Author Archive | David Worthington

Office 2003 Rights Management Bug Locks up Files

Posted by David Worthington on December 11, 2009 at 1:42 pm

UPDATED: It’s a nightmare scenario: Imagine coming into the office and not being able to access any of your organization’s vital documents. That scenario became reality today for an untold number of Microsoft Office 2003 customers who use Microsoft’s Rights Management Service (RMS), a technology for controlling access to documents.

Office 2003 users receive the error, “Unexpected error occurred. Please try again later or contact your system administrator,” when they attempt to open or save protected documents. The bug affects Office 2003 products including Excel 2003, Outlook 2003, PowerPoint 2003, and Word 2003. It does not affect Office 2007 or Office 2010 Beta, according to Microsoft.

A spokesperson said that the bug was caused by a Information Rights Management (IRM) certificate expiring.

Microsoft has posted a bulletin to TechNet alerting customers to the problem, and says that it is working “as quickly as possible” to provide its customers with a solution. Further announcements will be posted to the blog.

Microsoft released a hotfix on Saturday. The Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 3 update is required for hotfixes to be installed.

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Cybercrooks use Amazon to Run Botnet

Posted by David Worthington on December 10, 2009 at 4:28 pm

Robert McMillan of the IDG News Service is reporting that cyber criminals gained access to an Amazon Web Services (AWS) account, and used Amazon’s cloud infrastructure to manage and run its botnet. Expect more cloud-based attacks such as this one in the future.

The botnet was a Zeus bot (Zbot) variant. The Zeus trojan is a  program that criminals use to gather personal and financial data from its victims.

Hackers that create trojans such as Zeus are becoming increasingly organized and function like corporations, according to a security recent report published by Microsoft. That structure enables regular malware release schedules, and gives criminals the ability to exploit complex vulnerabilities in software–even as operating systems become more secure.

Law enforcement has made some progress toward shutting down the data centers that criminals use to host their infrastructure, but the crooks are seemingly one step ahead, and have now migrated to Web-based services. IDG reports that unnamed law enforcement officials have begun to worry that stolen credit cards could be used to purchase cloud computing services such as AWS.

That’s a given. I hope that cloud providers take action to discover malware on their server, and have the capacity to shut it down before serious damage can be done. They have a responsibility to do so.

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Boxee Box for Your TV, Beta Software Unveiled

Posted by David Worthington on December 7, 2009 at 8:29 pm

A rowdy crowd of 650 gathered at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn for Boxee’s highly anticipated unveiling of its set top box tonight.

Boxee creates open source software that brings on-demand content from the Internet and home networks to TVs, and while the software has just reached beta, it is enlisting hardware partners to embed it on their devices. (Until now, it’s been available for OS X, Windows, Linux, and as a hack for Apple TV.)  The $200 Boxee Box is the company’s first branded hardware device, manufactured by D-Link. It will become available in the second quarter of next year.

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Microsoft Should Continue Windows 7 Family Pack Licensing

Posted by David Worthington on December 4, 2009 at 5:20 pm

Microsoft has been offering family packs of Windows 7 to customers for a discounted price–while supplies last. It would behoove it to make the family packs a permanent offering.

CNET’s Ina Fried is reporting that the packs have nearly sold out. The packs sell for $149.99, which is a bargain considering that three stand-alone copies of 7 Home Premium list for $359.97.

There are two good reasons why Microsoft should make the family packs permanent: Its Windows licensing revenue is suffering, and Apple has long offered them for OS X. (A Snow Leopard 5-pack sells for $49.99.)

While Windows 7 has boosted Microsoft’s license revenues, netbooks have begun to chip away at the Windows cash cow. Windows 7 has proven popular with early adopters, and anything that Microsoft could do to get more customers to upgrade is a good thing.

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FCC Demands Answers from Verizon on Fees

Posted by David Worthington on December 4, 2009 at 5:09 pm

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sent a letter to Verizon demanding answers about why it increased early termination fees for smart phone users as well as whether customers are charged for inadvertently accessing Verizon’s Internet services.

At dispute is that Verizon doubled early termination fees (ETF) for new customers that signed up to its wireless services with a smartphone. The company also charged a $2 fee of a number of customers who accessed its mobile Web by inadvertently loading their browsers.

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Survey: Social Media Makes Kids Better Writers

Posted by David Worthington on December 4, 2009 at 5:06 pm

The debate over whether computers are making kids dumb was reignited today with a BBC report about a survey which concluded that children who use technology may be better writers.

The survey was conducted by the UK’s National Literacy Trust with a sample size of 3,001 school children aged nine and showed that 16. 24% had their own blog, 82% sent text messages at least once a month, and 73% used instant messaging services, according to the BBC’s report.

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Intel’s New 48 Core Processor Won’t Change Your Life

Posted by David Worthington on December 2, 2009 at 4:41 pm

Intel began sharing a programmable 48 core processor with researchers, according to reports published today. That is progress towards a future generation of computing, but don’t expect the technology to significantly impact your life for many more years to come.

The processor, which Intel calls a “single-chip cloud computer,” is about 20 times more powerful than Intel’s most powerful six and eight core processors that are available on the market today. It also provides that capacity while remaining energy efficient.

