January 31, 2003

CDC Reports on Environmental Toxins in Humans NPR - Smoking, although once considered suave, is on its way out: A new report shows the public health anti-smoking efforts are working. 4:49:48 PM

Free benchmark could have found Slammer vulnerability ComputerWorld - Not only could companies have easily slammed the door on the Slammer worm if they had installed the patch released by Microsoft Corp. six months ago, but they could also have uncovered the vulnerability exploited by the worm using a free benchmark developed jointly by the government and private sector. How do you get the message out that we need to invest in professionals.  Just because the guy in the mail room 'knows a lot about computers', doesn't mean that you should be using him to run your mission critical systems. A lot of the system that got slammed with the SQL slammer were pirated version of the software. 4:47:11 PM

Red Hat intros 12 month only support on 'consumer' OSes Hardware Zone - As the versions change so often, it makes the list of 'dead' versions very big. It is an upgrade or don't be supported world. 7:05:51 AM

A really good weblog article on the SQL Slammer worm, putting the blame where it belongs.  On the network admins who didn't keep up with the patches.  How digital Armageddon was averted BBC News Bill Thompson  6:59:56 AM

No Cancer Risk Found in Food Chemical HealthCentral.com - The first study of acrylamide in humans finds no link to three types of tumors -- French fry lovers can relax for now. 6:56:31 AM