Microsoft, Patches and updates, Windows XP

Not recommended: tricky way to obtain Windows XP updates

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Someone recently discovered that it’s possible to trick Windows Update into providing updates for Windows XP.

Recall that even though Microsoft has stopped issuing updates for Windows XP to the general public, they are actually still developing updates – for paying customers.

The trick for obtaining updates for Windows XP involves changing a setting in Windows that makes Windows Update think that it’s actually running a variant of Windows XP that’s still supported, namely ‘POSReady 2009’.

There are all kinds of problems with this, starting with the likelihood that Microsoft will find a way to stop it. In short, if you’re desperate to keep running Windows XP and you want to install the available updates, and you’re willing to take the risk of totally messing up your system, it might be worth a try. But I seriously cannot recommend it.

Update 2014Jun04: For those of you who can’t resist the temptation to try this, the procedure is outlined in this betanews.com blog post.

Internet, Privacy, Security, Tools

Tools to reduce browser-based tracking

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The search engine DuckDuckGo has received a lot of attention because of its attitude towards user privacy. Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo doesn’t store your search queries. Their motto is ‘The search engine that doesn’t track you.’

Not everyone cares whether their online activities are tracked. But for those who do, DuckDuckGo’s Fix Tracking! page is an excellent source of information. Once you’ve selected your web browser, you’ll be presented with a list of tools and techniques that can help to reduce the amount of tracking that is done when you use that browser.

The Fix Tracking! page also contains a section describing Common Tracking Methods. Recommended reading.

Microsoft, Patches and updates, Security

New service from Microsoft: myBulletins

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On Wednesday, Microsoft announced myBulletins: a new web-based service that allows users to keep track of updates.

The service provides a centralized view of all Microsoft bulletins that can be customized to show only products in which you are interested. The resulting list can be further searched, filtered, and sorted. Once you customize myBulletins, it’s a handy way to see all Microsoft bulletins in one place without a lot of clutter.

To use myBulletins, you need a free Microsoft account.

Privacy, Security, Windows

Stop using TrueCrypt

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Before Microsoft started including whole-disk encryption in Windows (with Bitlocker in Vista), the best solution was TrueCrypt.

Now, according to its developers, TrueCrypt is no longer secure and should not be used. Development has been shut down and users are being instructed to use something else.

There is a lot of speculation about what’s going on. Recent revelations about security solutions being compromised by the NSA led one group to undertake a complete audit of TrueCrypt. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine that this audit prompted TrueCrypt’s shutdown. If the NSA inserted a back door into TrueCrypt, the software’s developers might want to keep that a secret. On the other hand, the audit continues, regardless of TrueCrypt’s status.

Anyone using TrueCrypt is strongly encouraged to switch to something else, like Bitlocker.

Internet

Atos still using email, despite CEO’s bluster

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Back in 2011, the CEO of Atos expressed his frustration with the amount of time his employees were spending on email, and promised to eliminate email from the company within three years.

Fast-forward three years, and the Contact page on the Atos web site still sports email addresses. Not as easy as you thought, right? Maybe that’s because email has distinct advantages over other forms of online communication. In particular, email is far less likely to be overlooked by the recipient, than, say, a Facebook post.

Update 2022Oct14: Atos is still using email.

Firefox, Flash, Java, Security, Shockwave, Silverlight

Stop Firefox from showing embedded media automatically

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My browser of choice these days is Firefox, despite its recent problems with bloat, performance and the user interface.

I recently made a change to the way Firefox handles embedded content like Java, Flash, Shockwave and Silverlight. By default, Firefox displays embedded media automatically; when you visit a web page that contains embedded media, it plays immediately after loading.

To change this behaviour, do the following:

  1. Go to the Firefox Add-ons page. How you do this depends on the version of Firefox, but one method that always works is to enter ‘about:addons’ in the address bar.
  2. In the menu on the left, click ‘Plugins’.
  3. To the right of each listed plugin, there’s a button. Clicking that button drops down a list with these options: ‘Ask to Activate’, ‘Always Activate’ and ‘Never Activate’.
  4. Change the activation setting for each plugin. ‘Never Activate’ disables a plugin completely. ‘Always Activate’ means that the associated media will run without any user intervention (the default behaviour). ‘Ask to Activate’ will prompt the user before playing the associated media. I set the following plugins to ‘Ask to Activate’: all Java plugins, all Flash plugins, all Shockwave plugins, and all Silverlight plugins.

Once you’ve made these changes, visiting a web page that includes embedded media shows grey blocks where the media would normally appear. A link appears in the middle of each block: ‘Activate Adobe Flash’, ‘Activate Java’, etc. Clicking the ‘Activate’ link pops up a small dialog that allows you to activate the media this time only, or permanently for that particular web site.

This has several benefits:

  • Malicious code in Java, Flash and other media files no longer runs automatically when I visit sites that use them. This makes web surfing much safer.
  • Pages that contain embedded media load faster. If I decide that I want to actually watch some embedded media on a site, I only have to click the ‘Activate’ link.
  • I can now see exactly what kind of media is embedded on a web page, which is especially useful for determining the relative popularity of different kinds of media.
Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Security, Windows

Internet Explorer vulnerability reported

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Zero Day Initiative, a security vulnerability reporting initiative funded by HP, recently announced a vulnerability affecting Internet Explorer 8 (and possibly other versions).

The vulnerability was originally discovered and reported to Microsoft in October 2013, and confirmed by Microsoft in February 2014. Since Microsoft has not yet issued a patch, ZDI announced the vulnerability in keeping with their disclosure policy.

Anyone using Internet Explorer is strongly encouraged to install and use Microsoft EMET, which will help to mitigate this vulnerability.

Update 2014May25: Despite some reports to the contrary, Microsoft is planning to fix this vulnerability. The problem only seems to affect IE8, and no exploits have yet been seen in the wild.

Internet crime, Privacy, Security

Blackshades users being investigated

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Krebs on Security reports that anyone who purchased the hacking toolkit known as ‘Blackshades’ should be prepared for the authorities to kick in their door and confiscate their computers.

Blackshades is “a password-stealing Trojan horse program designed to infect computers throughout the world to spy on victims through their web cameras, steal files and account information, and log victims’ key strokes.”

Rants and musings on topics of interest. Sometimes about Windows, Linux, security and cool software.

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