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10th April 2010 – News from the past week
This week in Facebook
Wow, Facebook does something good again! It’s trying to get its users to register for voting in the election if they have not done so already. The Telegraph reports that Facebook’s 23 million UK users will be asked whether they have already registered and if not they will be able to download a registration form which must be submitted by 20th April. It is thought that 3.5 million people in the UK did not register for the 2001 election. That number of extra voters could make a very big difference to the political landscape of the UK.
Bebo
The Independent report that the social networking site Bebo is coming to an end. Bebo was started in 2005 and grew quite significantly for a few years. AOL bought Bebo in 2008 when it had 21.4 million users worldwide. Since then, the site seems to have lost its way and AOL are either going to sell it off or simply close it down.
Did you lose your broadband connection for a while?
The Register reported that on 31st March2010 there was a major fire and flood in the BT Paddington Node. As a result 437 exchanges around the country experienced problems with their phone and broadband connections. In our area, Sandwich certainly had its problems. Thinkbroadband reported a day later that things were beginning to return to normal, the BT site having been pumped out over night.
In the meantime Thinkbroadband reported that a further 300 exchanges around the country were to receive the next phase of super fast fibre to be enable between Autumn 2010 and Summer 2011. Unfortunately, nowhere in Thanet is listed. The nearest to the Thanet region is Canterbury and Ashford.
Where the revenue for this is to come from I don’t know. PC Advisor reported that the proposed £6 per year broadband tax has been scrapped by the government. The tax that would have raised £170 million towards the £1billion cost was very unpopular and particularly opposed by the Conservative Party.
Apple’s iPad
Business Week report that the iPad launched on 2nd April in the US will be gadget of the year. It is thought that Apple will sell 7.1 million iPads globally this year. If you are interested in buying one in the UK you will have to wait till 24th April. In the meantime it would be worth your while reading reports about the device. The Daily World Buzz provide a list of “how the iPad differs from similar gadgets and CNN list 12 things you might like to know before buying. The BBC report that the iPad is having WiFi connectivity problems. Apple have acknowledged the problem and there are some fixes available. Some say it is a router problem. Others say that the WiFi is weak with slow downloads.
Of course, you may want to think more carefully about what type of computing gadget you really need rather than just going out to buy the latest nice looking gizmo. The Orange County Register produced a nice article debating the pros and cons of laptops, desktops, notebooks or tablets.
HP are also planning to release a Tablet PC. Tablet PC Review say that both HP and Microsoft refer to the PC as a “Slate” rather than a tablet. The article releases a video clip about the proposed Slate.
Ed Roberts, the PC Pioneer dies at 68
Finally this week comes the sad news that the death of Ed Robertsreported by PC World who made the Altair 8800 the first PC to gain any traction in 1975. The machine had an Intel 2 MHz processor and 256 bytes, 64 K max RAM.
3rd April 2010 – News from the past week
Broadband Internet is 10 years old in the UK
Yes, we have had broadband for 10 years. Well that’s not quite accurate as the BBC report. One household had broadband 10 years ago but the rest of us had to wait another 12 weeks. The BBC also report that in one rural region of South Shropshire are about to have their broadband cut off for economic reasons.
UK internet adviser Tanya Byron's call to parents
Watch this link from the BBC Breakfast News discussing the need for parents to oversee their children’s internet use. It is the parents that can make the biggest difference in child safety on the net. In particular, children should not be allowed to sign up for social networking sites.
Fake antivirus on your mobile phone now
Throughout most of last year I dealt with between 0 and 2 fake antivirus programs on people’s computers. Over February and March this year I have had to remove these fake security programs from 15 computers. So far I have not come across a case of these scams appearing on a mobile phone. PC Pro report a case where a pensioner’s mobile was caught up in a fake antivirus scam.
Hacking
It appears that one hacker, Albert Gonzalez from Boston, also known as SoupNazi, has got his just deserts. Having stolen millions of credit and debit card details by hacking a number of major companies The Boston Globe reports that he has been sentenced to 20 years in jail.
Mind you, our British children are not innocent either. Top News reports that more that 25% of children admit to hacking. 27% say that they have tried to hack other people’s Facebook accounts with 18% admit to hacking the email accounts of people they know.some 46% thought that it was fun although 21% said they wanted to cause disruption.And its not just the boys; 47% in the survey that admitted to hacking were girls.
