Posted by Anush Yegyazarian | Wednesday, August 30, 2006 7:37 PM PT
PC World's exclusive tests show that Core 2 Duo laptops offer an improvement over current Core Duo-based systems, but the increase isn't nearly as dramatic as it was between PCs using Intel's older dual-core desktop chips and ones using the new
Core 2 Duo desktop CPUs.
We tested three notebooks using the new Intel chips, formerly code-named Merom. (Intel
formally announced the new mobile processors on Monday.) The top performer,
Gateway's M685-E desktop replacement system, earned a score of 109, which beats by 3 points the previous high-score for notebooks with 1GB of RAM. The $2059 system featured the 2.16-GHz Core 2 Duo T7400 chip, 100GB drive, nVidia's GeForce Go 7600 graphics chip set with 128MB of RAM, a 17-inch LCD and Windows XP Professional.
We also tested the $1906
Dell XPS M1210, an ultraportable system using the 2-GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 chip, and the $1499
HP Pavilion dv6000t mainstream system, which came with the 1.83-GHz Core 2 Duo T5600. These two systems earned nearly identical scores: the Dell garnered a 102 result on WorldBench 5, the HP a 101. Both came with 1GB of RAM, 120GB hard drives, and nVidia's GeForce Go 7400 graphics chip set with 256MB of RAM. The Dell had a 12.1-inch screen and ran Windows XP Media Center Edition, while the HP had a 15.4-inch screen and ran Windows XP Pro.
Look for battery test results within the next week, and reviews of the individual systems to follow shortly after. We don't expect a significant boost or drop in overall battery life with the new chips, however.
It doesn't look like systems with the new mobile chips will seriously challenge desktop processing might. For example, the
Velocity Micro Vector GX Campus Edition, which came with the mainstream 2.13-GHz Core 2 Duo E6400 CPU and 1GB of RAM, earned a score of 117 on WorldBench 5. All other Core 2 Duo systems we've tested earned much higher scores, ranging from 138 to 181 (note that these systems had 2GB of RAM).
These Core 2 Duo mobile chips do share the same microarchitecture as the desktop Core 2 Duos. And like previous mobile chips, they're part of Intel's Centrino platform (now called Centrino Duo), which encompasses the chip set, processor, and wireless solution. Unlike the previous generation, the high-end Core 2 Duo models boast 4MB of shared L2 cache versus 2MB, which should help them perform better than older CPUs.
The new chips range from the entry-level 1.66-GHz Core 2 Duo T5500 with 2MB of L2 cache, to the 2.33-GHz Core 2 Duo T7600 with 4MB of shared L2 cache.
The new chips use the same 945 Express chip sets as Core Duo CPUs; the chip sets have a 533-MHz or 667-MHz front side bus. The older and newer processors all share the same wireless solution as well, which supports 802.11 a/b/g.
Posted by Anush Yegyazarian | Wednesday, August 30, 2006 6:20 PM PT
Scratching your head over a new charge that's appeared on your Verizon or BellSouth DSL bill? You won't have to worry over it for long. In response to significant negative customer reaction, the companies have just agreed to drop the controversial charge and will credit the money back to those who have already paid.
The surcharge began appearing in customer bills in mid-August, right after DSL providers were allowed to stop collecting a federal fee for the Universal Service Fund. (The USF subsidizes communications services for rural or lower income areas which otherwise might not get service. The Federal Communications Commission last year decided to allow DSL providers to drop the USF fee.)
The new fees--ranging from a bit over $1 to nearly $3--were almost identical to the old USF fees, so customers saw little or no change in their bills, when some probably expected a slight drop.
Many consumers were outraged when they got their bills. At least one angry customer went so far as to put up a Web site,
Stop The DSL RipOff, urging others to write to the FCC and complain, and making it easy for them to do so.
Customer reactions drew the attention of the FCC. And so BellSouth and Verizon received letters from the agency inquiring about the new surcharge as part of a potential investigation.
Last week,
The Wall Street Journal even reported that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and other FCC officials were "fuming" about the new charge. By Friday, BellSouth had
issued a statement saying that it would drop the charges. Today, Verizon
did the same.
Both companies say the fees are justified. BellSouth stated that the fees were to cover leftover regulatory obligations as well as network expenses.
Verizon Online's fees are a result of additional charges imposed by Verizon's telephone branch for DSL customers who do not also get telephone service from the company, says Senior VP of Media Relations Eric Rabe. Although Verizon Online has been dealing with the extra charges for about a year, the DSL-only option has been growing in popularity so the firm tried to recover the costs.
It's unclear whether the FCC inquiry will continue now that the two companies have dropped the new surcharge.
There has been a lot of debate over billing issues as consumers review their various phone and service bills and puzzle over "mystery fees." My colleague, Tom Spring, recently blogged about a
controversial item in cell phone bills. In that case, the questionable service involved "Roadside Assistance," which neither he nor many other customers recalled signing up for, although many had been paying for it for a while.
Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless are both being sued over the Roadside Assistance charge.
Larger questions also loom, as the FCC and states debate over who has the right to set guidelines for what must be spelled out in each of our communications bills and how clear the explanations for charges must be. Stay tuned.
Posted by Edward N. Albro | Monday, August 28, 2006 1:14 PM PT
We're in the midst of preparing a special issue of
PC World for November on the future of technology and we'd like your input. Our editors and writers are researching stories on the future of PCs, the Web, entertainment, privacy, robots, cell phones and more. But we'd like to hear what breakthroughs you're most eagerly awaiting and what problems you think most need fixing.
The survey should only take about 5 or 10 minutes to complete. We'll include the information in our special issue in November and we'll report back right here on some of the most interesting results.
Click
here to go to the questionnaire. One warning to those readers who block most cookies: Our survey host, SurveyMonkey.com, uses cookies for security purposes.
Posted by Melissa Perenson | Monday, August 28, 2006 9:44 AM PT
The shop aisle selling Blu-ray Disc burners is about to get more crowded: Plextor announced today its PC-B900A Blu-ray Disc Drive. Like Sony's Blu-ray Disc drive, the BWU-100A, and I-O Data's BRD-UM2/U, this model will support writing to dual-layer 50GB Blu-ray Discs. The Plextor drive comes with a well-rounded software bundle that includes Ulead's DVD MovieFactory 5, BD DiscRecorder and Burn.Now 1.5, Data-Add 2.0, and VideoStudio 10 Plus; and InterVideo's WinDVD BD for Blu-ray Disc playback. (In other news, InterVideo--which also owns Ulead--was acquired today by Corel.)
