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A couple of months ago, I downloaded a beta version of Firefox 3 just to look at the new ideas Mozilla was working on. My intention was to try it for a couple days, then switch back to Firefox 2. I wasn't worried about stability (it's a browser after all -- what's the worst that can happen?). But the beta wasn't compatible with lots of my favorite extensions and who wants to live without them?
As it turns out, I'm still using a prerelease version of Firefox (they're at Release Candidate 1 now) and loving it, even without my beloved add-ons. The improvements Mozilla has made to the browser, while subtle, are so helpful that I didn't want to give them up. Here are five of my favorites.
1. Much Better Performance

If you've used previous versions of Firefox you've likely had this experience, perhaps frequently: you're working away, but gradually become aware that something is horribly wrong with your PC. It's sluggish and apps take forever to load. You open up Task Manager and find that Firefox is chewing up 95 percent of your CPU cycles. Once you kill the browser and start over, you're running fine again.
I can't remember the last time I've had that experience with the Firefox 3 betas. Mozilla developers borrowed some memory management tricks from the Free BSD operating system for the Windows and Linux versions of Firefox. (They say memory management on Macs already worked pretty well.) The effect is clear. The browser is much less likely to commandeer too many system resources. And Firefox's developers worked to make sure that add-ons, notorious memory thieves, don't cause problems either. They've rolled in cycle collectors that help prevent extensions from locking up RAM and not giving it back. They're also distributing tools to third-party developers that will help them build more abstemious add-ons.
2. The "Awesome Bar"

Okay, so the official name is the Location Bar, the field where you enter URLs you want to visit. But beta testers have nicknamed it the Awesome Bar and it is, well, pretty awesome. Enter text in the Location Bar and a dropdown list appears of pages from your browsing history that include that text, not just in the URL, but in the page title or the page's tag (see #4 below). The list even includes Gmail messages that include that word in the subject line. If you've already visited a Web page, there's a good chance it's useful to you. The Location Bar lets you very quickly search that useful subset of the Web.

Apple has revised the way it sends software updates to Windows PCs via its Software Update service in response to charges that it was sneaking its Safari Web browser onto users' desktops without their permission or knowledge.

The latest version of the Software Update tool for Windows, version 2.1.0.110, now clearly lists software that can be downloaded via the service and groups the updates into those for applications already on the user's computer and updates for new software.

The new version of Software Update also gives users the ability to turn off the service.

In modifying Software Update, Apple was clearly responding to widespread criticism that the service downloaded Safari 3.1 onto users' systems surreptitiously.

The company included the browser as a stealth update for users of the Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Windows versions of its iTunes and QuickTime software. Mozilla CEO John Lilly likened the strategy to tactics used by hackers to insert malicious code into downloads.

"Apple has made it incredibly easy -- the default, even -- for users to install ride along software that they didn't ask for, and maybe didn't want," said Lilly, in a recent blog post. "This is wrong, and borders on malware distribution practices."

Safari competes with Mozilla's Firefox product in the Web browser market.

Safari 3.1 has been hit with other problems since it launched in March.

Researchers at software security firm Secunia last month reported finding two "highly critical" vulnerabilities in the browser.

In one instance, files with long names downloaded via the browser "can be exploited to cause memory corruption," according to Secunia. That could result in the host computer becoming vulnerable to arbitrary code execution -- a situation where intruders can remotely execute commands on the targeted machine.

The other vulnerability lets hackers display their own content in pages loaded into Safari 3.1 without changing what's displayed in the browser's URL address bar.

There's also been reports that Safari 3.1 tends to crash on computers running Windows XP .

Microsoft said Friday that it was going to start testing a subscription service that combines its OneCare anti-virus package, the home version of its Office suite, and some other features in one package, called Albany, to be sold by subscription.

Microsoft already sells OneCare in the form of annual subscriptions, but it represents the first time it will sell Office that way.

This seems like a useful experiment, but dreadfully late. And I’m not sure it confronts the major questions of value in the marketplace. Consumers are used to getting so much free these days that I wonder what they will be willing to pay for.

Microsoft won’t answer the biggest question about the bundle: how much it will cost? So let’s think about the options.

Right now OneCare has a list price of $50 a year, and Microsoft Office Home and Student lists for $150 in the version you can use forever. (Amazon is currently selling a one-year OneCare subscription for $30 and the home Office version for $120.)

The Microsoft news release also says that Albany also includes Microsoft Live Mail, Messenger and Photo Gallery, services that are already free. (Am I the only one who gets annoyed when companies breathlessly tell me they are giving me something that they had already been giving me? It’s almost as annoying as a company offering a service, but not saying how much it will cost.)

In any case, how much would this package be worth? Assume that Microsoft upgrades Office every three years. So for people who wanted the most up-to-date version, the list price of $150 for the home edition of Office would come to $50 a year. So the combination of Office and OneCare, at $50 a year, assuming you wanted it, would bring the price to $100 a year, list, or $80 a year, based on the Amazon discounts.

Since typically you pay more for things on a month-to-month basis than if you pay all at once, that might imply a fair price of $10 or $12 a month for the Microsoft bundle. Microsoft could try to throw in some other features and raise the monthly price to $15, but I suspect that won’t work. The “Ultimate extras” that are bundled with Windows Vista Ultimate, for example, have underwhelmed even the biggest Microsoft fans.

On the other hand, Microsoft could get aggressive and charge say, $80 or $90 for a one-year subscription ($6.66 or $7.50 a month). I suspect that would be a smart move. Over the next few years, Microsoft has to be prepared for the potential that Google’s free Web-based applications will be very competitive in the home market. So getting customers used to the idea of paying something, but not much, for Microsoft software may wise.

More interesting, of course, would be if Microsoft found a way to offer a version free with advertising. That wouldn’t be for everyone, but it is a fine option. One hint that Microsoft is thinking in that direction is the fact the Albany package will include a “Microsoft Office toolbar, so users can save documents to their own dedicated online workspace and invite friends and classmates to collaborate and share.” Whatever features they may promote, toolbars are really about one thing: Getting users to use a certain search service.

If Microsoft can get people who take its bundle to switch from Google to Live search, it may well be worth giving away the home version of Office.

Well, several bloggers and webmasters are reporting to have observed a Pagerank update on their blog/website. This is probably another one of those official Google Pagerank updates that takes place usually after every 3-4 months. Most bloggers seem to be happy with the new Pagerank update and apparently it looks like Google is no more interested in cutting down the Pagerank of blogs that sell paid links.

Since Google started penalizing publishers and advertisers for manipulating their technology, Google Pagerank seems to have lost its importance as a vital topic of discussion and interest.

Now most bloggers and webmasters don’t really seem to care about Pagerank and discussions about Google Pagerank are nowhere to be seen anymore. However this does not mean that Google Pagerank has no importance at all. It is still used by Google as a tool to mark the popularity of your blog and give you a search engine ranking position (SERP) accordingly.


Tips to Increase your Google Pagerank

• Here are some random short-tips to help your increase your blog/website Pagerank


• Build a lot of backlinks


• Use very less outbound links on your posts/web pages


• Use the rel=”nofollow” tag with every outbound link


• Have a W3C Markup validated code

Currently I have taken some strict measures to keep my blog high on Google SERPs and it is paying quite well so far. I have not seen any increase in the Google Pagerank and it is still at 5 but as long as I am high on Google SERPs, the Google Pagerank is not such a big thing to worry about.

i know most people have problems like "my firefox is too slow".

wel this is a way too boost you firefox speed, so you can enjoy the internet.


it's called Fasterfox and it allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay.

Dynamic speed increases can be obtained with the unique prefetching mechanism, which recycles idle bandwidth by silently loading and caching all of the links on the page you are browsing.


it makes the loading time much faster so you can have more tabs open etc.

so here we go..


Step 1: Open your Firefox browser.


Step 2: Go to http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1269

Step 3: Click Install Now and finish installation.


Step 4: What you have installed is called Fasterfox, it will improve loading times and comes with lots of other nifty features. Try it..!!

Macgamestore and Gogii Games have announced the release of The Hidden Object Show, a new visual puzzle game. It costs US$19.95 and a demo is available for download.

