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All across Silicon Valley, the past year was filled practically to the brim with killer quotes out of the mouths of (reality TV show) babes, billionaires and budding entrepreneurs.

We had deep thoughts from CEOs playing musical chairs, embarrassing mea culpas from corporate chieftains and whining from startup celebrities with too much twittering time on their hands. All in all, we couldn't have said it better ourselves.

Here are some of our favorite sound bites from a well-chewed year.

"Silicon Valley is high school, except it's only the smart kids, and everyone has a lot of money." -- Kim Taylor, entrepreneur and cast member of "Startups: Silicon Valley," Bravo's critically disdained reality TV show

produced by Mark Zuckerberg's sister Randi and highlighting the lives of aspiring tech superstars

"Instagram has no intention of selling your photos, and we never did. We don't own your photos -- you do." -- Kevin Systrom, co-founder of the popular and now Facebook-owned photo-social app, in a blog post apologizing to outraged users for the insensitive way the service announced updates to its terms of service agreement.

"I believe Larry Ellison will bring a new and fresh perspective to the island and its people." -- David Murdock, the Los

Angeles billionaire who controls Dole Food Co. on his sale to Oracle (ORCL) founder Larry Ellison of pretty much the entire Hawaiian island of Lanai. Estimated price tag: $500 million???

"The wealth from our family came from Microsoft, so why would we invest in a competitor?" -- Melinda Gates, philanthropist and wife of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, on British radio in reference to her kids having asked her for Apple (AAPL) products. Instead, she said, they will be receiving "Windows technology."

"The thing that surprised me is that the job is really fun ... and the baby's been easy. The baby's been way easier than everyone made it out to be. I've been really lucky that way." -- Newly minted Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Marissa

More here:
Best Silicon Valley Business Quotes of 2012

January 2, 2013, 10:56 AM PST

Takeaway: Consultant Bob Eisenhardt recounts his frustrating experience trying to track down and get rid of a clients search-redirect virus. Heres how he finally ditched it.

Ever go to Reno, Nevada? Well, if you have not, there is a terrific little virus making its way around the net that instantly takes you there from your search engine. About a month ago, one of my accounts in Manhattan reported that something was re-directing searches to odd websites, one of them coming up as SEARCH RENO. I tested the search on-site and it was indeed true.

All of the standard defense protocols such as a scan with MalwareBytes and ComboFix came up clean. Although the bug is commonly referred to as TDSS, the software fix that a co-consultant I work with totally trusted, TDSSKiller, came up equally clean. This was a surprise.

Sophos has a rootkit killer that also found no infections. ComboFix came up empty handed as did Gmer. Having thus exhausted the standard solutions, I was mightily frustrated.

Further research led me to a persistent link that indicated a services search for RANDOM.EXE running. It was not running on my clients system. The random.exe link also advertises a paid software product to remove the virus, with a live chat concurrent with somebody (probably in India). I ignored that option instantly. (I have come to believe that some blogs pose question and answers by the same user under different names, an ingenious idea for the uninitiated to download an infected product.)

So where does this one come from? The redirect URL takes users to the IP address 63.209.69.107. If you google that IP, you are off on a hunt of severe frustration. This virus has been around awhile, but finding a solution remains confusing. Lets look at that IP address for moment. It is related to SCOUR.COM as a redirect agent. This is either a real or a fake site and the virus itself uses complex methods to hide from traditional removal methods as I undertook above. There seem to be two threats here - a search hijacker and Trojans hiding in the links on the redirect page. The former just slows down your system and makes life frustrating, which is common enough with Windows itself. The Trojan is an open door for someone far away to control your computer and steal information. In a worst-case scenario, malware of this type can steal your financial information and then wipe out your drive. This is precisely what happened to 30,000 systems in Saudi Arabia recently. Trojans must be removed quickly and that is the devilish part to do.

I am heavily qualifying my certainties because this is such an odd entry into the virus and malware world; for instance, I do not know exactly where the infection comes from. We can be reasonably certain that some (not all) porn sites will infect your system as well as other compromised sites that include links to sketchy destinations.

If memory serves, there was also a quick re-direct agent running when a Google search was initiated and before Reno arrived. It was hard to catch, maybe on bar for 2 seconds or so. I believe it was myfreesearch or similar. The category of MYFREE something has always been an annoyance, such as MY FREE WEBSEARCH, which is horrible. But this one came and went very quickly. I strongly urge security experts to use good eyesight to catch these momentary leads.

There is a variant of the redirect virus that attacks just Firefox. Mozilla Support lists a php script running on a different server (where, I know not) that kicks you over to realgamerz.net and similar shady sites. As above, traditional methods of elimination failed and Mozilla really has no clear cut answer. Nor does the voyage always take you to Reno one user reported being directed to bargainmatch.com when trying to find the Weather Channel.