According to a spec sheet, supported write speeds include: 8X?R for single-layer write-once DVD, 4X DVD?R on Double-Layer/Dual-Layer DVD, 5X DVD-RAM, 8X DVD+RW, 6X DVD-RW, 24X CD-R, and 16X CD-RW. The drive will have an 8MB data buffer.
The drive will cost $1000, and will ship in October. I-O Data's external drive is priced the same, but Sony's model is priced at $749. And I've heard word of another Blu-ray Disc drive coming this fall that will cost even less than that. Let the price wars begin.
Posted by Tom Spring | Friday, August 25, 2006 5:23 PM PT
I am beginning to wonder whether the cell phone industry likes to keep its bills as confusing as possible. That way, a charge of $3 for things like Roadside Assistance can more easily be overlooked, expecially if it is sandwiched among six other miscellaneous fees.
As I was researching a story on cell phone gripes, I heard about two related class action lawsuits against
Cingular Wireless and
Verizon Wireless. Both suits are based on a monthly $3 to $4 itemized charge showing up on Cingular and Verizon Wireless cell phone bills for a third-party service called Roadside Assistance. In both suits, customers were surprised by Roadside Assistance charges on their monthly bill and claim no knowledge of ordering the optional service.
After reading about the suits, I asked myself "how could someone be so stupid as to overlook a $3 monthly charge for so long?" Then I checked my own Cingular Wireless bill. It turned out I had been paying Cingular $3 a month for the past 13 months for Roadside Assistance also. I was shocked because I had no idea what the charge was for and how it got on my bill.
It turns out Cingular's Roadside Assistance is a third-party extra offered by
Asurion Insurance Services to Cingular customers. The fee is an automobile roadside insurance program. Should I get a flat, get locked out of my car, or run out of gas, I can call a special number on my Cingular handset for someone to come to my rescue for no charge. This is a perfectly acceptable service I might consider. But, the problem is I don't recall ever requesting the service.
Neither did California resident Michael Gellis. He is suing his cell phone company, Verizon Wireless, in Circuit Court in Oakland, California. Cingular Wireless customer Margaret Moffatt is also suing her wireless provider in Circuit Court in Wayne County, Michigan. Both say they were billed without consent monthly for a Roadside Assistance program for over two years.
Continue reading "Lawsuits Target "Mystery" Cell Phone Fee"
Posted by Anne B. McDonald | Thursday, August 24, 2006 10:54 AM PT
Apple Computer today announced a recall of 1.8 million lithium-ion batteries for its iBook and PowerBook notebook PCs, reports Ben Ames of IDG News Service. This is just 10 days after
Dell recalled 4.1 million batteries made for its laptops by Sony.
The Apple batteries, also made by Sony Energy Devices, could overheat, posing a fire hazard to consumers, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said today.
Apple has counted nine reports of overheating, including two instances that caused minor burns from handling the hot computers, the commission said.
Apple Response
"We discovered that some Sony batteries in previous models of PowerPC-based iBooks and PowerBooks do not meet Apple's standards for safety and performance," said Teresa Weaver, a spokeswoman for Apple, of Cupertino, California.
The recall affects only Apple notebooks using PowerPC processors from IBM, not the newer models with chips from Intel, she said.
The affected batteries were built in Sony plants in Japan, Taiwan, and China, then sold by Apple between October 2003 and August 2006, both in new computers and as replacements. They include 1.1 million packs sold in the U.S. and 700,000 sold in other countries.
Apple is telling users to remove the faulty cells immediately, so those customers will have to stay near an AC power outlet to use their computers while they wait four to six weeks for a new battery to arrive. This was similar to the advice Dell gave its consumers.
Apple has not yet decided what type of battery it will send users in return, Weaver said. However, the company will collect the faulty ones for safe disposal.
What Notebooks?
The batteries were used with the following computers: 12-inch iBook G4, 12-inch PowerBook G4, and 15-inch PowerBook G4. No other Apple PC models are involved.
Affected consumers are advised to contact Apple at 1-800-275-2273 between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Central Time Monday through Sunday or log on to
Apple's Web site to check the battery's serial number and request a replacement battery.
Here are the serial numbers of the recalled batteries and the serial numbers of affected laptops.
12-inch iBook G4s: With this battery serial number--A1061; and with these laptop serial numbers--ZZ338 through ZZ427, 3K429 through 3K611, and
6C510 through 6C626.
12-inch PowerBook G4s: With this battery serial number--A1079; and with these laptop serial numbers--ZZ411 through ZZ427, and 3K428 through 3K611.
15-inch PowerBook G4s: With these battery serial numbers--A1078 and A1148; and with these laptop serial numbers--3K425 through 3K601, 6N530 through 6N551, and 6N601.
Posted by Erik Larkin | Thursday, August 24, 2006 9:00 AM PT
Microsoft polished up the latest beta version of Internet Explorer 7 and offered it up today for download as the first release candidate (the step between beta testing and a final version). This new version doesn't add any new features or major interface changes from the last version. It focuses on bug fixes, along with performance, compatibility and security improvements, Microsoft says.
You can get RC1 from
Microsoft's IE site for XP SP2, XP 64-bit and 2003 SP1. No release candidate for Vista yet, but Microsoft says "we're getting close." The final version is still planned for the fourth quarter later this year.
One little plus over
beta 3 is that today's version will automatically uninstall old betas.
This release also adds language support for French and Spanish. The final version will match Windows' supported languages.
There's still a little polishing left to do - a site report display from siteadvisor.com is still a little off, as it was in beta 3, for example - but Microsoft says Web site owners should start using this version to test their sites. Depending on feedback and bug reports, there may be another release candidate version before we see the final version later this year.
If you're already using an IE7 beta, there's no reason not to grab RC1. If you're still using IE 6 for some reason, keep in mind that when IE7 is finished, Microsoft will be distributing it as a
high priority update via Automatic Updates.
Posted by Narasu Rebbapragada | Friday, August 18, 2006 6:41 PM PT
That's the news from our friends at Macworld. They ran benchmark tests on the 2-GHz and 3-GHz models of the Mac Pro, the new Intel-based desktop with two dual-core Xeon processors. Macworld found the 3-GHz Mac Pro faster than the 2.7-GHz dual-processor Power Mac G5 in most tests, the notable exception being that of Adobe Photoshop CS2, which is not yet optimized for Intel processors. For the full story,
click here.
