It appears that a group has decided to start using Blogs, specifically Google’s Blogger, to introduce Trojan Horses to visitors computers. Infection is via links embedded in the text (ie: a normal link) that causes the Trojan to download and execute. The BBC is covering this.
Archive for August, 2007
I’ve seen a lot more 9/11 conspiracy theories over the last few months and they’re starting to make more and more sense. When you watch several of the videos and look over several of the sites, you start seeing the bigger picture. None of these theories have all the answers, but the more and more you look into them, the more it seems very likely. The newest theory is that Portland, Oregon is next on the list of a large scale attack.
This week, Portland is running a drill “that will simulate terrorism or disaster scenarios in the Lower Columbia River Basin between Aug. 20th and Aug 24th, 2007″. Unfortunately, many times when drills like this are run, throughout the world, something bad happens - by chance…
This exercise causes me to worry a little after Cheney announced earlier that another attack was coming. It’s also after Cheney said that he would consider nuclear weapons against Iran.
Cheney’s proposed “contingency plan” did not focus on preventing a Second 9/11. The Cheney plan is predicated on the presumption that Iran would be behind a Second 9/11 and that punitive bombings could immediately be activated, prior to the conduct of an investigation, much in the same way as the attacks on Afghanistan in October 2001, allegedly in retribution for the alleged support of the Taliban government to the 9/11 terrorists. Article
The above article even goes on about how we where able to just “instantly” jump onto Afghanistan and bomb the crap out of them and replace the government (yes, I know it didn’t happen overnight). I’ve been around the military for more than 20 years. Dad was in, grandparents where in, my wife is in - NOTHING happens instantly in the military - NOTHING.
Coming from the good state of Oregon, I know that there are a fair share of yahoo’s running around (we’ll call them Tree Huggers) chanting things every other week. I know they stage protests every once in awhile - but I’m a little surprised to see Oregon on a terror list. I’ll tell you, as an Oregonian - we’re not worried about Nuclear issues, we’re worried about something worse that could effect 3 times as many people as what they’re preparing for, the dams.
Seriously folks - even if you think I’m a crackpot, why is Cheney assuming that Iran - someone that the US has been increasingly aggravated over - is behind “future attacks”? Why has the chatter in the media gone up concerning Iran? After the US listed Iran’s military force a Terrorist Organization, the “experts” started getting worried.
Oddly, President John F Kennedy spoke to the press and warned them that secrets are bad, that they should not be kept from the people and that people deserve the truth. His speech is pretty interesting… At this point, I’ll call myself a Chicken Little and I hope I’m right.
Note: Oddly, almost coincidently, InfoWars published a worrisome article about “Chatter” on the West Coast while I was writing this article. They’re pinpointing San Fransisco - lets hope we’re all wrong.
Unfortunately, anyone that has a Monster.com account needs to be on the look out for Phishing attempts since data was leaked. Symantec noticed the breach and notified Monster, but is insisting that users be wary of email that contain personal information such as employment history, skill sets and more. Like many people, I’m affected by this as well.
Symantec said it had seen reports of phishing e-mails sent out to Monster.com users which were “very realistic” and contained “personal information of the victims”.
The e-mail encouraged users to download a Monster Job Seeker Tool, which was in fact a program that encrypted files in their computer and left a ransom note demanding money for their decryption.
In an odd fashion, Skype has announced that the millions of computers rebooting after a Windows Update brought down its network.
At first, the default Windows Update time and default options don’t seem like much until you figure out that an entire timezone, each with millions of people, have the default options chosen. X minutes after check in, most computers in that timezone reboot, put strain on their ISPs and other services. This is effectively like a rolling brownout/blackout due to too many air conditioners being on in hot areas. The system crashes and restarts, but crashes again and again due to load.
For this reason, as well as the fact that I don’t like my computer rebooting in the middle of something (like a document or my BeyondTV box recording something), I don’t leave the default options on.
Now, to their credit, Skype said that this wasn’t Microsoft’s fault, but I think otherwise. Sure, Skype needs open ports and the ability handle massive amounts of traffic, but so does your average Telephone company. Imagine if everyone in the US picked up the phone all at once. What do you think would happen? Well, you don’t have to imagine because it happened on 9/11. The system had massive problems, dropped calls, crossed trunks, millions of busy signals - even the Internet was effected that day.
I was working at Earthlink the day it happened. We saw our call Q’s go from 120+ calls on hold to less than 10 in minutes. We also saw a huge drop in internet traffic as events played out on live TV but within an hour, global bandwidth was eaten up by people switching from Phone to Internet Communications causing massive loads on the ISP side. Earthlink was even visited by the FBI, they requested that we stay open and even authorize overtime for any employee that works on keeping the network up - Earthlink had a heart that day and agreed.
Anyway, this problem was ultimately created by Microsoft. If they had introduced a random time generator for Windows updates between Midnight and 6am, This type of situation would have never happened. No domino effect, no lost service for millions of customers.
…Then again, if you’re using VOIP, you know the risks of going fully digital at the moment.
It seems that Continental Airlines had had enough once passengers started clapping and drumming in protest, after 5 hours on the tarmac. An older flight attendant even announced that passengers where destroying airline property and would be arrested…
Then, the cops came - complete with a K9 unit and lined the passengers up. So much for a passenger bill of rights. NYTimes
