Worm Solves Gmail's CAPTCHA, Creates Fake Accounts
Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service
A Vietnamese security company has detected what it believes is a new worm that thwarts Google's security protections in order to register new dummy Gmail accounts from which to send spam.
… Once a computer is infected with Gaptcha, the worm launches the Internet Explorer browser and goes to Gmail's new account registration page. It begins to fill in random names of fictitious users. When confronted with a CAPTCHA, the worm sends the image to a remote server for processing, wrote Do Manh Dung, senior malware researcher, on the BKIS blog.
Old malware
Conficker virus begins to attack computers
A malicious software program known as Conficker is slowly being activated, weeks after being dismissed as a false alarm, according to computer security experts.
Last Updated: 11:38AM BST 25 Apr 2009
… Internet virus experts, however, claim it is now quietly turning thousands of personal computers into servers of e-mail spam and installing spyware.
… Conficker installs a second virus, known as Waledac, that sends out e-mail spam without knowledge of the PC's owner, along with a fake anti-spyware program, Weafer said.
The Waledac virus recruits the PCs into a second botnet that has existed for several years and specializes in distributing e-mail spam.
Paul Ferguson, a senior researcher with Trend Micro Inc, the world's third-largest security software maker, said: "This is probably one of the most sophisticated botnets on the planet.
"The guys behind this are very professional. They absolutely know what they are doing," said
Another 'new technology' business model. (and a simple suggestion for another)
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/26/1245222&from=rss
Cybersquatting and Social Media
Posted by Soulskill on Sunday April 26, @09:28AM from the you-or-a-reasonable-facsimile-thereof dept. Privacy Social Networks News
Earthquake Retrofit writes
"Brian Krebs has a story about cybersquatting on social networking sites. He cites cases of people being impersonated and reports: 'A site called knowem.com allows you to see whether your name or whatever nickname you favor is already registered at any of some 120 social networking sites on the Web today. For a $64.95 fee, the site will register all available accounts on your behalf, a manual process that it says takes one to five business days. Whether anyone could possibly use and maintain 120 different social networking accounts is beyond my imagination. I would think an automated signup service like knowem.com would be far more useful if there was also a service that people could use to simultaneously update all of these sites with the same or slightly different content.' Is it time to saddle up for a new round of Internet land grabs?"
A Schneier blog post earlier this month pointed out a related story about how not establishing yourself on social sites, combined with the frequent lack of validation for friend requests, can provide identity thieves with a tempting target .
When you do something geeks don't like, expect them to take a long, serious look at your motivations.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/25/1723222&from=rss
The Circus Widens In Aftermath of Pirate Bay Verdict
Posted by kdawson on Saturday April 25, @04:19PM from the buy-me-some-peanuts-and-crackerjacks dept.
MaulerOfEmotards sends along an in-depth followup, from the Swedish press, of our discussion the other day about the biased trial judge in the Pirate Bay case.
"The turmoil concerns Tomas Norström, the presiding judge of The Pirate Bay trial, who is suspected of bias after reports surfaced of affiliation with copyright protection organizations. For this he has been reported to the appeals court (in Swedish; translation here). The circus around the judge is currently focused on three points. First, his personal affiliation with at least four copyright protection organizations, a state the potential bias of which he himself fails to see and refuses to admit. Secondly, Swedish trials use a system of several lay assessors to supervise the presiding judge. One of these, a member of an artists' interest organization, was forced by Mr. Norström to resign from the trial for potential bias. The judge's failure to see the obvious contradiction in this (translation) casts doubts on his suitability and competence. Thirdly, according to professor of judicial sociology Håkan Hydén (translation), the judge has inappropriately 'duped and influenced the lay assessors' during the trial: 'a judge that has decided that "this is something we can't allow" has little problem finding legal arguments that are difficult for assisting lay assessors to counter.'"
Click the link below to read further on Professor Hydén's enumeration of "at least three strange things in a strange trial." On a related note, reader Siker adds the factoid that membership in the Pirate Party exploded 150% in the week following the verdict. The Pirate Party now surpasses in size four smaller parties in Sweden, and is closing in on a fifth. Political fallout could ensue as soon as June, when an election for EU parliament will be held.
Professor Hydén continues with enumerating "at least three strange things in a strange trial" (translation): First, that someone can be sentenced for being accessory to a crime for which there is no main culprit: "This assumes someone else having committed the crime, and no such individual exists here... the system cannot charge the real culprits or it would collapse in its entirety." It is unprecedented in Swedish judicial history to sentence only an accessory. Second, that the accessories should pay the fine for a crime committed by the main culprits, "which causes the law to contradict itself." And third, that accessories cannot be sentenced to harsher than the main culprit, which means that every downloader must be sentenced to a year's confinement. Prof. Hydén sums up by saying that to allow this kind of judgement the Swedish Parliament must first pass a bill making this kind of services illegal, which it has not done.
