According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), the number of “vishing” complaints received by the center is increasing at what it calls “an alarming rate.” Vishing and phishing are related, and both rely on e-mail as a means of delivering bait, but the two use different hooks in order to snag user data.

Vishing starts with an e-mail, like phishing, but requests that end-users contact a particular institution by phone in order to resolve an issue or re-secure personal data. People who call the provided number will be asked to provide the same types of data phishers attempt to procure. Ironically, vishing e-mails may even attempt to reassure recipients of their legitimacy by stating that the institution in question would never request customer financial data via e-mail or IM.

Read the Rest of the Article

Jeesh, I just get finished with that last post, then I find this!

According to reports, Microsoft has developed plans — and possibly a working prototype, though no details around that have emerged — for a system that would allow user’s laptop or desktop computers, as well as their cell phones and PDAs, to monitor everything from heart rate to body temperature to facial expressions. The systems would be on the lookout for just about everything — from beneficial monitoring for health problems to the more insidious. Anyone who gets nervous when filling out expense forms, beware — the system will think you’re lying.

The Empire — a euphemism which seems to growing more apt each day — even has planned out a deluxe model of the system, which can monitor what you like to do in your free time and hook you up to a social group. I can’t speak for Microsoft employees, but I think it may be time to consider a tinfoil hat.

Source: Linux Journal

Technorati Tags: Microsoft

A private firm funded by Google Inc launched its Web-based DNA test in Europe on Tuesday, hoping to build on a successful start in the United States, where the $999 service went on sale in November.

Subscribers to 23andMe mail a saliva sample and, four to six weeks later, get the results online, allowing them to learn about inherited traits, their ancestry and — probably with the help of a professional — some of their personal disease risks.

Sounds interesting, until you read Michael Crichton’s “Next”

“Next” has a subplot about a 4-year-old named Dave, the alleged Gandler-Kreukheim sufferer. Among his symptoms are excessive hairiness and a talent for climbing trees. Why? Because Dave is a transgenic creature, part human and part chimpanzee. He was created in a laboratory by a scientist who, in the course of research on autism, inserted his own genes into a chimpanzee embryo. The researcher hoped to create and then dissect a fetus, but things got a little out of hand.

Just believe this: Oddity after oddity in “Next” checks out, and many are replays of real events. “This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren’t,” Mr. Crichton writes, greatly understating the book’s scary legitimacy.

I just finished this book and trust me people, you DO NOT want to go there!

Yes it’s fiction, but replays many real events and it could all to easily become reality. Read it, you’ll know what I mean.

Source #1: Yahoo News

Source #2: New York Times Book Review – “Next”

Technorati Tags: Next, DNA Testing, Google

I was up real early as is normal for me, however after I had my coffee I decided to shovel the 8″ of 40% off my driveway and darn it was chilly. Seems as of the temps have dropped over 30 degrees since I woke up and now the silly wind is blowing and you don’t want to know the windchill right about now and it will get twice as cold before the day is over they claim. Hope you are warm were ever you are and that this crap is not in your area. Roads are closed, interstates closed,schools closed darn I love the Midwest and it’s weather.

Few breakthroughs have swept high-end corporate computing faster than virtualization, a technology that helps companies make more efficient use of computers by shifting work among machines. But despite Microsoft’s leadership in the area of high-end computing, Microsoft (MSFT) itself has been largely left out of the virtualization party.

The Redmond (Wash.) software giant hopes to change that on Jan. 22, when it unveils an acquisition, updated software, and new pricing that it hopes will help it become a force in the emerging business.

Read the Rest

The RIAA’s web presence became somewhat light on content over the weekend thanks to exploitation by parties unknown of an SQL injection vulnerability.

Now I wonder who in the world would want to besmirch the RIAA web site, after all they are so well loved here in the states,Baldy

 

RIAA website wiped by hackers [News]

Actually not a FOSS story, but FOSS users may find it interesting in that it addresses resistance to forced upgrades; in this case to Windows Vista. From the article: “In many respects, Vista is like the Windows Millennium Edition that was meant to replace Windows 98 in 2000 but caused more trouble than it was worth.” Ouch!

I remember when that horrible change over took place and trust me this time it seems even worse than back then, Baldy

 

Why XP must be saved

I found this over on Lxer and thought what a switch,Baldy

 

Asus’s Eee PC, an ultra-light notebook that runs Linux, will be available with Windows XP before the end of the quarter. Pricing has not yet been announced. It will be interesting to see which OS consumers choose.

 

Asus Plans to Offer Windows on the Eee