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Cleveland-area blogs*:

Backup BugBlog

Economic Development Futures

Brewed Fresh Daily

Cleve-blog

Working with Words

Gassho

Sardonic Views

Filtering Craig

Hotel Bruce

Blogcritics.org

Up Yours

Kevin Holtsberry

Steve Goldberg

Red Wheelbarrow

Anita Campbell

Swerb's Blurbs

Rachel's Law

*there are more blogs in Cleveland, these are just from people I've met or know. Some of the above are actually farther away, but are bloggers I've met here.

What I'm Reading

Macromedia ColdFusion MX Web Application Construction Kit
(so I have a dull life!)

The BugBlog uses monthly archives. All the May bugs will be on this page. Use the links on the left or below to jump back to past months.

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Read the special report on bugs, incompatibilities and other problems in entertainment software and hardware.

5/31/2004 Some Radio Streams Won't Work After iTunes 4.5 Update

In iTunes 4.2 for both Mac OS X and Windows, you could listen to an Internet radio stream that did not start with http://. According to Apple, that's not the case with iTunes 4.5. You may try to listen to the same stream, and it will cause iTunes 4.5 to crash. You can fix this by editing the URL info found in a stream's Summary button. See the details at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93831.

5/29/2004 Expired Passwords May Still Work in Windows 2000

Microsoft says that in Windows 2000 Professional, Server, and Advanced Server a user with an expired password may still be able to log on to the system. They will be able to do so if the fully qualified domain name of a system is exactly eight characters long. Since a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) might be something like www.bugblog.com, it would be a little difficult to have one with eight characters, but it is possible. Microsoft has a hotfix to prevent this, which will be in a future Windows 2000 service pack. If your FQDN is exactly eight characters long, and you have users with expired passwords, you may want to get this hotfix right away. Contact Microsoft and as for the fix described in Knowledge Base article 830847. Note that you may be charged for this call.

5/28/2004 Novell Fixes Blue Screen Flaws in Client 4.9

Novell has released a patched NWFS.SYS for their Novell Client 4.9 Post-SP1 that fixes a number of bugs that were leading to Blue Screen of Death errors. These include a blue screen that would happepn after the client had returned from hibernation; a blue screen in Windows 2000 computers when they came out of suspend mode; plus an additional bug that was causing random blue screen crashes. The updated file is in the Novell Client 4.9 Post-SP1 Update "B" at http://support.novell.com/servlet/tidfinder/2968980.

5/27/2004 Possible New Anti-Spyware Tool

Spyware is becoming as troublesome as viruses, trojans, and worms. News reports say that the Yahoo! Companion toolbar will have an upgrade that helps detect and remove spyware. You may be able to get it at http://Beta.toolbar.yahoo.com. When I tried to check it out, I found out the toolbar is only for Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or higher -- and as a Mozilla user I say that you are only taking Mozilla away when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

5/26/2004 Denial of Service Attack Against Internet Explorer 6

Windows & .NET Magazine posts details of a denial of service attack that can be launched against Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 Service Pack 1. A remote attacker can construct a web page with some JavaScript and a META tag that when viewed by IE will cause the browser to crash. The exploit was discovered by Mike Mauler, and Microsoft doesn't yet have a fix or comment. You can read the details at http://www.winnetmag.com/WindowsSecurity/Article/ArticleID/42733/WindowsSecurity_42733.html.

5/25/2004 Payment Made For MSN/Opera Incompatibilities

News stories indicate that Microsoft paid $12.75 million to Opera Software of Norway, the makers of the Opera web browser. While neither side is giving out all the details, the payment was made to head off a threatened lawsuit over some coding practices on the MSN Network. The code in question caused incompatibilities in the Opera web browser, presumably to make it more likely people would stop using Opera and use Microsoft Internet Explorer instead. You can read more at http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5218163.html.

5/24/2004 Browser Helpers Get in the Way

Microsoft says that a number of third-party browser helper objects, including BuyersPort, Morpheus, Morpheus Shopping Club, and WURLD Shopping Community, may cause Internet Explorer 6 to crash, with an error signature somewhat like
Iexplore.exe 6.0.2800.1106 Mo030414s.dll 1.0.0.0 000294cc.
However, instead of Mo030414s.dll as the erring DLL, it may be M030106shop.dll,
M030206pohs.dll, Mdefshop.dll, Moaa030425s.dll, or Moz030715s.dll. This may be a problem especially if the person using the browser has an account with limited rights, since these BHOs try to modify system files and Windows Registry entries. Microsoft's advice is to uninstall the BHOs. You may have to check with the third-party company that gave them to you, to figure out how to get rid of them.

