Larry Seltzer has been writing software for and English about computers ever since—,much to his own amazement— He was one of the authors of NPL and NPL-R, fourth-generation languages for microcomputers by the now-defunct DeskTop Software Corporation. (Larry is sad to find absolutely no hits on any of these +products on Google.) His work at Desktop Software included programming the UCSD p-System, a virtual machine-based operating system with portable binaries that pre-dated Java by more than 10 years.For several years, he wrote corporate software for Mathematica Policy Research (they're still in business!) and Chase Econometrics (not so lucky) before being forcibly thrown into the consulting market. He bummed around the Philadelphia consulting and contract-programming scenes for a year or two before taking a job at NSTL (National Software Testing Labs) developing product tests and managing contract testing for the computer industry, governments and publication.In 1991 Larry moved to Massachusetts to become Technical Director of PC Week Labs (now eWeek Labs). He moved within Ziff Davis to New York in 1994 to run testing at Windows Sources. In 1995, he became Technical Director for Internet product testing at PC Magazine and stayed there till 1998.Since then, he has been writing for numerous other publications, including Fortune Small Business, Windows 2000 Magazine (now Windows and .NET Magazine), ZDNet and Sam Whitmore's Media Survey.
Microsoft has issued a patch for a flaw in ISA (Internet Security and Acceleration) Server 2000 and Proxy Server 2.0. According to the advisory on the bug, it could allow an attacker to spoof trusted Internet content. Microsoft Small Business Server 2000 and 2003, both of which include ISA Server, are also affected. If a […]
One year after a vulnerability in the Wi-Fi Protected Access encryption algorithm was reported, a proof-of-concept program for the attack has been released. The attack affects only Wi-Fi networks using WPA in pre-shared key mode. It is a dictionary attack, meaning that it cycles through a list of words and combinations of words attempting to […]
A new phishing attack is utilizing a vulnerability in Internet Explorer, patched early this year, to hide its true source. /zimages/2/28571.gifA serious hole in IE opens PCs up for attacks. Click here to read more. The attack, called Citifraud.A by Panda Software, takes the form of a Web page or HTML e-mail. It has no […]
Many assume that malware programmers are good programmers, and this isnt hard to understand. Its sort of like being impressed with a magician who does something that shouldnt be possible. But its also like assuming that bullies must be good fighters. Closer analysis shows that many of them dont—or perhaps cant—do their job well. Malware […]
In its first use of a new policy on security-update disclosure, Microsoft on Wednesday announced that next weeks scheduled security updates for the month of November will consist of a single fix for ISA Server. The new Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification is the first example of a new monthly practice the company announced Thursday. […]
Its easy for administrators and computing professionals to get frustrated with users for all kinds of reasons, but security has to be one of the biggest reasons these days. Lets consider the recent release of a malicious script for Mac OS X. This script itself is not really much of a threat because it has […]
A series of HTML-based exploits allow a malicious HTML programmer to direct a user to a different Web site than the one indicated in the users browser status line. Two separate but similar issues affect Internet Explorer. The first, reported by Benjamin Franz of Germany on the Bugtraq mailing list, involves an improper mixture of […]
Its only a little over a month since the collapse of the MARID working group and the apparent death of the Sender ID specification on which it had focused. But now, from the secret workings of Microsoft and Meng Wong (playing here the role of Victor von Frankenstein), a stitched-up version of the spec has […]
America Online Inc. will support a new, modified version of the Sender ID e-mail authentication specification that is being submitted to the IETF for consideration Monday. The Sender ID specification had been in limbo since the collapse of the MARID working group in September. A new version of Sender ID, modified to address concerned such […]
How long and complex should a password be? At what point is it effectively uncrackable? Time out: Look at that opening paragraph. Its 87 characters long, but it could be your password to your Windows system. Yes, even with the spaces in it. Technically, this has become known as a “passphrase.” Robert Hensing, a member […]