Monthly Archives: June 2012

Another crazy round-the-world tour is at an end.

The first half of the year is coming to a close – and we’ve spent much of it on the move. Our travels have been pretty intense. We (TT, KA, me – EK – and others) began our latest globetrotting stint on 2 May. We’ve managed to do a lot of things, sometimes just to satisfy our curiosity, and we’ve heard some interesting tales along the way. It’s been useful, action-packed, and at times even mind-blowing.

The route was as follows:

More: SVO-GVA-NAS-DFW-BNE-MLB-SIN-CTA-BLQ-FCO … OMG!

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please!

Good news! After 3.5 years of legal battles with patent trolls we have finally won a resounding victory! This was our first patent litigation battle in the US and we won! // Well, we needed to make up somehow for Russia’s poor display at Euro 2012 :)

Here’s a recap.

Four years ago the patent trolls suddenly came on the scene trying to prove that we were using technology that had been patented by somebody else.

Because we were expecting this sort of thing, and knew all about patent trolls – albeit in theory – our very own patent department had for a number of years been quietly working away preparing our patent firepower in readiness for a showdown with all types of various patent trolls and black hats.

And then this story began, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. By the look of things, the situation was only going to get worse for us, but we had absolutely no intention of just giving in. Even if we lost, we were going to go down fighting and make it as brutal and bloody as possible for them.

And just a few days ago came the final denouncement.

The Court for the Eastern District of Texas announced its verdict in the case brought by IPAT and completely dismissed all the charges against us. What’s more, it did so WITH PREJUDICE, i.e. IPAT can’t bring any more claims regarding those patents!

But this is not just some ordinary legal victory.

More: An insight into troll business, US patent system and search for a solution…

Flights, flights and more flights…. It turned out to be a hectic “on the road again” type of week, with the emphasis on “again” and “again”.

Sunday – Jerusalem.

Monday – London.

Tuesday – Moscow.

Wednesday – Washington.

It just needed Beijing and/or Tokyo to be added to that list to complete the “pleasure”.

More: ‘birdie’ and ‘veggie’…

Any software vendor sometimes makes unfortunate mistakes. We are human like everybody else and we make mistakes sometimes, too. What’s important in such cases is to publicly admit the error as soon as possible, correct it, notify users and make the right changes to ensure the mistake doesn’t happen again (which is exactly what we do at KL). In a nutshell, it’s rather easy – all you have to do is minimize damage to users.

But there is a problem. Since time immemorial (or rather memorial), antivirus solutions have had a peculiarity known as false positives or false detections. As you have no doubt guessed, this is when a clean file or site is detected as infected. Alas, nobody has been able to resolve this issue completely.

Technically, the issue involves such things as the much-talked-about human factor, technical flaws, and the actions of third-party software developers and web programmers. Here’s a very simple example: an analyst makes a mistake when analyzing a sample of malicious code and includes in the detection a piece of a library the malware uses. The problem is the library is used by some 10,000 other programs, including perfectly legitimate ones. As a result, about 20 minutes after the release of an update containing the faulty detection, technical support goes under due to a deluge of messages from frightened users, the analyst has to re-release the database in a rush and the social networks begin to surface angry, disparaging stories. And this is not the worst-case scenario by far: imagine what would happen if Explorer, svchost or Whitehouse.gov were falsely detected :)

More: How to evade detecting Whitehouse.gov as a phishing site …

Jerusalem, the Living City, is older than almost all others that have survived to the present day, older even than Rome, and a couple of millennia older than some of the world’s oldest cities. Only a few others can boast of such a history… the likes of Jericho, Babylon and Yerevan, for instance. But it’s surely true to say that Jerusalem is the oldest among the “big ticket” world cities, and as such it’s one of those places you have to explore at least once in this life. And it’s not just a place for strolling the streets – it’s worth descending underground, since the caves are now open for visitors. I was there recently – these are old sewage tunnels which were discovered not so long ago, enmeshing the whole city like a web. They are more than 2,000 years old!

