Nerdy News Blog From A Geek To Go!

FRAUDULENT EMAIL ALERT!!!

2011-02-24T09:59:00.000-05:00

FRAUDULENT EMAIL ALERT

Please be aware of a fraudulent email that you may receive with the subject title "ACH Transaction Rejected." This e-mail appears to be from NACHA - The Electronic Payments Association telling them that there is a problem with an ACH transaction they have originated. The e-mail includes a link which redirects the individual to a fake web page which appears like the NACHA website and contains a link which is almost certainly executable virus with malware. The Phishing Alert has been posted on the NACHA home page (www.nacha.org).

Hotmail is definitely burning out of control!

2011-02-01T14:23:00.005-05:00

I decided to blog about this after receiving our tenth call within the past week about our M.S.P. contract customers and Facebook followers asking about their Hotmail accounts spamming their contacts, phishing, locking them out or mail folders disappearing.

A new Hotmail Virus affecting emails sent daily to millions of Internet users continues to cause many unwanted problems for millions of people worldwide.

But what is the quickest and easiest solution? And what is it anyway?

Let's answer some questions here and hopefully, if you are already a victim of the error, your headaches will subside.

What is the Hotmail Virus?

This is a computer virus that has been created by a hacker known as "master of life." The error appears in the inbox or junk mail from your account and is often called by the name of "Here you have it." This email comes with an attachment and can be sent through false identity of anyone on your contact list. This is exactly why it has become a big problem.

Note: Sources say that once the attachment is opened the computer screen appears with the following personal message:

"It's too late now. Your life is no longer beautiful ..."

What damages are caused by the Hotmail Virus?

Well, unfortunately, the Hotmail Virus sending email disguised as ordinary messages can do great damage to your system. Your computer is now "infected" and immediately begins to experience some major unwanted problems. The error can result in the following and more:

trash files that are personal and important deleting them forever
change data and completely corrupt it
allow for hackers to enter and steal personal information and files
not allow you to log-in or gain access to real emails

How do you get rid of it?

With the virus sending corrupted Hotmail emails, you need to access spyware or anti-virus products to scan and clean the bugs quickly and efficiently. Be careful of 'remedies' published online; these are usually posted by the virus writers themselves to trick you further. Chances are if you are using that security program that your Internet Service Provider gives you for free, then you are already infected.

We can remotely and securely login to any computer - anywhere - that can access the computer and scrub the infections out for you. For more information, please follow this link: http://www.ageektogo.net/service.html

The Internet Is Under Seige!

2010-11-29T21:46:00.003-05:00

by Miles West. A Geek To Go!

Infections are rampant on Facebook with multiple accounts spewing out links to everyone in the contact list. Tread very lightly! Also, beware of any 'Windows Looking' prompt warning you of Low Disk Space. It is a VERY DANGEROUS rootkit called Win Defrag that will sense eradication efforts and will shut down if it feels threatened!

New Attack on Facebook Discovered By A Geek To Go!

2010-11-28T18:34:00.004-05:00

11/28/10 6:35pm
by Miles West, A Geek To Go!

I have a bad habit of leaving my Facebook accounts open while I am working online. Tonight I was working on our remotely managed security when the new tone announced that someone had messaged me on instant message. Click on the image for a larger image. When I clicked back over to that tab, I saw someone (I haven't talked to in many years) had messaged me asking me to take a quiz which she did poorly on. She posted the link, which when copied into a new browser window took me to Facebook's malware/phishing warning. I knew from experience not to click on ANY link in an instant message because chances are it's a trap and once you click, then the person or computer on the other end can access your computer. This is not a new trick, but a new one here on Facebook. I can see MANY people falling victim to this. Never click a link in a message, even if you initiated the conversation. Questions? Contact A Geek To Go! through our website, twitter (#ageektogo) Facebook or just call us!

Facebook and Twitter Flunk Security Report Card

2010-11-08T10:13:00.000-05:00

By Jared Newman

PC World -

Ignorance is bliss, so don't read any further if you don't want to panic about Facebook and Twitter security.

Digital Society, a self-professed security think tank, has given failing security grades to both Twitter and Facebook. Both sites are vulnerable to attacks that can give someone partial or full control over your account, the group claims.

According to Digital Society, the main problem with Facebook and Twitter is that neither site allows full Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protection. Both sites create unencrypted sessions for the user by default. Although the actual logins are encrypted, they're not authenticated--which means you can't pull up security information in your browser to verify the sites' identities.

Even if you do force a secure session (by using https://twitter.com or https://facebook.com), the sites still have links to non-secure parts of the site and JavaScript code that transmit authentication cookies without SSL, Digital Society found.

These aren't new concerns, but the news fits hand-in-hand with the release of FireSheep, a FireFox add-on that lets people with limited technical knowledge hijack other people's web accounts over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. Digital Society's report card essentially spells out what an attacker using FireSheep or another packet-sniffing program could accomplish. In Facebook, for instance, an attacker can gain access to every part of an account except username and password, allowing the attacker to send status updates and read private messages.

Of the 11 websites examined by Digital Society, only Gmail received an "A" grade. Wordpress, when accessed without SSL, received the only other "F," but Hotmail and Flickr received "D-" grades.

Microsoft has promised to fix vulnerabilities in Hotmail, and Facebook says it's beefing up security, as well. Still, that leaves plenty of sites to worry about if you're planning on using coffeehouse Wi-Fi. For more protection, consider the advice of Sharon Machlis at Computerworld and use FireSheep to make sure none of your own accounts are available for easy exploitation. You can also try FireShephard, a program specifically designed to thwart FireSheep.

And, if all else fails, plug your ears, sing in a really loud voice and hope for the best!

Look Who's Stalking!

2010-11-05T08:53:00.003-04:00

Many people post their favorite photos on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter to let friends and family can get a glimpse of what is happening in their lives. But those innocent snapshots could be revealing much more than people think and open to the danger as well.

Shanelle Gibson said she loves to take pictures with your smartphone.

"I like having a bunch of pictures of my dog and post them on Twitter," she said. "I think it's cute."

But one day, she got a tweet from the creator of icanstalku.com, saying he knows where he lives.

"I thought it was a little scary," he said. "They were accurate at finding my house, so my immediate response was:" What happened? How do you know me? "

As a result, the information contained in photos from Gibson called geotags are integrated into the GPS services for your smartphone. Each time you send an online photo taken with your phone, it is inadvertently giving your whereabouts.

"The location can be as accurate as a meter, depending on the GPS signal reception of the device you are using," said Gerald Friedland, of the International Computer Science Institute.

Friedland co-authored a study on the privacy implications of geotagging. Results: Most people had no idea of what is still online.

"There's enough information out there that you can actually track people and do potential harm to them," he said.

That's what Larry Pesce said he wants to warn people.

He co-founded icanstalku to warn people after discovering a photo of your child revealed his location - and it can happen to others.

"For example, let's take a picture of your nice, new plasma television 50 inches in your house," he said. "And now you're sharing the place of television and an hour later, you are sending a photograph of a 7-Eleven, and now we know that you're not at home."

In addition to theft, Pesce said geotagged photos open the possibility of harassment and violence at home, and one does not need to be an expert to get the information.

"Almost anyone who can operate a computer and do a few right clicks could know someone's location," said Pesce.

Both Pesce and Friedland said they hope more people aware of this potential privacy problem.

"In the future, we will be sharing more and more about our online lives, and we really want people to make sure they know what we are sharing," said Pesce.

So what can you do about it?

You do not have to stop publishing pictures - just turn off the GPS function for photos on your phone. If it does not affect the other capabilities of GPS.

Gibson said she turned off her GPS functions and now posts her pictures without worry.

She said she expects others to do the same.

When A Geek To Go! discovered the site, it was reminiscent of a similar site called PleaseRobMe.com, that has since been taken down. Our first visit to the site yesterday unraveled a local young female writer (name withheld) bundle of personal info including last GPS location with map, a whole page of Twitter Tweets, and her photos. As of this posting, the site seems to have either been taken down, or is offline due to heavy traffic - as the site is run on autopilot by a Perl script, but we've included a sample screenshot.

Please choose wisely what you offer up to the outside world!

Mac Users Warned of Growing Threat of Infections

2010-11-01T11:12:00.003-04:00

Attacks on the Mac are important enough to warrant Apple users invest in an antivirus product, security company Panda Security, said when launching a new product that offers such protection.

Marketing of crop selection for economy Apple or caution justified? Panda points to the numbers. Currently there are 5,000 "strains" of malware that target the Mac and the company says it is seeing 500 new Mac-specific samples that appear every month.

In 2009, 34 vulnerabilities were identified in OS X from Apple, which had risen to 175 so far for 2010, with a total of 170,000 20-year macro "viruses" that affect the platform.

To be clear, these security threats refer only to desktops and laptops and not Apple iPhones or iPads unless they have been "jailbreaked" (personally hacked) or if, somehow, an application breaks offenders through the approval process.

Security firms working with Apple users is nothing new and every antivirus company now has a significant Mac products, driven in part by the user base growing a little larger in the U.S.

Many of the software vulnerabilities were cross-platform browser flaws, and is not specific to the Mac. As for the 170,000 macro viruses , while in a general sense, the malware threat is so obsolete on the PC that vendors don't even bother to count them.

The argument rests on the number of new malware threats now being seen and their complexity. So far, the evidence suggests that while the odd Trojan is now appearing, Mac malware is still a low-key threat.

"We have always held the theory that when Apple reaches a more significant market share, around 15 percent worldwide (which given its current rapid growth will be achieved shortly), hackers will begin to target attacks against this platform," claimed Panda vice president, Ivan Fermon.

"We would even say that today, the Windows operating system is more secure than Mac, simply because Microsoft has been working proactively on security for many years," he added.

Given the small but plausible nature of the threat, there is an argument that Apple itself should offer a security program as part of its offering, instead of leaving it up to third parties. It's what Microsoft ended up doing, retro-fitting a firewall to XP and more recently giving away a free antivirus program, Security Essentials.

Ironically, the reason Microsoft avoided doing such a thing in the first place was worry over antitrust probes which would have viewed such a move as anticompetitive. This free-market idea woefully misunderstood the nature of the threat and the world is still cleaning up the mess today.

For the record, both AVG and Panda antivirus for Mac offers realtime protection, file scanning and the ability to probe iPhones and iPads to ensure they are not harboring malware even if that malware can't hurt those devices.

Panda also points out that antivirus products on Macs stop Windows malware being passed on (as attachments) to PC users although it seems unlikely many people will want to buy protection for other users who probably have their own security anway.

Mac users interested in an AVG Security bundle for Mac can buy a one-year unlimited support plan with pricing based on residential or customer needs. This is a tad higher than a Windows user would pay for equivalent protection but that is the case with all Mac software. Development costs are higher for a smaller number of users.

Identity theft, phishing and Scareware

2010-10-27T10:16:00.002-04:00

Phishing scams and attacks have been the preferred medium for thieves and hackers to steal your personal information, then your cash. Any request for data, whether online or offline, should sound the alarm in your head: Identity theft alert!

