Receive an e-mail notification of new posts on this site:
|
|
|
Webitz - Checking out the Web from an amateur's point of view
Some of the joyful things we can look forward to in this New Year.
Zombies: no, not the horror movie kind, but a name for computers that have had their security breached, and then are remotely controlled in order to distribute spam. Keep your security measures up!
Watch out for data leakage. Many companies focus on stopping the enemy coming in, but forget that walls can be breached in two directions. Sensitive material, copyrighted programmes, protected information and intellectual property can all fall victim to data leakage. Find out how to avoid this!
Image spam: innocent-looking pictures turn up in your email; there seems to be nothing else harmful in the email, so it must be okay. Except that the image itself is harbouring a virus. Keep on thinking carefully about what you open!
Email-based worms haven't gone away. They may specifically target multimedia files, and applications. Make sure you've got all your security in place...and functioning.
Just a word about security, however. I recently bought a copy of Macafee and downloaded it, because I'd used Macafee elsewhere and it seemed to work well. Unfortunately, they've added a Phishing section to it, and as soon as I tried to work on the Net, every webpage took the Web equivalent of an eternity to load. Some wouldn't load at all. It took a call - to India, by the sound of it - to figure out what was causing the problem.
And the latest Internet Explorer also has some quirks I could do without: trying to add links to Orble has begun to be a problem, taking about three different clicks to work, instead of one as in the past. Ah, progress, thy name is sometimes Mud.
I'd never heard of a 419 scammer until today, when curiously, by chance, our local newspaper published an article on scam-baiting on and wasting scammers' time. Out-scamming scammers sounded too much like hard work to me, and I wasn't much impressed by the idea of being murdered, as supposedly some scam-baiters have been.
I only appreciated what 419 meant when I read that this is the number of the section of the Nigerian penal code that scammers break. Well, it's good to know there's a code that can be broken.
But the biggest mystery remains: why are so many of these scams from Nigeria in the first place? What is it about Nigeria that makes them come up with these ridiculous emails about relatives dying and leaving them incredible fortunes that just happen to be in your part of the world?
You'd think people wouldn't fall for them - at least not now that they've become so common - but apparently they still do. A Christian minister here in New Zealand got touched in the heart by one such email and followed it through, and got so caught up in the web of nonsense that eventually he couldn't tell the truth from the lies (or the lies from the lies, might be more accurate). And worse, he'd no sooner disentangle himself than he'd be off again, caught by yet another pleading email from some crafty crook who knew a fool when he found one.
Most of us will have become familiar with the term, Phishing (pronounced fishing, of course). It involves emails that seem to come from authentic companies, particularly banks (and Paypal as well) which generally ask us to update our details by clicking on a link in the email. Instead of this taking us to the genuine site, it takes us to a look-alike where, if we leave our details, they can be used for nefarious purposes.
In other words, these emails come from crooks.
Why ‘phishing’? My guess is that it relates to fishing – to see if someone will take the bait, along with the ph of phoney…for phoney emails. But I’m only guessing.
Another newish word on the scene is Fuzzing. Put simply, fuzzing is the use of artificial intelligences to test software applications for bugs so that the applications can eventually be exploited. It’s rather more complex than most of want to know, but if you’re keen, there’s an excellent but anonymous explanation here. This fellow, before he’s gone a paragraph into his talk is introducing words like spike, scapy, smudge and protos, all words connected with fuzzing, because they’re various kinds of tools. Check this out. It may be well worth familiarising yourself with.
And a third new word is Vishing. I’m vishing there weren’t so many new words in the computer scene, because they all seem to smack of something nasty. (I haven’t even got to the new use of Zombies yet – maybe tomorrow.)
Vishing is another form of identity theft. In this case, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), and inexpensive and anonymous tool is used to dial phone numbers sequentially. An automated recording is played when the phone is answered, and unsuspecting consumers are directed to call an ‘anti-fraud free call number.’ That’s the dangerous part, and taking that step is likely to lead to your information being taken from you illegally. If you answer the recording on the free call number you’ll be giving away your personal and credit card information.
Solicitor and tech consultant Justin Patten has set up a wiki (a website on which anybody can add to the content) to help him write a book about blogging and social media from the legal perspective.
This somewhat new approach to publishing (although see two other examples below) is so the publishers can ‘know that the content will deliver what the market wants.’
Jurgen Wolff, from whom I picked up this information, thinks that people won’t contribute unless there’s some incentive – at the very least, an acknowledgement in the book (could be a very long acknowledgements section). I’m not so sure. Already people are offering information and seemingly, without desire of recompense. Have a look for yourself and see what you think
[ Click here to read more ]
Back in 1999, Mark Hughes persuaded the tiny town of Halfway, Oregon, to change its name to Half.com, Oregon, as an advertising stunt. The persuasion came with $100,000 and 20 new computers for the town.
Half.com itself was built from no users to 8 million users over three years when Hughes was vice president of marketing. According to his bio, he did this by out-thinking versus out-spending.
I like creative thinking people. I’ve collected a number of books on the subject of creativity over the years (all of them borrowed at different times by my son, who’s equally into the subject). The only person I’ve never been able to get with much is the famed lateral thinker, Edward de Bono, who not only seems to be more of a self-marketer than a creative thinking man, he also rehashes his ideas over and over in his books. That’s by the by. Still, he can be credited with the huge move forward in creative thinking
[ Click here to read more ]
For some time my wife was learning sign language. In her case it was the Australasian version, which is different to the US version. (Sign language has dialects as well.)
She went to classes, and she bought an enormous book of signs, which was a bit of a trial to trawl through.
While doing a post for my other blog, I came across the lifeprint.com site, where a host of animated gifs are located. These are the American Sign Language ‘signs’ for a whole host of words. Check out earthquake, or 2397, or above average, or vampire (found under 'bat-vampire) or computer, or disgusted, just to name a few
[ Click here to read more ]
When I first noticed comments appearing on my other site, I was puzzled by some of the content. They would start off as something – it seemed – relating to the topic, and then, with dizzying lack of logic, hive off to some site not in the least connected with what had been said.
Of course I realised these were some kind of spam, but equally I didn’t want to stop legitimate people making comments on the blog.
I don’t know where Blogger has now achieved some sort of approach that stops these comments from appearing (I’ve only had legit ones lately) but certainly things have improved
[ Click here to read more ]
Yesterday, somehow or other, I came across a site called It’s In My Way! (although I see they’ve even left the apostrophe out of the page title). I think I must have had got a link to it from some other site.
Anyway, it appealed to me rather, because it’s based on the idea of recycling, something that’s fairly dear to my heart. I’ve had a bit of a look around it today, and though I hate the design (it uses that formula design that’s so prevalent on forums, with tiny fonts) it does have a neighbourly feel about it.
People want to swap things so that some other person can get use out of what they don’t want, and vice versa. Someone appears to be swapping a Ford Fiesta for a laptop. He hasn’t had any takers yet. Wait! It isn’t a computer-type laptop he’s after but a trail/dirt bike. O…K
[ Click here to read more ]
Bill and Mike discuss life - and also who's taking up the most room on the chair
Firstly, welcome to this new blog, which doesn't replace my other one at Orble, just adds to the amount of work I need to do each day...!
No doubt everyone has heard of the word, widget, usually meaning something that isn't of much importance, or is made in quantity, or doesn't already have a particular name
[ Click here to read more ]
More Posts
213 Posts dating from January 2007
Email Subscription
Receive e-mail notifications of new posts on this blog:
Mike Crowl's Blogs
13012 Vote(s)
199 Comment(s)
284 Post(s)
|
|
|
Add Comments
Read More
Comments (3)
