beforeyoukillyourcomputer.com

“Star Wars” creator George Lucas wants to force a laser company to stop making a new, high-powered product he says looks too much like the famous lightsaber from his classic sci-fi series.

Lucasfilm Ltd. has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Hong Kong-based Wicked Lasers, threatening legal action if it doesn’t change its Pro Arctic Laser series or stop selling it altogether.

“It is apparent from the design of the Pro Arctic Laser that it was intended to resemble the hilts of our lightsaber swords, which are protected by copyright … ,” said the letter, dated last month and provided to CNN by Wicked Lasers.

The letter calls the company’s newest laser “a highly dangerous product with the potential to cause blindness, burns and other damage to people and/or property.”

Steve Liu, CEO of Wicked Lasers, said his 7-year-old company has been selling similar lasers for years and has never compared the product to the Jedi weapon wielded by Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and others in the “Star Wars” franchise.

“Most people feel it’s kind of ridiculous …,” he said. “We would never use any comparison like that to ‘Star Wars’ or a lightsaber or anything like that.”

He called the $199 gadget’s design fairly typical for a handheld laser and said it isn’t a copy of the lightsaber.

Full Story — CNN

While the device has some lightsaber shape and design characteristics, lightsabers came in so many designs.  According to Star Wars lore, each jedi created their own lightsaber. Also, the lightsabers used in the movies looked much like current pieces of science fiction and characteristics taken from sword hilts.  I’m no lawyer but I will be curious to see how this turns out. That said, I want one!  Anyone feel free to send me one to test, play with, show off to other geek friends. : )

TeamViewer connects to any PC or server around the world within a few seconds. You can remote control your partner’s PC as if you were sitting right in front of it.

One solution for everything
While most competitors offer different packages for remote support, remote administration, training and sales (and also charge for them…) TeamViewer is the one-stop solution for everything you need: TeamViewer includes all modules in one simple and very affordable package.

Remote administration of unattended servers
TeamViewer can also be used to control unattended computers and servers. System service installations even allow remote reboot and reconnect.

File transfer
TeamViewer comes with integrated file transfer that allows you to copy files and folders to and from a remote partner – which also works behind firewalls

Highest security standard
TeamViewer is a very secure solution. All versions feature completely secure data channels with key exchange and AES (256 Bit) session encoding, the same security standard used by https/SSL.

Online status display
Are your team members in many different locations? Need to present your desktop or collaborate on a document? In the TeamViewer partner list you can see who is available and connect with them in one mouse click.

Remote support without installation
With TeamViewer you can remotely control any PC anywhere on the Internet. No installation is required, just run the application on both sides and connect – even through tight firewalls.

Remote presentation of products, solutions and services
TeamViewer allows you to present your desktop to a partner. Share live demos, products, and presentations over the Internet within seconds.

Works behind firewalls
The major difficulties in using remote control software are firewalls and blocked ports, as well as NAT routing for local IP addresses.
If you use TeamViewer you don’t have to worry about firewalls: TeamViewer will find a route to your partner.

Browser based access
On the road and need to control a remote computer? Why don’t you use TeamViewer Web Connector? The purely html and flash based solution can be used from nearly any browser and operating system.

Very competitively priced, free versions available
TeamViewer offers great value for low prices. TeamViewer even offers a free version for non-commercial use.

Optimized performance
Whether you have a LAN or dial-up connection, TeamViewer optimizes display quality and speed depending on your network connection.

Download TeamViewer Portable 5.0.8703
Download TeamViewer 5.0.8703

Cybercriminals were out in full force over the Independence Day weekend, launching attacks on some of the world’s most popular online destinations: YouTube and iTunes.

Attackers on Sunday exploited a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in YouTube’s comment system to embed HTML code on a portion of the social networking site’s pages that caused pop-up messages and redirected users to pornographic websites, according to reports and security experts.

Those behind the attack primarily targeted videos of Canadian pop star Justin Bieber and posted messages stating that the 16-year-old singer died in a car crash. Pages unrelated to Bieber were also affected.

One pop-up on a Bieber video read, “BREAKING NEWS: Justin bieber died in a horrific car accident earlier this morning, please visit the CNN homepage for more info.”

Google temporarily hid comments by default within an hour of the attack and fixed the issue in about two hours, Jay Nancarrow, a spokesman at Google, YouTube’s parent company, said in a statement.

“We’re continuing to study the vulnerability to help prevent similar issues in the future,” Nancarrow said.

Full Story ~ SC Magazine

Romanian iPhone developer Alexandru Brie was among the first to wonder how Thuat Nguyen’s Vietnamese-language comic books had come to occupy 41 of the top 50 spots in the App Store’s paid books category (in the process, booting Brie’s own app from its usual top-20 perch). In a blog post, Brie put together such evidence as Nguyen’s poor showing in the store’s Vietnamese categories and multiple reviews of his titles alleging fraud to suggest one explanation:

The issue is that it seems people’s iTunes accounts have been hacked, with mass purchases of one developer’s apps being made using their accounts.

