[MikesWhatsNews] MWN #662 HackFix

MikesWhatsNews, 13, 06, 2003
in today's issue #662
HackFix Updates
2       Spam Information Things To Ought To Know
3       Columbia Encyclopedia
4       A FAQ About Email Lists
5       R-Linux
6       Delayer 1.10
7       What is wrong with sending HTML or MIME messages?
8       CCC     TimeTechnix
9               Turning Off Alexa.Com In Netscape 6
10      Colorblind Web Page Filter
11      How to Read all OE6 Messages in Plain Text
____________________________________________________________

NOTE: Any time you see the "  ++ ",  it means there is more 
          of the article, or story, on the linked site. Mike
____________________________________________________________

There is a complete archive of past MikesWhatsNews newsletters 
available to members on the Yahoo page, it is searchable by word 
or issue #.  Here is the address direct to the messages;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MikesWhatsNews/messages
and; http://www.freelists.org/archives/mikeswhatsnews/
____________________________________________________________

Please rate this Ezine at the Cumuli Ezine Finder

http://www.cumuli.com/ezines/ra20853.rate

<a href="http://www.cumuli.com/ezines/ra20853.rate";>
AOL Users</a>
___________________________________________________________


  HackFix updates, thanks to Christy;
staff@xxxxxxxxxxx
Http://www.hackfix.org
This weeks Virus Pattern Updates (06/12/2003)


All Software listed Alphabetically by Company name as some 
companies manufacture more then one product.


Aladdin Knowledge Systems

Esafe Desktop/Gateway/Enterprise
Last Updated June 12/2003
To update your software
Visit: 
http://www.esafe.com/esafe/downloads/virusig.asp
Or
From the Esafe folder in your Start Menu select Download Updates
~~~~~

AlWil Software

Avast Antivirus
Last Updated June 10/2003
To update your software:
Visit: http://www.avast.com/i_kat_69.html
Or
Right click on the AVAST icon in the system tray, Select iAVS Update, 
AVAST will check for updates and download the appropriate files as needed.
~~~~~

Center for Antivirus Technologies (CAT)

Quickheal
Last Updated June 12/2003
To update your software
Visit: http://www.quickheal.com/winupg.htm
Or
Open Quickheal select Utility from the top toolbar and liveupdate.  
Follow the onscreen prompts.  
Alternately you can select Liveupdate directly from the 
QuickHeal program menu on the startmenu.
~~~~~

Command Software Systems

Command antivirus/Fprot
Last Updated June 12/2003
To update your software
F-Prot
Visit: http://www.complex.is/f-prot/Download.html 
Command
http://www.commandcom.com/downloads/virus_definition_updates.html 
Or
Open Command antivirus click Update Deffiles
~~~~~

Computer Associates

E-Trust
Last updated June 12/2003
To update your software
http://support.cai.com/Download/virussig.html
Or
From the Respective folder in your Start Menu select Autodownload

For Vet Anti virus
http://www.vet.com.au/html/software/update.html

Be sure to have your Customer ID and your registered email address 
handy for verification.

**Note**

We knew this time would come eventually, that Computer Associates would 
not continue to support/update the older program 
https://www2.my-etrust.com/services/ipe_support??
~~~~~~


GeCad Software

Rav (Reliable AntiVirus)
Last Updated:  June 12/2003
To update your software:
Visit: 
http://www.ravantivirus.com/pages/dldupdate.php?type=Daily
Or
Open Rav and select Rav Update from the toolbar
~~~~~

Grisoft Inc.

