Microsoft update, Windows Phone 7 botches---is this phone jinxed?

Microsoft just can't seem to get Windows Phone 7 right---this time it has botched a minor update for Samsung phones, which "brick" devices so that they are unnecessary. Then compounded the error apparently not pulling the update after it said it had. Not so for Android and iPhone.

Within the last few days, Microsoft has started pushing a minor update to Windows Phone 7. This is not the important update, since I would like to add features like copy and paste. The update is designed to enhance the built-in updater, so that future updates will work correctly. Yes, you read that right---Microsoft botched an update for an updater.

Shortly after the upgrade began to be pushed to users of phones, Samsung Windows Phone 7 devices began reporting that the devices were being bricked by update. Microsoft first replied by saying that "We are investigating reports related to the process of updating Windows Phone and will provide more information and guidance as it becomes available," according to Mary Jo Foley.

Then today, Microsoft announced it was pulling the update. Computerworld reports that Microsoft said:

"We have identified a technical problem with the process of updating Windows Phone that impacts a small number of phones. In response to this emerging problem, we have temporarily taken down the latest update of the software for mobile phones Samsung in order to correct the problem. "

But it seems that Microsoft could not, in fact, they pulled the update. Several sites, including World and Mobile Tech report wpcentral that the update has not yet been extracted.

This is just the latest of the comedy of errors that has become the mobile strategy at Microsoft. Has released a smartphone OS well before Apple or Google and then let it rot while Apple and Google launched smartphone operating systems that now dominate the market. It has launched the ill-fated Kin, one of the worst phone ever designed. The launch of Windows Phone 7, designed to give Microsoft the chance to fight in the mobile market, it was just exciting at best. And now you can manage to release a minor update correctly---or resolve the issue, when he finds out.

Microsoft made the right move, when it signed an agreement with Nokia to Windows Phone 7. But if it cannot successfully its strategy, all the billions that will pay for that affair will be wasted. This latest problem is not a good sign, that is able to get Windows Phone 7 right.

5 ways to make sure that you are not the perfect Wikileak

This vendor-written tech primer has been modified by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note that likely will approach the submitter.

Government officials and intelligence of the world were caught off guard and in many cases embarassed and compromised by disclosure of documents relating to the website WikiLeaks.

For security and IT professionals, these losses to serve as an important wake-up call to improve the policies, procedures and safeguards. Here are five key tips to help your enterprise or Government agency not to be the source of the next Wikileak.

UPDATE: Assange of WikiLeaks awaits extradition decision

I. procedures and security policies. Each government organization or enterprise must have policies in place to define who gets access to the information and when. These policies and procedures must be actively maintained and updated and communicated appropriately. Therefore, security policies can be administered by leveraging technology and introduce the tools to protect, enforce, and mitigate risks to the organization.

In October 2010 WikiLeaks case involve some 400,000 U.S. military documents on the war in Iraq, the policy may have limited access to systems containing confidential information to those who had a "need to know".

In environments of highly sensitive information should require strict policy management, monitoring and control of access only to people who have a legitimate need to know. The instruments of governance, risk and compliance (GRC) enable organizations to automate certain aspects of this activity, overlapping security policies and controls on the origins of matching data from switches, routers, security platforms, servers, endpoints and applications, for a real-time view of their compliance status.

However, no policy can be 100% effective, and many organizations will experience someone inside who satisfies the requirement of the policy, have a legitimate need to know, but illegal intentions. In these cases, the safety technology will provide the next level of defence to meet these internal threats.

II. implement security solutions based on the Host. Security solutions include host-based tools that allow an organization to secure and control your desktops and laptops. Examples would be anti-antivirus/antimalware and software that prevents you from using a USB drive or writable CD drive on a computer to a network classified.

Essentially, host-based security protects and limits of what users can do to your workstation. Host-based checks may turn off, for example, network capacity and wired simultaneously, which can serve as an entry point for a hacker.

