(By DERRIK J. LANG, AP Entertainment Writer)

March 6, 2009

LOS ANGELES – "Resident Evil 5" producer Jun Takeuchi wants to clear up some misconceptions about his upcoming entry into the popular zombie-killing franchise: It's definitely as scary as its predecessors, players can't run while gunning down foes, and there's nothing racist about the video game, which takes place in a fictional West African country.

"I think the idea that because the game is set in Africa that it's racist is mistaken," said Takeuchi. "I want users to understand that it was never our intention to put anything racist into the game. It's a story that takes place in Africa, but ultimately the story is about helping a region where a bioterrorism incident is occurring."

Footage unveiled at the 2007 E3 Media & Business Summit of the mature-rated game's brooding Caucasian protagonist, Chris Redfield, facing off against a horde of black African villagers caused a furor among many gamers online. Newsweek technology editor N'Gai Croal wrote that many of the teaser's aspects "dovetailed with classic racist imagery."

"We don't want to create something that offends a certain element of society," Takeuchi said. "At the same time, we don't want to be in a place where you can't set a game in Africa or in an Arabic country. That in itself is a form of racism. For us, as creators of entertainment, it's important for us to strike that right balance."

Like previous games in Capcom's nearly 14-year-old series, the story line of the latest "Resident Evil" centers on a wicked outbreak that turns the locals into rabid zombies. Set a few years after the original, "Resident Evil 5" explores the African origins of the virus. Other games took place in locales such as Spain, Russia, Antarctica and the Midwest.

Spokespeople for both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Anti-Defamation League declined to comment for this story because they hadn't viewed the entire game. ("Resident Evil 5" will be released March 13.)

Takeuchi said he believes previous criticism would have been avoided if it had been explained that Redfield is on a mission to help the African country and that he was partnered with an African woman named Sheva Alomar who is based in the region.

Takeuchi also said the game's story line is not meant as a metaphor for AIDS or real-world terrorism.

"Ultimately, I think the problem that we had with this game was a lack in communication," he said. "I think that's where this whole issue comes from. When the game is released and when the public gets to play the finished product, I think people will see the whole racism issue was just a misunderstanding."

"Resident Evil 5" will be available on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It will introduce cooperative gameplay, which allows a second player — either online or in person — to control Alomar. (The computer will help solo gamers.)

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090306/ap_en_ot/games_resident_evil;_ylt=Apjwc7WLx6oZWo6Yji1Vt2kjtBAF

March 6, 2009 (Computerworld)

An unpatched bug in popular PDF viewing and editing applications is much more dangerous than first thought, according to security researchers who have created exploits that sidestep Adobe's defensive recommendations.

Adobe Systems Inc. has known about the vulnerability in its Reader and Acrobat software since mid-January, but will not patch the problem until March 11.

The bug first made news two weeks ago, when Adobe confirmed the problem and pegged it as critical. Within days, other reports surfaced that in-the-wild attacks have exploited the flaw since early January.

Although Abode recommended that users disable JavaScript in Reader and Acrobat to protect themselves from the current attacks, other researchers now say that such a move may not help.

Last week, a researcher who works at the Danish vulnerability tracker Secunia said he had come up with an exploit that didn't rely on JavaScript. "During our analysis, Secunia managed to create a reliable, fully working exploit which does not use JavaScript and can therefore successfully compromise users who may think they are safe because JavaScript support has been disabled," Carsten Eiram, chief security specialist, said in an entry to the company's blog.

On tuesday, David Aitel, the founder and chief technology officer of Immunity Inc., made the same claim. "Things like this are harder than they look," he said in a message to his Dailydave security mailing list. "Pablo and Kostya had to work quite a bit on reliability every step of the way. But the Acrobat JBIG exploit now works nicely without any JavaScript heap spray." The exploit has been added to CANVAS, Immunity's commercial penetration testing product.

The next day, Wednesday, Belgian security researcher Didier Stevens said he also had crafted an exploit that triggers the bug without requiring JavaScript, and backed up his claim by publicly posting proof-of-concept attack code. His exploit works in the background, and doesn't require that a user actually open a malformed PDF file.