AVG 
Last updated June 10/2003
To update your software
Visit: 
http://www.grisoft.com/html/us_updt.php?avg=fe
Or 
Open AVG and click Virus Database to check for updates
Or
Open AVG control centre and click Update Manager/update now

**Note:  To help speed up AVG updates you can set your program to use 
an alternate download site.  
Open AVG control centre->update manager->download from server.  The 
drop downbox should have listed www.grisoft.com (default)  and 
www.grisoft.cz. (be sure to select "apply" when done to save the changes) 
The default site is most often used so can at times become temporarily 
unavailable.  By using the secondary site (www.grisoft.cz) helps to ease 
the server and makes your update go quicker as most don't use it!
~~~~~

H+Bedv

AntiVir
Last updated June 12/2003
To update your software
Visit: http://www.free-av.com/antivirus/allinonen.html
Or
Open AntiVir, from the top toolbar select Tools->
start internet update and follow the on screen prompts.


Vexira 
Last updated June 12/2003
To update your software
Visit: http://www.centralcommand.com/updates.html
Or
Open Vexira, from the top toolbar select Tools->
start internet update and follow the on screen prompts.

Vexira Antivirus is marketed by Central Command however 
it is the same program as Antivir with only a different name.
~~~~~

Kaspersky

Kaspersky Anti-Virus (formerly AVP)
Last updated June 06/2003 
To update your software
Visit: http://www.kasperskylabs.com/updates.asp
Or
Open AVP from the top toolbar click Tools-> 
Update virus    definition
Or
From the Kaspersky folder in your Start Menu select AVP updater


*Note*  Avp now has available a cumulative update and a 
daily update with the daily being any important items they 
feel shouldn't wait till the next cumulative update.  Our 
dates here are based on the most recent Major update.

**Note:  Improved update accessiblity.  To ease the update web traffic
Kaspersky labs has additional servers for autoupdating.  The program
defaults to use one server but can be altered to check a variety of 
servers. Select Kaspersky updater, select update via the internet to 
open the drop down box(es) select "location"  Check the box labeled 
"Use alternate locations from the list"  select next and next to update.  
This option should stay selected after the first time.  This helps 
Kaspersky lighten the load for updates and helps you obtain updates 
easier.
~~~~~

Network Associates

Mcafee 
Last updated June 11/2003
To update your software 
For Mcafee Visit
http://www.nai.com/naicommon/download/dats/superdat.asp 
(for Virus and Engine updates)
http://www.nai.com/naicommon/download/dats/mcafee_4x.asp 
(for Just virus pattern updates)

Drsolomn (Product no longer available for new users however 
updates still available for current users):  Go to the following 
Internet site: http://download.mcafee.com/updates/4x.asp
IMPORTANT: When you get to this site you may notice that it refers 
to VirusScan. This update is not only for VirusScan. It also works 
with Dr.Solomon's. 

Or
Open your respective software virus scan scheduler, double click 
Auto update, click Run Now to do a manual live update, or click 
Schedule to set up a timed live update.
~~~~~

Norman Data Defence

Norman Virus Control
Last updated June 10/2003
To update your software
Visit: http://www.norman.com/downloads.shtml#definition_files_updates
Be sure to have your Valid Username and password handy for verification.
Or
From the Norman folder in your Start Menu select Internet Update

**Note Norman Virus Control web updates are only for version prior to 
5.0.  Norman 5.0 can only be updated via the update in the program itself.

Thunderbyte Anti Virus
Current Version: This product is no longer being supported.
http://www.norman.com/tbav.shtml
~~~~~

Softwin

BitDefender 
(Previously known as AVX - AntiVirus eXpert as of Nov 06/01)
Last Updated June 06/2003 
To update your software
Visit: http://www.bitdefender.com/html/updates.php
Or
Open BitDefender select Protection Options->live upgrade
Or
From the BitDefender folder in your Start Menu select 
Bitdefender Live
         
Press Release on the software change 
http://www.bitdefender.com/press/ref1.php
~~~~~

Sophos

Sophos Anti Virus
Last IDE available June 12/2003
To obtain the latest IDE files
Visit: http://www.sophos.com/downloads/ide/