The Hidden Object Show is set up like a game show, on the set of an abandoned movie studio. You're tasked with finding a list of items in each scene. You can win virtual prizes and virtual money as you play through 11 different game modes. The game comprises 330 object-finding rounds, 30 different scenes, and includes 30 unique prizes to collect.

System requirements all for Mac OS X v10.3.9 or later.

Apple's Safari, Mozilla's Firefox 3, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 duke it out to be the program you use most on your PC.

Back when the earliest programs for viewing Web content simply browsed flat pages of images and text, the name browser truly fit the software.

But yesterday's amateur pages have evolved into dynamic, content-rich portals and powerful online programs. For many online habitués, the do-it-all browser has become a PC's single most important program.

Recognizing that fact, Apple's Safari, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and Mozilla's Firefox are battling to win the nod as your browser of choice. So which one should you use--Safari 3.1, Firefox 3, or Internet Explorer 8?

Apple's latest offering, Safari 3.1, preserves the company's signature focus on clean design and smooth usability, but it lacks any phishing or malware filters.

For its part, Mozilla should have applied the finishing touches to Firefox 3 by the time you read this (I tested the feature-complete beta 5 release). From under-the-hood memory improvements to a major reworking for bookmarks, version 3 represents a big step forward.

Whereas the new Firefox and Safari browsers are ready to roll, Microsoft's early beta of Internet Explorer 8 remains a work in progress. Bugs and rough edges are to be expected in a first beta intended for developers and testers. But IE 8 beta 1 provides a glimpse of new features such as WebSlices (which let sites create widgety snippets of information that you can view by clicking a bookmark button) and Activities (which add right-click menu options for looking up selected text and pages on map, translation and other sites) that will distinguish the browser Microsoft eventually releases.

Firefox, IE, and Safari are the three most popular browsers, according to Internet usage statistics, but they aren't the only ones available. So I also took a separate look at two worthwhile, free programs--Flock and Opera.

Workloads running on Linux servers are shifting to become more business oriented, including databases and line-of-business applications, and the operating system appears headed for measurable growth over the next three years, according to a white paper released Tuesday by IDC.

The report entitled "The Role of Linux Servers and Commercial Workloads" was sponsored by the Linux Foundation, which opened its second annual summit Tuesday. The nonprofit Linux Foundation is a consortium of open source developers and companies.

The IDC paper found that total Linux spending -- including customer acquisitions of hardware, software and related services -- totaled US$21 billion in 2007 and is expected to grow past $50 billion in 2011.

IDC says the jump will be fueled by the continued growth of the installed base of Linux server operating systems into enterprise deployments.

"The data is not stunning to me," says Al Gillen, an analyst with IDC who co-authored the white paper. "I have been watching it evolve over the past several years. The biggest story is that the ecosystem is now real."

He says Linux spending surpassing the $20 billion mark is an important milestone. "But this does not put Microsoft on the ropes from a revenue perspective."

Gillen points out that the Linux business model differs substantially from the one that Microsoft has constructed. "So Linux is unlikely to ever get to the size of total revenue that the Microsoft market enjoys," he says.

Regardless, Linux is enjoying growth.

IDC's forecast for Linux server operating environments calls for 8.2% of compound annual growth from 2007 to 2012 for both new paid subscriptions and non-paid deployments.

IDC says the growth will be driven by paid subscriptions of commercial Linux distributions that are deployed on physical servers, virtual servers and other hardware types including redeployed server hardware and PCs and workstations that are used as servers.

But the future is not without potential roadblocks.

The white paper points out that Linux could face challenges from OpenSolaris if that alternative open source operating system begins to find favor on x86 platforms. In addition, the market dominating position of Windows also presents a challenge to long-term Linux success, especially as Microsoft competes to win Unix migrations.

But the changing nature of Linux deployments should give the open-source operating system a new avenue to seek prosperity.

The IDC study found that in addition to traditional infrastructure workloads handled by Linux server operating systems, such as DNS, DHCP and Web serving, that deployments for such applications as ERP and CRM are beginning to take hold.

For example, Novell and SAP extended a partnership in March that will have Novell supplying Linux-based platform, virtualization and identity support to SAP's small and mid-sized customers.

IDC found that Linux servers deployed for business and commercially oriented workloads, including business processing and decision support, will grow from 2001 through 2011 from 9% to 17.7%.

The IDC white paper showed that business processing deployments grew from 6.7% of Linux server operating system deployments in 2003 to 8.2% in 2007. Decision support workloads were up from 7.3% to 9.1% over the same time period.

IDC found that spending on software related to Linux server platforms is on a compounded annual grow rate of 35.7% from 2006 to 2011.

The IDC paper showed that software on the Linux platform holds about 4% of the current overall market, which represents $10 billion of a $242 billion total. The Linux share is expected to grow to more than 9% by 2011, which will represent $31 billion in software revenue in a $330 billion market.

The Linux Foundation Summit, which is an invite-only meeting, runs through Thursday with an agenda that focuses discussion around on-going development areas including desktop architecture, printing, virtualization, mobile/embedded, power management, the Linux Standards Base OS and legal issues.

You may be intrigued by the idea of switching to Linux. But how will you get your job done without your favorite Windows programs? These 18 great open-source apps make life with Linux easier.

For many users, getting started with Linux is surprisingly easy. New, friendlier versions of the free operating system, such as Fedora and Ubuntu, feature straightforward menus and automated installations that make switching from Windows to Linux a relatively simple process.

But a lot of people who try Linux dump it and switch back to Windows the instant they want to get some work done, mostly because they don't know which Linux programs to use in lieu of their old Windows standbys. Fortunately, such confusion need last only a moment.

Linux offers equivalents to many Windows applications that are often as good as--or even better than--the programs you're used to. In some cases the apps are also available in Windows and Mac OS versions, allowing dual-booters to stay with the same set of free programs regardless of the operating system in use.

For your convenience, we've provided download links to as many of these applications as possible. The majority of them, however, come preinstalled in the most popular Linux distributions, or are available through online software installers such as Fedora's YUM or Ubuntu's Synaptic Package Manager. Installing new software through your Linux distribution's package management system is generally better than installing programs manually, so check your OS's software repositories before downloading any of the apps from our links.

The process to restore the far-ultraviolet detector on the Galaxy Evolution Explorer has been successfully completed, and the instrument resumed full, normal operations on December 17.

The detector experienced an overcurrent condition on Nov. 17, and was shut off by the instrument's on-board fault protection.

Project team members concluded the far-ultraviolet detector exhibited a "slow" overcurrent condition, like that which occurred in early 2006. The cause was a short within the detector's microchannel plate stack. The project used the same recovery technique established in the 2006 recovery. This involved "hi-potting," or cycling the detector on and off at progressively higher voltage.

The onboard near-ultraviolet detector has continued to operate normally.

The awe-inspiring sight of a sky full of stars can render us speechless—and understandably so. Two very different entities are involved, and they're both rather mysterious.

At one extreme stands the individual observer, peering through a telescope or simply staring up at the stars. To ask who is doing the observing is to raise one of the oldest questions of philosophy. "Know yourself," said Socrates, although he made the mistake of assuming that one had to accomplish this before trying to learn about the rest of the universe. (Rejecting a scientific account of the winds, Socrates said, "I can't as yet 'know myself' ... and so long as that ignorance remains it seems to me ridiculous to inquire into extraneous matters.") Actually, we humans have since learned more about ourselves by studying the wider world—by investigating the processes that created life and shaped its evolution—than we ever did through introspection, and we see those processes written large in the depths of the sky.

At the other extreme stands the wider universe itself, unimaginably vast and yet, as Einstein said, "at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking." Notoriously indifferent to the human condition, the universe is also curiously involving. We feel that we belong to it, or in it—that the blades of grass underfoot are as much a part of the universe as the blazing stars seen through the eyepiece. We may love this sensation, but as it says in the film, "it can be hard to put love into words." So this is a film in which stargazers try to describe an ineffable experience, and invite viewers to share their wordless awe.

To convey a sense of that experience, we departed from the conventions of science filmmaking in several ways. The first step was to do away with a conventional "presenter." I seldom talk to the camera in this film, since when you go out to look through a telescope you may appreciate a guide's whispering into your ear but you don't want him standing between you and the stars while he gives you a lecture. Our production team also devoted a lot of effort to depicting the stargazing experience in ways that closely replicate the real thing: Our aim was not just to inform our viewers (although we hope we've done that) but to incite them to get outside at night and have a look for themselves. After all, the point of stargazing is not just to see things as other have seen them, but to have an original and memorable experience all your own—even if you cannot describe it all.

