spam

Buzz Out Loud 851: Boxcar Jack is looking for you at HoboBook.com!

Social networking finally reaches its most underserved niche: the hobos. Look for Tom to officially join the Hobo Nation any day now. In other news of the day, Caroline McCarthy joins us for a rollicking discussion of The Washington Post's war on spam, and Molly most likely gets herself fired from CBS and kicked off TWiT in one fell swoop. So, learn to love Caroline. She might be sticking around.

Listen now: Download today's podcast Episode 851

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 makes date with U.S.: Black Friday for $799.99 http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/12/sony-ericsson-xperia-x1-makes-date-with-us-black-friday-for-79/… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 849: Who you callin' 'barmaid,' larper?

A friendly member of Buzztown calls up to tell us how he named his Dungeons and Dragons characters after the core Buzz team. It all seems fine and dandy until he gets to Molly. Ahem. Not cool, guy. In actual news today, earbuds can be dangerous to your health (if you use a pacemaker), Circuit City files for Chapter 11, and the iPhone tops the RAZR as the most purchased U.S. consumer handset. Take that, RAZR!

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EPISODE 849

Your earbuds could stop your pacemaker http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/11/09/2091277-music-headphones-can-interfere-with-heart-devices… Read more

Beware emails linking to blogspot.com

I'm seeing a new pattern of malicious emails in my inbox. The body of the email message is nothing but a link to a blog at blogspot.com. The subject is a single word such as: Hey, Ave or Hallo.

One message linked to   uyxmwrmxaxquiuxti.blogspot.com.

My browser stayed there for only a second before getting re-directed to xykribwams.com which claims to be My Canadian Pharmacy.

This is a great example of the value you can get from the Flagfox extension for Firefox (which I wrote about back in July). Flagfox shows that xykribwams.com is … Read more

Twitter steps up its antispam moves

Twitter is stepping up its actions to fight spam, which has been plaguing the site since earlier this year and appears to be spiking this week.

The company is looking to hire a spam engineer, preferably one who has worked at a big search or e-mail company, according to a tweet by founder Evan Williams.

That person would likely work closely with the "spam marshal" that was hired in August.

The hiring move was praised by the Twitter community.

The latest job posting "is another sign that Twitter is maturing as a business and is using its … Read more

Secure your e-mail

Some say that if everyone in the world properly secured their e-mail, there would be no spam. Well that's one of many good reasons to do so. But isn't using PGP security really expensive and hard? Well it's actually free and after this Insider Secret, hopefully, it won't be so hard either.

If you just send an e-mail on the Internet, there's no way the recipient can be sure it really came from you, unless you digitally sign the e-mail. Also e-mail is unencrypted and anybody could intercept it and read it, unless you encrypt … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 825: Go toward the light...It's got Wi-Fi!

Apologies in advance for the slightly dirty word toward the end of the show. Now you'll all listen, won't you? In other news, Ford wants to make sure your kids don't speed, that they wear their seat belts, and that they intensely hate your guts. And Google wants to make sure you don't send mail when you're too drunk to do math. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 825

A.M.D. to split into two operations http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/technology/07chip.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10059766-92.html

Warner … Read more

Study: Uptick in spam-sending zombie PCs in September

Compromised computers that send spam as part of their regular botnet activity increased dramatically in September, according to a Symantec study (PDF) released Monday.

The Symantec report follows a study from MessageLabs also illustrating the increased use of automated spam relays.

After seeing a 37 percent drop in botnet-related spam for August, Symantec reported a 101 percent increase in September. The growth appears to be focused in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, with South Korea experiencing the largest increase at 4,236 percent. It was followed by Kazakhstan (761 percent), Romania (607 percent), Saudi Arabia (555 percent), and Vietnam (… Read more

Report: Palin, Obama lead in election-related spam

Sen. Barack Obama and Gov. Sarah Palin are both winners when it comes to spam.

The amount of spam that mentioned Obama beat out that of his rival, Sen. John McCain, by a ratio of 6 to 1 during the month of September, according to a study released by Secure Computing. Likewise, Palin outranked her opponent, Sen. Joe Biden, by a ratio of 6 to 1. The results were published Friday in a PC Magazine report.

The numbers don't mean much in terms of who actually wins the election, but they do show that spammers are staying on top … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 816: The fog of charm

I bet you think this podcast is about you. Don't you? Don't you!? On today's show, we learn how easy it is to spot a narcissist on Facebook (stay away!), terrible ideas that will criminalize professional eBay sellers and kill eBay even faster than it's killing itself, and how video games might be the only thing that can survive a recession.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 816

Bill would give retailers power to halt online auctions http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080924-bill-would-give-retailers-power-to-halt-online-auctions.html

Users fail to spot fake pop-ups http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7633402.stm … Read more