More Army Spam

Boing Boing has up more on Army Spam. They have talked about this before, and we pointed it out then too.

At first glance I had assumed that this was just unwanted e-mail from a recruiter, but for whatever reason I assumed it would be personal - e.g. "Hi Joe User, just wanted to...".

But reading this makes it fairly clear it is just sent out to a large list and is the generic and distant tone of bulk e-mail:

To whom it may concern,

I am offering you a once in a lifetime opportunity to become part of America's elite. If you are always challenging yourself, highly adept at problem solving, and relentless in pursuing your goals, then a spot in the Special Forces is for you. The Special Forces soldier also known as the Green Beret is highly skilled in such arts as SCUBA diving, Parachuting, and Foreign Languages. This training along with the best equipment is what makes them the best of the best. For a limited time, the Army will offer you the opportunity to attend Infantry Basic Training, Jump School, and Special Forces Assessment and Selection. This opportunity is normally reserved for soldiers who have served for a period of 2 to 3 years, but at this time, it is available you with out any special prerequisites. I highly encourage you to take the chance and become one of America's Elite. For more Information, contact SGT Hood @ (877) 524-0211.

Fortunately, much like election-time spam, the government/military get a free pass when it comes to spamming.

Posted by Eric at 09:41 PM | TrackBack

Unpatched systems... not safe

We mentioned here that survival time for an unpatched Windows machine to be about 20 minutes.

This new Slashdot post seems to indicate that there is evidence to show that has dropped again.
It also notes that Linux and Mac systems were part of it as well, yet remained safe (also notes that sure gets helped by the fact that there just isn't a lot written for them).

So remember to keep your system patched and updated.

Posted by Eric at 07:53 PM | TrackBack

Project Honeypot

The concept of a honeypot is not a new one. The idea is to generate a system that will get bad guys to go after something that looks legit, but it is really a trap to either catch them or tie up their resources.

In the spam world, such a system is one that generates fake e-mail addresses that either are designed to fill up the spammers' databases with junk (this can technically generate real e-mail addresses accidentally as well), and also waste their resources by staying on pages full of e-mail addresses and all links lead to more pages with more fake addresses.
The other method in the spam world is to track who is harvesting your e-mail, when, where, and how.

The latter is more the case at hand with Project Honeypot.

They have a system (all free) which allows you to sign up and then have fake e-mails automatically generated for your site that allow tracking of spammers that hit the site.
They even have a MovableType plug-in so that one of the most popular blogging tools used on the web (including what Spamblogging here is run on) can be made to easily interface with their system.

All of that said, I haven't signed-up with them or used their service yet. I will try to get it to it later this week and report what I can about it, but in the meantime please post up if you use it and can tell us anything about it.

Posted by Eric at 10:41 AM | TrackBack

When do spammers not want traffic on their sites?

Slashdot has pointed out that Lycos now has a tool out that is a screen saver that you run on your machine. No big deal right?

This screen saver goes after spammers' sites and puts extra load on them to drive up their bandwidth costs. It isn't a denial of service since it watches to see the response time on the pages and if it drops out, then it gives the server a break - the idea is to get their bandwidth costs up, not bring the server down (which can happen quickly and technically not cost as much as the drawn out system).
It also is not an automated process to get on their bad side, it is a hand verified process. So you might not want to piss off whoever it is that handles that process.

The Register is also talking about it (although you might not want to go there if you haven't patched up your Windows machine since they had a virus attack their ad server recently).

Do note that this appears to only be for Europe, but I don't see why you couldn't still install it if you live elsewhere. Unless you live in Guam - you people make me sick.

Posted by Eric at 11:12 PM | TrackBack

Happy Thanksgiving

To those of you living in America, or to those of you that are Americans living overseas, to those of you that care about such things... Happy Thanksgiving today.
The rest of you... well, sorry for the interruption.

I saw a drop in spam volume over the past day or so, and while it likely doesn't mean anything, I like to think that it means spammers living in the country sending out the most spam are taking a break from their grueling days of trying to flood my inbox with offers to increase my penis size.
Taking that well deserved break so that they to travel and spend time with loved ones. And here's to hoping that break turns into a permanent one (and here's to the harsh reality that it is likely just a statistical lull in spam volume that I am seeing and it has little to nothing to do with the holiday).