**Note:  Sophos does not update as other products do.  They update 
the Engine/software once a month (or so) to include all the previous 
IDE files.  New IDE files are available with new virus threats and must 
be downloaded individually until the next software update is available.  
Our update dates reflect the most recent available IDE file.
~~~~~

Symantec

Nortons AntiVirus
Last updated June 12/2003
To update your software
Visit: 
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/defs.download.html 
select your language -> product from the list
Or
Open Nortons software and click the "live update" button
Or
From the Nortons folder in your Start Menu select 
LiveUpdate - Norton Antivirus
~~~~~

Trend Micro

PcCillin 
Last updated June 10/2003
To update your software
Visit: http://www.antivirus.com/download/pattern.asp
Be sure to have your Registration number handy for verification
Or
Open PcCillin click Update then click Update Now 
(or Update later to Schedule a timed update)
~~~~~~~~~

If there is an Anti Virus program that is Not listed here that
you would like to see added to the weekly updates list Please
feel free to let us know.

Remember Your anti virus software is only as good as the user...
If you don't keep it updated it won't provide you with maximum
protection.

This weekly Update will be sent every Thursday on or after
6pm (eastern) to keep you up to date on virus pattern updates
available. Virus patterns are checked for most recent update
date as of 6pm Thursdays.

~~~~

~ Hackfix Project Staff
staff@xxxxxxxxxxx
Http://www.hackfix.org

____________________________________________________________
2
Spam Information Things To Ought To Know by; Rene  aka Metalbunny


Spammers use mail systems of the sort called Bulk Transfer System.
Basically it's a program geared to serve lots of different messages to
millions of addresses fast and simple. Spammers ad their untraceable
techniques to these...

They flop in their latest billion addresses CD and import it into the
program. They can then filter these messages by domain type and/or origin,
depending on the program. The more advanced spammers sort their addresses by
nationality ... this is easily found by localizing the host computer for
that mail domain, but it's time consuming, so not many does that. They fill
in the messages in one end, and by using maillists, they tell the program
where to send the messages. The programs will then use whatever time it
takes to spit out the messages in the queue.

Some of the more knowledgable spammers write their own software based on
these basic principles, and add things like morphing headers, and combining
messages of randomly selected parts. Although most claim they'll honour an
unsub command, most will have their system set to take any unsub command, or
anything else that comes in, and use it to verify that address in their
list, if the address is not in the list, they'll add it ...

Since people constantly change addresses, spammers will continue to harvest
from the usenet, subscribe to maillists to harvest them, and so on, to keep
their recipient list filled with with live addresses.

Especially important: When you sign up a Yahoo account, it defaults to
adding your ID to their directory. Anyone there will start receiving spam
within 24 hours. There's also people that make money by simply harvesting
addresses from maillists and selling them to spammers.

But for the curious part: Most spammers will avoid addresses that have the
word spam in them, because they know it will most likely not work, or will
end up in a spamtrap somewhere. There's also an underground blacklist
circulating with addresses that should not be sent to, because these will
only end up meaning reporting the spammers...how to get on this list is
uncertain, but I believe it's maintained by sysops working with abuse
reports on the spam hosting networks ...

What I wrote may not be entirely accurate. It's based upon the workings of a
bulk mailer program I actually have, and an interview with a spammer I read
sometime last fall, in which he talks about how he's made his own spamming
software, and the basics of how it works. Add to that years of trying to
dodge spammers, and finding ways to avoid being harvested in groups. Using
back-traceable addresses when posting, during 6 months around christmas and
new year 2002-2003 , helped me to figure out how and where spammers picked
up addresses.

The part about the black list is something I learned about when
participating in the Danish abuse groups...
I don't have time to do that anymore...

Rene Behmer aka Metalbunny http://metalbunny.net/
References, tools, and other useful stuff...


