E-Musings Mon Immorata

Hot Cold Coffee Anyone? IM wars break out as Yahoo and MSN disconnect Trillian services. Neat security guides, plus Opera 7.20 public beta, Norton Anti-virus 2004 and Trend's new Internet Security Suite Beta. My Trillian problem started rather innocuously. Just another instant messaging login failure. But after several failed connects to Yahoo Messaging, I decided to search the Internet as well as the Trillian forums to see if it was localized (me) or global. While I was browsing through all the different theories, and approaches, to see which other's problem best fitted mine. I learnt (via a separate web site), that beginning October 15, 2003, MSN will be blocking other messengers from accessing its service ostensibly for security reasons. Although the Trillian site specifically mentions it's client includes the latest MSN security protocols. I received an MSN security alert that my (Trillian) client used an outdated protocol and I needed to visit the MSN site to update my Messenger client. Since then not so coincidentally, attempts to remain logged into the MSN service have began to fail! So if you too use Trillian -- free or the Pro edition -- go ahead and download the new Yahoo and MSN clients so that when Trillian fails not so your conversations. New IE6 SP-2 On Horizon? Microsoft, contrary to news reports, hasn't completely abandoned Internet Explorer or Outlook Express; its companion mail program. Security patches for both software continue to be released. And a Microsoft Support Bulletin innocuously mentions "Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 2!" Secure-IT While on the topic of security, I chanced across very interesting guides on hardening your operating system (OS). UK Security Online's Home User Self-Defense Guides (HUSDG) are available as separate PDF & Zip downloads. But before being able to download, you need to register yourself and respond to an email-based user authentication message. It's less of a hassle to read the guides on-line. The OS versions supported are Windows 95/98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. With a Linux guide coming shortly. There's also a white paper on Threats Analyzed that discusses the impact of worms, Trojans, hacking and denial of service attacks. Open-Sockets With Sobig still rampaging across the Internet, I'm taking an very keen interest in what data my computer broadcasts to the Internet. While I recommend a weekly visit, especially if you continually modify your firewall settings, to the free Shields Up service. The latter is not infallible despite checking the common (and some not so common ports). In both Windows XP (Home/Pro) and Windows NT/2000, the OS itself leaves certain socket open ostensibly to assist in centralized troubleshooting. Microsoft's version is that these open sockets are only accessible by the built-in super system administrator and are required to run background services. Unfortunately, Microsoft's security track record so far has been pretty poor. So I recommend using Steve Gibson's free SocketToMe (17 kB, Windows, free) and SocketLock (22 kB, Windows, free) socket management utilities to first check if you have any open sockets. Then block them. I made the changes with trepidation. But everything continued to work fine even after disabling the sockets. Beta News Finally, there are several software updates, and interesting Betas. Let's lead with Opera 7.20 Beta 7 whose Public Beta was released on August 28, 2003. Read the change log for details on what further modifications have been made. As befits a public release, Beta 7 is faster and less crash-prone than its predecessor Beta builds. But Opera's continued inability to correctly render ActiveX means that many IE-only sites especially Microsoft's own sites are blocked off. Also new is Trend's Internet Security Suite 11 Beta (23 MB, Windows, Beta trial) that replaces the PC-Cillin product series. ISS11 includes anti-spam capabilities to detect and filter junk mails, improved email attachment scanning, as well as enhanced privacy with the built-in firewall and a friendlier user interface. Also new for security is Norton Anti-virus 2004 Professional released last week. This is Norton's first product featuring Product Activation but existing customers can see if they are eligible for an upgrade. That's it for the week. See you next week. G Menon Click to Mail Me Now!