Update Rollup for Exchange 2000 (KB836488) (May 27)
This Update Rollup resolves problems that were found in Exchange 2000 since Exchange 2000 SP3 was released.
Download: Update Rollup for Exchange 2000 (KB836488)
US Government reads emails (May 27)
Nearly a year after Congress shut down a programme that would have allowed the Pentagon to data mine to read emails, other spy schemes that do the same thing are alive and well and sniffing.
According to a congressional report obtained by Reuters, 36 of the government’s 199 “data mining” efforts collect personal information from the private sector.
Fears that the Pentagon’s $54 million Total Information Awareness program would do just that and kill civil rights resulted in the scheme being culled.
However it seems that all the spooks have done is launch programmes that are remarkably similar including plans to read emails.
According to the report, at least one unnamed agency is mining intelligence reports and Internet searches “to identify foreign terrorists or U.S. citizens connected to foreign terrorism activities”.
View: US Government reads emails
Buffalo spammer gets 3.5 to 7 years (May 27)
A New York man convicted of using the network of Internet service provider EarthLink Inc. to send out hundreds of millions of unsolicited commercial (spam) e-mail was sentenced to between three-and-a -half and seven years in prison Thursday, according to Brad Maione, a spokesman for New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
Howard Carmack of Buffalo, New York, also known as the “Buffalo Spammer,” was sentenced by senior Erie County Judge Michael D’Amico in Buffalo. The sentence is the first obtained following a conviction using the state’s identity theft law, Maione said.
Carmack was found guilty in April by a jury in Erie County, New York, on 14 counts, including charges that he stole the identity of two Buffalo-area residents, which he then used to send out more than 800 million spam messages, the attorney general’s office said.
View full article: Buffalo spammer gets 3.5 to 7 years
Microsoft Office Data Assistant for Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2003 (May 27)
The Data Assistant for PowerPoint 2003 provides an easy-to-use method of inserting and managing graphical data objects such as Microsoft Office Visio® drawings, Microsoft Office Excel charts, and named ranges into PowerPoint presentations.
Download: Microsoft Office Data Assistant for Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2003
Q&A: Microsoft Office Access 2003 Conversion Toolkit (May 25)
Among the technology offerings to be previewed at Tech·Ed 2004 this week is the Microsoft® Office Access 2003 Conversion Toolkit, which has proven to greatly streamline conversion of Microsoft Office Access databases and ease deployment of Microsoft Office 2003. The toolkit is scheduled to launch later this summer, in conjunction with the release of Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 1.
Tech·Ed is Microsoft Corp.’s most comprehensive technical event for IT professionals and developers. This year’s event, held May 23–28 at the San Diego Convention Center, marks the largest presence ever for Microsoft Office at the show and demonstrates the group’s commitment to connecting with the developers and IT professional community. Today, Senior Vice President of Microsoft Office Steven Sinofsky will announce the intent to deliver the Microsoft Office Access 2003 Conversion Toolkit later this summer. To get a better understanding of the Microsoft Office Access 2003 Conversion Toolkit, the factors that led to its creation and the benefits it will offer to customers and partners, we spoke with Jon Sigler, group program manager for Microsoft Office Access.
View full Press Release: Q&A: Microsoft Office Access 2003 Conversion Toolkit Will Significantly Streamline Database Conversion and Ease Deployment of Microsoft Office 2003 for Customers
Exchange Intelligent Message Filter (May 25)
Intelligent Message Filter is based on Microsoft SmartScreen Technology from Microsoft Research. By using e-mail characteristics tracked by SmartScreen technology, Intelligent Message Filter can help determine whether each incoming e-mail message is likely to be spam. Based on this likelihood, you can choose to block e-mail messages at the gateway or at the mailbox store. For more information about Intelligent Message Filter, see Exchange Intelligent Message Filter Overview.
Important: Before installing Intelligent Message Filter, you must read the Microsoft Exchange Intelligent Message Filter Deployment Guide. If you do not configure Intelligent Message Filter correctly, your messaging environment can be negatively affected.
Download: Exchange Intelligent Message Filter
View: Microsoft Exchange Intelligent Message Filter Deployment Guide
Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (May 25)
Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) offers new updates and improvements to Exchange Server 2003. Enhancements include new language support for Outlook Mobile Access and Microsoft Office Outlook® Web Access spelling checkers, and out-of-office modification, a larger text entry field, search folder support, and improved menu navigation for the Outlook Mobile Access user interface.
Updated deployment tools are included with SP1 to help you with site consolidation. Site consolidation involves moving Exchange servers from remote sites into a larger central site and allowing users in remote offices to access their mailboxes and public folders over the network. Site consolidation provides the following benefits:
The Exchange topology is simplified.
You can administer Exchange centrally and reduce administrative costs.
You can make better use of hardware because there are fewer mailbox servers as well as fewer auxiliary servers. A centralized datacenter can also increase scalability and availability.
Consolidating sites can help your organization reach the goal of running Exchange in native mode by reducing the number of Exchange 5.5 servers in the organization.
With fewer mailbox servers, there are fewer targets for security issues.
Download: Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1
Download: Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Release Notes
Exchange 2003: All-In-One Tools Download (May 25)
This package contains all the Exchange tools bundled together in a single download. The following tools are included:
Add Root Certificate
Address Rewrite
ArchiveSink
Authoritative Restore
Importer for Lotus cc:Mail Archives
Disable Certificate Verification
DNS Resolver
Error Code Look-up
Exchange Server Stress and Performance 2003
Inter-Organization Replication
Exchange Deployment Tools
Mailbox Merge Wizard (ExMerge)
GUIDGen
Jetstress
Load Simulator 2003
Information Store Viewer (MDBVU32)
Management Pack
MTA Check
SMTP Internet Protocol Restriction and Accept/Deny List Configuration
Up-To-Date Notifications Troubleshooting
WinRoute
Download: Exchange 2003: All-In-One Tools
Office 2003 Updates (May 25)
Cool! The Dutch Spelling Checker bug got fixed!