Most people have heard about phishing scams, and are reasonably guarded against them. But criminals are very inventive and imaginative, and are constantly dreaming up new ways to deceive us and bilk us out of our hard earned money.

One method that has been around for a while called "scareware." It works well. Suddenly you get a pop-up on the screen, a warning that your PC has been suspected of being infected with a virus. The picture looks like the common dialog box we are used to seeing from Windows, so they are not very suspicious.

You see a link to a website where you can buy a program to remove the malware. However, if you buy and run the software, that will do the opposite. Now - the real virus and spyware are installed on your computer. This malware will scan your computer for credit card numbers, passwords and bank details. Worse, the hacker is in fact charging the credit card you used for the purchase. Trust us, we have seen this four times in the last week!

How did pop onto your computer first? You may have inadvertently dropped a phishing scam. Or, you may have been the victim of a drive-by download. You visit a site well-known and respected site that had been already attacked and compromised. Simply visiting caused a malicious program that downloads and installs on your computer, without any further action on your part.

Here are two other common avenues of attack: you click on an advertisement on Google or news site. The announcement had been placed by a hacker. This takes you to a malicious website that infects the PC. Or thieves determine what is popular and in the news these days. Then, create web sites that deal with these issues.

They are also distributed through optimization techniques, which receive their pages appear in the top 10 Google search results. This is called poisoning the results. Clicking one of these "false" results, you get a pop-up scareware malware or otherwise.

Twitter and other social networking sites have been attacked several times, using different combinations and variations of the above methods. A recent survey revealed that nearly half of Internet users who rely on their safety programs were being protected. But in fact, programs were not updated, so it hardly provides any protection at all. Identity theft alert!

Your antivirus software must be updated every day. Anti-spyware programs are updated once a week. A couple times a month, check Windows updates for your computer.

Before usingweb-searched useful tips, you must be careful how close that pop-up on the screen. If you click the pop-up menu itself or the small red X in the upper right, rather than close the dialog box, you can actually start downloading malicious software! So do the following:

Click the tab pop-up in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen, and click Close. If this fails, press Ctrl + Alt + Delete. Find your browser in the list of running programs, and click End Task. Then turn off pop-up windows together on your browser.

So what should you do if, unfortunately, you fell into the trap and buy the software? Disconnect from the Internet. call your financial accounts and tell them your computer has been compromised, IMMEDIATELY! View your statements of credit cards closely over the coming months. Report any unauthorized charges at once. MOST importantly, get professional help. That FREE security software your provider gave you or that came with your computer can't be trusted. After all, where was it when you got the infection?

Get all software from trusted sources only. Never buy anything in response to a pop-up or spam. Keep all your programs and applications updated often, not just security software. Hackers love to use Adobe Reader or Flash, or media players to attack. I know that malware removal all day can be a long and tedious dillema.

But a relatively painless way to do this is to use the Managed Services Program to repel infections and the unlimited U.S.-based Phone and Remote Support is always available when a new infection is released into the wild and access your computer before anti-infection definitions are created. Remember, nothing is 100% effective, as 12 new infections are released every day..

Identity theft is a complicated and expensive. It may take a year of frustration and gnashing of teeth to get your life back on track. The good news is that the application of these guidelines, plus a little common sense should keep you secure. Happy (and safe!) Surfing.

Managed Services Program (M.S.P.) Hits Milestone

2010-07-28T18:17:00.003-04:00

Thanks to the recent addition of the commercial M.S.P. contracts for Gold's Gym-James Island, SC, Harborside Remodeling, providing the majority of remodeling services for Kiawah and Seabrook Islands and Jimmy Johns - Downtown Charleston, SC - a popular national gourmet sandwich franchise... A Geek To Go! L.L.C. has reached its 225th Managed Services contract! Not to mention the 9 new residential M.S.P.'s created in the past two weeks. We're not sure what economic indicator this may represent, but obviously more users are realizing that internet security (and the maintenance of those programs) are better left in the hands of those experienced with these. A Geek To Go! has now customized the program to accommodate any user, either inside the Charleston, SC area where they are based, or for any user in the world at a reduced rate. We offer UNLIMITED U.S.-based phone and remote support to any computer anywhere in the world, as long as the computer has an active internet access. Please check out the details of the plan at http://www.ageektogo.net/msp.html and if you are interested, email or call us at 843.557.9378 and we'll provide the credentials to sign onto our CONTRACTS page where you may view and complete a contract and begin the remote setup and support of your M.S.P. from the leader, A Geek To Go!

Mini-Post About Apple's Boast:

2010-06-02T14:06:00.004-04:00

Steve Jobs from Apple on the rise of the iPad and the fall of the PC

FYI... while the iPad creates a frenzy; like the iPhone - there are copycats. Asus and HP have their own versions, and unlike Apple, you don't have to go to the store to get apps to run on these platforms. You see, the iPad requires the user to download everything from Apple's iTunes Store, while the PC-platform versions allow apps to come from multiple sources. Most of the good ones won't come without a price tag, although once the open-source community grabs a hold of it, then lots of free apps will trickle on down the line. Also, a word of advice; just like when a new restaurant opens, you usually wait a while for everything to fall into place before trying it out. There will be updates, service packs and continuous new versions morphing out of every nook and cranny. remember the first touchscreen on a phone? The first eReader? No matter who you choose to go with, let the 1st-Gen work out the kinks before you plunk down all your bets on the first horse out of the gate! ~ Miles West, President, A Geek To Go!

Google: Fake antivirus is 15 percent of all malware

2010-05-13T11:56:00.001-04:00

by Elinor Mills

A rise in fake antivirus offerings on Web sites around the globe shows that scammers are increasingly turning to social engineering to get malware on computers rather than exploiting holes in software, a Google study to be released on Tuesday indicates.

Fake antivirus--false pop-up warnings designed to scare money out of computer users--represents 15 percent of all malware that Google detects on Web sites, according to 13-month analysis the company conducted between January 2009 and February 2010.

That's a five-fold increase from when the company first started its analysis, Niels Provos, a principal software engineer at Google, said in an interview.

Meanwhile, fake antivirus scams represent half of all malware delivered via advertisements, which is becoming a problem for high-profile sites that rely on their advertisers and ad networks to distribute clean ads.

Google analyzed 240 million Web pages and uncovered more than 11,000 domains involved in fake antivirus distribution for the study, which Google is set to unveil at the Usenix Workshop on Large-Scale Exploits and Emergent Threats Tuesday in San Jose, Calif.

Researchers also found that over the course of the study, domains used for distributing the malware were online for shorter and shorter periods of time in the face of Google's Safe Browsing technology. Used in Chrome and Firefox, Safe Browsing helps alert Web browsers to sites hosting malware, Provos said.

"As early as 2003, malware authors prompted users to download fake AV software by sending messages via a vulnerability in the Microsoft Messenger service. We observed the first form of fake AV attack involving Web sites, e.g. Malwarealarm.com, in our systems on March 3, 2007," the report says. "At that time, fake AV attacks employed simple JavaScript to display an alert that asked users to download a fake AV executable."

"More recent fake AV sites have evolved to use complex JavaScript to mimic the look and feel of the Windows user interface," the report continues. "In some cases, the fake AV detects even the operating system version running on the target machine and adjusts its interface to match."

Fake antivirus is easy money for scammers, Provos said.

"Once it is installed on the user system, it's difficult to uninstall, you can't run Windows updates anymore or install other antivirus products, and you must install the [operating] system," rending it unusable until it is cleaned up, he said.

Provos said when encountering a fake antivirus message, Web surfers should close the browser and restart the program. People who are duped by the scam may have to get professional help in cleaning up the computer, he said. They should also monitor their credit card accounts because scammers can use the credit card information for identity fraud.

Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor.

I CUT THE CORD...

2010-05-13T00:06:00.002-04:00

First, on Comcast. What's the point of paying $60.00/month for "basic cable" which consists of 24 channels of nothing, when I can get so much free content from sites like Hulu, TBS.com, NBC.com, etc. and drop a whopping $9.99 for Netflix (all you can watch) movies streamed to your computer - or - if it's not available for streaming, then you can order your one DVD at a time for your viewing pleasure.

The other cord I cut was Facebook. This took considerable consideration considering my friend base, and so much personal information given. But now that they have gone back on their word for Privacy Protection (like most startups do after creating an audience) I've begun dismantling my personal profile and hope to carry my friends to our main profile at A Geek To Go! If I want anything to be divulged to the world, I may as well receive name recognition in the form of branding, right? If they are going to make money off of me and my friends, why can't I take part?

For more information check out this report from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/12/facebook.backlash/index.html

Windows Really IS more Secure Than Macs!

2010-04-17T09:44:00.001-04:00

Infamous hacker applauds the security of Microsoft software; less than pleased with Apple and Adobe offerings

Windows vs Mac by Sebastian Anthony (RSS feed)

Apr 16th 2010 at 10:30AM

Marc Maiffret, despite having a name that sounds uncomfortably French in origin, is one of the founding members of a special and elite club: he's a turncoat hacker. Once an infamous black hat, he's now the chief security architect for leading malware protection system developer FireEye. His list of notable accomplishments is many, but they will all be shadowed by his latest statement: Microsoft software is more secure than Apple's.

In a frank and interesting interview over on CNET, Maiffret spends a lot of time discussing how Microsoft has really shaped up in terms of producing secure software. Maiffret says that Apple is only now looking at improving its code review and auditing procedures -- something Microsoft has done well for a long time now.

Maiffret also notes that desktop apps are now the biggest threat to our security -- apps like Adobe's Creative Suite. There isn't a tried-and-test patching process for desktop apps: if a security hole is found in Flash or Photoshop it can be a long time until it's patched.

Meanwhile, it seems Apple's primary defense is still security through obscurity: "We've only seen a scratching of the surface as far as Apple vulnerabilities because nobody cares to find them." Ironically, Apple continues to claim that its OS X is more secure than Windows -- a very dangerous act, according to Maiffret: "... They try to market themselves as more secure than the PC, that you don't have to worry about viruses. Anytime there's been a hacking contest, within a few hours someone's found a new Apple vulnerability. If they were taking it seriously, they wouldn't claim to be more secure than Microsoft because they are very much not."

So, good news, Windows users -- you might not be aware that you're using the more secure operating system... but you very much are!

Who makes Spyware? Why make Viruses?

2010-03-18T10:42:00.002-04:00

We hear these questions nearly daily. Here's a great article from Ellen Messmer of Network World who sheds some light on the economics of the underworld.

For $10,000, criminals can take control of infected PCs

New capabilities are strengthening the Zeus botnet, which criminals use to steal financial credentials and execute unauthorized transactions in online banking, automated clearing house (ACH) networks and payroll systems.

The latest version of this cybercrime toolkit, which starts at about $3,000, offers a $10,000 module that can let attackers completely take control of a compromised PC.

