Gearfuse

This is a move that’s crucial to Microsoft staying a big player. Despite the many faults of its Windows OS, it’s still the most widely used OS in the world. With that comes many virii and up until now, third-party protection has been the only choice, usually through McAffe or Symantec. But now, Microsoft is privately beta testing a new anti-virus tool that will eventually be released free of charge to Windows users. If the tool, currently codenamed “Morro”, works well, companies like Symantec will be forced to act quickly to keep themselves from going under.

It’s a good day to own MSFT stock.

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The University of Utah has quite the headache right now.

You see, that annoying April 1st worm known affectionately as “Conficker” has infected over 700 computers at U of U. The worst part is that the virus has infiltrated the school’s medical computers and thus, can steal patient’s medical data. This is a huge issue for privacy advocates, IT security professionals and students. Spokesperson Chris Nelson sez:

“…the outbreak of the Conficker worm, which can slow computers and steal personal information, was first detected Thursday. By Friday, the virus had infiltrated computers at the hospitals, medical school, and colleges of nursing, pharmacy and health.”

Looks like Conficker is turning out to be quite the pain in the ass as of lately. Hopefully it doesn’t have any more tricks up its sleeve.

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Can you say Y2K? Good, ’cause a lot of people must be thinking about that right now. That stupid virus you’ve been reading about, Conficker, was supposed to activate itself today and cause half the Internet to go down. Hell would enter Earth, our first born would die and blogging would become a well-respected profession.

Yeah, nothing happened. It’s a hoax it seems. Happy April Fool’s Day.

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Duck for cover! The Pentagon has been the victim of a cyber attack! The weapon in question is a hybrid computer worm rapidly spreading throughout the Pentagon’s thousands of interconnected defense computer networks. No worries, though. The Department of Defense has taken steps to slowing the worm’s advancement by quarantining networks and systems until its removal.

Though the entry point of the worm is unknown, inside sources have reason to believe that removable storage devices are to blame.As a result of this, the Defense Department has banned the use of external hardware devices throughout a vast network of military computers. Do we have an intruder in our midst or just an accident brought on by some friendly pornographic websites?

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Get your mind out of the gutter, friend! I wasn’t referring to the terrible diarrhea the crew of the ISS got a hold of. To be quite honest, I’m talking about a nasty little worm for Windows that NASA somehow happened to miss. The infection, known as W32.TGammima.AG, can steal passwords and fuck up your system – something you don’t want happening when you’re literally out of this world.

NASA isn’t worrying about the bug. They say it’s not the first time a virus or worm has been smuggled into outer space. Man, diarrhea on the ISS would make for a great show on FOX.

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Though a company like Symantec is generally lame, what it’s done recently might restore a little faith in the software manufacturer. As part of an awareness campaign to help inform people about malware/virii/beat shit on the Internet, Symantec has created a neat set of papercraft robots you can print out and fold. Make a bunch of them and have ‘em go at it in a winner-takes-win32.dll fight.

Interested in other papercraft projects? Check out this papercraft locksmithing kit.

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Sanyo Japan announced today that they have started to commercialize their proprietorial virus-removal technology onto their line of air purifiers as well as air-conditioners. A regular air purifier removes dusts, if the pores on the sieve gets smaller, it can pick up flower pollens or even some bacteria. If you want to move up one level, we have sieves with electrical properties that can attract and hold these particles and hence attaining an even higher level of air “purification”. However, virus is something that is difficult to tackle, mainly because of their small sizes, even the air treatment systems in most of the Operation Theaters in hospitals cannot remove virus. Sanyo Japan has figured out a way to do that cheap and small enough to fit in your house. The simple story is that they’re using electrolyzed water to attack the virus structure so that they cannot attack your body cells and make you sick. Their lab claimed that the Virus Washer technology is able to remove 99% of norovirus (recent diarrhea outbreak) in air, which cannot be removed by alcohol alone. The whole line of products was demoed this morning, so expect them to be out at the market real soon, no word on price yet. — Sam Chan

Virus Washer technology lab results [Sanyo Japan]
Virus Washer series [Sanyo Japan]