Stan's List

Apple has slipped in a update to the MacBook.

White 13.3″
$1099.00 2.0GHz/1GB RAM/80GB/Combo/GMA X3100
$1299.00 2.2GHz/1GB RAM/120GB/SD-DL/GMA X3100

Black 13.3″
$1499.00 2.2GHz/1GB RAM/160GB/SD-DL/GMA X3100

Despite comparable clock speeds (2.0 -> 2.0GHz, 2.16 -> 2.2GHz) to the old models, the new MacBooks use the Santa Rosa chipset which is a faster 800MHz front side bus over the previous MacBook models. The introduction of the GMA X3100 video card also provides significant benefits over the previous models. The new specs can be seen at Apple.

Flash Player 9, which addresses an issue with flash uploads in Leopard. Here is what else is new:

• Support for H.264 video and HE-AAC audio codecs (new Aug. 21).
• Enhancements to full-screen mode to use hardware scaling for improved video performance and quality on systems running Windows 2000 and newer or Mac OS X 10.2 and newer.
• Faster rendering of vector graphics on multi-core CPUs.
• Higher quality and performance for downscaling large bitmaps (SWF 9 only).
• Support for caching common platform components, such as the Flex framework, to reduce average application sizes. This feature is enabled in the Flex 3 beta available on Adobe Labs.
Flash Player 9 download page

(Prior versions of) RealNetworks RealPlayer are prone to multiple memory-corruption vulnerabilities that arise when the application processes specially crafted files.

Successfully exploiting these issues will allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code within the context of the affected application. Failed exploit attempts will cause a denial-of-service condition.

Update to the latest version for your OS, to close this vulnerability.

RealNetworks is making available product upgrades that contain security bug fixes. We have received no reports of any machines actually compromised as a result of the now-remedied vulnerabilities.

Check which version you have and see if you are vulnerable.

If necessary, get the latest RealPlayer

This update provides important issue fixes and is recommended for the aluminum 20-inch and 24-inch iMac models with 2.0, 2.4, or 2.8 GHz processors.

Available for download via Software Update or as a stand-alone file –
1.2 for Tiger and 1.3 for Leopard

Intego warns of a trojan horse Named “OSX.RSPlugin”, that infects Macs and it is in the wild. While it is thought to be introduced by clicking to watch a porn site’s video, it can be modified to come from any malicious Web site in a similar fashion.

The trojan horse is a form of DNSChanger, it changes your computer’s DNS server to go to sites selected by the attacker, via the scutil command, The malicious DNS server your redirects your normal IP address to maybe phishing sites such as Ebay and PayPal, and not what is typed into your Web browser’s address field.

How does it get installed? If you click on a supposed movie link, you are redirected to a web page displaying:

From here on everything seems normal, after the new page loads, a disk image automatically downloads and it is does not auto mount, you likely will open it yourself. The new QuickTime codec will then be installed by double-clicking. It is now too late

It also has a cron file that runs every so often to reinstate the bogus DNS addresses should they be found and changed. Going to a financial-related Web site could lead to disaster. More …