Zeus v.1.3.4.x (code changes are always underway by the author and owner, who is believed to be one individual in Eastern Europe) has integrated a powerful remote-control function into the botnet so that the attacker can now "take complete control of the person's PC," says Don Jackson, director of threat intelligence at SecureWorks, which released an in-depth report on Zeus this week.

This new Zeus feature, which was picked up from an older public-domain project from AT&T Bell Labs known as "Virtual Network Computing," gives Zeus the kind of remote-control capability that might be found in a legitimate product like GoToMyPC, Jackson says. SecureWorks calls this a "total presence proxy," and it's so useful to criminals, just this one VNC module for ZeuS costs $10,000.

The Windows-based Zeus Trojan software, which takes up about 50,000 bytes on a compromised Windows-based computer, is designed to plunder accounts in North American and United Kingdom banking systems via the victim's computer. The criminal might be located a continent away, directing unauthorized transfers of funds to accounts through elaborate command-and-control systems.

Zeus, around since at least 2007, "was originally a spyware Trojan and it had good marketing" and became popular as botnets of all sorts proliferated, Jackson says.

A group called UpLevel was originally in a partnership working on the Zeus source code. But today researchers suspect there's only one author of Zeus, and this individual is now exerting tight control over the current Zeus 1.3 (and later) versions by instituting a hardware-based copyright-protection mechanism.

SecureWorks researcher Kevin Stevens says the Zeus hardware-based copyright mechanism is based on a hardware token method, similar to WinLicense, that takes into account a lot of hardware details about a computer before allowing the Zeus Builder toolkit code to be unlocked by an individual.

Older versions of Zeus are available for free, but the price for the current Zeus and its modules, out since the end of last year, is not cheap. In the online criminal underground, fraudsters often pay for crimeware through Western Union or Web Money, according to SecureWorks.

According to a report published by SecureWorks this week, the basic Zeus Builder kit runs $3,000 to $4,000, with another $1,500 for the "Backconnect" module to connect back to an infected machine to make financial transactions from it. This means banks that try to track money transfers will always trace it back to the computer of the account holder. To hack Windows 7 or Vista computers, criminals will have to ante up an extra $2,000 or be limited to Windows XP systems.

A "Firefox form grabber," costing another $2,000, lets a criminal grab data out of fields that are submitted using the Firefox Web browser, such as usernames and passwords for banks. A "Jabber (IM) chat notifier," costing another $500, will let the attacker get stolen data immediately in order to access the victim's account after the victim logs in using a token provided by the bank to randomly generate numbers. And the VNC module, which allows the attacker to get around any smartcard that's required for large-dollar transactions, is $10,000.

The latest version is also designed to blow through the most current defenses in place regarding two-factor and other authentication in banking systems, and is especially oriented toward facilitating high-dollar transactions of $100,000 or more, Jackson notes.

"Zeus automatically detects top-tier, gold-level targets" associated with online banking services, Jackson says. A signal is given to the botnet controller, and a highly automated transfer can be made into accounts the attacker desires.

There are many stories starting to appear of companies complaining about unauthorized ACH transfers, or fake employees fraudulently added to automated payroll systems, when high-dollar amounts are transferred into accounts where banks either can't or won't retrieve these sums.

Jackson says the latest version of Zeus gets around most of the advanced online authentication mechanisms used by banks today, with perhaps the exception of a transaction approval process based on at least two people, often randomly selected from a pool of people trained for this purpose, who manually authorize a transfer. "It's an arms race," he says.

The upcoming version of Zeus, v.1.4, is still in beta but promises yet more deadly features. Its "Web Injects for Firefox" capability, for instance, would let the attacker present a screen on the fly in the Firefox browser in order to elicit more sensitive information during the banking transaction by pretending the bank needs the information. The Zeus Trojan is also getting polymorphic encryption to re-encrypt itself to appear unique each time, thus making it even more difficult for antivirus software to detect it.

M.S.P. Program signs its 200th customer!

2010-03-13T19:37:00.002-05:00

Thank you, Mrs. 200 - P. Woolworth of Redondo Beach, CA for becoming our 200th customer for the Managed Services Program offered by A Geek To Go! And let's not forget Mr. 199, - P. Haarsgaard of Atlanta, GA. and all of our other customers enjoying surfing the web without a care in the world because their security is fully managed and guaranteed under the M. S. P.

Hopefully we will break the continental barrier and have new customers in the islands and beyond soon.!

We now offer two options including AVG Professional Anytivirus & Antispyware, Counterspy, Spybot, VIPRE, Trend Micro and the list just keeps on growing. We hope you will grow with us as well! Check us out at http://www.ageektogo.net/index.html

A Geek To Go! Takes Caribbean By Storm!

2010-03-07T21:49:00.002-05:00

Or rather, by full moon.

After much remote conversation between two companies in both St. John and St. Thomas, Miles West, Owner of A Geek To Go! L.L.C. established a footing with companies on both islands, offering his branded unlimited U.S.-based telephone and remote support for PC's. Apparently both businesses were hopping and had not seen any signs of the recession that affected the rest of us last (and current) year. The remote support service will greatly relieve these companies of repeat/return visits while providing first and second-tier support to subscribers using the Managed Services Program (M.S.P.) and will offer greater leverage over existing support options.

They drive on the wrong side of the road!

We've been there, done that... but in these islands it is particularly hilly and there are tight corners to navigate. Quite a lot of business humming along for such small areas, but logistics are key, so the M.S.P will become a welcomed asset. A Geek To Go! uses state-of-the-art managed services software and encryption to allow for remote support to and from any computer in the world.

Next stop? Puerto Rico in October 2010

Microsoft update KB977165 linked to BSOD on some machines

2010-02-13T22:37:00.000-05:00

WINDOWS XP users! Set your phasers to stun! No seriously, set your auto updates to notify, because there is a certain update that is crippling machines all over the place. Contact us through FB (for a discount) or call us directly at 843.557.9378 for the fix!

Microsoft's Out-of-Band Security Bulletin MS10-002 (KB978207)

2010-01-24T16:25:00.001-05:00

On January 21, 2010, Microsoft released the Out-of-Band Security Bulletin, MS10-002 (KB978207), which resolves one publicly reported and seven privately reported vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. The more severe vulnerabilities could allow Remote Code Execution, if a user views a specially designed webpage using Internet Explorer. This Security Update is rated Critical for all supported releases of Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8.

This patch requires a reboot for the patch to take effect. Servers and Desktops will be rebooted if the restart option is selected in the patch deployment option.

For more information or to download the security patch, please browse to the webpage Microsoft Security Bulletin MS10-002 - Critical Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (978207) http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS10-002.mspx.

Internet Safety for Kids - published by Sag Harbor Press

2010-01-15T20:57:00.003-05:00

This is very good scope of the burgeoning issue that we face in ALL municipalities.

Many thanks to the SAG community for sharing this online post!

School officials and Sag Harbor parents say problems of cyber bullying, online chatting, and most recently “sexting,” have been brewing in the district for many years. Before this week, instances of risky online behavior were handled amongst the children, at home or in the guidance counselors office.

But tonight, Thursday, January 14, US Congressman Tim Bishop and Detective Rory Forrester with the Suffolk County Police Department will host an Internet safety program at Pierson High School at 7 p.m. Local parents hope to bring this issue to light and reach out to the whole community to raise awareness about children’s vulnerability on the Internet. Sag Harbor students in grades six through eight, will also attend a modified version of the program during the day.

“We want to help parents understand what is going on with our kids,” said elementary school assistant principal Donna Denon. The program, which is paid for through a grant secured by Congressman Bishop and presented at schools throughout Suffolk County, is sponsored at Pierson with the help of the Sag Harbor Parenting Center, The Sag Harbor Elementary PTA and the Pierson Parent Teacher Student Association. Of the children’s portion, Denon added, “According to Det. Forrester, research shows this age group is the most influenced. Their developmental age isn’t catching up. If we can target this middle school age group and raise awareness we will have better success in high school.”

According to parents and middle school guidance counselor Carl Brandl, jabs aren’t only reserved for the bathroom wall or the playground anymore. Verbal forms of cruelty have now gone viral. Parent Mary Anne Miller, whose daughter is a fifth-grader, said cyber bullying is present in the older elementary school grades and takes many shapes. Students use Facebook to write demeaning things about a fellow classmate, noted Miller. Brandl referenced a Facebook application called the “Truth Box” which can be added to a child’s profile. On the website, the application is advertised as a way to learn “what your friends really think about you” by allowing them to post anonymous comments.

“In the old days you would get bullied on the playground and then it was finished. Cyber bullying is never ending. It can go on for weeks or months. It is a continuous dialogue,” remarked Miller. “The children are hurting and disrespecting each other.”

Another arena of the Internet Det. Forrester finds particularly disconcerting is “sexting,” in which young adults send racy or sometime obscene texts, photographs or videos to one another. The prevalence of “sexting,” said Det. Forrester, spiked as smart phones with Internet access and cameras became ubiquitous.

While working on the Internet safety program, Det. Forrester learned of a 12-year-old girl from Mount Sinai who made a revealing video of herself. The video was eventually posted online by someone else and now when people type in this young girl’s nickname her homemade movie pops up in the search results. Det. Forrester noted that legislation hasn’t caught up to the advances in technology and how children are using these new mediums. Technically, by producing this video, the girl created child pornography which is a felony charge. If convicted she could become a registered sex offender. Det. Forrester added these videos and images are often intended for one recipient but with the click of one button the intended receiver can distribute the information throughout a whole school district and community.

“The laws need to be adjusted for what is going on. I know a lot of states are struggling with this,” said Det. Forrester, adding that some states have resorted to charging children as a way to curtail these practices.

Children may have the skill set to readily adapt with technology but Brandl argues developmentally they aren’t prepared to connect their actions online with any possible consequences. Brandl said he receives reports of cyber bullying nearly ever day and although he wouldn’t elaborate on instances of “sexting,” he said the Sag Harbor school district wasn’t immune to this problem.

“There really isn’t a whole lot of foresight with what they are doing today and how it will impact them 30 minutes, a month, or a year down the road. Their brains are still developing,” explained Brandl. “A major theme of my job is showing them that what they do right now will have an impact later.”

Brandl noted that children also find a greater comfort in saying cruel things online instead of face to face.

To help control this behavior, as part of the program, Det. Forrester will teach children to “think before they send. In addition, he will also school them on the ways to protect their online information by establishing and understanding privacy settings.

Because Internet companies’ incentives are to increase the number of subscribers, noted parent Chris Tice, who has worked in the Internet business, the onus is on parents to monitor their children’s online accessibility and activity.

“Parents can set the parameters for how their kids use these technologies. They can make sure there isn’t a computer in their room or put filters on any of their electronic media so the kids can’t accidentally go to the wrong site,” said Tice. “I think many parents hand their children computers and don’t install that kind of software.” In an elementary school survey Brandl helped complete five years ago, nearly 85 percent of students in fourth grade said they had computers their parents couldn’t monitor.

Det. Forrester suggests first and foremost that parents become involved in their children’s Internet and texting habits. He tells parents to know which sites their children are visiting, open a dialogue about the Internet with their youngsters, join Facebook and become a friend of their children’s and also take a close look at their phone bills.

