November 2008 Archives

Google and Apple seem to have taken on left- and right-hand roles, with neither quite sure what the other is up to. After Google’s long-hyped iPhone Voice Search application’s rocky launch, they have again hit a pothole:

Does Google Mobile use private APIs?

Surprisingly enough, Google appears to use both dynamic linking and calling unpublished APIs … it looks like Google decided that it was better to get the job done and provide a richer user experience to the end user than to live according to Apple’s exact dictates.

Google admits flouting Apple App Store rules

Google has acknowledged breaking the official rules of Apple’s iPhone software-development kit when it created the latest version of the Google Mobile application for the iPhone, but denied a more serious charge.

Reports like the following piss me off:

A flaw has been found in Windows Vista that could allow rootkits to be hidden or denial-of-service attacks to be executed on computers using the operating system.

Asked about the severity of the flaw, Unterleitner pointed out that administrative rights were needed to execute a program calling the function that would cause the buffer overflow.

Source: Kernel vulnerability found in Vista.

So an “evil person” would need a root account, to run an exploit that could potentially give him access to a root account… Isn’t this kinda like saying an exploit has been discovered that allows hackers to permanently delete your documents and settings folder… if logged in as an administrator, a hacker could shift-delete your personal folders!

The report itself actually isn’t the annoying part, the little flame-war in the comments between Linux and MS zealots is typical of the single-cell mentality shared by the two factions, and makes me wish someone would provide some venture capital for this to be developed.

A couple of weeks old, but still news to me: Windows 3.x retired.

Who remembers the hotdog stand theme?