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"Friendly" Computer Viruses That Are Good For Your Computer

Friendly Viruses Set to Race Malicious Ones

Everyone likes to race, whether it's cars or skateboards or just people on two feet. Researchers at Microsoft are looking to apply this notion of competition to the world of viruses, with the hope of creating friendly worms to compete against malicious ones.

Similar to the current research that use genetically-modified viruses to deliver medication or fight cancer, the "good" computer viruses that Microsoft is working on would take advantage of a given security loophole in computer systems. These viruses would spread themselves out like self-replicating worms by finding computers capable of being infected, then installing themselves onto those compuers and patching any flaws or security holes.

In theory, these angel viruses would make the computer safe from any virus that would attempt to exploit the same loophole -- assuming they get to the exposed computers faster than the real viruses do.

This is all theory for now, though, so in the mean time, keep that virus-scanner updated.

From slashdot and New Scientist Tech

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The Top 15 Tech Myths

We love lists -- you should have figured that out by now. This time, PC World came up with 15 tech myths, bursting one bubble at a time. We list a few highlights here.

Using third-party ink in your printer voids the warranty
Just plain not true. Of course, if the third-party ink damages the printer, then you're out of luck. But simply using third-party ink does not let Epson off the hook if your printer suddenly bursts into flames.

'Unlimited' cell phone data access is really unlimited
Think that extra $19 a month has you covered for all the data (e-mail, downloads, Web surfing) you want on your cell phone? Think again. Verizon's Terms of Service (TOS) forbids streaming media, uploading and downloading files and even has a 5 gigabyte-per-month cap on data. Cingular/AT&T also forbids media streaming and file sharing but has no data cap. And Sprint says it "reserve[s] the right to limit or suspend any heavy, continuous data usage that adversely impacts [its] network performance or hinders access to [its] network." Annoyingly vague, to put it lightly.

Macs are virus-free
Despite what the Cult of Mac tells you Macs are not 100 percent safe. A security researcher named Dino Dai Zovi took home a $10,000 prize for remotely hijacking a MacBook Pro. It took less than 10 hours to discover a security hole in Quicktime and set up a Web page to exploit it. Also, January was The Month of Apple Bugs as a pair of hackers revealed a new security hole in the OS for each day. In February the first worm virus for OSX was discovered. Macs are still more secure than Windows PCs, but because they're less popular, they tend to be less of a target.

From PC World

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