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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 09 Issue 38
Volume 9, Issue 38 Atari Online News, Etc. September 21, 2007
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2007
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Pierre Ton-That
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #0938 09/21/07
~ Foreclosure Web Site! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Internet Tax Ban?
~ New Interactive Ads! ~ Fraud Infests E-Cards! ~ Belgium On eBay!
~ Classifying Malware! ~ Cookie Notification? ~ New USB 3.0 Spec!
~ Clever New Hacks Alarm ~ Web Binge, User Dies! ~ Litchi Minor Update
-* Digital Smiley Face Turns 25 *-
-* EU Court Dismisses Microsoft Appeal *-
-* Britain To Combat Cyber-Bullying In Schools *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
What a week! Working on a golf course in New England, in mid-September,
can be really cold some mornings! For the first half of the week, we had
to delay going out on the course due to frost! However, as the days
progressed, layers of clothing were coming off from hour to hour! And
the best part was that the latter part of the week was great - just in
time for me to enjoy a couple rounds of golf!
Not many rounds of golf left for this season, though. Amazing, but a few
days after I get a year older, another summer ends. Well, that can't be
helped - it's a calendar thing. But fall is here, and that's another
great season. A little cooler temps, leaves starting to change,
Halloween, pumpkins, Thanksgiving, and everything else. Autumn in New
England is something special!
So, while I start thinking about fall apples, maple sugar candy, and all of
the rest of the goodies that autumn has to offer, I'll let you dig into this
week's issue.
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
Litchi 1.0C
Bonsoir :)
Small update (released to help someone with his backups). If you have no
problem with your current version, then leave it and please wait for the
1.1
Download at my homepage or in directly in the folder
http://rajah.atari.org/files/ -> litchi10c_uk.zip (100KB)
News:
+ folders download (but not yet their contents)
+ upload and download of files to big to fit in memory (careful, do not kill
this program, due to disk access while transferring)
+ local port indicated in the console (maybe help some ftp opening)
Tried with a big ZIP file and huge PNG image, seems to work okay, but
please verify your big up/downloaded files.
Now will study the download of folder contents...
Voilà
-- Pierre TON-THAT - Rajah Lone / Renaissance
http://ptonthat.club.fr
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
[Editor's note: Due to the sparse number of messages in the Atari
newsgroups this week, there will be no People Are Talking column this
week.]
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Downstream Panic! Announced!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Metroid Prime 3 For Wii!
Sony Delays 'Home'!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Atari Announces Downstream Panic!
Atari, Inc. announced that it will publish Downstream Panic! The game will
offer unpredictable, fast-paced, tactical puzzle-action that places
players in the position of a sea-creature preservationist out to save the
world from a fantastic cyclone that has blasted the world's fish into the
Earth's atmosphere. It is up to the player to protect fish from land,
predators and other obstacles through the use of a variety of innovative
tools as they guide fish on their descent back into the ocean. Developed
by Eko Software, Downstream Panic! for the PSP (PlayStation Portable)
system is expected to ship early 2008.
"Fans of fast-paced puzzle games will fall in love with this new twist on
the fish-out-of-water idea," said Donny Clay, producer, Atari, Inc. "We
are thrilled to deliver this fun and interesting spin on the puzzle genre
and look forward to publishing this title for the PSP system."
In Downstream Panic! players will save their scaly sea-friends in more
than 80 different levels with five different customizable environments.
Three different game modes (adventure, free play and survival) bring more
of a challenge to the aquatic mix. With more than 10 hours of standard
gameplay and downloadable content, Downstream Panic! aims to offer more
than just the average PSP system puzzle fare.
'Metroid Prime 3: Corruption' Hits Bull's Eye On Wii
The next step in the evolution of Samus Aran is whopper.
Nintendo bounty hunter and icon sets her sights on the Wii in Metroid
Prime 3 Corruption, a gratifying sequel and the franchise's most immersive
to date.
Metroid's foray into motion control is just the start. Samus' latest
adventure takes a traditional gaming genre and makes it palatable to
players of any skill level.
Samus' tale in Corruption starts with a probe into a virus that's
infected the Galactic Federation's computer network. During a debriefing,
the Federation's base is attacked by rival Dark Samus and a crew of
pirates.
Near the end of battle, Samus and other bounty hunters become infected
with a virus-like element called Phazon. The Federation creates suits to
harness the Phazon's power, but the slow process of corruption has already
begun.
The Wii controls are a perfect fit for Metroid Prime 3. Samus' signature
cannon is mimicked through the remote. The remote also doubles as your
camera, moving your viewpoint as you wave the remote in any direction. You
simply point and press the A button to fire, or hold down A and release
for a stronger blast. If you're desperate for an attack boost, you can
enter Hypermode and unleash a Phazon-powered cannon attack.
