News has come out that some Blogs hosted by Google are being used to trick users into installing Adware and spyware. It should be noted that it is not Google that is doing this, it is rather users of their blogging service that are using the tactics, presumably to earn advertising dollars. The blogs use tricks to get people to click on a button that authorises the downloading and running of the ad/spyware. Such tricks include showing a “next blog” button, or claiming to be a necessary Windows or IE update of some sort. You can read the full story here. Google are said to be aware of the problem and are “looking into it”. It should also be noted that thus far, all of these spyware, browser hijacking problems only effect Internet Explorer. If you use Firefox, you shouldn’t be effected.

With all the new protections being employed by Bloggers, it is getting harder and harder for spammers to use Blogs spam to improve search engine ranking any more. Google came up with a new link attribute bloggers can use in their comment systems to make it so links in comments do not benefit the linked site. The other big search engines have promised to support the new attribute as well.

Not being the types to give up however, the spammers have turned to Trackback/Traceback spamming. (I explained what trackbacks were in this previous story.) Many had predicted this was going to happen, and now it has, blogs are full of stories complaining about the problem, and possible ways to fix it, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on a good solution yet. Basically the spammers are sending trackback’s to blogs from sites that don’t actually exist (usually though broken open relays) and the trackback has the link to the spammers site in it. Many blogs will list the trackback and it’s included link in the list of comments to a post, so in essence this is just as bad as normal comment spamming and at this point it is harder to stop.

A week after a nasty IDN flaw was found in all non IE browsers (because IE doesn’t natively support International Domain Names), it turns out that Microsoft didn’t get away scott free as a new Phishing flaw has been found in IE and confirmed by Microsoft. The flaw has to do with long URL’s in pop-up windows, and you can read more about it at Secunia. There is no patch for this flaw yet and all versions of IE6 (including SP2) are affected. The only suggestion is not to enter sensitive information into pop-up windows after following links in un-trusted sites. Eweek have also covered this issue and you can read it here.

You ever have one? Mood rings* were a thing of the 1970’s, when Apples were eaten and memory was something you had and your grandparents did not. These days many peoples’ moods shift with their wireless connection. Indeed, Mary Hodder, the woman featured in that Wired article enjoys a party where there are “Lot’s of folks sitting around on the floor and at the table blogging, chatting.. taking photos and posting them online.” Given who was at the party, I might have enjoyed it too, but then too I might have ruined it because I would have wanted to talk to these people given how thoughtful they are on so many things web.

Well Mary, here’s good news for you! A wireless mood ring is under development. When it beeps your friends will know to get out of the way.

*Before finding pop-under advertisements were on the site I would have linked to how things work here!
For those of you who like pop-under advertisements, go ahead: How Stuff Works Mood Ring Link

In what would be a blow to Microsoft, if in fact it is true, two Scandinavian websites claim Nokia is replacing Internet Explorer with Firefox on 55,000 company desktops. The most likely reason to do that in a corporation is for security reasons, so one wonders if Nokia are sick of dealing with IE’s more or less continuous steam of security flaws.
You can read more about it here, but only if you read Norwegian. For an English summary, see here.
However, a Nokia representative has since stated that this is a misunderstanding and that the migration is not taking place.

So are they or aren’t they switching? Time will tell. As recently as last week, Nokia announced a major collaborative project with Microsoft. So my best guess is that Nokia did plan to make the switch, perhaps not as openly as it came about, meanwhile, when Microsoft got wind of it, it pressed it’s contacts to quiet the thunder. If the switch now occurs, it will be done more quietly. Unfortunately — assuming it was going to happen — it may get killed before implementation because of business pressures. IDG have reported in the past that Nokia donated money to the Mozilla foundation, and Mozilla started working on a mini browser for the phone market around the same time, and also that Nokia have been considering Firefox for desktop use for some time.

We look forward to the day when the reason to use Internet Explorer will be because it is the best and tightest browser in the market, not because you fear reprisal or backlash in other business dealings.

Franki earlier reported on the re-emergence of pop-under advertisements as a method of circumventing pop-up blockers built into Safari and Firefox browsers. I wanted to dig further to see if they were really back. The answer is clearly yes, as shown in this screen shot. As you can see by the next screen shot, this pop-under with the address http://205.180.85.40/w/pc.cgi?mid=60922&sid=4253 comes from a referring page at http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/motor.htm. This confirms the information at MacFixIt that howstuffworks is using them.

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Australia has deplorable broadband pricing and speed, and mostly it is because of our incumbent telecom Telstra. Since the vast majority of ISP’s in Australia are in fact Telstra wholesale resellers, Telstra have had no real incentive to improve their offerings and price. Recently they significantly dropped their retail ADSL pricing and introduced a $29.95 (AUD) 256/64 ADSL plan. unfortunately they didn’t reduce their wholesale price to match. The result was that reseller ISP’s had great difficulties even competing with Telstra’s retail arm. The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) were called in and issued Telstra with a “competition notice” that had the power to fine Telstra 10 Million dollars for each breach, and another one million for every day the breaches continued. Instead Telstra is rebating $6.5 million to affected wholesale ISP’s, something which in many minds is just a minor slap on the wrist.

In Australia, we are totally amazed at how cheap and fast broadband is in the US. We are on the broadband equivalent of dial-up over here, and paying a great deal of money for the privilege. This will not change as long as Telstra is the only real player on the scene. Fortunately both Optus and Iinet are rolling out their own ADSL2 equipment into Telstra’s exchanges and will soon be able to offer speeds that Telstra cannot compete with. (Telstra’s equipment is all ADSL1 standard). The privatising of Telstra over here has been a real problem as the more private they get, the more they serve their shareholders and the less they seem to serve their customers best interests.
Read more here and here.