Dave Korn announced on the Full Disclosure and Bugtraq security lists that Microsoft is bypassing local lookups for some hosts, meaning that you can’t locally block some sites through your HOSTS file. All of these sites are MicroSoft controlled sites. The general feeling in the rest of the thread is that this was to obfuscate these hosts and prevent them from being blocked by malware. However, there are no non-MicroSoft hosts listed, giving a competitive advantage for MicroSoft’s anti-malware tools over other brands.

Source: Slashdot

Microsoft Corp. estimates it lost about $14 billion last year to software piracy — and those may prove to be the most lucrative sales never made.

Although the world’s largest software maker spends millions of dollars annually to combat illegal copying and distribution of its products, critics allege — and Microsoft acknowledges — that piracy sometimes helps the company establish itself in emerging markets and fend off threats from free open-source programs.

Source: latimes.com

According to an email sent to the javaspaces user’s list, JINI will be handed over to Apache, reflecting Sun’s perception of a need to update and revitalize the technology.

Source: theserverside

Web site cl1p.net lets you copy and paste text between any number of computers.

Just enter in any URL that starts with http://cl1p.net and post. Then from any other computer enter the same URL and copy.

You can create your own cl1p by typing anything after cl1p for example, http://cl1p.net/aviransplace.

With cl1p you can share text or files with anyone. Everything you post is available to all, but you can also set a password to protect your data from override (it will still be available to everyone).

No Ireland did not go on a crusade and concurred Jerusalem. Google Analytics program which give webmasters a free statistics for their web site lets users set their time zone. However when looking at the list of countries, Israel is missing from that list. Digging a bit more reveals that the people of the holy land can actually find their time zone in Ireland.

Of course this is just a software glitch, but still kind of funny

Japan’s biggest rail company will soon test using fuel cells to help power a train, following the lead of automakers in rolling out cleaner, more efficient transportation.

Pollution-free fuel cells generate electricity through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, producing only water vapor as exhaust.

East Japan Railways Co., which serves the congested Tokyo area and carries 16 million passengers a day, will start test runs of the NE Train, or New Energy Train, in July with the aim of operating it on regular tracks by the middle of next year.

Source: AP

Motorola Inc. is interested in Siemens’ loss-making telecoms unit Com, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported.

In an advance copy of its Sunday edition, the paper said one option in the talks between Siemens and Motorola was the complete takeover of Siemens Com — its biggest unit — that had sales of 13 billion euros ($16 billion) and 55,000 employees.

Source: Reuters

Blizzard Entertainment Inc., maker of the massive online game “World of Warcraft,” purged thousands of players’ accounts this week for cheating.

The online fantasy game, which boasts more than five million subscription-paying customers, has been plagued with players, and even massive marketplaces, selling in-game objects, including characters and gold, for real-world money. Unlike other online, multi-player games, World of Warcraft bans the practice of trading virtual items for real dollars.

Source: informationweek