I don’t suppose that it comes as any surprise, but the New York Times reports that journalists covering China have had their yahoo email hacked by unknown intruders. And it was not just journalists. Human Rights activists and academics were also targeted in what seemed to be a coordinated attack. This came the same week as Google moved its routing of Internet searching to Honk Kong and away from the mainland in response to the Chinese censoring activities.
A woman in Naples fell for a scam recently. A thief, it is reported by Wink News Now broke into the hotmail account of Mary Lee Hardesty telling her that she needed to update her account details to maintain her security. She did what you should never do and supplied her email address and password. The thief then sent emails to everyone in her address book saying that she was stuck in London as she lost her bag in a taxi and could friends send $2500. Fortunately the friends checked and no money was lost. Ms Hardesty is now locked out of her email by the thief.
This week Facebook did something good!
In a year (2009) when the advertising industry has been severely hit due to the recession, the Guardian reports that on line advertising has held up well and that Facebook had a very significant contribution towards this.
The security company Sophos have found that Facebook users are not taking heed of advice over on line security:
- 46% accept friend requests from strangers.
- 89% of users in their 20s have divulged their date of birth
- Nearly 100% of users post their email address
- 30 – 40% list information about their family and friends.
Sophos say that found that in a test 46% of users accepted friend requests and as a result exposed themselves to identity theft.
Don’t do what a woman in Indiana did recently. She posted on Facebook that she was going out to a concert. It is reported on Graham Cluley’s Sophos Blog that while she was out, burglars broke in and stole $10000 worth of goods. The burglars were probably strangers she accepted as friends some months before.
Apple iPad
The Telegraph report that the iPad will be released in a number of versions. There will be a WiFi version and one with both WiFi and 3G to access mobile networks. There will also be 3 storage capacities 16, 32 and 64 GB.
PR News have leaked that the release date in the UK will be 24th April although the date in the US is 3rd April. If you want to find out more about the iPad look at Apple’s pages http://images.apple.com/ipad/
27th March 2010 – News from the past week
Time to celebrate anniversaries
35 years ago, a drop out from Harvard, Bill Gates, together with a friend Paul Allen got together to write software and eventually Microsoft was born. Those of you who are keen on Apple computers or Linux will probably say that it’s not an anniversary worth celebrating, but you have to admit that despite its faults Microsoft has been extremely successful and can now be found in most of the world’s computers. PC Advisor magazine has written a very good article celebrating Microsoft’s 35 years and looks at the best and the worst moments of the period.
Not an anniversary celebration but a celebration nonetheless is being held for the @ symbol at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Whilst the @ symbol has become part of the fabric of modern life, it has a very long history back to the 6th or 7th century and first appeared on a typewriter keyboard in 1885. To find out more read this article from the Guardian.
The beginning of the end of free online news papers
I don’t know how long you will be able to read articles like the one above from the Guardian without paying onlne but it is reported this week by The New York Times that Murdock is finalising the “Paywall” for two UK papers, The Times and The Sunday Times. Up till now, you have been able to read these papers for nothing on the Internet. From June you will have to pay £1 per day or £2 per week for these papers online.
And here comes our weekly Facebook item!
The Ledger warns “Don’t fall for Facebook spam”. Don’t open any email that has a subject line something like “Facebook password reset confirmation customer support". Delete it. If you have opened the email you may find that your computer is infected with malware that is stealing passwords and will send out spam with your username. White Hat News provides further useful information by saying that the emails seem to be legitimate appearing to have the address “ help@facebook.com” They say that Facebook would never send an email with a password reset attachment. A further clue is that the email is often written with very bad grammar.
Computer virus infections
People often wonder how they get viruses. They say that they have not opened any dubious emails or been to any strange websites. Well, according to Digital Trends it appears that Yahoo, Fox and Google have inadvertently been spreading malware through adverts. Many adverts that are placed on these sites by advertising companies use JavaScript programming. This has been used by malware writers to poison adverts with infections such as the JS:Prontexi attack. You don’t even have to click on the advert.
