Microsoft changes PC files without permission

According to researchers, Microsoft Corp. has started updating files on computers running Windows XP and Vista, even when users have explicitly disabled the operating systems’ automatic update feature.

Scott Dunn, an editor at the “Windows Secrets” newsletter, said that Windows Update, the Microsoft update mechanism, has changed nine files in XP and Vista (but not the same files in each operating system) without displaying the usual notification or permission dialog box. The files, said Dunn, are related to the XP and Vista versions of Windows Update (WU) itself.

Dunn identified the changed files on Vista as wuapi.dll, wuapp.exe, wuauclt.exe, wuaueng.dll, wucltux.dll, wudriver.dll, wups.dll, wups2.dll and wuwebv.dll. And on XP SP2, he said, the changed files were cdm.dll, wuapi.dll, wuauclt.exe, wuaucpl.cpl, wuaueng.dll, wucltui.dll, wups.dll, wups2.dll, and wuweb.dll.

In the past, Dunn noted, any changes to WU have been presented to the user for approval.

Germany makes arrests in global phishing scam

German police have arrested 10 people suspected of being involved in an international Internet scam which could have cost victims hundreds of thousands of Euros.

An 18-month-long probe resulted in raids in several German cities and the arrests of 10 Russians, Ukrainians and Germans who police think were involved in “phishing”—or tricking people into revealing personal or financial details.

The Federal Office said that the group targeted bank customers who received emails purportedly from organizations like eBay Inc and Deutsche Telekom.

Attached to the emails was so-called Trojan horse software which records data entered in computers.

The probe stretched across several western German cities, including Duesseldorf, Cologne and Frankfurt. Police are holding eight of the 10 arrested, including two women and six men aged between 20 and 36 years-old.

Online worlds to be AI incubators

Researchers at US firm Novamente have created software that learns by controlling avatars in virtual worlds. Initially the AIs will be embodied in pets that will become smarter by interacting with the avatars controlled by their human owners.

Novamente said it eventually aimed to create more sophisticated avatars such as talking parrots and even babies.

He said the company had developed a “Cognition Engine” that acted as the thinking part of the artificial intelligences it wanted to create.

This engine had some partially scripted behaviors and goals for the avatar under its control but was also capable of reasoning to work out novel ways to achieve its aims.

Dr Goertzel said business and research reasons drew Novamente towards using virtual worlds for its AI development. There was likely to be a ready market for smart virtual pets in worlds such as Second Life and many others, he said.

Initially Novamente would focus on pets such as dogs or monkeys but aimed to branch out afterwards. Dr Goertzel added that smart virtual animals were likely to get a good reception among gamers and those that spend time in online worlds.

Many of the computer controlled characters in games are driven by basic AI programs that dictate how they behave when attacked, when they spot a player’s character or how they interact.

On the research side, said Dr Goertzel, virtual worlds also solved the problem of giving an AI a relatively unsophisticated environment in which it could live and learn.

This desire to embody artificial intelligences led many to robots, he said, but that approach presented its own problems.

Novamente is working on avatars for different virtual worlds with The Electric Sheep company that specialises in producing artificial entities for online environments.

Dr Goertzel said Novamente was due to announce its first products and which worlds they would appear in at the Virtual Worlds conference being held in San Jose in early October.