Read the rest here:
Battling the Google Redirect virus

Illustrations By Alex Fine

In the closing months of 2012, death hovered above us like a gruesome Bushmaster-toting spectre. Those unaffected by the rising death tolls in places like Syria and Congo were sucker punched in the heart last month as word of the mass murder of 26 peopleincluding 20 six- and seven-year-oldsat a school in Newtown, Connecticut spread across Twitter like a virus. Around the same time, Baltimores sickening body count215 murders and counting at press timesailed past last years without a pause. And if we werent consumed enough by the Grim Reaper, on Christmas Eve, an ex-con in Western New York armed, like the Connecticut killer, with a Bushmaster, set a house on fire to lure firefighters into his scope. He killed two and injured two more.

While our hearts remain heavy with all that misery, we remember the lives of the departed. In our 2012 People Who Died, we recall 10 locals, famous and obscure, who left us this year, but only after making an indelible impact on Baltimore. They range from Art Modell, the scourge of Cleveland who became a heroand historic philanthropistin Baltimore to Patricia Cook-Ferguson, the Baltimore County teacher and union and civil rights leader who remained committed to justice until the end. And from Go-Go king Chuck Brown who crafted a soulful voice just for D.C.and, we think, for us just up 95 apace tooand Scunny McCusker, the beating heart of Canton, to Donnie Andrews, the cunning gangster who robbed drug dealers, becoming the inspiration for The Wires Omar, before pulling off a more impressive feat: going straight.

And because Baltimore can never ignore the endless parade of death that plagues its streets, we remember our murdered citizens in The Year in Murder, in which Murder Ink columnist Anna Ditkoff chronicles the deadliest neighborhoods, ages, and races to be in Baltimore.

Of course, every death is a tragedy and we cant write about them all, but we hope remembering these lives make us each think more deeply about those we love and will eventually lose. This issue is for the living and the dead.

Read the original here:
People Who Died

Dec. 1

Enrique Pena Nieto takes the oath of office as Mexico's new president promising to return peace and security and to take on the vested interests and sacred cows that have kept a lid on the country's economic prosperity.

Dec 2

An Associated Press analysis of trade data shows that in just five years, China has surpassed the United States as a trading partner for much of the world, including U.S. allies such as South Korea and Australia.

Dec. 3

The most widely anticipated pregnancy since Princess Diana's in 1981 is official: Prince William's wife, Kate, is pregnant.

Dec. 4

A protest by at least 100,000 Egyptians outside the presidential palace in Cairo turns violent as tensions grow over Islamist President Mohammed Morsi's seizure of nearly unrestricted powers and a draft constitution hurriedly adopted by his allies.

Dec. 5

Gunmen loyal to opposite sides in neighbouring Syria's civil war battle in the streets of the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli where two days of clashes have killed at least six people and wounded more than 50.

More:
Chronology of news events in 2012

All across Silicon Valley, the past year was filled practically to the brim with killer quotes out of the mouths of (reality-TV show) babes, billionaires and budding entrepreneurs.

We had deep thoughts from CEOs playing musical chairs, embarrassing mea culpas from corporate chieftains, and whining from startup celebrities with too much twittering time on their hands. All in all, we couldn't have said it better ourselves.

Here are some of our favorite sound bites from a well-chewed year.

"Silicon Valley is high school, except it's only the smart kids, and everyone has a lot of money." -- Kim Taylor, entrepreneur and cast member of "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley," Bravo's critically-distained reality TV show produced by Mark Zuckerberg's sister Randi and highlighting the lives of aspiring tech superstars.

"Instagram has no intention of selling your photos, and we never did. We don't own your photos -- you do." -- Kevin Systrom, co-founder of the popular and now Facebook-owned photo-social app, in a blog post apologizing to outraged users for the insensitive way the service announced updates to its terms of service agreement.

"I believe Larry Ellison will bring a new and fresh perspective to the island and its people." -- David Murdock, the

"The wealth from our family came from Microsoft, so why would we invest in a competitor?" -- Melinda Gates, philanthropist and wife of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, on British radio in reference to her kids having asked her for Apple (AAPL) products. Instead, she said, they will be receiving "Windows technology.''

"The thing that surprised me is that the job is really fun . . . and the baby's been easy. The baby's been way easier than everyone made it out to be. I've been really lucky that way.'' -- Newly minted Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Marissa Mayer, speaking at Fortune's Most Powerful Women event in November about the two new loves of her life -- her work gig and her first child, son Macallister Bogue. She returned to the former just two weeks after having delivered the latter on Sept. 30.

"Others have tried to make tablets smaller than the iPad, and they've failed miserably. These are not great experiences." -- Apple's marketing guru Phil Schiller in October as his company unveiled its mini iPad, which he obviously believes offers an insanely great experience.

"What's a better story (than) millionaire madman on the run? You [the media] saved my (expletive deleted) because you paid attention to the story. As long as you are reporting, it is hard to whack somebody that the world is watching.'' -- Eccentric millionaire and rabid publicity-hound John McAfee, speaking to ABC News after dodging authorities trying to question him about the death of his ex-pat American neighbor in Belize. McAfee founded the anti-virus software company bearing his name.

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We look back on the best Silicon Valley business quotes of 2012