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Information Technologies Advises Cornell Computer Users to be Wary of Viruses

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The Information Technologies sent out an alert yesterday advising all individuals on campus to exercise caution when using University computers. In the statement, sent out by Tom Young of I.T. Security, there are three “immediate threats to our computers and networks” — fake video software, hijacked network connections and a work called Conficker that is expected to undergo changes today.
“The I.T. Security Office has noted a large number of computers that became infected with [malicious software] when fake video software was installed,” the I.T. special bulletin read.

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Antivirus roundup

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If there are any words that nobody ever wants to hear, they‘re that “you have a virus on your computer”. Just thinking about the word virus sends chills down someone’s spine. While there are genuinely benign viruses that annoy you (the ambulance virus comes to mind), other viruses, such as Trojans that allow others to access your computer, are not so friendly.

So obviously, antivirus programs are a big market that is expected to reach over 9 billion dollars by 2009. However, not all them are the same, and not all of them pack quite the same punch against the nasty little buggers floating around the Internet.

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Internet Users Uphold First Amendment Rights

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Human rights activists, including myself, agree that the government has no authority to decide what is censored on the internet because this is a constitutionally protected right of an individual. The government cannot decide what another person should be able to see and do on the internet, as this is a personal decision. The internet serves as a vehicle for expression and therefore, limitations other than for criminal activity should not exist. As stated by the Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Steven Shapiro, “the government has no right to censor protected speech on the Internet, and it cannot reduce adults to hearing and seeing only speech that the government considers suitable for children”.

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Horrendous Performance with Gigabyte's RAID

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It’s well known that software RAID solutions are noticeably slower than hardware ones. Still, when I built my PC last year, I chose to use the onboard G-RAID anyway assuming that at least it was better than nothing. I wasn’t expecting the performance to be so horrendous.

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‘Bot’ Epidemic Infects Campus

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More than 1,000 Windows computers at Cornell fell victim to a widespread “bot” infection, the Cornell Information Technologies Security Office announced Friday evening through a University-wide e-mail alert.
A bot is a piece of malicious software, or “malware,” that can automatically perform various tasks that may range from downloading more malware to stealing passwords to attacking non-Cornell internet websites or servers.
None of the infected computers have shown observable change that can be seen by the user, according to Wyman Miles, manager of security engineering at the CIT security office. He explained that the lack of symptoms was probably a “deliberate attempt by the malware authors to conceal an infection for as long as possible.”