Euphoric State

Today I achieved another of my to-do list: going to a computer security seminar. This evening, I attended a seminar titled "Security Threats on the New Windows Vista and Beyond" conducted by InternetNow! International Sdn Bhd at Boulevard Hotel, Mid Valley Megamall. It was one of the most fantastic moment in my life, as I got to see real life demos on how computer security issues are done everyday. Just a little note on those who are not geek enough, you might find the rest of the entry too boring because I'm gonna be really technical after this.

Actually, InternetNow! was demonstrating one of their new product called Dr. Web antivirus developed by a Russian guy named Igor Daniloff. It has all the standard architectures of what antivirus should have, but what amazes me was it performs miraculously well against other antivirus. For example, other antivirus makers might say their products could scan memory addresses well. But based on the live demo shown in this seminar, one brand (let's just call it Brand X) failed to do this. My personal experience with other antiviruses also not going too well either. And today I learnt new concept in programming as well as computer security, which is executable packer. What an executable packer does is it packs any executable file so that the file size is reduced while maintaining the functionality of the file. This packer will add decompressing engine towards the compressed file, so when the compressed file is run it will first invoke the decompressing engine to uncompress the file and then execute the real file. The concept is same as zip file, the only difference is the decompressing engine is built into the compressed file as well so you don't have to distribute additional library or file when using the packer. Would be a very handy solution to my company's product, and it certainly contains many more usage than what I explained here. If you're really into computer security arena, you'll get what I mean.

I also had my first experience with Windows Vista, the newest operating system from Microsoft. Although the version shown in the demo was the beta, it certainly satisfied my eagerness to have a look on Microsoft's new toy. I was a bit disappointed because the Aero GUI feature was not turned on in the demo as I was extremely hoping I could see with my own eyes how this Aero looks like. But still, the animation and screen effects of Vista were a lot better than XP. As many had said, most of the ideas come from Macintosh OS and Linux like the widget thingy on the desktop. And I was really attracted with the UAC (User Access Control) concept that was introduced in Vista which works a lot like what Linux does. Basically, all users logged in are put into Standard User mode (including the Administrator). When you want to perform system-specific tasks like tweaking system services, Vista will ask whether you really want to perform the action and acts like a protective measure from accidental catastrophic event. Still, I think there's room to be improvise in the UAC as I don't think the control is not that strong yet.

Well basically, I really enjoyed the seminar especially the live demos and I really look forward in attending similar seminars or conferences in the future. Thanks to my boss for letting me to have a chance to go to the seminar.