John Lister

There's a new malware attack on Facebook and it's significant for multiple reasons. This attack in particular spreads through bogus links, and it appears to change form in line with news events. While there have been several similar scams in the ... past, they've usually involved tricking users into handing over personal data or outright hijacking accounts. Malicious Drive-by Downloads Initiated on Click The new Facebook attacks tricks users into clicking on a link to a supposed online video. Once the link has been clicked, a Trojan virus is automatically downloaded to the users' computer without ... (view more)

A proposed new law under debate in the California senate would make drastic changes to the way social networks handle user privacy. It would mean sites like Facebook would have to maximize their privacy settings as a default. Under the proposals, ... social networking sites would have to allow users to set privacy levels at the time of registration, explaining the various options "in plain language." This would have to include a clear explanation of exactly which categories of people and businesses would be able to see information. (Source: ca.gov ) Full Control Over Information By default, a new ... (view more)

Verizon Wireless has announced the first Windows Phone 7 handset available on its network. Microsoft hopes it will help overturn disappointing sales that have left the mobile platform well behind its competitors in popularity. Windows Phone 7 on HTC ... Trophy 7 The new handset is the HTC Trophy 7, which will retail for $150 if buyers take advantage of a rebate and sign up to a two-year service deal. That's notably lower than the $200 that most top-end smartphones go for under such conditions. One of the big selling points is that the phone is compatible with the Xbox 360 gaming system. A select ... (view more)

It's rumored that Windows 8 may be released in special editions suitable for devices like smartphones and iPad-like tablets. The buzz has caused concern at Intel, whose products are at the heart of most traditional Windows computers. The change ... involves the processor's instruction set architecture, which is at the very core of a computer. As a very loose analogy, the difference between rival instruction set architectures is as fundamental as the difference between organizing words alphabetically in a dictionary and organizing them by meaning in a thesaurus. Most Windows PCs use Intel x86 Most ... (view more)

A company that rents both furniture and PCs has been accused of spying on its customers. A lawsuit alleges Aaron's Inc remotely accessed a spy camera on a PC to take a shot of a customer using it. No Disclosure of Spy Software The claims arose in a ... case involving a customer who had taken a computer from Aaron's Inc on a rent-to-own agreement. That allows a customer to pay a monthly fee for a set period: after this period they own it outright, but before then they can also simply return it and stop paying. In the case of customer Brian Byrd, Aaron's believed he had stopped paying (which ... (view more)

The man who co-founded Google believes that just one in five of the company's employees still use Windows. Sergey Brin also described Windows as a fundamentally flawed operating system. Brin was promoting Chromebooks, the first range of machines ... that will ship with Google's Chrome operating system built-in. The system works on the basis that the user is always online, and is effectively a glorified version of the Chrome web browser with built-in links to online applications such as Google Docs. The theory is that the majority of computer users spend most of their computing time using their ... (view more)

Amazon's experiment with on-screen advertising for the Kindle e-Reader appears to have paid off. The cut-price edition of the device is now the best-selling product in the company's entire electronics range. Kindle with 'Special Offers' Saves $25 ... The model, known as Kindle with Special Offers, retails for $114, which is $25 off the standard price. As far as the hardware goes, it's exactly the same as the standard WiFi edition, which was previously the cheapest in the Kindle range. (Source: pcworld.com ) The big difference is two sets of advertising. The first is that when the device isn't in ... (view more)

Microsoft has revealed that the infection rate for Windows 7 computers has increased. But the Windows 7 operating system still remains considerably more secure than its predecessors. The most talked-about figure in the newly-published statistics is ... a 33 per cent hike in the proportion of Windows 7 computers suffering from a malware infection. That's a potentially misleading oversimplification, though. The actual rate increased during 2010 from three PCs per thousand to four per thousand, figures that could easily be distorted by rounding errors. Windows XP Still Riskiest for Malware ... (view more)

Until recently, courts of law have had the power to force Internet Service Providers to hand over customer details based on IP (Internet Protocol) address information, which is used to identify a user connected to the Internet. But now one judge has ... refused to make such an order, questioning the accuracy of the method. An IP is a number that identifies a particular device such as a computer or a router connected to a network. In theory, there is a straight correlation between one device and one IP address. In practice, though, a single IP address does not necessarily mean one computer or one ... (view more)

Online phone service Skype is preparing to fix a bug in the Mac edition of the system that could allow hackers to take control of a computer remotely. The site that discovered the bug has accused Skype of dragging its heels on the issue. Gordon ... Maddern of purehacking.com says he discovered the bug entirely by mistake. He was talking to a colleague on a Skype connection about some code written for a client. To his surprise he was able to make the code run on his colleague's computer. Upon closer examination, Maddern discovered that the hack only worked where the recipient's computer was a Mac ... (view more)