Friday, February 5, 2010

“Mozilla Confirms Infected Firefox Add-Ons - CIO” plus 3 more

“Mozilla Confirms Infected Firefox Add-Ons - CIO” plus 3 more

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Mozilla Confirms Infected Firefox Add-Ons - CIO

Posted: 05 Feb 2010 06:25 AM PST

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Mozilla late Thursday confirmed that it had failed to detect malware in a pair of Firefox add-ons, which may have infected up to 4,600 users.

The add-ons have been removed from Firefox's official add-on download site .

According to an entry on the Mozilla Add-ons blog , Sothink Web Video Downloader 4.0 and all versions of Master Filer were infected with Trojan horses designed to hijack Windows PCs. Both add-ons were in the "experimental" area of Firefox's add-on download site, where newer extensions remain until they undergo a public review process. To install experimental add-ons, Firefox users must view and accept an additional warning.

Master Filer was downloaded about 600 times in the five months ending Jan. 25, when it was pulled from the site. Sothink Web Video Downloader 4.0 was downloaded approximately 4,000 times between February and May 2008. The most up-to-date version of the latter, which captures streaming videos in a variety of formats, is 5.7.

Any Windows users who installed one of the two add-ons would have also silently executed the Trojan, which would then infect the PC. Mac or Linux Firefox users who installed the add-ons were not affected.

Mozilla acknowledged that its security process failed. "[Add-ons] performs a malware check on all add-ons uploaded to the site, and blocks add-ons that are detected as such," said yesterday's blog. "This scanning tool failed to detect the Trojan in Master Filer." After adding more scanning tools to the process, a rescan of all add-ons uncovered the attack code embedded in Sothink Web Video Downloader 4.0, which was yanked from the download site Tuesday.

Mozilla urged users who downloaded the add-ons to uninstall them, then because that doesn't scrub the Trojan from the system, to also run an antivirus scan to detect and delete the malware.

Little could be found on the Web about the author of Master Filer, identified as "haklinim," other than that he or she used an anonymous proxy server in Japan to shunt traffic to a developer biography, which Mozilla has also deleted.

SourceTec Software, which makes Sothink Web Video Downloader, is based in China, according to the phone number listed on its Web site. The company did not reply to a request for comment or an explanation of how its add-on was infected.

Mozilla also was unavailable late Thursday to respond to questions, including why the infected Sothink Web Video Downloader add-on was not detected in 2008, and whether it planned to reach out to users who had downloaded the tainted extensions.

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Carl Davidson: Economic Crisis/ Green Alternatives - Boston IMC

Posted: 05 Feb 2010 06:53 AM PST

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 Under the shadow of the State House, a small group of concerned citizens gathered last night to listen to Carl Davidson's speak, not of the challenges facing us, but of the opportunities that the current economic crisis presents to progressive and socialist groups around the country.

"Part of my new job for CCDS," he said with a wry smile to an audience member just as the first speaker was to begin. As a co-chair for CCDS (Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism)—one of the sponsors, along with Majority Agenda Project, of the evening's forum—Davidson is traveling on a limited speaking tour, promoting green jobs, cooperatives, employee ownership, and alternative energy within the context of a solidarity economy. And while all that might appear to be too much for any person to squeeze into a little more than an hour lecture, Davidson's accomplished it and much more.

With a colloquial speaking style, and a proclivity for anecdotes drawn from personal experience, he offered his biography, complete with edifying failures and the most remarkable examples of inner-city and small town solidarity, as proof that the foundation of a new sustainable and non-exploitive economy is there to be built upon.

The projects Davidson proposed ranged from massive infrastructure projects in response to the deindustrialization that has devastated the middle class—such as a plan to convert many of the country's crumbling dams into modern locks, in order to transplant the massive wind turbines that are to produce the wind-generated power of the future across waterways rather than highways—to low-technology, high employment weatherization jobs, meant to rescue poor communities saddled with the innumerable burdens caused by double-digit unemployment.

As he reminded those present, it was pressure from below that forced government and private enterprise to establish the tentative social welfare programs on which so many now depend, and that organized pressure is again required. "I can go to any small business owner and ask, What would you rather have right now: a purchase order or a tax cut? Each would say a purchase order," Davidson declared. "You've got to give people hope. You don't organize anyone with cynicism." And with that the forum ended, and the former SDS organizer from a family of iron workers prepared to keep on driving, delivering hope to those that see beauty in tomorrow's world.