The grandeur of nature on the cosmic scale tends to beggar familiar concepts nurtured here on Earth, and Seeing in the Dark is ultimately a meditation, as the final line of the voice-over narration puts it, on "time, music, and the stars."

Time inevitably figures in stargazing, since everything we see in the night sky belongs to the past. This relationship is embodied in the "light year," a standard cosmic yardstick defined as the distance light, moving through the vacuum of space at 186,000 miles per second, travels in one year—nearly six trillion miles. We see the Moon as it was 1.3 seconds ago, bright stars as they were decades to centuries ago, and galaxies as they were millions of years ago. To confront light older than the human species and even the Earth may be disconcerting at first—big time, like big space, making the us feel inconsequential by comparison—but in the end it can be oddly reassuring to consider the fleeting span of human life in a cosmic context. We may be only actors strutting on a stage, but the stage is big and the play has been going on for a very long time.

Seeing in the Dark is structured on three contrasting scales of time. On one level, the entire film takes place in the course of a single night at Rocky Hill Observatory, starting just before sunset and ending just after dawn. On a second level, it outlines my own experiences with stargazing, starting at age twelve and lingering on the days when I was around seventeen years old and was observing with fellow members of our rather grandly named Key Biscayne Astronomical Association. My son, Patrick, plays me at that age, then returns as himself at the close of the film, in a dialog that suggests how the accumulation of scientific knowledge can overcome the limitations of human mortality by passing knowledge down through the generations. This dynamic is reprised in the film's other two historical recreations, showing Edward Emerson Barnard and William Herschel in the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries respectively, each of whom got into stargazing as teenagers and went on to make discoveries that continue to inform us today. On a third level the film moves out in space and back in time, starting with nearby planets and then enlarging its frame of reference to take in our galaxy and, finally, the Andromeda galaxy, more than two million light years away—a time frame that encompasses the entire career of the human species.

Music, like cinema, is an art form intimately bound up with the passage of time: A still photo may do justice to a painting or a poem, but you cannot "freeze" a movie or a piece of music and get much out of it. Astronomers have long associated music with the sky—from Pythagoras, who in the sixth century BC suggested that an underlying harmony, a "music of the spheres," defined the motions of the planets, to recent work on the internal dynamics of the Sun that liken it to a gigantic gong. Seeing in the Dark features two musicians turned amateur astronomer—William Herschel in the eighteenth century and Michael Koppelman today. It also touches on my own involvement in music, which resulted among other things in my producing the gold record carried aboard the twin Voyager space probes. (The Voyagers are now approaching the edge of the solar system, thereafter to wander forever among the stars.) The blues music that meant so much to me as a young man was a kind of time capsule, and the ability of music to answer to the beauty of the night sky in ways that may transcend the scope of words is evinced in the original musical score created for the film by Mark Knopfler and Guy Fletcher.

The stars appeal to the eye in ways never before rendered so accurately in a film. Their colors (which result from their temperatures), their twinkling (produced by Earth's atmosphere), and the imposing appearance of thousands of stars arrayed across great swathes of the night sky cannot be captured by any existing motion-picture camera, so we drew on a wide range of art and modern technology to bring the stars to life on the screen. For naked-eye skies we started with the still photographs of Akira Fujii, regarded as the world's foremost wide-angle astrophotographer, then "twinkled" their brighter stars by applying pseudorandom algorithms developed at the digital-processing houses Form in Los Angeles and Video Arts in San Francisco and by our special effects artist, Don Davis. (The digital post-processing wizards started with theoretical models, while Don simply made de-focused video images of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, then reverse-engineered its twinkles to apply them to the stars in the photos.) Telescopic views of brighter objects such as the Moon and the planets were shot with an HD camera through a large backyard telescope by the astrophotographers Kenneth Crawford and Michael A. Mayda. Dimmer telescopic objects, from star clusters and nebulae to galaxies, were rendered by taking thousands of stills which were then run as frames of motion-picture footage—thirty frames per second of on-air time—or by "twinkling" still images. Here the key contributors were Jack Newton, Mike Palermiti, and our cinematographer, Francis Kenny, who also post-processed the timelapse footage of stars rising over Rocky Hill Observatory that opens the film's final scenes.

Several zoom shots seen in the film would not have been possible a decade ago. The long "pull" on the Cone nebula seen over the Einstein quotation in the Cape Florida beach sequence exploited the high resolution of Rob Gendler's painstakingly assembled wide-sky photomosaic of the Milky Way in the constellation Monoceros. Our long "push" into the Orion nebula begins with a timelapse photo of the entire constellation, shot on a digital camera piggybacked on the 18-inch Newtonian telescope at Rocky Hill, then dissolves into a Rob Gendler mosaic and then into a Don Davis effect in which we fly through the center of the nebula itself. Don's special effects—hovering over the rings of Saturn, moving out among the stars to spot extrasolar planets, witnessing the explosion of a star eleven billion years ago, and flying over the entire Andromeda galaxy—capture something of the "being there" sensation familiar to seasoned stargazers whose knowledge of astronomical objects lets them get the most out of their hours at the telescope in much the same way that a baseball game looks much deeper and more involving to a knowledgeable fan than to a novice.

Stargazing has been a fascination of mine for a half century. (As it happened we started principle cinematography on the film exactly fifty years after I acquired my first telescope.) To do justice to such a beautiful subject, at once personal and universal, I assembled a dream team of creative collaborators. Among them were cinematographer Francis Kenny, who combined his years of feature-film shooting with his extensive experience in high-definition video to explore new visual territories; our editor, Lisa Day, who made the film dance; our cheerful and resourceful director, Nigel Ashcroft, who brought the script to life on location; the sound designer, Kate Hopkins, whose grounding in natural-history filmmaking did so much to draw earth and sky together; and the sound mixer, Walter Murch, a three-time Academy Award winner who threw himself into the project as if it were his first. In all, more than a hundred people worked on Seeing in the Dark. If you like it, they deserve the credit. If not, I'm the one to blame.

Seattle – A “Briefing Packet for Educators” just issued by PBS in conjunction with the NOVA program Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial inserts religion into the classroom and encourages teaching practices that are likely unconstitutional, says Discovery Institute.

“The NOVA/PBS teaching guide encourages the injection of religion into classroom teaching about evolution in a way that likely would violate current Supreme Court precedents about the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause,” says Dr. John West, vice president for public policy and legal affairs with Discovery Institute.

Discovery Institute has published its own guide, The Theory of Intelligent Design: A briefing packet for educators to help them understand the debate between Darwinian evolution and intelligent design. Click here to download a PDF.

The teaching guide is a companion piece to the NOVA docudrama about the 2005 Dover intelligent design trial and claims to provide for teachers “easily digestible information to guide and support you in facing challenges to evolution.” The guide instructs teachers to introduce religion into science classes with discussion questions like “Can you accept evolution and still believe in religion? A: Yes. The common view that evolution is inherently antireligious is simply false.”

“This statement oversimplifies the issue and encourages teachers to prefer certain religious viewpoints in the classroom, betraying Supreme Court law concerning religious neutrality,” says attorney Casey Luskin, program officer for public policy and legal affairs at Discovery Institute.

“The Supreme Court ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas that the government must maintain ‘neutrality between religion and religion’," says Randal Wenger, a Pennsylvania attorney who filed amicus briefs in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. "Because the Briefing Packet only promotes religious viewpoints that are friendly towards evolution, this is not neutral, and PBS is encouraging teachers to violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.”

Discovery Institute has enlisted over a dozen attorneys and legal scholars, including Wenger, to review the PBS teaching guide with an eye to its constitutionality.

“The PBS materials, in suggesting that students need not be concerned that evolution violates their religion, ironically equip public school teachers to violate our current conception of the First Amendment by explicitly teaching students concerning matters of religious belief,” adds Wenger. “The irony is that discussing intelligent design would not teach any student about any religious belief—the PBS materials, on the other hand, will.”

The teaching guide also presents false information about the theory of intelligent design.

“The teaching also guide is riddled with factual errors that misrepresent both the standard definition of intelligent design and the beliefs of those scientists and scholars who support the theory,” adds Luskin.

