Archive for March, 2009

ADSL Speed Demo

Trying to explain the difference in speed between Dial-up internet, ADSL1 or ADSL2 can be problematic because most people don’t understand what you mean when you quote speed figures.  So the easiest way is to see it as a visual representation as shown below.  Just click on “Show Simulation”.

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Malware/Scareware Threatens to Sue BitTorrent Downloaders.

A new malware scam is trying to trick BitTorrent users into paying for illegally downloading copyrighted material.

The malware displays a box with the message “Warning! Piracy detected!” and opens up a web page supposedly run by a Swiss company which states thet are “committed to promoting the cultural and economic benefits of copyright.”

The fake company, the ICCP Foundation, claims to be sponsored by the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America and others.  TorrentFreak, which was the first to discover the malware, wrote that, “It appears to scan the user’s hard drive for .torrent files and displays these as ’evidence’ of an earlier infringement”.

Victims are warned of possible imprisonment and fines, and given the option of “settling” the “case” for a one-time payment of $400, by credit card.

Obviously you would be crazy to hand over your Credit Card details, but it only takes a small percentage of victims to fall for the scam to make some serious cash, which is why the scammers go to the trouble.

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Yahoo and Google have both criticised Australia’s plans to burden us with an expensive, ineffective internet filter and censorship scheme which will restrict freedom of internet use by prohibiting access to legal information.

The Australian government maintains that the internet filter will effectively block access to offensive websites related to child pornography, sexual violence and websites explaining drug and weapon use.

The filtering technology, if applied, will make Australia one of the strictest regulators of internet access in the world.

Statements made by Yahoo and Google are among the 174 complaints submitted by the public regarding the internet filtering proposal, which will soon go into review.

Commenting on the controversial internet filter, Google Australia said in a statement that “moving to a mandatory ISP-level filtering regime with a scope that goes well beyond such material is heavy-handed and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information.” Yahoo representatives stated that the filter has the potential to go beyond blocking child pornography to blocking socially controversial content like gay and lesbian issues.

The filtering proposal has been criticised by “Reporters Without Borders”, which has listed Australia in its “enemies of the internet” list which is not surprising since it would put Australia on par with some of the most restrictive regimes on the planet. It remains to be seen whether other countries will follow the Australian example.

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Here is a short video that provides a little insight into some of the new capabilities of the up and coming Windows 7 Operating System.

Note: Since these videos were made, Windows 7 has obviously been released, but they still provide useful information about the features and capabilities of the Windows flagship.

Windows 7 Review

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By slightly mis-spelling the name of popular security products, they trick you into visiting their malicious site, and bombard you with messages and pop-ups about how badly you are infected and how many viruses you have and “scaring” you into buying their product.
This is fooling tens of thousands of people into purchasing this fake software, which in fact infects them further. I have seen figures that show these cyber-criminals may be making upwards of $10,000 per day.

Popular mis-spellings are Ad-Ware instead of Ad-Aware, Spywarebot instead of Spybot, and Spyware Blaster instead of SpywareBlaster.

There are a multitude of fake products out there. A couple that spring to mind, in addition to those above, are WinXP Antivirus, Antivirus 2009, but there are 1000’s more.

The golden rule is DO NOT just search the internet for a security product. Contact a reputable company for advice, or better yet, just read this Blog!!!!!

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