“I think parents in general just want to understand more of what their kids are doing. It is kind of out of sight and out of view, right now,” added Denon.

Technology is growing so rapidly and has become such a common resource in society, officials say parents need to address these critical issues instead of ignoring them. Parents and educators hope the benefits provided by the Internet to young minds will be tempered with increased awareness surrounding its dangers as well.

Pre-registration for the Internet safety program is required. Please contact Mrs. Cohen at 725-5301 for more information.

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A Geek To Go! Bio Published by the Charleston, SC Post & Courier

2010-01-11T11:58:00.004-05:00

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2010/jan/07/computer-business-inspired-geeks-calif-workplace/

Computer business inspired by 'geeks' in Calif. workplace

By Edward Fennell

The Post and Courier

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Miles West says he can get the bugs out of your computer and keep them away, but does that make him a geek?

West, 41, owns AGeekToGo Internet-security and data-recovery service, which he founded five years ago and operates out of his James Island home.

His Weimaraner, Blue, is always by his side in his home office and sometimes accompanies the business owner on house calls.

Photo by Edward Fennell

The Post and Courier

Miles West created AGeekToGo! computer Internet-security and data-recovery service and safeguards about 50 clients' home computers from Internet worms, viruses and malware.

But before launching a career in the subject dearest to him — computers — West held jobs in the film industry in Los Angeles, at an Internet startup service in Santa Barbara and even a Charleston-area coffee shop.

"After 11 years out in crazy L.A., I got burned out," said West, adding that he missed Southern living, so he returned to the Lowcountry. After a succession of odd jobs, he knew what he wanted to do.

"I always liked anything to do with the computer," he said.

Hailing from Murrells Inlet, West graduated from Socastee High School in Myrtle Beach and earned a media arts degree in 1992 at the University of South Carolina. He headed to California for work when the Internet field was a fledgling enterprise.

While with a firm helping customers to get online, West "hung out with the real geeks — the guys that looked like they were from 'Revenge of the Nerds' with the pocket protectors and the tape on their glasses," he said.

"These guys could not get a date, and I did OK with the dating scene. I told them, 'If you'll teach me your computer skills, I'll tell you what girls like to hear,' " he said.

West said his computer knowledge grew by gigabytes, but he's not sure if the information exchange benefited the computer guys.

"I don't know how much they learned, but they haven't called back," he added.

West put out some fliers advertising tech support for computer owners, and while he was well-versed in PCs (personal computers), the first call he got was from the owner of the rival home computer, the Mac.

He said he told the caller "sure" he could help, though he knew nothing about the Mac, and then rushed out and bought "Mac for Dummies."

He said he made good money with computer services but decided to head back to South Carolina. In between some odd jobs, he was hired to shoot video at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.

West said the knowledge and dedication to their tasks that he saw in the guys he once worked with inspired the AGeekToGo name he chose for his new firm. But West is confident he's not really a geek himself.

From the beginning, West's computer business faced considerable competition. Local electronics stores field their own teams of experts that help residential and business customers set up and maintain their computers. West said he decided to carve out a niche for himself by focusing on Internet security.

"I knew I had to diversify. My motto is: If you keep on doing the same thing, you're going to get the same results," he said.

West said many computer users are finding that viruses and trojan malware are getting tougher to block and remove. Youths who do a lot of downloading inadvertently let in these computer infections, which, he said, are persistent at finding ways around or through the common household computer protection programs.

West said he developed plans for keeping his customers' PCs free of data destroying and operating-system-crippling infections. "I've worked with a lot of good security programs and bundled them together," he said.

West said the protection program he devised "runs automatically and independently," but should a bug slip by, he makes house calls.

West said he has about 50 clients now, about 90 percent of them residential.

"I do work with some businesses, but my niche is the residential market," he said.

For information, see ageektogo.net.

Reach Edward C. Fennell at efennell@postandcourier.com or 937-5560.

Local Mention: Post and Courier covers A Geek To Go Managed Services Program

2010-01-08T20:48:00.001-05:00

Check out http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2010/jan/07/computer-business-inspired-geeks-calif-workplace/ by Edward Fennell on the home-based business by Miles West in the world of cloud computing, SaaS, and managing home computers with an inkling of business computers in the most stagnant month of all - January, coupled with a Recession-turned-Depression. And really, he is not the TOOL the reporter makes him out to be. I know him.

Teen boy returns from meeting World of Warcraft cougar

2010-01-04T22:19:00.002-05:00

Yeesh! Even kids aren't safe in Video Games anymore according to Lydia Sung and www.Neoseeker.com
see http://www.neoseeker.com/news/12714-teen-boy-returns-from-meeting-world-of-warcraft-cougar/

Comments anyone? Please keep it clean, this is read by Parents too.

P.O.T.Y. post of the year

2009-12-29T19:43:00.001-05:00

So it was a stifling day in the last week of July 2009 on vacation in a tiny town in northern Costa Rica when I logged in to the local Wi-Fi-per-minute via my little netbook, and after checking the local weather and surf forecast, I checked my email, only to discover an alarming message from one of our M.S.P. customers (Managed Services Program) back in Charleston, SC. She reported that her antivirus was reporting an infestation of Trojans in her i-Tunes folder.

I replied and asked her to please leave her PC on for the next 24 hours and immediately contacted my N.O.C. (Network Operations Center) in Mumbai, India. Throughout a series of emails and chats, we were able to remotely connect to her computer and isolate the issue; the antivirus definitions package that came with the automatic updates was incorrectly identifying ALL i-Tunes related paraphernalia as a Trojan infection.

Between THIS A Geek To Go in Costa Rica and the NOC in Mumbai, we were able to successfully - and here comes the buzzword - 'Transglobally' isolate the issue and restore the computer to normal operating functions within an hour!

End result: False alarm, scared, but now ELATED customer.
I can continue to melt in the tropics as I have been, although Costa Rican heat is not too far from being as oppressive as Charleston heat towards the end of the summer!

Apple Approves Safe Sexting App

2009-12-27T17:09:00.002-05:00

redistributed from http://krapps.com/

Sexting … ever heard of it? Meh, don’t worry. Just means you’re out of high school and don’t have a MySpace page. Basically kids these days are using their cell phones to take sexually explicit pictures of themselves and then sending them via text message (MMS) to their friends. Sex + Texting = Sexting. And it’s a fairly popular activity among teens. Just yesterday, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric reported that according to a recent Pew poll (no idea, google it), 30 percent of 17-year-olds have received a sext, while 15 percent of all teens have. LOL … freaking kids these days … so technologically advanced.

But sexting is no laughing matter. Sucks for you teenager when your nude images start appearing on Facebook and Twitter. Sucked even more for High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens … naked photos from her sext swept the Internet. And the ultimate suck – it’s a crime – possessing and distributing child pornography is a serious felony.

So in efforts to keep the kiddies free from sexting danger, a number of safe sext messages are being published. Inside the Actor’s Studio host James Lipton has released a practice safe sexting PSA video … … the National Crime Prevention Council issued a Sexting: How Parents Can Keep Their Kids Safe flyer … and of course, CollegeHumor.com released a NSFW safe sexting music video, including tips like blur your face and strategic cropping.

Not to be outdone, Apple has joined the safe sext movement. Perhaps they figured with the introduction of iPhone MMS, it’s the socially correct thing to do, approve Safe Sexting.

With Safe Sexting, perverted kids can now continue to enjoy texting naked pictures of themselves and as an added bonus … they’ll stay out of jail. Before your next sexting session, simply launch Safe Sexting … which will automatically open up a safe sexting camera with four options to censor you naughty bits: Small Box, Large Box, Head Box (for the introverts) and a teasing semi-transparent Red Silk. Take picture and safely send away.

Big up’s to Apple for providing children a safe method of sexting. However we’re actually not that impressed. If Apple can somehow transform the iPhone into a condom and tackle the larger safe sex issue … now that would be revolutionary!

redistributed from http://krapps.com/

T-Mobile dropping quickly

2009-12-01T15:40:00.001-05:00

T-Mumble is killing me today!

Triplicate texts
Auto-generated responses of gibberish
Voicemail is not in service! DIE! DIE! DIE!

Pretty sad that I had to buy a landline 6 months ago just so I could troubleshoot their network for them!

A Geek To Go! Partners with Trend Micro for Broader Array of Managed Services Program (M.S.P.)

2009-10-26T17:53:00.002-04:00

The contract for A Geek to Go has been approved.

North American Distribution Channel Support

500 E Border St, 7th Floor, Arlington, TX 76010

Office: 888-762-8736

Exciting news! We are developing a new line of our Managed Services Programs (M.S.P.'s) for both home and commercial users. Stay tuned for further details by week's end!

Blastoffnetwork.com

2009-10-22T15:11:00.003-04:00

As previously quoted by Geoff Feldman on LinkedIn, I have to agree with his sentiments exactly.

Don't SPAM the heck out of your friends. We're all done with that era.

The concept is not new and the past times it was done, it failed. I don't think it will "Go viral", at least not for long. Many maybe all of the companies they mention provide some small fee for site referrals. You can see many blogs have an "Amazon store" which is nothing more than site referrals for books that they may be pushing on the blog. It's nice pin money if done right.

However, to pay the benefits needed to motivate participation, they need more and more site referrals. At the end of the day it suffers from everything a multi-level marketing thing does. These never work if they don't have something concrete and special to sell (such as Amway or Mary Kay). Blast off has nothing that Google doesn't have.

I think people are more sophisticated and cautious about data aggregation and privacy. This would turn me personally from even experimenting with it.

I'm not excited enough to be skeptical.

Pigeon beats Internet firm in data transfer race

2009-09-10T10:24:00.001-04:00

Bird with card strapped to leg triumphs in 50-mile South African showdown

Catch it here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32772500/ns/world_news-weird_news/

Online safety for Kids Software Not So Innocent!

2009-09-06T10:16:00.000-04:00

Software firm faces scrutiny
Program that monitors kids' online activity also has capability to read chat messages
By DEBORAH YAO, Associated Press
Saturday, September 5, 2009

Parents who install a leading brand of software to monitor their kids' online activities may be unwittingly allowing the company to read their children's chat messages, and sell the marketing data gathered.

Software sold under the Sentry and FamilySafe brands can read private chats conducted through Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other services, and send back data on what kids are saying about such things as movies, music or video games.

The information is then offered to businesses seeking ways to tailor their marketing messages to kids.

"This scares me more than anything I have seen using monitoring technology," said Parry Aftab, a child-safety advocate. "You don't put children's personal information at risk."

The company that sells the software insists it is not putting kids' information at risk, since the program does not record children's names or addresses. But the software knows how old the kids are because parents customize its features to be more or less permissive, depending on age.

Five other makers of parental-control software contacted by The Associated Press, including McAfee and Symantec, said they do not sell chat data to advertisers.

The software brands in question are developed by EchoMetrix, based in Syosset, N.Y.