And now I'm going to go home this evening and bathe in cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Posted by Eric at 11:34 AM | TrackBack

Italian senate has gay worm issue

That's not a subject you see everyday. Boingboing notes that the Italian senate had computer crashes due to a worm that distributes gay porn images.
Unfortunately site in the link BoingBoing gives appears to require registration and I'm far too lazy for that sort of thing - so we are going to have to take Xeni's word on this one I guess.

Posted by Eric at 11:59 AM | TrackBack

Sarasota Spam

What is it with government agencies that makes them think that they can send out spam and somehow bypass the fact that it is... well, spam. Wired asks the same question of Sarasota's promotional campaign to attract tourists again after the hurricanes.

Reading the article, it sounds like it wasn't as bad or offensive as it could be (just see the election timed spam for example). But it is still frustrating to hear everyone complaining about getting mass mail, and then at the same time seeing more people resorting to it as a way to get the word out.
Make up your mind if you want to stop it or not, and then enforce it - even at the government agency level.

Also, anyone see the amusing side of it that most spam originates in Florida, and even their promotional ad campaigns for tourism use spam as a tool? Perhaps Florida should change their state motto phrase to "The home of spam."

Posted by Eric at 11:46 AM | TrackBack

ArsTechnica on spyware

ArsTechnica has a good write-up on spyware tools and what works. They actively infected their machine and then went through the process of trying to clean it with a few programs, and wrote about the process.

Posted by Eric at 11:26 AM | TrackBack

Trojan on phones

There is a trojan that goes after phones with the Symbian OS (Nokia for sure... others?). Gizmodo has an account of it here.

Fortunately it doesn't appear to automatically spread or actively send out SMS messages, so it is more of an annoyance and an exercise in carelessness of the user at this point.

Posted by Eric at 09:24 AM | TrackBack

4M Emails a Day

4 million e-mail messages. That's a lot of mail. And it is just what Bill Gates gets in one day.
Apparently most of it is spam, and they have a whole department to deal with it:

allmer said Microsoft has special technology that just filters spam intended for Gates. In addition, several Microsoft employees are dedicated to ensuring that nothing unwanted gets into his inbox.

No wonder he wants to crack down on spam, just his own inbox alone is costing him a fortune.

Posted by Eric at 01:11 AM | TrackBack

Hotmail drops POP access?

Gadget blog Gizmodo makes note that Hotmail appears to have dropped the ability to check e-mail via POP3 clients. Not dropped it entirely mind you, if you are paying then you get that as one of the bonus features.

As they say on that page, it is odd that this would happen so soon to Gmail just announcing that they would be allowing POP3 access.

Also note the amusing screenshot they have up of Hotmail oddities. Were they hacked? Was a programmer drunk? Some things were never meant to be answered.

Posted by Eric at 01:01 AM | TrackBack

Ars Technica on Yahoo's Domain Keys

Yahoo has started using its Domain Keys and Ars Technica is there to tell us about it.

DomainKeys is a technology developed by Yahoo! that has its basis in public-key encryption. The basic theory is that a hash of the e-mail's body is encrypted with the mail server's private key, encoded as Base64, appended to the message as a normal mail header field then transmitted along with the plaintext e-mail. At any point along the message's transmission, a system can request the mail server's public key from a DNS server and decrypt the hash and compare it against the message's text. Any interim machine or your local mail client can decide what to do with the message based on the outcome of the comparison, or more likely, use the results as a weighted factor in the decision to discard or retain the message.

Note that these Domain Keys, as well as the Sender ID and SPF type concepts do have anti-spam uses, but they are not solely designed for stopping spam. They are designed to make it so that you can't fake where you sent the e-mail from (something spammers do, but also viruses and phishers).

Posted by Eric at 10:16 AM | TrackBack

XP SP2... new holes found

Slashdot reports that there are security holes in Microsoft Windows XP SP2.

Granted, this isn't really surprising coming from a huge update to the OS (250MB).

Do note that nearly all problems that one has using Windows on the net results from using Outlook (or Outlook Express) and/or IE. Microsoft has already said in court that you can't really get rid of those from your system (even though it has been shown on the web by multiple people that it is possible, it isn't easy).

That said, you can in fact replace them with FireFox (web browser) and Thunderbird (e-mail and news). Or just the whole Mozilla package if you like.
But if you go that route, do note that you will have to change them over to being your default programs for various files and processes, and even then there are still things in Windows that will use IE (I think Windows Update is one).

