to have your termination notice posted right where all your friends can see it, dontcha think?

Moving on, it's probably also a good idea watch what you post to someone's spouse. Lieutenant John Sherman of the Martinsburg, PA police has been suspended with pay for his...er...reply to the messages a man sent his wife on Facebook. Unlike the firing incident, we don't have an incriminating-but-hilarious screencap to clarify.

But hey, for all we know the messages could have been along the lines of "I really hope your husband punches me in the face outside the old church," or "I'd pay John $5,000 to beat me silly in a field." Whatever the posts said, they clearly rubbed Sherman the wrong way.

There's still no Facebook App that will coldcock someone through their monitor, so I suppose kicking the guy's ass in a field near a church was the best way officer Sherman could think to say "back off."

Moral of the story: just as in real life, it's a good idea to watch your mouth on social networking sites.

Photo credits: Crime stopper via Flickr user kolix. FB fail via Reddit.

Tags: beatings, caution, facebook, fail, firiing, fist, stupidity, warning

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Filed under: Internet, Blogging, web 2.0

Facebook sez, "Don't mind us, we're just whoring out your photos"

by Lee Mathews Jul 16th 2009

Follow up: AllFacebook pointed out that this was a bit off the mark. The ad was created by a third-party advertising network using Facebook's API. Their post cautions "Facebook continues to let third party ad networks use your photos as well, and making the privacy setting changes outlined in this viral message will not remove your photos from third party ad networks."

How do you feel about what Facebook does with your content? Post your thoughts on our Ask DLS post!

[original post below]

But it's OK. Really!

See, according to Facebook it's all part of the acceptable use policy you agreed to. No, I'm not kidding. That red box above contains an ad that was displayed to Peter Smith, who no doubt agrees that the woman in the image is hot -- although he suspected she wasn't single. You guessed it, that's his wife - consultant Cheryl Smith.

Is this not the same Facebook that just went back and retooled a TOS that users found objectionable? Didn't they just finish apologizing and kissing our butts over the crapstorm that ensued?

Here's what the Facebook settings page has to say:
Facebook occasionally pairs advertisements with relevant social actions from a user's friends to create Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to you and your friends. These respect all privacy rules.
All you have to do to prevent this is sign in to Facebook and click through to (get ready) -> Settings -> Privacy -> News Feed and Wall -> Facebook Ads -> Appearance in Facebook Ads and click "no one." Unless, of course, you want to be semifamous and have your picture used to push some garbage product or website without your knowledge. (note: when I tried to make this change just now, the site returned an error. oh, and it might not work in Firefox either due to a 'bug.')

I guess since we can turn this abomination off we shouldn't get too worked up about it. Still, it's pretty damn unsavory to use someone's friend's face to advertise a product and give the appearance that that friend might endorse it.

Yes, if it had been my wife's face staring back at me I would have had a good laugh. And when I stopped, I would have been right pissed that Facebook thinks this qualifies as "acceptable use."

Update: curiously, though my setting was "only my friends" earlier and I was unsuccessful changing it myself it has somehow changed to "no one." Did Facebook just pull a switcheroo to save face?


[via End of Web]

Tags: acceptable-use, advertising, facebook, fail, privacy, TOS

Filed under: Blogging, Apple, Social Software, iPhone

CP on your iPhone via an Apple-approved app? You betcha!

by Lee Mathews Jul 1st 2009

Yes, we've been over the App Store approval thing a hundred times already, but never quite like this.

Apple's got a pretty strong policy when it comes to nudity, right? Right?

So Beauty Meter - an application that allows, hypothetically, a fifteen year old girl to share a nude pic to be rated would be totally out of the question right?

You'd at least expect there to be a nudity warning if you installed an app like this. I mean, it could be a non-nude hot-or-not app, there's certainly a precedent for that. In the case of Beauty Meter, however, you'll just get a warning that it might contain mature content and it's not for use by anyone under the age of 17.

Heck, in some countries 17 isn't even old enough to look at naughty things.

Now, clearly neither Apple nor the devs behind Beauty Meter can totally control who uploads what (the app even says as much when you launch it), but it makes me wonder: if an app like this can be approved, why not Drivetrain?

It's remote control for Transmission. It doesn't actually do any torrent downloading. There's no way anything it does is remotely illegal. It's pretty similar to a single-app MochaVNC, which has been in the store for ages, and I can certainly use to control Transmission from my iPod. But I digress.

Three things for certain: Beauty Meter will soon suffer the same fate as Hottest Girls, the approval process needs an overhaul, and the screenshot at Krapps is going to live in Internet infamy for a long time.

[via Krapps - thanks, @thmonline!]

Tags: app-store, approval, drivetrain, fail, hot-or-not, iphone, legal, mochavnc

Filed under: Search, Op-Ed

Oh god, get the New York Post out of my tech news!

by Lee Mathews Jun 15th 2009

When Alexander Hamilton founded the New York Post back in 1801, he probably had no idea that the paper would eventually be turned into a sensationalist tabloid by Rupert Murdoch. Similarly, when Rupert Murdoch purchased the Post in 1976, he probably didn't think the paper would ever try to cover tech news.