But the motion controls go beyond simply shooting. Twisting and pulling on
latches opens doors. Pointing to numbered keypads accesses high-security
environments. Corruption's best secondary action is the grapple feature.
When you see a grapple icon, lock on and flick the nunchuk forward to snag
your target. A quick jerk back rips hunks of metals off walls, shields
from enemies, or other debris crossing your path.
The nunchuk also houses the incredibly effective Lock-On system. Pressing
Z fixes Samus to a specific target, allowing you to strafe opponents
easily. What's more impressive is the ability to freely aim wherever you
choose. You can lock on to one opponent while shooting another that may be
approaching quickly. It can get tricky at times, especially during the
more heated boss battles, but it's fairly easy to adjust. Switching to the
scan and ship visors is equally intuitive.
Most missions are puzzle based, requiring you to flip between morph ball
and regular mode to move through levels to your goal. Combat is solid,
although most mid-level battles lack intensity.
Fortunately, boss battles are highly gratifying. During one particularly
intense conflict on the planet Elysia, you have to defeat your enemy while
plummeting down a bottomless shaft. None of the bosses are real pushovers,
and the fights are more intense as you advance.
Metroid's metamorphosis from an '80s-era side-scroller to a first-person
epic has been fun to watch. Corruption's engrossing adventure utilizing
the Wii's unique controls takes the franchise to the next level.
Sony Delays 'Home' Virtual World For PS3
In yet another embarrassing delay for Sony, the company is putting off the
start of its "Home" virtual world services for the PlayStation 3,
initially planned for later this year, until next spring.
The announcement Thursday came from Kazuo Hirai in his first major public
appearance as the new chief executive of Sony Corp.'s video game business,
Sony Computer Entertainment.
"We wanted to wait until we could offer what would be totally satisfying
for consumers," Hirai said in a keynote speech at the Tokyo Game Show, an
annual event where game machines and new software are shown.
"Home" is a real-time interactive online world much like Linden Lab's
"Second Life" and other so-called "metaverse," except it's designed for
PlayStation 3, Sony's newest home console.
Millions of people now enter "Second Life" on personal computers, moving
avatars, or computer graphics images of themselves, in a virtual universe.
Major companies are also setting up shop in "Second Life," and analysts
see great potential for such virtual worlds as a communication tool and
real-life business.
Sony officials have shown the demonstration video of "Home" with much
fanfare on various occasions, promising new kinds of businesses, such as
advertising and electronic shopping, as well as games.
The product's delay is the latest trouble Sony has had with the
PlayStation3, whose European launch had to be postponed for several months
due to production problems.
Hirai, named in November as president, replacing Ken Kutaragi, the "father
of the PlayStation," sounded apologetic in several places during his
speech, acknowledging that the PlayStation 3 had failed to live up to the
company's sales targets.
He promised to listen more to complaints and suggestions from game
software creators and game fans to improve the PlayStation 3 business.
"The results we have produced so far have been unfortunate," he said at
Makuhari Messe hall of the more than 5 million global sales for the
PlayStation 3, which went on sale late last year in Japan and the U.S.
and in March in Europe.
Sony once dominated the gaming industry with PlayStation 2, predecessor
for the PS3, but now faces intense competition from Microsoft Corp.,
which has sold 11.6 million Xbox 360 machines in the last two years, and
from Nintendo Co.'s popular Wii, which has sold 9.3 million units since
late last year.
Hirai showed a new remote controller for the PlayStation 3, "Dualshock
3," that will vibrate along with games such as the shock of impact of a
sword hitting an object or a race car swerving. Old games will require
download upgrades.
The controller goes on sale in November in Japan and next spring in the
U.S. and Europe, he said.
Hirai said the core strategy would be to position the PlayStation 3 as a
game machine as well as a way to view next-generation Blu-ray disc video.
"We must get back to the basics," he said.
Hirai, who formerly headed Sony Corp.'s North American gaming business,
has fueled some expectations about a new strategy at the electronics
maker.
The departure of Kutaragi, an icon among gamers, marked the end of an era
at Sony when it dominated the video game industry with its flagship
PlayStation.
Hirai became president in December, but became also chief executive in
June. Kutaragi remains honorary chairman at Sony's gaming unit.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
EU Court Dismisses Microsoft Appeal
The European Union's second-highest court affirmed the EU's nine-year
pursuit of Microsoft Corp., rejecting the software maker's appeal and
strengthening the bloc's hand as it pushes ahead with cases against other
major technology companies.
The European Court of First Instance ruled Monday the European Commission
was correct in concluding that Microsoft used its dominance in desktop
computers to muscle into server software and media players in the 1990s -
and that Microsoft still poses similar threats.
It also upheld the record 497 million euro ($613 million) fine imposed on
the company in 2004 - the largest ever levied by EU regulators.
