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Messenger is a fun alternative to AIM and MSN.
It's well-integrated with the myriad of Yahoo
services out there, so if you've ever signed up for
Yahoo! Mail or My Yahoo!, you can use the same login
and password for Yahoo! Messenger (and vice-versa).
I've been remodeling our Yahoo! Messenger Center to make it easier to find the most popular links, the latest news and the hottest topics. Now it's your turn. I want to hear what you like, what you hate, and what's missing. Give me a shout and let me know what YOU want to see here.
Yahoo Messenger News
100% Unbootability on YMSG
YTK Support Forum :: View topic - How To Be Unbootable On ANY Chat Client Or ALG!Well guys, now that a guy named LegendKiller (from Y!TunnelPro's forum) was so nice as to attempt to "Reverse Engineer" our BDP option in YTK Pro beta build 430 I'll tell you what's going on here (he looked at our external event logger and was able to figure it out).
This can be done with any ALG (YTK Pro or Y!TunnelPro) or any chat clients (YahELite, Yazak, Yahaven, Y!mLite, etc.) that allows you to select which server to log in with. All you have to do is set it, and log in. :)
Over the last several weeks Yahoo! has started "patching" their servers against the buffer boot exploit. Their "patch" consists of getting rid of the disconnection rule entirely when packet data is pending against you in the buffer. Nowadays if you were to be bombed with a booter you will NOT be disconnected regardless of what type the booter is (even if it's some hot new exploit it won't matter).
What does this mean? This means that of the 61+ servers to chat on 6 of them I've found to be protected against all boots. Here is the following list of them (I tested all of them and here are my results at the time of this post):
Unbootable Servers:
- cs1.msg.dcn.yahoo.com
- cs2.msg.dcn.yahoo.com
- cs40.msg.dcn.yahoo.com
- cs50.msg.dcn.yahoo.com
- cs55.msg.dcn.yahoo.com
- cs58.msg.dcn.yahoo.com
Now that the cat's out of the bag you can use one of these servers on ANY chat program for Yahoo! Chat and be completely unbootable only as long as there's no local program flaws in your choice of chat program. Our BDP option is a TCP window scale option (at the socket level) plus a randomization of these servers (from the pool of protected servers).
Who deserves to be credited solely for this discovery? Venom, Brock and myself. Venom/Mike made me aware of the fact that certain people weren't affected by the buffer boot exploit. After looking into a couple of things I logically deduced all the complexities down to the chat servers themselves that are providing this type of protection for you.
The rest is history...
Posted by Ven0m - 1 comments
Yahoo! Messenger for Vista Beta Adds Voice and SMS
It's a new month, and Yahoo has just released a new beta of Yahoo! Messenger for Vista with support for voice calls (both PC-to-PC and PC-to-phone) and free text messaging (SMS).The voice calls support their free PC-to-PC calling, but to make calls to a landline or cell phone you'll need to purchase a Phone Out account. The rates are really competitive though, starting at 1 cent/minute.
Free SMS text messaging is a real deal. Just type in the cell phone number for your friend and send them a message. Note that though this is free to you, your friend may incur charges to receive the text message, so check with them first. I tried it and it worked. I might even use this instead of my phone, at least when I'm sitting in front of my PC. I can type a lot faster on my PC keyboard than on my cell phone!
Here's a brief video from Yahoo showing the new features:
Download Yahoo! Messenger for Vista Beta
Posted by Yahooligan - 6 comments
Yahoo: Microsoft's bid undervalues company
Press ReleaseYahoo! Mails Letter to Stockholders
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb 13, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today announced that it has sent a letter to its stockholders, outlining the reasons the Board believes that Microsoft's proposal significantly undervalues Yahoo! and is not in the best interests of Yahoo! stockholders.
In the letter Yahoo! says:
"(Yahoo!'s) assets - our brand and its audience, our relationships with marketers, our financial strength, our technology, and our strategic investments--are the core of our value and our leadership position in the industry.
