Gadzooked!

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[print version] Internet use cutting into TV viewing and socializing | CNET News.com: “Internet use cutting into TV viewing and socializing
By John Markoff
http://news.com.com/Internet use cutting into TV viewing and socializing/2100-1026_3-5507547.html
Story last modified Thu Dec 30 07:48:00 PST 2004
The average Internet user in the United States spends three hours a day online, with much of that time devoted to work and more than half of it to communications, according to a survey conducted by a group of political scientists.
The survey found that use of the Internet has displaced television watching and a range of other activities. Internet users watch television for one hour and 42 minutes a day, compared with the national average of two hours, said Norman H. Nie, director of the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society, a research group that has been exploring the social consequences of the Internet.
‘People don’t understand that time is hydraulic,’ he […]

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Curtis sends us:

Netcraft goes fishing for phishers | CNET News.com
“Netcraft has released an Internet Explorer plug-in that could help people avoid becoming victims of online fraud.
The Internet security company heralded the plug-in toolbar, which displays information about the Web sites a surfer is visiting, as a strong weapon against phishing attacks.
“The Netcraft Toolbar provides you with constantly updated information about the sites you visit as well as blocking dangerous sites,” the company, best known for providing statistics on what software Web sites are running, stated in a posting. “This information will help you make an informed choice about the integrity of those sites.”
The toolbar displays information about the popularity of a site, the country in which the site is hosted and the Internet address of the site. It also indicates whether other toolbar users have flagged the site as a possible phishing scam, which use fake Web sites that look like they […]

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Here’s a great post:

CRN | Breaking News | New Santy Variants Spread Beyond Google
“By Matt Villano, CRN
7:22 PM EST Tue. Dec. 28, 2004
The Santy worm, which appeared just before the Christmas holiday and uses search engines to spread, appears to be morphing into dangerous variants, virus experts warned Tuesday.
Much like the original, the Santy variations target Web bulletin boards designed with the open-source PHP scripting language. But a few of the mutated forms, such as Santy.E and Santy.C (also known as PhpInclude.Worm) focus on different parts of the PHP code by using multiple programming flaws to gain entry.
While incidents of the Santy worm have decreased dramatically since Google started blocking it, the new versions now use search engines such as AOL and Yahoo! to enable remote attackers to inject malicious code into PHP scripts.”
Read More:
http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/dailyarchives.jhtml?articleId=56200708

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This is interesting:

U.S. World Leader in Spam Production
By Ed Raymond
NewsFactor Network
December 28, 2004 5:47PM
The United States remains the world’s top producer of spam, according to a list compiled by security Latest News about Security firm Sophos.
Sophos researchers report that the U.S. is responsible for exporting 42 percent of all mass e-mail attacks. South Korea is second, at 13 percent, followed by China (8 percent), Canada (6 percent) and Brazil (3 percent).
Despite signs of progress, such as the CAN-SPAM act, which was passed in January, efforts to address the problem in the U.S. are having little impact, Gregg Mastoras, senior security analyst at Sophos, told NewsFactor. “The problem is poor legislation and a lack of interest among law enforcement agencies to pursue spammers,” he said, noting that the U.S. topped the previous “Dirty Dozen” list issued early this year.
Spammers are taking advantage of high-speed Internet connections, Mastoras noted, with South Korea, […]

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Came across this today:

By Kimberly Hill
NewsFactor Network
December 27, 2004 11:44AM
Open-source software group Mozilla is on a roll as the year ends. Its Firefox Web browser has been downloaded 13 million times since November, and the companion e-mail program was released in December. Mozilla’s success is putting pressure on Microsoft to improve its products.
As December comes to a close, the group that launched the upstart Web browser application Firefox can look back on 2004 with satisfaction. Mozilla has seen the Firefox browser downloaded over 13 million times since its release in November.
A companion e-mail program — Thunderbird — was released in December. And the nonprofit organization has announced the ambitious goal of achieving a 10 percent share of the Web browser market during 2005.
“Uptake on the consumer side is pretty aggressive,” Yankee Group’s Jim Slaby told NewsFactor. And that trend likely will continue. Where Mozilla probably will encounter resistance is […]

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Found this post:

Merry Christmas

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