Mahmoud Kassem

There may only be a few hundred thousand users running desktop Linux worldwide, compared with tens of millions of Mac users and hundreds of millions of Windows users, but almost all of us are using Linux on a daily basis.

In addition to the article examples (see the source), most ADSL Home routers and Home WiFi Access points uses linux. You are using Linux.

source: DesktopLinux.com Article

As a hacker with the pseudonym Myria reports in a blog entry, once Skype is launched it saves an executable file called 1.com in the user's temporary folder. This file contains code that transmits the data found in the BIOS address area of the application to be launched. It is not yet clear what the Skype software does with the data, which may contain, among other things, the motherboard serial number. The mysterious .com file was only noticed because of an error message that Skype outputs when it is launched on systems running on 64-bit versions of Windows. 64-bit versions lack the "NT Virtual DOS Machine" (NTVDM), which allows direct access to BIOS memory pages and is required to execute the program. Since myria's blog entry is dated February the 6th 2007 presumably Skype added the BIOS reading code to their applications relatively recently.

DNS servers should only do recursive lookups for its own network but Link.net prefers to make it open for the whole world.
I reported this problem to link.net dnsadmin today hoping that they will get it fixed.

More information at DNSreports.com

$ host 196.218.128.1
1.128.218.196.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer host-196.218.1.128.tedata.net.

I have reported this typo mistake to tedata.net 3 days ago but it was not fixed yet. Moreover, PTR records are not enough for complete Reverse DNS, A records should also be created for these hosts.

Jan 09 2007 Update: tedata.net removed the PTR records for this IP block.
Jan 10 2007 Update: tedata.net brought back the PTR records and still incorrect.
July 05 2007 Update: Reported fixed on June 7th in a comment, I just checked and it is fixed.

Washington Post Security Fix spent the past several weeks compiling statistics on how long it took some of the major software vendors to issue patches for security flaws in their products. Since Microsoft Windows is the most-used operating system in the world, it makes sense to lead off with data on Microsoft's security updates in 2006.

OpenDNS activated its London (UK) DNS cache servers yesterday besides their other 4 locations in USA. Probably this makes them faster for many users especially in Europe. However, since Egypt biggest Internet DSL providers (Tedata.net and Link.net) AFAIK are currently routed through flagtel.com (London), it will be even faster for us here in Egypt and seems to be more stable than our own ISP DNS servers.

Internet users accessing from Egypt can now create their own Google Mail (GMail.com) accounts for free without invitations.

SETTEC LTD sends SPAM daily to Egyptians using Random Arabic/Egyptian names and emails.
Changing the domain name almost every week (158 domains detected). Geeks could not accept this, we have to request the termination of Internet services (Internet Connection and Domain Service) for SETTEC. We should fight SPAM before it starts to be a normal act in Egypt.

Did you ever get SPAM messages with a Random Egyptian name in the from addresses every day?
That's SETTEC LTD way of doing business, buying your email addresses from others, sending SPAM and may be selling your email addresses too. They are usually advertising their training events. More details below