Security company warning of vulnerabilities in Windows XP SP2

A US security company is warning that it has found ten 'serious' vulnerabilities in Windows XP systems with SP2 installed. The company says it has passed on details of the flaws to Microsoft but won't reveal anything publicly. Recently, a security issue with iFrame in Internet Explorer that was made public before Microsoft had the chance to fix it. ...more

RIAA tells students to drop out to pay fines

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is apparently advising students in the US to drop out of college so they can work to pay off their fines. One MIT student blog details what happened when she negotiated with an RIAA representative over paying the $3,750 fine imposed after she was found to be illegally swapping music over the Internet. After being told that the RIAA does not negotiate settlements, the student was offered a six month repayment plan. ...more

UK games chart: FIFA 2005 is football's number one

There are three new entries in this week's games chart, including EA Sports' FIFA 2005 straight in at number one. Jostling behind the latest pixelated version of the beautiful game is Microsoft's role playing Fable (for Xbox), in at number two, and Activision's Tony Hawk's Underground 2, skating its way in at number seven. As for climbers, Red is go and Green is stop, at least as far as Nintendo's latest Pokemon games are concerned. ...more

Fantasy football virus strikes

Hackers are capitalising on World Cup Fever, says security company Sophos, and a new macro virus hidden inside an Excel formula posing as a quick way to create a fantasy football league has been discovered. Once run, Yagnuul-A copies itself into every open Excel worksheet on the target computer and creates files of the form 'LuuNGayDD-MM-YYYYORIG.xls', where DD-MM-YYYY is today's date and ORIG is the name of an legitimate file on the system. ...more

Inflation gets personal

Ever wondered why official inflation figures bear little relation to the things that you buy? Now is your chance to find out. The Office for National Statistics is launching an online 'personal inflation calculator' to show how an individual's experience of inflation differs from the national average. The initiative is designed to build public confidence in national data at a time when price pressures are becoming headline news. ...more