“PBS gives a false definition of intelligent design that is a complete straw man argument,” explains Luskin. “Scientists who support intelligent design seek evidence of design in nature, and argue that such evidence points to intelligent design, based on our historical knowledge of cause and effect. So, intelligent design theory is not an argument based on what we don’t know, but rather an argument about what we do know.”

About the Author: For the last 28 years Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig has been working on mutation genetics at the University of Bonn and the Max-Planck-Institute für Züchtungsforschung in Cologne (Bonn 7 years, Cologne 21 years).

The articles listed represent his personal opinion on the topic of the evolution of the giraffe and do not reflect the opinion of his former or present employer. The author, not a fellow of the Discovery Institute, obtained his PhD in genetics at the University of Bonn, and is the author of numerous peer-reviewed scientific papers.

The Evolution of the Long-Necked Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis L.) – What Do We Really Know? (Part 1).

The Evolution of the Long-Necked Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis L.): What do we really know? (Part 2).

Appendix Responding to Cameron & du Toit (2007): "Winning by a Neck: Tall Giraffes Avoid Competing With Shorter Browsers".

This article appears in the peer-reviewed* volume Darwinism, Design, and Public Education published with Michigan State University Press. In “DNA and the Origin of Life,” Stephen C. Meyer contends that intelligent design provides a better explanation than competing chemical evolutionary models for the origin of the information present in large biomacromolecules such as DNA, RNA, and proteins. Meyer shows that the term information as applied to DNA connotes not only improbability or complexity but also specificity of function. He then argues that neither chance nor necessity, nor the combination of the two, can explain the origin of information starting from purely physical-chemical antecedents. Instead, he argues that our knowledge of the causal powers of both natural entities and intelligent agency suggests intelligent design as the best explanation for the origin of the information necessary to build a cell in the first place. Click Here to Download the article

Scam artists exploiting tax season have devised a range of new online cons: fake tax documents that contain malicious surprises; mass distribution of keyloggers aimed at snatching the identity of PC-based tax filers; and e-mail messages containing links to Web sites that promise new tax code information but instead push malware onto your PC.

That's not all, according to the Internal Revenue Service. This year, identity thieves are not just trying to gain access to your bank account or to open lines of credit in your name. Scammers are on the prowl for ordinary citizens' identities that they can they can use in filing phony tax returns and fraudulently claiming refunds, as well as to swipe rebates associated with the 2008 federal economic stimulus package.
Tax Scam 2.0

Security experts at Webroot Software report seeing a new wave of keyloggers (programs that secretly record every character you type), system monitors, and viruses leading up to prime tax filing season. Webroot's Threat Research Team says that more than 1200 new key-logging programs and 336 versions of system monitoring spyware have been found and defined in the past month alone.

Why the increase? Fewer taxpayers are using old-fashioned paper forms for preparing and submitting their taxes. According to Webroot's figures, a record 22 million taxpayers filed their taxes from a home computer last year, up 11 percent from the previous year. Scammers know this and figure that your identity is especially vulnerable to theft when you're filling out your tax documents with a software program or filing them over the Internet.
Stimulus Package Stimulates Scammers

Several states are warning that con artists are using thehighly publicized rebate checks associated with the 2008 federal economic stimulus package as a ploy to get you to divulge personal financial information.

Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley says that some state residents have received bogus e-mail messages that purport to be from a government agency such as the IRS or Social Security Administration. The messages request personal information that supposedly would expedite the turnaround time of either a tax refund or a stimulus rebate check.

For the record, the federal government expects to issue economic stimulus rebate checks sometime in May or June. IRS refund checks typically arrive within three weeks of the date when you e-file your return.

Coakley warns that some fraudulent e-mail messages contain links to fake government Web sites that request your Social Security number and bank account numbers so that the IRS can process a rebate check. If you resist disclosing the information, the site informs you that you won't be able to receive your rebate.

New and creative malware will push the total number of viruses to one million by year's end, Sophos security experts say.

The total number of viruses will reach one million by year's end, according to security experts.

Malware writers have been forced to create new types of viruses and exploits more regularly as businesses and individuals improve security practices, the experts said.

Sophos chief technology officer Paul Ducklin said about 25 percent of unique malware has been created in the last six months of its 20 year history.

"About 85 to 90 percent of malware families have a fix created for them almost immediately," Ducklin said.

"Malware writers aren't getting the same bang for buck as they used to because businesses and consumers have become much more diligent with security over the last five years.

"The number of infectious e-mail attachments getting through are down from about one in 40 [about five years ago] to one in 1000."

He said the decline in infections are due to better gateway filters, more relevant corporate policies and user education, and dilution from a rise in legitimate e-mail traffic.

While the security industry is on top of conventional spam and phishing attacks, more effort needs to be put into preventing and eliminating so-called drive-by-downloads, according to Ducklin.

The attacks allow hackers to redirect mass amounts of traffic by inserting malicious iframes into legitimate Web sites. The hacks are usually invisible to Web site visitors and do not often draw attention from security personnel because they only require a single line of code to be manipulated.

He said it is essential that the exploit is patched because hackers search for compromised sites for follow-up attacks.

F-Secure Asia Pacific vise president Jari Heinonen said it logs about 25,000 malware samples each day, the highest on record.

"The total number of viruses and Trojans will pass the one million mark by the end of 2008 if this trend continues," Heinonen said.

"While there are more viruses than ever before, people report seeing less of them [because] malware authors are changing their tactics.

"Drive-by downloads are the preferred way of spreading malware [because] they happen automatically by visiting a Web site, unless users have a fully patched operating system, browser and plug-ins."

Heinonen said malware will increasing target the kernel sector through rootkits such as Mebroot, which attacks the bootstrap sector.

A resurgent Mebroot was detected last month, some 15 years after the DOS-based malware was created.

Microsoft hints that the next version of its Windows operating system will arrive in 2009.

Microsoft has dropped two strong hints in the past two days that the next version of its Windows operating system will arrive in 2009, shaving up to a year off previous expectations.

It could also be a signal that Microsoft intends to cut its losses with Windows Vista, which has been poorly received or shunned by customers, especially large companies.

Microsoft has long said it wants to release Windows 7 about three years after Vista, which was released to manufacturing in November 2006 but not officially launched until January 2007. Given Microsoft's recent track record - Vista arrived more than five years after XP - most outsiders had pegged some time in 2010 as a safe bet for Windows 7's arrival.

But News.com reported Friday that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates answered a question at a business meeting in Miami about Windows Vista by saying "Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version."

And during its announcement Thursday that it would extend the availability of Windows XP Home for low-cost laptops, Microsoft said it would retire the operating system only after June 30, 2010, or one year after the release of Windows 7, whichever comes later.

That implies that Microsoft is targeting the middle of next year for some sort of release milestone for Windows 7 - the only codename known at the moment - though whether that would be a final release to consumers or an RTM, which allows businesses and OEMs to start installing it, is unknown.

A Microsoft spokeswoman, in an e-mail, said the company "is in the planning stages for Windows 7 and development is scoped to three years from Windows Vista Consumer GA." She said the company was providing early builds of the new operating system to gain user feedback, but otherwise was not providing further information.

Gates also said that he was "super-enthused about what [Windows 7] will do in lots of ways" but didn't elaborate.

What could those be? Microsoft has divulged a few things. Responding to criticism that Windows has become unnecessarily bloated, the company has 200 engineers developing a slimmed-down kernel called MinWin that uses 100 files and 25MB, compared to Vista's 5,000 files and 4GB core and is so small it lacks a graphical subsystem.

Microsoft has also confirmed that the operating system will come in consumer and business versions and in 32-bit and 64-bit editions.

Screenshots of early betas of Windows 7 are also appearing. Blogger Paul Thurrott yesterday put up screenshots from build 6519 of Windows 7 released in December, which he said looks like "a slightly enhanced version of Windows Vista."

Microsoft needs to start generating excitement about its software months or years in advance in order to prepare its millions of reselling partners.

But if it talks up Windows 7 too much, it runs the risk that large companies -- Microsoft's most profitable customer segment -- will hold on to their Windows XP machines and skip Vista entirely in favor of Windows 7.