In June, EchoMetrix unveiled a separate data-mining service called Pulse that taps into the data gathered by Sentry software to give businesses a glimpse of youth chatter online.

While other services read publicly available teen chatter, Pulse also can read private chats. It gathers information from instant messages, blogs, social networking sites, forums and chat rooms.

EchoMetrix Chief Eexecutive Officer Jeff Greene said the company complies with U.S. privacy laws and does not collect any identifiable information.

What Pulse will reveal is how the youthful chatters feel about upcoming movies, computer games or clothing trends. Such information can help advertisers craft their marketing messages as buzz builds about a product.

Parents who don't want the company to share their child's information to businesses can check a box to opt out.

That option can be found only by visiting the company's Web site, accessible through a control panel that appears after the program has been installed.

It was not in the agreement contained in the Sentry Total Home Protection program The Associated Press downloaded and installed Friday.

According to the agreement, the software passes along data to "trusted partners."

Confidentiality agreements prohibit those clients from sharing the information with others.

As of 4:58pm 9-1-09 Google's gmail servers are down!

2009-09-01T17:00:00.000-04:00

As of 4:58pm 9-1-09 Google's gmail servers are down!
Google
Error

502
Server Error
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in 30 seconds.

Interesting Site of the Week

2009-08-25T12:54:00.000-04:00

Interesting Site of the Week:
Check out
http://www.felonspy.com/search.html
to find out what kind of 'element' lives in YOUR neighborhood!

AVG - iTunes issues

2009-08-03T17:17:00.001-04:00

A database update to antivirus software AVG over the weekend caused the software to quarantine the popular Apple store software iTunes. It viewed the iTunes’ library files as a Trojan virus.

“Unfortunately, a recent virus database update resulted in iTunes being detected as a Trojan by AVG security products. We can confirm that it was a false alarm. AVG immediately released a new virus database update (definition file 270.13.29/2260) that corrected this issue,” the company wrote in response to complaints on Apple’s support forums and its own official forums.

Source: AppleInsider

A Geek To Go Managed Services Program sets milestone in the Recession Years

2009-07-19T19:26:00.000-04:00

People are finally waking up and realizing that Managed Services are truly the way to go! No longer having to worry about updating your security, running scans and horrible support, referrals are driving mad interest to our M.S.P. program. While built primarily on a business-based model, we have tweaked it to support residential users as well, coupled with Mozy, the leader for online remote backups. Since most customers wince when their drives fail, because they have never backed up their data, they choose the Mozy way which offers unlimited automated remote storage to their servers in Utah. We can recover just about anything, but a managed computer with remote backup is the way to go!

Thanks to T. West of Georgetown for becoming our 50th MSP customer since we started last spring!

Online Safety for Kids webinars

2009-06-30T23:18:00.002-04:00

A Geek To Go!

is currently in development of a series of webinars (think web + seminar!) featuring video, animation and Powerpoint presentations that will run online every Saturday, starting in mid-summer. The webinar lasts a little over an hour and is completely free to the first 1,000 registrants. We'll teach parents how to keep your kids safe online by discussing social networking sites, chat rooms, instant messaging, cyberbullying, porn, games, violence, viruses and spyware. We'll show you where to go online to get more information on online safety, plus sites where you can download free security tools to protect your computer. It's a completely interactive seminar that allows you to chat live through a toll-free phone number or via a chat box on your screen to ask questions. Stay tuned to this blog for more updates and schedule postings!

New Facebook Virus!

2009-06-22T11:40:00.000-04:00

Look out, a new FB virus is on the rampage courtesy of Yvette Huggins. Don't click on http://rosetours.com/privatetube/

Jury rules against Minn. woman in download case

2009-06-19T13:55:00.000-04:00

By STEVE KARNOWSKI, Associated Press Writer Steve Karnowski, Associated Press Writer – 17 mins ago

MINNEAPOLIS – A replay of the nation's only file-sharing case to go to trial has ended with the same result — a Minnesota woman was found to have violated music copyrights and must pay huge damages to the recording industry.

A federal jury ruled Thursday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs, and awarded recording companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song.

Thomas-Rasset's second trial actually turned out worse for her. When a different federal jury heard her case in 2007, it hit Thomas-Rasset with a $222,000 judgment.

The new trial was ordered after the judge in the case decided he had erred in giving jury instructions.

Thomas-Rasset sat glumly with her chin in hand as she heard the jury's finding of willful infringement, which increased the potential penalty. She raised her eyebrows in surprise when the jury's penalty of $80,000 per song was read.

Outside the courtroom, she called the $1.92 million figure "kind of ridiculous" but expressed resignation over the decision.

"There's no way they're ever going to get that," said Thomas-Rasset, a 32-year-old mother of four from the central Minnesota city of Brainerd. "I'm a mom, limited means, so I'm not going to worry about it now."

Her attorney, Kiwi Camara, said he was surprised by the size of the judgment. He said it suggested that jurors didn't believe Thomas-Rasset's denials of illegal file-sharing, and that they were angry with her.

Camara said he and his client hadn't decided whether to appeal or pursue the Recording Industry Association of America's settlement overtures.

Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the RIAA, said the industry remains willing to settle. She refused to name a figure, but acknowledged Thomas-Rasset had been given the chance to settle for $3,000 to $5,000 earlier in the case.

"Since Day One we have been willing to settle this case and we remain willing to do so," Duckworth said.

In closing arguments earlier Thursday, attorneys for both sides disputed what the evidence showed.

An attorney for the recording industry, Tim Reynolds, said the "greater weight of the evidence" showed that Thomas-Rasset was responsible for the illegal file-sharing that took place on her computer. He urged jurors to hold her accountable to deter others from a practice he said has significantly harmed the people who bring music to everyone.

Defense attorney Joe Sibley said the music companies failed to prove allegations that Thomas-Rasset gave away songs by Gloria Estefan, Sheryl Crow, Green Day, Journey and others.

"Only Jammie Thomas's computer was linked to illegal file-sharing on Kazaa," Sibley said. "They couldn't put a face behind the computer."

Sibley urged jurors not to ruin Thomas-Rasset's life with a debt she could never pay. Under federal law, the jury could have awarded up to $150,000 per song.

U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, who heard the first lawsuit in 2007, ordered up a new trial after deciding he had erred in instructions to the jurors. The first time, he said the companies didn't have to prove anyone downloaded the copyrighted songs she allegedly made available. Davis later concluded the law requires that actual distribution be shown.

His jury instructions this time framed the issues somewhat differently. He didn't explicitly define distribution but said the acts of downloading copyrighted sound recordings or distributing them to other users on peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa, without a license from the owners, are copyright violations.

This case was the only one of more than 30,000 similar lawsuits to make it all the way to trial. The vast majority of people targeted by the music industry had settled for about $3,500 each. The recording industry has said it stopped filing such lawsuits last August and is instead now working with Internet service providers to fight the worst offenders.

In testimony this week, Thomas-Rasset denied she shared any songs. On Wednesday, the self-described "huge music fan" raised the possibility for the first time in the long-running case that her children or ex-husband might have done it. The defense did not provide any evidence, though, that any of them had shared the files.

The recording companies accused Thomas-Rasset of offering 1,700 songs on Kazaa as of February 2005, before the company became a legal music subscription service following a settlement with entertainment companies. For simplicity's sake the music industry tried to prove only 24 infringements.

Reynolds argued Thursday that the evidence clearly pointed to Thomas-Rasset as the person who made the songs available on Kazaa under the screen name "tereastarr." It's the same nickname she acknowledged having used for years for her e-mail and several other computer accounts, including her MySpace page.

Reynolds said the copyright security company MediaSentry traced the files offered by "tereastarr" on Kazaa to Thomas-Rasset's Internet Protocol address — the online equivalent of a street address — and to her modem.

He said MediaSentry downloaded a sample of them from the shared directory on her computer. That's an important point, given Davis' new instructions to jurors.

Although the plaintiffs weren't able to prove that anyone but MediaSentry downloaded songs off her computer because Kazaa kept no such records, Reynolds told the jury it's only logical that many users had downloaded songs offered through her computer because that's what Kazaa was there for.

Sibley argued it would have made no sense for Thomas-Rasset to use the name "tereastarr" to do anything illegal, given that she had used it widely for several years.

He also portrayed the defendant as one of the few people brave enough to stand up to the recording industry, and he warned jurors that they could also find themselves accused on the basis of weak evidence if their computers are ever linked to illegal file-sharing.

"They are going to come at you like they came at 'tereastarr,'" he said.

Steve Marks, executive vice president and general counsel of the Recording Industry Association of America, estimated earlier this week that only a few hundred of the lawsuits remain unresolved and that fewer than 10 defendants were actively fighting them.

The companies that sued Thomas-Rasset are subsidiaries of all four major recording companies, Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, EMI Group PLC and Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment.

The recording industry has blamed online piracy for declines in music sales, although other factors include the rise of legal music sales online, which emphasize buying individual tracks rather than full albums.

Google for Kids: SAFETY

2009-06-17T23:07:00.000-04:00

What is KidRex and how does it work?

www.kidrex.org

KidRex is a fun and safe search for kids, by kids! KidRex searches emphasize kid-related webpages from across the entire web and are powered by Google Custom Search and use Google SafeSearch technology.

Google's SafeSearch screens for sites that contain explicit sexual content and deletes them from your child’s search results. Google's filter uses advanced technology to check keywords, phrases, and URLs. No filter is 100 percent accurate, but SafeSearch should eliminate most inappropriate material.

In addition to Google SafeSearch, KidRex maintains its own database of inappropriate websites and keywords. KidRex researchers test KidRex daily to insure that you and your child have the best web experience possible.

We do our best to keep KidRex as up-to-date and comprehensive as possible, but inappropriate sites will sometimes slip through the cracks. If you find websites containing offensive content in your results, please visit our webpage removal request tool to tell us about the site you found.

While KidRex is not an 100 percent full proof way to keep kids from bad or malicious sites, we think it's a good start. For more pointers on keeping your family safe on the web, please read KidRex's Tips for Online Safety.

Will Microsoft's Free Antivirus App be Worth the Price?

2009-06-16T08:50:00.000-04:00

From PC World

Frank Ohlhorst

Jun 11, 2009 11:37 am

Microsoft is getting ready to offer Windows users a free antivirus product (code name Morro), something it should have built into one of its operating systems a long time ago. But, of course, Microsoft never makes things simple. So the big question is will Morro be worth the price?

Microsoft's goal is to offer the antivirus product as a hosted service, which is very different from what users have come to expect, especially when the word "free" is attached to the term "antivirus." After all, Grisoft and Avast have offered free versions of their antivirus products to PC users, and those free products are of the traditional download and install nature.

Microsoft says Morro will be released as a public beta "soon." There is no word on the final release. The big question here becomes will users entrust their security to Microsoft and what may be a half-baked beta product?

It is worth noting that Microsoft is claiming that "Morro" will be more than just a dedicated antivirus product. Microsoft is wrapping the term "real-time anti-malware" around the service. Morro will work by routing all of a users Internet traffic to a Microsoft datacenter, where the Morro application will process the traffic and identify and block malware in real time, by examining all of the rerouted traffic. That will give Morro a leg up on the free competition. The free products from Grisoft and Avast are merely antivirus products and don't address real-time malware threats.

