Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Pestilent spammer arrested
Another ‘spam king’ locked up. A man described by anti-spam organisation Spamhaus as ‘one of the most persistent professional spammers’ was arrested in Seattle late last month and indicted on 35 counts including mail fraud, wire fraud, email fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. According to Spamhaus , Robert Alan Soloway has been a…
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Vulnerabilities galore
May was a month of flaw revelations, with vulnerabilities being disclosed in the products of no fewer than nine security vendors. May was a month of flaw revelations, with vulnerabilities being disclosed in the products of no fewer than nine security vendors. At the start of the month details were revealed of a vulnerability affecting…
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Another ‘Spam King’ arrested
Spammer brought to book after 4-year campaign. A Seattle man was indicted yesterday on numerous charges of fraud and deception in relation to a campaign of spamming dating back to 2003. Charges include mail fraud, identity theft and credit card fraud, as well as violation of email regulations. Among his offences is charging companies for…
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Symantec sued for false positive
Chinese FP issue leads to court case. A Chinese lawyer has begun court proceedings against security firm Symantec , claiming damages as a result of the widely-publicised false positive the product raised against a vital Windows component two weeks ago. Speculation about possible compensation payments has been in the air ever since the incident, which…
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Anti-spam laws take hold in Hong Kong
Tough new controls aim at stamping out spam. Hong Kong has become the latest place to see the introduction of anti-spam laws, with the first phase of a two-stage process coming into force there today. Phase one involves the banning of mass sending of commercial messages involving ‘unscrupulous activities’, as well as associated fraud. The…
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Vulnerabilities strike more AV firms, and Mac too
F-Secure and Authentium patch holes, while Samba flaws worry Apple users. Users of Mac OS X , used to a cosy sense of security, have been warned of possible penetration vectors thanks to a slew of flaws unveiled in the Samba networking system used to connect Mac s to Windows systems. An alert issued by…
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Google buys into security
Google makes stealth purchase of security firm. Search and entertainment giant Google completed the purchase of Internet security firm GreenBorder Technologies in mid-May – but hasn’t so much as mentioned the acquisition, even on its new Google Online Security Blog . GreenBorder operates using what it terms ‘just-in-time virtualization’ technology. When a web browser is…
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Google stashing adware on Dell systems, says OpenDNS founder
Toolbar partnership accused of devious spyware tactics. The partnership between search giant Google and hardware behemoth Dell , which has led to the popular Google Toolbar being pre-installed on systems sold by Dell , has been accused of overstepping the bounds of good practice and installing unwanted software alongside the toolbar, which is not only…
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IETF accepts DKIM specification as proposed standard
Email authentication system moves to approval stage. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the body overseeing the technical running of the Internet, has accepted a new system for identifying and validating legitimate email into the final stages of approval as an Internet RFC standards document. DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is a proposed system to apply…
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New OpenOffice proof-of-concept widely noted
Odd payload, not spreading danger, brings attention to cross-platform worm. A new proof-of-concept malware exploiting the OpenOffice document format has made headlines across the world, despite little chance of affecting users in the wild. The worm, dubbed SB/BadBunny-A by Sophos , has gathered wide media coverage thanks to its strange payload, a downloaded pornographic image…
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