That appears to be happening. A recent enterprise survey by Forrester Research Inc. showed that only 6.3% of enterprises were running Vista at the end of December, with most of the upgrades coming at the expense of aging machines running Windows 2000, not XP.

The vast majority of the 100 million copies of Vista that Microsoft has sold so far have gone to individuals and small businesses purchasing new PCs.

The least-loved version of Windows has long been Windows Millennium Edition (ME), a buggy minor upgrade that was superseded by XP within a year of its release. Despite its far greater - some would say, too great - technical ambition, Vista may end up lumped together with ME as one of the blips on Windows' long-term roadmap.

The offer price could drop if Yahoo doesn't cooperate soon, Microsoft CEO Ballmer warns.

Microsoft on Saturday threatened Yahoo's board of directors with a proxy battle if it won't agree to a buy-out in the next three weeks.

Breaking nearly two months of silence since Yahoo's board rejected Microsoft's US$44.6 billion bid, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer sent an open letter Saturday to Yahoo saying it is prepared to take its offer directly to shareholders.
Wants Fast Answer

In blunt and harsh language, Ballmer reiterated Microsoft's opinion that its offer was "generous" and said the company had expected that a deal would be struck swiftly. "Despite this, the pace of the last two months has been anything but speedy," he wrote.

Ballmer also threatened to lower the price of Microsoft's offer if it is forced to mount a proxy battle.

"If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal," he wrote.
Buyout the 'Only Alternative'

Since it rejected Microsoft's offer Feb. 11, claiming it was too low, Yahoo has been holding out for a better offer from another company or the opportunity to strike up a partnership that would save it from agreeing to Microsoft's bid. However, Yahoo has so far been unable to negotiate another deal.

Ballmer used this leverage in the letter, telling Yahoo that Microsoft's offer is "the only alternative" to give its shareholders a fair return on their investment and input into the future of the company.

"By any fair measure, the large premium we offered in January is even more significant today," Ballmer said. "We believe that the majority of your shareholders share this assessment, even after reviewing your public disclosures relating to your future prospects."

He also accused Yahoo's executives of being unwilling to negotiate with Microsoft, and said Yahoo's stalling is wasting valuable time the combined company could be using to be more competitive in the Internet business.

The Computer Underground consists of mainly two forms of media, printed
and electronic, both will be discussed in this file. I use the word
underground because some of the contents of this file are not the types of
titles you would run across at your local bookstore or newsstand. The kind of
information that makes up underground publications is mainly technical in
nature, but, definitely not limited to that. One can also find tidbits about
off-the-wall political views, drugs, weapons, and other topics that are not
normally in the mainstream of our society.

The Computer Underground...

Com-put-er Un-der-ground \kem-`pyt-er\ \`en-der-`grand\ (1970's)

A group organized in secrecy, hidden behind aliases, to promote the free
exchange of information regarding anything and everything including but
not limited to Computers, Telephones, Radios, Chemicals, and ideas.


The CU is made up of men and women all over the globe and of all ages. Most
of those involved in the CU consider it a hobby, but, there are those that
are involved strictly for illegal purposes, i.e. Selling Pirated Software. I,
like most people involved enjoy the information that can be obtained through
all of the different avenues in the CU, i.e. Bulletin Boards, Underground
Periodicals, Network Digests, and General Discussions between members.

The most common way members communicate is through Bulletin Boards. If you are
reading this you know what a BBS is because this will not be released in
printed form. There are thousands of BBSes around the world run by people for
many reasons including: legitimate businesses, Software Technical Support,
Hobby related, Pirated Software, Message Centers, etc...Some of the more common
ones are RIPCO, Face-2-Face, Exec-PC, The Well, etc...

Currently there are many regular electronic magazines that are being published
and there have been many that have discontinued for one reason or another.
Some current ones include: PHRACK, NIA, PHANTASY, CUD, etc...Some discontinued
ones include: PIRATE, PHUN, NARC, etc...

There is a current debate about whether or not an electronic media has the same
constitutional rights as the printed one. That is for our congressmen to
decide, but you could voice your opinion. I personally can't see the differ-
-ence. Now, don't get me wrong I do not support the publishing of Long-
distance codes or anything of that nature, but, I do support the exchange of
other information, i.e. how to unprotect a game, how to make a smoke bomb,
etc...

There are also "Underground Publications" like TAP, 2600, Cybertek, etc.
These magazines are published in hard copy and deal with every considerable
topic regarding the CU. Most of these magazines publish completely legal
information that is obtained from public sources and is available to anyone
and everyone.

I doubt that any of the following sources of information would mind if you use
an alias to order any of their material, so I would recommend that you do
just in case! You might even want to get yourself a private mail box for all
of this "underground" information. I would also advise you to use a money
order when purchasing anything also. They usually cost an extra 50 cents at
the post office. Don't worry about using money orders with these people because
I have personally made purchases from many of them without trouble.

The following information is provided to enable you to become more familiar
with the CU and unusual information in general. Have fun and try not to
get yourself in trouble.

Now for the meat of this Article!!!!

E L E C T R O N I C M A G A Z I N E S

PHRACK Predecessor to Phrack Classic
Author: Knight Lightning & Taran King
Network Address:c483307@umcvmb.missouri.edu
Other Address:
BBS: None
Last Issue: Phrack #30

PHRACK CLASSIC
Author: Doc Holiday, Crimson Death & Various Contributors
Network Address: pc@well.uucp or cdeath@stormking.com
Other Address:
BBS: None
Last Issue: Phrack Classic #32 11/90

LOD Legion Of Doom Technical Journals
Author: Eric Bloodaxe, Lex Luthor, Prime Suspect, Phase Jitter,
Professor Phalken, Skinny Puppy.
Network Address: None
Other Address:
BBS:
Last Issue: LOD Tech Journal #4 May 20, 1990

PHUN Phreakers/Hackers Underground Network
Author: Red Knight
Network Address: N/A
Other Address:
BBS:
Last Issue: P/HUN #5 05/07/90

ATI Activist Times, Incorporated
Author: Ground Zero
Network Address: gzero@tronsbox.xei.com
Other Address: ATI P.O. Box 2501 Bloomfield, NJ 07003
BBS:
Last Issue: ATI #53 12/05/90

NIA Network Information Access
Author: Guardian Of Time & Judge Dredd
Network Address: elisem@nuchat.sccsi.com
Other Address:
BBS:
Last Issue: NIA #70 02/91





PHANTASY
Author: The Mercenary
Network Address: None
Other Address: The I.I.R.G. 862 Farmington Ave, Suite-306,
Bristol, Ct 06010
BBS: Rune Stone 203-485-0088
Last Issue: Phantasy V1N4 1/20/91

PIRATE
Author: Various Authors
Network Address: N/A
Other Address:
BBS: N/A
Last Issue: V1 #5 April 1990

ANE Anarchy 'N' Explosives
Author: Various Authors
Network Address: N/A
Other Address:
BBS: N/A
Last Issue: #7 06/16/89

NARC Nuclear Phreakers/Hackers/Carders
Author: The Oxidizer
Network Address: N/A
Other Address:
BBS:
Last Issue: NARC #7 Fall 1989

SYNDICATE REPORTS
Author: The Sensei
Network Address:
Other Address:
BBS:
Last Issue:


This is not an attempt to list all of the known magazines but just some of the
more popular ones. If I left a particular one out that you feel should of been
included I apologize.

All of the above magazines can be found in the CUD archives and at many of the
Bulletin Board Systems listed at the end of this file.

P R I N T E D M A G A Z I N E S

Author: Emmanuel Goldstein
Network Address: 2600@well.sf.ca.us
Other Address: 2600 Magazine, P.O. Box 752, Middle Island, NY 11953

2600 Magazine is published quarterly, 48 pages per issue.
Subscriptions are $18 U.S. for a year in the U.S. and Canada,
$30 overseas. Corporate subscriptions are $45 and $65 respectively.
Back issues are available for $25 per year, $30 per year overseas
and they go back to 1984.