Also, Computer World has published their hands-on review
here.
Posted by Laura Blackwell | Friday, August 18, 2006 1:39 PM PT
There's so much in the news about Microsoft's mysterious Zune, you'd think the music player was the name of a celebrity's new baby. The blogosphere is abuzz with rumors about the Zune, and Gizmodo even showed a
photo. (It looks pretty much like the mockups you've been seeing everywhere, including at
PC World's own
Digital World blog.) Today, rumors swirl: Is the Zune
really a
Toshiba Gigabeat in disguise?
Yes, it's a lot of speculation for a product that's under tight news embargoes and won't be released until
November. But at least there's a photo. That's more than we have of Suri Cruise.
Posted by Eric Dahl | Thursday, August 17, 2006 6:54 PM PT
Well, it's back-to-school-time again, which means every retail outlet under the sun is pushing hard to sell PCs. And with Intel's
extremely fast Core 2 Duo chips starting to take over the desktop market and push down prices on older, slower tech you'd think that the retail outlets would have some pretty sweet deals. Unfortunately, that's not what I'm seeing.
One of my coworkers here mentioned she was looking at new PCs and wondered if this season's retail deals were worth pursuing. I took a quick look through the Sunday ads for
Best Buy,
CompUSA,
Office Depot--all the usual suspects--and found some pretty unimpressive results.
Retail PCs around the $1000 mark shared a pretty common set of specs: 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, integrated graphics, a 17-inch LCD, and either an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ or a Pentium D 915 chip. That's OK, I guess. Problem is, in a month or so, you'll be able to buy a much faster low-end Core 2 Duo system for the same price. How do I know that? Simple. You can get one online right now.
See here's the interesting thing about Intel's Core 2 Duo line: It's already available across most of the price spectrum.
NewEgg has the low-end Core 2 Duo E6300 chip for $203. That's cheap enough to provide the backbone for a respectable $1000 system. And sure enough,
HP Shopping, or
CyberPower, and pretty much any other build-to-order vendor will let you configure a $1000 PC with everything you'll find from a retail box, plus the much faster CPU.
While it's hardly news that boxed, retail configurations lag behind build-to-order machines in adopting the latest technology, it's rare that a next generation CPU would target the mainstream PC market so quickly. In this case, Core 2 Duo just happened to roll out a little bit too late to make it into mainstream retail PCs for the back-to-school crowd.
So if you're shopping for a new PC for yourself or your college student, do yourself a favor: Shop online or wait until mainstream Core 2 Duo systems show up in retail. For the same money you'll get a much faster system.
Posted by Anne B. McDonald | Thursday, August 17, 2006 4:49 PM PT
Microsoft has begun showing how it will integrate its
Windows Live online services into Windows Vista in recent test builds of the operating system, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. This info comes from Elizabeth Montalbano, our colleague at IDG News Service.
Harrison Hoffman, one of the writers of the
LiveSide blog, said in an e-mail today that Windows Live has appeared in the "newer builds" of Vista. He said the links to Windows Live services appear in the Welcome Center screen of recent
Windows Vista builds, which is the "Welcome to Your Computer" page in the OS.
Currently, the extent of the integration is the addition of icons which link users to Windows Live applications, such as Windows Live Messenger, Hoffman said. In fact, a posting on the
Microsoft-watching blog of Steven Bink shows a screenshot of the integration to which Hoffman is referring. According to that screenshot, users can click on an icon to learn more about Windows Live and download online services such as the Windows Live Toolbar, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Messenger.
Microsoft has been releasing intermittent test builds of Vista to beta testers; the OS is currently in a public Beta 2 release. Testers are expecting the first Release Candidate of Vista to be out soon, and Microsoft has said recently that it is on target to release Vista to enterprise customers in November and consumers in January 2007.
Brandon LeBlanc, one of the writers of
Longhorn Blogs, also confirmed via e-mail the integration of Windows Live in Vista's Welcome Center. He said it's still unknown how much Windows Live services will be included in the OS once it is released to manufacturing.
Microsoft has said it would integrate its Windows Live online services with Vista, but has been unclear as to how it would execute on this strategy. The company has been pushing its online services hard as a way to drive online advertising revenue to compete with Google and Yahoo.
Microsoft's public relations firm did not return immediate requests for comment.
Posted by Eric Butterfield | Thursday, August 17, 2006 4:36 PM PT
The new version of
Yahoo Photos, announced today, gives your browser a make-over. Gone is the need to click those "add photo" buttons one at a time, over and over (don't know how I ever mustered that task). Now, you can drag-and-drop images to your photo library--a feature that the company likens to Apple's iPhoto software. This feature isn't unique among photo sharing sites--you can do the same thing with Flickr, Kodak EasyShare Gallery and Shutterfly--it's just that those sites require you to download a software application to do so. No need to use software with Yahoo Photos. Everything happens in the browser.
Another improvement is the ability to create a "smart album," selecting images based on tags, creation date, rating (five stars max), and owner. Also, visitors to your albums can add comments.
Better yet, you can store and retrieve full-resolution files (most sites downsize your images to save storage space). How cool is that? Your online photo library can now do double duty as online backup.
What's your favorite online photo sharing site?
Posted by Narasu Rebbapragada | Wednesday, August 16, 2006 9:05 PM PT
I'm a sucker for a good quiz; apparently I'm also a sucker for good spam.
I took the
McAfee SiteAdvisor Spam Quiz, which asks you to differentiate between a Web site that spams and a Web site that respects your privacy, in eight different Web site categories (such as games, e-cards, dating, jokes). You have screenshots and copies of the sites' privacy policies to help you make your decision.
In six out of the eight questions, I correctly guessed the site that spams after scanning copious amounts of privacy-policy text, but to be honest, I couldn't always differentiate between language that allowed spam from the language that didn't. Plus, SiteAdvisor reported that it received 489 e-mails in one week after entering an e-mail address on Winhundred.com, a site whose privacy policy actually displays the TrustE privacy logo.
No wonder I?m so paranoid.