Solutions to host-based security can be integrated with network access control (NAC) to create a first line of Defense for systems that are regularly in and outside the network, such as portable computers. If a laptop is infected by a virus or if it is missing a security patch is important when you are disconnected from your organization's network security solutions, based on the host, in conjunction with NAC solutions can ensure that systems do is quarantined and clean the virus or receives the appropriate first security patch is allowed on the network.

Prevention of loss III. data (DLP). DLP tools allow an organization to be aware of activity throughout the network. This includes monitoring what comes from the network via e-mail, and file sharing via FTP. An organization can optimize the solution and have the network DLP watch for special events, such as blocking the e-mail that contains sourcecode or credit card or social security numbers.

IV. traffic analysis tools. These tools can look through the network of individual users in aggregate form and see what kind of sites are being visited, with particular emphasis on all sites that allow sharing of files, such as Dropbox, Mozy or YouSendIt. Network administrators may not want or need to block such sites, but it is useful to know, in real time, when a user accesses such sites and for what purpose.

Analysis tools can also detect subversive attempt to extract data from a network. You think a certain way of acting when communicating every device on a network. Network traffic to and from a printer should looks like a printer. If the traffic analysis tool detects a printer looking more like a Linux workstation, then someone may be trying to spoof the IP address of printer in order to take advantage of a data extraction system.

V. log Management & correlation. Almost all online activity leaves a "breadcrumb trail" in the form of log entries--automatic entries on servicers and network devices that users interact with a network. Consequently, in the event of a loss of information, logs will provide easier access to forensic information that can go back a few days or a couple of years. These tools can help determine the origin of flight faster. Important, once you have identified the location that someone has taken to get data out of the network, then new policies and procedures can be created to avoid a repeat occurrence.

When implemented in a corporate environment, all these individual solutions can be centrally managed and monitored. Most can be integrated with the tools of a security incident and event management (SIEM) for a real-time view "single pane of glass" in the security context of the organization. SIEM tools enable organizations to automatically correlate events based on event "signatures"--known combinations of events on multiple security platforms that were previously known to be a violation or attempted violation.

With experience, organizations can create their own signatures based on or developed real threats in your environment. Automatic answer to know events, such as persistent automated attacks--attacks by botnets, or other automated--harmonized attacks may allow an agency to get closer to a network of scraping.

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Browser war retro: IE6 vs Netscape in 2011

If you took the raw, patch, 10-year-old versions of Internet Explorer 6 and Netscape 6.1 and tried surfing the modern Web? What would happen?

A decade ago, Internet Explorer 6 and Netscape fought for the hearts and minds of the public Web browsing. But since then, IE6 was vilified as unsalvageable and abandoned by its creator, and Netscape has faded into history books. You may still browse the Web with these two ancient browser?

You might think of cooking up IE6 or Netscape would lead to an immediate onslaught of viruses, followed by computer grows a mutant arm to detach itself from suicide or maybe bashing on your hard disk and processor. The reality is a little different-but only a little.

Just for fun (my definition of "fun" is pretty warped), I decided to spend some time using the original version of IE6, patch and a version of Netscape released approximately at the same time. It turns out that IE6 is still able to surf the Internet very modern, but Netscape troubles show probably dead death justified.

As you may recall, Microsoft destroyed Netscape by bundling the early versions of Internet Explorer with Windows, which leads to antitrust investigations and the creation of a monopoly that would not be challenged until Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome came to start sucking away market share.

A key inflection point in the history of the Web browser has occurred a decade ago, in August 2001, when Microsoft released IE6 not long after Netscape came out with its sixth-generation browser.

Incredibly, IE6 is still in wide use today, from more than one in 10 people browsing the Web, according to Net Applications using tracker. Durable nature of IE6 is due to businesses using applications that run only on IE6 and people who never upgraded Windows XP, or laziness or because they are using pirated copies of the operating system.

