The original Conficker doomsday, April 1st, came and went without serious incident. But as Mahoney explained, the worm's subtle update that day left us at much greater risk than before. This so-far inscrutable update could be the first manifestation of security experts' concerns; Trend Micro, in a blog post that sounds more like it was written by a President in an apocalypse movie than a software security expert, has only been able to determine that the payload polls popular websites to check for connectivity, then deletes itself. They speculate, however, that it could be installing a data-gathering Waledac virus.

With no actionable solution for shrinking the three-million-PC install base, we can expect to see plenty of these kinds of stories in the near future. Feel like patching yet?

Updated: It turns out the Waledac bots are rented out to spammers. Kaspersky Lab found that Conficker is downloading and installing fake security software, which will remain on your computer until you pay $49.95 to "remove" the virus from your system. All Conficker nodes have been not acting the same it seems, but the $49.95 would reveal the intentions of the virus to make money.

[BBC, PC World]

Basically, because we keep phones in our pockets within a few inches of our hanging brains, there's a decent chance that the radiation emitting from them is dumbing up our balls. Or, to put it more scientifically or whatever: "We believe that these devices are used because we consider them very safe, but it could cause harmful effects due to the proximity of the phones and the exposure that they are causing to the gonads." So says lead researcher Ashok Agarwal, the Director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine. Bummer.

The study involved taking samples of semen from 32 dudes and putting half of it within a couple of inches of a phone on talk mode for an hour. It's the equivalent of people keeping their phone in their pocket while they use a Bluetooth headset. The results?

Overall, researchers found an increase in oxidative stress such as a significant increase in free radicals and oxidants and a decrease in antioxidants. Agarwal says that equals a decrease in sperm's quality, including motility and viability. Evidence of oxidative stress can appear under other conditions, including exposure to certain environmental pollutants or infections in the urinary genital tract.

"On average, there was an 85 percent increase in the amount of free radicals for all the subjects in the study. Free radicals have been linked to a variety of diseases in humans including cancer," said Agarwal. Free radicals have been linked to decreased sperm quality in previous studies.

Of course, since this experiment was done on sperm outside of the body, there's no way to know if the human body and all the skin and such between your pocket and your internal sperms do a decent job of blocking the kill-o-beams your phone emits. But hey, maybe it's time to ditch that Bluetooth headset just to be safe, eh? [CNN]

Your argument seems to break down the difference between researcher-reported vulnerabilities, the number of released patches and the amount of actual vulnerabilities left standing by the end of one year. And you gave us this sexy chart to examine.

In every category, Vista is either the lowest, or tied for the lowest. And since your argument seems to boil down to the logic: the less vulnerabilities, the less fixes, the more secure, Vista wins. Of course, from what our tiny brains make of the case, such an argument doesn't take into account factors like just how many people are trying to exploit a particular platform/vulnerability, or just how damaging each exploit can be. But from that strategic commander chair, you seems to think that these issues balance themselves out. Maybe you are right.

But I'm not waiting in the open to find out. I have an emergency bunker prepared specifically for such occasions because pissing off the Mac and Linux communities at the same time is a funeral I'm not attending...like that time you said Firefox was less secure than IE. Things got messy and someone cried. [JeffJones via darkreading]

The problem is overheating, which seems to be a common trend among electronics trying to cram a lot of devices into not a lot of space. No injuries have been reported so far (though there has been some property damage), but we'd send our units back if we were you. The design of these things is an abomination before God, and He won't stand for it for long. [Coby via Oh Gizmo!]

- Josh Ziegler

CUPERTINO, Calif., Sept. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone's software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed. Apple plans to release the next iPhone software update, containing many new features including the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store (www.itunes.com), later this week. Apple strongly discourages users from installing unauthorized unlocking programs on their iPhones. Users who make unauthorized modifications to the software on their iPhone violate their iPhone software license agreement and void their warranty. The permanent inability to use an iPhone due to installing unlocking software is not covered under the iPhone's warranty.

[Image courtesy of callalillie and olive the cat]

Many are citing that the clear evidence for Blu-ray's alleged cheating is that HD DVD is selling more standalone players throughout Europe, yet Blu-ray is maintaining huge studio support. While this sales figure may be true, the PS3—while not a runaway hit—isn't necessarily included in "standalone players."

Since Sony Pictures, Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Lionsgate and MGM are all Blu-ray exclusive, any findings would be a massive win for HD DVD, as these studios might be forced to produce movies on both formats (...I wonder if that would apply to Sony).

I love my hi-def DVDs as much as the next guy, but I can do without the federal drama. Let's just get downloads going.

[tech.co.uk]
Thanks Andrew!

Pentium chip and OS X make for easy hacking, huh? We should have known it was too good to be true.
Then again, this rumor is unconfirmed. Maybe they broke the Apple TVs using an errant screwdriver or command over SSH. We shall see. –Brian Lam

Apple vs Apple TV Hackers [Tutorial Ninjas]

Oh, well. Back to the old drawing board. Looks like something that might have happened in the late '50s. – Charlie White

Satellite-Strapped Rocket Explodes on Platform [Popular Mechanics]