Software And Internet Blog

Windows XP and Windows Vista have pretty good file and folder security- but only if your drives and partitions are formatted using NTFS. FAT and FAT32 volumes do not provide the ability to lock down individual files or folders. Even if you use NTFS though, the ability of Windows to protect data is limited. If you are using the Home versions of XP or Vista your options for securing and protecting your data are even more limited. Hide Folders 2009 extends the abilities of the Windows operating system and enables you to protect data on your terms.
Key Features of Hide Folders 2009:

* Hide files and folders from users and applications in Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista
* Four protection methods available: Hide, Lock, Hide & Lock, Read Only
* Support for NTFS, FAT32 and FAT volumes
* Protect unlimited number of files and folders
* Enable trusted processes to access protected data.
* Removing Hide Folders 2009 folder from the system will not
* Command line support for main Hide Folders 2009 functions
* Manage Hide Folders 2009 functions with hot keys
* Runs in stealth mode- program does not show up in Task Manager

Protection Modes:

* Hide: Hidden files or folders will not be visible to a user, but are still possible to access if you know the path to the object.
* Lock: The protected file or folder will be visible but not accessible.
* Hide & Lock: The protected files or folders will not be visible to users nor will it be possible to access them.
* Read only: You can access the protected files and folders, but you cannot modify them.

Stealth Mode and Trusted Processes:
Stealth Mode: Hide Folders 2009 runs in stealth mode and covers its tracks. When Hide Folders application is not running, hidden files and folders remain hidden. Even if the Hide Folders 2009 application folder is removed, hidden data is still invisible. Hide Folders 2009 also clears links to protected data from Recent Documents, and the Recycle Bin.

Trusted Processes: While data is hidden with Hide Folders 2009, some programs or functions may still need access. You can assign Trusted Processes that have unrestricted access to the protected files and folders.
Getting Hide Folders 2009:
Download the free evaluation version
Purchase Hide Folders 2009:

Conflicker did not unleash a global attack like SQL Slammer- a worm that crippled the Internet in 30 minutes. But, it isn’t because it wasn’t capable per se.

The fact is that crippling the Internet is not a smart business model. It is like showing your hand in poker. Right now there are somewhere between 3 million and 15 million computers compromised by Conficker. Both numbers are big, but the larger point is the range in the estimates. Give or take 12 million PC’s, nobody really knows how big the threat is. There are 12 million PC’s that might be infected, or maybe not.

To unleash the global Conficker army in some sort of massive April Fool’s Day prank that grinds the Internet to a halt just for the sake of doing so might have entertainment value, but it doesn’t generate revenue. What it would do is to help identify the compromised machines, enabling them to be cleaned and patched, and help wipe out the threat. The Conficker creators have a business interest in flying under the radar so they can live to fight- and profit- another day.

So- nothing really happened on April 1st. Does that mean that we can just forget Conficker ever existed and move on? Absolutely not. The fact that nothing visible occurred from Conficker on April 1st means that there are still millions of PC’s- somewhere between 3 million and 15 million- compromised with Conficker. They can send out spam. They can host malware. They can be used in a botnet denial-of-service attack. They are a mercenary army of malicious PC’s for hire.
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Small businesses want to take their company to the next level, increasing their customer base while also increasing revenues. But every small business also has to make sure that computers in their organization are secure. For a small business this is a tough task as some either don’t have a full-time IT resource, or the resources they do have are stretched extremely thin. That’s without mentioning the high cost of consultants. This has led to organizations looking for ways to become more efficient, not only with their budget, but also with the IT resources they have. This is where SaaS offerings come in. Investing in Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions has enabled small businesses to reduce their administrative, hardware, and power consumption costs.

Security vendor Panda, has recently announced a new SaaS security solution targeted at small businesses, Panda Managed Office Protection (PMOP). The product is an endpoint security solution, offering the typical antivirus and firewall protection for desktops, laptops, and even servers in your organization. The SaaS part of the solution is the management infrastructure, as you don’t have to worry about installing servers to manage the database, reporting, or administrative functions. The management infrastructure and administrative interface is all in the cloud.

The PMOP endpoint protection agent will run on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 2003, Windows 2008, and even Windows Embedded Point of Sale (WePOS). The support matrix mentions support for VMWare virtualization, but no mention of Virtual PC or Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V support. With the growing popularity of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, support for Hyper-V virtualization must come very soon.
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Search is the gateway to the Internet for most people; for many of us, it has become second nature to distill a task into a set of keywords that will lead to the required tools and information. But Adam Cheyer, cofounder of Silicon Valley startup Siri, envisions a new way for people to interact with the services available on the Internet: a “do engine” rather than a search engine. Siri is working on virtual personal-assistant software, which would help users complete tasks rather than just collect information.

