The New Nation - Internet Edition

Ina Fried

Microsoft said Monday that it's seeing piracy rates for Windows Vista that are half those of Windows XP.

Now cynical me wanted to write this up as "even pirates prefer XP two to one over Vista," but that wouldn't be fair. In reality, the decline in piracy rates is largely due to the fact that Vista is much tougher to fake than XP.

"Piracy rates are lower because it's harder," Microsoft Vice President Mike Sievert said in an interview Monday.

There are a variety of reasons for that, including the fact that businesses no longer have volume license keys that can be used to activate an unlimited number of machines. Another is the fact that Vista machines that aren't properly activated pretty quickly become basically unusable once they enter "reduced functionality mode."

For Microsoft, the gains have been significant. In its last earnings call, Microsoft said that five percentage points of Windows growth could be attributed to gains in piracy.

Interestingly, though, Microsoft makes the experience a little less harsh for those running pirated versions of Vista. With Service Pack 1, Microsoft is doing away with reduced functionality mode in favor of putting prominent notifications on systems that are not found to be genuine.

Non-genuine systems with SP1 will display a warning at start-up that the system is not properly activated. Users will have the option to "activate now" or "activate later," though the second option won't show up for a time. Users will also have their desktop background changed to white and a prominent notification placed in the lower right hand corner saying that the machine is not genuine.

Still, in a significant change, those with non-genuine or non-activated copies of Vista will still be able to use their systems. Sievert said the change is designed to minimize the impact on customers who might unwittingly have gotten an illegitimate copy of Vista while still discouraging piracy.

"People won't want this experience," he said. "At the same time it will be broadly interpreted as being more fair."

Still, I wonder if the move won't cause Vista piracy rates to trend back up. I would think there are people who will deal with a copy of Vista they don't pay for but that has a big ugly notification on it. With the current Vista, they don't even have that option.

Also with SP1, Microsoft is closing two key loopholes that pirates have used to evade Microsoft's security measures. One involves mimicking the process used by large computer makers to preactivate their Vista machines, while the other extends the grace period that customers have to activate their machine, in some cases extending it for decades. It's not the first time that Microsoft has moved to close holes in its activation process. A year ago, the company changed Vista to disable a hack known as "Frankenbuild" that merged elements of the final Vista with a prerelease version.

Eric Auchard

Klausner Technologies said on Monday the company had filed a $360 million suit against Apple and AT&T Inc over voicemail patents that Klausner claims the Apple iPhone infringes.

New York-based Klausner said the lawsuit also names Comcast Corp, Cablevision Systems Corp and eBay Inc's Skype as infringing its patent for "visual voicemail." The plaintiff seeks an additional $300 million from the three.

Klausner said in a statement that it filed the lawsuit in U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Texas. A copy of the filing was not yet available from the court.

The suit alleges asserts that the defendants' Internet-based voicemail products and services violate a Klausner patent. It seeks damages and future royalties estimated at $300 million, according to the press release.

The complaint involves U.S. patent 5,572,576, the same one at issue in a suit Klausner filed in 2006 against voice-over-Internet telephone service provider Vonage Holdings Corp. The two sides agreed to settle that earlier case in October 2007, according a spokesman for Klausner.

Vonage is now a licensee of Klausner's voicemail technology for its Vonage Voicemail Plus service, as is Time Warner Inc's AOL for its AOL Voicemail services, Klausner said.

A company spokeswoman said Apple's pioneering Newton personal digital assistant was covered under a licensing deal between Klausner and Japan's Sharp Corp, the manufacturer of the Newton, tied to Klausner's U.S. patent 4,117,542.

The suit naming Apple as a defendant targets the sleek visual voicemail application offered by Apple in its iPhone.

The company alleged in its statement that Cablevision's Optimum Voicemail, Comcast's Digital Voice Voicemail and eBay's Skype Voicemail violate Klausner's patent by allowing users to selectively retrieve and listen to voice messages via message inbox displays.

An Apple spokeswoman said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said his company has not received the suit and would not comment until its lawyers have seen it.

"We haven't seen it," echoed a Cablevision spokesman, who declined to comment further.

The suit was filed for the plaintiff by the California law firm of Dovel & Luner in Texas. "We have litigated this patent successfully on two prior occasions," Greg Dovel of Dovel & Luner, said in the statement issued by Klausner.

(Additional reporting by Yinka Adegoke in New York and Scott Hillis in San Francisco, editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Leslie Gevirtz)

(From previous issue)

What is computer security and why should I care about computer security?

