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Malware writers issue their own EULAs

This week brought news that malware writers - wait for it - are now issuing end user license agreements to protect their code. Brilliant. Aside from the sheer ridiculousness, cheek and idiocy of the scheme - our readers spotted a number of other flaws

"So will the writers be suing the anti-virus companies for blatantly ignoring the ULA?" asks bobbdobbs.

Meanwhile greemble had noted a slight problem with prohibiting users from freely distributing malware: "So, what would be the point of buying it?" He wonders, not unreasonably.

Pcernie, however, had some suggestions for the malware writers: "Have they considered just putting 'Property of the Russian Mafia - not to be distributed beyond the below agreement?' I'd read and heed it."

It was a suggestion picked up with glee by partner-in-crime Amnesia10: "Punishment for reverse engineering - thumbscrews. For selling without passing on full proceeds of sale - broken legs for first offence, knee-capping for second offence and cement overshoes for last offence."

Suddenly the three-strikes system doesn't seem so bad.

AMD to debut 45nm quad-cores this quarter

Life was also looking up for AMD this week, as news of its new 45nm processor lineup leaked out onto the internet where it belongs. The company has fallen on hard times of late, and many on our forums were more than willing to toss it a penny and spot it a cup of coffee as it gets back on its feet.

"It's a nice surprise to see AMD back on track," begins nicomo. "I should expect an announcement or response from Intel soon - probably giving AMD a hard time and mocking it. But if it wasn't for the likes of AMD and now VIA, Intel would not have advanced its chip technology as quickly

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or as cheaply."

A sentiment echoed by shrek59.

"Is every one forgetting that if it were not for AMD, we would all be paying sky high prices for CPU chips and we would still be using what Intel wanted us to have and not what a competitive market place demands."

Matt_2k34 wasn't so certain though.

"This looks like too little too late from AMD. I'm sure Intel will be able to push the prices of its products down and make them even more attractive against this new AMD lineup."

Meanwhile hampsterblue was going all Celebrity Deathmatch on the entire thing: "I really want Intel to do well on its new graphics [Larrabee] and for Nvidia to start up on CPUs. Imagine how good a three-way competitive market on processors and graphics would be for consumers. AMD/ATi versus Intel(+GFX) versus Nvidia/VIA - anyway enough excitement."

Personally we think this is a great idea, and just the beginning. Imagine Paul Otellini and Jen-Hsun Huang in a cage fight, tagging in Steve "the beast" Ballmer and the wiry but fast Steve "grease-lightning" Jobs... it could happen, couldn't it?

We7 offers 500,000 tracks for free download

So here's the testament according to We7, listen to a five second advert at the beginning of a free music track for a month, and then it's yours, ad free. Greemble liked what he heard.

"At least someone in the industry is recognising the issues, yes you can get ad-free from P2P and you can also remove the adverts, but I don't see this is any big difference to commercial radio that plays adverts. Quite a good way to build up a music library, I would think and if it can make some money, all well and good. I, for one, applaud the effort - hope it grows."

Catnipdave, on the other hand, didn't like what he saw.

"I signed up and only spent a very short time browsing through the catalogue but straight away noticed that any artists I actually recognised (and the majority of artists I'd never heard of) couldn't be downloaded with or without adverts, and could only be streamed. I think the lack of choice of popular artist for download is what will kill off this service pretty quickly."

For the record your humble servants of PC Pro like free stuff - tithes, tokens, and donations all welcome.

Have a great bank holiday, see you next week.