Updated Tuesday at 9:10 a.m. with Google comment.
A few months ago, spam came to Google Calendar. Now phishing has arrived.
Intrepid Google watcher Philipp Lenssen wrote late last week about being the target of a phishing attempt via Google Calendar.
He received an e-mail to his Gmail account with a reference to a legitimate event from his calendar. The sender was listed as "customer care," and it asked him to verify his account by supplying his username and password.
"We are having congestions (sic) due to the anonymous registration of Gmail accounts, so we are shutting down some Gmail accounts, and your account was among those to be deleted. We are sending you this email to so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account," the e-mail said, complete with grammatical and spelling mistakes that can tip people off to phishing attempts.
On May 28, a Google Talk Guide addressed the issue in a Google Groups thread, urging users to click the "Report Phishing" link if they receive suspicious e-mails and not to click on links within the e-mails or open attachments.
Late on Monday, a Google representative e-mailed this statement: "Spam is an issue for all Internet users, and we work very hard to fight it. Using Google Calendar, or any Google product, to send spam is a violation of our product policies. We are actively identifying Calendar accounts that send spam and disabling them."
Google has more information on how to protect against e-mail fraud on its Official Google Blog Web site.
Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscope writes about how phishers targeted him via Google Calendar. This is a screenshot of the e-mail he received.
(Credit: Blogoscoped)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.
Update 5:25 p.m. PT with other sync tools.
Online calendars are great but the problem is you tend to have one at work and a separate personal one. Now you can see events in both calendars at once, at least if you are using Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook.
Google released Google Calendar Sync on Wednesday, which allows you to sync up those two calendars.
The tool gives you control over which direction you want the synchronization to go as well as how often you want it to happen.
The software was easy to install, and I was able to see the Outlook items in my Google Calendar but not the other way around for some reason. Oh well. Once I get this figured out it sure will be useful.
There are other Outlook calendar sync tools, but most aren't free. Jotlet announced two-synchronization with Outlook and its calendar last year. Another interesting one is Calgoo, a Java-based app that syncs online and offline calendars, including Google and Microsoft.
Google Calendar Sync lets you sync your Google Calendar with your Microsoft Outlook calendar.
(Credit: Google)Since I started synchronizing my e-mail inboxes a few months ago, I rarely even open my Outlook mail client. I much prefer seeing the messages sent to my ISP's POP account and those sent to my Gmail account together in my Gmail inbox. But I still have to open Outlook to view my calendar, which I've been using for years, even though I now put many of my nonwork appointments in Google Calendar, which I can access from my iPhone or any Internet-connected PC.
I thought I found a free program that would let me synchronize the two calendars automatically. Synchronization Technologies' SyncMyCal claims to let you sync multiple Outlook calendars with your Google Calendar. I gave the program a try, but I while it let me transfer the entries on my Google Calendar to my Outlook equivalent, I couldn't get all my Outlook appointments to register on Google Calendar.
I'll keep troubleshooting the problem, though I hope I don't have to upgrade to the $25 SyncMyCal Pro version, which automates the calendar syncs, and lets you work with appointments in time chunks longer than the free version's limit of 7 days. Until then I'll stick with the manual approach to Outlook/Google Calendar integration.
Send your Google Calendar entries to Outlook 2003 and 2007
Start by logging into your Google account and opening your calendar. Click the Manage calendars link at the bottom of the left pane, and then click the name of the calendar to open the Calendar Details dialog box. Scroll to Private Address near the bottom of the window, and click ICAL.
Click ICAL next to Private Address in Google Calendar's Calendar Details dialog to generate the URL you'll use to import the calendar to Outlook.
Unfortunately, Outlook 2003 doesn't support the iCalendar format. I was able to add Google Calendar entries to my Outlook 2003 calendar one at a time by clicking the link in the popup window to download the entry, opening the file in Outlook, and clicking Save and Close. But this approach isn't any faster than adding the entries manually.
At least Outlook 2007 lets you import an iCalendar file directly: Copy the long URL in the Google Calendar's Private Address popup window, open your Outlook calendar, and click File>Import and Export. Choose Import an iCalendar (.ics) or vCalendar file (.vcs), and click Next. Paste the URL you copied from the popup into the File name field at the bottom of the Browse dialog box, and click Open. Click Import, and your Google Calendar entries are added to your Outlook calendar.
Import your Google Calendar as an iCalendar file (.ics) to add its entries to your Outlook 2007 calendar.
Transfer your Outlook calendar to Google Calendar
To move your Outlook schedule to your Google Calendar, Open Outlook 2003 or 2007 and click File>Import and Export>Export to a file>Next. Choose Comma Separated Values (Windows) and click Next again. Navigate to and select your Calendar folder (it should be highlighted by default), and click Next yet again. In Outlook 2003, verify the location of the saved .csv file (change it if you want to place it elsewhere), and click Next once more. In Outlook 2007, select a location for the file, give it a name, and click OK and then Next. Click Finish, set the date range for the calendar entries to be exported, and click OK.
Now open your Google Calendar, click the small down arrow next to Add in the left pane, and choose Import Calendar. Select the Browse button, navigate to and select the .csv file you just created, and click Open. Choose the calendar you want to import it to (it will likely be selected by default), and click Import.
Select the .csv file you exported from Outlook to import it to your Google Calendar.
Tomorrow: What to do when Windows craps out.
Rumors have surfaced yet again that Google plans to introduce a calendar service, which would let people keep track of important dates online. Word is from Blog 2.0 that the unveiling will be at Tuesday's When 2.0 conference, which will be held at Stanford University and hosted by Esther Dyson's Release 1.0. (That's a lot of dot-Os.)
Still, Google is not slated to speak at the event, despite the appearance of rivals, including Yahoo's Raymie Stata and Microsoft's Ray Ozzie. That doesn't necessarily bar such an announcement--the search giant could always make a surprise appearance or just time the launch to the event. Why not? It already owns the domain name "Calendar.google.com" and it has cooked up many other popular Web services to compete with Yahoo, Microsoft and others outside of search. Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny even made a wish list for Google Calendar features almost 10 months ago.
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