TiVo sets ads on programs to be deleted
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Before deleting that  television show you just watched courtesy of TiVo, you'll be  given the option to view a commercial, the latest in a series  of enhancements the DVR pioneer will launch in an effort to  profit from the proliferation of ad-skipping.
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Watching "premium content" in Windows Vista requires users to play nice with Microsoft's built-in digital rights controls. In Monkey Bites.
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So-called FairUse program breaks copy protection on Windows Media Player.
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A security company has identified a Trojan horse program that replaces Google text advertisements on Web pages with ads from another source, depriving Google of revenue and potentially causing problems for end users.Google may be powerless to stop the trick since it involves the modification of an internal PC file, called the hosts file, that is used to match domain names of Web sites with IP (Internet protocol) addresses, said Romanian security company BitDefender.When a person visits a Web site, the browser checks the hosts file to see if it has an IP address for a particular domain name. If the hosts file is corrupted or hijacked, the browser can be directed to fetch a different Web page than the one the user intended to.Modifying the hosts file can be done for legitimate reasons. For example, PC users can change the hosts to block banner ads served from known ad networks. When a Web page tries to contact an ad server, the request is diverted by the hosts file and no ad appears.BitDefender said in an advisory this particular malware directs a browser to download advertisements from a different server than Google&#39;s ad server.BitDefender named the malware Trojan.Qhost.WU and said it is not spreading fast and poses a &quot;medium&quot; risk of damage. It did not say how the Trojan is being circulated, and company representatives did not return a call for comment.Besides costing Google ad revenue, there is a danger that those replacement advertisements could contain links to sites with malicious software, BitDefender said. Web site owners who buy ads through Google, as well as Google itself, can lose out on both Web traffic and revenue if people are diverted from its ads.There is not much that Google can do for those who download the malware. However, security products such as BitDefender&#39;s can detect and remove it.Without commenting on the Trojan specifically, Google said it removes Web sites from its search index that contain malware.&quot;We have canceled customer accounts that display ads re-directing users to malicious sites or that advertise a product violating our software principles,&quot; the company said in a statement.
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Ads served to search query results based on category rather than keywords.
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Nearly 50 programs may be disrupted by XP's Service Pack.
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Tired of blaring TV sets at shops, bars and waiting rooms? A new universal remote called the TV-B-Gone lets users turn off virtually any set. A trial run in the streets of San Francisco shows the device to be quite effective. By Steven Bodzin.
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Microsoft says that speech recognition features in Vista could be hijacked so that a PC tells itself to delete files.
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Beginning in March, a static pop-up ad, or "billboard," will spring up as TiVo users skip through an ad - perhaps a logo for an advertiser, plus a message encouraging viewers to check out a new car or enter a contest.
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TiVo exec to step down in time of fast ups and hard downs. Also: Google unveils mini search engine for small companies to scour intranet and web & hellip;.  Sony's Creation Box might be the photoshop of video & hellip;. and more.
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U.S. digital video recorder company  TiVo Inc is offering a new service giving advertisers detailed  profiles of its users, the Wall Street Journal reported  Thursday in its online edition.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft said it moved quickly to remove a banner advertisement that appeared on its instant-messaging program for a software application that falsely hypes security threats on a user's computer. "We immediately investigated the reports and removed the offending ads, as this is a violation of our ad-serving policy," wrote Microsoft spokeswoman Whitney Burk, in an e-mail Tuesday. Last week, computer security analysts noticed twoÂ advertisements for WinfixerÂ -- a self-described security program that also goes by the name ErrorSafe -- on Windows Live Messenger. Security companies have labeled it as a "potentially unwanted program." They believe the program falsely alerts users to problems with their computer and encourages them to purchase the application. It falls into an informally named category of program called "scareware," whose creators try to bully users into downloading their program or face problems with their computer. Microsoft, which called Winfixer "malware," did not detail how the ads appeared. However, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a civil liberties and consumer group in Washington, D.C., has investigated how questionable ads promoting spyware and other malicious software have appeared on ad networks. The incident highlights how even a well-resourced company such as Microsoft can be vulnerable to the vagaries of complex associations of Internet advertising networks. "There are often a host of parties involved in the advertising chain, making it difficult to track the journey an advertisement takes from its original source to a user's computer," according to a CDT report released last year. It's extremely hard to police advertisements, as the organizations which supply them could suddenly substitute new ones, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, a security software company. "There remains a risk that advertisements may be vetted and approved when first placed with an advertising network only to be later 'updated' to advertise less savory products," Cluley said. "This isn't just a problem for Microsoft, it's a problem for any company which is delivering advertisements to its userbase." The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has undertaken several actions against companies that have created special programs designed to exploit security vulnerabilities in computers, that -- like Winfixer -- purport to repair the machine. The Winfixer incident sparks concerns over end-user security and could be especially important for Microsoft. The company seeks to use advertising to subsidize the cost for free services such as Windows Live Mail, formerly Hotmail, and other Web-based services it's using to compete with online offerings from Google Inc. "For years I have been holding up MSN Messenger banner advertisements as an example of how advertisements can be safely served up to end users without putting them at risk of malware," wrote Sandi Hardmeier, a Microsoft Most Valued Professional and specialist in Internet Explorer, on her blog. "Now, everything has changed. This simply shouldn't have happened." Winfixer, which sells for around $39.95, has a shady history, experts says. It's a persistent program, constantly popping up on newly-created domains under various aliases, including ErrorSafe, WinAntiVirus and DriveCleaner, said Chris Boyd, security research manager for FaceTime Communications Inc. The changing names and versions are hard to keep up with for security analysts, let alone for ad network managers who may have no idea of the true nature of the program, Boyd said. "The suspicions are that it [Winfixer] is a quite sophisticated operation," Boyd said. At one time, Winfixer was one of several bad programs installed in a bundle by hackers on vulnerable machines, wrote Ben Edelman, a malware researcher and doctoral candidate at Harvard University, on his Web site. The hackers exploited the Windows Metafile (WMF) problem, a particularly dangerous security hole that appeared in December 2005 and prompted Microsoft to hurriedly issue an off-schedule patch. As always, users should be careful. "The responsibility ultimately falls on the users to be wary of advertisements which may be selling inappropriate or potentially damaging -- to data or finances -- goods," Cluley said. Â
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Workshop Windows virus cleanup primer
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As a family, our TV viewing is fractured, sporadic and free of network scheduling. We are Generation TiVo, a subspecies that doesn't sit through commercials.
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TiVo Inc.TIVO.O, maker of digital  television video recorders, will next year add ways for viewers  to see advertising and corporate logos even as they try to skip  commercials, the company said on Wednesday.
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Just as people currently use newsreaders to read syndicated text from blogs and news sites, a few hackers are creating applications that let users view syndicated video feeds. Think of it as TiVocasting. By Daniel Terdiman.
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LOS ANGELES  - Perhaps it didn't take a  scientific study, but Forrester Research has determined that  folks love their digital video recorders (DVR) and hate  commercials.