p2pnet World Headlines: Nov 24, 2009: #1
IE bug leaks private details from 50m PDF files The Register
A bug in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser is causing more than 50 million files stored online to leak potentially sensitive information that could compromise user privacy, a security researcher said. The documents stored in Adobe’s PDF format display the internal disk location where the file is stored, an oversight that can inadvertently expose real-world names and login IDs of users, the operating system being used and other information that is better kept private. The data can then be retrieved using simple web searches. Google searches such as this one expose almost four million documents residing on users’ C drives alone. Combined with searches for other common drives, the technique exposes more than 50 million files that display the local disk path, according to Inferno, a security researcher for a large software company who asked that his real name not be used.
DVD Customers Are Not Movie Pirates The Wrap
Major Hollywood movie studios have recently launched a public relations offensive against internet ‘piracy’ of their movies and television programming, making their case before Congress, the FCC and even on “60 Minutes.” But much of what Hollywood calls ‘piracy’ may actually be consumer demand going unmet by legitimate supply. All too frequently, it is Hollywood`s own stubborn unwillingness to give law-abiding customers what they want that drives many of them to search out unauthorized alternatives. Consider Hollywood`s attitude toward DVDs. With billions sold, the DVD is the dominant consumer medium for accessing digital video. Of course, many of the most popular movies on DVD are also available for downloading and viewing from unauthorized sources on the internet, a fact that is not likely to change. Logic suggests that the best way to compete with these unauthorized alternatives is make the legitimate DVD alternative more attractive to customers, just as Apple`s iTunes has been successfully doing with digital music. Instead, Hollywood has been working overtime to make the DVD less attractive, less convenient and more expensive for law-abiding customers.
‘Spam King’ gets 4 years for fraud Detroit Free Press
A West Bloomfield man dubbed by the feds as the ’spam king’ was sentenced today by a federal judge to more than four years for a stock-fraud scheme that netted him $2.7 million in the summer of 2005. Alan Ralsky, 63, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and to violating the federal CAN-SPAM Act, which bans misleading subject lines in e-mail and the sending of commercial e-mail messages that appear to be from friends. An indictment charged that Ralsky of West Bloomfield, his son-in-law, Scott Bradley, and others used unsolicited e-mail to pump up the price of penny stock in Chinese companies to artificially high prices and then sold it. Bradley and two other men are being sentenced this afternoon.
Motorola, Research in Motion sued over voicemail Associated Press
Patent holding company Klausner Technologies Inc. on Monday said it’s suing Motorola Inc. and the maker of BlackBerry smartphones for allegedly violating its patent for visual voicemail. Klausner said Motorola uses visual voicemail on its “Cliq” cell phones. Other Motorola phones with visual voicemail already are under license from Klausner. Visual voicemail lets callers see a list of voicemail messages and choose which ones to retrieve first.
PayPal agrees to tighten security against money launderers and criminals Australian IT
Australia’s financial transactions regulator has given eBay subsidiary PayPal Australia until May next year to bulletproof its online payment service against money launderers and terrorism financiers. PayPal accepted the deadline yesterday as part of enforceable undertakings ratified by the Australian Transactions Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) in a bid to resolve a dispute with the regulator that has bubbled away for more than a year. AUSTRAC chief John Schmidt said the centre had concerns over PayPal’s “fine-grain” ability to adequately report anti-money laundering and terrorism financing risks on its service. He said AUSTRAC had been in negotiations with PayPal for “a considerable period of time” and accepted yesterday the undertakings to make changes. The undertaking contained a declaration that “AUSTRAC has expressed concerns that PayPal has contravened and continues to contravene the (Anti-Money Laundering Act and the Counter Terrorism Financing Act) and AML/CTF rules.”
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November, 2009
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November 24th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
“he documents stored in Adobeâs PDF format display the internal disk location where the file is stored, an oversight that can inadvertently expose real-world names and login IDs of users, the operating system being used and other information that is better kept private.”
Which is just another reason that people should create their own directories for storing files in rather than use the ones that MS tries to force on you. Sadly, most people are too clueless about computers to even know what a directory is, let alone that you can create and use your own.
November 24th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
“Which is just another reason that people should create their own directories for storing files in rather than use the ones that MS tries to force on you.”
No matter which directory you use, it will be exposed in a PDF file, because it is IE who puts it there before printing the document. And I am sure that IE is not the only one putting internal paths into PDF files.