The resounding victory for the EU - successful on all but one point -
cements Europe's role as the lead international regulator of
market-dominant companies around the world. The EU persisted with its case
against Microsoft even as the U.S. Justice Department settled in 2001 and
many of the original plaintiffs dropped out.
"In global markets, the antitrust policy that matters is the most
restrictive one," said M.J. Moltenbray, a partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus
Deringer LLP.
In the last two months, EU regulators have charged Intel Corp. and Rambus
Inc. with antitrust abuse. This week, it will hold closed hearings in
which Apple Inc. will defend itself against allegations that it restricts
customer choice with separate national iTunes stores. And Google Inc.
will soon have to seek EU approval to take over DoubleClick Inc., a deal
some rivals claim will give Google too much power over personal data and
online ads.
"The decision very clearly gives the Commission quite broad power and
discretion," Microsoft lawyer Brad Smith said. "There are many companies
in our industry that have a very large market share." He added that the
248-page ruling would actually affect "every other industry in the
world."
In Washington, Assistant Attorney General Thomas O. Barnett said the
European ruling "may have the unfortunate consequence of harming
consumers by chilling innovation and discouraging competition."
"In the United States, the antitrust laws are enforced to protect
consumers by protecting competition, not competitors," he said in a
statement. "In the absence of demonstrable consumer harm, all companies,
including dominant firms, are encouraged to compete vigorously."
EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes was dismissive of "scare
stories" that the court decision would herald disaster for technology
companies wanting to protect their innovations.
"There is one company that will have to change its illegal behavior as a
result of this ruling: Microsoft," she said.
She added that Monday's victory was "bittersweet" because customers have
no more choice than they did three years ago when Microsoft was
originally fined.
"The court has confirmed the Commission's view that consumers are
suffering at the hands of Microsoft," she said.
Kroes refused to say what implications Monday's decision would have on
other legal fights between the EU and Microsoft, particularly one related
to its recently released Windows Vista operating system.
Microsoft's rivals have raised issues with Vista's bundled security
software, its integrated Internet and desktop search, and digital rights
management tools used to protect copyrights.
The Court of First Instance's overwhelming endorsement of the
Commission's monopoly-abuse case against Microsoft is a massive boost for
the officials in Brussels who took on one of the world's most powerful
companies.
"They will certainly gain significant confidence and continue to be very
aggressive," said Ted Henneberry, a former Irish regulator and lawyer
with Heller Ehrman LLP. "You'll see more, not less, complaints by other
competitors about their rivals in the hopes of sparking some interest.
That's another danger the Commission's going to face and I think they're
aware of it that they're going to be used as a forum for disgruntled
competitors."
The 13 judges on the Luxembourg-based Court considered Microsoft's appeal
for 15 months.
The case started in the 1990s with complaints from Microsoft's U.S.-based
rivals - including Sun Microsystems Inc. and RealNetworks Inc. - about
how the software giant used its presence on most desktop computers to
elbow into new markets and block competitors. Microsoft Windows operating
system runs as much as 95 percent of the world's PCs.
On March 24, 2004, the European Commission found Microsoft guilty,
ordering it to share the code that would help rivals' servers work better
with Windows and make a version of its operating system available without
its media player software. It also levied the record-setting fine, which
Microsoft paid.
The company has been accused of dragging its feet. Last year, it was
fined an additional 280.5 million euros ($357 million) for failing to
supply the "complete and accurate" interoperability information. A
version of Windows without a media player appeared a year and a half
after the initial ruling, but no computer makers bothered to ship it with
new PCs.
Microsoft now has two months to decide whether it will appeal to the EU's
highest court. The company said it needed to consider the ruling before
it decided how to proceed.
Microsoft did get a small victory, as the court overturned the
regulators' decision to create a trustee to oversee Microsoft's compliance
and force Microsoft to pay his costs.
But Microsoft's Smith said the company accepted that it may need to do
more to comply with EU demands.
"It's not our desire and it is not our goal to have continuous arguments
and disputes. We want to move forward," he told reporters, without
giving specifics.
Senators Push for Internet Tax Ban
Three Republican U.S. senators on Thursday called on Congress to pass a
permanent Internet tax ban before a moratorium expires Nov. 1.
The current Internet tax moratorium, which Congress has extended twice
since 1998, bans taxes on Internet access, as well as other taxes unique
to the Internet. It's important for Congress to pass a permanent ban soon,
before state and local governments begin to tax Internet access, said
Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican.
Those who wonder what impact Internet taxes could have should look to U.S.
telephone and mobile phone bills, where taxes are up to 20 percent of the
cost, McCain said. "We cannot allow that to happen to the Internet -
likely the most popular invention since the light bulb," McCain said at a
press conference.
Several senators, many of them former state governors, have opposed a
permanent extension of the tax ban. Earlier this year, Senators Lamar
Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, and Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat,
introduced a bill that would narrow the moratorium's definition of
Internet access and extend the ban for four years. That bill would close
what supporters have called a loophole allowing telecom providers to argue
that voice and other services bundled with Internet service shouldn't be
taxed.