Posted by Narasu Rebbapragada | Wednesday, August 16, 2006 4:06 PM PT
Despite the lack of real Boot Camp news at Apple's recent Worldwide Developers Conference, the company quietly released an update yesterday for the software that lets users install and run Windows XP on Intel-based Macs. Boot Camp will be a part of Mac OS X 10.5, aka Leopard, due out in spring 2007.
The update includes support for the latest Intel-based Macs, presets for partitioning your drive, iSight Web cam support, and improved Apple keyboard functionality.
You can download Boot Camp
here. Let us know what you think.
Posted by Danny Allen | Monday, August 14, 2006 5:21 PM PT
Dell today announced that in cooperation with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, it is recalling 4.1 million Dell-branded lithium-ion notebook batteries with cells manufactured by Sony. A press release just issued by the company states that "under rare conditions, it is possible for these batteries to overheat, which could cause the risk of fire."
Customers may continue to use the laptop computers safely by turning the system off, ejecting the battery, and using the AC adapter and power cord to power the system until the replacement battery is received, the company said.
Dell provided the batteries in question with certain notebooks, in addition to selling them separately between April 1, 2004 and July 18, 2006. Affected batteries have the words "Dell" followed by "Battery Cell Made in Japan Assembled in China" or "Made in Japan/China" printed on them.
Each battery has a white sticker with an identification number and Dell is asking customers to quote this when calling to determine if a battery is part of the recall.
Affected Models
Latitude series: D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800, D810
Inspiron series: 6000, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 500m, 510m, 600m, 6400, E1505, 700m, 710m, 9400, E1705
Precision series: M20, M60, M60, M70, M90
XPS series: Gen2, M170, M1710
More Information
Dell's recall site (launches at 1 a.m. Central Daylight Savings Time)
Here is the IDG News Service story
on the announcement.
PC World is following this breaking story closely and will report more details as they come to hand.
And here are photos of more of the
batteries in question and the full announcement by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Posted by Erik Larkin | Friday, August 11, 2006 4:35 PM PT
Earlier this week AOL released a free standalone antivirus program called Active Virus Shield. It's powered by Kaspersky's antivirus engine, known for its fast AV updates. It's also free for everyone, not just AOL users, so I thought I'd take a look. And right away I saw a note that sounds suspiciously like an ok to send spam.
I can't tell you too much about the program itself, because I haven't yet received the required e-mail activation. And the software is partially disabled without the code. Some things I can see do look good, like the potential to get signature updates as frequently as every hour, and the ability to fine-tune if and how it sends you different types of notifications.
But on
the download page where you're prompted for your e-mail, there's this note:
"You also agree to receive electronically from us periodic notices about Active Virus Shield and other services that may be of interest to you."
That kind of language always catches my eye. So I copied the full (and lengthy) license agreement into the excellent
EULAlyzer, which pointed out some interesting parts:
Your APS Product information consists of personally identifiable information collected or received about you when you interact with the Software and its related features?
Your APS Product information may be shared with affiliates of AOL Premium Services LLC (?Affiliates?). Affiliates that receive your APS Product information may use this information according to their applicable privacy policies. As a condition for your use of the Software, you agree to receive promotions and periodic e-mail messages from us and our Affiliates.
So basically, it looks to me like if you even download the software, you're agreeing to let AOL and any of its affiliates send you ads.
For comparison, I checked the install process and EULA for two other free standalone antivirus products, from
Avast! and
Antivir.
Avast! lets you use the product for 60 days without registration, but then you have to provide your e-mail address and other information to get a registration code. And Avast's privacy policy says:
We use your personal information for the following purposes:
* To help us create and publish content most relevant to you.
* To alert you to product upgrades, special offers, updated information and other new services from ALWIL Software, if you so request.
So maybe not too different there. But I didn't find anything in Avast's EULA about getting ads from third parties, and I didn't see anything in the registration process about it, either.
Antivir, on the other hand, creates its own serial number when you install. No need to provide an e-mail address or register, and Antivir says that while the serial number is sent with update requests, the number can't be traced back.
I need to point out that I haven't actually received any spam from AOL or "affiliates" after giving them multiple e-mail addresses in the hopes of getting an activation code. But if the EULA language is any indication, I might soon.
Posted by Erik Larkin | Friday, August 11, 2006 3:04 PM PT
Make sure you've got this patch: Microsoft issued on Tuesday a fix for a major vulnerability in its server service, used for file and print sharing. Since then, security companies and even the
Department of Homeland Security are raising alarms about the risk of a widespread worm attack. My colleage Robert McMillan at the IDG news service wrote about it
yesterday and
today.
According to
Microsoft's bulletin, the hole makes Windows XP (including SP2), Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 vulnerable to a remote attack that can take over your computer. The server service is on by default, so most every unpatched Windows PC is potentially vulnerable.
This one raises the worm fears because a piece of malicious software using the exploit could spread itself from PC to PC. You don't need to be browsing a poisoned Web site or open a corrupted e-mail attachment to get hit.
To protect yourself,
get the patch from Microsoft directly or use Windows Update. Also, use a hardware or software firewall to block the bad guys' attempts to remotely connect to your PC. Most every firewall blocks all incoming connections unless you specifically allow some through, but check to make sure, or that at least TCP ports 139 and 445 are blocked.
Update: As Bob McMillan notes in his story today, attack code that hits this flaw is currently available as part of Metasploit, a popular tool for exploit research and penetration testing. HD Moore, head of the Metasploit project and well-known hacker, wrote that the Metasploit attack code doesn't affect Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows 2003 Service Pack 1.
Microsoft does say in its security bulletin that both those OS's are vulnerable, though, so be sure to patch no matter your OS.
Posted by Eric Butterfield | Wednesday, August 09, 2006 1:40 PM PT
It's a great time to be a photo enthusiast. With every generation of cameras, we get more features for our money, and Nikon's new SLR seems to be no exception. Today the company announced the 10.2-megapixel D80, a replacement for its 6.1-megapixel
D70s.
For starters, the D80 offers a kit lens with a more powerful zoom than many other models we've tested. For $1299 you get the body ($999) and an 18-135mm lens. The D80 incorporates a number of attributes from more advanced models, such as the image processing used in $4699
D2Xs (though the D80's CCD is different). Also, the D80 borrows a couple attributes from the $1700
D200, such as an 11-area AF and speed light capability for commanding two groups of remote flashes (the D70s can control one group).
