WTVN Radio • Columbus, Ohio • Sunday morning from 8 until 9

November 14, 2004

Random thought:

A view at the confluence of a browser and a worm

A variant of the MyDoom worm couldn't have shown up at a worse time for Microsoft. Or a better time for the Mozilla organization. Mozilla's new Firefox browser, out in pre-release, has been downloaded by more than 8,000,000 people and on Tuesday Mozilla released version 1.0 of the browser.

Also on Tuesday, a new worm started making the rounds and this is a worm with rockets attached to its sides. A vulnerability in Microsoft's "inline frames" feature of Internet Explorer was made public late the previous week. The difference between the new worm and earlier variants of MyDoom is that this one spreads when the victim follows a link to a rogue website.

According to the Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT), computers that have had the Windows XP service pack 2 installed appear not to be vulnerable, but a lot of people haven't yet installed SP2.

Sophos AntiVirus notes that the worm uses a hoax message with a link that takes the victim to a website that exploits the vulnerability.

Sample e-mail messages:

• Hi! I am looking for new friends. My name is Jane, I am from Miami, FL. See my homepage with my weblog and last webcam photos! See you!
• Congratulations! PayPal has successfully charged $175 to your credit card. Your order tracking number is A866DEC0 and your item will be shipped within three business days.

The worm uses "Active Scripting" which you should already have turned off long ago.

About the time the worm was starting to pick up steam (assuming worms pick up steam; perhaps they move by some other metaphor) Firefox 1.0 arrived on the scene.

Steady gains for Firefox

Many website publishers have already noticed the inroads Firefox is making. It has 3% of the market at the moment, but that's up from 0% not long ago. ZDNet and News.com have both noticed substantial up-ticks in Firefox usage.

The primary problem is that some websites still use IE-specific technology, which means that those sites will display properly only for users of Internet Explorer. Respected technology journalist Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal encourages people to use Firefox instead of IE. Sara Radicati, chief executive of the Radicati Group, a technology market research firm, told The San Francisco Chronicle, "The average person couldn't care less" about Firefox.

But Firefox looks good, runs fast, has tabbed browsing, and has a lot of really excited users who are actively spreading the word.

As a result, as I tried to download Firefox 1.0, I saw a succession of "busy" messages.

This is the view I had for a while.

I even tried using a regular FTP client, but to no avail.

After trying for a while, the download resolved to a different IP address and I had the new version within a minute.

Update problems

My favorite theme wasn't compatible with version 1.0 of the browser, but the author had an update ready within about 24 hours.

But the update also disabled some of the extensions I had installed. Bandwidth Tester turned out not to be very useful, so I don't miss it, but FireFTP is a handle little FTP client that I used occasionally. Another incompatible extension is HTML Validator with HTML Tidy (from W3C). While I have other ways to validate HTML, having this as a browser extension was helpful.

The authors will certainly update their applications before long and it's hard for me to complain about update delays when the applications are provided at no charge. Still, in a perfect world ....

If you haven't yet downloaded FireFox, you'll find it here.

If you own a domain name ...

... you'll want to know about a change in policy by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). If anyone is "in charge of" the Internet, this is the group and sometimes their decisions make as much sense and (fill in the blank here).

As of November 12, 2004, ICANN, has begun enforcing a new transfer policy for all accredited domain name service providers. Under the previous policy, registrars could deny requests to transfer domain names to another registrar unless you explicitly confirmed your intent to transfer.

The new ICANN policy removes that protection. When registrars receive a request to transfer your domain name to a new registrar, most will still attempt to contact you to confirm that you authorized the request. However, if you do not respond, or are not able to respond within 5 days, your domain name WILL be transferred.

Translation: Someone could steal your domain name if you don't respond within 5 days.

I'd seen information about this previously, but earlier messages hadn't reached "top of mind" status. Fortunately, my domain registrar, Go Daddy, sent an urgent message that explained the change.

"We are recommending," the message said, "that all Go Daddy domain customers visit GoDaddy.com and 'lock' their domain name(s). Locking your domain(s) is free and prevents unauthorized changes to contacts and name servers. Most importantly, it prevents the domain name from being transferred to another registrar without your knowledge. You may lock or unlock your domain at any time by revisiting your account. It takes only a minute, and it WILL protect your domains.

Most domain name registrars offer similar protections. If yours doesn't, you should transfer your registrations to one that does.

Nerdly News

Planning holiday travel?

American Airlines (and most other airlines) break down fares by the planned travel dates.

Some dates are more expensive than others. If you're looking for the lowest fares (and you're booking late) try for November 21-22, November 25-26, December 1, December 25, or January 5.

You'll get a break, but not as large a break if you travel November 18-22, November 25-26, November 30, December 1, December 16-20, December 24-25, December 28-29, December 31, January 1, January 4-8, January 10-15, January 17-22, or January 24-29.

Forget about price breaks if you book flights on November 18-27, November 29-December 22, December 24 - January 1, or January 3-31.

The end of the trade show?

It's no secret that trade shows -- particularly technology trade shows -- are in trouble and have been for several years. The cost of traveling to attend the show, hotel rates, and time lost from work is part of the problem. Other reasons include fear of flying and inconvenience.

Virtual trade shows are beginning to show up. For example, the Ziff-Davis Virtual Trade Show on "security" will be held on a computer near you on November 30 and December 1. You'll find more information here.

The agenda looks a lot like any trade show agenda. It includes keynote presentations that feature government officials and industry experts, panel discussions with information technology security experts, presentations by sponsors, and a virtual trade show. A chat function will even provide some networking opportunities.

This may not mean doom for real trade shows today, but as the costs of visiting a real show continue to rise, virtual trade shows will become increasingly popular.

Let us know what you think about this program! Write to:
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Joe Bradley --

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