This isn't 100% foolproof since there are still holes that are out there that exist simply by your computer being on and connected to the net (although the bulk of those, if not all, are in older unpatched versions of XP), but this is a big improvement.
Also note that there are web applications that need IE, whether through poor website design that only works with one browser (IE), or due to using ActiveX plug-ins.
While it is easy to just ignore those sites at home, it is not so easy when it is in the workplace. At work, we have several banking clients that we have to interface with via IE due to their Active X security setup, and I must say that it is a bit unnerving, but also something we have to do since they are our clients.

Posted by Eric at 01:38 AM | TrackBack

Free webmail space upgrades

As far as I can tell, this is old news, but Wired is just now pointing it out. Either that or the news came out that this would be happening, and Wired is now pointing out that it actually did happen.
Either way, they mention that free webmail services and their paid for premium counterparts recently saw increases in disk space limits. It is of course impossible to have one of these types of articles and not have them mention that the reason for the increase is likely Google's Gmail and its 1GB of free space (supported by ads).

Personally for me, the only thing in the article that was new/interesting was the fact that there is a site called gmail swap that... well, it does exactly what it sounds like. It gives you a medium through which to bargain things for Gmail accounts - I haven't reviewed it to see how much of it is a joke, but I would imagine something like that lends itself to some amusing suggestions.

Also note that Wired's article suggests that with the space increases, people have less of a reason to switch from one to the other - specifically not worrying about Gmail and its free 1GB of storage anymore.
While that is likely one reason, it overlooks the differences in searching and general usability that Gmail offers, which one should take into account when comparing various free webmail programs.

Posted by Eric at 11:57 PM | TrackBack

MoveOn.org getting blocked by spam filters

I am currently traveling in the States right now for a wake for my father. I'm on the net via wireless airport and hotel connections. Not free, but easy enough and certainly getting the job done. I will be back home on Tuesday - so if my posting is none too frequent, that would be the excuse.

As for spam stuff, Boing Boing points out that MoveOn.org was talking about how they are having trouble getting messages out to their willing subscribers.
This is really the same as any number of legitimate bulk mailers, with people that legitimately subscribed and actually want the e-mail, and they aren't getting it. Although in this case they aren't really selling anything other than a political ideology.

While MoveOn.org hasn't done anything in particular that bothers me, I am curious how many of these people that are seeing their e-mail blocked are experiencing that effect due to their ISP or work admins exerting their power on the e-mail stream.
I could see some feeling that they disagree with what MoveOn.org intends and therefore blocks it at the company/ISP level. I am not sure I agree with that from an ISP, and from a company perspective I guess it depends on what the rules are for company mail and what people can use it for. Many companies have strict "company business only" rules in place - so that would make sense there.

Posted by Eric at 11:44 PM | TrackBack

Christmas spam is on its way

The Register reminds us that as Christmas draws near, just like all other advertising media around this time, spam is going to increase.

That in itself isn't all that interesting - I think we could all imagine that might be the case. After all, going to any store around now will show us Thanksgiving decorations, but the next day after Thanksgiving and many stores are switching to Christmas - all in the name of trying to sell you things.
Spam is no different, they just want to sell you something.

What is interesting is the stat in the article that says the ones that are most likely to fall for spam are those in the 16-24 year old age demographic. I am curious if that is because they are new to the net (home and college connections giving them the opportunity), or if they have worse judgment? Or is it because the demographics that don't do as well with spam are more likely to work in an office and hear there about ways to use the net in a safe manner from coworkers and IT professionals?

Posted by Eric at 09:46 AM | TrackBack

Ars Technica on Malware

Ars Technica is currently running a series called "Malware: What it is and how to prevent it" which is currently only one part, but it looks like there will be more soon.

There are plenty of people that know all of this already, but it is a good thing to be able to point people to this for them to learn if they don't already know it. Of course it requires "reading" and in my experience anything beyond about 4 sentences and people tend to glaze over.
Which would mean my rambling ways make everyone glaze over on this site.

Posted by Eric at 01:25 AM | TrackBack

US mil spam

One of BoingBoing's readers points to U.S. Military spam.

Now I don't know that I need to go one way or the other in the political sense on this blog since it is just about spam. But I will agree that it is a bit creepy when the military resorts to a technique that desperate scam artists use on the net to get people to buy into their product/service.