Phone 516-751-2600
Fax 516-751-2608






TAP/YIPL Formerly YIPL "Youth International Party Line"
Now TAP "Technical Assistance Party"

TAP Magazine
P.O. Box 20264
Louisville, KY 40250
Most all issues will cost $1.00 for US Citizens and $2.00
for overseas. Terms are CASH, postal money order,
or regular money order with the payee left blank.
BBS: 502-499-8933

Cybertek Magazine
Published by OCL/Magnitude
P.O. Box 64
Brewster NY 10509
$2.50 for sample issue
$15 year for 6 issues


Mondo 2000 (Formerly Reality Hackers Magazine / High Frontiers)
P.O. Box 10171
Berkley, CA 94709-5171
Phone 415-845-9018
Fax 415-649-9630
$24 for five issues
Frank Zappa subscribes to Mondo 2000!!!

Fact Sheet Five
6 Arizona Ave
Rensselaer, NY 12144-4502
$3.50 for a sample issue.
$33 a year for 8 issues
Phone 518-479-3707

Fact Sheet Five reviews any independent news media, i.e. 2600, TAP,
Books, Music, Software, etc.

Full Disclosure by Glen Roberts
P.O. Box 903-C
Libertyville, Illinois 60048
Free sample issue
$18 for 12 issues

Deals with Privacy, electronic surveillance and related topics.

Anvil
P.O. Box 640383f
El Paso, TX 79904

Computer Security Digest
150 N. Main Street
Plymouth, MI 48170
Phone 313-459-8787
Fax 313-459-2720
$125 U.S. per year.
Overseas $155 U.S. per year.


HAC-TIC Dutch Hacking Magazine
Network Address: ropg@ooc.uva.nl
Other Address: Hack-Tic P.O. Box 22953 1100 DL Amsterdam
Phone: +31 20 6001480



Privacy Journal
P.O. Box 15300
Washington D.C. 20003
Phone 202-547-2865

Monitoring Times
140 Dog Branch Road
Brasstown, North Carolina 28902


B O O K S

Anarchist Cookbook???

Poor Man's James Bond by Kurt Saxon

Big Secrets by William Poundstone

Bigger Secrets by William Poundstone

How to get anything on anybody by Lee Lapin

Signal--Communication Tools for the Information Age A Whole Earth Catalog
(Highly Recommended!!!)

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Out of The Inner Circle by Bill Laundreth

Hackers by Steven Levy

The Cookoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll

The Shockwave Rider

Information for sale by John H. Everett

Hackers Handbook III by Hugo Cornwall

Datatheft by Hugo Cornwall

The International Handbook on Computer Crime by U. Sieber

Fighting Computer Crime by D. Parker

Foiling the System Breakers by J. Lobel

Privacy in America by D. Linowes

Spectacular Computer Crimes by Buck BloomBecker

Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman

M I S C E L L A N E O U S C A T A L O G S

Loompanics LTD
P.O. Box 1197
Port Townsend, WA 98368

Paladin Press
????


Consumertronics
2011 Crescent DR.
P.O. Drawer 537
Alamogordo, NM 88310
Phone 505-434-0234
Fax 500-434-0234(Orders Only)

Consumertronics sells manuals on many different hacking/phreaking related
topics, i.e. "Voice Mail Box Hacking", "Computer Phreaking", etc.

Eden Press Privacy Catalog
11623 Slater "E"
P.O. Box 8410
Fountain Valley, CA 92728
Phone 1-800-338-8484 24hrs, 7 days a week.

Here is the opening paragraph from their catalog:

Welcome to the Privacy Catalog, Over 300 publications explore every aspect of
privacy in ways that are not only unique, but also provocative. Some books may
seem "controversial", but that results only from the fact that people can enjoy
many different views of the same subject. We endeavor to offer views that will
prove both helpful and thoughtful in the many areas where privacy may be a
concern.

Criminal Research Products
206-218 East Hector Street
Conshocken,PA 19428

Investigative equipment and electronic surveillance items.

Ross Engineering Associates
68 Vestry Street
New York,NY 10013

Surveillance items

Edmund Scientific CO.
101 E. Gloucester Pike
Barrington, NJ 08007

Catalog of gadgets and devices including items which are useful to the
surveillance craft.

Diptronics
P.O. BOX 80
Lake Hiawatha, NJ 07034

Microwave TV Systems
Catalog costs $3

Garrison
P.O. BOX 128
Kew Gardens, NY 11415

Locksmithing tools and electronic security gadgets.
Catalog costs $2.

Bnf Enterprises
P.O. BOX 3357
Peabody, MA 01960

General electronics supplier.

Mouser Electronics
11433 Woodside avenue
Santee, CA 92071

Sells most electronic components parts and equipment.

Benchmark Knives
P.O. BOX 998
Gastonia, NC 28052

Call for a free catalog. (704-449-2222).

Excalibur Enterprises
P.O. BOX 266
Emmans, PA 18049

Night vision devices.
Catalog costs $5

DECO INDUSTRIES
BOX 607
Bedford Hills, NY 10157

Sells mimiture Electronic Kits

Matthews Cutlery
38450-A N. Druid Hills RD.
Decatur, GA 30033

Their catalog contains over 1000 knives and costs $1.50.

U.S. Cavalry Store
1375 N. Wilson Road
Radcliff, KY 40160

Military & paramilitary clothing & gear.
Catalog costs $3.

The Intelligence Group
1324 West Waters Avenue
Lighthouse Point, FL 33064

Sells video equipment used for investigative purposes.

Columbia Pacific University
1415 Third Street
San Rafael, CA 94901

Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate degrees

Video & Satellite Marketeer
P.O. BOX 21026
Columbus, OH 43221

Newsletter containing video, vcr, satellite dishes, etc.

Santa Fe Distributors
14400 W. 97'TH Terrace
Lenexa, KS 66215

Radar detectors and microwave tv systems.
(913-492-8288)


Alumni Arts
BOX 553
Grant's Pass, OR 97526

Reproductions of college diplomas.
Catalog costs $3

Merrell Scientific CO.
1665 Buffalo Road
Rochester, NY 14624

Chemical suppliers
Catalog costs $3.

K Products
P.O. BOX 27507
San Antonio, TX 78227

I.D. Documents.
Catalog costs $1.

City News Service
P.O. BOX 86
Willow Springs, MO 65793

Press I.D. cards.
Catalog costs $3.

Matthews Police Supply CO.
P.O. BOX 1754
Matthews, NC 28105

Brass knuckles etc.

Taylor
P.O. BOX 15391
W. Palm Beach, FL 33416

Drivers license, student I.D. cards, etc.

Capri Electronics
ROUTE 1
Canon, GA 30250

Scanner accessories

Liberty Industries
BOX 279 RD 4
Quakertown, PA 18951

Pyrotechnic components
Catalog costs $1

DE VOE
P.O. BOX 32
BERLIN PA 15530

Sells information on making electronic detonators.

Scanner World USA
10 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, NY 12208

Cheap scanner receivers.

H & W
P.O. BOX 4
Whitehall, PA 18052

Human Skulls, arms, legs, etc.
A complete list is available for $1 and Self Addressed Stamped Envelope.


Abbie-Yo Yo Inc.
P.O. Box 15
Worcester MA 01613

This is an old address that I could not verify but, they used to sell the book
"Steal This Book".



For most of these catalogs you could probably play dumb and just send them a
letter asking for a catalog or brochure without paying a cent. Pretending not
to know that their catalogs cost anything.


M I S C E L L A N E O U S R E P O R T S & P A P E R S

Crime & Puzzlement by John Perry Barlow

The Baudy World of the Byte Bandit A Postmodernist Interpretation of the
Computer Underground by Gordon Meyer & Jim Thomas

Concerning Hackers Who Break into Computer Systems by Dorothy E. Denning

The Social Organization of the Computer Underground by Gordon R. Meyer

Computer Security "Virus Highlights Need for Improved Internet Management"
By the United States General Accounting Office. GAO/IMTEC-
89-57
Call 202-275-6241 for up to 5 free copies.

N E T W O R K D I G E S T S

Telecom Digest
Moderator: Patrick Townson
Network Address: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu

Risks Digest
Moderator: Peter G. Neumann
Network Address: Risks@csl.sri.com


Virus-l Digest
Moderator: Kenneth R. Van Wyk
Network Address: krvw@cert.sei.cmu.edu

Telecom Privacy Digest
Moderator: Dennis G. Rears
Network Address: telecom-priv@pica.army.mil

EFF News Electronic Frontier Foundation
Network Address: effnews@eff.org
Other Address: 155 Second Street Cambridge, MA 02141
Phone: 617-864-0665


Computer Underground Digest
Moderators: Jim Thomas & Gordon Meyer
Network Address: tk0jut2@niu

F T P S I T E S C O N T A I N I N G C U M A T E R I A L


192.55.239.132
128.95.136.2
128.237.253.5
130.160.20.80
130.18.64.2
128.214.5.6 "MARS Bulletin Board" Login "bbs"
128.82.8.1
128.32.152.11
128.135.12.60

All of the above accept anonymous logins!

