spam

Google's pointers on countering Web spam

SAN FRANCISCO--It's no secret that spam now pollutes Web sites as well as e-mail in-boxes. But Web site operators can take actions to combat it, a Google expert in the area said Friday.

Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team and an engineer who's been working on the problem for eight years, offered some tips about combating it during a speech at the Web 2.0 Expo here.

"Spammers are human," Cutts said. "You have the power to raise their blood pressure. Make them spend more time and effort...If spammer gets frustrated, he'… Read more

Spamming via Google Calendar

Spammers are now using Google Calendar, according to the SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC).

"Every once in a while I see a new spamming method. This one came from (Google Calendar)...as a meeting invite," writes Donald Smith of the ISC. "I deleted the e-mail, but due to my preferences in Exchange it appeared in my calendar anyways."

The text of the meeting invite was in French from someone at the International Clearing House West Africa-Benin, and promised $1.2 million in exchange for paying a $150 nonresident tax.

Spammers always have been early adopters.

That's one way to combat Russian spam

News recently broke that Russia is requiring registration for Wi-Fi use. I had forgotten until I checked into my hotel in Moscow tonight, and had the bother of having to go to a special desk in the lobby to sign up.

Reading the agreement, it sounds like this is an antispam measure? Seems a bit like the guns debate in the U.S. I doubt many of the spam kings and criminals that would be affected by it are going to register...

MySpace moving away from user spam with apps platform

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--MySpace might have gotten a stigma for its advertising and user spam, but the company is hoping to get a fresh start with its developer platform.

Jim Benedetto, vice president of technology for MySpace, discussed the company's current developer strategy with a group of 250 social application developers, entrepreneurs, and members of the press at the Snap Summit in downtown San Francisco. Benedetto didn't go into detail about this morning's announcement of the OpenSocial Alliance, and instead provided an overview of the development platform, including details about the upcoming integration of the MySpace's hypertargeting ad network.… Read more

Block spam, phishing attempts in Outlook

The battle for your in-box shows no signs of waning.

Despite the efforts of software companies large and small, spammers and phishers continue to find and exploit weaknesses in junk-mail filters at the server and client levels. After years of foil and parry between these two forces, you would think that Microsoft Outlook, the most widely used e-mail program in the world, would be a paragon of in-box defenses.

Then again, this is Microsoft we're talking about, a company not noted for being the paragon of anything more than profitability.

A few years back, Service Pack 2 for Office … Read more

Online advertiser to settle spam charges for record $2.9 million

An online advertising company accused of luring customers with deceptive offers of "free" iPhones, laptop computers, plasma televisions, and other goods has agreed to pay a record $2.9 million fine as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

According to a federal court filing (PDF) released Monday, since at least early 2005, Westlake Village, Calif.-based ValueClick and its subsidiary Hi-Speed Media have been attempting to lure consumers to their Web sites through e-mails and Web-based ads bearing slogans like "Free PS3 for survey" or "let us buy you a 42 inch … Read more

Gmail falls prey to spam bots

Updated 4:25 p.m. PST with additional Google comment.

Spammers have cracked the captcha mechanism Gmail uses to make sure you are a human before you can open an e-mail account, leading to a huge increase in the amount of spam sent from Gmail last month, security firm MessageLabs says.

We've all been subjected to captcha programs when signing up for Web services. They typically consist of a box with some characters, either distorted or displayed against some noisy background, and you have to type the letters and numerals in exactly as you see them before the system … Read more

Google says spam is huge corporate headache

Google released a white paper on Thursday about trends in electronic communications systems at corporations and found, to no surprise, that spam is a huge problem and getting worse.

While overall e-mail message volume per user grew 47 percent, the spam volume was up 57 percent in 2007 to record levels, according to data from Google's Postini cited in the 2008 Annual Google Communications Intelligence Report.

The average "unprotected user" would have received 36,000 spam messages in the year, up from 23,000 in 2006, the report said.

Stopping spam and other malware is the top … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 672: Spammer in the slammer

Episode 672

Judge: Wikileaks gets its domain name back http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9883240-38.html

First spam felony conviction upheld: No free speech to spam http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080302-first-spam-felony-conviction-upheld-no-free-speech-to-spam.html

Vista prices fall even further http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9883961-56.html

Pirates find proper way to crack Vista’s activation schema http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/03/0622230

More audiobook publishers drop DRM: Will Audible follow suit? http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/03/more-audiobook-publi.html

Nine Inch Nails uploads new album on Torrent sites http://torrentfreak.com/nin-uploads-new-album-on-torrent-sites-080303/

Fan-funded music http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13526_1-9882091-27.html… Read more

Now if only UEFA would give me tickets instead of cash

It's just a scam (see below), but I might have been duped into clicking had they promised me tickets to Arsenal's next Champions League match in Milan.

Clearly spammers need to tailor their messages to their audience a bit better. Promise me football (soccer) tickets and I'll be happy to send my firstborn. :-)… Read more