Google Desktop Exploitability

(As I published on Shvoong): It was a matter of time before someone
realized that Google Desktop has provided an opening into a PC through
which a hacker can get an easy entry. Mattan Gillon, an Israeli hacker,
performed an act of public service by exposing the flaw on his blog.

Exploiting a bug in Microsoft Internet Explorer's processing Cascading
Style Sheets (CSS). The CSS format is commonly used to give a Web
site page a consistent look and navigation properties, and attackers can
target the process by which IE
parses CSS while running Google Desktop. Gillon explains how browsers
usually turn off domain crossing. A specific web
page can direct a browser to another domain, though it may not retrieve
the contents of the page nor run any of its objects. This restriction
feature serves to preclude a site owner using JavaScript from spying on
a user. Additionally, if a user is already logged
on to a web service such as Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail, a malicious web
page could be used to run a malicious operation in the user account.
This operation can be an opening of an email and the subsequent sending
it to a third party. In IE, these security features are easily broken
when the browser encounters a CSS import.

Mattan Gillon called this attack CSSXSS, or Cascading Style Sheets Cross-Site
Scripting. Using the IE browser's weakness of being fooled by curly
brackets strategically placed in a decoy site's code, and getting hold
of Google Desktop's key found in the application code, a hacker can
easily gain an entry into the target PC already running the Google
Desktop service.For this IE weakness to be
exploited, web surfers must first be tricked into visiting a malicious
Web site. They can protect themselves, however, if they turn off Active
Scripting in the IE's Internet Options menu, Gillon says.

Free Patent Info

Free Patents Online (freepatentsonline.com) is probably the best one-stop patent research web site. Many patent search sites are built
around cumbersome Boolean search patent databases, where a user must know the correct search syntax and use it right the first time.
Moreover, these sites do not offer any extras, other than dry patenting policies and patenting news.

Free Patents Online, however, goes beyond the boring format and delivers what must be an entertaining form of patent searching.


For the experts who feel comfortable with Boolean searching, there is an option with intelligent word stemming feature, wherein the search also looks into the U. S. Patent Applications, and European Patent agency database.

For those who are intimidated by expert search option, there is an individual, example-driven field search.


Search results are the most user-friendly of all the search
services: the results are sorted into quick-loading hyperlink lists,
very often all on one page. Each hyperlink opens a plainly displayed
patent options: the abstract, the cited information, the claims, and
for viewing the actual published text or saving the patent on the
computer, there is an option to open an in-page Acrobat PDF view.


To make the visit truly enjoyable, the site has the Crazy Patents humor
section. There are, for example, patents on seemingly silly objects
such as a synthetic toys for animals, a religious meditation apparatus,
which is a birdhouse, a method of using a swing, a kissing shield, and
there are patents which might have been issued erroneously on the same
invention of the method for exercising a cat with a beam of light.


The site might be an entertainment even for those who never get to deal with patents or patent writing.
More info is on here

How To Use Patent And Patent Application

A patent is an exclusive right granted by a government to a person for a fixed period in exchange for a public disclosure of enabling details of a device, method, process or composition of matter, or substance, known as an invention that is new, inventive and useful, and enabling an average person to build the invention. The exclusive right granted an inventor is the right to prevent others from building and making a commercial use of the claimed invention, but does not preclude other individuals from a personal use of the device. Most countries have rigid requirements as to what must comprise a patent and its application. The patent application must be eloquent enough, but must not yet disclose the essentials of the invention, which are to be disclosed in the forthcoming parts of the patent. Another critical part of a patent application is the discussion of the prior art. The inventor must show the required usefulness by emphasizing the shortcomings of devices available heretofore, or the lack of devices or methods, which would alleviate or fulfill the commercial or public need. The prior art section must not prematurely disclose the invention, which is disclosed in the later sections. The next section is the summary of the invention, which is a plain language version of claims, which are written in a very legalese, strict language. The next section, the description of embodiments, fulfills the enabling requirement of the application. The section must narrate the construction, structure, the method of use, and functioning of the device, its components, subsystems, and discuss any possible variations in the shape, materials, critical dimensions, and any other unique features of the invention. The narrative must follow the numbering of a black-and-white drawing accompanying a patent, where all discussed parts must be clearly numbered. The claims section must be composed of nested claim groups centered on independent claims. For example, if an invention is a flashlight attachable to a car, and is also a flashlight permanently attached to another object, the claims would contain two independent claims, each describing a mode of the flashlight mounting. Similarly, if an invention contains an optional part, which is also uniquely inventive, the claims for the device will have at least two independent claims. In other words, each critical inventive aspect of an invention can be protected by an independent claim. Thereafter, dependent claims, written following an independent claim. The language of claims is unique and terse. A claim begins with a legally non-binding preamble, and is followed with the actual body of outlined claims. Very often, the preamble will contain as many words as possible needed to set up, or describe the device, on order to spare a patent writer to introduce too many words in a legally sensitive claim outline. Skilled use of technical synonyms, and, most importantly, indefinite and definite articles, will claim the maximum possible inventive territory for the patent. Both the strictness of the claim language and the fear of self-limiting often make the claims devoid of the either-or modes of an invention. Finally, the last part of a patent application is an abstract, which is a non-legal reiteration of the first independent claim written in a plain language.