The future is anything at any time for any price (starting at 'free')
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/26/0034248&from=rss
The Economist On Television Over Broadband
Posted by kdawson on Sunday April 26, @08:09AM from the running-scared dept.
zxjio recommends a pair of articles in The Economist discussing television over broadband, and the effects of DVR use.
"Cable-television companies make money by selling packages of channels. The average American household pays $700 a year for over 100 channels of cable television but watches no more than 15. [Economists would call that “Monopolistic power” Bob] Most would welcome the chance to buy only those channels they want to watch, rather than pay for expensive packages of programming they are largely not interested in. They would prefer greater variety, too — something the internet offers in abundance. A surprising amount of video is available free from websites like Hulu and YouTube, or for a modest fee from iTunes, Netflix Watch Instantly and Amazon Video on Demand. ... Consumers' new-found freedom to choose has struck fear into the hearts of the cable companies. They have been trying to slow internet televisions steady march into the living room by rolling out DOCSIS 3 at a snails pace and then stinging customers for its services. Another favorite trick has been to cap the amount of data that can be downloaded, or to charge extortionately by the megabyte. Yet the measures to suffocate internet television being taken by the cable companies may already be too late. A torrent of innovative start-ups, not seen since the dot-com mania of a decade ago, is flooding the market with technology for supplying internet television to the living room." [Because every “conservation” move by the cable companies is a exploitable niche for the startups. Bob]
And from the second article on DVR usage patterns:
"Families with DVRs seem to spend 15-20% of their viewing time watching pre-recorded shows, and skip only about half of all advertisements. This means only about 5% of television is time-shifted and less than 3% of all advertisements are skipped. Mitigating that loss, people with DVRs watch more television. ... Early adopters of DVRs used them a lot — not surprisingly, since they paid so much for them. Later adopters use them much less (about two-thirds less, according to a recent study)."
Related How is any level of usage abuse of an unlimited use agreement?
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/25/1237215&from=rss
Time Warner Shutting Off Austin Accounts For Heavy Usage
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday April 25, @10:21AM from the somebody-threw-them-a-shovel dept. Networking The Internet News
mariushm writes
"After deciding to shelve metered broadband plans, it looks like Time Warner is cutting off, with no warning, the accounts of customers whom they deem to have used too much bandwidth. 'Austin Stop The Cap reader Ryan Howard reports that his Road Runner service was cut off yesterday without warning. According to Ryan, it took four calls to technical support, two visits to the cable store to try two new cable modems (all to no avail), before someone at Time Warner finally told him to call the company's "Security and Abuse" center. "I called the number and had to leave a voice mail, and about an hour later a Time Warner technician called me back and lectured me for using 44 gigabytes in one week," Howard wrote. Howard was then "educated" about his usage. "According to her, that is more than most people use in a year," Howard said.'"
For my Data Mining & Data Analysis students
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/021198.html
April 25, 2009
OCLC: - Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want
"In 2008, OCLC conducted focus groups, administered a pop-up survey on WorldCat.org—OCLC’s freely available end user interface on the Web—and conducted a Web-based survey of librarians worldwide. The report, Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want, presents findings from these research efforts in order to understand:
The metadata elements that are most important to end users in determining if an item will meet his or her needs
The enhancements end users would like to see made in online library catalogs to assist them in consistently identifying appropriate materials
The enhancements librarians would recommend for online library catalogs to better assist them in their work
The findings indicate, among other things, that although library catalogs are often thought of as discovery tools, the catalog’s delivery-related information is just as important to end users.
Because I like lists (and the first site listed is BeFunkey, a favorite of mine)
http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/services/28-online-photo-editing-websites-to-have-fun-with/
28 Online Photo Editing Websites To have Fun With
By Dainis Graveris • April 25, 2009
Related
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-dead-easy-ways-to-create-your-own-panorama/
5 Dead-Easy Ways to Create Your Own Panoramic Photos
Apr. 25th, 2009 By Mahendra Palsule
… Here are 5 ways to get you up and running with your own panorama without getting embroiled in advanced photographic terminology.
For the Swiss Army Folder?
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/cometdocs-com-converting-documents-with-ease
CometDocs.com - Converting Documents With Ease
Do you need to convert any kind of document?
… On Cometdocs.com you will find a totally free online document conversion interface. This interface provides users with a very large set of document conversion tools indeed.
… and you will be able to find the latest audio convertors, as well as the ever-obligatory blog.
[From the site:
Don't know what you're dealing with? This routine inspects your file, and tries to identify the file format.
… Automatically create an RSS XML feed out of an html page.
… Data converter for conversion of PC or Unix files to and from an IBM host format.
… fixed record to delimited and reverse.
… Legacy spreadsheet to Microsoft Excel
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