Blackmoor Vituperative

In what will theoretically be the first in a series, I present Christopher Walken, first member of the Hall Of Cool.

The US Department of Homeland Security has urged Windows users to install the latest patches from Microsoft as quickly as possible.

In particular it warned about one bug fixed in the latest batch of security updates that, if exploited, could put a PC under the control of an attacker.

Microsoft’s recent update fixed 23 flaws found in Windows software.

Many of these bugs are known to malicious hackers and some are already actively exploited on the net.

(from BBC News, Official warning on Windows bugs)

To date, with its Genuine Advantage anti-piracy programs, Microsoft has targeted consumers. Windows and Office users have been required to validate their products as “genuine” before being able to obtain many downloads and add-ons.

Come this fall, however, the Redmond, Wash., software maker is planning to turn up the Genuine Advantage heat in two ways: by baking more Genuine Advantage checks directly into Windows Vista, and by taking aim at PC makers, system builders, Internet cafes and other sources of potentially pirated software.

(from eWeek, Microsoft to Tighten the Genuine Advantage Screws)

Governor Tarkin: Princess Leia, before your execution, you will join me at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now.

Princess Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

The book is one of Britain’s best-known documents, but a poll commissioned by the National Archives suggests not everyone is sure what it is. While 80 percent of respondents had heard of the Domesday Book, 13 percent thought it was a chapter in the Bible, and 2 percent thought it was a book by Dan Brown, author of the hugely popular “The Da Vinci Code.”

(from MSNBC.com, 11th-century Domesday Book goes online)

After months of issuing warnings, the music industry finally made good on its threat to file suit against peer-to-peer software company LimeWire.

A group of music companies, including Sony BMG, Virgin Records and Warner Bros. Records, have accused LimeWire and the company’s officers of copyright infringement, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in New York. LimeWire produces software that’s often used to create copies of music recordings and then distribute them over the Web.

The recording industry is asking for compensatory and punitive damages, such as $150,000 for every song distributed without permission.

(from ZDNet, Music industry sues P2P firm LimeWire)

Personally, I use Shareaza.

The U.S. patent system could be inching closer to an overhaul long desired by the technology industry.

[…]

Called the Patent Reform Act of 2006, the measure followed two years of hearings, meetings and debate, the senators said. It bears a number of similarities to a bill offered last summer by Texas Republican Lamar Smith in the House of Representatives.

Specifically, it would shift to a “first to file” method of awarding patents, which is already used in most foreign countries, instead of the existing “first to invent” standard, which has been criticized as complicated to prove. Such a change has already earned backing from Jon Dudas, chief of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The bill would also establish a “postgrant opposition” system that would allow outsiders to dispute the validity of a patent before a board of administrative judges within the Patent Office, rather than in the traditional court system. The idea behind such a proceeding, also endorsed by the Patent Office, is to stave off excessive litigation.

[…]

In addition, the Hatch-Leahy bill would place new restrictions on the courts where patent cases could be filed–an attempt at rooting out “forum shopping” for districts known for favorable judges. It would also curb the amount of damages for winners of infringement suits. Perhaps most notably, and in a departure from the House version, courts would have to calculate the royalties owed by infringers based solely on the economic value of the “novel and nonobvious features” covered by the disputed patent, not on the value of the product as a whole.

Technology companies have been lobbying hard for putting such a requirement into law, complaining that it’s unfair to require massive payouts based on lost profits for an entire product that can contain hundreds of thousands of patented components if only one or two are infringed. Such a system, some argue, has contributed to the rise of “patent trolls”–that is, companies that exist primarily to make money from patent litigation and are using the system to force lucrative settlements.

(from ZDNet, Senators offer sweeping patent system changes)

It’s about damned time. This bill won’t fix everything wrong with our patent sustem — it still allows algorithms to be patented, for example — but at least it is a step in the right direction.

When the zombies take over, how long till the electricity fails?

Just when Microsoft and Nintendo thought they were safe from the madness that is the United States patent system, a Texas-based company called Anascape comes along and sues both console makers over 12 patents relating to video game controllers.

[…]

Anascape filed suit against Microsoft and Nintendo in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas this past Monday. Anascape has accused the companies of infringing on a dozen different patents that were issued between 1999 and 2005. The patents seem to deal with almost every aspect of today’s modern video game controller, such as analog controls, analog pressure sensors for buttons, vibration and tactile feedback, and more.

(from GameDaily, Microsoft, Nintendo Hit with Controller Patent Lawsuit)

Our patent system is a cruel joke. It will get worse before it gets better.

By the way, don’t lump patents together with unrelated issues like trademarks, or copyright. They are each completely different issues. (I know, I know: I do it, too.)

A Homeland Security plan to require port workers to carry tamper-proof photo ID cards has numerous security problems that threaten to delay it, investigators said yesterday.

In an audit, Homeland Inspector General Richard Skinner said his review of prototype systems at participating U.S. ports identified several vulnerabilities in the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program, known as TWIC.

The weaknesses, some of which were deemed “high risk,” included instances of “false positives” in detecting which workers might pose a security risk, as well as cases in which the system inadvertently disclosed sensitive personal information inappropriately.

(from BaltimoreSun.com, Plan for secure IDs for port staffs flawed)

The e-passport might well become a thing of the present, but it’s still vulnerable to hacking, as proven recently by a German computer security expert.

At a demonstration at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, Lukas Grunwald, a security consultant with a German technology firm, successfully copied data from one e-passport to another, resulting in a maneuver that would fool e-passport readers into thinking that one person was passing through security when, in fact, someone else entirely was there.

(from Mobile Magazine, Cloned e-passport heightens RFID security fears)