Other sites picked up the news and added details; for instance, Apple Insider passed on a tip from a reader about a Chinese cottage industry in iTunes Store account hacking.

Tuesday morning, Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller e-mailed that Apple had resolved the situation:

The developer Thuat Nguyen and his apps were removed from the App Store for violating the developer Program License Agreement, including fraudulent purchase patterns.

Muller added that developers, fraudulent or otherwise, “do not receive any iTunes confidential customer data” when somebody downloads one of their apps. She suggested that anybody who sees fraudulent purchases on their iTunes account should have their credit card issuer cancel the stolen number and issue a chargeback for the unauthorized purchases.

Full Story ~ Washington Post

Here’s something that the struggling hotel sector prefers not to spotlight: it is a favorite target of hackers.

A study released this year by SpiderLabs, a part of the data-security consulting company Trustwave, found that 38 percent of the credit card hacking cases last year involved the hotel industry. The sector was well ahead of the financial services industry (19 percent), retailing (14.2 percent), and restaurants and bars (13 percent).

Why hotels? Well, to paraphrase the bank robber Willie Sutton, hackers hit hotels because that is where the richest vein of personal credit card data is. At hotels with inadequate data security, “the greatest amount of credit card information can be obtained using the most simplified methods,” said Anthony C. Roman, a private security investigator with extensive experience in the hotel industry.

“It doesn’t require brilliance on the part of the hacker,” Mr. Roman said. “Most of the chronic security breaches in the hotel industry are the result of a failure to equip, or to properly store or transmit, this kind of data, and that starts with the point-of-sale credit card swiping systems.”

Full Story ~ New York Times

Do you receive any of these messages when you try to delete a file or folder?

Cannot delete folder: It is being used by another person or program.
Cannot delete file: Access is denied.
There has been a sharing violation.
The source or destination file may be in use.
The file is in use by another program or user.
Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

Unlocker can help.

Change Log:

• New feature: Complete support for 64 bit operating systems with signed driver.
• New language: Basque thanks to Beñat Antxustegi.
• New language: Galician thanks to Delio Docampo Cordeiro.
• New language: Macedonian thanks to Nikola Trencevski.
• New language: Malaysian thanks to Arjuna Puteraz.
• Improved behavior: No false positives for 32 bit version.
• Improved behavior: Handles are now sorted by process instead of appearing in random order when launching Unlocker.
• Improved UI: Locked DLL show as DLL instead of handle number.
• Improved UI: Fixed same process appearing differently depending on cases.
• Promotional feature: Fully optional eBay shortcuts, Bing or Quickstores toolbar depending on location.

Download Unlocker 1.90 (64 bit)
Download Unlocker 1.90 (32 bit)

AppCrashView is a small utility for Windows Vista and Windows 7 that displays the details of all application crashes occurred in your system. The crashes information is extracted from the .wer files created by the Windows Error Reporting (WER) component of the operating system every time that a crash is occurred. AppCrashView also allows you to easily save the crashes list to text/csv/html/xml file.

System Requirements:
For now, this utility only works on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008, simply because the earlier versions of Windows don’t save the crash information into .wer files. It’s possible that in future versions, I’ll also add support for Windows XP/2000/2003 by using Dr. Watson (Drwtsn32.exe) or other debug component that capture the crash information.

Download AppCrashView 1.07

* Detailed informations about Tasks, Processes, Modules, Startups, IE Addons, Uninstallers, Windows, Services, Drivers, Connections and Opened Files.
* Easy check of suspicious files via VirusTotal or Jotti service.
* Easy search details about file/process via online databases.
* Launcher (“New Task…” dialog) with integrated AutoSearch and AutoCompletion.
* Action History for monitoring processes activities.
* Performance graphs for monitoring usage of system resources in time.
* System Snapshots for easy finding of system changes.
* System Report builds rich text report containing major informations about your System.
* Multilanguage and Plugins Support.
* Security feature with online File Reviews.
* WMI Browser and System Additional Info
* **NEW** Brand New Tray Hint with detailed System and Battery status

Requirements:
OS: Windows XP,Windows Vista or Windows 7

Download System Explorer 2.2.3
Download System Explorer 2.2.3 Portable

GPU-Z is a lightweight utility designed to give you all information about your video card and GPU.

• Supports NVIDIA and ATI cards
• Displays adapter, GPU, and display information
• Displays overclock, default clocks and 3D clocks (if available)
• Validation of results
• No installation required
• Support for Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / Windows 7 (both 32 and 64 bit versions are supported)

Download GPU-Z 0.44