poison

Netflix said last week it could work with Carl Icahn, but now its managers are girding for battle.

The Web video-rental service said today that it is preparing what is commonly referred to as a poison pill, in an effort to fend off attempts from outside companies from making a hostile bid to takeover Netflix. The statement below does not name investor Carl Icahn, but after the billionaire and former corporate raider acquired just under 10 percent of Netflix's shares last week, it's obvious he is the motivation for this action.

The Netflix board of directors approved the … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Katie interviews DC Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee at New York Comic Con.

- Check out Katie's new app Splatrpult, available today for a free download.

- The New Yorker traces emojis back to the beginning.

- Real apples branded with Apple's logo.… Read more

I have not yet had the good fortune of getting poison ivy, and now perhaps I never will. A new spray that lights up in the presence of the oil that causes the rash might let me bail on that particular party should I ever be invited.

Rebecca Braslau, a professor of chemistry at the University of California at Santa Cruz, has concocted a nontoxic spray that goes fluorescent in the presence of urushiol, the oily sap on poison ivy leaves that can make life extremely unpleasant for you and your skin.

Braslau and colleagues describe their innovation in a recent issue of The Journal of Organic Chemistry. Their paper, titled "Urushiol Detection Using a Profluorescent Nitroxide," might just as well be called "Spray This Stuff on to Maybe Avoid Scratching Yourself Silly." … Read more

Just when it seemed like Etsy was the perfect place to pick up some human bones, poison, or drug paraphernalia, the online artisan e-commerce site announced it was banning these products and more.

It actually seems a bit laughable that Etsy had to earnestly state that it was forbidding these items, which include all smokeable products, human remains or body parts, hazardous materials, motor vehicles, and drugs -- but it did.

Here's what Etsy policy manager Lauren Engelhardt wrote in a blog post last week:

The Sri Lankan branch of Anonymous claims to have hacked into the DNS servers of Symantec, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and several other large organizations over the past few days.

Posting the news and records of its exploits on Pastebin, the group is taking credit for launching "DNS Cache Snoop Poisoning" attacks against its victims.

DNS cache snooping is the process whereby hackers can query a DNS server to find out which domain names are being resolved into IP addresses.

DNS cache poisoning is a method through which hackers are able to insert malicious and fake records into the … Read more

Research In Motion's official BlackBerry blog was defaced earlier today in retaliation for the company's apparent decision to assist the London police.

It's still unclear what assistance, if any, RIM has extended to the London police, who are combating widespread street unrest that has wracked England's capital for the last several days. A spokesman for RIM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But yesterday, RIM tweeted that it felt sympathy for people "impacted by the riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can."

That was enough to trigger a response from a group calling itself Team Poison, which subsequently posted a message on RIM's BlackBerry blog and announced on Twitter that it had compromised the site. It then fired a warning shot of sorts, threatening to release access to the company's database if RIM shares information that helps the police make arrests. … Read more

Hackers today released what looks like personal information on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, including the contents of his electronic address book, with contact data for members of Parliament and for what could be Blair's dentist and his mechanic.

A link to the data on the Pastebin Web site was sent out on Twitter from the account of "TeaMp0isoN" along with a message saying "Tony Blair should be locked up, he is a war criminal." Earlier in the day, the TeaMp0isoN account had featured a tweet that said the group was targeting Blair for … Read more

Online scammers are taking advantage of the public's interest in the Google Doodle to spread malware, a security firm warned on Tuesday.

In so-called "SEO poisoning," scammers use search engine optimization techniques to increase the distribution of malware. They create special malware-rigged Web sites or hide malware on legitimate Web sites they've compromised and then use tags associated with popular search terms to get them listed high up in search engine results.

Typically, scammers capitalize on public interest in news events or celebrities, targeting searches like "Swine Flu" or "Michael Jackson death." … Read more

A fatal flaw with the DNS (Domain Name System) is being exploited in Internet attacks and more attacks are likely, the security researcher who discovered the flaw said on Thursday.

"I do think we are going to see attacks. I think we have been seeing attacks already going on in the field," said Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration testing for IOActive, who warned the industry about the DNS vulnerability nearly five months ago. "We're doing everything we can to mitigate and reduce its incidence."

Kaminsky mentioned a DNS-related incident with China Netcom (possibly the incident … Read more