That wily old Chinese software manufacturer Kingsoft has successfully repelled the first hacking attack mounted by an entity identified as the "Huigezi Workshop." You may remember Kingsoft as the Chinese firm that has sent cold shivers down the spine of Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) since 2001 by introducing its WPS OFFICE product to compete directly with Microsoft's OFFICE XP in China. At that time, Kingsoft made clear that they would be aggressively pursuing supremacy in the Chinese software market.

However, now it would appear that Chinese software market supremacy is temporarily a back-burner issue for the Chinese software giant. A report in China Tech News reveals that in response to the declaration of a crack down against a prolific virus called Hack.Huigezi, an orchestrated viral attack was launched against Kingsoft, apparently by the Huigezi Workshop. The report indicates that more than 10,000 computers from Taiwan, Langfang, Hengshui, and Beijing suffered an assault that was successfully repelled and then reported to police.

I can't help but view this situation as a bit of poetic justice when considered in light of Kingsoft's heavy-handed dealings with our dear Microsoft. Hack.Huigezi might be a slice of self-made karma come home to roost. To me, Kingsoft has shown ample free market arrogance in its choices of modus operandi in pursuit of Chinese market dominance.

That does not, however, excuse the high jinks of any hacking ne'er-do-well. I dislike hackers about as much as I dislike thieves. In my opinion the time for us to make a strong example of a few of them arrived long ago. We need to catch a couple of them dead in their tracks and expose them to some highly distasteful punishment, such as 100 hours of listening to Senator Clinton speak in her strained southern drawl. No, come to think of it, that would be cruel and unusual punishment. It'd be much more humane to just paint 'em in lard and throw 'em in a gator pond.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is claiming "no harm no foul" in a hackers dream scenario which has come to light. It seems Windows Vista may allow would-be evildoers to whisper sweet nothings in your computer's ear and subsequently shut it down and/or delete material. An article at Red Herring exposes an apparent voice recognition loophole in the new Windows Vista operating system. The claim is that it has been shown that a hacker can invade the system... for or with a song.

Microsoft has downplayed the glitch, claiming that it's a small problem and it has similarly been encountered before. If that attitude is intended to make consumers feel better about possible system breeches, I'm afraid that Microsoft has another thing coming. Perhaps MSFT hasn't heard that PC security tops the list of consumer concerns in the IT world. Perhaps I need to send them a scathing letter (place sinister chuckle here).

We need to also consider how this Vista voice recognition glitch may be exploited further down the road. In light of the heavy usage of P2P BitTorrent type technologies for music sharing and similar, what is the potential for nasty audio hacker attacks to become widespread and destructive? If Windows Vista can be manipulated by virtual attacks placed within or alongside a song then just how far can audio-borne hacking go?

I was working from Portland, Ore.'s City Hall this morning, as I was representing my neighborhood on a right-of-way matter. I wanted to show my neighborhood buddy a photo of the landmark we were fighting for on flickr. But zoinks! I was stopped by the government's free wifi filters. Flickr, the firewall said, was a site for hackers. I tried to argue (there's a button to do so on the security company's site) and it turned out that they'd confirmed, yes, flickr is for hackers.

The only mention I could find of "hackers" and "flickr" together was the friendly and entirely non-dangerous "Flickr Hacks" group on flickr. It's a way for users to get together and share their flickr workarounds.

But being banned by government can't be good for flickr's parent, Yahoo!. Flickr lives and dies on its viral nature, and if government officials near and far can't take place in the market, well, that's got to be tough for the longterm strategy. Yahoo! was down three cents to $29.62 today on average volume.

The timing couldn't be worse for Apple.  Just as its new "Get a Mac" ad campaign takes off to rave reviews, stories are flying around the Internet about a hacker name "Dinam," who claims in an online posting that he hacked into Apple Computer's Korean online store, CNET reported yesterday.

The hack job was noticed by Silicon.com, which alerted Apple.  Apple removed the hacker's defacement quickly, but Apple remains mum on the issue.  CNET reports that Jason Hart, CEO of security company Whitehat UK, told Silicon.com: "The defacer has managed to get administrator access to the Web server."

Hart also told CNET that he believes the the hacker vandalized the site for "self-gratification,"  but he does think Apple should communicate what happened to its customers to end speculation about the incident.