04 March 2004 - A bunch of new worms....

Cozahost Newsletter Archive
Newsletter Archive	Cozahost	Gezact! blog

Here is your 5 minute Cozahost newsletter: In this issue we discuss the new bunch of worms, how internet search engines are about to change and excellent freeware you can download - with some interesting news items thrown in to spice up your day. You are welcome to forward this newsletter to anyone you think may be interested. Enjoy! :)
..:: Cyberspace is still a hostile place
Not that we ever thought it was safe to go back in the cyber water! :-) This month barely started and a bunch of email worms hit the wires. The Netsky worm was released with seven variants in little more than a week - intended to keep the anti-virus software vendors playing catch-up in the release of updated virus definition files. At virtually the same time the Bagel worm entered on stage. This one is almost impossible to detect because it transmits itself in a password protected .zip file. (Virus scanners cannot open the zip file without the password and can therefore not detect the worm). The worm relies on the curiosity of end users to open the zip file (the password is supplied in the email carrying the worm) and execute the program manually. Quite simple technology, but very effective at causing wide-scale damage. In both cases the worms searches the victim's PC to find email addresses to send itself to, so you might very well receive an email from a friend or a client that contains an unwelcome "gift" - a big old slimy, stinking, nasty, worm. To double the misery of internet users, many worms open back doors to PCs which can be used by spammers to send you those oh so very special offers. On the subject of back doors: I installed a PC for a friend recently and had to connect to the internet to update the operating system with the latest security patches. Within 96 seconds of connecting to the net, a worm tried to get through the firewall on the PC. 96 seconds! This was not email to open or a file I downloaded - this was some other PC somewhere on the internet already infected by a worm searching for new victims - if I did not have a firewall installed, the new PC would have joined the army of the not-dead...in the first 96 seconds of it's internet life! :( You know the moral of the story: keep your PC updated with the latest operating system patches, install and use a good firewall and get yourself a virus scanner and keep it updated. I don't have to tell you not to open email attachments unless you are expecting it. You are too clever for that aren't you?
..::The search wars are about to start - again
Waaaaay back in the dark ages of 1996, there were only one or two search engines on the internet. Yahoo (one of the first) was an absolute break-through because before its arrival you had no way of finding information on the internet unless you knew where to look. By the way, web browsers were also quite new "back then" - I remember using telnet to connect to servers all in the world, with a thick old Unix manual next to me to type in commands and download files. :) Anyway, back to the issue at hand. Since the bad-old-good-days when Yahoo ruled, other big engines appeared and millions of users flocked to Alta Vista, Ask Jeeves, AOL and MSN. Then entered Google - and everything changed. Google used very clever formulas to "rank" pages so that you received the most relevant sites to your search first. None of the other engines could do it as well as Google. Google then upped the stakes and was the first engine to index 3 billion web pages; and serve search results faster than any other search engine - by a long shot. By now search engines were making real money (many millions of US$ profit per year) - and the rest of the players started to get that not-quite-end-of-the-month sinking feeling... Around this time Yahoo made a very sensible decision to hook into the Google search engine and combine their own search results with that produced by Google - best of both worlds as it were. Thing is, Yahoo knew that they will gradually loose market share and dwindle into insignificance unless they can offer a real and viable alternative to Google, and, besides, Microsoft announced that it was busy building a new search engine for their own search site MSN. So, a while back, Yahoo bought the search engine software maker Inktomi, (They are also used by South African Ananzi - albeit not very effectively) and quietly upgraded the engine to be a competitor to Google. Then it came: Last week Yahoo announced that it will stop using the Google search results and use its own engine exclusively! Now, if you don't see the big deal in this, think of it this way: Previously about 270 million people per month asked the same reference clerk to find information. If the clerk did not know the information was available - then, for all practical purposes it did not exist. A bad thing if you can't find what you are looking for - you will agree. With Yahoo's announcement there are now at least two independent sources that can help you information, and, when (if?) Microsoft announces their new engine we will have at least three independent sources. Great for end users - but perhaps not so great if you have a web site. Previously all you had to do is make sure you had a good ranking for your site on Google - because all the others used more or less the same results. Very good if you have a good ranking on Google, but very bad if you did not. Now you are going to have to worry about "pleasing" two and maybe three search engines to get those visitors to your web site... This glass is either half full or half empty...we will report back and help you decide as the drama unfolds.
..:: Free software good enough to pay for
Software is the fuel that makes your PC go. When you load better software, you become more productive and your relationship with your PC changes from love-hate (more hate than love for a lot of people) to pure, unadulterated, cook-a-rabbit-for-you love. :-) Well, okay, maybe I am exaggerating a little bit, but it is definitely true that using good software can do wonders for a relationship that needs a bit of work. ;-) When I find (and use) software that is simple, small and elegant and it works for me, I get really excited. Doubly so if the software is as free as the rain. In this issue I am going to introduce you to two absolute gems I found recently: The first one is Irfanview. It is a graphics viewer program that can display just about any graphics format ever made. It can build slide shows. It can generate your own screen saver (your family photos, or anything that tickles your fancy). It can convert from one format to another. It can resize and compress your web graphics. It can view your fax to email faxes. It is fast. It is small. It is free and it is be-au-ti-ful. Get your copy here... The second is KeyNote. Keynote is a note-taker I wish was built into PCs. You can have multiple note files and organize thoughts, to do lists, web bookmarks, shopping lists, project tasks - well just about anything into a neat tree-like hierarchy. You can search across the whole lot to find any text. You can cross-link notes or even place bookmarks to files on your PC. I use it to keep track of my to-dos and to arrange the random and weird ideas I get from time to time. Get your copy here... As always - make sure you download any software directly from the author...no sense in running the risk of a nasty, unsocial virus infection.
..:: Comic relief - your smile for the day :-)
A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales. The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human, because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small. The little girl insisted that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible. The little girl said, "When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah". The teacher asked, "What if Jonah went to hell?" The little girl replied, "Then you ask him".
..::Goodbye! :-)
Thanks for reading this newsletter and we hope you enjoyed it! Please email us if you have comments, suggestions or questions - we would love to hear from you. Wishing you happy, safe and productive computing - till next time.