Windows Live OneCare: What virus you want installed today?

I was feeling adventurous today so I went beta hunting, I ended up at Microsoft.com and I found this front page ad about Microsoft Live OneCare. Being a fan of cutting edge technology I was excited with the prospect to be one of the first users to try it out.

Like any good user would do, I checked out the systems requirements first to see if it runs on my old Windows machine, well good enough its on the guide's Step #1 then... WTF!?!



"Step 2. Uninstall other antivirus and firewall programs"

Has MS been on dope!!? I tried to read again, maybe I'm still half-awake after an all-nighter work.. noooooo. It even goes worst than that:



"Antivirus and firewall programs known to conflict with Windows Live OneCare:"

* Symantec Norton Internet Security 2005
* Symantec Norton Antivirus 2005
* Symantec Norton SystemWorks 2005
* McAfee Internet Security Suite 2005
* McAfee VirusScan 8.0/2004
* Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2005

Ok this is crazy! These are the best anti-viruses available on the market, what is MS thinking of? Ok so what's their suggestion on how to protect myself:

"You do not need to uninstall Windows Firewall, which is a component of the Windows operating system and cannot be removed. It does not conflict with Windows OneCare; in fact, Windows Firewall provides basic firewall protection while you are removing the old software and installing Windows Live OneCare."

Great! I'll be left protected virtually by nothing but a useless firewall that i don't even use. I think this new product's motto is: "Windows Live OneCare: What virus you want installed today?"

Ok Microsoft Live OneCare Beta, i hope you just stay that way forever. i can't even start to imagine what it would want me to uninstall when it comes out of Beta.

Furl: http://www.furl.net/search?search=cache&id=8017707&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.windowsonecare.com%2Fpurchase%2Fs+ysreq.aspx

Google Calendar

Finally Google Calendar is out which makes perfect use of AJAX.

What separates "GCal" from other calendar user interface (UI) is the dynamic date range for all views.

You can highlight consecutive dates and view the entries side by side and auto-switching between time based to date based view.

Unfortunately you cant highlight non-consecutive dates like MS Outlook.

Another plus would be the SMS based alerts and the fact that its integrated with GMail, the alerts went further than just a scheduled alerts. Whenever an attendee accepts or rejects an event, GCal also send alerts whenever someone accepts or cancels an event. The integrated GMap is also interesting, its great when holding parties and making sure your guests wont get lost.

I would be keeping a close eye on GCal, I'm sure there will be a lot of mash-ups services comming out that uses its iCal and XML features.

Is Wifi War Driving Unethical/Illegal?

This is in response to the blog post at PinoyTechBlog.com on the issue on Wifi War Driving.

Is Wifi War Driving Unethical/Illegal?

There are a lot of issues to be considered but let me just focus on what I think has the strongest points.

First on the issue that hot-spot owners must secure their own access point: Yes, it is the responsibility of the operators to secure their access point as much as it is one's responsibility to drive safely. Some establishments offer Wifi access without even having the competency to administer their service; they usually rely of pre-installed setups offered by the dealers. The owners are just interested on driving customers to their establishment but is not concerned on the quality and security of these service which of course affects the safety of the Wifi users (oh well, they are free anyway. right?). These hot-spot owners are compared to people buying a car but doesn't know how to properly drive.

If we are going to debate on "if war driving is illegal or not" then I would only say: Internet is public. period. As long as you network is accessible thru the Internet then it is public, this is the founding concept of the Internet and its never meant to have locks and keys on the first place. But due to the demand of corporations to monetize the use information thru the Internet, the locks were placed and only because of these locks we could differentiate between the public Internet and the private/corporate ones.

This brings me to the issue, hot spot licensing. Since hot-spot owners provide these services to the public then they must kept in check to ensure user's "public safety" (those who prey of the unsecured users and those who uses the Wifi access to commit fraudulent acts on the Internet knowing they can be traced easily). If you need to know how vulnerable Wifi users are against attack then check this little demo done during the Defcon 12 at http://www.evilscheme.org/defcon/. Anyway these Wifi accesses are not free at all in the truest sense; since these are value added services; the cost of the service is actually paid in part by each customer as they buy the products offered by the establishment. Therefore the owners must be obligated to provide a quality service. On how these measures are to be implemented, I leave this to the experts on laws and licensing (maybe the NTC would be interested).