Here's some appetite-whetting specs: The purportedly fast D80 starts up in under 0.2-second, and suffers minimal shutter lag of 80ms. The battery (again, borrowed from the D200) is specified to last 2700 shots per charge, versus 1800 frames with the D70s.
But not all of the D80's noteworthy features have trickled down from semi-pro SLRs. Some are conveniences from Nikon's Coolpix line of point-and-shoot cameras, such as in-camera retouching. The D80 can apply lighting effects, reduce red-eye, overlay multiple images, and trim photos. Also, for black-and-white fans, there are color filter effects--something I saw first in the Olympus E-500
.
Those with bigger budgets might want to splurge for Nikon's new $669 70-300mm zoom lens, which features a vibration reduction system. With such extras offered by consumer-priced SLRs, I expect to see even more people with an SLR hanging around their neck.
Posted by Narasu Rebbapragada | Tuesday, August 08, 2006 7:07 AM PT
Apple's new Mac Pro line-up, with dual-core Intel Xeon processors, looks attractive and powerful from what we can tell from today's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. For more details on Mac Pro and Mac OS X 10.5 (aka Leopard) announcements, read
Macworld's coverage and PC World Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken's
Techlog. But I thought I'd highlight just a few things:
More Memory:
The Mac Pro supports up to 16GB of 667-MHz DDR2-SDRAM with a 256-bit wide memory architecture. That's twice as wide as the memory bus of the G5 Power Mac according to Macworld.
Second Optical Drive:
Apple says the space savings from the new Xeon processors made room for an optional second optical drive, although that drive currently supports neither Blu-ray Disc nor HD-DVD formats. (Apple is on the board of the Blu-ray Disc Association, so draw your own conclusions.) And if you don?t want a second optical drive, you can't use that bay for anything else.
Four Drive Bays:
The Mac Pro has four, easy-access hard drive bays capable of storing up to 2TB worth of SATA drives. The bays don't require tools for swapping out drives.
SLI Denied:
Apple's graphic board options--Nvidia's 7300 GT, ATI's Radeon X1900 XT, and Nvidia's Quadro FX 4500--support neither Nvidia's SLI nor ATI's CrossFire multi-GPU configurations. All cards support dual-monitor setups, with the X1900 and Quadro FX cards supporting dual 30-inch display setups.
Three Free PCI Express Slots
Speaking of graphics, the Mac Pro offers three open, double-wide 16-lane PCI Express graphics slots (the fourth slot seats the graphics card). You get 300W maximum for all four slots.
Posted by Edward N. Albro | Monday, August 07, 2006 9:01 PM PT
If nothing else, you have to give Sony credit for creative thinking with their latest product annoucement. The mylo device they're talking up today is unlike any other I've seen.
In form, it's a little like a Sidekick, with a 2.4-inch screen that slides up to reveal a full QWERTY thumb keyboard. But unlike a Sidekick, it doesn't connect to a wireless phone network. Instead the mylo depends on Wi-Fi networks for its connectivity.
Sony says the mylo (the name stands for "my life online") is designed for a life form they call the "techno socialite" and it's largely about communicating, presumably with other techno socialites. You can IM with a mylo (as long as you use Yahoo, Skype or Google's chat services), you can make VoIP phone calls using Skype and you can check your email (if you have a web inbox with Google or Yahoo).
It's also got a web browser (Opera's mobile browser), it plays MP3s and videos, shows photos and you can edit simple text files. You have only 1GB of onboard Flash memory. To store more songs or other files, you'll need to use Sony's memory sticks. The mylo won't be available until next month, when it will go for about $350.
I got a chance to play with a mylo only briefly at a recent demonstration, so I wouldn't attempt to really review it. But it's hard for me to even give an opinion. Sony says they've designed the mylo for the 18 to 24-year-old set whose social lives (in theory, at least) revolve around chat. Since I left that demographic last century and have never been much of a socialite, techno or otherwise, the mylo, almost by design, doesn't much appeal to me.
But Sony makes a good argument that the mylo will allow people to do many of the things they do with a sophisticated cell phone, without monthly cell phone bills.
So kids, what do you think? Would you spring for a mylo?
Posted by Erik Larkin | Monday, August 07, 2006 3:19 PM PT
I went to a follow-up talk over the weekend at Defcon on the Macbook break-in my colleague Narasu
covered earlier in the week, and since the two presenters - Johnny Cache and David Mayner - answered some of the at-times heated questions that had come up, I thought I'd pass along some of their additional info.
Most importantly, and as Narasu said in her post, this vulnerability isn't specific to Macs. It's due to flaws in the 802.11 device drivers used for most all laptop wireless connections. Maynor and Cache say they found the holes mostly with automated tools called fuzzers.
The two say they had three attacks that worked against three particular device drivers, which vary depending on the wireless card used and the operating system. One of the holes used has since been fixed; the Macbook attack still works.
Because each attack is tailored to a particular driver, the exploit begins by "fingerprinting" the exact driver used on any given laptop, down to the version. The wireless card in question doesn't have to be connected to, just on.
Once the driver is identified, an attacker can launch a specific attack and take full control of the machine. Execute commands, create and delete files, what have you.
Mayner says he's giving Apple the data on the attack, and isn't otherwise releasing specifics that would let someone else reproduce the exploit. So I wouldn't expect to see the particular Macbook attack that he and Cache demonstrated in the wild. But the underlying 802.11 driver vulnerability, which the two hackers say is because of their complexity, will presumably remain for plenty of drivers.
Posted by Erik Larkin | Sunday, August 06, 2006 10:37 AM PT
Here's another example, this one out of Defcon here in Vegas, of how phishers and other online criminals work to stay one step ahead of the good guys. To get around attempts to shut down their phishing sites, the bad guys are using a trick with the domain name service, or DNS, that translates human-readable names like www.google.com into the IP addresses that computers use to find their way around on the Internet. DNS is a must-have; the Internet couldn't function without it.
But the crooks are using an otherwise useful, and often free, service called dynamic DNS to keep phishing sites alive. The service lets anyone who signs up for an account link a name to a changing IP address, which is good for things like using a webcam at home.
Problem is, when a phishing site is found and shut down, phishers using dynamic DNS can just start another one at a new IP address and keep the same name. So all those email links pointing to http://stealyourmoney.phishing.com will still work.