In addition, nine states that were allowed to maintain their Internet
taxes would lose a total of up to US$120 million a year under a House of
Representatives version of the moratorium extension, The National
Governors Association has argued. The House version of the moratorium bill
strips these states' exemptions.
If Congress makes the ban permanent, nothing would stop Internet providers
from trying to expand the number of untaxed services, David Quam, director
of federal relations for The National Governors Association, said in June.
"The temporary provision keeps everyone honest," Quam said then.
But Senator John Sununu, a New Hampshire Republican, argued Thursday that
a permanent ban is needed. If there's a problem with bundled services,
that can be worked out in the bill, he said.
The Internet is "critically important to interstate and global commerce,"
Sununu said. "It makes no sense to have a national and global
communications and business network to be subject to taxes by every
state, city and county in the country."
The news conference came a day after the American Homeowners Grassroots
Alliance, an advocacy group, sent letters to Congress calling on lawmakers
to extend the tax ban. New Internet taxes would hurt telecommuters and
home-based businesses, the group said.
Supporters of a permanent ban say it will help more U.S. residents connect
to the Internet, a policy goal of many lawmakers. Asked if they would
support another temporary tax ban, the three Republicans rejected that
option.
"If it's the right thing to do, we ought to make it permanent," said
Senator Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican.
New USB 3.0 Spec Promises Instant Gratification
Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, NEC, NXP Semiconductors, and Texas
Instruments have formed the USB 3.0 Promoter Group to formulate a new USB
spec for next-gen PCs, peripherals, and digital media devices. The new
super-speed standard promises to deliver near-instant gratification
whenever users need to quickly transfer large, bandwidth-hungry files.
"The digital era requires high-speed performance and reliable connectivity
to move the enormous amounts of digital content now present in everyday
life," said Jeff Ravencraft, the president of the USB Implementers Forum -
the trade association ultimately responsible for the new specification's
development.
As the "next logical step for the PC's most popular wired connectivity,"
USB 3.0 will be able to move mountains of digital data at superspeeds
"while maintaining the ease-of-use experience that users have come to love
and expect from any USB technology," Ravencraft said.
One of the greatest successes to ever be unveiled at the annual Intel
Developer Forum (IDF) was probably when the chipmaker launched the
first-generation USB technology, said Intel executive Patrick Gelsinger
during his recent IDF keynote address in San Francisco.
"We've delivered over six billion devices since 2001," with over two
billion devices shipping "in the last year and three quarters, alone." the
general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group observed.
"When we launched USB, we were thinking about keyboards and mice, and disk
drives and DVD players, and those kinds of things, but after we did it,
the industry went wild, and look at all the other things that appeared,"
Gelsinger explained.
"As the market evolves to support customer demands for storing and moving
larger amounts of digital content, we look forward to developing the
third generation of USB technology that leverages the current USB
interface and optimize it to meet these demands," Gelsinger added.
USB 3.0 will achieve a 10x boost in bandwidth throughput in comparison
with present-day USB 2.0, Gelsinger boasted. In other words, if it takes
ten minutes today to load up an iPod with a wide selection of multimedia
tracks, it would only take 60 seconds to perform the same task over a USB
3.0 connection.
According to Gelsinger, a backward-compatible USB 3.0 cable is already in
the works that will feature both optical and copper connections. A
completed USB 3.0 specification is expected to be ready to roll in the
first half of 2008.
"With the proliferation of Hi-Speed USB in a wide number of market
segments, including personal computing, consumer electronics, and
mobility, we anticipate that USB 3.0 will rapidly become the de facto
standard as the replacement of USB 2.0 ports in applications where higher
bandwidth is valued," predicted Texas Instruments vice president Greg
Hantak.
However, given the normal lag time that occurs between the finalization
of a new technical standard and the introduction of new printers, digital
cameras and other peripheral devices based on the new technology, it is
unlikely that USB 3.0 will become widely available in the marketplace
before the end of 2009.
As the actor Carrie Fischer complained in Postcards from the Edge, "The
problem with instant gratification is that it takes too long."
Google Tests Interactive Ads
Google Inc. is testing a new advertising format that it hopes will make
people spend more time looking at ads online, and even embed them in
their own Web sites.
Called Gadget ads, the service has already been in testing with a small
handful of clients. On Wednesday Google announced that it was widening
the tests considerably, which means more of the ads will start appearing
on Web sites.
The format allows companies to build ads that include audio, video,
games and live data feeds, and to spruce them up with the Flash and
JavaScript programming languages. The ads wind up looking like small Web
pages within a Web page, and people can save them to a blog or their
iGoogle home page.
