Zero-day Exploit in Microsoft Imaging Software

There’s a new zero-day exploit (meaning it was found out in the "wild" first, not by a researcher) for the graphics engine behind IE, Windows Explorer, and the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. There’s no patch yet, so think twice about web sites you don’t trust or pictures you get via email. All you have to do to get exploited is go to a web site with a special image file or open a *folder* with a special image file in it. You don’t even have to open the image itself.

This is a worst-case scenario for Microsoft.

If you haven't given Firefox a try yet, today might be a good day to do so.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Let's play a game called "spot the typo":

http://www.smarthome.com/13091.html

Did you find it? Need a hint?

Those mints would give you the biggest caffeine buzz EVER. Coffee is just the gateway drug.

New TSA Guidelines

As only The Onion could present them.

The Security Threat of Unchecked Presidential Power

This is a very interesting post by Bruce Schneier about domestic spying/wiretapping and the legal voodoo the Bush administration used to authorize it.

Its Electric... Coffee Coffee Coffee...

This one has to be straight out of a movie or something.

I went out this morning to pick up a couple of packages being held at the post office, and decided to stop on the way home and get some coffee. Got the coffee, drove home, pulled into our parking space and got ready to get out of the car. I opened the car door, picked up the coffee, slid out the side, reached for the car door to shut it, and...

ZAAAPPP!!!!

The biggest static shock EVAR. My hand automatically clenched shut, squishing the coffee cup it was holding, and...

AAAAHHGHGHHGH!!!!!

In summary, coffee is hot.

I plan to sue Coffee People for making the coffee too hot, and Nissan for making the vehicle too... um... staticish. And probably New Balance as well, for insulating me too well when I stepped out of the vehicle.

UIUC VIPs

This afternoon I attended a one-hour meeting at Intel of UIUC alumni with several UIUC VIPs, including the new chancellor Richard Hermann, the Interim Dean of Engineering Ilesanmi Adesida, and the ECE Department Chair Dick Blahut. In case you didn't think UIUC cared about Intel, or vise versa, there's apparently just under 300 UIUC alumni at the Intel Oregon campuses alone. Of course, only about 30 of them showed up today.

The meeting had some standard "UIUC is a great engineering school" talk and such, including a discussion about midwest modesty and how UIUC isn't known quite as much as MIT, Berkley, Stanford, etc. because UIUC doesn't brag as much. This led to the most interesting thing I think I learned, which is that UIUC is apparently a *very* highly respected university name in China, of all places.

A Philosophical Question

If a tree falls in the woods, and a VW Bus is there to break its fall, did it lose any value?

Thanks Sam for donating your beloved vehicle to this eternal debate.

Password Safe

Got a lot of passwords? Accessing a lot of web sites, e-commerce sites, encrypted .zip files, password-protected financial software, etc? Then you might want to check out Password Safe. Written by the author of the (in)famous Applied Cryptography book (as well as several other cryptography books), Bruce Schneier, this open-source project is intended to give you a pseudo-safe place to keep all the passwords you need, protected under a master password. This way the master password is the only one you really need to remember. It even gives you the ability to generate (pseudo-)random passwords to save, eliminating the possibility of you choosing a poor (cryptographically) password that is easy to remember. The database file it generates is encrypted but fully transferable, so you can copy it to another system and use Password Safe or another program that is compatible to use it there as well (i.e. to synchronize between a home PC and a work computer).

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 released

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 (final) was released a couple days ago. If you haven't tried Firefox yet, this might be a good time to do so. Improvements can be found here, and a rediculously detailed list of new features and fixed bugs can be found here.