I found out about this one at a talk from Gadi Evron, who works for an Israeli security company. He says botnet controllers use the same trick to keep the command-and-control centers for their botnets. Used to be that the control servers were a good target, because if you shut them down the botnet was effectively dead in the water. But dynamic DNS allows the same continuous cat-and-mouse game here too.
The people running dynamic DNS fight the criminals, of course, but it's an ongoing battle that for the moment (at least according to Evron) gives the bad guys the advantage. Yet another reason why phishing won't be going away any time soon.
Posted by Erik Larkin | Saturday, August 05, 2006 2:29 PM PT
If you want some insight on the atmosphere here at DefCon, let me tell you about The Wall of Sheep. It's a giant screen on the wall in the room with the bar that displays the username and password (first three characters) of anyone who makes the critical mistake of using unsecured wireless communication at a hacker conference.
Yahoo, hotmail and myspace credentials fly by, along with a host of other site logins, after having been lifted from the airwaves by a white, one-foot (or so) antenna near the screen. There are some tongue-in-cheek messages as well, like "Davethecomputerguy you should probably stop changing your password on this network." One poor guy had his MySpace profile picture on display after somebody saw his username on the list and grabbed his picture.
Sure, this is probably the single worst place to not practice safe surfing. Your home network might not have the same 100 percent guarantee of getting hacked. But it's a good example of why you should use encryption for your wireless network, and turn off open Bluetooth in your phone or PDA.
Posted by Erik Larkin | Friday, August 04, 2006 4:19 PM PT
Not exactly what you want to hear from the security experts on the
front lines of the constant battle with the bad guys out to break
into your PC and your wallet. But that's just what Dan Hubbard,
senior director of security and technology research at Websense, said
at a talk today at Defcon, the hacker conference.
Hubbard said that at a panel discussion with the FBI, IRS and other
security experts. He was talking about the growing technical
sophistication of the criminals behind phishing and all the malicious
software flying around the Internet these days. Some of them aren't
particularly smart or capable - plenty of people like to look down
their noses at "script kiddies" who just use other's tools. And there are some very smart and capable people in white hats, to be sure. But when
there's $2 billion stolen per year in phishing alone (according to
Gadi Evron, another security expert), there's a strong financial
incentive for the bad guys to keep their skills sharp and stay one -
or three - steps ahead of the good guys.
There's some good news on the law enforcement front, according to the
FBI. Some hacker-hotbed countries which were previously dead ends
when it came to investigating internet crime that originated within
their borders are now starting to work with US law enforcement. But
dealing with a borderless Internet is still a problem for
organizations with limited jurisdictions.
A few weeks ago, I heard another FBI rep say she thought computer
crime hadn't yet had its Enron moment, so it isn't getting a major
upswing in law enforcement attention like corporate crime. So it's
likely that Internet safety will get worse before it gets better.
Until then, stay sharp online, and keep that antivirus up to date.
Posted by Narasu Rebbapragada | Friday, August 04, 2006 10:11 AM PT
Rootkits can hide themselves from current firewall software according to research engineer Alexander Tereshkin, one of the presenters at the Black Hat 2006 security conference. Tereshkin's talk described how network firewalls need to operate at a deeper level than the rootkits themselves in order to successfully block this dangerous, and growing, class of threat.
Tereshkin demonstrated how a rootkit called Firewalk went undetected by the Zone Labs ZoneAlarm firewall, which Tereshkin had configured to block network traffic. One caveat: Tereshkin disabled ZoneAlarm's application-level firewall in order to install the rootkit on his system. Sky King, Zone Labs' group manager of client technologies, said that the OS Firewall, if turned on, would have prevented the installation.
Tereshkin's demo showed, however, the deep level at which malware can operate--a level potentially deep enough to evade Windows Vista's User Account Control. (See Erik Larkin's
sobering blog on one potential Vista-proof threat code-named BluePill.) Zone Labs' King pointed to privileged escalation attacks, which can execute untrusted code even when you're not a privileged user, as one of the significant malware trends presented at Black Hat this year.
So how can you protect yourself? King said that
ZoneAlarm Pro 6.5 detects all known rootkit techniques, and Tereshkin mentioned
Agnitum's Outpost Firewall Pro as one of the more complex consumer firewalls. (Disclaimer: PC World has not tested current versions of these products.)
Posted by Erik Larkin | Thursday, August 03, 2006 7:15 PM PT
No sooner had I posted
earlier today about some welcome Vista security changes than a Singapore-based company, Coseinc, presented two new proof-of-concept attacks on Redmond's beta OS.
One of the test attacks is pretty involved, and pretty chilling. Codenamed "BluePill," the attack allows for running what the company claims is well-nigh undetectable malware on AMD64 computers with Vista. By using the virtualization enabled on that platform to basically create a whole separate version of the operating system that can pre-process information before it reaches the "real" operating system, it can hide from antivirus and pretty much anything else.
Unlike earlier reports of using a virtual machine to hide malicious software, Coseinc says Bluepill can do its dirty work on the fly, with no reboot or other major prep work required.
The company didn't show an actual BluePill demo at the BlackHat conference today, but they did demo the second attack. This one gets around another positive security change in Vista that blocks anything - like rootkits or keyloggers - from loading drivers that aren't digitally signed.
By messing around with the hard disk file that Vista uses to store virtual memory, Coseinc makes an end-run around the driver loading protection. The attack tricks Vista into moving drivers into virtual memory by eating up a ton of real memory. Once there, it finds a driver of choice (null.sys in the demo) and modifies it with attack code. The attack then tells Vista to use that driver, along with the attached payload.
While seemingly potent, these are just examples right now. There are no known attacks using these methods. Microsoft, along with antivirus and other security companies, will have time to bring in countermeasures that would (I hope) make them impossible before Vista is finished. But the work is a good example of the challenges facing Microsoft when there's a cadre of motivated, money-minded online criminals just waiting to find holes in Vista. As Coseinc said today, there are welcome security changes in the new OS. But again, I wish Microsoft good luck. They are gonna need it.
Posted by Narasu Rebbapragada | Thursday, August 03, 2006 3:39 PM PT
I had an eerie feeling watching a big-screen video of a security researcher hacking into a MacBook through a Wi-Fi connection. Partly, it was because I was sitting in a room full of people clamoring to know how he did it. Mostly, it was because I was typing on a black MacBook myself.