By keeping Morro free, Microsoft has a lot to gain. First off it will help to sell Windows 7 when it hits the market in October. That will give Windows 7 the perception it has anti-malware technology built in (albeit, as a service). Secondly, Microsoft can use Morro as an avenue to force users to patch their systems -- quickly eliminating security flaws that are regularly discovered.

Finally, Morro will help Microsoft to build better products in the future, by being on the leading edge of malware protection. This helps Microsoft gain insight into how malware develops, spreads and infiltrates systems.

Of course a lot of questions remain about Morro. Questions that will need to answered quickly if Microsoft aims to succeed in the hosted antimalware area.

* Will Morro remain free forever?

* What user information will Microsoft gather with a Morro service?

* Will the service still protect when a user is not connected to the web?

* Will Microsoft keep the service as up to date as competing products?

* Will Morro be available for all Microsoft OSes?

* Will Morro noticeably impact performance?

Once there are solid answers to those questions, many will wonder what all of this will mean for the antivirus software market. Will a free security service from Microsoft push vendors such as Symantec, McAffe, Panda, Kaspersky, and others out of the market? The answer is probably not. Most of the security software vendors do a lot more than just desktop anti-malware -- the real expertise lies with protecting networks and providing products that prevent data leaks, kill spam and handle the other multitude of security ills that users can be exposed to.

At the very least, Morro should prove to be a marketing success for Microsoft, whether or not the service will be able to compete with commercial products is yet to be seen. At least the impression will be that Microsoft is concerned with security and is looking to protect their Desktop OS customers.

Security Patch Palooza: Microsoft Issues 31 Big Fixes Todd R. Weiss Jun 10, 2009 10:46 am

2009-06-11T02:37:00.000-04:00

Todd R. Weiss

Jun 10, 2009 10:46 am

It may be June, but Microsoft techies haven't turned their focus to summer vacations yet. Instead, company security engineers have been busy prepping 10 major software patches that fix 31 important security vulnerabilities in Windows, Office, and other Microsoft products. Eighteen of the vulnerabilities are classified by the company as "critical fixes."

Patches were delivered Tuesday via Windows Update and are targeted at Windows XP, and to a lesser degree Vista. Beta users of Windows 7 don't appear to have been included in the update. If your PC isn't set up to receive automatic updates -- it should be. Here is how.

Patches target the usual security suspects, such as new vulnerabilities found in Microsoft's own Internet Explorer Web browser. Also included with the updates is help for computers impacted by a rogue "antivirus" application called Internet Antivirus Pro. The purported antivirus program installs itself onto users' computers, then eats up huge resources as it slows systems down, flashes up constant pop-up messages (see above), and then downloads software that steals passwords and causes other havoc. Tuesday's Microsoft patches include a fix that can detect and help remove this rogue application, according to the security team.

Some Applications Get Patched, Others Not

Also included are patches for Windows, Excel, Word, and much more, all aimed at fixing the latest moderate- to critical-level security vulnerabilities recently uncovered.

One fix that didn't make it into this month's Patch Tuesday release was a patch to fix a generally rare vulnerability that involves DirectX and QuickTime. The security vulnerability can affect Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 users, but not Vista or Windows Server 2008 users, according to the company. The vulnerability can allow an intruder to take over control of a computer using an exploited QuickTime file. In the meantime, here's a workaround you can install to protect your PC from this possible vulnerability.

Still think Apple has no wormy holes?

2009-06-02T21:02:00.001-04:00

Apple Patches 10 Critical QuickTime Bugs

Gregg Keizer, Computerworld

Jun 2, 2009 9:39 am

Apple on Monday patched 10 critical vulnerabilities in QuickTime, including one that was hinted at in a Mac hacking book three months ago.

Eight of the bugs patched by QuickTime 7.6.2 affect both the Mac and Windows versions, while two others affect only QuickTime for Windows XP and Vista. Apple described all 10 as allowing "arbitrary code execution," a phrase it uses to describe the most serious threats that if exploited, could result in a PC or Mac hijacking. Unlike vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle, Apple doesn't rank the bugs it fixes with a scoring or labeling system.

Monday's update was Apple's second this year for the player, which has been patched a total of 17 times in 2009; last year, Apple patched 30 QuickTime vulnerabilities.

"They're what one would expect for QuickTime, file format processing bugs," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, in an instant message.

Storms had it right: All 10 vulnerabilities involved a file format issue of one sort or another. Three of the bugs were in how QuickTime parses movie files, two were in its handling of PICT image files and others were traced to problems dealing with JP2 (JPEG 2000), MS ADPCM-encoded (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) audio, PhotoShop and animation file formats.

Apple has patched dozens of file format flaws in QuickTime over the years. Last September, for instance, it dealt out patches for problems in parsing PICT images, QTVR (QuickTime Virtual Reality) files, QuickTime movies, H.264-encoded movies and Indeo-encoded video.

File format vulnerabilities, and lots of them, are to be expected with a program like QuickTime, said Pedram Amini, manager of security research at 3com's Austin, Texas-based TippingPoint. "QuickTime has a huge attack surface," said Amini, "because of all the file formats it supports."

Six of the vulnerabilities were reported or co-reported to Apple by TippingPoint's bug bounty program, the second time in the last three weeks that a cash-for-bugs scheme has contributed the majority of a vendor's flaws. Last month, TippingPoint's rival, VeriSign's iDefense, reported 10 of the 14 PowerPoint vulnerabilities patched by Microsoft.

The large number of bugs attributed to TippingPoint were a timing conicidence, said Amini. Although the company typically passes along vulnerability reports to vendors as soon as it's vetted the bugs, there are times it holds them, then presents a batch to the vendor. "If we have several submitted for the same application, we like to get a full view of all the vulnerabilities to make sure there aren't any that overlap," said Amini.

One of TippingPoint's half-dozen, the JP2 handling bug, was credited to Charlie Miller, a researcher with Independent Security Evaluators, and to Damian Put, a researcher who has sold bugs to TippingPoint in the past. Miller is undoubtedly the better known of the pair, having won large cash prizes two years running at the Pwn2Own hacking contest, held every March at the CanSecWest security conference.

Miller had revealed information about the JP2 bug in The Mac Hacker's Handbook, a how-to book he and Dino Dai Zov published in March. In an earlier interview, Miller said that he had not actually disclosed the vulnerability, but he had provided all the information a competent researcher needed to root it out.

TippingPoint, which was unaware of the clues Miller had given, paid Put for the bug, said Amini. "We got that bug about a month after the book came out," said Amini Monday. "That happens about once every two months, where we end up paying twice for the same bug."

However, Put used a slightly different approach to find the vulnerability, Amini argued. "His research was unique and he did some original work. And this wasn't his first Apple bug," he said.

nCircle's Storms warned users to take the QuickTime vulnerabilities seriously, even if bugs in the player have rarely been exploited. "Anytime you can simply open a movie file and inject malware is bad news," Storms said. "Especially given how much of the Internet is now used for multimedia. Most people don't expect to be attacked watching a movie -- unless it's a horror movie."

Apple also updated iTunes Monday, releasing Version 8.2 to fix a single critical vulnerability in parsing "itms:" URLs, and to prep the software for iPhone 3.0, the new operating system expected to launch next week at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference.

As is its practice, Apple skimped on details of the changes rolled into iTunes, although the Mac OS X Software Update noted: "iTunes 8.2 now supports iPhone or iPod touch with the iPhone 3.0 Software Update."

Mac users can upgrade to QuickTime 7.6.2 and iTunes 8.2 using the operating system's built-in Software Update feature, while Windows users can either download the new QuickTime and iTunes from the Apple support site or use the optional Windows update tool.

AOL and Time Warner: A Sympathy Note

2009-05-31T07:42:00.002-04:00

and that stupid merger cost me my job at CNN, thus turning me into A Geek To Go!-Miles West

Jeff Bertolucci

May 29, 2009 12:54 pm

Graphic: Diego Aguirre

I feel sorry for AOL, as strange as that sounds. The former ISP kingpin, which had the audacity to buy mighty Time Warner at the height of the Internet bubble in 2000 (ah, the ludicrously inflated market values of those halcyon days), will soon be spun off as a separate company. In other words, Time Warner, which stripped "AOL" from its corporate name years ago, is dumping its former partner.

"We believe AOL will then have a better opportunity to achieve its full potential as a leading independent Internet company," said Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes in a statement.

That's always what people say in a divorce. Better opportunity is code for don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Full potential? While I wouldn't say that Time Warner expects AOL to wither away and die, it sure looks that way. A quick look at AOL's prospects makes it clear why Time Warner has decided to move on.

While AOL remains a major Internet service provider with about 6.3 million subscribers, it has been letting that business waste away for years. It's hard to believe that, at its peak, AOL claimed as many as 34 million subscribers. But it lacked the infrastructure and management savvy to transition from dial up to broadband, and its ISP business remained stuck in the 90s. Today, AOL's primarily income source is its declining online advertising generated by its eclectic mix of content sites, including the AOL.com portal, gossip site TMZ.com, and MapQuest. There's a business model there, certainly, but AOL is small potatoes compared to competitors Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft -- not the Internet behemoth Time Warner wants it to be. (For a refresher, check out "20 Years of AOL Annoyances and Foul-Ups.")

AOL will solder on, but I doubt it'll ever reclaim its past glory -- or notoriety, depending on your point of view. The company formerly known as America Online was once The Great Satan to tech sophisticates. PC World contributor Dan Tynan efficiently summarized AOL's sins in his 2006 article, "The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time:"

"How do we loathe AOL? Let us count the ways. Since America Online emerged from the belly of a BBS called Quantum "PC-Link" in 1989, users have suffered through awful software, inaccessible dial-up numbers, rapacious marketing, in-your-face advertising, questionable billing practices, inexcusably poor customer service, and enough spam to last a lifetime. And all the while, AOL remained more expensive than its major competitors. This lethal combination earned the world's biggest ISP the top spot on our list of bottom feeders."

Yes, everything Dan wrote was true. So why do I feel sorry for AOL? Perhaps because its Time Warner split represents an end of an era. Then again, maybe not. Honestly, I'm not sure.

In the tech universe of the 90s, AOL users were the real nerds. Clueless newbies who needed the Internet with training wheels. An AOL e-mail address was the very definition of uncool.

I had an AOL e-mail address.

During those years I wrote a monthly Windows column for a now-defunct magazine called Computer Currents. My editor Robert Luhn, another AOL user, once wrote -- and I'm paraphrasing here -- that the main reason he kept his AOL e-mail account was because it pissed off the Internet snobs. I thought that was hilarious. It summed up my philosophy too.

There were times I'd be interviewing Web gurus who'd ask for my e-mail address. When I'd say, "aol.com," I'd often hear a snarky comment or a moment of stunned silence. One guy blurted out: "Oh, you (AOL) people are scum, JUST SCUM!"