"We have a huge market opportunity - and are uniquely positioned to capitalize on it. The global online advertising market is projected to grow from $45 billion in 2007 to $75 billion in 2010. And we are moving quickly to take advantage of what we see as a unique window of time in the growth - and evolution - of this market to build market share and to create value for stockholders.
"Today, Yahoo! is a faster-moving, better-organized, more nimble company than it was just a few months ago. We have redeployed our resources to drive Yahoo!'s key strategic priorities - taking important steps to streamline our organization and close down or scale back businesses that don't support these critical growth initiatives. We are well on our way to transforming the experiences of Yahoo!'s users, advertisers, publishers and developers - an important shift that is at the heart of our plan to create stockholder value."
A copy of the letter follows:
Dear Stockholders,
On February 1, 2008, Microsoft made an unsolicited proposal to acquire your company. As much has been reported in the press recently, I wanted to reach out to you personally to let you know why your Board of Directors, after a careful review by Yahoo!'s management along with our financial and legal advisors, believes that Microsoft's proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo! and is not in the best interests of our stockholders.
Most importantly, I want you to know that your Board is continuously evaluating all of Yahoo!'s strategic options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry environment, and we remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all our stockholders.
We have a unique combination of strengths
-- Yahoo! is one of the most recognizable and admired brands in the world. We have over 500 million users (nearly 1 out of every 2 internet users worldwide). In the U.S., we are # 1 in many of the most used online services including personalized home pages, mail, news, music, shopping and travel. Because we have leadership positions in so many indispensable online services, users spend more time on Yahoo! sites than anywhere else online.
-- Yahoo! is an attractive partner for marketers. Yahoo! is #1 in online display advertising, which represents 90% of the advertising inventory on the web, and we are also a leader in search marketing and a pioneer in the growing fields of mobile advertising and online video advertising. Through Yahoo!, advertisers can now connect with consumers on our owned sites as well as those of our growing network of partners including eBay, Comcast, AT&T, a consortium of over 600 newspapers, Forbes.com, Cars.com, WebMD and more.
-- Yahoo! has the financial flexibility to execute our plans, thanks to our healthy cash balance, which exceeded $2 billion as of December 31, 2007, and our substantial operating cash flow, which we expect to grow double digits in 2009.
-- Yahoo! has made important investments in our core computing infrastructure enabling us to dramatically increase the speed of our search engine updates even while handling vast and growing quantities of data.
-- In addition, we have the added value of our substantial, unconsolidated investments in Japan and China. We have substantial positions in Yahoo! Japan, the leader in its market, and Alibaba, which is strongly positioned in China, a market with enormous growth potential.
These assets--our brand and its audience, our relationships with marketers, our financial strength, our technology, and our strategic investments--are the core of our value and our leadership position in the industry.
We have a huge market opportunity - and are uniquely positioned to capitalize on it
The global online advertising market is projected to grow from $45 billion in 2007 to $75 billion in 2010. And we are moving quickly to take advantage of what we see as a unique window of time in the growth - and evolution - of this market to build market share and to create value for stockholders.
We are executing our strategy - and making headway
We have taken significant but disciplined steps to refocus our business on our objectives to become the starting point for the most consumers and the must buy for the most advertisers and enhance Yahoo!'s long-term performance.
Starting Point Objective: Our goal is to grow visits to key Yahoo! starting points and properties, where users enter the Internet, by 15% per year over the next several years. We are the most visited site in the U.S., and we continue to grow - we experienced double-digit growth in U.S. users in 2007 on our Yahoo.com home page.
In addition to traditional starting points on the PC - including our home pages, mail, My Yahoo! and search, we are particularly excited about our growth prospects in mobile, the biggest emerging starting point in the world. Globally, there are twice as many users of mobile devices as users of personal computers, and mobile advertising is projected to grow substantially in the coming years. We have an important competitive edge as the number one mobile destination in the U.S., and we are building a superior mobile experience for Yahoo! users globally so we can further capitalize on this opportunity.
