Just days after patching a critical flaw in its Internet Explorer browser, Microsoft is now warning users of a serious bug in its SQL Server database software.

Microsoft issued a security advisory late Monday, saying that the bug could be exploited to run unauthorized software on systems running versions of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005.

Attack code that exploits the bug has been published, but Microsoft said that it has not yet seen this code used in online attacks. Database servers could be attacked using this flaw if the criminals somehow found a way to log onto the system, and Web applications that suffered from relatively common SQL injection bugs could be used as stepping stones to attack the back-end database, Microsoft said.

Desktop users running the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine or SQL Server 2005 Express could be at risk in some circumstances, Microsoft said.

Internet speculation about the fate of Taiwanese manufacturer Abit has been running at feverish paces this week. But as Obi-Wan Kenobi might say, the alleged death of the company is correct–from a certain point of view. The manufacturer, known throughout the computing circles for its motherboard offerings, is at the mercy of a restructuring by parent company Universal Scientific Industrial. As part of the cost-cutting measures that USI plans to undertake, Abit will cease production on all motherboards as the company heads into the new year. Abit still plans to offer RMAs and warranties for up to three years, but you can expect to see no new Abit-branded motherboards coming through the retail chains until further notice… if ever.

As a prank, students from local high schools have been taking advantage of the county’s Speed Camera Program in order to exact revenge on people who they believe have wronged them in the past, including other students and even teachers.

Students from Richard Montgomery High School dubbed the prank the Speed Camera “Pimping” game, according to a parent of a student enrolled at one of the high schools.

Originating from Wootton High School, the parent said, students duplicate the license plates by printing plate numbers on glossy photo paper, using fonts from certain websites that “mimic” those on Maryland license plates. They tape the duplicate plate over the existing plate on the back of their car and purposefully speed through a speed camera, the parent said. The victim then receives a citation in the mail days later.

Students are even obtaining vehicles from their friends that are similar or identical to the make and model of the car owned by the targeted victim, according to the parent.

A Chinese woman who became an online sensation after posting a homemade pornographic film of herself on the internet has been detained in Shanghai, according to state media.

The 12-minute-video showed the woman, surnamed Huang, performing “sex acts,” the official China Daily said in its weekend edition, without elaborating.

“It soon became one of the most popular downloads on the mainland, with thousands of people downloading it last month,” the report cited the local police as saying in a statement.

The woman set up a blog, hoping to profit from her notoriety and sell interviews with herself for up to 30,000 yuan ($4,383) a time, the newspaper said.

Despite the police’s best efforts, the video is still available online, it added, without saying what penalty the woman may have to pay.

Pornography is illegal in China, although it is widely available on pirated DVDs throughout the country, and on the internet.

Warner Music Group ordered YouTube on Saturday to remove all music videos by its artists from the popular online video-sharing site after contract negotiations broke down.

The order could affect hundreds of thousands of videos clips, as it covers Warner Music’s recorded artists as well as the rights for songs published by its Warner/Chappell unit, which includes many artists not signed to Warner Music record labels.

The talks fell apart early on Saturday because Warner wants a bigger share of the huge revenue potential of YouTube’s massive visitor traffic. There were no reports on what Warner was seeking.

China, widely criticized for its censorship of the media, this week blocked access to The New York Times, the newspaper said on Saturday.

When computer users in cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou tried to connect on Friday to nytimes.com, they received a message that the site was not available, the newspaper said.

There was no access to the site from Beijing late on Saturday without the protection of a virtual private network (VPN).

The RIAA has abandoned its policy of suing people for sharing songs protected by copyright and will work with Internet service providers to cut abusers’ access if they ignore repeated warnings.

The move ends a controversial program that saw the Recording Industry Association of America sue about 35,000 people since 2003 for swapping songs online. Because of high legal costs for defenders, virtually all of those hit with lawsuits settled, on average for around $3,500. The association’s legal costs, in the meantime, exceeded the settlement money it brought in.

The association said Friday that it stopped sending out new lawsuits and warnings in August, and then agreed with several leading U.S. Internet service providers, without naming which ones, to notify alleged illegal file-sharers and cut off service if they failed to stop.

It credited the lawsuit campaign with raising awareness of piracy and keeping the number of illegal file-sharers in check while the legal market for digital music took off. With two weeks left in the year, legitimate sales of digital music tracks soared for the first time past the 1 billion mark, up 28 percent over all of last year, according to Nielsen Soundscan.

Google continues to increase the functionality of its Gmail program. The latest enhancement allows Gmail users to take e-mails and automatically turn them into Google Docs.

Google has been rolling out new features for Gmail at a furious pace lately, with something new popping up almost once per week. This week’s gem? Instant e-mail-to-document conversion.

Google is no longer ranked among the top 20 most trusted companies for privacy, but Apple, Facebook, and Yahoo NSDQ: YHOO for the first time are.

On Monday, the Ponemon Institute, a privacy and information security research company, and Trust-e, a privacy certification service, released their annual Most Trusted Companies For Privacy survey.

The study sought opinions from 6,486 U.S. adult consumers about which companies they thought were most trustworthy and did the best job protecting personal information.

Google ranked 10 in the Ponemon/Trust-e surveys conducted in 2007 and 2006. The company didn t comment on why public perception may have changed, but said that user trust remains critical to its business.

A New York man pleaded guilty on Thursday to posting videos on YouTube in which he claimed he had arranged to poison millions of containers of Gerber baby food with the intent to kill babies.

Anton Dunn, 43, who called himself “Trashman,” pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting threats in interstate commerce and faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, said acting U.S. attorney Lev Dassin.

Dunn posted his first video — in which he wore a black mask — on April 20, 2008, and followed up with a further two videos, posted on July 24 and July 27.

“In the video, entitled “gerbersbabyfoodalert,” Dunn stated that Gerber employees acting at his direction had poisoned millions of bottles of Gerber baby food, to kill babies who ate it,” Dassin said in a statement.

“Dunn further stated that it was “too late” to do anything about the poisoned baby food because it had already been shipped to consumers,” he said.

Gerber, which is owned by Switzerland-based Nestle SA, found no evidence that anyone had tampered with its baby food.

Dunn will be sentenced on March 20.

While Microsoft scrambled to issue an out-of-cycle patch for Internet Explorer on Wednesday, Mozilla did some rushing of its own.

The Firefox developer has issued updates to address “critical vulnerabilities” in versions 2 and 3 of its open-source browser.

Firefox describes a critical vulnerability as one that can be used to run attacker code and install software without user interaction beyond normal browsing.

Security, Stability, Accessibility

Firefox 3.0.5 and Firefox 2.0.0.19 are now available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Firefox 3.0.5 fixes eight security vulnerabilities, three of them critical. The critical fixes include XSS vulnerabilities in SessionStore, XSS and JavaScript privilege escalation, and crashes with evidence of memory corruption.

The Firefox 3.0.5 update also fixes several stability issues and issues found in accessibility implementation, adds the ability to send OS-specific system notes in the crash reporter, and replaces the End-User License Agreement with a new “Know Your Rights” info bar on the initial installation.

Adobe Systems is extending on Thursday its AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) technology to Linux desktops.

Previously available for Windows and Macintosh, AIR is Adobe’s free technology that enables delivery of Web applications that also can run outside the browser; it lets Flash programs to run on the desktop. The Linux version of the software can be accessed here.