Google posted several examples of the Gadget ads on its Web site. An ad
for a Nissan car lets people type a U.S. postal code in the advertisement
to get a map showing traffic conditions where they live. Another for the
Six Flags Inc. theme park includes a simple game and a link to "add to
your Google home page."
The ads give advertisers detailed metrics about who uses them, according
to Google. The Six Flags ad delivered 94.5 million impressions to 17.1
million unique users, and was interacted with about 200,000 times, Google
said.
0.3 percent of those exposed to the gadget ads interacted with them,
Google said. In comparison, direct mail generates a response rate of 2.18
percent, according to figures for 2006 from the Direct Marketing
Association.
The gadget ads run on Google's Adsense advertising network and are priced
by number of clicks or number of impressions. Google didn't say when the
testing period would end, but the it said Gadget ads will eventually be
available in 20 languages and 100 countries.
Microsoft Corp. and other companies also let advertisers put video and
interactive features in Web sites, but Google claims that its ads offer
more ways to keep people engaged. The ads can also appear on YouTube and
sellers can include part of a checkout process in the advertisement.
Symantec Warns of Clever New Hacks
According to Symantec's latest Internet Security Threat Report, online
criminals are getting more sophisticated - even commercial - in the
development, distribution, and use of malicious code.
Symantec said that while financial gain continues to drive Internet crime,
criminals are now using even more professional attack methods, tools, and
strategies to conduct malicious activity online.
"The Internet threats and malicious activity we are currently tracking
demonstrate that hackers are taking this trend to the next level by
making cybercrime their actual profession, and they are employing
businesslike practices to successfully accomplish this goal," said Arthur
Wong, senior vice president of Symantec Security Response and Managed
Services, in a statement.
During the reporting period of Jan. 1, 2007 to June 30, 2007, Symantec
detected an increase in Internet criminals leveraging sophisticated
toolkits to carry out malicious attacks. The company pointed to MPack as
one example of this strategy.
MPack is a professionally developed toolkit available for sale in the
underground economy. Attackers can purchase and deploy MPack's collection
of software components to plant malicious code on computers around the
world, then monitor the effectiveness of their nefarious activities
through various metrics. Phishing toolkits, which are a series of scripts
that allow an attacker to set up phishing Web sites that spoof legitimate
Web sites, are also available for sale.
In addition, Symantec reported a rise in multistage attacks in which the
initial hack opens the door for attackers to deploy subsequent attacks.
One example of a multistage attack is a downloader that allows an
attacker to change the downloadable component to any type of threat that
suits the attacker's objectives. According to Symantec, 28 of the top 50
malicious code samples were multistage downloaders.
"While mass spam e-mail phishing is likely to be detected quickly through
automated and manual controls, targeted attacks are much more likely to
bypass e-mail filters and be successful in their attempt to social
engineer victims into opening attachments or clicking on links," said
Michael Sutton, a security evangelist at SPI Dynamics.
Symantec observed that 61 percent of all vulnerabilities discovered were
in Web applications. While Internet criminals have many targets, such as
financial and recruitment sites, social networks are becoming more
popular venues for attack.
Social-networking sites, Symantec noted, are particularly valuable to
attackers because they provide access to a large number of people, many
of whom trust the sites and their security. These Web sites can expose a
lot of confidential user information that can then be used in attempts to
conduct identity theft or online fraud, or to provide access to other Web
sites from which attackers can deploy further attacks.
"We as a population are slowly increasing our public footprint through
social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook," said Sutton. "We
must be aware that in doing so we are also providing important
information to attackers who are leveraging that information to conduct
targeted attacks."
Not All Malware Is Equally Evil, Researchers Say
Two senior security veterans from Trend Micro Inc. are trying to get the
industry to change how it classifies malicious software.
They argue that today's classification system, which tends to focus on
the technical way the software works, neglects a far more important metric
that matters more to users: how it tries to steal your money.
"This is my pet bugaboo - the unclear language," said David Perry, global
director for education at Trend. "I come from 26 years of technical
support, and it irks me that we protect people against things and they
don't know what we're protecting them against."
Perry and Anthony Arrott will present their paper, "New approaches to
categorizing economically-motivated digital threats," on Friday at a
security conference in Vienna.
Take the term "virus." The proper definition of virus is a piece of
software that replicates or makes copies of itself and attaches itself to
other pieces of software.
But for nonsecurity professionals, it's "taken to mean the universal
indication that there is something wrong with their computer, no matter
what the cause," Perry said. Toss in relatively newer terms such as
"Trojan horse," "dialer" and "adware" and the situation becomes a mix of
confusing vocabulary.
Perry and Arrott stop short of proposing a new taxonomy. However, they
do detail some parameters that should be considered when building a new
framework to categorize Web threats.
Although malware categorization systems exist, a new one is necessary
because of the focus on economic crime. The "business" models behind the
malware are far easier to define than the infinite technical variations
that the malware can take, they write.