Cheyer, Siri’s vice president of engineering, says that the software takes the user’s context into account, making it highly useful and flexible. “In order to get a system that can act and reason, you need to get a system that can interact and understand,” he says.

Siri traces its origins to a military-funded artificial-intelligence project called CALO, for “cognitive assistant that learns and organizes,” that is based at the research institute SRI International. The project’s leaders–including Cheyer–combined traditionally isolated approaches to artificial intelligence to try to create a personal-assistant program that improves by interacting with its user. Cheyer, while still at SRI, took a team of engineers aside and built a sample consumer version; colleagues finally persuaded him to start a company based on the prototype. Siri licenses its core technology from SRI.
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HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring, Remote Execution of Arbitrary Code, Denial of Service (DoS), Unauthorized Access

Release Date: 2009-04-20
Last Updated: 2009-04-20

Potential Security Impact:
Remote execution of arbitrary code, Denial of Service (DoS), unauthorized access

Source:
Hewlett-Packard Company, HP Software Security Response Team

VULNERABILITY SUMMARY
Potential security vulnerabilities have been identified with HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring. These vulnerabilities could be exploited remotely to execute arbitrary code, cause a Denial of Service (DoS), or gain unauthorized access.

References:
CVE-2009-0716, CVE-2009-0717, CVE-2009-0718

SUPPORTED SOFTWARE VERSIONS*:
ONLY impacted versions are listed.
HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring v5 prior to v5.1.1.1090.15

BACKGROUND

CVSS 2.0 Base Metrics
===============================================
Reference Base Vector Base Score
CVE-2009-0716 (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P) 7.5
CVE-2009-0717 (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P) 5.0
CVE-2009-0718 (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C) 10.0
===============================================
Information on CVSS is documented in HP Customer Notice: HPSN-2008-002.

The Hewlett-Packard Company thanks Zhenhua Liu, Junfeng Jia, and Xiaopeng Zhang of Fortinet’s Fortiguard Global Security Research Team for reporting these vulnerabilities to security-alert (at) hp (dot) com. [email concealed]

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Maya celebrates its tenth anniversary with the 2009 release, an event marked by enhancements across the board. Although some of these have popped up in other Autodesk tools before now.
For example, Maya’s modelling toolset gains true Soft Selection (below), a technique found in 3DS Max and Mudbox that allows you to sculpt smoothly by manipulating weighted selections of a mesh. Once the selection is created with the mouse (Select, Move, Rotate or Scale tool) and keyboard shortcuts (B), it can be moved, scaled and rotated.

Colour feedback indicates the size of the area affected and a much smoother transformation than normal is possible. The fall-off area of the effect (the strength and coverage of the selection’s influence) can be increased or decreased by holding B and the left and right mouse button, while the shape can be modified through the use of the Falloff curve.

It’s also possible to set the fall-off to affect multiple objects at the same time (setting it to have a global basis) such as deforming a row of teeth to match a jawline. By pressing ‘ on the keyboard and simultaneously dragging a component, you can also invoke a Tweak mode allowing you to quickly move components under the mouse regardless of whether you are currently using the Select tool, Move tool, Rotate tool or Scale tool. Soft selection also works well when used with symmetrical modelling – another key feature of Mudbox.
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Another year has just started and with it comes a clutch of new Linux distro releases, among them the somewhat predictably named Mandriva Linux 2009.

As with previous versions, the 2009 implementation of Mandriva Linux is predominantly designed for desktop rather than server use. As such it can detect and handle most desktop hardware straight out of the box, including wireless notebooks and the latest breed of lightweight ‘netbook’ devices.

Another plus is the ability to integrate easily into mixed Windows/Linux networks, added to which Mandriva Linux is easy to install, simple to learn and a good starting point for those new to the open source platform.

The Mandriva Linux kernel naturally gets updated in this release (to 2.6.27) while the default KDE desktop is upgraded from KDE 3 to 4. More specifically, you get the latest KDE 4.1.2 implementation which includes numerous performance and interface enhancements together with a number of new applications, including Dolphin file manager, Okular document viewer and Dragon media player.

No special video hardware is needed to run KDE 4, but the new interface does take a little getting used to so the older KDE 3 desktop is still there for those who need it. There’s also a Gnome (2.24) implementation and LXDE, a lightweight desktop designed, primarily, for use on low-powered netbook PCs.
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