The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned end users and businesses that the patch Microsoft has made available may not offer enough protection against hackers breaking into systems remotely. (So.. since when does FBI became an expert on Windows's loopholes? :P -Ed)
It cautioned yesterday that companies using XP should also switch off Universal Plug'n'Play as a further protection against the cavernous security hole exposed last Thursday.
But Microsoft is maintaining that the patch, which is also available for Win98, Win98SE and ME, is sufficient to close any security gap.
Disabling this feature will affect features specifically built into WinXP to make using PCs "even easier than before", as Microsoft might say.
But if there are any other bugs lurking in PnP, then the FBI's caution might be wise. However, there may well be other holes lying around in wait that no-one's discovered yet.
After all, Windows 98 was introduced years ago and no one picked up on the bug that was carried forward into SE and ME until a few weeks back.
News source: The Inquirer - FBI warns WinXP patch 'not enough'
It cautioned yesterday that companies using XP should also switch off Universal Plug'n'Play as a further protection against the cavernous security hole exposed last Thursday.
But Microsoft is maintaining that the patch, which is also available for Win98, Win98SE and ME, is sufficient to close any security gap.
Disabling this feature will affect features specifically built into WinXP to make using PCs "even easier than before", as Microsoft might say.
But if there are any other bugs lurking in PnP, then the FBI's caution might be wise. However, there may well be other holes lying around in wait that no-one's discovered yet.
After all, Windows 98 was introduced years ago and no one picked up on the bug that was carried forward into SE and ME until a few weeks back.
News source: The Inquirer - FBI warns WinXP patch 'not enough'
An IBM spokesperson told BetaNews, "ECMWF's researchers will access Blue Storm via IBM IntelliStation workstations running Linux, while researchers throughout Europe will access the system over a wide-area network."
The comapny illustrated the power of Blue Storm by offering the analogy that it would take one person with a calculator almost 17 million years to tabulate the number of calculations that Blue Storm will handle in a single second.
The ECMWF receives funding by 22 European nations – representing a broader sampling of states than the European Union. IBM sees the adoption of its technology to predict and model weather in Europe as confirmation of its achievements in the realm of supercomputing. The company claims that this success is mirrored by the top 500 list of the world's fastest computers and recent IDC market research data.
According to a study completed in 2000, IDC shows IBM as having a 40 percent share of the market.
Peter Ungaro, vice president of high performance computing at IBM, told Betanews, "This announcement demonstrates IBM's leadership in technology with Regatta servers and the implementation of that technology in the largest supercomputers used for weather forecasting."
Ungaro went on to detail a list of benefits that Blue Storm would provide that includes more accurate weather forecasts for the general public and interest groups such as farmers – allowing Europe's citizenry to plan picnics or protect crops with fewer headaches.
Additional benefits allow focused severe weather warnings in the event of storms, tornados, and other emergencies. These alerts affect the public welfare in areas ranging from the issuance of evacuations to resource management, when energy producers swap power reserves in preparation for foul weather.
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