Must Buy Objective: We are working to make online advertising easier and more effective for marketers, opening up new ways for them to connect with consumers. We've successfully completed the global roll-out of our search marketing system, Panama, which improved the search experience for our users, boosted returns for our advertisers, and increased revenue for Yahoo!. Last year, we bought Right Media, an exchange that enables buyers and sellers of online advertising to come together. Another 2007 acquisition, Blue Lithium, brings us best-in-class performance marketing capabilities, complementing Yahoo!'s existing offerings for advertisers. We also integrated our search advertising and display advertising sales forces, creating a one-stop shop for all of advertisers' online marketing needs. All of these - Panama, Right Media, Blue Lithium, and our combined sales efforts - complement and enhance Yahoo!'s existing capabilities and will make it easier for advertisers and online publishers to buy and sell advertising online.
We are also creating a unique and valuable network of premium websites to serve our advertisers. We are making it easier for our advertisers to provide interesting and relevant offers to our users by combining advertising space on Yahoo!'s owned sites with that from a growing group of premium partners including eBay, Comcast, AT&T, a consortium of over 600 newspapers and many others.
As we reach more users both on our own websites and on the sites of our premium partners, and better monetize the ad space on Yahoo!'s owned and operated sites, we are striving to increase the percentage of total online advertising demand we touch from an estimated 15% in 2007 to 20% over the next several years.
These key strategies will be enhanced by our adoption of new, more open technology platforms that will encourage the development of new applications and the involvement of third-party developers - and help enrich the user experience.
We have accomplished a great deal in a very short time - and we are focused on building this momentum
Today, Yahoo! is a faster-moving, better-organized, more nimble company than it was just a few months ago. We have redeployed our resources to drive Yahoo!'s key strategic priorities - taking important steps to streamline our organization and close down or scale back businesses that don't support these critical growth initiatives. The fact is that we are well on our way to transforming the experiences of Yahoo!'s users, advertisers, publishers and developers - an important shift that is at the heart of our plan to create stockholder value.
I want you to know that the Yahoo! Board of Directors and management team remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all our Yahoo! stockholders. This is a great company and we are moving quickly to make it even better.
Jerry Yang
Source: Yahoo! Inc. - Press Release
I think this is great news for Yahoo! fans :)
Posted by VvWolverinevV - 3 comments
Microsoft to Borrow Money for Yahoo Deal
Microsoft said Monday it may borrow money for the first time in its history to fund a portion of its $44.6 billion unsolicited offer for Yahoo.Microsoft also said it expects Yahoo's board to agree to the proposed deal quickly, but Yahoo said over the weekend that it expects to take "quite a bit of time " to weigh all of its strategic options including remaining independent.
A source familiar with Yahoo's strategy said it is considering a business alliance with Google to fend off Microsoft's offer.
Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said the software company may issue some debt to finance the cash portion of its 50-50 stock and cash offer for Yahoo, instead of drawing down its entire $21 billion cash pile.
"It's likely we're actually going to borrow for the first time," Liddell said in an annual strategy meeting with analysts. "It's going to be a mixture of the cash we have on hand plus debt."
Liddell declined to say whether Microsoft was already buying Yahoo stock on the open market. He also did not give any information on what form of debt Microsoft will seek in the capital markets.
Microsoft made public on Friday its offer to pay Yahoo shareholders either $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. The deal aims to create a formidable No. 2 to challenge Google's dominance in Web search and digital advertising.
Analysts applauded Microsoft's decision to take on debt.
"Microsoft can probably get a lower price of debt than equity," said Kim Caughey, senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group. "I've often wondered why Microsoft sits on the pile of cash. It doesn't make a lot of financial sense."
Liddell, when asked why Microsoft chose to dilute its stock instead of making an all-cash offer, said analysts need to keep the offer in perspective with the $31 billion that Microsoft spent in share buybacks and dividends in fiscal 2007.
Microsoft shares fell 26 cents to $30.19 in Nasdaq trading, while Yahoo shares rose 95 cents to $29.33.
At the same meeting, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said the offer for Yahoo was generous and he expects Yahoo's board and shareholders to agree to the buyout quickly.
"We trust the Yahoo board and the Yahoo shareholders will join with us quickly in deciding to move down an integrated path," Ballmer said.
