Rinbot.BC Worm Exploits Un-Patched Microsoft DNS Vulnerability

I heard about this vulnerability recently, and according to search security, there is now a worm, Rinbot.BC, using the exploit. I haven't heard any reports yet on how widespread the worm is, but it is probably a good idea to use the workaround mentioned in Microsoft Security Bulletin 935964.

The vulnerability was announced last week, and there is talk that Microsoft is going to issue a out of cycle patch to fix the issue. Windows Server 2000 SP4, and Windows Server 2003 SP1 and SP2 are effected. Of course clients don't run a DNS server, so Vista, XP and 2000 are not affected.

The security bulletin lists several ways to work around the vulnerability, I thought the easiest way was to use the method that uses the registry to disable remote management of the DNS server through RPC. Terminal services (including remote desktop), and the local machine will still be able to manage DNS settings.

Help Save Internet Radio

If you have been listening to or reading any Tech related news sites, then I'm sure that you've heard about the recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board to increase the royalties that internet radio stations have to pay.

If you aren't familiar with the decision, here is a fun breakdown of the change:

• Will almost Triple what internet Radio stations pay now.
  
• The new fees are more than four times what Satellite Radio Pays.
  
• Broadcast Radio does not pay these fees at all.
  
• They are retro-active back to 2006, although at a slightly lower fee.
  

  I think this is a big crock.
  

  SaveNetRadio.Org has a nice little form that you can use to contact your elected officials, so flex your democratic muscles and take a minute to fill it out.
  

  Some more reading:
  

  Save Net Radio.org
  

  Net Radio: 'New Song Royalties Will Kill Us' - PCWorld
  

What have I been up to?

Well, you probably can tell that I haven't been blogging, and I sure haven't been reading my RSS feeds either. So what have I been working on? Well:

Sleeping.

Last week I actually had 8 hours of sleep each night. It was crazy. I usually get about 6 hours, not counting what is taken away by interruptions such as:

- Whining dogs that need to go outside.

- A Meowing cat that also needs to go outside.

- Kids who have had nightmares.

- Carrying those kids to our bed, so they will stop being scared.

- Carrying those kids back to their bed, so they will stop kicking me in the back.

Trying to find something to organize my notes with.

I finally had enough when I was looking for a piece of information that I had just seen the other day, but it was able to hide from me in its deep dark file folder, beneath a nest of other file folders.

In looking for an application, I actually found some really neat stuff, and I settled on 1 really good application. I then spent some time migrating many of my notes over to the new application. Of course, then I found 1 really great program, and I had to migrate over to that. I think I'll stick with this one though, and I plan to post about what I found, eventually.

Watching Movies

I watched Sin City, Man of the Year, and Idiocracy, all very good.

Some other things I can't remember

Where does time go? I actually can't remember much of what else I was doing since my last post on the 1^st, or the span between that post and the one on the 27^th.

March 2007's Most Popular Posts

1. How to re-initialize the offline files cache and database in Windows XP - This is one of my favorite articles, since I can never remember how to do it, and it is easier to come here then to search somewhere else. If you are receiving "incorrect function" errors when trying to sync, this is a handy trick to know. This makes 2 months in a row that this post has been in the Number 1 slot.

2. The Outlook Dumpster - Adventures in Deleted Item Recovery - Very handy to know how to use the outlook dumpster. This has been the second most popular post for 2 months now.

3. Microsoft Access error: Compile error . in query expression -Pesky problem which took a good deal of research, but ended up having a nice straightforward fix. This post has been in the top 5 for 2 months now.

4. How to Find your Google PageRank - This post points to a couple of tools that will tell you what your Google PageRank is.

5. User Submitted War Pigs Video Contest -I haven't actually gone looking for any of the videos that were submitted for the contest, and the free MP3 giveaway has ended now, but people still keep finding this post.