B U L L E T I N B O A R D S

Ripco 312-528-5020
Face-2-Face 713-242-6853
Rune Stone 203-485-0088 Home of NIA
The Works 617-861-8976
The Well 415-332-6106
Blitzkrieg 502-499-8933 Home of TAP
Uncensored 914-761-6877
Manta Lair 206-454-0075 Home of Cybertek


I N D I V I D U A L N E T W O R K A D D R E S S E S

Aristotle Former Editor of TAP Magazine
uk05744@ukpr.uky.edu or uk05744@ukpr.bitnet

Dorthy Denning Author of "Concerning Hackers Who Break into
Computer Systems"
denning@src.dec.com

Clifford Stoll Author of "Cookoo's Egg"
cliff@cfa.harvard.edu

Craig Neidorf Former Editor of Phrack Magazine
c483307@umcvmb.missouri.edu

Ground Zero Editor of ATI Inc.
gzero@tronsbox.xei.com


M I S C S O F T W A R E

SPAudit Self-Audit-Kit
1101 Connecticut Avenue
Northwest Suite 901
Washington DC 20036
Phone 202-452-1600
Fax 202-223-8756

Free!!!


I would like to thank everyone who gave me permission to use their information
in this file.

The information provided here is for informational purposes only. What you
choose to do with it is your responsibility and no one else's. That means not
me, and not the BBS you downloaded this from!

To my knowledge this is the most comprehensive and upto date list of
underground books, catalogs, magazines, electronic newsletters, and network
addresses available. If there are any additions or corrections to this list
please contact me via the Ripco BBS.

In the following file, all references made to the name Unix, may also be
substituted to the Xenix operating system.

Brief history: Back in the early sixties, during the development of third
generation computers at MIT, a group of programmers studying the potential of
computers, discovered their ability of performing two or more tasks
simultaneously. Bell Labs, taking notice of this discovery, provided funds for
their developmental scientists to investigate into this new frontier. After
about 2 years of developmental research, they produced an operating system they
called "Unix".

Sixties to Current: During this time Bell Systems installed the Unix system
to provide their computer operators with the ability to multitask so that they
could become more productive, and efficient. One of the systems they put on the
Unix system was called "Elmos". Through Elmos many tasks (i.e. billing,and
installation records) could be done by many people using the same mainframe.

Note: Cosmos is accessed through the Elmos system.

Current: Today, with the development of micro computers, such multitasking
can be achieved by a scaled down version of Unix (but just as powerful).
Microsoft,seeing this development, opted to develop their own Unix like system
for the IBM line of PC/XT's. Their result they called Xenix (pronounced
zee-nicks). Both Unix and Xenix can be easily installed on IBM PC's and offer
the same functions (just 2 different vendors).

Note: Due to the many different versions of Unix (Berkley Unix, Bell System
III, and System V the most popular) many commands following may/may not work. I
have written them in System V routines. Unix/Xenix operating systems will be
considered identical systems below.

How to tell if/if not you are on a Unix system: Unix systems are quite common
systems across the country. Their security appears as such:

Login; (or login;)
password:

When hacking on a Unix system it is best to use lowercase because the Unix
system commands are all done in lower- case.

Login; is a 1-8 character field. It is usually the name (i.e. joe or fred)
of the user, or initials (i.e. j.jones or f.wilson). Hints for login names can
be found trashing the location of the dial-up (use your CN/A to find where the
computer is).

Password: is a 1-8 character password assigned by the sysop or chosen by the
user.

Common default logins
--------------------------

login; Password:

root root,system,etc..
sys sys,system
daemon daemon
uucp uucp
tty tty
test test
unix unix
bin bin
adm adm
who who
learn learn
uuhost uuhost
nuucp nuucp

If you guess a login name and you are not asked for a password, and have
accessed to the system, then you have what is known as a non-gifted account. If
you guess a correct login and pass- word, then you have a user account. And,
if you guess the root password, then you have a "super-user" account. All Unix
systems have the following installed to their system: root, sys, bin, daemon,
uucp, adm

Once you are in the system, you will get a prompt. Common prompts are:


$

%

#


But can be just about anything the sysop or user wants it to be.

Things to do when you are in: Some of the commands that you may want to try
follow below:

who is on (shows who is currently logged on the system.)
write name (name is the person you wish to chat with)
To exit chat mode try ctrl-D.
EOT=End of Transfer.
ls -a (list all files in current directory.)
du -a (checks amount of memory your files use;disk usage)
cd\name (name is the name of the sub-directory you choose)
cd\ (brings your home directory to current use)
cat name (name is a filename either a program or documentation your username
has written)

Most Unix programs are written in the C language or Pascal since Unix is a
programmers' environment.

One of the first things done on the system is print up or capture (in a
buffer) the file containing all user names and accounts. This can be done by
doing the following command:



cat /etc/passwd



If you are successful you will a list of all accounts on the system. It
should look like this:

root:hvnsdcf:0:0:root dir:/:
joe:majdnfd:1:1:Joe Cool:/bin:/bin/joe
hal::1:2:Hal Smith:/bin:/bin/hal

The "root" line tells the following info :

login name=root
hvnsdcf = encrypted password
0 = user group number
0 = user number
root dir = name of user
/ = root directory

In the Joe login, the last part "/bin/joe " tells us which directory is his
home directory (joe) is.

In the "hal" example the login name is followed by 2 colons, that means that
there is no password needed to get in using his name.

Conclusion: I hope that this file will help other novice Unix hackers obtain
access to the Unix/Xenix systems that they may find. There is still wide growth
in the future of Unix, so I hope users will not abuse any systems (Unix or any
others) that they may happen across on their journey across the electronic
highways of America. There is much more to be learned about the Unix system
that I have not covered. They may be found by buying a book on the Unix System
(how I learned) or in the future I may write a part II to this........

To start off with, I'd just like to say this file is a collectithe
latest BBS crashes. Many people have grudges and reasons to 'crash' a bbs,
well this file is served as an aid to them and also to sysops who want to
prevent their own bbs' from being attacked. And that's enuff talk for now,
let's get on with the good stuff (everything is in cookbook format for speedy
reading).


[-=: Apple Net :=-]


1. Post a message (can be bbs,feedback,newuser etc.)
2. Press space bar util you get to the very last line (40th col.)
3. type ctrl-D
4. (after the word wrap to next line) Type any dos command (Preferrably FP)
5. get into editor ('/E')
6. list the program
7. You should be in basic or executing whatever dos command you entered


Requirements:

- Must have wordwrap activated
- 40 columns mode should be activated
- Their must be a (L)ist command in the editor


[-=: Telecat 2.x & 3.0 :=-]


2.x
-----


1. Go to the board section
2. Newscan the last board accessable
3. After the first message, type 'B' at the prompt (To jump to next board)


Results:

- If it was the last board on the bbs, chances arethat will break into Basic
- If not, then it will go on to the next board (which is handy and surpassess
the security level crap)

3.0
-----


1. Post Message
2. Type a line of text
3. type ctrl-V


Results:

- This should either hang the system or break into basic
- It is trying to center the line but it fucks up

[-=: GBBS Pro :=-]

Method 1:

1. Go the the editor
2. Hold down tab key
3. or press space and type ctrl-C

Method 2:

1. Upload to a full volume

Method 3:

1. read the userlist
2. hang up when it gets to the Sysop
3. call back and log on and you'll be a sysop

[-=: Proving Grounds :=-]

Method 1:

1. (On older versions) Enter decimal or negative numbers

Method 2:

1. Call board and enter the user number of a Remote sysop
2. Enter any bs for a pw
3. Do the same thing again (more garbage the 2nd time it asks)
4. Now enter your real number and pass
5. At the first input prompt type 'Remote'
6. This should give you the Remote Sysop menu and access

Notes:

- Using Sysop's user# will give you 10 extra minutes on system
- The second method works only on unmoded newer versions of Proving Grounds

Ok, well that about wraps it up. Remember, all these crashes work only on
unmoded boards (which are on the most part run by leeches and geeks).