For more from Carl Davidson keep up with him on his blog: http://carldavidson.blogspot.com/

96 hours of Super Bowl pregame chatter A glance back at the hottest ... - FortWayne.com

Posted: 05 Feb 2010 05:20 AM PST

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 MIAMI – Saturday, we'll get down to the nitty-gritty analysis of Super Bowl XLIV and whether Indianapolis Colts coach Jim Caldwell will have a Tony Dungy vs. Devin Hester moment and punt the ball to Reggie Bush

Today, I thought it would be fun to reminisce about the last 96 hours of Super Bowl hype overload. This week's hottest topics, ranked thoughtfully in the order I remembered them:

♦Dwight Freeney's ankle. Every day, the Colts' defensive end has given an update. It feels better than yesterday. It's making progress. He's using an oxygen chamber and exercising his foot in the sand (not simultaneously, I presume.) He hoped to test it for real in practice today.

The man has a torn ligament. He's been wearing a protective boot and hasn't had a real practice in two weeks. Freeney's patented move is the spin. I'm beginning to believe he's been spinning a fantasy all week.

♦The city of New Orleans. Anyone who can't tell Ryan Lilja from Ryan Diem is apparently pulling for the Saints. In fact, national anthem singer Carrie Underwood said she doesn't like choosing sides, but she's for the Saints, "51 percent." Because of what it means for the city still rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina? Not exactly. "(Saints coach) Sean Payton came to one of my concerts. That's where the 1 percent comes from," she said

♦Peyton Manning's skills. Everyone and his brother (and I'm not just talking about Tiki and Ronde Barber) has been asked about Manning's sublime quarterback abilities. The best answer I heard came from Colts safety Melvin Bullitt.

"He's on another level," Bullitt said. "It's like he's not even from this planet."

♦Saints quarterback Drew Brees' admiration for Manning. If Brees told the story once, he told it 12 times. The two met while Brees was still quarterback at Purdue. Manning offered regular encouragement, even contacted him after a big win over Ohio State. This segued into a debate about whether Manning is actually better than Brees, or if Brees' stats the last four years challenge the perception. That wasn't resolved, but it's safe to say Jay Cutler was not in the discussion.

♦Jim Caldwell's biography. The media sometimes tries too hard to cover every angle. One reporter started his question to Caldwell by saying, "Take me back to 1976."

I tuned out after that because I refuse to believe Caldwell is capable of time travel. Now Manning – maybe.

♦The Who's halftime show. Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend played three songs in their news conference. Daltrey said he was pulling for the Saints. Townshend said he guesses that means he's for the Colts. He also said he planned to autograph a Colts helmet and sell it to Jim Irsay for $1 million. He might have been joking.

Incidentally, I believe Daltrey should change the lyrics to "Behind Blue Eyes" to say "No one knows what it's like to be a Manning."

♦Reggie vs. Reggie. This has been an angle for reporters looking to examine the game-breaking qualities of the Colts' Reggie Wayne and the Saints' Reggie Bush. Which Reggie is better? Most of the questions, answers and articles have come to the conclusion that all Reggies are great in their own right. I'm just reporting what I hear.

♦Chad Ochocinco's "news channel." It was fun to see the Cincinnati Bengals receiver trying to be a regular sports reporter this week. He nearly pulled it off, if not for the fact he's handsome, in great athletic shape and popular with the ladies. He's having fun, and that's contagious. Plus, he's the only sports reporter to be recognized by Queen Latifah.

♦"Who Dat?" The popularity and the effect of the Saints fans' rallying cry has been a common question for the Saints. The NFL also caused a bit of a stink over T-shirts, fearing someone else might be making money off "The Big Game," as the NFL likes small businesses to call their Roman numeral event.

But I have to say the NFL went too far when officials asked the halftime act to change its name to The Who Dat.

♦One final note, which is not a hot topic, but still amusing: Players can sign a deal with Disney to mug for the cameras and say "I'm going to Disney World," if they win the game's Most Valuable Player award.

Colts linebacker Clint Session signed up.

"I pretty much know what the deal is," he said. "They only give that to offensive players. I'd probably need like three or four interceptions, two of them to the crib, 15 tackles, eight sacks maybe."

Funny stuff. But Session is on the right track.

If Manning has a good game, Session will probably need three pick-sixes to take the MVP away from him. Remember, we thought Dominic Rhodes would win the MVP the last time the Colts took the Super Bowl.

We won't get fooled again.

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Slacker Intros Radio Mobile App for Palm webOS Smartphones - TMCnet

Posted: 05 Feb 2010 05:42 AM PST

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Jyothi Shanbhag is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Jyothi's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Amy Tierney

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