Malware can then be classified into fewer, overlapping categories would
help deflect "the endless efforts to determine the exact definitions of
the boundaries between categories," Perry said.
The new groupings would ideally take into account how a threat is
installed, its economic purpose, how it exploits a host computer as well
as how it hides itself from detection, the paper said.
Another new metric that could be considered is the persistence of
threats, since it may more accurately frame the scope of an ongoing
fraud. The antivirus industry has tended to focus on "top 10" lists,
which indicate the most frequent recent threats but not the most
successful attacks over time, the paper said.
Trend Micro researched over time fraudulent antispyware programs that
were most persistent on computers. This research indicated the diversity
and depth of fraudulent programs such as Winfixer or the Zlob Trojan,
which purport to fix security problems but install advertising software
instead.
"Rogue antispyware is just on example of economically-motivated threats
where chronic persistence is more significant than acute outbreaks," the
authors wrote.
Perry is hoping for fruitful discussions on taxonomy, although he said
the security industry is notoriously fractured and not exactly known for
working well together. "There are no grown-ups in this industry," he
said.
Ultimately, Perry believes the proposal is "a bid toward accuracy and
to deconflict the issues that face us as an industry."
Symantec CEO Urges Cookie Notification
The head of a leading security software vendor denounced the use of data
files commonly used by Google Inc. and other Web sites to track user
activity, saying such sites should seek permission ahead of time.
John Thompson, chief executive of Symantec Corp. in Cupertino, Calif.,
said the files, known as cookies, "are just as much an invasion of
privacy as someone peering in my bedroom window."
Most major Web sites - including Symantec's - use cookies in some
fashion.
Although some cookies are essential for remembering passwords and
customizing a user's Web experience, they also can be used to create a
profile of a user's online activities. Thompson said people are sometimes
unaware that a cookie had been created or what gets done with any
information collected, such as to target advertising.
"I don't have an issue with people having cookies on their machine as long
as I've been told one just got planted there," Thompson said. "I think
there is an opt-in option here that should be available to everyone."
He questioned whether there is a "difference between a peeping Tom in the
physical world and a cookie prying into my private affairs in the digital
world."
Thompson was in Brussels to speak to EU regulators about such issues as
Internet security and data privacy.
He would not say if he thought the European Commission should flex its
muscles and require user permission for cookies, merely saying "if the EU
felt that was a problem, they might want to insert themselves here."
Thompson said he would want to know what Google would do with personal
information if it takes over online ad tracker DoubleClick Inc. - a deal
that is already raising concerns about the control the deal would give
Google over online advertising and data it collects about search terms.
Google has tried to soothe EU concerns, cutting the time it retains data
from 24 months to 18 months. The company also agreed to shorten the life
span of its cookie, though it's not clear whether the move would do much
to enhance privacy because the expiration date could get automatically
extended when users revisit the search engine.
Fraud Infests E-cards
The e-card industry began seeing some pretty unfriendly greetings this
past June.
That's when scammers started flooding e-mail in-boxes with fake greeting
cards, trying to trick victims into clicking on links that would send
them to malicious Web sites.
The goal is always the same: trick the victim into visiting an
untrustworthy Web site, and then try to hijack his computer and make it
part of a larger "botnet" network that can be pressed into service for a
variety of nefarious purposes. Often the e-card messages are extremely
simple - something like "Our Greeting System has a Labor Day card for
you, go here to pick it up." - but scammers have sent hundreds of
millions of them over the past few months.
By July, Symantec Corp. tracked more than 250 million fake cards, and
soon the mainstream press had picked up on the story. On August 23, the
Today Show ran a segment highlighting the problem, warning its viewers to
be wary of the cards they open.
All of that bad publicity has had at least a short-term effect on the
public's willingness to use e-cards, according to Steve Ruschill general
manager of Hallmark Interactive. "Overall we've probably seen a 10
percent decline in e-card sends," he said. "Within about a period of two
weeks, especially when the Today Show story hit... we just saw it kind of
drop."
E-card use at Hallmark is starting to recover, and while the industry is
now making some changes to respond to this problem, the fraud will
probably not affect the e-card suppliers bottom line, said Barbara
Miller, a spokeswoman with The Greeting Card Association. "I'm not sure
that it's having that much impact other than the real need for the
industry to make sure that consumers are aware of how to avoid e-mail
fraud," she said.
Certainly there has been customer confusion. During a three-week period
around July, Miller found herself responding to more than 750 angry
people who had received spam that purported to originate from her
organization's Greetingcard.org domain. The Greeting Card Association is
an industry organization that does not even send out e-cards, she noted.
Now two of the largest e-card distributors in the U.S. have begun forcing
e-card senders to include their first and last names in an effort to make
it easier for recipients to tell when these cards are coming from someone
they know.
