Showing headlines posted by zanek

Ugly surprises are popping up, as more and more people cede responsibility for patching Windows to Automatic Update. Security Update 908531 (Security Bulletin MS06-015), for example, triggered application lock-ups and made folders like "My Documents" inaccessible for afflicted users. Email Battles explains why you can count Automatic Update as a spectacular failure... or a stunning success. It's a "glass half-full or glass half-empty" thing.

The State of Sender Pay: While GoodMail struggles to keep AOL and Yahoo on the Sender Pay farm, Google issues an unequivocal refusal to take money for bypassing GMail filters. Still, Return Path thinks there's a buck to be made with a broken-down fixer-upper like Bonded Sender. Email Battles takes a stab at making sense of the whole mess.

Email authentication's lack of adoption isn't simply about technology. It's more about competing visions, and the powerful sponsors behind each. At least one experiment has badly stumbled on both counts. Others await the political settlement that must take place before a plurality of network managers bother adding the Last Authentication Technology Standing to their job jars. Email Battles gives you a treetop view.

In the constellation of Windows network managers, Vlad Mazek's a shiny new star. He's a hyper-active Windows crusader who administers a fleet of enterprise-class servers. So with all that Windows experience, why did Mazek choose Linux for his latest Windows-promoting project? Mazek says, when you get right down to it, it's strictly about cost: Linux is cheaper, even for a Windows MVP. That's bad news for Redmond. And very good news for Linux.

When SONY applied for a patent for attaching scripts to messages that force email recipients to respond, it seemed like a capital idea. But by the time a patent number was churned out five years later, many email recipients were safely ensconced behind network filters designed to strip or mangle most attached scripts, which have become well-known carriers of malware. What's SONY's hot patent factory to do with a patent that's gone cold?

[First a rootkit, now this. Maybe they should quit while they're behind. - dcparris]

The web is alive with complaints from Yahoo Mail account holders who didn't get mail, and legitimate senders whose mail never was delivered. Everybody seems to know it happens, but nobody ever figured out why... until now. After Email Battles mapped, analyzed and charted Yahoo Mail's mail servers, it's easy to see why the wealthy company wants to charge for certified sender services. It apparently needs the money for a new mail server.

If you sensed something might be slightly askew when Microsoft switched from allowing anonymous public comments about Internet Explorer 7 to requiring sign-ups in order to see Internet Explorer Feedback... you sensed right. The reviews of Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 are in. After toting them up, Email Battles has Good News and Bad News. The good news is for Firefox. The rest of it belongs to Internet Explorer.

After most anti-virus vendors wasted a year before they could detect any near-current version of Hacker Defender, many dismissed their failure as an anomaly. The Hacker Defender blunder just slipped through the cracks, right? Wrong. Late in December, a hacker unleashed an encrypted Hacker Defender along with the code. As, after three long months, fewer than half the anti-virus engines can detect the beasts, chances are excellent that you are not among the protected. Email Battles tells you who can, who can't... and how the a/v industry helps turn frustrated white hats black or gray. Anything but white.

A new kernelmode rootkit has the ability to communicate via Internet Relay Chat without relying on outside applications. This represents a dangerous escalation in Windows rootkit ability, as previous kernelmode device drivers required help from usermode programs. While the IRCbot released is non-destructive, it can be easily enhanced. The developer has made the download available as a Visual Studio 2003 project.

While Alexa's website Traffic Ranking service is well-known for sporadic updates, its behavior since April Fools Day is best described as nutty. The weekly and quarterly averages of many of the web's biggest sites have plunged by millions, while their graphs displayed minds of their own. Email Battles shares the angst experienced by the traders who stand to lose fantasy fortunes in Alexa's psuedo-stock market.

Samba allows UNIX, Linux, IBM System 390, or OpenVMS hosts to interact with Microsoft Windows clients and servers as if they were Windows file and print servers... Unless the remote client or server is running Windows Vista. At that point, client directory queries are returned with all but the first 100 files truncated. Microsofties say it's all Samba's fault. Email Battles begs to differ.

If you believed you had been wrongfully accused of phishing, how long would it take you to respond? A day? A week? How about four-and-a-half months? That's the elapsed time between Email Battles' tracking of a phishing scam to a Norwegian website, and the owner's complaint. In the interest of fairness, EB quickly followed-up. The errant website owner's failure to respond in kind may lead reasonable people to question his veracity.

Microsoft chief pugilist Bill Gates saw it as a knockout. Netscape did it to itself. As Internet Explorer 7 nears completion, a veteran Microsoftie is asking if history's about to repeat itself, this time with Microsoft facedown on the mat.

Telephone reps love the new systems that combine computers with telephones. ISPs are hard at work convincing customers to disconnect their Old World telephone lines in favor of sophisticated combinations of voice and data. Phone companies are pushing their phone experience as proof that they're equally capable at protecting your data. And above all, everybody has the perfect bundle for *you.* No matter which pitch you swallow, Email Battles shows you the one line in the sand that you must not cross.

[ED: The skinny: keep the land line for now. My VoIP many times has better sound quality, but it is not uncommon to see daily network failures. Last big one was over 12 hours. - HC]

After a long year of trying, Windows Live Mail BETA developers claim it just crossed the one million subscriber mark, on the way, they gush, to a fast ten million accounts. Bruised and battered beta testers who have suffered through giant ads, crashing browsers, sluggish performance, and lost contact lists are no doubt wondering how long it will take for the peppy Windows Live crew to build a Google-worthy email solution.

A market research firm, Radicati Group, is running an online survey, "2006 Messaging and Collaboration Survey", ostensibly designed to give paying customers preternatural insight into the mysteries of messaging. But the combination of its online nature and questions that ask if you intend to "stick with Domino as long as possible" suggest that the result will look more like a hit piece than a statistically valid survey.

On March 10, 2006 McAfee AntiVirus users were dismayed to find essential files had been tagged as the Win95/CTX virus, then quarantined or deleted. With no clue as to what was taking place, many kept re-scanning in hopes that McAfee could eventually remove the evil virus and repair their broken computers. Unfortunately, the "malware" attacking their systems was McAfee itself, consulting it's own misbegotten virus definition file: 4715.DAT. McAfee users are understandably upset.

The final minutes of the battle between BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) and NTP Incorporated hinged on five patents that, when the dust settles, may not be enforceable. You know the outcome. Over $612 million slid from RIM's checking account into NTP's. Everybody picked sides, based largely on principle... or BlackBerry ownership. But once you've read the patents for yourself, you may find yourself switching sides.

Everyone who buys pay-per-click advertising worries about the loss-potential posed by click-fraud. And rightfully so. Any disgruntled employee, shady competitor, or seedy entrepreneuer can unleash a click-fraud campaign that takes money out of your pocket. So what's a savvy businessperson with a tight wallet to do? Email Battles ran a painful test, the results of which may offer some useful insights.

Still fighting Firefox memory leaks? Once you've exhausted all the programmatic options, you may want to cast a sharp eye toward your hardware. Question is, which changes give you the most bang for the buck? Email Battles steps you through the reasoning for each decision, then comes to a gratifying conclusion. And the best part, you won't have to move all your software and settings to a new machine.