Neowin.net

The Microsoft Network got around to releasing Beta 2 of the upcoming MSN 8 client a few minutes ago via an autoupdate. We will update you with whatever changes have been made as soon as they are available to us. Here are the changes noticed so far:

• The media player has been added as a ticket option on the dashboard
• New Sound Files
• Banking improvements
• MSN Money Plus improvements

MSN 8 to foist fees on outsiders
Microsoft this week plans to move one step closer to launching MSN 8, a major overhaul of its online service that for the first time will charge people who use an alternate Internet service provider. The company expects to release the second testing version to preselected testers as early as Tuesday. MSN 8 Beta 2, which is feature complete, sports new parental controls and e-mail spam filtering, among other features.

Note: Activewin have discovered it launches October 24th

View: MSN 8 to foist fees on outsiders @ C|Net News
News source: Activewin

It is the ability of Slapper to create its own network, experts said, that makes this worm different from its predecessors, such as last year's Code Red worm or this summer's Scalper worm.

"Slapper is new in the sense that [infected machines] keep in touch with each other using their own network," said Russ Cooper, Surgeon General of TruSecure in Herndon, Va.

"Code Red made no attempt to coordinate hosts. All the infected hosts had similar instructions--to initiate a DOS attack against a particular address--but it wasn't a coordinated attack," Cooper said.

Unlike Code Red, however, the current version of Slapper circulating the Internet does not appear to be programmed to carry out attacks.

"My understanding is that there is not code to send instructions. [Slapper hosts] can receive notifications from other hosts--send and receive packets--but they can't really talk to each other," said Cooper.

Still, Cooper cautions that future variants of the worm might include the ability to send and receive instructions, making sophisticated attacks possible.

"One thing the attacker may have planned was to get this little worm in first, find out what hosts [it infects], then send out a variant that lets me send out instructions. I know we had 10 versions of NIMDA and 3 [versions] of Code Red within a couple weeks."

Others experts, however, worry that even in its current form, the Slapper worm can still pose a considerable threat to organizations that are infected, and that might find themselves the target of attacks from Slapper hosts.