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5/23/2004 Update for Palm Tungsten T3/E and VersaMail

If you use VersaMail 2.6 or 2.6.1 on a Palm Tungsten T3 or E to synchronize with Outlook 2003 on your desktop computer, you may have problems syncing when using Cached Mode.There is an update to fix this, but it should only be used on these two versions of VersaMail. Get it at http://www.palmone.com/us/support/downloads/versamail/versamail26_outlook.html.

5/22/2004 Apple Releases Security Patches for URI Handlers

Apple released security patches on 5/21/2004 for the URI handler bugs in the Help Viewer and Terminal. These bugs were first discussed in the BugBlog on 5/19, and may allow remote attackers to read or delete files. The Mac OS X 10.2.8 patch is at http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate_2004-05-24_(10_2_8).html, and the 10.3.3 patch is at http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate__2004-05-24_(10_3_3).html. Apple says these patches are "recommended" while most outside observers give them an even higher priority.

5/21/2004 New Worm Attempts to Turn off Firewalls and AV

A new worm that's been found infecting computers is being called W32.Gaobot.ALU. It spreads through a number of vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows XP (that have all been patched), including ones in Microsoft Security Bulletins MS03-026, MS03-007, MS03-049, and MS04-011. One scary thing that it does, if it takes root on a system, is that it tries to turn off anti-virus and firewall processes that are running, so that a computer becomes even more defenseless.

5/20/2004 Temp Folder Woes Can Trip Up Microsoft Word

If you do a File, Open command in Microsoft Word 2000 or Excel 2000, and then start browsing through folders, you may get this error message
some of the files that meet the search criteria may be missing from the list. IO error 82
It is a misleading error message, because the real problem, according to Microsoft, is that your Temp folder is either corrupted or it is full. To fix, this, see the procedure that Microsoft details at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=839366.

5/19/2004 Open Door in OS X?

There is wide-spread discussion -- but none from Apple -- about new security holes in Mac OS X. The flaws are exploitable through any browser used on the Mac, since the flaw seems to be in OS X itself. As a result of the bug in two URI handlers, "help" and "disk", attackers may be able to access or delete files on your system. There are stories in eWeek at http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1594660,00.asp, and C Net at
http://news.com.com/2100-7349_3-5215586.html?tag=nl, plus lots of reporting by individual Apple users. The company itself is usually pretty slow about responding to the security rumors.

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5/18/2004 Corruption in Football -- Video Corruption, That Is

If you are playing EA Sports Madden NFL 2004 on a Windows XP computer with an ATI RADEON graphics card and the ATI CATALYST 4.4 or earlier software, you may see some display corruption on the player's images. This has been fixed in the ATI CATALYST 4.5. You can get the update at http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html.

5/17/2004 Zero Isn't Zero for Window Server 2003

Microsoft says that a Registry entry may cause Windows Server 2003 menus to slow down. If the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\MenuShowDelay key is set to zero, you will actually get a delay of several seconds, instead of a delay of zero. That's because zero is not a supported value for this key. If you need help in editing the Registry to fix this entry, see http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=835240.

5/15/2004 ZoneAlarm Pro May Interfere With ColdFusion Upgrade

If you are upgrading ColdFusion to version 6.1 (the version that comes with Macromedia Studio MX 2004), you may run into problems with the ColdFusion Cofiguration Wizard if you have Zone Labs ZoneAlarm Pro running. ZoneAlarm may prevent your administrator password from being recognized. This is a problem that hit the BugBlog itself, so I'll be doing some further digging to see if it was a particular ZoneAlarm setting that did this, or whether it is a general problem. Turn off ZoneAlarm to get your ColdFusion password recognized.

5/14/2004 Flaw in 802.11 Protocol

The US CERT (Computer Emergency Readiness Team) passes along a problem with the IEEE 802.11 wireless networking protocol. The problem was discovered by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Information Security Research Centre (ISRC) and the Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT). By exploiting a weakness in the Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) algorithm, along with the Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) transmission, an attacker may be able to launch a denial of service attack against any 802.11, 802.11b, and low-speed 802.11g wireless devices. The attacker must be within transmission range, and must keep transmitting for the attack to continue. The fault is with the protocol itself, so it should have an impact across all vendors of these devices. The bad news is that there may not be a fix. According to the Australians, "...a comprehensive solution, in the form of software or firmware upgrade, is not available for retrofit to existing devices. Fundamentally, the issue is inherent in the protocol implementation of IEEE 802.11 DSSS."

5/13/2004 There's a hole in Symantec's firewall

eEye Digital Security found a number of bugs in Symantec Firewall products. The affected versions are: Symantec Norton Internet Security and Professional 2002, 2003, 2004; Symantec Norton Personal Firewall 2002, 2003, 2004; Symantec Norton AntiSpam 2004; Symantec Client Firewall 5.01, 5.1.1; Symantec Client Security 1.0, 1.1, 2.0(SCF 7.1). As the result of the bugs, remote attackers may be able to launch denial of service attacks to crash the firewall, or they may be able to run their own code on the systems. In other words, there's a hole in the firewall. The bugs have been fixed by Symantec, and you can get the updates via the product's Live Update option. You can read details about the flaws at http://www.eeye.com/html/Research/Advisories/index.html.