Although Netscape has paved the way for Mozilla Firefox, Netscape browser, it was already on its way out in 2001 and has now all but disappeared, with official support ending in March 2008.

I began my experiment, trying to track down IE6 and Netscape 6-specifically Netscape 6.1, which was based on early code from the Mozilla project and also published in August 2001. Acquisition of both browsers had a little more difficult than I expected, although getting older versions of Netscape is quite easy. Are all available in Netscape.

But after cooking on a Windows XP virtual machine on my desktop Windows 7, I realized that I was using a version of IE6 that was completed in 2008, when it was released the Service Pack 3 for Windows XP. Microsoft, of course, makes it difficult to downgrade. In order to obtain the oldest, most awesome version of IE6, I had to find an original, 2001 copy of Windows XP that lacked any patch and service pack updates.

With those minor details out of the way, I was able to run IE6 versions 2001 and Netscape 6.1 on Windows XP operating system inside a virtual machine created with VirtualBox to Oracle. Here's what I learned.

IE6 beat Netscape for a reason

It's pretty clear that IE6 was the best browser, with an interface more minimal and the ability to view websites more modern and even play some Flash and Java content, including games and YouTube videos. I couldn't install Flash on Netscape because of a series of error messages and problems uploading of download sites.

Netscape 6.1 had a terrible interface, with a huge left sidebar giving you links to stocks, news, and bookmarks. Fortunately, this can be moved to the side to open up more valuable to surf the Web. I'm guessing Netscape has worked very well in 2001, but there are some sites-NetworkWorld.com-which I couldn't upload to Netscape and others where the text and graphics were all cut up.

IE6 has wasted space too high, but most sites charge and feels much more modern than Netscape. Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't improve the UI nearly enough in IE7 and IE8, the browser's leading rapid decline and the rise of Firefox and Chrome. Microsoft has had a huge step forward with Internet Explorer 6, but IE6 doesn't seem all that different from his two successors.

Virus

I expected to be hit with a virus attack when I open IE6, due to the widely known security holes in the browser that cause problems for users in this day and Microsoft. But do not run in any obvious security problems, in part, I am sure, because I spent most of my time on sites that should be safe, like Wikipedia and ESPN.com.

Any website-no matter how seemingly legitimate-yet able to host malware. Remembering that I am not getting hit by a virus, I'm not recommending that someone actually use IE6.

Netscape, meanwhile, simply stopped working after an hour or so, that gives me the error message "File for the application has encountered a problem and needs to close Netscape." Once that happened, I couldn't open the browser at all, even after you restart Windows XP.

Simply reinstall Netscape didn't work either. To continue testing your browser completely and reinstalled Windows XP moved up to Netscape 6.2.1, released in November of 2001, giving me a version that was released after Windows XP and theoretically might work better on the operating system.

Modern Web navigation

Despite being 10 years old, IE6 can load most modern websites with few problems. It is slow, it gets a lot of warnings about using an outdated browser and does not display the contents quite as crisply and clean like Chrome, Firefox or IE9. But you can play YouTube videos, read articles ESPN.com and access Facebook.

The new version of Twitter poses some problems, however, and benchmarks reveal shortcomings of IE6. I ran a benchmark testing IE6 JavaScript gave a score of 24, compared to 759 for Chrome (though I was running Chrome on Windows 7).

The JavaScript reference site did not work at all on Netscape and two other test sites also worked on IE6 but not Netscape. One of these was a demo of Doom-style cloth, loaded on IE6, but played only slowly and hesitant.

Netscape could load sites simple, text-based, like Google and Wikipedia, but content sites like ESPN and Huffington Post were all cut, with links and text overlay. On Facebook, Netscape couldn't get past the login screen and struggled mightily to view any content on Twitter.

Clearly, it should not be using Netscape and IE6 to surf on the Web today. But if you want to see what would happen if we did, check out the screenshots.

Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jbrodkin

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