bad

Washington D.C. -- On Wednesday, in a talk at Black Hat D.C. 2008, two researchers set out to see whether phishing sites were created by the "Einsteinian, ninja hackers that the media makes them out to be."

In a talk titled "Bad Sushi: Beating Phishers at their own game," Nitesh Dhanjani and Billy Rios found not a sophisticated gang of elite coders, but hundreds of bad coders all copying one another, and often stealing from each other.

Dhanjani and Rios expressed disapproval of antiphishing products that use black lists to block known phishing sites. … Read more

Will product designers ever stop finding inspiration in the simple shape of an egg? The smooth, rounded shape of the Form trio of kitchen tools owes its existence to a photograph of an egg admired by designer Charles Job. The set consists of an egg timer, an egg slicer and a salt and pepper set that snap together. Each tool is available in your choice of sleek black or white plastic. "Boil an egg; slice it and eat it with salt and pepper--that is the essence of Form," says the product Web site.

Well, that should teach us. Just minutes after making sport of Swarovski, we came across yet another another category of products that the infectious crystals are attacking: computer screens.

ViewSonic, a respectable manufacturer, has apparently succumbed to market madness by allowing customers to "beautify and customize" their LCDs with "original Swarovski crystals," according to PCLaunches. (As opposed to unoriginal ones?) And you can scream bad taste in grand fashion with a full 22-inch widescreen with 1680x1050 resolution. But you might have to wear sunglasses to cut down on the crystal reflection.

A California death row inmate's fate depends in part on the word "hacker."

Enrique Zambrano, a former Berkeley, Calif., government bureaucrat, was convicted of murdering a fellow waterfront commissioner to prevent him from testifying against Zambrano in a 1988 assault case.

The killing was brutal. A hiker in the Lafayette hills found the headless body of Luis Reyna, the other Berkeley Waterfront Commission member, hacked to pieces. A forensic pathologist later testified that the neck vertebrae had been sawed off and the lower jaw was missing.

Now Zambrano is on death row and in the midst of … Read more

A longtime county bureaucrat whose ex-girlfriend turned her in for excessive use of personal e-mail has lost a lawsuit claiming she was fired unjustly.

Lynne Bray, who assigned work to road crews for Washington state's King County, was reprimanded in July 2003 for being customarily late for work. She claimed she was being treated for depression and irritable bowel syndrome, a disorder marked by constipation and diarrhea.

But what seems to have led to Bray's termination after 12 years as a county bureaucrat was a citizen complaint from her former girlfriend, Jennifer Bond, saying that she was using … Read more

A New Jersey police officer in charge of the department's Web site and computer systems has been locked up on child porn charges.

To hear prosecutors tell it, Pennsauken Township police officer John Schenberger was a sick fellow who sent 1,071 still images and 11 movies to (whoops!) an FBI agent that included depictions of bestiality, child bondage and child pornography.

Schenberger allegedly engaged in this vice while on duty and using Pennsauken Township's computers. He's accused of writing to the FBI agent, who pretended to be about to engage in sexual acts with a 5-year-old … Read more

This month's Living with Technology package on CNET.com is a must-see for anyone who values form over function, or function over form, or form that enhances function.

As you may have already gathered, the key word here is form. This month, Living with Technology is all about design: the good, the bad, the future, and the new philosophies that are budding in today's designers.

There's tons of good stuff to see: videos, slide shows, and good old text-based articles. Visit Living with Technology: Eye on design to get the full menu of goods, or just click … Read more

On Monday, Sony announced a $100 price cut for the 60GB PlayStation 3, taking the console's retail price down to $499. Since many gamers saw the PlayStation 3 as too expensive at its previous retail price of $599, Sony's decision was widely praised. Unfortunately, the $499 60GB PS3 isn't going to last, because Sony has just confirmed that the company is no longer producing 60GB PS3s.

On the same day the price cut was announced, Sony announced a new 80GB PS3, a console that will be bundled with Motorstorm and will retail for $599, the same as … Read more

No, this isn't one of those items about how your cell phone irradiates your brain--there's been plenty of research in the U.S. and Europe looking at that fear. A Danish health study has concluded cell phones are not killing us large mammals.

But if you're still worried about cell phone radiation, CNET has the chart for you, and the key word is "Chocolate" because that phone has the lowest radiation of any phone tested in the States. (It should be noted that this story is coming out of Europe, where the EU allows nearly … Read more