Also, do note the headers of that message - it really was from a .mil address/server.

Posted by Eric at 12:17 AM | TrackBack

Gmail goes POP... sort of

There is much discussion going on that Google's Gmail is showing signs that it is going to allow POP3 access "soon". Apparently some accounts even have it working now, but my own Gmail account (along with just about everyone else's I guess) still doesn't have it yet.

No word yet how that will work with their ad content delivery system and your e-mail program.

Posted by Eric at 11:57 PM | TrackBack

Are Spammers Being Punished to Harshly?

Slashdot has something up about spam punishments, asking if they are too strict. It references this article published by a lawyer of a spammer.

In this case it is asking if jail terms of 9 years is really proportionate to the crime that has been committed.

Personally, I think many times those jail terms do look too long. But I think when those times come up, one should also look into it more to see what exactly the person is being charged with. Usually the jail terms aren't for the spamming, but instead for the fraud they committed through the spam. Two very different things.
Straight up spammers tend to get off with "light" fines in the thousands as opposed to jail time. (I have "light" in quotes because I personally couldn't afford thousands of dollars in fines, but if a spammer really is making money off of their efforts, they should be able to handle that and still survive.)

There are many in the world that feel death and torture still wouldn't be enough punishment for spammers. I personally don't fall into that camp - not to say that I sympathize with the spammers or condone what they do.

Posted by Eric at 01:17 PM | TrackBack

Another IE exploit that another virus takes advantage of

I remember the good old days when viruses were sent to you in e-mail and you had to open and/or run them for them to infect you. Slashdot is now reporting that is no longer the case with a MyDoom variant.

The new variant provides just a link in e-mail (which is much more likely to get through virus blocking programs - although I haven't seen what the link looks like yet, so it is hard to say if it would get blocked by anti-spam software or not - depending on the format of the e-mail I would lead towards guessing that it will get blocked).
This link then exploits what is (shocking I know) apparently a new hole in IE to then install the MyDoom virus on your machine.

On a side note, this exploit doesn't exist with FireFox. If you don't know what FireFox is, then it is highly possible that you have been living in an underground hideout for several months now and avoided all media contact.
FireFox is the Mozilla browser sweeping the world as the more secure free web browser of choice.
Incidentally, the full version 1.0 (for those of you that aren't allowed to run beta software at work, and just plain don't trust it at home) is now out.

If you are on a Mac, there are also special G4 and G5 compiled versions, optimized for those processors and the performance is quite snappy. The downside is that if you download the binaries, they are from an "untrusted source" as opposed to straight from Mozilla. That said, you could also download the source and compile it yourself.

Note that if you do use FireFox, you need to make it your default browser in order to avoid this virus still. Clicking on the link will open your default browser and IE will want that position - but if it opens then you can get the virus.

Posted by Eric at 09:57 AM | TrackBack

Trojan sends SMS

Wow, normally on days when I am busy at work I tend to get more references to Slashdot up than the rest of the web. But today I seem to be getting references to Gizmodo.

Gizmodo tells us that there is a new trojan that infects Windows machines [ed: no! well this certainly is a first] and then from there sends out SMS spam to cell phones using web interfaces.

I had mentioned in the past that it seemed this was an easy and untapped route for spammers to use and was surprised that they hadn't gone that way yet... now it looks like they have. Perhaps I should just keep my big mouth shut in the future.

Posted by Eric at 11:46 AM | TrackBack

419 gets 5 years

A Sydney man is sentenced to 5 years for scamming people out of millions of dollars.

Nick Marinellis pleaded guilty to 11 charges relating to what was known as the West African or Nigerian email scam.

The Sydney District Court was told Marinellis was the mastermind of an operation which defrauded people around the world by promising lucrative business contracts, lottery wins or inheritance payouts if people first sent money for expenses.

Acting Judge Barry Mahoney today sentenced the disability pensioner to a maximum of five years and three months in jail, with a non-parole period of four years and four months.

He said the fraud scheme was complicated and devious and caused great inconvenience to all victims.

"Great inconvenience" indeed.

Posted by Eric at 11:24 AM | TrackBack

Missed gadget sales for this spammer

The editor(s) over at Gizmodo always cracks me up. If you are into gadgets at all, I highly recommend that blog.