I was listening to a lecture given by Johnny Cache and Dave Maynor at the Black Hat 2006 conference here in Las Vegas. (Maynor is the MacBook hacker in the video, which you can see here:)
In the end, the Mac wasn't the focus of the hour-long briefing. And Cache and Maynor hacked the drivers of a third-party external Wi-Fi card. They chose the MacBook--in part because of Apple's smug Mac vs. PC commercials--to demonstrate the security weaknesses in 802.11 device drivers and the dangers inherent in releasing products before they?ve been thoroughly tested.
"Speed to market is so important, people are getting pushed to get stuff out the door as quickly as possible," said Maynor.
Companies want to be first out of the gate with the latest, greatest products. (And we at PC World want to be the first to review them.) But Cache and Maynor showed, in step-by-step fashion, how they could identify Wi-Fi chip sets and the drivers through their unique data transfer patterns. By identifying the drivers, they could find their vulnerabilities and write exploits to take advantage of them. The result: Maynor was able to remotely search, add, and delete files on the Wi-Fi connected MacBook.
This is not just a MacBook problem. It's also a Windows problem. It's a problem wherever multiple parties--in this case the chip maker, the Wi-Fi hardware manufacturer, and even the OS developer--are writing portions of drivers that aren't properly tested with each other.
The likelihood that you'll encounter to this particular exploit is small. "You have to have some economic gain," said Cache in an interview after the event. Right now, there's little gain in hacking into an individual laptop at short range. But what happens when the range of Wi-Fi is kilometers instead of meters? What happens when cities provide always-on public Wi-Fi connections?
"Vendors should be dealing with it now before it is a big problem in a year or two," says Maynor.
Let's hope they do.
Posted by Narasu Rebbapragada | Thursday, August 03, 2006 3:37 PM PT
Where can you learn to code a multi-headed worm to sniff out digital footprints across an encrypted network? In Hollywood, of course.
Celebrity hacker Johnny Long gave a tongue-in-cheek presentation called Hacking, Hollywood Style. Through a series of slides and video clips -- Long posited (in complete sarcasm) that Hollywood's incredulous
hacking scenarios are so "leet" (slang for elite) that they make real-world hacking look "lame."
Where else but in a dated Hollywood movie would a techie be frantically working with a floppy drive inserted into a CD player, which isn't plugged into anything? (Did Hollywood predict Wi-Fi)?
Where else but Hollywood would an IT administrator respond to a full-network attack by doing "a full reboot." Luddites or visionaries? You decide.
After the talk, I asked Long for his list of best and worst hacking movies.
Movies that get hacking right:
Antitrust Sneakers
Enemy of the State
War Games (for its time)
The Matrix Reloaded (for its use of Nmap)
Movies that get hacking wrong:
Game Over (also called Maximum Surge Movie)
NetForce
Code Hunter (also called Storm Watch)
Posted by Erik Larkin | Thursday, August 03, 2006 11:58 AM PT
Microsoft sure wants us to think so, based on what I just heard at a presentation here at BlackHat. But is it all a lot of puff, or will Vista really be safer than XP?
Sure, the only true test will be when plenty of people are using the final version and it becomes a target (and you can bet it will be) for hackers. But if Redmond can do a good job pulling off the under-the-hood stuff they just talked about, it should go a long ways towards making your experience with Vista safer than with XP.
Two things that really caught me were the attention being paid to users and services. Right now, XP does a pretty bad job with both in terms of security. Which means that if an online criminal can break in via a program you're running or one of the Windows services, they've typically got free reign on the computer. The criminal's malware can embed rootkits, change system files, all sorts of nasty stuff. (We'll have an article in our next issue with more on this, along with some new security products that address it).
The good news is that Microsoft is taking steps to change that, by kind of compartmentalizing users and services so that hacking in from just about any angle doesn't automatically hand over the machine (in much the same way that other operating systems have done for a long time). The bad news is that so far, Microsoft's changes have made Vista betas pretty annoying with pop-ups asking for permission to do fairly mundane things.
I wish Redmond all the luck in the world for getting all these changes done right, and also in finding that sweet spot between security and convenience so that they don't end up annoying the heck out of people. They're gonna need it.
Posted by Narasu Rebbapragada | Wednesday, August 02, 2006 12:49 PM PT
I heard an interesting take on trusted computing by Bruce Potter, who is both a Booz Allen Hamilton consultant and the founder of
The Shmoo Group security think tank. It's that latter title that gives Potter the credibility to tell a bunch of likely privacy paranoids to embrace trusted computing, the controversial hardware-based technology for both identifying and securing your PC.
The privacy implications of trusted computing are well discussed. By uniquely identifying your PC, it has the potential to destroy your anonymity and monitor your right to view DRM-protected content (the reason why non-authorized hardware can't play Apple iTunes Music Store songs, for example.)
But Potter's point is that trusted computing can be a good thing. It prevents criminals from viewing files that require a hardware-enabled encryption key on your PC for access. It can better guarantee what devices can and can't log onto a corporate network.
But more importantly, Potter says, "Trusted computing is going to happen."
At the heart of Potter's talk is the TPM (Trusted Platform Module), the chip that holds information unique to your PC and that can communicate that information to other devices. While many PCs contain TPM chips, they likely don't interfere with your day-to-day activities right now. That's because the software that takes advantage of it is still nascent. Windows Vista, for example, supports TPM but the developer interface is not documented enough to be useful, according to Potter.
The key is developing good software that takes advantage of TPM chips without sacrificing the user experience. A TPM-based encryption key that protects your family's digital photos can be a good thing, but then how will you backup those files to another PC or hard drive?
That's the sort of challenge that Potter wants developers to tackle. His advice: Leave the privacy stuff to the experts.
"The EFF and ACLU are going to be all over that," he says. "They're good at it; let them do it."
Is Potter doling out good advice or too much trust in trusted computing? (
The Trusted Computing Group, whose members include bigwigs like AMD, Intel, and Microsoft, is developing specs for trusted computing components.) In any case, it's an interesting take.
Posted by Narasu Rebbapragada | Wednesday, August 02, 2006 12:03 PM PT
I kicked off my stay at Black Hat 2006 at 8 am this morning with a bagel and fruit breakfast. I talked to some of the vendors and attendees here for the event--people like Melanie Rieback, who is presenting a briefing on RFID Malware Demystified tomorrow. Although she's from the U.S., she's based in The Netherlands, part of the international contingent that makes up 15 percent of attendees according to show organizers.
