Microsoft has launched its biggest initiative yet to combat rampant software piracy in Brazil, allowing only registered customers access to "non-critical" updates of its Windows operating system. The program, launched Wednesday, will give Microsoft’s Brazilian users access to certain software updates, such as the latest version of its Windows Media Player, only if they have registered their operating system on a special Web site. Legal users will also have access to special offers, such as discounts for some products offered by Microsoft and its partners.

Ben and Mena Trott, both 27, have amplified the buzz about Web logs, or blogs, by making them easier to set up and write. San Francisco-based Six Apart provides two widely used blogging tools–a software publishing program, Movable Type, and a hosted service, TypePad, for people who don’t want to do the technological grunt work themselves.

MaX Compression is a useful tool within the Exchange system, reducing storage needs by 60 percent and typically cutting individual email size by up to 90 percent. Find out how much you can save by using C2C’s Savings Calculator.

We’re running some new server code on the ZATZ servers. If you get a server error of some type, particularly if you get a message that says something like "Frontier error", please try to copy the URL of the page you’re on from the browser bar and maybe even a screenshot and mail it to editor@zatz.com with the subject "SERVER ERROR". So far, we only know of one possible problem, but we’d like to track it down.

A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday approved a bill to regulate spyware, a move that begins a second attempt to target the problematic class of software after a similar measure died in the Senate in 2004. Last year, the House voted for the so-called Spy Act by a 399 to 1 margin.

Microsoft plans in April to offer developers an updated test version of Longhorn, along with more details on what’s in store with the next major update to Windows. In an email to developers on Wednesday, Microsoft said it would offer a new developer preview release of Longhorn at the company’s Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, April 25-27 in Seattle. The company has also updated its WinHEC site with a preliminary list of tracks–many of which are devoted to Longhorn.

Microsoft said that Japanese hackers had discovered a potential weakness in its copy protection technology but that the software company fixed the flaw before it was widely used. The Redmond giant introduced an update to its Windows Media Player, which included changes aimed at blocking the Japanese hackers’ work, as well as a security update.

Another variant of the MyDoom worm, which spreads by sending copies of itself using its own mail engine and harvesting potential email targets from search engines such as Google and Yahoo, has started spreading quickly. Antivirus firm Sophos said the latest MyDoom variant searches an infected computer’s hard disk for email addresses and then reverts to an Internet search. Interestingly, the worm tries to search the Internet for email addresses in the infected computer’s domain–effectively targeting all users from a specific company or service provider.

An encryption standard widely used in digitally signing documents and programs has a flaw in it that could allow for the creation of forgeries, sources said Wednesday. In a three-page research note seen by CNET News.com, three Chinese scientists–Xiaoyun Wang and Hongbo Yu of Shandong University and Yiqun Lisa Yin, a visiting researcher at Princeton University–stated they have found a way to significantly reduce the time required to break an algorithm, known as the Secure Hashing Algorithm, or SHA-1, that is widely used for digitally fingerprinting data files. Other cryptographers who have seen the document said that the results seemed to be genuine.

SMC Networks announced the availability of the newest in its Barricade family of easy-to use networking products for the home and small office, the EZ Connect g Wireless Broadband Router. This new broadband router offers 802.11g 54 Mbps wireless connectivity, four 10/100 ports for wired connections and a 5th 10/100 port for cable or DSL connection. SMC’s EZ Connect g Wireless Cable/DSL Broadband Router is compatible with 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standards, so can connect existing and newer equipment at home or in the office. It combines an 802.11g/b Wireless Access Point, a 4-port 10/100 Mbps dual-speed switch with Automatic MDI-MDIX ports, Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall security, network management, parental controls and Virtual Private Network (VPN) pass-through support.