Short News reported that malware can be big business. A company called Innovative Marketing Ukraine has recently been closed down but they had made up to $5 million per year if they were good at getting malware out.
Such malware may include the recent spate of fake security programs that have been popping up on people’s computers. I’ve certainly dealt with a very large number of these over the past 2 months. PC Advisor report that an unpatched flaw in Internet Explorer has allowed a variant of the Sinowal Trojan to infect computers and bring in a fake security program. AVG apparently claimed that on Monday 16000 such infections were reported to them. Only Internet Explorer v 6 & 7 were vulnerable to attack and this is a lesson therefore about keeping your computer up to date.
Computers can be used for more that just computing
Rome News-Tribune reports that a woman was arrested and charged with aggravated assault in Floyd County for beating a man with a laptop computer!
And finally to cheer you up
I’m not sure that this is computer news but I guess that all weather forecasters use computers, the Mail Online report that this summer is to be sizzling! This apparently does not come from the Met Office but from Positive Weather Solutions, the company who correctly forecast last year that the summer would be a wash out. Here’s hoping!
21st March 2010 – News from the past week
It would be nice if Facebook was not in the news one week
Yes, yet again we don’t seem to be able to get away from news about Facebook. More scares about password stealing viruses and cyber bullying.
According to Reuters hackers have been targeting Facebook users with spam email that carry an attachment containing malicious software. Once the attachment is opened the software installs on the computer and begins to steal passwords for banking details. If only 10% of the 400 million Facebook users are taken in by the scam, that’s 40 million people. A similar report from eCredit Daily also suggests that users of Twitter could also be affected. The Examiner National also points out that Facebook never send out emails of this nature and having “Dear user of Facebook” in the first line.
PC Advisor Magazine put out a very useful article of advice to Facebook users on how to safeguard themselves. Readers would be well advised to take note of the advice.
In the meantime, there have been discussions between Facebook and the UK government over the placement of a child protection “panic button” on users’ profiles. Apparently, according to The Register despite claims of success by the Home Secretary Alan Johnson, Facebook were only considering the proposal. The button would be a link to CEOP, the Child Exploitation & online Protection Centre. Facebook already carries a link to CEOP on its help pages.
Facebook is continuing to grow in popularity with 6.01% of last week’s UK internet links going to the site. Google remains ahead with 9.34%. See Network World.
And what has Google got up to this week?
Does anyone remember the monthly magazine “Popular Science”? It’s like “Tomorrow’s World” but in print. Apparently, it’s been going for 137 years and you can now read all 137 years online at Google. See the report from the Observer.
PC Advisor and Wired both report that Google together with Intel and Sony are working to bring TV to your living room. It will use Intel’s Atom processor and Google chrome
The Inquirer reports one area where Google is receiving less success. They had hoped to launched a smart phone in the UK, the Nexus One. Apparently, buyers have had to pay heavy import duty on the phone and there are reports of poor 3G performance.
Cyber attack
About a month ago I reported a Channel 4 program concerning a simulated cyber attack in the United States. This week the BBC News report that a group of peers have said that the UK is reasonably well placed to cope with a large scale cyber attack. Their study was looking at the possibility of cyber criminals shutting down all phone communications in the UK. They report that the surveillance service GCHQ had improved the UK’s readiness to deal with such an attack.
Online banking security
Many of you that do online banking will be familiar with “Rapport”, software supplied by your bank to beef up the security whilst connecting to your account details. Trusteer the authors of Rapport are developing new software that will be able to see remotely whether a customer’s computer is infected. PC World report that the software “Flashlight” detects malicious software and sends a report with a copy of it so it can be reverse engineered.
13th March 2010 – News from the past week
Google Street View goes live throughout the UK 11/03/10
Have you found your house yet? It was reported by the Daily Telegraph that Google Street view would be going live on Thursday this week throughout the UK. And yes, I have found all of the houses I’ve ever lived in! If you want to use Street view go to Google Maps, search for the area you want using the address or post code and then click and drag the little street view icon to the place you want to see.
It has also been reported that Google Street view in the US has been extended to include bike routes in a number of cities and its is hoped to extend this to mountain bike trail routes. At the moment however, there is no plan to extend this outside the US.
