The true effect of Windows Update

This one is too good to keep.

Apparently Skype is claiming that their recent outage was due to a lack of network resources prompted by lots of people rebooting their PCs at once after a windows update. Skype's network had previously been though to be resilient to attacks due to the distributed nature of the network, but it seems like the old adage "It works better if you turn it on" is applicable here.

Skype's comment on the situation is here. Looks like this situation also brought to light a previously unknown bug in their network resource allocation algorithm, so finding and fixing the bug might be a silver lining to all the abuse they've taken over the outage.

Yes, I know, this isn't strictly spyware-related, but I consider update-related issues to be relevant, as most of the patches distributed by Windows Update are security fixes.

Zango's at it again

Looks like there's another example of spyware publishers desperately trying to protect their business model using the courts as a bludgeon. Zango seems to have a knack for finding the little guys in the community (in this case, a single individual effort, not for profit) and threatening them with all kinds of nastiness. Granted, in this case the domain in question is http://zingozango.com which might, if you squint real hard, and you knock your ruby slippers together three times, and dance naked under the harvest moon, and said moon is in the fifth house of Aquarius with a retrograde Mercury, potentially be misinterpreted as use of Zango's legitimately registered trademark. More than likely, it's simply fair use. Here is something I found on the web that relates to the case, at least obliquely; it refers to cases in which companies have used the courts to attempt to silence critics on the web.

Posted on Sunbelt's blog first. *shakes fist* You're too quick for the rest of us, Alex.