Looks like there'll be new extended versions of I and II coming out just before III:

] Running times for the extended editions are 208 minutes
] for "Fellowship of the Ring" and 214 minutes for "The Two
] Towers."

] Starting the week of Dec. 5, the extended DVD cut of
] "Fellowship of the Ring" will be released in some 100 or
] so theaters in the U.S. and in 20 theaters in Canada.
]
] Then, the week of Dec. 12, sequel "Two Towers" will
] unspool, just a month after having preemed on DVD,
] leading up to a worldwide Dec. 16 daylong marathon,
] during which all three films will be shown back-to-back.
] Exhib guidelines call for a 3 p.m. showing of
] "Fellowship" followed by a 7 p.m. screening of "Two
] Towers" and then an 11 p.m. screening of "Return of the
] King," which will carry over into Dec. 17 -- the day of
] its global release.

Three and a half hours of I, followed by three and a half hours of II, followed by "Return of the King". Popcorn-overdose, dude, I'm there! :)

Lord of the Rings Marathon for Release of 'Return of the King'

More info about the fastest-spreading worm of all time, which enters a new phase today, trying to download unknown code to 20 specific home computers:

] The worm infected close to one million computers via
] e-mail attachments in e-mails with spoofed addresses
  . . .
] Now, those infected
] computers are programmed to start to connect to machines
] found on an encrypted list hidden in the virus body.
] F-Secure said the list contains the address of 20
] computers located in United States, Canada and South
] Korea and is expected to start at 3:00 EST Friday.

New Phase of Sobig.F Set for 3 p.m. EST Friday 8/22/2003

This is my latest gaming addiction: A little (free) game on the Zone called "Hexic" where you rotate hexagons to line them up. *After* I got addicted, I dug deeper to learn who designed it -- Alexei Pajitnov! The same guy who designed Tetris. I should've known... :)

Hexic Game

] SpamAssassin(tm) is a mail filter to identify spam.
]
] Using its rule base, it uses a wide range of heuristic
] tests on mail headers and body text to identify "spam",
] also known as unsolicited commercial email.

When configured right, this works great. :) It analyzes all the email coming in, and gives each letter a score to make a guess as to whether or not it's spam. Just like it's usually instantly obvious for a human to look at a letter and say, "Ugh, this is just more junk," this program can automatically scan letters *before* they get to your queue, identify the obvious crap, and delete it before it ever gets to your mail queue. Then anything that it's not sure of, it can flag as *probable* spam, but still let you, the recipient, make the final determination.

My company's been using SpamAssassin for awhile now, and it's been awesome at blocking most of the garbage.

Recommended.

SpamAssassin Mail Filter

] A new Internet worm emerged today that is designed to
] seek out and fix any computer that remains vulnerable to
] "Blaster," the worm that attacked more than 500,000
] computers worldwide last week.

My mail queue is also going nuts today with the results of the latest "Sobig Worm". Dozens of .pif files getting sent with forged "from" addresses:

 http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112078,00.asp

Over the last week, I've been personally educating every single one of my non-tech friends and relatives (even the cousins I only talk to once every few years) on securing their systems: Walking them through step by step on how to get anti-virus packages, firewall, and OS updates. It continues to stun me how many people are online with no security at all -- no firewall, or even an anti-virus package. And it's especially ironic because some of these people are the same ones who will forward the "Don't open any email that has the word 'green' in its subject line!" urban legends at the drop of a hat...

Anyway, this "good" worm idea sounds awfully tempting right now! :)

'Good' Worm Fixes Infected Computers (TechNews.com)

] Working with experts at the Lawrence Livermore National
] Laboratory, the FBI traced trails of a broader
] reconnaissance. A forensic summary of the investigation,
] prepared in the Defense Department, said the bureau found
] "multiple casings of sites" nationwide. Routed through
] telecommunications switches in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia
] and Pakistan, the visitors studied emergency telephone
] systems, electrical generation and transmission, water
] storage and distribution, nuclear power plants and gas
] facilities.

] "We were underestimating the amount of attention [al
] Qaeda was] paying to the Internet," said Roger Cressey,
] a longtime counterterrorism official who became chief of
] staff of the President's Critical Infrastructure
] Protection Board in October. "Now we know they see it as
] a potential attack vehicle. Al Qaeda spent more time
] mapping our vulnerabilities in cyberspace than we
] previously thought. An attack is a question of when,
] not if."

] What they do know is that "Red Teams" of mock intruders
] from the Energy Department's four national laboratories
] have devised what one government document listed as
] "eight scenarios for SCADA attack on an electrical power
] grid" -- and all of them work. Eighteen such exercises
] have been conducted to date against large regional
] utilities, and Richard A. Clarke, Bush's cyber-security
] adviser, said the intruders "have always, always succeeded."

Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared (TechNews.com)

] Internet users who type the WindowsUpdate.com URL in
] their browser get an error message. Microsoft has deleted
] the Domain Name System (DNS) information for the domain,
] and it no longer sends traffic to an actual Web site.

According to Reuters, the number of Blaster-infected machines currently ranges from 386,000 to 1.2 million, depending who you ask:
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=3287116

Microsoft pulls WindowsUpdate.com to avert Blaster

] Dubbed "LoveSAN" or "MSBlaster," the worm does not use
] e-mail to send itself. Rather it is considered
] self-propagating, meaning that it independently searches
] for unprotected computers to infect.

Many of my friends are highly tech-literate, and love to slice and dice all kinds of bits and bytes with glee. Many others, however, see computers only as occasional tools, and *not* as a lifestyle. So to tell them, "Patch your computer" is going to get as bewildered a look as if an auto mechanic came to me and said, "What do you mean you don't personally adjust your spark plug timing on a monthly basis?"

So for those of my circle who are reading this, who are not "uber-geek" tech-literate: As you're hearing on the news, there is a *nasty* virus going around the web. You don't need to download something to get it, you don't need to open an email to get it. Just being connected to the internet, especially if from a computer that is running Windows 2000 or Windows XP, could potentially mean that your system has gotten infected (Macintosh users are immune from this one).

I won't go into a lot of the, "Do this, do that, and if this doesn't work, do that" descriptions to fix things. The simplest fix is: Make sure your Windows software is updated. To do this, the easiest way (assuming that you are using an Internet Explorer browser) is to go up to the "Tools" menu on your browser, and look for an option called "Windows Update". Select that. It should automatically connect to the Microsoft website, scan your computer to see what updates it needs, and suggest downloads. Do what it tells you. Do it now. ESPECIALLY do it by Friday, because this weekend is when things are going to get nastier.

If you get stuck, call me or IM me (AOL Instant Messenger: Elonka) or write me (elonka@aol.com). I'll talk ya through. :)

Good luck!

Windows computers at serious risk from Internet 'Blaster' worm

A few pics taken by Moloch's AbbyNormal. :)

Abby's Def Con 11 Pics

] LOS ANGELES - Gregory Hines, the greatest tap dancer of
] his generation who also transcended the stage with
] successful film and television roles, has died at 57.

I thought that "White Nights" was an incredible movie, both for the cutting-edge dancing and the political commentary. The movie was a classic, and Hines was a brilliantly gifted dancer who could not only execute extremely difficult sequences, but also pushed himself even further, pushing his own limits, and, as a result, the boundaries of the entire artform. He was an inspiring craftsman, and will not be forgotten.

Gregory Hines dies of cancer at 57