More: Exploring the history …

Finally, after years of dreaming, I got the chance to visit!

Masada is the name of a ruined ancient fortress on the top of a 450 m mountain on the Israeli shore of the Dead Sea. It is notorious for a legend of the mass suicide of a thousand of Jews hiding there from Roman troops. After the Jewish revolt against Rome (1^st century AD), was suppressed and Jerusalem fell into Roman hands, a group of surviving rebels settled in the fortress together with their families. The Romans besieged Masada but failed to capture it protected by forbidding vertical cliffs. Besides, the food and water supply seemed set to last for years. In the end, the Romans made a huge embankment in the lowest part of those fortifying cliffs, rolled in a battering ram and broke through a wall. Having realized the hopelessness of the situation, the besieged Jews chose death instead of slavery.

According to legend, a dozen warriors were selected and charged with slaughtering the others – including women and children – before destroyed food supplies and burning down the wooden buildings. Amid the carnage, they drew lots and one was left to stab his comrades in arms and, finally, himself (thereby committing a great sin). That’s how the story goes, and the evidence suggests it’s true. At least the remains of the fortress and embankment remain to the present day, adding weight to the story. Archeologists have even found earthen bowls with names – maybe these were the very vessels used to choose which warrior would be left to slay his comrades and finally himself. For the rest of the story see here.

More: A legend or a history? …

More: Rome On The Run.. . .

I’ll never forget Oktoberfest 2010 for as long as I live. Yes, I like beer, especially the German stuff, and especially at Oktoberfest. But I don’t even remember the beer, and that’s not because I had too much of it :) It was at that time we received the first news of a very unpleasant trend, which I had feared for a number of years. That’s right, it was the first time Stuxnet reared its ugly head – the first malware created with state backing and designed to fulfill a specific military mission. This is exactly what we had talked about at our Oktoberfest press conference: “Welcome to the age of cyber warfare!” It was already obvious then that Stuxnet was just the beginning.

Indeed, little has changed since that September right up to the present day. Everybody had a pretty good idea where Stuxnet came from and who was behind it, although not a single state took responsibility; in fact, they distanced themselves from authorship as much as possible. The “breakthrough” came at the end of May when we discovered new malware which also left little doubt as to its military origins and aims.

Yes, I’m talking about Flame.

More: How can malware stop me from eating a fresh croissant in the morning? …

Rides come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. On water skis, under sail, on horses, bikes, motorbikes, rollerblades… But for some reason what really gets my heart pumping are rides of the very fast kind in motor cars. And here I am – at the stage of the season of the Ferrari Challenge. Italy, Tuscany, the Mugello Circuit.

Ferrari Challenge? Let me give you a quick guide. It’s something between the German autobahns and Formula-1, and everyone’s in a Ferrari F458 Italia. This is what it looks like:

More: The roar of the Ferrari engines in Ferrari chassis …

There are hardly active volcanoes in Europe; well, not including those unpronounceable ones in Iceland, that is. Mainland European volcanoes are to be found only in Santorini in Greece and in Italy. And it’s of course Mount Etna that’s the champion in terms of height (but not necessarily on other attributes – Santorini is much more colorful and generally far more impressive to look at).

So, Mount Etna. It’s only a few hours from any point in Europe, so if any Europeans reading this still haven’t been to a real smoking volcano, Mount Etna’s for you for your first volcano visit. It’s always advisable to wait for the next eruption to ensure the experience is a maximally intense Magical Mystery Tour, but here eruptions are real frequent – so you shouldn’t have too long to wait. So off you pop – to Sicily!

The one con: they don’t let you get to the very top! Eh, what’s that all about? What a let-down! The wide area around the peak’s surrounded by a white rope barrier and you’re not allowed to cross it, so taking in the breathtaking fantastical landscapes here is possible only from a cordoned-off tourist viewing area well below the summit.

There’s an attendant pro though: it’s possible to step over or go around the “barrier”, and no one seems to keep watch so you can get away with it! Naughty!

More: volcanic caves and Godfather background …