It was not that long ago when I started noticing spam popping up in our article comments. I was immediately infuriated. Nobody is going to use our site to help them sell member enlargements or Viagra or anything else like that. My immediate response was to set the system up so that we are emailed whenever somebody adds any new comments to the site. After about 3 months of deleting the spam immediately after it’s added, we were dropped by whoever was behind it, because they stopped completely.

It turns out that comment spamming is the latest trick for porn sites and shady online marketers. And people are not the end goal of these comments. Search engines like Google use a page ranking algorithm that is designed to take a number of factors into account when working out how to rank your site. One of the biggest elements is the number of links on other sites that link back to the site in question and the terms that are used in the links (known as Google bombing).

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This is not the first time I’ve heard about this, but it is the first time I’ve seen it reported on a bigger news site. And with the influx of recent Internet Explorer bugs, it might be a prudent time to show you why open source apps like Mozilla prove themselves to be more secure then commercial “closed source” alternatives.

First I should very briefly explain what “open source” means. The application you are reading this story with. (for example) is called a binary executable. That means that the code that the programmers wrote has been converted from a human readable programming language into a form that the computer understands. That process is called compilation. The human readable and modifiable code that started it all is not supplied with commercial applications. (like Microsoft Office or Windows itself) so you can’t modify it, you can’t fix bugs and you can’t improve it in any other way. With open source software like Mozilla and Linux, you get the human readable source code along with the binary computer files, so you can change, bugfix or improve the program to your hearts content.

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To start this little story, I suppose a vague definition of spyware is in order. In my mind, spyware is any software that reports anything about you back to someone, and that this communication was not made abundantly clear before you installed the program.

My personal experience with spyware has been long and varied. In my admin tasks, I have come across many many systems that are so crammed with spyware that they either won’t boot or are totally unusable when they do. If memory serves, one of the worst system infections I have come across was on a computer that Adaware alone found about 500 spyware items, and that was after I had removed all the registry entries that were starting them all at boot. Ironically, I went to look at that computer because the owners said it was too slow to use and probably needed upgrading with a newer faster system. After I cleaned all the rubbish out, they were more then happy with the speed and saved themselves a bunch of money. They are now using Firefox to browse the Internet with as it is not susceptible to the self installing spyware that Internet Explorer falls prey too. (ever had your homepage and favourites changed to a porn site and you can’t seem to set it the originals? If you have, then you are using Internet Explorer and you have spyware on your system, congratulations.) and I have taught them to be very wary of anything they load on their system, (and to teach their children the same habbits). They also now run spam removal programs on a weekly basis.

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This is bound to be a massive shock to many of you, but another three vulnerabilities have been found in Internet Explorer.
Secunia has the story, though you can also now find it covered by The Register as well.

The security flaws can be used to cause a DOS attack or to compromise a users system. Microsoft has issued a patch to close these faults, but if you’re not running the patch, your not protected, so go and get it.

Hopefully, all our readers are running Firefox by now, and are therefore unaffected by this constant stream of flaws, and I am probably preaching to the converted. (Our statistical counter seems to be indicating that nearly 30% of our visitors are using Firefox or Mozilla now, which is great to see.)

Regards

Franki

Sophos have released their “top ten” most widespread virus list for the first six months of this year. The top ten looks like this:

1. Sasser
2. NetSky-P
3. NetSky-B
4. NetSky-D
5. MyDoom-A
6. Zafi-B
7. NetSky-Z
8. NetSky-C
9. Sober-C
10. Bagle-A

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Music from the net is becoming big business, and you can always tell when something has reached that point when the lawsuits between the big boys begin. We’ve just reached that point.

Right now the biggest player on the legal online music industry is Apple, they have the vast majority of online sales, and back that up with their own iPod hardware player.
The problem is that Apple are using DRM (Digital Rights Management) as a means to lock anybody with an iPod into using the iTunes online music service. So if you are a competing music supplier, and you want to cater to the massive number of iPod owners out there, your out of luck. Likewise, if you can’t find what you’re looking for at iTunes, you’re not able to look anywhere else because the iPod won’t play any other companies DRM music files.

That is just like what many people are worried that Microsoft was/is trying to do with Palladium, make PC hardware that really only works to its full potential when its running Windows.
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This is proof that the stability of Linux has reached the point where it is useful in extremely error intolerant situations.

First off, NASA has just asked SGI (Silicon Graphics) to supply them with a 10,240 Intel Itanium 2 Processor Supercomputer running the “Space Exploration Simulator” on Linux. The new system will be used to chart space, help spacecraft designers and chart human effects on weather patterns.
See The Inquirer and The Register for more.

In other news, several departments of the University of New South Wales (in Australia) have been working together for several years on a 10 kilogram satellite that looks like it will be running a cut down version of an embedded Linux operating system. Linux is perfect for such uses as being open source, they can review the source code, make improvements and modifications and remove anything unneeded for the tasks at hand. TechWorld has the story. I wonder how long it will be before somebody creates a logo of Tux the Linux mascot penguin in a spacesuit (if they haven’t already).

Regards

Franki