Office 2003 Dutch Spelling Checker Update for Office Proofing Tools
Office 2003 Dutch Spelling Checker Update for Multilingual User Interface Pack
Under certain circumstances, Office 2003 can quit unexpectedly when the user accesses the Dutch spelling checker. This update corrects that potential error. The Dutch spelling checker is included in Office Proofing Tools.
Word 2003 Update for Multilingual User Interface Pack
This update fixes an issue with the user interface for the Finnish version of Microsoft Office Word 2003.
Access 2003 Danish Update- KB834013 for Multilingual User Interface Pack
This update from Microsoft prevents a potential error. If this error occurs, the three Danish characters Ø, æ and å do not appear correctly in Help while the user is disconnected from the Internet.
Update Rollup for Exchange 5.5 (KB841765) (May 25)
This Update Rollup resolves problems that were found in the Exchange 5.5 since Exchange 5.5 SP4 was released.
Download: Update Rollup for Exchange 5.5 (KB841765)
Attack of Comcast’s Internet zombies (May 25)
Comcast’s high-speed Internet subscribers have long been rumored to be an unusually persistent source of junk e-mail.
Now someone from Comcast is confirming it. “We’re the biggest spammer on the Internet,” network engineer Sean Lutner said at a meeting of an antispam working group in Washington, D.C., last week.
Lutner said Comcast users send out about 800 million messages a day, but a mere 100 million flow through the company’s official servers. Almost all of the remaining 700 million represent spam erupting from so-called zombie computers–a breathtaking figure that adds up to six or seven spam-o-grams for each American family every day.
View full article: Attack of Comcast’s Internet zombies
Secure E-Mail Specs Could Merge (May 22)
After submitting its Caller ID e-mail authentication specification to a standards body, Microsoft is discussing merging its spec with another, called Sender Policy Framework, or SPF.
E-mail experts from Microsoft will spend a weekend meeting with SPF author Meng Weng Wong of Pobox.com, looking for ways to merge the closely-related Caller ID and SPF standards, according to Wong.
“Basically, we’re going to take SPF and Caller-ID and do a ‘cut and paste,'” Wong said Friday, en route to Microsoft headquarters.
View: Full article: Secure E-Mail Specs Could Merge
FBI plans spammer smackdown (May 22)
It’s been nearly six months since President Bush signed the first federal spam law with criminal sanctions–and not one bulk e-mailer has been criminally charged under it so far.
But the FBI told Congress on Thursday that it has “identified over 100 significant spammers” so far and is targeting 50 of the most noxious for potential prosecution later this year.
“Such cases may be investigated and prosecuted as computer intrusion matters, or as online cyberfrauds which may lend themselves to a variety of existing state or federal statutes, including the recently passed Can-Spam Act,” Jana Monroe, the FBI’s assistant director of the cyber division, told the Senate Commerce Committee.
She didn’t offer much in the way of details, except to say that an “initiative is being projected for later this year in which it is anticipated that criminal and civil actions under the Can-Spam Act of 2003 will be included.”
Monroe was among a handful of witnesses to appear before the Senate Commerce Committee in its first look at how the Can-Spam Act has worked since it took effect Jan. 1.
“Since our review of this issue last May, the volume of spam received by American consumers has risen unabatedly,” said committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz. “Spam now accounts for anywhere from 64 percent to 83 percent of all e-mail traffic on the Internet.”
View full article: FBI plans spammer smackdown
Office 2003 Editions: VBA Language Reference (May 22)
This download contains documentation (such as programming references and technical articles), and may contain tools and sample code designed to help you customize the Office Editions and to extend Office Editions and integrate with other applications.
Download: Office 2003 Editions- Office Web Components VBA Language Reference
Download: Office 2003 Editions- Outlook VBA Language Reference
Download: Office 2003 Editions- Publisher VBA Language Reference
Download: Office 2003 Editions- Word VBA Language Reference
Download: Office 2003 Editions- VBA Language Reference for the Office Object Model
Download: Office 2003 Editions- FrontPage VBA Language Reference (Web Object)
Download: Office 2003 Editions- VBA Language Reference for the Web Discussions Client Object Model
Download: Office 2003 Editions- Excel VBA Language Reference
Download: Office 2003 Editions- FrontPage VBA Language Reference (Page Object)
Download: Office 2003 Editions- VBA Language Reference for the Document Imaging Object Model
Download: Office 2003 Editions- Access VBA Language Reference
Download: Office 2003 Editions- PowerPoint VBA Language Reference
Download: Office 2003 Editions: VBA Language Reference for the Graph Object Model
Backup Process Used with Clustered Exchange Server 2003 Servers at Microsoft (May 22)
I have to say that I think it’s very cool of them to publish this to the public. This time the paper is even less then 10 pages so it’s actually worth looking at 
Detailed information on how the Microsoft IT group backs up its clustered Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 mailbox infrastructure by using a modified version of the Backup feature in Microsoft Windows Server 2003. The modifications enable Microsoft IT to increase throughput and back up the data faster, thereby meeting service level agreements (SLAs) despite the very large quantity of data backed up nightly.
Download: Backup Process Used with Clustered Exchange Server 2003 Servers at Microsoft