____________________________________________________________
3
Columbia Encyclopedia
http://www.bartleby.com/65/
The online version of the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2002
"containing nearly 51,000 entries (marshalling six and one-half million
words on a vast range of topics), and with more than 80,000 hypertext
cross-references, the current Sixth Edition is among the most complete and
up-to-date encyclopedia ever
produced."
Thanks to Christy
____________________________________________________________
4
A FAQ About Email Lists
http://resources.populli.org/faq/
Also known as mailing lists or groups or clubs, at Yahoogroups, Topica,
Smartgroups or other list services, to help explain what they are and how
they work to anyone new to them or the Internet in general.
++
____________________________________________________________
5
R-Linux
http://www.r-tt.com/RLinux.shtml
  R-Linux is a free file recovery utility for the Ext2FS file system used in
the Linux OS and several Unixes. R-Linux uses InteligentScan technology and
flexible parameter settings that give you real control over the fastest data
recovery ever seen. It recovers files from existing logical disks even when
file records are lost. However, there is no any network capabilities or
ability to reconstruct damaged RAIDs or stripe sets in R-Linux.  
  
R-Linux features 
Standard "Windows Explorer" - style interface. 
Host OS: Win9x, ME, NT, 2000, XP. 
Supported file systems: Ext2FS (Linux) only.
 
Recognition and parsing Dynamic (Windows 2000/XP), Basic and BSD (UNIX)
partitions layout schema. 
Creates IMAGE FILES for an entire DISK, PARTITION or its part. Such image
files can be processed like regular disks. 
Recognizes localized names. 
Recovered files can be saved on any (including network) disks accessible by
the host operating system. 
 ++
____________________________________________________________
6
Delayer 1.10
http://www.cottonwoodsw.com/dlyrsumm.html
Program Execution delayer/timer for Windows 3.x/95/98/NT 

Delayer has a simple function: to delay the execution of a program by a
specified number of seconds (up to 24 days!). 

Why?
Primarily this is used for programs in the StartUp group (which Windows runs
automatically when starting) which don't operate properly if executed
immediately, or multiple programs that need delays between them. 

This can also be used to do basic automation of programs, or with the
'repeat' function could be used to run a task every hour, for instance. 

Other use examples: 

Pop up a periodic reminder to take a break (or get back to work!) 
Periodically check E-mail, run diagnostics, etc. 
Ping your ISP occasionally to keep it from disconnecting. 
Automatically log off after 8 hours (assuming you have a program that will
do that without user input.) 
Run a sequence of programs on startup (instead of running them all at once).

Keep your taskbar tray icons in a certain order by running the startup
programs in a certain sequence. 
++
____________________________________________________________
7
What is wrong with sending HTML or MIME messages?
http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
There are now six main reasons for NOT doing this: 

Many E-mail and Usenet News reader programs, usually the mail and news
reader programs that come with browser packages, allow users to include
binary attachments (MIME or other encoding) or HTML (normally found on web
pages) within their E-mail messages. This makes URLs into clickable links
and it means that graphic images, formatting, and even color coded text can
also be included in E-mail messages. While this makes your E-mail
interesting and pretty to look at, it can cause problems for other people
who receive your E-mail because they may use different E-mail programs,
different computer systems, and different application programs whose files
are often not fully compatible with each other. Any of these can cause
trouble with in-line HTML (or encoded attachments). Most of the time all
they see is the actual HTML code behind the message. And if someone replies
to the HTML formatted message, the quoting can render the message even more
unreadable. In some cases, the message is nothing but strange looking text.
For this reason, many mailing lists especially those that provide a digest
version, explicitly forbid the use of HTML formatted e-mail. See examples
section. 
When you send an attachment, like a word processor file, to have it appear
on the other end as the exact same type of file the recipient must have
hardware and software that can read that file. For example, if you attach a
Microsoft Word file, and the recipient of your message is using a word
processor that can't open MS Word files, that person isn't going to be able
to open your attachment and they are less than likely to be very happy about
it.
++
Thanks to; TinyApps.Org Newsletter Issue 31
http://tinyapps.org/ezine.html
____________________________________________________________
8
'Christy's Computer Corner'
  thanks to Christy;
http://www.1stpick.org