"Under the right circumstances, a Windows Explorer Shell Extension will read the PDF document to provide extra information, and in doing so, it will execute the buggy code and trigger the vulnerability...just like it would when you would explicitly open the document," Stevens said in a blog post.

Adobe has acknowledged that its advice to disable JavaScript wouldn't be a panacea. In an interview last week, Brad Arkin, Adobe's director for product security and privacy, admitted that only the forthcoming patch would completely protect users. "Disabling JavaScript does not provide a full mitigation," Arkin said. "It protects against one form of attack. To the best of our understanding, there's no product configuration that can completely mitigate the threat."

Arkin also defended Adobe's patching pace, which has come under fire as being too sluggish. "We were contacted by one of our partners on Jan. 16 when they shared an exploit that they had found in the wild," he said. "That kicked off our investigation and we began working on a fix immediately."

Adobe plans to patch Reader and Acrobat 9 next week, and will follow that with fixes for Versions 7 and 8 of both applications on March 18. "We're doing everything we can, and we intend [meet] to those deadlines," said Arkin.

Some security researchers have urged users to do more than turn off JavaScript in Adobe Reader. "From my point of view, Adobe Reader has become the new IE," Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Helsinki-based F-Secure Corp., said in a blog entry last week. "For security reasons, avoid it if you can."

Adobe has said it will post a notification on its security site when it issues patches next week.

source: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9129163&intsrc=news_ts_head

Philippine Daily Inquirer (March 7, 2009)

MANILA, Philippines—An official of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines has suggested that Catholics forego text messaging and absorption in social networking sites such as Friendster or Facebook in observance of Lent.

In an article posted on the CBCP’s news website, Fr. Oscar Alunday said Catholics, especially young people, might want to add refraining from too much texting and social websites activities to the usual abstinence from vices like smoking during Lent.

“Those things that are causing problems at home or disruptions at work are also those that you should be giving up,” Alunday wrote in cbcpnews.com.

Alunday is a member of the CBCP’s Commission on Biblical Apostolate.

“Most often, we are just spending too much time on these things. We’re out of balance,” he added.

For related article : Decoupling: Technological 
Lenten caution (The Manila Times: http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2009/march/09/yehey/business/20090309bus13.html)

(Computerworld and PCWorld)

March 6, 2009

Microsoft Corp. today confirmed that users will be able to remove Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), as well as several other integrated applications, from Windows 7.

The ability to remove IE8 was revealed by a pair of bloggers after they poked around Windows 7 Build 7048, a post-beta version that has leaked to file-sharing sites on the Web.

Yesterday, Mike Nash, vice president of Windows product management, declined to comment on the bloggers' reports. "It's unfortunate that builds leak out," Nash said. "But I can't comment on unreleased products."

Today, however, Jack Mayo, a group program manager on the Windows team, acknowledged that Windows 7 will include an expanded list of features and applications that can be switched off.

In an entry to the Engineering Windows 7 blog, Mayo listed the applications that can be switched off. They include Internet Explorer 8, Fax and Scan, handwriting recognition, Windows DVD Maker, Windows Gadget Platform, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Windows Search, and XPS Viewer and Services.

He also explained that the files associated with those applications and features are not actually deleted from the hard drive. "If a feature is deselected, it is not available for use," said Mayo. "This means the files (binaries and data) are not loaded by the operating system and not available to users on the computer. These same files are staged so that the features can easily be added back to the running OS without additional media. This staging is important feedback we have received from customers who definitely do not like to dig up the installation DVD."

Furthermore, said Mayo, the APIs related to those features are still supported by Windows 7 -- even when the application or feature has been disabled -- if "these APIs are necessary to the functionality of Windows or where there are APIs that are used by developers that can be viewed as independent of the component."

news source: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=operating_systems&articleId=9129150&taxonomyId=89&intsrc=kc_top

blog source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/160856/windows_7s_ie_off_switch_what_took_so_long.html

A nasty worm has wriggled into millions of computers and continues to spread, leaving security experts wondering whether the attack is a harbinger of evil deeds to come. Software protection firm F-Secure says a computer worm known as "Conficker" or "Downadup" had infected more than nine million computers by Tuesday and was spreading at a rate of one million machines daily.