Diamond Age Solutions News for the IT Industry

Mon Feb 11 14:25:09 NZDT 2008

Today Index

Local root exploit in the Linux kernel 2.6.17 - 2.6.24, based on a fault in vmsplice. It's in the wild and requires shell access:
http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/190587

Indications are that Yahoo! will refuse Microsoft's US$44 billion offer:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120257515426256541.html

Microsoft now faces an EU commission over reports that it "stacked" standards committees in an attempt to get OOXML mad a standard:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206106956

Google News now supports a local news section. Even works in areas of NZ (at time of writing must be enabled from news.google.com):
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-02-07-n63.html

Cross-site scripting exploit in Firefox 2.0.12. Using the "noscript" plugin fixes the problem, or wait for a patch:
http://www.0x000000.com/index.php?i=515

Microsoft, Google, Verisign and IBM join up to OpenID to allow a single login, though the issue of actually "owning" a user is yet to be settled:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/07/openid-welcomes-microsoft-google-verisign-and-ibm/
http://openid.net/

And finally. Doctors in New York experimentally bypass spinal injuries in rats using nerves exiting the spine above the injury:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7231226.stm

News collated from various sources by Vik Olliver for Diamond Age Solutions Ltd. The views presented in this document are the personal opinion of the collator, and should not be taken as any more than that.