Attack of the pod(cast)s

Until such time (if ever) that Technology Corner returns to the air* we'll give podcasting a try. Joe and I probably won't be able to schedule time during the week to record the show, so for now it'll be just me. I'm learning the procedure for creating a podcast as I write this article, which will give you the information you'll need to listen.
*Sound familiar? Watch the final scene of The Wizard of Oz.

First of all, despite the name "podcast", you don't need an Ipod to listen. You can download a podcast to any handy audio device that will play MP3 files, listen at the computer, or burn the podcast to a CD and send it to people you don't like. About.com has a good article that talks about applications you can use to obtain podcasts. You'll find that section of the article here. If you have an Ipod, though, you'll probably just want to use Itunes to grab podcasts. The symbol at the right confirms that the RSS code for the podcast (more about that in a bit) validated properly.

A podcast consists of 2 files: an RSS document written in Extensible Markup Language (XML) and an MP3 file. The XML file contains various tags and data elements that describe what kind of file the podcast is and where it's located. The About.com tutorial contained an error that I carefully replicated in my code and I created another error on my own. Fortunately, I'm experienced enough to understand the error message from the code validator.

The first error involved dates. Dates must be expressed in RFC-822 format: Day, DT Mth Year HH:MM:SS +/-TZ where

• Day is the 3-letter abbreviation for the day.
• DT is the 2-digit representation of the day.
• Mth is the 3-letter abbreviation for the month.
• Year is a 4-digit year.
• HH:MM:SS uses a 24-hour clock and 2 digits each for hours, minutes, and seconds.
• TZ is the 4-digit offset from GMT/Zulu.

Unfortunately, the About.com example showed the example date as

"Sat, Jan 14 2006 18:00:00 -0500" instead of
"Sat, 14 Jan 2006 18:00:00 -0500".

The difference is subtle, but XML is a precision language.

The error a I created was inside the "enclosure" element, which is what explains where the file is. The location is expressed as a URL and I omitted the "http://" part of the URL.

Some quick changes made the validator happy, and that's how I happened to earn the little heart.

Now you're expecting a podcast

Well, so was I, but this week turned out to have a lot more stuff in it than I expected. Although I've had some time to experiment, I don't have a finished podcast because I haven't been able to take the time needed to analyze the tests.

Maybe next week.

Beware the zero-day Word exploit

There's been a lot of talk about "zero-day" exploits – so called because there is no time between the discovery of a security problem and someone's ability to exploit it. Such an exploit exists with Microsoft Word. Apparently it is being used now in precisely targeted attacks, which means that most people won't see it in its current incarnation. But this gives me another good opportunity to state my primary rule for dealing with attachments: Open no attachments unless you are absolutely certain that they're from someone you know and that they were intentionally sent by that person.

This rule has two parts and they're both important:

• Open no attachments unless you are absolutely certain that they're from someone you know...: This is the part most people are aware of. No matter what the e-mail message says, if it's from "Zzyzzg Fzgrppp <uirewuf8jifap@shady-hosting-net.tv>", I'm not going to open it and neither will you.
• ...and that they were intentionally sent by that person: This is the part a lot of people miss. I receive several messages per week, each, from several correspondents. These messages have attachments I open without question because:
  • I'm expecting the message.
  • These people routinely send attachments and this attachment is the type they send. If a person who routinely sends jpg files suddenly sends a Visual Basic script, you can bet that I'll confirm that it was intentional before I open it.
  • I read the message to confirm that it's actually from the person I know before I open the attachment. A message that claims to be from someone who speaks and writes standard English will be immediately suspect if the text says Hay dood u b checkin da hot chikz!

If I have any doubts at all about an attachment, I'll examine it with an application that lets me peek inside the file without opening it in the standard way. Or I'll ask for confirmation from the sender that the message was intentional.

Why this is increasingly important

Symantec's DeepSight Threat Analyst Team says the latest Microsoft Word exploit arrives as an e-mail attachment and, when the victim opens it, the document installs a "backdoor" that allows the writer to communicate with it. The backdoor has a rootkit that masks it from anti-virus scanners. This exploit works even if your machine has all the latest patches. Needless to say, Microsoft is investigating.

The messages are clever in that they are forged to appear to be from a co-worker and is addressed by name to the victim. After installing its payload, the Word document overwrites itself with an uninfected copy of the message. This causes Word to crash, but when the victim tries to open the document a second time, it opens without incident.

Infected messages are being sent to select US corporations according to Exploit Prevention Labs in Atlanta. The backdoor application corresponds with a server in China, and it assumed to be some sort of industrial spying. The user of the remote machine can create files, delete files, search files, change the Registry, capture screen shots, start or kill running processes, and even lock the computer or shut it down.

Security vendors are recommending that companies set up firewalls to block all Microsoft Word documents.

Microsoft Vista is coming ...

... and you'll have to upgrade your computer. Right? Maybe not. Microsoft has released hardware specs for the new operating system and that sucking sound you heard was from Intel and AMD.

Microsoft says Vista will "run" on any machine with an 800MHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and a graphics card that is DirectX 9 capable. There is a difference between "running" and "being useful", though. Microsoft admits that if you really want to use Vista, you'll need a 1GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor, 1 GB or more of system memory, a graphics processor that runs Windows Aero and has 128MB of on-board memory, at least a 40GB hard drive with 15GB free, a DVD-ROM drive, audio, and Internet access.

Many people already have computers that meet most of those specifications. One might need to add memory or upgrade a video card, but any machine purchased in the past 3 or 4 years will have a 1GHz or faster processor and probably at least an 80GB hard drive.

Having said all that, keep in mind that faster is always better. Any time spent waiting for a computer to do something is intolerable. So don't blow all the money you've been saving for a new computer on frivolous gasoline purchases.

Read Microsoft's summary here.

Annoying legal disclaimer

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