What is computer security?

Computer security is the process of preventing and detecting unauthorized use of your computer. Prevention measures help you to stop unauthorized users (also known as "intruders") from accessing any part of your computer system. Detection helps you to determine whether or not someone attempted to break into your system, if they were successful, and what they may have done.

Why should I care about computer security?

We use computers for everything from banking and investing to shopping and communicating with others through email or chat programs. Although you may not consider your communications "top secret," you probably do not want strangers reading your email, using your computer to attack other systems, sending forged email from your computer, or examining personal information stored on your computer (such as financial statements).

Who would want to break into my computer at home?

Intruders (also referred to as hackers, attackers, or crackers) may not care about your identity. Often they want to gain control of your computer so they can use it to launch attacks on other computer systems.

Having control of your computer gives them the ability to hide their true location as they launch attacks, often against high-profile computer systems such as government or financial systems. Even if you have a computer connected to the Internet only to play the latest games or to send email to friends and family, your computer may be a target.

Intruders may be able to watch all your actions on the computer, or cause damage to your computer by reformatting your hard drive or changing your data.

How easy is it to break into my computer?

Unfortunately, intruders are always discovering new vulnerabilities (informally called "holes") to exploit in computer software. The complexity of software makes it increasingly difficult to thoroughly test the security of computer systems.

When holes are discovered, computer vendors will usually develop patches to address the problem(s). However, it is up to you, the user, to obtain and install the patches, or correctly configure the software to operate more securely.

Also, some software applications have default settings that allow other users to access your computer unless you change the settings to be more secure. Examples include chat programs that let outsiders execute commands on your computer or web browsers that could allow someone to place harmful programs on your computer that run when you click on them.

Take a test before opening e-mail attachment

Is the email from someone that you know?

Have you received email from this sender before?

Were you expecting email with an attachment from this sender?

Does email from the sender with the contents as described in the Subject line and the name of the attachment(s) make sense?

Does this email contain a virus? To determine this, you need to install and use an anti-virus program.

Use Strong Password

For each computer and service you use (e-mail, chatting, online purchasing, for example), you should have a password.

You shouldn't write them down nor should you share them with anyone, even your best friends.

Computer intruders use trial-and-error, or brute-force techniques, to discover passwords.

Use alphanumeric characters and special characters in your password.

The length of password should be as long as possible (More than 8 characters).

Do not write it to some place where it is visible to someone else.

Protect Your Website

Stay informed and be in touch with security related news.

Watch traffic to your site. Put host-based intrusion detection devices on your web servers and monitor activity looking for any irregularities.

Put in firewall.

Configure your firewall correctly.

Develop your web content off line.

Make sure that the web servers running your public web site are physically separate and individually protected from your internal corporate network.

Protect your databases. If your web site serves up dynamic content from database, consider putting that database behind a second interface on your firewall, with tighter access rules than the interface to your web server.

Back up your web site after every update.

Protect Your Personal Computer

Use the latest version of a good anti-virus software package which allows updation from the Internet.

Use the latest version of the operating system, web browsers and e-mail programs.

Don't open e-mail attachments unless you know the source. Attachments, especially executables (those having .exe extension) can be dangerous.

Confirm the site you are doing business with. Secure yourself against "Web-Spoofing". Do not go to websites from email links.

Create passwords containing at least 8 digits. They should not be dictionary words. They should combine upper and lower case characters.

Use different passwords for different websites.

Send credit card information only to secure sites.

Use a security program that gives you control over "Cookies" that send information back to websites. Letting all cookies in without monitoring them could be risky.

Tips for Children

Do not give out identifying information such as name, home address, and school name or telephone number in a chat room.

Do not send your photograph to any one on the Net without initially checking with the parent or guardian.

Do not respond to messages or bulletin board items that are obscene, belligerent or threatening.

Never arrange a face to face meeting without informing your parent or guardian.

Remember that people online may not be who they seem to be

We hope overcome from any kind of cyber crime. We have time to avoid any kind of cyber crime. We follow they system and policy of other country. What's kind to step they take and what should they do against the cyber criminal. We believe we are not dangerous zone now. So have some time to take initiative to protected cyber crime. Last I hardly said until we not overcome our religious values we not protect any kind of crime. In our country people forget their religious values and we involve different kind of crime. We follow western culture it's not positive for us, we follow their positive things but not any negative activity. We believe our religious, culture are more rich then western.

(Muhammad Azizur Rahman, It professional & freelance journalist md.azizur 07.rahman @gmail.com)