He was joking, sort of.

I still use my AOL e-mail address, but the snarky comments ended years ago. Nobody cares about AOL anymore. The company may still be a viable business, but it has lost its power to influence or enrage.

The good news? Fewer CD-ROMs in landfills.

Microsoft Bing a Good Start, but No Game Changer

2009-05-29T08:58:00.001-04:00

Microsoft Bing a Good Start, but No Game Changer

Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service

May 28, 2009 6:20 pm

Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, will help the company gain some search share against Google and has features that users will find helpful, but it is in no way a quick fix for the company's poor position in the search market, analysts said.

As expected, on Thursday Microsoft revealed a rebranded and expanded search engine, which it's promoting as a "decision engine" aimed at helping people better organize search information and find what they're looking for more quickly. The news came after months of speculation about what Microsoft would call its next iteration of Live Search and what new features it would have.

To help users find information more quickly, Bing's algorithm ranks search results based on how relevant they were for other users. The interface also organizes results according to subcategories, depending on the search term, so that people can find the next likely piece of information they may be looking for quickly.

While some of these features deliver better search results than Google's in a side-by-side comparison, it's not a drastic enough change to make people migrate in droves, said Greg Sterling, a search analyst with Sterling Market Intelligence.

"It's a strong first step or a new salvo for them, but it's not going to dramatically alter the market as it stands today," and Microsoft recognizes this, he said. "Microsoft doesn't see this as the end of the process; they see this as a new beginning. I think there are interesting things they can do to continue to advance the features."

Sterling said Bing may not pull much share from Google, but it could lure users away from the search engines of AOL, Ask.com and possibly Yahoo, though Microsoft is still rumored to be close to some kind of search deal with Yahoo, which of course would change the competitive landscape.

Gartner Group analyst Allen Weiner agreed that Bing isn't presenting a radical new way to search the Web. "I don't see anything that you can say, wow, I can't do this on Google or Yahoo," he said.

For example, three areas that Weiner thinks represent the future of search -- data visualization, semantic search and rich media search -- are missing from Bing as it was introduced on Thursday. None of the other major search-engine companies have been able to tackle these areas either, but they are heading in that direction.

However, what Bing does provide Microsoft is a way to catch up to what competitors have now in terms of features, Weiner said.

"It's a marked improvement from Live Search," he said. "They've done a lot to make the interface more usable, to make it cleaner-looking -- a lot with the algorithms to make the search results on par with their competitors for most searches."

The name, which has been the subject of much debate, also differentiates the brand for Microsoft. One insider said Microsoft chose the name because "bing" represents the sound made when a person finds something they're looking for.

During an appearance at the D7 conference, where Microsoft unveiled Bing, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the name was chosen because it was short, worked for a global audience and didn't have any negative connotations

No matter what the reasons, Weiner said that with Bing Microsoft has a brand -- unlike its previous MSN or Live Search brands -- "that is marketable and quick off the tongue" and easily identifiable, but not tied to the Microsoft brand.

"They've carved out a niche for themselves like they did with Xbox," he said.

It remains to be seen how well Bing fares after its official debut next Wednesday. In the meantime, Google not only continues to add features to its own search engine but also is launching new online applications. On Thursday, the company revealed an ambitious product called Wave that combines e-mail, IM, blogging, photo management, wikis and document sharing.

"Google continues to remind the world they are spending lots of money and time in dictating the future of search," Sterling said. "They are not standing still by any stretch of the imagination."

STILL TRUST AOL?

2009-05-28T19:04:00.001-04:00

Time Warner Board Approves AOL Spinoff; Dial-Up Business To Remain With AOL

By David Kaplan - Thu 28 May 2009 05:36 AM PST

As expected, Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) (NYSE:TWX) confirmed that its board of directors has authorized the spinoff of AOL—making the internet unit an independent, publicly traded company following the proposed transaction. And, as we reported would be the case, AOL will keep the online-access subscription service.

Time Warner hopes to conclude the spinoff, which requires an SEC review, by the end of the year. The company also expects to buy back Google’s 5 percent stake as part of completing this transaction but there is no confirmation that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has agree to the terms or whether a agreed-upon valuation has taken place. The news sent Time Warner stock up slightly higher in pre-market trading.

Time Warner Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes said: “We believe that a separation will be the best outcome for both Time Warner and AOL. The separation will be another critical step in the reshaping of Time Warner that we started at the beginning of last year, enabling us to focus to an even greater degree on our core content businesses.” More from TW in the release and later this morning during the company’s annual meeting.

The move takes place at the roughly the midway point of new Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong’s “100 days” plan to assess AOL. Over the past few weeks, Armstrong has made some key personnel moves, including forcing Greg Coleman out as head of advertising, replacing him with his former Google colleague Jeff Levick in the broader role of head of AOL’ global advertising. And this past week, Bebo’s Joanna Shields stepped down as president of AOL’s People Network, following clear signals that her role and resources were to be diminished..

All of this will pave the way for a tighter, more integrated AOL. Under former CEO Randy Falco and COO Ron Grant, AOL had been separated into three distinct units: MediaGlow programming; People Networks, which in addition to Bebo, includes the instant messaging service AIM; and the once robust Platform-A advertising unit, which has fallen on hard times with the decline of display advertising. AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher reports that only MediaGlow will keep its autonomy, with Bill Wilson remaining as president.

Swisher also reports that Bebo and other acquisitions including Truveo and Userplane will be placed in AOL Ventures, with AOL trying to get venture capital investments for them. How Bebo will be carved out after a year of integration is unclear.

Why Google faces antitrust scrutiny.

2009-05-27T03:53:00.000-04:00

We all know how an auction works. The auctioneer sits up front and keeps calling for higher bids until there's one bidder left—and that person wins. Now imagine an auction where the auctioneer won't let you see the other bidders, but assures you they are there, on the other side of a curtain. The auctioneer won't tell you who the other bidders are; you're only told a range of prices that others have bid. And there's another twist: simply paying the most doesn't guarantee you'll win, because the auctioneer has created a system that lets some bidders win even when they pay less. You may not like this system, but you must participate because this auctioneer controls the bulk of the market.

Imagine that, and you have imagined Google. Most people think of Google as a free search engine—and it is that. But the real genius of Google was that it figured out that advertisers would pay to have their messages pop up when someone types in a keyword. For instance, a hotel chain might pay to show ads to anyone who types in "hotel in Phoenix." Those search ads now represent the biggest chunk of all Internet advertising. Google gets the lion's share, which has allowed it to amass such power that it may end up the target of a federal antitrust investigation.

TECHNOLOGY

How Well Do You Know Google?

Can you pass this trivia test—without looking up the answers on you-know-what?

The Feds are already sniffing around. The Department of Justice is examining possible antitrust issues in a deal Google has reached with authors to sell millions of books online. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating issues connected to the fact that Google and Apple share two board members, one of whom is Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Last year, when Google tried to make a search pact with Yahoo, federal regulators came close to bringing antitrust charges until Google walked away from the deal. Microsoft, a bitter rival, is pushing regulators to rein in Google—and it may or may not be a coincidence that one of Microsoft's outside law firms also represents TradeComet, a tiny New York company that in February sued Google, alleging antitrust violations. (Microsoft says it has nothing to do with that litigation.) Finally, the new head of antitrust enforcement in the Obama administration, Christine Varney, has vowed to take a tougher stance on antitrust than the Bush administration did. Last summer, speaking at a conference, Varney expressed concerns that Google had acquired a monopoly in Internet advertising.

Why all the fuss? Two thirds of all U.S. Internet searches take place on Google, while its nearest rivals, Yahoo and Microsoft, handle 20 percent and 8 percent, respectively, according to researcher eMarketer. If you hope to sell products over the Internet, you pretty much have to advertise on Google. To get placed at the top of the list of search results, you must outbid other advertisers. Google tells you only the range of prices others are willing to pay. And Google assigns each advertiser a "quality score," based on the relevancy of its ad. If Google deems your ad to be relevant, you pay less for the keyword than a bidder whose ad Google considers not very relevant. The idea, Google says, is to keep spammers from winning keyword bids and pulling users off to junky Web sites. (Yahoo and Microsoft assign quality scores too. The only difference is that Google has more market clout.) Google won't disclose the formulas it uses to assign quality scores, saying this would let spammers game the system. But who knows? You could be getting ripped off. An extra penny here and there could be worth millions to Google.

Google, of course, is the "Don't be evil" company, and it swears that it is operating in good faith. "We understand that as we get larger and more successful, there's going to be more scrutiny and more questions," says Adam Kovacevich, a Google spokesman. "[But] we think we have a good story to tell—we've done a lot to promote competition online."

Microsoft sets July kill date for Office 2000

2009-05-26T21:44:00.000-04:00

Don't forget, there's always free OpenOffice as an alternative!

Ends all support for buggy suite; also dumps Office Update site

By Gregg Keizer , Computerworld , 05/21/2009

Microsoft yesterday reminded Office 2000 users that it will discontinue security updates for the aged suite in less than two months as it drops all support for the software.

At the same time, the company also reminded users that it's dumping the Office Update site at the end of July, part of an effort to streamline update options.

Office 2000 falls off the support list on July 14 -- which is also Microsoft's "Patch Tuesday" for that month -- as it leaves what the company calls "extended" support. From that point on, Microsoft will no issue fixes, not even ones for critical vulnerabilities; instead, it expects users to move on to a newer suite.

By policy, Microsoft supports business software such as Office for a total of 10 years, half in "mainstream" support and the second half in the more limited support. Security updates are delivered for the entire 10-year stretch.

Microsoft launched Office 2000 in June 1999.

Office Update, which debuted alongside Office 2000, will also be killed, Microsoft said. "Starting August 1, 2009, Microsoft will discontinue support for the Office Update website," the company said in an entry to an Office engineering blog.

Users who have been using Office Update to grab patches will be redirected to the newer Microsoft Update site starting Aug. 1. "This move will allow us to provide a more simplified and consistent experience for users across Microsoft products," the blog post read.

Although Microsoft didn't say so, Office Update was unnecessary once it stopped supporting Office 2000, which was the only suite unable to use the Microsoft Update alternative.

Also getting the boot is the Office Inventory Tool, an enterprise management tool that lets IT administrators check Office 2000, Office XP, and Office 2003 patch status on machines remotely. Microsoft urged system administrators still wedded to Office Inventory to switch to Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

Microsoft may be dropping patch support for Office 2000, but that doesn't mean hackers won't be uncovering new vulnerabilities or using them to hijack machines. In fact, Office 2000 has been patched 15 times so far this year alone, 12 of which were labeled "critical," Microsoft's most serious threat ranking.

Just last week, Microsoft patched 10 bugs in PowerPoint 2000, the presentation maker in Office 2000.

Microsoft is currently working on Office 2010, but has not nailed down a ship date. Some users, however, will begin testing Office 2010 in July, the same month Office 2000 gets its death certificate.

Klingon Anti-virus Available for Download. Really.

2009-05-26T08:34:00.000-04:00

Klingon Anti-virus Available for Download. Really.

