Malware may knock thousands off Internet on Monday

Looks like malware has been found to change a computer’s DNS settings. This could pose a problem for thousands of computer users when the FBI shuts down their “safety net” systems on Monday morning.

Folks in the US can go to this site to check whether their computer is infected or not. It takes just a seconds to test your PC. More info below from the AP.

WASHINGTON — The warnings about the Internet problem have been splashed across Facebook and Google. Internet service providers have sent notices, and the FBI set up a special website.

But tens of thousands of Americans may still lose their Internet service Monday unless they do a quick check of their computers for malware that could have taken over their machines more than a year ago.

Despite repeated alerts, the number of computers that probably are infected is more than 277,000 worldwide, down from about 360,000 in April. Of those still infected, the FBI believes that about 64,000 are in the United States.

Users whose computers are still infected Monday will lose their ability to go online, and they will have to call their service providers for help deleting the malware and reconnecting to the Internet.

via Malware may knock thousands off Internet on Monday :: WRAL.com.

The Downside of Liberty

Interesting.

THIS spring I was on a panel at the Woodstock Writers Festival. An audience member asked a question: Why had the revolution dreamed up in the late 1960s mostly been won on the social and cultural fronts — women’s rights, gay rights, black president, ecology, sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll — but lost in the economic realm, with old-school free-market ideas gaining traction all the time? What has happened politically, economically, culturally and socially since the sea change of the late ’60s isn’t contradictory or incongruous. It’s all of a piece. For hippies and bohemians as for businesspeople and investors, extreme individualism has been triumphant. Selfishness won.

via The Downside of Liberty – NYTimes.com.

Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant

As a techie, I could see Microsoft’s decline as it unfolded. Still surprising, since Microsoft seemed invincible for so long. I suppose every industry titan becomes lazy from success.

Vanity Fair always has great writing. I might actually buy the dead-tree edition just to read this.

Analyzing one of American corporate history’s greatest mysteries—the lost decade of Microsoft—two-time George Polk Award winner (and V.F.’s newest contributing editor) Kurt Eichenwald traces the “astonishingly foolish management decisions” at the company that “could serve as a business-school case study on the pitfalls of success.” Relying on dozens of interviews and internal corporate records—including e-mails between executives at the company’s highest ranks—Eichenwald offers an unprecedented view of life inside Microsoft during the reign of its current chief executive, Steve Ballmer, in the August issue. Today, a single Apple product—the iPhone—generates more revenue than all of Microsoft’s wares combined.

via Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant | Blogs | Vanity Fair.

Worlds apart

I was pondering how this weekend’s freak storm knocked power out for over a million people, leaving them temporarily without the comforts of the modern world. I thought about how it’s now 100° outside yet I’m comfortable in my air-conditioned home. I’ve got a refrigerator full of fresh fruit, a comfortable bed, and more fresh water than I know what to do with.

The I thought about Liberia and how less than 1% has electricity. Water is also scarce. Compared to those poor souls, I live like an absolute king. So do 99.9% of Americans.

We are extraordinarily blessed to live in this country. In the grand scheme of things, the things Americans complain about are really insignificant by comparison.