The same paper that brings you headlines like "18-YEAR OLD ARRESTED FOR SERIAL CAT MURDERS" and "FOOD CART SCAMMERS RAISE THE DEAD" have decided to cover the ongoing Google v. Bing feud.

Apparently Sergey Brin is shaking in his boots, so worried about the threat Bing! poses that he's hired a group of former Vietnam POWs that escaped a maximum security stockade and sought refuge in the Los Angeles underground...No wait, that's the A-Team.

Brin has put together a team of "top engineers to work on urgent upgrades to his Web service." His web service? Which one, Post? Apps? Gmail? No, you mean "to his search engine."

Read more →

Tags: bing, fail, google, new-york-post, roflcopter, sergey-brin

Filed under: Blogging, Microsoft, Commercial

Download from Technet yesterday? You're a dirty pirate, says MS

by Lee Mathews Jun 4th 2009

Remember how I drew the similarity between Jack Napier dumping cash on the unsuspecting rubes of Gotham and Microsoft opening Technet to anyone who filled out a form?

Well, the poisonous gas has been released.

According to a lengthy phone call between blogger Kristan Kenney and a Technet support rep, you weren't supposed to have access to that offer. If you downloaded keys or software and weren't one of the select few actually invited in my Microsoft, you're a dirty pirate.

Don't use those product keys - they've been blacklisted, and WGA will eat you alive and burn down your house if you try to use them. They can see which keys were provided to which subscriber, and they'll track you down.

I understand that the link was leaked by someone outside Microsoft and they can't be blamed for the mayhem that ensued, but come on. Is this the best solution they could come up with? What's next? Waterboarding to find the original source of the leak?

Oh well. At least we still have our Windows 7 RC to use for free until next year.

Tags: fail, piracy, technet, WGA

Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Microsoft, Search

Back up the porn bus - Bing responds to pressure over previews

by Lee Mathews Jun 4th 2009


First off, don't worry - if you were using Bing to preview naughty videos in thumbnail-sized awesomeness, this doesn't mean the fun is over.

In a post on the Bing blog, the crew has announced that they have tweaked search settings in response to concerns from corporate customers. The changes should now allow Bing to play nicely with firewalls and safety products. Adding adlt=strict to Bing query strings will also force the filter to activate, even if a user has disabled it manually.

They've also offered some insight as to why the previews are there in the first place:
What's cool about the technology is that it helps you decide if it is a video you want to go watch.This makes it easier to sort through the clutter of all those results and help you get to what you are looking for. And as a publisher, when people leave Bing for your site (and require bandwidth on your servers) it tends to be higher quality traffic because folks are sure of what they wanted to watch. Plus, we think it's pretty cool.
It's still only a few clicks to shut off the filter, so not much has really changed. Loic LeMeur's jab that "You are now on a porn site without leaving bing. Amazing" still holds true. But, ah, as I pointed out earlier, that's true of every damn search engine on the Internet.

[ via CNet ]

Tags: bing, fail, porn

Filed under: Fun, Windows, Freeware, Windows x64, Humor

Deskpecker may be the worst-named Windows app ever

Windowsby Lee Mathews May 18th 2009


If your RSS reader doesn't display images, you're either incredibly surprised or breathing a tremendous sigh of relief right now. The program I'm talking about is indeed a reference to a Woody, but it's the bird.

When I put together my list of 10 application names that needed rethinking, this little beauty wasn't out in the wild yet. If it had been, there's no doubt in my mind that Deskpecker would easily have taken the top spot.

Normally a poorly-chosen name might hurt an application's popularity, but in this case it's probably a big asset. After all, there probably aren't a large number of users sitting around thinking "My computer would be so much more awesome - if only I had a tiny bird pecking away at my window borders!"

Nevertheless, it got me to click through to the Deskpecker homepage and write this post about it. I'm sorry, loyal readers. I just couldn't help myself.

Tags: deskpecker, fail, program-names, win

Filed under: Design, Browsers

Live Search, where people search for better search options

by Lee Mathews Apr 30th 2009

There's a piece over at The Guardian today about the most searched for terms on Microsoft's Live Search. The top two: Google and Yahoo. They, combined with Google.com and Yahoo.com, account for 2.7% of all searches performed on Live.

The numbers would probably be much different if Live Search was considered a decent search engine. Right now, not so much. People would rather use Live to search for a better place to search than to perform their actual queries.

Does the same thing happen on Google? Not quite. Yahoo appears at #20 on Trends, and it's the only search engine in the top 100 results.

Apart from the fact that Live isn't the first name people think of when it comes to search, I'm willing to bet that a large volume of the searches are coming from Windows users who don't know where to type web addresses in Internet Explorer.

The support call usually goes something like this:

"Do you see the big white bar at the top of your Internet Explorer window?"

"Yes."

"Type Google.com in there, and press your enter key."

"I did that. All it does is show me this Live Search thing with a bunch of writing under it."

"No, type in the wide bar. The not-wide bar is for searching."

"I did. I must have a virus, it just keeps showing me this Live Search thing."

No, that's not a virus. It's just a search engine you never knew about even though you were looking right at it.

Tags: fail, google, live-search, yahoo

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