It might sound revolutionary, but it is just the evolutionary progression of the many-cores trend that has occurred over the past several years. Intel showed off its ability to design an 80 core chip in 2007, and very little has changed from the end user’s perspective over the past two years.

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Apple vs. Psystar is Not Over

Posted by David Worthington on December 1, 2009 at 8:57 pm

Today Apple reached a deal with Mac clone maker Psystar ahead of a federal court case that could have granted Apple an injunction forbidding Psystar from preinstalling Apple’s OS X software on its products. However, the settlement was very specific to what it actually settled, which means the companies will continue the legal wrangling.

Psystar is paying Apple $2.7M in damages to avoid a trial. That takes the immediate threat of a federal injunction off the table, but the overarching dispute remains. It is also likely that Psystar, which recently emerged from bankruptcy, won’t pay the settlement until its appeals have been exhausted.

I have not seen the terms of the agreement, and wonder whether any of the claims were dismissed without prejudice. Apple charged Pystar of breach of contract, copyright infringement, and violating the Digital Millenium Copyright Act; Psystar made counterclaims of copyright misuse and unenforceability.

“It looks like it isn’t really a settlement as much as a narrowing of the issues in dispute,” said Mark A. Lemley, director of Stanford Law School’s Program in Law, Science, and Technology, in reference to today’s agreement. “The issues that are outstanding are (1) the core legal issues, which are on appeal, and (2) whether the injunction would apply to future Psystar products,” he added in a follow up e-mail.

Many issues (and the “what is the point” question) remained unsettled, and will be weighed by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Apple has also not yet taken any action against Psystar’s Rebel EFI software, which allows end users to install copies of OS X on unauthorized generic hardware.

This convoluted, bumpy ride will continue. If you want a Mac, buy it from Apple, or, if so inclined, check in with the Hackintosh community.

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EFF Outlines “Terms of (Ab)Use”

Posted by David Worthington on November 25, 2009 at 10:12 am

Yesterday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a consumer watchdog, embarked on a new project called Terms of (Ab)Use. Terms of (Ab)Use is the EFF’s attempt to enable people to understand what their End User License Agreements (EULAs) mean.

The EFF views EULAs as private contracts that enable online service providers to circumvent existing law and dictate their legal relationship with customers. They are frequently written to be one-sided in favor of the service provider, and are “designed to be beyond judicial scrutiny,” it said.

The organization’s objective is to cut through confusing legalese, and state what the contracts say in plain language. That goal is laudable, and could lead to greater transparency, but I wonder whether it is a problem that end users actually care about.

Do the majority of people even read EULAs before they click “Accept”? It’s doubtful. People just want to use the service, whether it be Gmail or an online game, and the provider determines how its service should be used.

The EFF needs to communicate the value of what it is doing to the public in order to be successful. Unfortunately, it is facing an uphill battle.

If a bridge collapsed, people would demand consequences. Yet, software failures are accepted, and the cost of those failures is passed onto consumers. With the exception of businesses that have iron-clad service level agreements, we are accustomed to a one-sided relationship with software vendors. There is no real framework for liability in the software industry.

It takes a group like EFF to stand up for users’ rights.

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Hey, Apple: Why Not Trust Your Most Trustworthy iPhone Developers?

Posted by David Worthington on November 23, 2009 at 11:48 pm

Apple has the opportunity to fast track submissions from its iPhone App store development partners. Partners that follow best practices should be given the benefit of the doubt to accelerate the screening process.

Earlier today, my colleague Harry McCracken wrote about a BusinessWeek interview with Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice-president for worldwide product marketing concerning its App Store vetting process.

The gist of it is that Apple views itself as a retailer stocking its shelves with quality goods. It still needs to work on its vendor relations.

Schiller said that there are now over 100,000 applications in the App Store, and Apple is receiving over 10,000 submissions a week. Roughly 90% of the submissions that it rejects are simply buggy; the remaining 10% are “inappropriate” — containing malware, objectionable content, or are intended to help users break the law.

Apple believes that developers are happy about its “safety net,” and that may be true, but there have been very vocal exceptions. Facebook developer Joe Hewitt famously protested against the control Apple is exerting over its hardware, and argued that Apple is setting a “horrible precedent.”

However, the end result is that people trust the applications that they purchase in the App Store. That is an important part of the iPhone user experience. But Apple should give trusted developers more leeway — they make the App Store what it is. Apple needs their products.

I am reminded of the old Saturday Night Live sketch with Dan Aykroyd touting dangerous children’s toys such as “Johnny Switchblade,” “Bag O’ Glass,” and the “Chainsaw Bear.” It was hyperbole to the max. By Apple’s own omission, the vast majority (>90%) of developers are good partners that wouldn’t make disreputable apps, and they shouldn’t be treated as such.

My family owns a manufacturing business, and sells products that have International Organization for Standardization (ISO) approvals. ISO sets manufacturing standards, and audits the plants to guarantee that those standards are being met. Apple could do the same by outlining the best practices and tests that its developers should follow when they make software.

More transparency and partnership would go a long way. It is a huge disincentive to invest in the development of an app only to see it be rejected. Apple can be a better partner, and still protect the sanctity of its “shelves.”

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