Late last week, AG.com Inc.'s AmericanGreetings changed its e-cards to
include the name and e-mail address of the sender in the body of the
e-mail. "This basically just personalizes it so you know where the e-card
is coming from, and so you know that it is a valid e-card," said Frank
Cirillo, an AmericanGreetings spokesman.
Cirillo said that, unlike Hallmark, AmericanGreetings has not seen a drop
in e-card usage over the past few months.
On Monday Hallmark followed suit and is now forcing users to enter their
first and last names in order to make it clear to the recipient that the
card is really coming from a known sender.
Originally, Hallmark had intended to take things a step further, and
eliminate links in its e-cards altogether. In tests, Hallmark sent
redesigned cards to recipients, telling them not to click on links, but to
instead type in the Hallmark.com Web address and then enter a special code
to retrieve their messages.
Ultimately, this didn't work out, however, after it confused some users,
Ruschill said. That's because Web-based e-mail clients like Gmail and
Yahoo Mail recognize Web addresses and automatically insert clickable
links when they see things like Hallmark.com in a message. "We had a
totally manual process laid out," he said. "I appreciate what Google and
Yahoo have done but on the other side, it was like, 'man it's really
confusing.'"
The pain felt over the past few months by the greeting card industry
shows how quickly scammers can undermine confidence in what has become a
crucial communication tool for many industries.
Because this kind of malicious spam is usually sent from the compromised
botnet computers themselves it costs almost nothing to distribute. But it
can take a toll on the reputation, and ultimately the revenues of
companies that are targeted.
"Companies have become more and more reliant upon the Internet and their
Internet presence as a way to promote themselves and increase their
revenues," said Dave Greenwood, vice president of technical operations
with BD-Protect Inc., a company that works with corporations, ISPs and
law enforcement to take down servers that are being used in fraud. "They
see the Internet and their online presence as a very important part of
their revenue stream and they do not want to see that revenue stream put
at risk."
IRS Opens Foreclosure Web Site
The Internal Revenue Service said Monday it has added a new section to
its Web site to answer tax questions for those losing their homes due to
foreclosures.
The new section on IRS.gov includes a worksheet to help homeowners
determine whether they are eligible for any foreclosure-related tax
relief.
For those who find they owe additional tax, it includes a form for
requesting a payment agreement with the IRS.
The tax agency noted that if the debt wiped out through foreclosure
exceeds the value of the property, the difference is normally taxable
income. But a special rule also allows insolvent borrowers to offset that
income to the extent their liabilities exceed their assets.
President Bush has proposed tax relief as part of efforts to deal with
the sharp rise in mortgage defaults. He said he would support legislation
pending in Congress that would temporarily change tax law to let
homeowners avoid paying taxes on forgiven debt in loans that are being
restructured by financial institutions.
Britain To Combat 'Cyber-Bullying' In Schools
Britain on Friday launched a campaign to help schools combat
"cyber-bullying" of children and teachers using the Internet and mobile
phones.
The initiative - backed by teaching unions - came after research from the
Department for Children, Schools and Families found that 34 percent of
12- to 15-year-olds had experienced some form of high-tech harassment.
Teaching unions have also expressed concern that its members and other
school staff are falling foul of bullies who send abusive text messages or
emails and post offensive clips on the web.
The Association of Teachers and Lecturers union said nearly one in five of
its members had complained of cyber-bullying in the last 12 months.
Schools Secretary Ed Balls said any form of bullying was unacceptable.
"Cyber-bullying is a particularly insidious type of bullying as it can
follow young people wherever they go and the anonymity that it seemingly
affords to the perpetrator can make it even more stressful for the victim.
"Cyber-bullying takes different forms - threats, intimidation, harassment
or 'cyber-stalking', unauthorised publication of private information or
images, impersonation and 'happy slapping'," he said.
The campaign includes tips to minimise risk such as not responding to
malicious texts or emails, saving evidence and reporting it, keeping
passwords secret and refusing to divulge mobile phone numbers or other
personal details.
It has been developed in consultation with anti-bullying specialists,
mobile phone companies and websites including Bebo, MySpace and YouTube.
Britain's largest teaching union the National Association of
Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) is currently campaigning
for mobile phones to be classed as potentially offensive weapons and
banned during school hours.
It also wants legislation to prevent teachers being named in allegations
on websites and an end to school policies requiring teachers to disclose
their personal mobile phone numbers or email addresses for use by pupils.
Digital 'Smiley Face' Turns 25
It was a serious contribution to the electronic lexicon. :-) Twenty-five
years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman says, he
was the first to use three keystrokes - a colon followed by a hyphen and
a parenthesis - as a horizontal "smiley face" in a computer message.
To mark the anniversary Wednesday, Fahlman and his colleagues are
starting an annual student contest for innovation in technology-assisted,
person-to-person communication. The Smiley Award, sponsored by Yahoo
Inc., carries a $500 cash
prize.