5/12/2004 Help for the Microsoft Help and Support Center

Microsoft has a security update for Windows XP (all versions) and Windows Server 2003. This plugs a bug in the way that the Help and Support Center validates URLs. As a result of the bug, a remote attacker may be able to take complete control of a computer. Get the update for your version of Windows at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS04-015.mspx. Also note that Microsoft says that if you have disabled the Help and Support Center (because of security concerns), you may not be able to install this patch.

5/11/2004 Bad Combination for a Power Mac G5

If you have installed Mac OS X 10.3.2 on a Power Mac G5, and then you install Firmware Update 5.1.4, you may run into a number of problems with applications locking up, or the computer itself locking up when it boots or restarts. There may even be problems getting the Media Eject key to open the CD/DVD tray. Apple says this OS/firmware is a bad combination, and you should upgrade to Mac OS X 10.3.3.

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5/10/2004 Iomega HotBurn Supported Drives

The newest update for Iomega HotBurn Pro is version 2.4.6. If you want to see if it supports your hardware, the list of supported drives begins at http://www.iomega.com/software/hotburn/hotburnpropc_drivelista.html. If you have a parallel port drive, don't bother to check. HotBurn Pro doesn't support them.

5/8/2004 SuSE Linux Kernel Update

There is a kernel update for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7, 8; Linux Desktop 1.0; Linux Database Server; eMail Server III, 3.1; Linux Firewall on CD/Admin host; and Linux Connectivity Server. This update fixes a number of security bugs including a do_fork() memory leak and a setsockopt() buffer overflow. The updates are at ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/.

5/7/2004 Unacceptable Symbols in Office 2003 Font

Microsoft has a tool to remove the Bookshelf Symbol 7 Font, Bssym7.ttf, that was included with Office 2003. They want you to remove it because it has "unacceptable symbols". Some searching in Google confirms suspicions -- the symbols are swastikas. Only they may be mirror-image swastikas that are actually Buddhist symbols, which is the reason they were included. Microsoft's Knowledge Base article does say that after using this tool, there may be some problems in Japanese versions of Office 2003 with phonetic symbols.

The BugBlog is free- but if you want to help support its existence, please make a donation via PayPal using the button at left. Better yet, subscribe to the BugBlog Plus. A three month subscription is only $5.

5/6/2004 Web Site Security May Make Acrobat Klutzy

If a website that is hosting Adobe Acrobat PDF files is using Netegrity SiteMinder for security, you may not be able to open the PDF file in your web browser if you have Acrobat 6.0 or Acrobat Reader 6.0. Adobe says you should update to Acrobat 6.0.1. You can do that via the Acrobat 6.0 Help, Update menu.

5/5/2004 Windows XP Help is a Hindrance

Microsoft says that a problem with Windows XP Professional Help and Support may lock up your computer. When you use Help, the Help and Support program Helpsvc.exe may suck up all the system resources until it is using 100 percent of CPU time. Microsoft says they have a hotfix for this, which will be in a future service pack. If you need the fix right away, you can contact Microsoft Technical Support and ask for the hotfix described in Knowledge Base article 839017. Note that you may be charged for this call.

5/4/2004 Upgrading from Windows 2000 Server May Disable Smart Card

If you upgrade from Windows 2000 Server to some version of Windows XP, any Smart Cards on this computer may stop functioning. You may also see some entries in you Application Events log that start this way
Event Type: Error
Event Source: SCardSvr
Event Category: None
Event ID: 201
Microsoft says that this problem happens because a security template from the Dwup.inf file is not applied after the upgrade. There are several fixes for this, which Microsoft grandly calls "resolution scenarios". To see these fixes, go to http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=832082.

5/3/2004 Security Bug in Apple QuickTime 6.5

eEye Digital Security notes that both Apple QuickTime 6.5 and Apple iTunes 4.2.0.72 have a bug that may allow a remote attacker to run their own code on your computer. They would do this via a carefully constructed QuickTime file that would overwrite heap memory. Apple has updated their products. You can use Apple's Update function to get them. eEye also has some pretty direct criticism of how Apple handled this. You can read that at http://www.eeye.com/html/Research/Advisories/AD20040502.html.

5/2/2004 Sasser Worm Tries to Exploit Microsoft Bug

There are at least a couple variations of a worm attack that go by the name of "Sasser". These worm attacks try to take advantage of the LSASS bug that Microsoft patched in Security Bulletin MS04-011. Installing that Microsoft patch will help protect you, as will keeping your virus signatures up to date and using a properly configured firewall. You can learn more about this worm from Symantec at http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sasser.b.worm.html.

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