Today he pointed out some spam that he received and noted that were the URL that the e-mail gave working, he would considering buying some of the things:

Also we have our Dutch-based shop where you can buy some drugs to make your life more wonderful and funny. We have wide selection of Ganzha, Crack, both synthetic and natural Heroin.
And our prices are affordables for everyone.

That spam is priceless. In case the booby trap Barbie packed with C4 doesn't interest you, then there is always the crack to make your life "more wonderful and funny".

Just a tip: when you are selling fake penis enlargement drugs online, the fines are stiff (no pun intended) and the penalties in getting caught are harsh. But when you step it up to selling crack and heroin... well, that's a whole 'nother game when it comes to the punishment you will get when caught.
Might want to step up the efforts to stay anonymous in your sales if you go that route.
But on the brilliant side, no idiot would ever use a credit card for such things, so you have to deal only in cash. And when you stiff the person, not sending them any drugs or explosives at all - that's all profit right there.

I should go on a marketing tour. I'll make millions telling housewives how to make money at home, faking selling crack from home so that they can blow the cash on new SUVs rollin' on dubs.

Posted by Eric at 11:08 AM | TrackBack

Fishing for Phishers

This blog entry discusses getting a phishing scam e-mail, and then some further logistics behind what might stop these from happening (and how to avoid getting scammed yourself). It was also linked to up on Slashdot.

Generally speaking though, we can't totally stop getting these things. We can reduce it, sure, but we can't totally stop it. So that means we have to learn how to deal with them once we have them.
Generally speaking, the best thing is to raise your level of paranoia a bit and don't trust any e-mail that you get. If you know how to look at the headers in your mail program - do that and see if it looks like it is coming from the right place.
Even then, that is just going to confuse most people.

So for these sorts of things, the best idea is to just not click on any links that you see in your e-mail. If your bank supposedly sends you something that requires you to go to their website, don't click on the link.
Instead open up a web browser and go to the URL that you know goes to your bank (ignore the one in the e-mail). Then look around on what you know is your bank site and see if they are saying the same thing there (that they need additional info from you).
It is extremely rare that they ever do, so be highly suspicious of these e-mails asking for additional info.

If all else fails, call the bank to confirm before you do it. But then again, make sure you aren't getting the phone numbers from the e-mail, but instead from the website that you are sure is actually your bank.

Much of this should be common sense, but it only takes those few that are perhaps new to the net and don't quite see all of this yet, and the phishers can make money.

Posted by Eric at 03:46 PM | TrackBack

Too much comment spam

Over at the Museum of Hoaxes blog (it is pretty much what it sounds like - a blog that discusses hoaxes), the author has finally had enough of blog comment spam. This is a very common problem in the blog world these days and most sites that get the larger amounts of traffic usually just end up giving up and blocking all comments. While I wouldn't mind more traffic here myself, we are currently at a size that a combination of MT-Blacklist and manual removal works well enough. There is still spam that gets through, but I tend to get to it within a day or so.

I am not sure if the Museum of Hoaxes is running MovableType or if they are using some other blogging software. If they are using MT, then I would highly recommend MT-Blacklist - but I suspect that at this point, that is an obvious enough solution that the author would have already found out about that and installed it.

That said, since it really is the obvious and appropriate solution (at least as a middle step for sites that aren't hugely popular), I don't know why more blogging software packages don't have a similar sort of plug-in available. Perhaps a lack of a plug-in API, or just a lack of interest (or user base).

Another option on MT (and built-in to some blogging software packages) are a variety of plug-ins that will turn off comments on any posts that are older than N days. This is very useful since this effectively reduces the number of possible posts on your site that can be hit by a bot, and therefore reducing the load on the site author to keep it cleaned up.

On an odd note, I have seen a series of comment spam starting on my blogs (this one included) that aren't real messages - so they are spam. But they aren't selling anything either or promoting a live site. It is like someone just creating idiot bots that post random stuff (and random non-working urls) to blogs.
I can only assume that these are signs of poorly configured bots, or test posts that upon success will then lead to "real" spam comments.

Posted by Eric at 03:04 PM | TrackBack

A family that spams together, stays together... in jail

The first felony conviction for spam comes this week. The brother went to jail and the sister was fined. A third person involved was let go entirely.
From the article:

Jurors recommended that Jeremy Jaynes, 30, be sentenced to nine years in prison and fined Jessica DeGroot, 28, $7,500 after convicting them of three counts each of sending e-mails with fraudulent and untraceable routing information.

