Microsoft apologizes

Washington, Software giant Microsoft apologized Wednesday for the apparent bad judgment that led to the head of a black model being swapped for that of a white model in an online advertisement.

A black man in an online Microsoft ad was replaced with a white man, bottom, on the company's Polish Web site.

The ad which showed three business people, one Asian, one white and one black -- was altered on Microsoft's Web site for Poland to place the head of a white man on a black man's body.
"We apologized, fixed the error and we are looking into how it happened," said Lou Gellos, a Microsoft spokesman.

He said that because the company was still reviewing how the swap occurred he could not comment further.

On Microsoft's official page on the social network site Twitter, a posting calls the swap "a marketing mistake" and offers "sincere apologies."
The episode drew widespread criticism on the Internet after Engadget, an influential tech blog, published news of the gaffe Tuesday.

The business Web site CNET.com wrote that the change in models may have been made with the "racially homogeneous" Polish market in mind.

Apple-1 replica from scratch

At KansasFest 2009, held July 21 to 26 in Kansas City, Mo., retrocomputing fans from around the world gathered to celebrate the Apple II, the computer that launched Apple Computer Inc. to fame. But going back even further than that is the Apple-1 the machine Steve Wozniak invented and first demonstrated at the Palo Alto Homebrew Computer Club in 1976. In attendance at KansasFest was Vince Briel, who has created an authorized reproduction of this classic machine. Briel's Replica 1 sells for $149 and comes as an unassembled kit. He held a workshop at KansasFest to help new owners put together their own working Apple-1 machines. As a regular KansasFest attendee (and the conference's marketing director), I was one of his students. Follow along as I assemble a fully functional Apple-1 clone, as documented in these photos by Emily Kahm.

Computer virus

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the permission or knowledge of the owner. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, adware, and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability. A true virus can only spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive. Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer.

The term "computer virus" is sometimes used as a catch-all phrase to include all types of malware. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware, crimeware, and other malicious and unwanted software), including true viruses. Viruses are sometimes confused with computer worms and Trojan horses, which are technically different. A worm can exploit security vulnerabilities to spread itself to other computers without needing to be transferred as part of a host, and a Trojan horse is a program that appears harmless but has a hidden agenda. Worms and Trojans, like viruses, may cause harm to either a computer system's hosted data, functional performance, or networking throughput, when they are executed. Some viruses and other malware have symptoms noticeable to the computer user, but many are surreptitious.

Most personal computers are now connected to the Internet and to local area networks, facilitating the spread of malicious code. Today's viruses may also take advantage of network services such as the World Wide Web, e-mail, Instant Messaging, and file sharing systems to spread.

Muslim Province

Pro-China and pro-Muslim hackers have clashed online in a series of attacks on Web sites triggered by deadly ethnic riots in China's Muslim region last month.

Messages left on defaced Web sites have either supported or condemned China's rule over Xinjiang, the western province where rioting killed nearly 200 people. Chinese government Web sites have become the latest targets, adding to online attacks against an Australian film festival and a Turkish government site.

Searches on Friday revealed a dozen Web sites of local Chinese government offices that had been defaced with messages in support of the country's Uighur ethnic minority group. The Uighurs, a mostly Muslim group native to Xinjiang, have complained of poor protection of their culture and a lack of economic opportunity as China has encouraged migration to Xinjiang by Han Chinese, the country's large ethnic majority. Uighurs and Han Chinese carrying sticks and shovels hunted each other in packs during the rioting last month, which was triggered by an ethnic brawl in far-away southern China that left two Uighurs dead.

Messages on some of the defaced Web sites called China's policies toward Uighurs "genocide," and images left behind included the flag of the region's independence movement.
Hacking activities that support Uighurs have been uncommon, though local Chinese government Web sites are often defaced.

"Honestly, I've never seen or heard of a pro-Uighur hacker before," said Scott Henderson, the author of a blog that covers Chinese hackers, in an e-mail. "That was really unusual."
Chinese Web sites are often hacked, due mainly to weak security, Henderson said.

Pro-China hackers last month defaced the Web sites of the Turkish Embassy in China and the Melbourne International Film Festival. The embassy was targeted after Turkish officials criticized China following the unrest in Xinjiang, and the film festival was targeted as it prepared to show a documentary about Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur leader accused by China of organizing the riots.

Attackers placed the Chinese flag and messages blasting Kadeer on the film festival Web site, and later organized a flood of the festival's online ticketing system that left the showing of the Kadeer documentary sold out.

Uighurs have links to Turkey, including their Turkic language and practice of Islam. Greater autonomy for Xinjiang and Tibet, among the most politically charged issues in China, is hotly opposed in the media and much of the country's populace.

Patriotic Chinese hackers have launched attacks on foreign Web sites before, including against CNN last year over its coverage of an uprising in Tibet.

The attacks this time seem to follow the usual pattern, Henderson said.
"When questions of sovereignty arise, the government issues a strong statement against the action, and the Chinese hackers find a way to give it an exclamation point," he said.

The attacks appeared to be done by individuals, though the mass ticket purchase was more clever and could have been social mobilization rather than a hack, Henderson said.
China blocked all Internet access in Xinjiang after the rioting last month, and Twitter and Facebook have been inaccessible across the country since the days following the event. China said late last month it had started restoring Internet access in the province only for certain businesses.