According to a source familiar with Yahoo's strategy, the company is mulling a business alliance with Google to rebuff Microsoft's proposal. It has also received preliminary contacts from media, technology, telecommunications and financial companies, another source close to Yahoo said.
Microsoft said combining with Yahoo would speed up the process of building a company capable of capturing 40 percent of the digital advertising market. Ballmer noted, however, that if the company was successful in its bid, it would continue to invest in building the business.
"We are on a path--we were on a path and we will stay on that path regardless," Ballmer said.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft emphasized that it expects to see strong growth from most of its business units. Liddell said he expects Microsoft's revenue to grow at a double-digit percentage in the coming fiscal year starting in July despite a potential U.S. economic slowdown.
Analysts, on average, forecast Microsoft's revenue to grow 10 percent to $66.4 billion in fiscal 2009 from an estimated $60.2 billion in the current year, according to Reuters Estimates.
Microsoft also said its first major update to Windows Vista was released to manufacturing. Usually, large organizations wait for the first major update before deploying a new operating system.
The release, known as Service Pack 1 (SP1), will contain improvements in security, reliability and performance. SP1 will be available in mid-March through Windows update in English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese.
Source: Reuters
Story Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Posted by Dermot - 6 comments
ActiveX vulnerability in Yahoo Messenger
Elazar Broad discovered a Boundary Condition vulnerability within mediagrid.dll, version 2.2.2.56, and Krystian Kloskowski and Broad have discovered a second Boundary Condition vulnerability within datagrid.dll, version 2.2.2.56c. On top of that, Kloskowski has disclosed a buffer overflow within datagrid.dll 2.2.2.56.
These three vulnerabilities are found in Yahoo Instant Messenger 3.5 and Yahoo Messenger 4.0, 5.0 and 5.5, and could allow an attacker to compromise affected systems.
The simple solution is to use a web-based messenger or upgrade to the current version of Yahoo! Messenger. If you're determined to stick with an old, buggy version, there is a workaround. You can enable the ActiveX controls for the dlls in question (details from Microsoft here).
Posted by Jeff - 0 comments
Microsoft Make unsolicited bid to buy Yahoo!
Microsoft Made a unsolicited bid to purchase Yahoo! for 44.6 Billlion Dollars.Yahoo! made a brief response to the bid and made the following FAQ below..
Yahoo! Inc. - Media Response
Posted by Dermot - 6 comments
Performance Hotfix for Y! Messenger for Vista
If you’re using the new Yahoo! Messenger for Vista preview version, this latest Windows Vista Hotfix may be of interest to you. Recently, Microsoft released a Hotfix for the layered windows function in Windows Vista. This improves the response time of Vista applications when layered windows are being used.In the case of Yahoo! Messenger for Vista, this Hotfix improves the response times when you’re doing things like opening menus that overlay the main interface (like the options menu or skin chooser). According to the Microsoft WPF Performance blog (see link included with this message), installing this Hotfix can improve Vista Layered Windows performance up to 4x (depending on your machine’s specifications).
This Hotfix is available on Microsoft.com through the links attached to this message. If you are already running Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Beta, this Hotfix is included and there is no need to download it again. If you prefer not to install individual hotfixes, the Layered Windows Hotfix will be included when the final SP1 release of Windows Vista is available.
Please click either the 32-bit or 64-bit link included with this message to get the Vista Layered Windows Hotfix.
If you’re unsure which version of Windows Vista you have, please use the 32-bit link. Note that you need administrator privileges to install this Hotfix, and a restart will be required after installation. Note that if the Hotfix has already been applied to your machine, a "This update does not apply to your machine" message will appear during installation.
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
3 links
- Microsoft WPF Performance blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/jgoldb/archive/2008/01/23/vista-layered-windows-performance-hotfix-now-available-on-microsoft-download-center.aspx - Hotfix for Vista 32-bit users
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=140AA58E-C363-4EA4-8836-F0119EF3F763 - Hotfix for Vista 64-bit users
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B9E10371-4556-473D-8733-33387A486378
Posted by Jeff - 1 comments
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