TimeTechnix  
http://www.timetechnix.com/
Freeware

{Keep track of your progress} I'm glad to see someone is on the ball. If you
have to pay attention to how long you've worked on a particular project,
there are plenty of programs that'll watch the time for you. However, if you
forget to start and stop the timer, what's the use? Here's a time keeper
that'll start when you start
working -- and (likewise) stop when you stop. It's always the simple things
in life that get overlooked, eh? You should note that it only works when
it's a non-active window. Ya know, since you're obviously working in
something else at the time.
~~~~~~~~
9
Turning Off Alexa.Com In Netscape 6

Alexa.com is a service that Netscape uses with the "What's Related" tab in
My Sidebar. This feature sends data about the pages that you're visiting in
order to display returned information in "What's Related."

If you feel that this is a violation of your privacy or do not want data
about the sites you are visiting to be sent
for any reason, disabling this feature is simple: 
Open My Sidebar, click Tabs and then select Customize My Sidebar.  
Click Recommended (if the list isn't already expanded).  
Next, click What's Related and then, in the right pane of the dialog box,
click What's Related to select it. 
Now, click Remove to delete it from your sidebar.

Was this forwarded to you ?
Get your own subscription here:
<1stpickPCtips-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=subscribe>

____________________________________________________________
10
Colorblind Web Page Filter
http://colorfilter.wickline.org/
I'd like to express my appreciation to pair.com for donating a dedicated
server to host this utility. As soon as I've secured employment in Portland
(Oregon) and finished with all of the house purchasing and cross-continent
moving craziness, I'll be porting the tool to mod_perl. In the mean time,
jpg/png processing and the handling of arbitrary file extensions may be
disabled on occasion, and the maximum file size (currently at 100KB) may be
adjusted in order to reduce server load. Potential employers may request a
private demo of an unlimited version if interested. The development of
additional filtering features (JavaScript, SVG, Flash, etc) will be on hold
until my life settles down a bit. 

This tool is still under active development. Some features may not work at
all. Documentation has not yet been created. However, you're welcome to use
the tool while I work on it. If you have any feedback, please let me know.
While this color filter will show your existing web site through color blind
eyes, you can save time by using the colorblind colorlab to select safe
colors earlier in the design process. 
++
____________________________________________________________
11
How to Read all OE6 Messages in Plain Text (Service Pack 1 Only)
Starting with Service Pack 1, you can configure Outlook Express to read all
e-mail in plain text format. Some HTML e-mail may not appear correctly in
plain text, but no active content in the e-mail is run when you enable this
setting. To read all messages as plain text in Outlook Express Service Pack
1: 

1/      Start Outlook Express, and then on the Tools menu, click Options.
2/      Click the Read tab, and then click to select the Read all messages 
          in plain text check box under Reading Messages.
3/      Click OK.

From Microsoft;  Using Virus Protection Features in Outlook Express 6
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];291387
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Antivirus software is a good choice to scan your system for possible viruses, 
however no virus scanner is 100% effective as manufactures cannot keep up with 
the rapid change of viruses that happens daily.
Be sure to update yours regularly.
http://www.hackfix.org/software/antivirus.html
______________________________________________________________________
Please feel free, to offer constructive criticism, as that will help me keep it 
interesting.
I also welcome any submissions about new products, web pages, or articles of 
interest.

All submissions posted in MWN will be given proper credit.
"MikesWhatsNews" believes in giving credit where credit is due but at times 
deadlines and information that is very important to readers we accidentally 
misspost an item.

If you believe something to be miscredited, or you know the author of one of 
the articles which we have posted as 'unknown', please do let us know so we can 
correct the information where applicable.

Many times in a article you may see a click here for more information, or to go 
to a link, these often will not work, as the original information, was taken 
from a page with HTML links. This is when you will want to go to the webpage 
indicated in the article, ++ ,for 'the rest of the story'
***MfM*** indicates that I am adding my own information to a particular    
article.
                         `~*~*~*~*~*~`
Mike ~It's a good day if I learned something new.
You can read a sample of my newsletter on my web page http://www.mwn.ca
My virus pages ~ http://virusinfo.hackfix.org 
mytech@xxxxxxxxxxx
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