“…until he opened the door to a truckload of spam.”

A short movie about the Commtouch Recurrent Pattern Detection (RPD) technology that provides the best detection versus accuracy performance and detects spam or malware in the first few minutes of an outbreak, unlike other anti-spam approaches.

Watch the video at the MX Lab web site.

The co-brandend Commtouch® – MX Lab 2007 Q4 Email Threats Trend Report is available. Get the report.

MX Lab is detecting and intercepting an increased distribution of maliciously crafted PDF files. These PDF files contain an exploit that could result in a complete access to the infected computer and affects Windows XP or Windows 2003.

When the PDF document is opened the Windows firewall will be disabled by using Netsh, a command-line scripting utility that allows you to, either locally or remotely, display or modify the network configuration of a computer that is currently running. The code will start downloading a trojan from the internet which may allow the attacker to take control over the infected computer.

iTunes lower prices
Apple has lowered pricing of the iTunes DRM free music to just $0,99 per track.

iPhone
The iPhone will be launched on 29 November in France. They are “getting closer” to Belgium. Now, the good news is that Apple has made a deal with Orange and according to AppleGazette this iPhone will be an unlocked version. Selling a device with an subscription is against the law in our country. We now can expect to see the iPhone be sold in Belgium without any subscriptions, which is a good thing. Freedom of choice.

Het Nieuwsblad, a Belgian newspaper, is giving away 3 iPhones even while the iPhone isn’t available for Belgium. The iPhones will not be delivered by Apple Benelux. The devices will be purchased in an US based Apple Store and will get an “SIM lock removal”. Cool, and with the next Apple update you have iPhone brick until the next unlock procedure.

And we can expect an iPhone SDK for developers in Febr 2008. Finally, we should be able to run native applications on the iPhone just like other smartphones allow.

Mac OS X Leopard
At last, MacOS X Leopard will be in the shops on 26 October 2007. What I already like is the Time Machine and Spaces so this new version will be placed on my 4 year old Mac very fast together with a new very big hard disk because I’m running out of space.

After the PDF, Excel and ZIP based spam outbreaks we now have a stock spam outbreak based on the popular MP3 format for delivering audio. The messages are between 85kB and 150kB and contain an MP3 in poor quality at a 16 kbps bitrate and 11 KHz sample rate with an average length of 30 seconds. T avoid email filters these files are highly randomized.

The attachment files names range from well known artists like smashingpumpkins.mp3, bbrown.mp3, bspears.mp3, gloriaestefan.mp3, beatles.mp3 to and some obvious poplar sound names like answeringmachine.mp3, coolringtone.mp3, listentothis.mp3. The subject only contains Fwd: or Re:.

MX Lab protects clients against this new form of spam with the Recurrent Pattern Technology ™ (RPD) from Commtouch®. According to our technology partner Commtouch®, the outbreak accounts for around 7-10% of all spam, globally, over the past 18 hours. The first MP3 spams where detected on October 17, 2007, 21:24 GMT.

After a few months playing around with designs and concepts, the new web site of MX Lab is online. This new style will also be used for printed media.

The Cure will perform in Belgium, Sportpaleis, on March 14th 2008. Great, something to look forward.

MX Lab offers a fully managed antivirus & anti spyware service using Trend Micro™ OfficeScan™ 8.0 technology for all your PCs, servers and laptops with a zero-configuration installation file. Visit MX Lab for more information.

MX Lab becomes OEM partner of Commtouch®, a company that provides market – leading anti-spam, zero hour virus outbreak protection and reputation solutions based on patented Recurrent Pattern Technology ™ (RPD).

“With the integration of the Commtouch® RPD™ technology in our newly developed and deployed MX Lab Gateway servers we can offer our clients a much higher level of email security with zero hour anti virus and malware protection and a high quality anti spam service with rapid response time when new spam outbreaks are detected.” says Peter Louies, manager at MX Lab.

“We have chosen the Commtouch® solution for its fast response on new outbreaks, wether this is virus or spam based, the solid and stable performance in classifying email and flexible integration with our already developed platform.”

The Commtouch® RPD™ technology is available immediatly and will be combined with the current anti virus and anti spam technologies that are already in place. This technology alliance reflects our commitment to further improve our services and to provide 100% threat protection and very high spam catch rates.

About Commtouch

Commtouch® Software Ltd. (NASDAQ: CTCH) was founded in 1991, and is dedicated to protecting the integrity of the world’s most widespread form of communication, e-mail. With fourteen years of expertise in the development of email software, Commtouch provides spam and Zero-Hour™ virus outbreak protection for 50 million users in 130 countries. Commtouch technologies have been licensed by over 50 partners, including security and anti-virus vendors, managed service providers and messaging security providers.

A report from ZDNet looking in depth at the iPhones features and performance. The report can be found on: ZDNet iPhone part 1 and ZDNet iPhone part 2. it is however in Dutch.

In general the iPhone is a device that performs well as iPod and some interfaces are very well developed when using the iPhone. If you are listening to music, the iPhone will reduce the volume for an incoming call and increase the volume when the call is finished. The internet experience is very high with the build in Safari browser but there is no support for Javascript, Java, Flash, streaming media and plugins. You can easily zoom in and zoom out on parts of the web page and also when looking to images.
The iPhone looses points when it comes to voice: the quality of a phone call is not so good and the interface for sending SMSs text messages takes to long to access.

AppleInsider has an English version of an in depth review of the iPhone on it’s site.

On Computerworld they have already an article about the second gen-iPhone.

The iPhone is also disassembled by some guys on iFixit and some stupid assholes have “destroyed” the iPhone to have a look at the inside. Okay, it’s their waisted money.

It is now a bit unclear when the iPhone comes to Europe. Several sources mentioned that it will be in fall 2007 but only for a few countries like the UK. Belgium should be waiting until early 2008.

I’ve also read in an article that you can sync contacts and your calender with iCal and MS Entourage, other articles clearly state that it’s only with iCal. At first I was hoping to buy an iPhone when it comes out in Belgium. Now I’m not so sure anymore, due to reports that sound quality is less when making a call, also because of a new Nokia model that is expected.

I’m currently a Nokia 9210 Communicator user and I also saw that there will be a new model coming out: the E90 Communicator. The specs are very promising and the design looks better than the 9500 model. It will be a hard comparison when both are available.