PC & IT 01 (May 08 - Oct 08)

[winston]

It's Good to Know: Never Be Stuck With a Wacky Username Again

Many websites, from social networking sites to eBay, require you to register before you can get started. But picking out a username that's not already in use by someone else - and is easy for people to remember - can be tricky.

For a one-stop solution, go to UserNameCheck.com. This free service will check a variety of registration sites to see if your desired username is available.

(Source: Lifehacker)

[millionairemind]

Beware the digital zombies
By John Markoff Published: October 21, 2008
REDMOND, Washington: In a windowless room on Microsoft's campus here, T. J. Campana, a cybercrime investigator, connects an unprotected computer running an early version of Windows XP to the Internet. In about 30 seconds the computer is "owned."

An automated program lurking on the Internet has remotely taken over the PC and turned it into a "zombie." That computer and other zombie machines are then assembled into systems called "botnets" — home and business PCs that are hooked together into a vast chain of cyber-robots that do the bidding of automated programs to send the majority of e-mail spam, to illegally seek financial information and to install malicious software on still more PCs.

Botnets remain an Internet scourge. Active zombie networks created by a growing criminal underground peaked last month at more than half a million computers, according to shadowserver.org, an organization that tracks botnets. Even though security experts have diminished the botnets to about 300,000 computers, that is still twice the number detected a year ago.

The actual numbers may be far larger; Microsoft investigators, who say they are tracking about 1,000 botnets at any given time, say the largest network still controls several million PCs.

"The mean time to infection is less than five minutes," said Richie Lai, who is part of Microsoft's Internet Safety Enforcement Team, a group of about 20 researchers and investigators. The team is tackling a menace that in the last five years has grown from a computer hacker pastime to a dark business that is threatening the commercial viability of the Internet.

Fully story
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/21/ ... botnet.php

[winston]

It's Fun to Know: How Google Protects Your Reputation

When intoxicated people, with limited judgment and in a heightened emotional state, pick up the phone, they sometimes call people they shouldn't, say things they shouldn't, or in some other way make fools of themselves. It's called "drunk dialing" - and Google wants to protect its Gmail users from the Internet equivalent: drunk e-mailing.

A new Google feature - "Mail Goggles" - can be activated during late evening hours, or whenever you choose. In order to send an e-mail during that time, you first have to pass a "sobriety test" that consists of math problems. If you're sober enough to do the math - or realize you can just use a calculator - you're probably okay to send the e-mail.

(Source: marketingvox.com; gmailblog.blogspot.com)