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Keith Morrigan on Monday, 23 July, 2012 at 15:07:02
Our home Windows XP PC recently died. I wanted to resurrect it, with a whole new motherboard but to keep all our software and settings working on XP. It also seemed sensible to upgrade to Windows 7 on a separate hard drive at the same time - in a dual boot configuration so I could choose to start up in 32 bit XP for access to my old software, while gradually moving stuff across to 64 bit Windows 7. As I discovered, the process is possible, but along the way there are some serious gotchas! By blogging my experience of the long and tortuous recovery process, it may help others solve their own problems - forewarned is forearmed. Rather than an exact technical guide on how to proceed, as others are likely to have different hardware/software/problems, I have instead explained (at some length) the frustrations, symptoms and (for me) the solutions to provide some hints and clues for others - skip to Advice. The blow upThough some bad luck was involved, it was mostly my own fault:- this PC had been playing up recently, and would suddenly freeze without warning with the hard disk access led permanently lit. …
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Keith Morrigan on Monday, 21 May, 2012 at 18:20:00
It has been a while since we posted our first blog entries: our blog was rushed into publication so that we could post our protection advice to other McAfee users, long before we had even basic functionality in place. We have done a lot of work on our blogging/publication system since then, and are finally ready to start blogging and other publishing. In fact, apart from our ongoing mosaics, we have been working on a lot of exciting stuff, much of which will start to appear on the site over the next few weeks: New Publications
- Blogging entries
Our personal view of what we are up to, our recent and ongoing mosaics, and technical/programming articles to help others.
- News section
A new News section for Kaamar press releases and announcements of new website functions or products.
- Help section
A new Help section for product guides, mosaic design guides, FAQ, instructions and general website information. …
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Keith Morrigan on Friday, 20 January, 2012 at 18:19:25 (modified: 23 January, 2012 at 13:00:00)
Our first blog entry becomes Worldwide news!We are stunned by the response to our first blog post Rumor turns Rogue - McAfee Software Hacked! on our McAfee problems and guidance for other affected users. Power to the internet!! Thank you to all those reporters, with special thanks to Elinor Mills for her CNET article and to Leo Kelion for his BBC article. Other than one small blog post, the global threat intelligence systems run by McAfee report all the other security threats, but not their own! "Sorry" seems to be the hardest word!
UPDATE 23/01/12: Although no major announcement from McAfee, they have now published Security Bulletin SB10018 on this issue.
The McAfee problem in summary
In our post Rumor turns Rogue - McAfee Software Hacked! we explained that the McAfee SaaS Total Protection service, intended to protect computers from internet hazards, was itself allowing others to send spam (amongst other things) from our server by acting as an "open proxy". …
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Keith Morrigan on Monday, 16 January, 2012 at 16:20:00 (modified: 20 January, 2012 at 18:19:24)
UPDATE 20/01/12: See follow up story: Rumor Tamed but Damage Done!
Warning! Your computer could be at risk!
If you are using a McAfee security product to protect your computer on the internet you should act now. McAfee software has been hacked, turning the affected computers into “open proxies” and allowing dubious users to hijack their internet connection to access illicit sites and send spam, as if coming from them!
It is believed that thousands of computers have been compromised so far, with more being affected every day. In the absence to date of any formal announcement or solution from McAfee on this critical issue, Kaamar are posting this to help other McAfee users prevent damage to their systems and their online reputation.
UPDATE 19/01/12: McAfee have announced a patch will be released through the normal automatic update process, when testing is finished on 18th or 19th (US - could be 20th in UK).
McAfee Rumor Service Hacked.
McAfee Software can include their Rumor Technology which is part of a system for delivering updates to computers without a direct internet connection. It appears to be installed even when not required, along with firewall rules to allow internet access, and one of the tcp ports it uses is port 6515. …
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