Trojan changes Windows code to leave PCs vulnerable

A new active Trojan has been identified by the security company Sophos, dubbed PatchLS because of its manipulation of the LSASS (Local Security Authority Subsystem Service). So far, Sophos has received one report from the wild of multiple machines being infected by the Trojan. An LSASS vulnerability was exploited by the Sasser worm - one of the most widespread threats of the last six months. ...more

Clinton takes credit for Internet

Exiting US president Bill Clinton and vice-president Al Gore have accepted the credit for the world-wide growth of the Internet in a report to the Electronic Commerce Working Group. In a press release, Clinton says that the US government "created a market-led approach to e-commerce that won acceptance around the world". In the report itself, Gore says that a policy of "private investment, competition, open access, flexible regulatory frameworks and universal access" allowed the Net to prosper. ...more

Sun learns to plug and play, the Microsoft way

Sun Microsystems is to join the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) Forum. This is a group of companies working on Microsoft-backed device software, which actually competes with Sun's Jini technology. But this doesn't represent a conversion on Sun's behalf; it's simply going to look and learn. ...more

Intel brings Core 2 Duo technology to laptops

Intel has brought its Core 2 Duo technology to laptops, with the release of its 'Merom' processor. The energy efficient dual-core chips, which are based on Intel's new micro-architecture, have been released in mobile form, as part of the new 'Centrino Duo' platform. The desktop equivalent - 'Conroe' - was released back in July, with promises of a 40 percent increase in performance while being 40 percent more energy efficient than its predecessors. ...more

Google offers Video Store

As strongly expected, Google is to go up against Apple in creating a commercial pay-per-download video service. During his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week founder Larry Page announced that he had signed up CBS to provide recent and classic shows, news from ITN, music videos from Sony BMG, cartoons and coverage of games from the US National Basketball Association. There will be no fixed price for the content. ...more