Open Systems Journal

While it is still a beta program, and as such not very interesting to report on yet, there is a little buzz about a Windows 7 security sacrifice to usability.
Basically Windows 7 beta fixed the annoying Vista security prompts by allowing the user to set it up (and set so by default) that the UAC [...]

Google is blaming “human error” for today’s search results screw-up that flagged the entire Web as serving up malicious code.
But the company’s explanation, detailed in a blog post by VP of search products and user experience Marissa Mayer incorrectly linked StopBadware.org to the glitch, causing major problems for the non-profit group.
StopBadware, which is run by [...]

 A few weeks ago, TG Daily noticed there were a growing number of reported drive failures posted on NewEgg.com’s customer review section for Seagate’s 7200.11 500G Barracuda hard drives. Trends in recent weeks have shown many more dissatisfied users than they had previously. Many users report their Barracuda drive became inoperable after a few months. [...]

 A new computer worm which bears the likeness of new American president Barack Obama has reportedly been discovered. It doesn’t look to be a serious threat, though, said a distributor of AVG Internet Security Products, but it still shows how vulnerable computers can be.
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As of right now, it appears any google search you do will come up with all the same results as before. What has changed is that it appears to be reporting that every site might contain malware (i.e. it shows the This site may harm your computer warning with every result). Apparently it has been [...]

A major hiccup at Google this morning caused the entire Internet to be flagged as malware. The problem appears to be centered around the Google Safe Browsing API — even that returned a “This site may harm your computer” warning see screenshot below — the security diagnostics…
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This internet may harm your computer
Updated A human error at Google caused its main search engine to briefly identify every site on the web as a potentially malicious destination that represented a threat to end users, the company said.…
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Two readers brought something interesting to our attention and we’re asking if you have some info that may help us determine what is happening.
Port scan sourcing from ports: [1-9]345
A reader noticed that the scans hitting his network have something in common. The source ports are all 4 digits and end in 345. The target IP [...]

Insecure by design? s
Security researchers have unearthed a potentially serious flaw in User Account Control (UAC) features in Windows 7. Microsoft is aware of the issue but is currently unconvinced it needs to make changes to the pre-release code.…
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A change to the User Account Control UAC in Windows 7 to make it “less annoying” allows a simple override that renders UAC disabled without user interaction, reports Long Zheng at iStartedSomething. Zheng describes the problem as follows: By default, Windows 7’s UAC setting is set…
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