Language experts say the smiley face and other emotional icons, known as
emoticons, have given people a concise way in e-mail and other electronic
messages of expressing sentiments that otherwise would be difficult to
detect.
Fahlman posted the emoticon in a message to an online electronic bulletin
board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982, during a discussion about the
limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to be taken
lightly.
"I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-)," wrote
Fahlman. "Read it sideways."
The suggestion gave computer users a way to convey humor or positive
feelings with a smile - or the opposite sentiments by reversing the
parenthesis to form a frown.
Carnegie Mellon said Fahlman's smileys spread from its campus to other
universities, then businesses and eventually around the world as the
Internet gained popularity.
Computer science and linguistics professors contacted by The Associated
Press said they were unaware of who first used the symbol.
"I've never seen any hard evidence that the :-) sequence was in use
before my original post, and I've never run into anyone who actually
claims to have invented it before I did," Fahlman wrote on the
university's Web page dedicated to the smiley face. "But it's always
possible that someone else had the same idea - it's a simple and obvious
idea, after all."
Variations, such as the "wink" that uses a semicolon, emerged later. And
today people can hardly imagine using computer chat programs that don't
translate keystrokes into colorful graphics, said Ryan Stansifer, a
computer science professor at the Florida Institute of Technology.
"Now we have so much power, we don't settle for a colon-dash-paren," he
said. "You want the smiley face, so all these chatting softwares have to
have them."
Instant messaging programs often contain an array of faces intended to
express emotions ranging from surprise to affection to embarrassment.
"It has been fascinating to watch this phenomenon grow from a little
message I tossed off in 10 minutes to something that has spread all
around the world," Fahlman was quoted as saying in a university
statement. "I sometimes wonder how many millions of people have typed
these characters, and how many have turned their heads to one side to
view a smiley, in the 25 years since this all started."
Amy Weinberg, a University of Maryland linguist and computer scientist,
said emoticons such as the smiley were "definitely creeping into the way,
both in business and academia, people communicate."
"In terms of things that language processing does, you have to take them
into account," she said. "If you're doing almost anything ... and you
have a sentence that says 'I love my boss' and then there's a smiley
face, you better not take that seriously."
Emoticons reflect the likely original purpose of language - to enable
people to express emotion, said Clifford Nass, a professor of
communications at Stanford University. The emotion behind a written
sentence may be hard to discern because emotion is often conveyed through
tone of voice, he said.
"What emoticons do is essentially provide a mechanism to transmit emotion
when you don't have the voice," Nass said.
In some ways, he added, they also give people "the ability not to think as
hard about the words they're using."
Stansifer said the emoticon was part of a natural progression in
communication.
"I don't think the smiley face was the beginning and the end," he said.
"All people at all times take advantage of whatever means of
communication they have."
On the Net:
Carnegie Mellon University's smiley page: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/smiley/
EBay Stops Sale Of Belgium
Internet auction website eBay on Monday withdrew an unusual second-hand
sale item, the country of Belgium, which had attracted an offer of 10
million euros (13.9 million dollars).
"Belgium, a kingdom in three parts" was posted on the Belgian ebay site
as offering "plenty of choice" despite the caveat that it comes with
"300 billion of National Debt."
Offered in three parts - Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia - the
accompanying blurb said the kingdom "can be bought as a whole (not
recommended)."
The vendor also included as added extras "the king and his court (costs
not included)."
Ebay spokesman Peter Burin said the site could not host the sale of
anything virtual or "unrealistic," the Belga news agency reported.
The 'vendor' was named as a former journalist, Gerrit Six. Offering his
lot at an initial price of one euro, he saw 26 subsequent bids culminating
in the 10 million euro offer on Monday before the auction was halted.
The spoof sale was offered while Belgium is mired in a political crisis
which has led to discussion over the country's future as a federal state.
Tuesday marks 100 days since the country's general election with no sign
of a coalition government being formed by the political parties in
Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia.
According to the ebay spokesman, it wasn't the first time Belgium had
been put up for sale.
"But the last time it wasn't a Belgian who made the announcement and it
wasn't as well done or as amusing," said Burin.
China Web-User Dies After Three-Day Online Binge
A man in southern China collapsed and died after a three-day marathon
online session at a cybercafe, state media reported on Monday.
The web-user, estimated to be 30 years old, suddenly collapsed in front
of his computer terminal in Guangdong province, and emergency personnel
were unable to revive him, the Beijing News reported.
"According to preliminary findings, the length of time this man spent
online might have triggered heart problems," the paper quoted a local
hospital emergency medic in the city of Zhongshan as saying.
The paper did not provide the man's name or the online activities he
was
engaged in.
Worried about growing Internet addiction, China's government has taken
steps to combat the problem, including forcing online gaming sites to
dock the points of gamers who stay online too long.
=~=~=~=
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