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From Behind The Green Curtain
- July 2005 -


WINS Email Lists - The Opt-in email lists are functioning a lot better today than they have in months. My own post-to-receive times have dropped to just minutes and have maintained this time for the better part of the last week. I can only hope that others are experiencing the same. Unfortunately, neither any board member nor I have yet to be contacted by the server owner nor its tech staff, but I understand that Peter may have moved the WINS domain to another of his servers in an attempt to speed things up for us. We can only hope for continued solutions to problems.



Virus Information - I am on Panda Software's virus alert mailing list and I thought I'd share some of their recent alerts with you. A few may hit close to home.

1. June 2 2005 - According to PandaLabs, two new and potentially dangerous variants of the Mytob worms, -EC and EB-, are spreading via email around the world. These malware variants of Mytob are designed to prevent antivirus products installed on a computer from updating, and if successful will leave users unprotected against this threat. In order to block these updates, the worms modify the system HOSTS file.

2. July 1, 2005 - SEC Consult has reported a vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer (rated as "Highly critical" by Secunia), which potentially can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system.

The vulnerability has been reported in versions 5.01, 5.5, and 6.0, and Microsoft recommends setting Internet and Local intranet security zone settings to "High".

More information and a proof of concept are available at: SEC Consult. Microsoft information, available at: Microsoft.

Concerned your system "might" be infected? Check it out online free here: Panda Software.



CNN Report on Identity Theft SPAM - I watched an early morning CNN interview a week or so ago (week of June20-24) where the person being interviewed was a former SPAMMER specializing in "phishing" SPAM who says he is now trying to help those who may be in danger of identity theft. When asked by the interviewer how many of these identity theft SPAM are sent out every day, his reply was, "600 million or more every day, and that the replies to those SPAM that provided the requested identity data were between 3 and 6 million,… everyday". That's just down right scary!

Here's a couple of important reminders folks. If you aren't absolutely certain who is asking for your personal information in an email, don't respond to it. If you think the request might be legitimate, contact the company using a different email address or by telephone, and verify they need the information. You will find out in most cases it was a "phishing" SPAM. It is important to remember that ebay, PayPal and your bank never request personal information via an email.

It is more important than ever to keep your virus software as up to date as possible. Everyday works for me.



Auction Update - Auction 29 opened the weekend of week of June 25, 2005 and is scheduled to close on July 2, 2005. There are 45 lots provided by seven members and the bidding is going well.

Auction 30 is scheduled for August 13 through August 20.

Thanks for readin' and "See ya' at the auction".


Thank you kindly,
JD White, WINS#7




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