Microsoft has been busy this week
The Guardian reported that Microsoft are to launch a video on demand service in the UK from Thursday 11th March 2010. It is to be called MSN Video Player … and it will be free!
Microsoft is also starting to advertise its Bing search engine on TV very soon. Many of you have probably already used Bing or have it without realising as the default search engine in Internet Explorer. If you want to read more look at this link.
It has also been reported by the BCS that another vulnerability has been found by hackers in the Internet Explorer. It really does make you wonder whether you should change to a different Internet browser like Firefox, Opera, Safari or any of the others that you should have been notified about as a result of a Windows update.
On-line banking fraud up by 14% last year
It has been reported that whilst bank card fraud fell last year by 28%, on-line bank fraud rose by 14%. It is generally thought that the problem is not caused by the banks but by weaknesses or vulnerabilities in the user’s computer. It is essential that you computer is fully up-to-date and that it has a good security system such as Kaspersky Internet Security before you use Internet banking.
6th March 2010 – News over the past week
Remember Clive Sinclair and the ZX80, ZX81 and the Sinclair Spectrum?
The Observer reported that the inventor of the ZX80, ZX81 and the Sinclair Spectrum, the first UK home computers back in 1980 to 82 doesn’t use a computer himself today! He says that his company uses computers but that he cannot be bothered himself. He finds emails annoying and would far rather speak to someone one the telephone. He finds the whole email process distracting referring to it as a nightmare.
Microsoft is to inform users about different browsers
The Daily Telegraph reports that Microsoft will be informing Windows users that they may choose to use a variety of different Internet browser beside their own Internet Explorer. The information will arrive as a Windows update in computers running XP, Vista and Windows 7.
Hospitals in the UK continue to be attacked by the Conficker Worm
It has been reported by The Register and Spamfighter that the latest hospital to be affected by this worm was the West Middlesex University Hospital on 11 February 2010. The worm either got in via infected USB memory sticks or an external laptop. The effect was the same as usual; problems with appointments, emails, referrals etc. This comes on top of a similar infection with the Conficker worm in the Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust on 20 January reported by the Northwich Guardian.
And its not just hospital that get infected. Manchester Police as reported by The Register caught the Conficker worm on 29 January. This prevented the police running checks on suspects and cars, and links to the courts were also suspended while the infection was cleared.
Back in January the entire computer network of Exeter University had to be shut down as a result of infection with an unidentified virus. This was reported by the Exeter Express & Echo and the Journal.
In the meantime the BBC report million patient records on paper from the last 50 years are to be transferred to computer.
More success against botnets
I reported last week that Microsoft had successfully prosecuted the authors of one botnet. This week the BBC report that the Spanish police have arrested the masterminds of another botnet that is thought to affect 13 million computers.
According to Technical News World the Mariposa botnet injected itself into Internet Explorer bypassing firewalls and then spread via peer to peer networks and instant messaging in an undetected manner.
Remember the Koobface Worm?
This worm first appeared in 2008 and led to many Facebook users having their computers infected. If you want to read more about it look at my page here. Koobface will now attack many other social networking sites and the controllers of the worm seem to be renting out their botnet to other criminals. As a result, you may have personal details stolen, find fake antivirus programs popping up on your computer and offers for fake drugs.
27th February 2010 – News from the past week
Why do computer viruses exist?
I often get asked the question “what is the point of a computer virus?” or “why do people write computer viruses?”
The second of those questions gets nearer the mark, the fact that computer viruses are written by people. The first virus in the wild was around 1986. In the early days, a lot of viruses were written by computer geeks, often young highly intelligent people, who did it just to see if they could. It might also have been for competition; my virus is better than your virus, it infected 1 million computers in 24 hours!
Of course, there aren’t just computer viruses. There are also worms and Trojan Horses or just Trojans. If you want to read more about them read my page on viruses.
More often these days, viruses are big money, trying to harvest your passwords, credit card details, your identity or in the case of fake/rogue security programs saying that your computer is seriously infected and requesting money to clean it. I have recently seen a tremendous increase recently in these fake security programs. Whatever you do, don’t pay them or give your credit card details away.
To read more about “Why Viruses” click the link for a more detailed article. And to read what a computer virus is not try reading this small article.