The article claims that they were making $390K a month and had amassed $24M from their "worthless products". Whether they were actually worthless doesn't seem to be the point here, but instead how they marketed them - via spam.

In reaction to the jail term:

"Nine years is absolutely outrageous when you look at what we do to people convicted of crimes like robbery and rape," Oblon said.

I am torn on this. While I think something more than a slap on the wrist (which is what a $7,500 fine against them is if they really had $24M) is certainly appropriate - 9 years in jail is kind of intense for spam.
That said, the jury is clearly fed up with getting spam. We all are. It is to the point now where people are angry and want to see people punished.

I'm not sure that I have all of the answers, and I wonder if the article gives us the whole story, but I think too question that long a sentence for "just" spamming (it is entirely possible that there were other scams involved).

Posted by Eric at 11:05 PM | TrackBack

Spammers staying relevant in this post election time

BoingBoing posts an e-mail showing that some spammers are trying to be amusing post election.

From: "Mia Wang"
Date: November 3, 2004 9:28:10 AM EST
To: Taylor
Subject: Bush Gets Re-elected
Reply-To: "Mia Wang"

With 4 more years of Bush coming you need some prozac. Get it here.

Trust me, it'll make you feel better.

ST0P
Don't those singers dislike playing carelessly?
Did Roy love working on the top of the mountain?
I didn't dislike cooking at home.
tomorrow i will wash my hair and go to the salon

Posted by Eric at 12:38 AM | TrackBack

Another IE/Windows vulnerability abused by phishers

Slashdot points out to a new vulnerability in Windows.

Simply opening the email is enough to activate a script which 'lies in wait for its victim' according to one report. The script rewrites the host files of the machine and directs users to a fake web page the next time they legitimately attempt to access an online banking page. ... However, this will only affect users who have Windows Scripting Host enabled and certain ActiveX controls, according to MessageLabs.

Posted by Eric at 03:38 PM | TrackBack

Accused virus writer stands up for himself

Slashdot posted a few days ago about a write-up done (anon) which pointed out a Russian programmer as the source of the SoBig worm.
There is now a new post over at Slashdot talking about how this programmer has admitted that yes he does work on some shady things, but he is not the programmer of that virus. He then goes into detail as to how the anon write-up is wrong.

Posted by Eric at 02:38 PM | TrackBack

Anti-spyware and spyware, together

I know, I know, another Slashdot pointer - but hey, there is an election going on!

Anyway, Slashdot tells us about an anti-spyware company joining forces with a spyware company.
It reminds me of the "king of spam" and his spyware venture (it would infect you and then tell you that you needed to pay to get rid of it).

Posted by Eric at 10:15 PM | TrackBack

Mac OS X shown as "safest" OS

Slashdot (which never has anything good to say about Windows) has an article up on how Mac OS X is shown to be the safest OS.

The British security firm mi2g has concluded a comprehensive 12-month study to identify the safest 24/7 computing environment. In the end, the open source BSD and Mac OS X came out on top with the fewest security breaches against permanently connected machines worldwide in homes, small businesses, large enterprises and governments. The study found Linux to be the most breached environment 'in terms of manual hacker attacks overall and accounts for 65.64% of all breaches recorded'. Windows was the most breached environment in government computing and led Linux, BSD and Mac OS X by far in economic damage caused by breaches." We mentioned their previous study too. As before, the study ignores the thousands of automatically-spreading viruses for Windows.

The subject is a bit misleading since it isn't just OS X, but also BSD in general (and technically OS X has a whole lot of BSD "under the hood" so to speak).
It isn't clear to me immediately whether or not the higher Windows breach volume is due to its larger userbase, or if they mean separate ways breaches could happen.
If it is simply due to userbase - meaning that since so many more computers are out there with Windows on them - then BSD and OS X has a smaller userbase and that could lead to the smaller numbers.

That said, it does put a smile on my face because I do enjoy my Powerbook.

(Do note that there is a new security hole in Safari and IE - the former being the default web browser on OS X. Said bug is related to faking urls so that the link looks like it points to one thing but really points to another. This hole is not present in FireFox or other Mozilla variations.)

Posted by Eric at 03:35 PM | TrackBack

Hormel pays to try to win back name

Slashdot has a post up noting that Hormel has started an advertising campaign to try to regain name recognition over that of junk mail about Viagra.

Posted by Eric at 12:29 PM | TrackBack