Attendee Norm Beebe, a Black Hat repeat visitor, is interested in the Microsoft Vista track of briefings to learn just how secure the operating system is. (Microsoft is a new sponsor of Black Hat.) Beebe is a CISSP CISM working at Baltimore-based CGB, which performs risk assessment on federal computer systems. He comments that Black Hat has traditionally not been friendly ground for the software giant. When Microsoft says that Vista is secure, they know that 99 percent of attendees are here to prove that it's not, Beebe surmises.
Security company booths lined the sides of the Black Hat breakfast area. One such booth was from Tipping Point, a division of 3COM. In addition to showing off its intrusion prevention security appliance (an all-in-one security box for enterprises), the company is here to convince coders to divulge application and OS vulnerabilities they find. Through its zerodayinitiative.com site, Tipping Point pays developers to tell them about software vulnerabilities, which it alerts the appropriate companies to after developing a fix for. "We're trying to provide incentives for researchers to come to us," says Jason Wright, product-marketing manager for Tipping Point.
I'm attending briefings for the next two days. Stay tuned for more.
Posted by Narasu Rebbapragada | Tuesday, August 01, 2006 6:40 PM PT
My colleague Erik Larkin and I will be joining about 3000 security professionals for two days of
Black Hat 2006 briefings at Caesars Palace, starting tomorrow morning, August 2.
The Black Hat conference is an annual meeting of the minds focused on developing computer security mechanisms. Erik also will be attending
Defcon 2006 later in the week, which is the counter-culture alternative conference focused on hacking, or at least reverse engineering, said security mechanisms.
Regardless of your inclination, tune in to PCWorld.com this week. We'll be attending both security conferences in the scorching hot town of Las Vegas.
Black Hat 2006
This year's big-ring attraction at Black Hat is Windows Vista security. Microsoft, one of the event sponsors, is presenting a whole day's worth of sessions including one on Internet Explorer 7 and another on Wi-Fi security. The Center for Democracy and Technology's Anti-Spyware Coalition is holding a forum on the latest, meanest spyware threats. Plus, we'll report on rootkits, worms, viruses, and newer threats, like those attacking RSS news feeds and VoIP networks.
Defcon 2006After Black Hat, Erik will head down to the Riviera Hotel to hobnob with the 5000 or so hackers at Defcon, where the topics are sure to range from fighting organized cyber crime to "WarRocketing" to the NSA. We'll give you the latest, sure-to-be-colorful news from this cash-only event.
What Do You Want to Know?
We'll both be armed with laptops, so post your comments and questions on our
Privacy & Security forum, and we'll do our best to cover what's important to you.
Posted by Alan Stafford | Tuesday, August 01, 2006 2:21 PM PT
Yesterday I heard a disk (or is it "disc"?) jockey on a local FM radio station say that today, "everyone's" cell phone numbers would be released to telemarketers and that we'd all start getting sales calls at our expense. It didn't sound quite right to me, and as it turns out, it wasn't--it's an
urban Internet myth.
According to
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, "?under federal law telemarketers are not allowed to place pre-recorded messages to cell phones and that many states prohibit text messages to cell phones." The one thing that the disc jockey got right was that you can put your cell phone number on the national
Do Not Call list to prevent telemarketers from calling you--at least, some telemarketers; I'm getting more and more calls on my home number from organizations that aren't covered by the FTC rules. In my case, they're mostly charities and political organizations, but we're also subject to calls from "companies with which you have an existing business relationship." I'm pretty sure that some of the parties calling me are skirting the rules--probably the ones that show up as "Out of Area" on my Caller ID screen.
But an e-mail pitch I received today concerns me more: A company called MCNE recently released
appliedSB, a service that "allows brands the capabilities to communicate directly with their target audience via the customer's cellphone and the mobile internet." For example, the company says, you could attend an automobile race and see a banner telling you to send a text message to a number and receive information on sweepstakes, giveaways, or information on which cars are in first, second, and so on.
This sounds to me like a great use of technology--as long as cell phone owners retain the right to say "No." MCNE Russell Morgan, chief operating officer and co-founder, says that cellular carriers won't allow spamming and will require customers to opt in to get content. "Anybody who doesn't play by [cellular companies'] no-spamming rules will be prevented from sending transactions. Carriers will block them." But those carriers get a piece of every text message; what happens if they decide they're not making enough Revenue Per User (
RPU)?
Morgan says an opt-in agreement during an event will generally expire when the event concludes; you won't continue to get offers after the race is over. However, with some offers, your opt-in may be good as long as you let it. You can always unsubscribe to such offers, of course. But that clause in the Do Not Call rules about not covering "companies with which you have an existing business relationship" makes me very suspicious--I can imagine privacy policies on websites and sales slips at retailers including fine print that affirms my consent to be spammed. When my cell phone starts pushing Best Buy coupons on me, I'm going to hit the roof.
Morgan points out that this method of delivery has nothing to do with Bluetooth spamming, wherein you could get a message on your phone when you walk into a store via that short-range technology. Bluetooth spamming, while annoying, doesn't cost you anything because it's not using your carrier's network, and you can turn off discovery mode on your handset to prevent it from happening at all.
But I can't help but think that we little consumers won't be able to avoid "mobile marketing" in one form or another--it's just too golden an opportunity for marketing types to pass up, and consumers simply have too little power these days to prevent it from happening. We're going to get spammed and pitched and "special-offered" to death, and there's nothing we can do about it.
Of course, I could be overreacting; feel free to tell me if you think I'm off my nut.
Posted by Edward N. Albro | Tuesday, August 01, 2006 1:50 PM PT
For the past two weeks, I've been running the latest build of Windows Vista on my work machine here at PC World. Today I tried to log in to our network and got this alarming reply: "The trust relationship between this workstation and the primary domain failed."
How could this breakdown in the "trust relationship" have happened? Is it that my network is connecting with other PCs? Has my PC been complaining about my network to all its friends?
I rebooted and the problem went away -- for now. But as I look at my desktop and my network happily sharing data and working together, I'm haunted by the thought that this may be just a temporary reconciliation. In another couple of days, will my network have angrily closed off all its ports? Will my PC be searching for a wireless router to connect with instead? Because really, once the trust relationship has failed, what else is there but divvying up the MP3 files and moving on?