Erik Larkin

They walk the warrior's path and they devour horrible-looking bowlfuls of red worms, but hey, Klingons need malware protection too.

To help Worf and his compatriots in their trek for PC security, anti-virus maker Sophos has translated one of their tools into Klingon. Yes, really. It's now available as a free download from http://www.sophos.com/klingon-anti-virus/.

Sophos' Graham Cluely says the app is a working, translated version of Sophos' Threat Detection Test, which is not the full Sophos antivirus product, but can run an on-demand virus scan alongside your existing antivirus protection. The app (both the translated and English versions) isn't meant to replace AV, but to instead provide an additional scan to see if your current program has missed anything.

In an explanatory post, the company says it was actually asked by a (hot-blooded and prone to violence?) potential customer whether the software could be translated, and that it got help from a member of the Klingon Language Institute named naHQun in creating the translation.

As publicity stunts go, I have to say this is a fun one. I'd wonder if a Vulcan version was coming next, but maybe the pointy-ears are too logical to fall for the "Britney Spears Naked!!!" e-mails and don't need it. And if all this Star Trek-talk has you jonesing for more, take a look at "Star Trek Gear Fit for a Trekkie Lifestyle" and a new Star Trek iPhone game.

Source: Office Depot Associates Routinely Lie about Notebook Stock

2009-05-21T16:08:00.001-04:00

From LAPTOPMAG.com
March 10th, 2009 by Avram Piltch

Times are tough—apparently so tough that some associates at Office Depot are willing to turn notebook customers away if they aren’t spending enough on extras. According to several LAPTOP readers, including a current Office Depot employee we interviewed, the retailer’s sales staff are under such intense pressure to sell such “attachments” as Product Protection Plans and Tech Depot Services, that many will tell customers who turn down these services that the computer they asked for is not in stock, even when it’s sitting right in the stock room.

We first became aware of this problem a few weeks ago, when we went to our local Office Depot, looking for a Gateway LT1004U netbook. We were surprised by how aggressively the sales associate tried to convince us not to buy the system and then, when we said we still wanted it, how aggressively he tried to convince us to buy its corresponding tech services. When we posted about our experience on the LAPTOP blog, some surprising comments starting coming in from several different readers claiming to work for Office Depot.

Readers Raise the Alarm

“Not only do [we] sales people depend on the extra cash we earn from add-ons, if we do not sell them and make a quota, we get the shaft from our bosses and their bosses and their bosses,” reader Chris H. wrote.

A reader going by the moniker Office Depot Employee was more direct. This commenter wrote, “At store level, OD puts too much pressure on sales consultants and managers to sell the PPPs (Product Protection Plans) & TDS (Tech Depot Services). I know of several stores in my market that will ‘feel out’ the customer to see if they are the type to purchase these services. If the customer lets on that they only want the computer and no services … then that store simply claims to be out of stock! We are required to sell 30% + on both of these services or we get PIP’d (Performance Improvement Process) (or Written up) and get ultimately fired.”

Another reader using the alias OD tech sales Manager wrote, “Unfortunately, what you all have been commenting is very close to the truth of the matter. But not all Office Depots practice this unethical decision making … I don’t hesitate from selling my laptops even though they deny wanting these services. Why? Because like you said before. (sic) the quota is 30% so I can lose out on 7 laptops but get 3 and be okay still.”

Current Salesperson Spills the Beans

While e-mails sent to these first three commenters went unreplied, we were able to make contact with a fourth reader named Rich (last name withheld), who was willing to talk to us and even provided us with a pay stub to prove that he currently works at an Office Depot. In an extensive phone and e-mail interview, Rich said that he was always honest with customers but had been instructed to lie about notebook stock both by one of his four store managers and by a district manager.

“I have witnessed lying about the availability of a notebook, and have been told to do so myself,” Rich told us. ” Once I was talking to the customer and, while I am actually speaking, my manager comes on the radio and tells me to say it is out of stock if they aren’t getting anything with it. I always ignore him and sell it anyway because lying to the customer is flat-out wrong.”

Sales Quotas for Associates, Percentages for Managers

Rich told us that although lying about notebook stock is not official Office Depot policy, the chain’s tough quotas lead many managers and sales associates to game the system any way they can. Rich said that store managers are held to a strict minimum “attachment rating,” which is determined through a complex formula that weighs the value of “attachments”—services such as warranties and service plans or accessories like printer cables—against the number of tech products sold.

If a store’s attachment rating falls below 30 percent, the manager could face disciplinary action from higher-ups. Sales associates like Rich, however, are not held to a percentage, but to a weekly dollar amount. Rich said his current dollar amount is $200, and if he doesn’t hit that number, he faces warnings, and then termination in short order.

“Basically they drill it in your head that if you don’t sell PPPs, you’re gonna get fired. It’s gotten so bad to the point where the managers are starting to find loopholes in the system. They would rather sell one laptop with a PPP than ten laptops with nothing. They don’t care,” he said.

Tough Weekly Goals Determine Commissions

In addition to the stick of losing their jobs, Office Depot sales associates have the carrot of commissions for themselves and all of their co-workers if the store reaches or exceeds its attachment sales numbers. According to Rich, each store has its own daily sales goal for PPPs ($200 for Rich’s store; as much as $450 for others he knows). The daily goals are determined by a number of factors, including that store’s previous performance.

At the end of each week, the commission rate for all of the store’s sales associates is determined based on where the total amount of PPP sales stands in relation to the store’s goals for that week. If the store achieved more than 120% or more of its goal, all associates get 15% commission for the previous week’s sales. If the store achieved 100 to 120%, they get 10% commission. Eighty to 99 percent nets a 5% commission for associates, while falling below 80% of the goal means that associates get no commission at all, no matter how much they sold as individuals.

“One PPP could make or break how the entire store gets paid for commission that week,” he said. “That’s why they put such an emphasis on it.”

According to Rich, the price of a PPP ranges from $100 on the low end to as much as $495 for a multiyear plan on an expensive notebook. Rich told us that Office Depot typically charges $125 for extended protection on a $300 netbook. Tech Depot Services vary widely in price. A local Office Depot associate tried to sell us software installation on an optical-driveless netbook for $30 per program, but Rich told us the most common services for notebooks are trialware removal, “optimization,” and a year of McAfee Anti-Virus. All three services combined cost $99, though trialware removal alone starts at $29.

The Tech Depot Services are an especially vibrant profit center for Office Depot, with little cost and effort involved. According to Rich, some services are performed by remote workers who do little more than push a few buttons to install software.

“The software installation the associates do. We will install everything,” Rich said. “The service where we install McAfee and get rid of all the trialware—the way it works is that we hook it up to our tech bench and a remote person will take over the computer and then they’ll basically run a little uninstall wizard that does everything for them. They’re basically just clicking a few buttons and it just does it.”

Why Associates Lie

Rich also told us that there is no commission at all just for selling a notebook without any attachments. So there’s no financial incentive for salespeople to help customers who don’t want protection plans or tech services.

Considering that the manager is held to a minimum attachment rating, but the associates are only held to a total dollar amount, we wondered why the associates would lie to customers and tell them a notebook was out of stock when it neither harms nor helps their individual stats. Rich explained that sales associates are both concerned about the store’s attachment rating and about losing the opportunity to sell each an individual laptop to a PPP or TDS-buying customer.

“Ideally, they want every single laptop to go out with a warranty, so if you sell one, that’s one opportunity that’s gone,” Rich said. “They figure if they don’t sell it, someone else will come in and get it, especially if it’s a laptop that’s in the ad that a lot of people are going to come in . . . They figure they’re going to sell it eventually. You might as well do it to someone that’s going to get something with it.”

Rich said that a typical Office Depot has at most one or two of each regular-priced notebook in stock at any given time, with a maximum of 5 units for sale circular items. He told us that employees aren’t too concerned about running out of stock, because a truck comes with new supplies at least three times a week, more frequently during peak sales times such as back-to-school.

The Scope of the Problem

Without doing a comprehensive survey of dozens or hundreds of Office Depot employees, it’s difficult to tell just how widespread the problem of lying sales associates has become. We know from our reader comments that the problem is not limited to Rich’s store alone, but we hear from Rich that not every associate lies and not every manager encourages their sales people to lie.

“As far as not-selling, I’ve heard about it from other stores. The original one [store] that I worked at, it wasn’t really too bad. They only time they told me not to sell something to someone was a customer who came in once a week and bought a computer and then returned it two days later. Other than that, that store was pretty good,” Rich recounted. “This one [the manager at his current store], his thing is to really get the warranty, to get as much as possible. He’s told me repeatedly to not sell a computer if you’re not getting anything with it.”

According to Rich, the district manager once visited his store and told all the associates to lie.

“We did get told by the district manager one time to talk to the customer, figure out what they want, do your normal sales routine, and figure out what they’re going to get,” he said. “Offer them the PPP. Offer them the TDS and then, if they’re going to get it, go check to see if we have it in stock and, if we do, bring it out to them. If they’re not going to get anything with it, just go check to see if we have it and then come back and say ‘oh, we’re out of stock on it.’”

We tried more than once to investigate this very claim by visiting a local Office Depot branch here in Manhattan, but were told that the laptop we wanted was in stock when we sent a LAPTOP staff writer undercover to purchase a notebook without any PPP or TDS plans. So either our local Office Depot is an honest branch or we got an honest sales associate.

Office Depot’s Response

We contacted Office Depot corporate and shared some of the things Rich had told us, along with our other reader’s comments. Their response in its entirety is as follows:

We certainly appreciate your bringing this situation to our attention. Our objective is to sell merchandise and to offer and recommend solutions to our customers, without regard to whether a customer purchases or does not purchase a service warranty or a software package. Office Depot has been recognized with numerous awards for our commitment to customer service, so please know that we take this issue very seriously and will take the necessary steps to ensure that we continue to enhance the customer experience and promote quality in our customer-related processes. With respect to your inquiry, we intend to look into the situation further, as part of our continuing commitment to ensuring customer satisfaction and consistent selling practices.

Update: Office Depot has issued a more detailed response.

How to Get What You Want

So what do you do if you want to buy a notebook at Office Depot, but you don’t want a protection plan or Tech Depot Services? You have a few options:

Be honest with the sales associate in telling them you don’t want the services and hope that they are being honest with you about the stock. There’s a good chance they are.
Lie to the sales associate, tell them you want an extended warranty, and then pretend to change your mind after he brings your notebook out of the back room.
Use the store’s own inventory computer to check stock. Rich says that there are computers throughout the store that associates use that are also meant for customer use. If you grab the merchandise ticket for the notebook you want and enter its 6-digit SKU number into the item lookup box on the inventory computer, a screen will appear that shows whether the notebook is in stock. If the number of items in stock is either 1 or 0, it’s out of stock because item #1 is the floor model. Of course, it’s always possible a sales associate could still lie to you and tell you the remaining notebooks are on hold for another customer or that the computer is wrong.

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Source: Office Depot Associates Routinely Lie about Notebook Stock