CAPTCHA and the Non-Standard User

In the last year or so a number of sites that offer a service or interact with readers via comments have started using images as a way to authenticate users as living people rather than a piece of software. These CAPTCHA images reduce fraudulent accounts used for spam, spreading malware and engaging various other nasty […]

Do I Want to Renew .Mac?

I signed up for .Mac the day it was announced, before Steve’s RDF had even faded; I thought it was a great idea. When Apple started charging for .Mac, I thought about it briefly, but then paid since it seemed well worth the money to me. I even bought my Mom a .Mac account. Last […]

An Old Virus But Still Nasty

I’ve finally seen my first potentially believable e-mail Trojan. This is one that’s been around a long time; I’ve just never gotten this particular e-mail. The payload is a .zip file containing W32.Netsky.P@mm. According to the Symantec Security Response site, this variant has been known about since March of 2004. It’s one of those payloads […]

Coping with P2P

I’ve posted about the DMCA before, pointing out that the DMCA is a poorly written law, but it is the law,
and must be adhered to, something RIAA subpoenas rely on. There have recently been a
number of articles referring to the way UCLA, where I am a student, is
dealing with P2P (peer to peer) MP3 […]

A “Friendly Critic” is only Helpful if the Critic is Informed

According to Oren Sreebny Dr. Gregory Jackson has resigned from Apple’s University Executive Forum, because of remarks he made in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Colloquy.” You can see my original post here and a followup here. I note that Oren’s post and his followup have already been picked up at Paul Thurott’s Internet […]

Potential ID3 Tag Vulnerability MP3Concept

Intego, makers of a Macintosh OS X anti-virus product called Virus Barrier, yesterday announced that they’d “discovered” a Mac Trojan horse. I, like Dori, am a little suspicious. For one thing, the language of the announcement was odd; for another, no other anti virus company has reported it even today, and for a third, I […]

More on the Chronicle Colloqy

Both MacInTouch and Applelinks picked up my post about the Chronicle of Higher Education colloquy on dealing with worms and Trojan horses. You might want to take a look at the reader comments at Applelinks; I’ve linked directly to the appropriate page above (MacInTouch doesn’t seem to have permalinks). I’m glad to see […]

Argghhhhh Mac OS X: Virus-Free

The Chronicle of Higher Education has, once a week or so, a “Colloquy,” or live discussions about a set topic. Readers submit questions in advance, which are answered by an “expert.”
This week the topic was “The High Cost of Computer Worms,” and the expert was one Gregory A. Jackson, vice president and chief information […]

Movabletype Spam Vulnerability

Six Apart has provided a fix for a potential Spam vulnerability in MovableType’s “Email this to a friend” feature. You can read about the fix, and download it, here.
If you haven’t already installed Jay Allen’s MT-Blacklist anti-comment spam plug-in, go here and install it at the same time as the MovableType fix.

Swen

Despite my exquisite taste and judgement in using Mac OS X as my OS, one of my email accounts (the one my students use) is getting swamped with email containing the Swen attachement—and I do mean swamped. So for Windows users, of any stripe, here’s some help in terms of thwarting and removing the nasties.

— keep looking »