Conficker spawn, recession smackdown

A new version of Conficker has turned up and could portend even more malevolent uses of that already-nasty malware. Hewlett-Packard, Apple and Sprint Nextel, through either rough earnings reports or market surveys, joined the ranks of big-name tech companies that have been slammed by the recession. And if you use facial recognition to securely log on to your laptop, you may want to reconsider.

1. Conficker worm gets an evil twin: The Conficker worm has spawned an even more evil twin that researchers believe could give those who created it more ways to use and abuse computers it infects.

2. Wall Street Beat: Economy hits HP, Apple, Sprint Nextel and Analyst: HP results bad news for Microsoft: Bad financial news just keeps on coming, this week courtesy of Hewlett-Packard, Apple and Sprint Nextel. The second link in this entry is included as an example of the dreaded ripple effect.

3. Laptop face-recognition tech easy to hack, warns Black Hat researcher: Face-recognition technologies used for logging in to some laptops are not so secure after all because they are easy to trick, a security researcher warned at the Black Hat conference.

4. Stimulus bill aims for 'national broadband plan': If you are curious about how the U.S. government is likely to spend the US$7.2 billion apportioned to a national broadband plan in the recently passed economic stimulus bill, this is the link for you.

5. Update: Skype's immunity to phone tapping threatened: Skype conversations deemed suspicious could be tapped in a European-wide investigation linked to what authorities believe is a huge loophole in existing wiretapping laws. The probe may also help U.S. authorities get access to Internet-based calls made by criminals who do not currently have to worry that their conversations are being tapped because of the loophole.

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