Infoworld: “In an announcement on its Symantec Antivirus Research Center (SARC) Web site, Symantec
said that the W32.Leave.B.Worm is a variant of the W32-Leave.worm identified several
weeks ago by the FBI’s National Infrastructure Protection Center.

What’s new, said Patrick Martin, SARC’s development manager, is that this is apparently the
first time that a virus or worm has been distributed using a faked Microsoft security bulletin.
“It’s a sneaky way to get on your system,” Martin said. “We’ve just never seen them use the
tactic of a security bulletin as a guise.”

ZDNET: “We’re from the government and we want you to help us.

That was the message from a seven-member “Meet the Fed” panel, where government officials
answered the questions of a roomful of hackers at the Def Con conference here Saturday.”

Newsbytes.com: “Procedural mistakes, and not some new security bug, were likely the cause of the defacement last week of
the Web site of the SANS Institute, according to sources close to the organization.

The computer security research and education group restored its Web site Sunday evening, after its home
page was replaced Friday by an attacker using the name “Fluffi Bunni.”

Wired: “A bunch of hackers buy Packet Storm, a popular security site that Securify dumped for $1 — after (correctly) realizing it wasn’t going to make any money. They’re aggressively open-sourcing the thing, encouraging mirrors and public participation.”

LinuxPlanet: “A useful random bit of advice for anyone interested in their own cross-country move I can offer is that if your
mail-gathering device suddenly proves unable to gather mail, it’s an awfully good idea to unsubscribe to the Linux kernel
mailing list… especially if you have a two week wait until you can shed your dialup connection in favor of DSL. I didn’t do
this and suffered horribly on arrival in Portland.”

The Register: “The latest WinXP RC1 leak makes the security of Microsoft’s preview program
download look feeble enough, but it turns out there’s more – somebody seems to
have left a working product key not very deeply buried in the iso. Naturally that
product key will cease to work for Product Activation just as soon as Microsoft
realises what happened (which is around now), but it does mean that anybody who
got to the unauthorised download link has the capability to install the software.”

NewScientist: “Anti-piracy compact discs that cannot be copied by a computer have gone on
sale in California. The first CD title has already sold 100,000 copies, but it is
causing concern among audio experts because they fear that the music may be
audibly distorted.”

CNET: “The Scotts Valley, Calif.-based company said Tuesday it will offer Web-based software and
services for rent by September that will allow software programmers to collaborate on their
projects and communicate via the Internet.

The software development toolmaker joins Oracle, Merant, Mercury Interactive and others in
becoming an application service provider (ASP), or a company that rents out software over the
Web. The companies hope to boost sagging sales in the development tool market by offering their
software and services online. That way, they say, their customers can save time and money
because they do not have to install and manage the software themselves.”

The Register: “Catalogue reseller Action Computers has decided that people thinking about
purchasing Windows 98 from it would do well to consider Linux instead.

On a page on its site describing Windows 98, Action lists Liberty Linux for Dummies
Quick Reference manual and an Idiot’s Guide to Linux by Que as related items a
Windows 98 shopper might want to buy. These guides, unlike Windows 98 itself, are
only available from Action’s back order catalogue, so buyers would have to wait
over a week after getting Microsoft’s operating system before getting clued up on
open source.”

The Register: “Yep, in what is the final nail in the coffin of what Napster once stood for, the
company has done a deal with PlayMedia Systems to develop the new .nap format.
PlayMedia will work on encryption and playback and Bertlesmann will tie it in with
a digital rights system so files can’t be swapped without people paying for them.”