Phishing Attacks Skyrocket PC World has a great piece on the devastation being caused by "Phishing" or spoofing commercial websites by creating a site that looks like eBay for example, but is actually just stealing your identity.
According to their article, "The results suggest that as many as 30 million adults have experienced a phishing attack and that 1.78 million adults could have fallen victim to the scams, Gartner says. Phishing attacks typically begin with e-mail messages purporting to come from established companies such as EBay, Best Buy, Citigroup, and others. Web page links within the e-mail messages direct recipients to Web sites disguised as official company Web pages where the recipient is asked to enter personal information such as their social security number, account number, password, or credit card information."
Gadgets of the Future: The Shape of Things to Come No one loves gadgets of the future more than us, but Wired News has a round-up of bizzare gadgets that look well, complex and a little overblown. (Tell the truth, doesn't the photo on the left look a little like a toilet?) Since the best gadgets are the easiest to use out of the box, we wonder if these will ever see the light of day, but it's still fun to take a look at some of the directions advanced gadgety is taking. # Permalink
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THE LATEST NEWS
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Cinco de Mayo It's not Mexican Independence Day. It's the commemoration of the Battle of Puebla during which a smaller bunch of Mexican soldiers killed a larger bunch of French soldiers who had been sent to Mexico by Napoleon III (rumored to have really hated the USA) to nation build the country with a French accent. It's doubtful that the remnants of the Mexican army actually celebrated with Cuervo Gold after the battle. About a year, and some 30,000 French troops later, Mexico did fall under French domination and Nappy's relative, Archduke Maximilian of Austria, was appointed ruler of Mexico. Some five years later, with political and military assistance from the gringos to the North, all that remained of the French was Maximilian's bullet riddled vest, currently on display in the museum at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City.
The tie-in with technology? A USB 2.0 version of DOS XX has been proposed to eliminate the bottleneck but there's little hope of it actually ever being produced. # Permalink
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Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Album Gets Ringtone-Only Release Cellphone ringtones are definitely getting more musical, but are we ready for a ringtone-only record release? Panda Babies by the band Super Smart decided to release their album via cellphone to avoid major labels. Sounds like a gimmick to us, but it is another surprise kick in the teeth to the beleagured music biz. # Permalink
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IRS Warns of Fraudulent E-Mail Looks like identity theft is getting a little help from the IRS. Or rather, that the IRS is so scary, people getting these emails must lose their minds and let their guard down.
According to AP Newswire, "The Internal Revenue Service on Friday warned consumers about an identity theft operation that tries to elicit personal information from taxpayers by sending e-mails alleging they're the subject of a tax investigation.
"Neither the Treasury Department nor the Internal Revenue Service send e-mails to taxpayers about issues related to their accounts. The official-looking e-mail tells recipients they can dispute the tax fraud charge by logging onto a web site and providing detailed personal information like Social Security numbers, credit card numbers and driver's license numbers."
Sasser Worm Creates Havoc Devastating Worm Du Jour Dept.: Another internet worm is causing widespread problems across the globe. Introducing, Sasser. According to The Register, "Since its arrival on Saturday, Sasser has spawned three new versions. None spread by email. Each targets vulnerable Win 2000 and XP PCs.
"When launched, the worm registers itself in the system registry and begins to aggressively scan IP addresses for PCs which have the vulnerability described in MS04-011. A vulnerable computer will accept commands to download and launch copies of the worm. Downloading is carried out by the FTP protocol. As with Blaster, infected systems will often become unstable, but it's the aggressive scanning behaviour associated with the worm that's causing the most problems." # Permalink
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Underwater MP3 Player Forget the silence of the deep, now scuba divers can rock out 200 meters below the ocean's surface thanks to the H20 Audio, the first true underwater MP3 player. At $399 for 64MBs of storage, the price is steep, but it should offer enough tunes before you have to come up for air. # Permalink
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No one loves gadgets of the future more than us, but Wired News has a round-up of bizzare gadgets that look well, complex and a little overblown. (Tell the truth, doesn't the photo on the left look a little like a toilet?) Since the best gadgets are the easiest to use out of the box, we wonder if these will ever see the light of day, but it's still fun to take a look at some of the directions advanced gadgety is taking.
It's not Mexican Independence Day. It's the commemoration of the Battle of Puebla during which a smaller bunch of Mexican soldiers killed a larger bunch of French soldiers who had been sent to Mexico by Napoleon III (rumored to have really hated the USA) to nation build the country with a French accent. It's doubtful that the remnants of the Mexican army actually celebrated with Cuervo Gold after the battle. About a year, and some 30,000 French troops later, Mexico did fall under French domination and Nappy's relative, Archduke Maximilian of Austria, was appointed ruler of Mexico. Some five years later, with political and military assistance from the gringos to the North, all that remained of the French was Maximilian's bullet riddled vest, currently on display in the museum at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City. 
Cellphone ringtones are definitely getting more musical, but are we ready for a ringtone-only record release? Panda Babies by the band Super Smart decided to release their album via cellphone to avoid major labels. Sounds like a gimmick to us, but it is another surprise kick in the teeth to the beleagured music biz.
Looks like identity theft is getting a little help from the IRS. Or rather, that the IRS is so scary, people getting these emails must lose their minds and let their guard down. 
Forget the silence of the deep, now scuba divers can rock out 200 meters below the ocean's surface thanks to the H20 Audio, the first true underwater MP3 player. At $399 for 64MBs of storage, the price is steep, but it should offer enough tunes before you have to come up for air.