If you have any questions or more tips for Vol.2 then leave me mail on
Halifax 20megs (301)445/5897 or Eastern Alliance 10megs (201)327/5725
and where else you see me. Both are fine boards. Have Fun!

[---------------------------]
Mistywood BBS/AE/CF........818/335-5651
Mistywood // BBS...........602/220-9363
The Wizards Guild..........409/696-8226
Den o/Crude Tort...........617/832-9229
Sirius Cybernetics.........808/528-2436
[-------------------------------------]


DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS.....

Silenio and I are at Apple this week. We were invited to take a course which turned out to be a cocoa hack-a-thon. It's a good deal for me because I get to code and get away from distractions at IBM.

As many of you know, cocoa is Objective-C and SWT is programmed from top to bottom in Java (otherwise, we couldn't possibly develop or maintain the toolkit). So the first order of business was to figure out how to call Objective-C from Java. We needed to convert this:

[object message: 12];

into Java.

Obviously, we could have a billion natives, one for each message, but this would be too crazy, even for us. So we got the compiler to dump the assembler to see what was going on. It turns out that everything is a call to objc_msgSend() so we typed these guys in and were on our way.

On Monday, Scott Kovatch (my friend at Apple) said, "Hey, we've got a description of all this stuff in XML". He showed us where it was and by the start of the next day, Silenio had all of the selectors and classes that we needed. So instead of typing:

OS.objc_msgSend(id, OS.sel_message, 12);

we were typing:

object.message(12);

Everyone else in the room thinks we're insane.

If you've let your guard down--or even if you haven't--it can be hard to tell if your PC is infected. Here's what to do if you suspect the worst.

Heard this one before? You must run antivirus software and keep it up to date or else your PC will get infected, you'll lose all your data, and you'll incur the wrath of every e-mail buddy you unknowingly infect because of your carelessness.

You know they're right. Yet for one reason or another, you're not running antivirus software, or you are but it's not up to date. Maybe you turned off your virus scanner because it conflicted with another program. Maybe you got tired of upgrading after you bought Norton Antivirus 2001, 2002, and 2003. Or maybe your annual subscription of virus definitions recently expired, and you've put off renewing.

It happens. It's nothing to be ashamed of. But chances are, either you're infected right now, as we speak, or you will be very soon.

For a few days in late January, the Netsky.p worm was infecting about 2,500 PCs a day. Meanwhile the MySQL bot infected approximately 100 systems a minute (albeit not necessarily desktop PCs). As David Perry, global director of education for security software provider Trend Micro, puts it, "an unprotected [Windows] computer will become owned by a bot within 14 minutes."

Today's viruses, worms, and so-called bots--which turn your PC into a zombie that does the hacker's bidding (such as mass-mailing spam)--aren't going to announce their presence. Real viruses aren't like the ones in Hollywood movies that melt down whole networks in seconds and destroy alien spacecraft. They operate in the background, quietly altering data, stealing private operations, or using your PC for their own illegal ends. This makes them hard to spot if you're not well protected.

Is Your PC "Owned?"

I should start by saying that not every system oddity is due to a virus, worm, or bot. Is your system slowing down? Is your hard drive filling up rapidly? Are programs crashing without warning? These symptoms are more likely caused by Windows, or badly written legitimate programs, rather than malware. After all, people who write malware want to hide their program's presence. People who write commercial software put icons all over your desktop. Who's going to work harder to go unnoticed?

Other indicators that may, in fact, indicate that there's nothing that you need to worry about, include:

* An automated e-mail telling you that you're sending out infected mail. E-mail viruses and worms typically come from faked addresses.
* A frantic note from a friend saying they've been infected, and therefore so have you. This is likely a hoax. It's especially suspicious if the note tells you the virus can't be detected but you can get rid of it by deleting one simple file. Don't be fooled--and don't delete that file.

I'm not saying that you should ignore such warnings. Copy the subject line or a snippet from the body of the e-mail and plug it into your favorite search engine to see if other people have received the same note. A security site may have already pegged it as a hoax.

Sniffing Out an Infection

There are signs that indicate that your PC is actually infected. A lot of network activity coming from your system (when you're not actually using Internet) can be a good indicator that something is amiss. A good software firewall, such as ZoneAlarm, will ask your permission before letting anything leave your PC, and will give you enough information to help you judge if the outgoing data is legitimate. By the way, the firewall that comes with Windows, even the improved version in XP Service Pack 2, lacks this capability.

To put a network status light in your system tray, follow these steps: In Windows XP, choose Start, Control Panel, Network Connections, right-click the network connection you want to monitor, choose Properties, check "Show icon in notification area when connected," and click OK.

If you're interested in being a PC detective, you can sniff around further for malware. By hitting Ctrl-Alt-Delete in Windows, you'll bring up the Task Manager, which will show you the various processes your system is running. Most, if not all, are legit, but if you see a file name that looks suspicious, type it into a search engine and find out what it is.

Want another place to look? In Windows XP, click Start, Run, type "services.msc" in the box, and press Enter. You'll see detailed descriptions of the services Windows is running. Something look weird? Check with your search engine.

Finally, you can do more detective work by selecting Start, Run, and typing "msconfig" in the box. With this tool you not only see the services running, but also the programs that your system is launching at startup. Again, check for anything weird.

If any of these tools won't run--or if your security software won't run--that in itself is a good sign your computer is infected. Some viruses intentionally disable such programs as a way to protect themselves.

What to Do Next

Once you're fairly sure your system is infected, don't panic. There are steps you can take to assess the damage, depending on your current level of protection.

* If you don't have any antivirus software on your system (shame on you), or if the software has stopped working, stay online and go for a free scan at one of several Web sites. There's McAfee FreeScan, Symantec Security Check, and Trend Micro's HouseCall. If one doesn't find anything, try two. In fact, running a free online virus scan is a good way to double-check the work of your own local antivirus program. When you're done, buy or download a real antivirus program.
* If you have antivirus software, but it isn't active, get offline, unplug wires-- whatever it takes to stop your computer from communicating via the Internet. Then, promptly perform a scan with the installed software.
* If nothing seems to be working, do more research on the Web. There are several online virus libraries where you can find out about known viruses. These sites often provide instructions for removing viruses--if manual removal is possible--or a free removal tool if it isn't. Check out GriSOFT's Virus Encyclopedia, Eset's Virus Descriptions, McAffee's Virus Glossary, Symantec's Virus Encyclopedia, or Trend Micro's Virus Encyclopedia.

A Microgram of Prevention

Assuming your system is now clean, you need to make sure it stays that way. Preventing a breach of your computer's security is far more effective than cleaning up the mess afterwards. Start with a good security program, such Trend Micro's PC-Cillin, which you can buy for $50.

Don't want to shell out any money? You can cobble together security through free downloads, such as AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, ZoneAlarm (a personal firewall), and Ad-Aware SE (an antispyware tool).

Just make sure you keep all security software up to date. The bad guys constantly try out new ways to fool security programs. Any security tool without regular, easy (if not automatic) updates isn't worth your money or your time.

Speaking of updating, the same goes for Windows. Use Windows Update (it's right there on your Start Menu) to make sure you're getting all of the high priority updates. If you run Windows XP, make sure to get the Service Pack 2 update. To find out if you already have it, right-click My Computer, and select Properties. Under the General tab, under System, it should say "Service Pack 2."

Here are a few more pointers for a virus-free life:

* Be careful with e-mail. Set your e-mail software security settings to high. Don't open messages with generic-sounding subjects that don't apply specifically to you from people you don't know. Don't open an attachment unless you're expecting it.
* If you have broadband Internet access, such as DSL or cable, get a router, even if you only have one PC. A router adds an extra layer of protection because your PC is not connecting directly with the Internet.
* Check your Internet ports. These doorways between your computer and the Internet can be open, in which case your PC is very vulnerable; closed, but still somewhat vulnerable; or stealthed (or hidden), which is safest. Visit Gibson Research's Web site and run the free ShieldsUP test to see your ports' status. If some ports show up as closed--or worse yet, open--check your router's documentation to find out how to hide them.