New Mydoom Virus Variant Spreading Fast

A new version of the mydoom family of viruses is spreading rapidly today.  The virus is spread though an email attachment.  The subject line of the email will vary but the body will indicate that the users domain has been detected to have a virus.  It will request that the user opens the enclosed attachment for instructions on how to clean the virus. 

Due to the way this virus is constructed, search engines such as Google, Yahoo, etc have been hit very hard today causing serious slow downs and some times prohibiting access to their sites.

Users should be made aware of this virus as soon as possible.

New Look and Features For Blog

As you can see, I have made some changes to our Blog.  Now that Google owns the servers that host Blogspot they have added some new features.  I have changed the template that our Blog uses.  I think it is simpler and therefore easier to read.  One of the new features is the ability to use different fonts and colors.  I'm sure you'll see some of that!  You can now comment on any Blog post simply by clicking on the comments link at the end of each post.  You can see comments from other as well.  And the SSGI Blog is now syndicated meaning you can use an RSS reader to access the Blog and get notified when new posts are published.  More about that later.  I hope you like this new format and find the features useful.

Microsoft To Release Windows XP Service Pack

Sometime in August we expect that Microsoft will release a long awaited service pack for Windows XP.  Service Pack 2 will include many security updates and unfortunately is expected to cause some problems.  The built in Windows Firewall will be turned on by default, and while firewalls are generally good things, it is expected that some users will have problems with some applications, although nothing that should be disasterous.
 
We have been running the early releases of Sevice Pack 2 for several months and find it pretty stable.  We suggest that if you are planning to install the update yourself you test it on non-production devices before you roll it out.  Clients on our Maintenance Plan will have the update installed by us during the following maintence cycle after the product is released.

FTC Won't Create "Do Not Spam" List

For several months the FTC has been under pressure to create an E-mail "Do Not Spam" list similar to the "Do Not Call" list created for marketing phone calls. The FTC has decided that such a list will not work and may in fact be counterproductive to the issue.

I agree 100%. Spammers are not easily tracked down. They change names, ISPs, computers, etc. They will not think twice about ignoring the list. In fact my bet would be within 48 hours of the creation of such a list some hacker will have the list available for purchase. The Internet is not the phone system (yet), the same tools do not apply. Although not perfect, I think the sender identification methods currently being tested by major Internet players will be a much better solution to this problem.

Think Your DSL/Cable Internet Is Fast?

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have successfully transferred data across Internet2 (the next generation Internet) at speeds of 6.25 Gigabits per second. This is roughly 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection!

Imagine what can be done with data transfer at that speed! Moving voice and data around would not even scratch the surface of the bandwidth available. Live video over the Internet will be a reality. Where does it end? Who knows, but tests are being planned for Terabit speeds. For the green horns among us, a gigabit is 1 billion bits per second and a terabit is 1 trillion bits per second.

Just imagine the Spam at those speeds!