Another important question is “how do infections get into my computer?” Everyone knows that a common route is via infected email attachments. The golden rule is don’t open an attachment if you don’t know where the email comes from. Even if you do know the origins of the email but it was an unexpected message, it might be worth phoning or emailing back to the person before opening the attachment.
A very common source of Trojans these days is from infected websites. There may be hidden scripts on the site or some of the links from the site might cause a Trojan to install. If you want to read further, read this link.
Another way to catch the unsuspecting victim is links to video clips. For example, the unfortunate case of the animal trainer that was killed by a killer whale in an animal park. Video clips of the trainer and the whale have been released on the Internet that have been infected with a Trojan. Only get video clips from legitimate news sites or Youtube. To read more about this click here.
Channel 4 ran an interesting article entitled “Simulated cyber attack raises questions for US”. The story was based on the idea that smart phones had been disabled by a cyber attack. Very soon land lines and the internet slow down and become disabled. Result is that trains and planes have to stop. Hospitals can no longer function. And what about the Stock Market.
And what about the Chinese hackers setting up large botnets of Zombie computers. I only mentioned last week about the Kneber botnet that had infected 75000 computers in 2500 companies around the world. In this latest article it is suggested that there are as many zombified computers in China and there are in the US and that around the world there may be as many as 1.5 billion computers infected with secret programs stealing information.
The BBC reports that Microsoft has successfully closed down the Waledac botnet through the courts in the US. This botnet has been responsible for more than 1.5 billion spam emails. The court case resulted in 277 internet domain names being closed down. Infected computers will of course remain infected and computer users really do need to run a good security program on their machines.
Of course, there is the continued argument about PC v Mac particularly as it is claimed by many that Macs do not get viruses. Certainly, I have friends who run Mac computers without an antivirus and they have been OK. But have they simply been lucky? Some reports say that the number of viruses and Trojans infecting Macs is on the increase and that Mac users should install a security program.
The Chartered Institute for IT, the BCS has reported this week that 3 in 4 businesses in the UK are falling victim to cyber crime having left their networks open to attack.
Doesn’t this indicated that you really do need a very good security program? If you live in the East Kent area of the UK and want some advice or help, phone me.
19th February 2010 - News from the past week
Facebook is a good way to stay in touch with friends but can be dangerous for you and your computer
About 350 to 400 million people use Facebook worldwide to stay in touch with friends and family. Some business use it to promote themselves. Facebook can be great fun but it does have its down side.
There are many reports coming in that Facebook or other social networking websites may be either directly or indirectly a route for your computer to get some form or infection. There are reports that computer repair experts are seeing an increase in infected computers and that they attribute this in part to social networking sites. See these reports: report_1 report_2
Also beware of emails apparently from Facebook saying that you need to update your account agreement. If you click on the attached zip file you will end up with a rogue or fake security program that will demand money to clear your machine of infections. You can read the news report here and look at my page about fake security programs. If you get an email apparently from a friend referring to links on Facebook it might be a good idea to phone them before clicking on any links. If your friend has not sent the email, it may be that their Facebook account has been hacked.
Businesses may be wise to stop their employees from using social networking sites on their work computers to avoid hacking, virus infection and potential identity theft. See these news stories Story_1 Story_2
The last link provides you with 10 good safety tips while using Facebook and other similar sites. If you are careful, these sites are fun.
The Kneber Botnet infects 75000 computers and identity theft
It has been reported in a number of news articles including the Washington Post that more than 75000 computers in 2500 companies in the US and around the world have been hacked and infected with the Kneber botnet.
A botnet is a group of computers connected to networks and the Internet that have been taken over and become “zombies”. The users may not realise as their normal program use may continue.
The hackers are trying to steal the identity of users and companies by obtaining emails, corporate data, usernames and passwords, and credit card details. In other words, very serious identity theft. Here are a couple of other news reports about the Kneber Botnet. Report_1 Report_2
There is even some suggestion in one article that web enabled mobile phones could also become infected with botnets. This article also has some suggestions on how to protect yourself.
One example of the seriousness of identity theft comes from the case of a cake decorating business in Oklahoma that had its debit card details stolen resulting in its card account being canceled. Now the business is struggling to buy anything from its suppliers.
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