“Small ISPs Use “Malicious” DNS Servers to Watch Web Searches, Earn Cash”
August 5, 2011 | Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
Press
Nearly 2 percent of all US Internet users suffer from "malicious" domain name system (DNS) servers that don't properly turn website names like google.com into the IP addresses computers need to communicate on the 'Net. And, to make matters worse, the problem isn't caused by hackers or malware, but by the local ISPs people pay for access to the Internet. Though the 2 percent number might sound low, it's astonishingly high for a core Internet function, as is clear from the fact that no other country—apart from Haiti—sees more than 0.17 percent malicious DNS servers. What's gone wrong in America?
“Contest Shines Light on Broadband Providers’ Tactics”
August 5, 2011 | Grant Gross, IDG News Service, PC World
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has given awards to three computer science teams for application development or research that helps broadband customers measure the speed and performance of their service. Teams from the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI), the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan and Microsoft Research won the FCC's Open Internet Challenge, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced Friday.
“Widespread Hijacking of Search Traffic in the United States”
August 4, 2011 | Peter Eckersley, the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Earlier this year, two research papers reported the observation of strange phenomena in the Domain Name System (DNS) at several US ISPs. On these ISPs' networks, some or all traffic to major search engines, including Bing, Yahoo! and (sometimes) Google, is being directed to mysterious third party proxies.
“US Internet Providers Hijacking Users’ Search Queries”
August 4, 2011 | Jim Giles, New Scientist
Searches made by millions of internet users are being hijacked and redirected by some internet service providers in the US. Patents filed by Paxfire, the company involved in the hijacking, suggest that it may be part of a larger plan to allow ISPs to generate revenue by tracking the sites their customers visit. It may also be illegal.
"Colour Naming: Eglantine by Any Other Name"
July 6, 2011 | The Johnson Blog, The Economist
Let's start with the basics. A 1969 study of colour naming by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay concluded that languages evolve through a fairly limited set of possible trajectories for naming colours, determined largely by the biology of the human visual cortex. They begin with a distinction between just two tones, light/warm and dark/cool (there is a disputed claim that the Pirahã language of the Brazilian Amazon hasn't got past this stage).
“Most Malware Tied to ‘Pay-Per-Install’ Market”
June 9, 2011 | Brian Krebs, MIT Technology Review
New research suggests that the majority of personal computers infected with malicious software may have arrived at that state thanks to a bustling underground market that matches criminal gangs who pay for malware installations with enterprising hackers looking to sell access to compromised PCs. Pay-per-install (PPI) services are advertised on shadowy underground Web forums. Clients submit their malware—a spambot, fake antivirus software, or password-stealing Trojan—to the PPI service, which in turn charges rates from $7 to $180 per thousand successful installations, depending on the requested geographic location of the desired victims.
“Enterprises Not Ready for IPv6”
June 7, 2011 | Andy Dornan, InformationWeek
On Tuesday night, the world's largest carrier's providers and websites are switching on IPv6, the next-generation Internet protocol that's needed to deal with the looming address shortage. Most enterprise networks aren't ready, according to a survey from trade association CompTIA, which found that only 23% of business IT departments in the U.S. have actually begun to implement the new protocol.
"How People Broadcast Their Locations Without Meaning To"
April 22, 2011 | Erica Naone, MIT Technology Review
People were up in arms this week about the privacy implications of news that the iPhone gathers location information and stores it in a file on the user’s computer. But experts say that smart-phone owners are unknowingly taking a much bigger risk with information about where they go all day.
“Geo-Tagging: The Dangers of Posting Pictures Online"
November 3, 2010 | CBS New York
Posting photos on social networking sites, like Facebook and MySpace, is a quick and easy way to show friends and family what you’ve been up to. Those innocent snapshots, though, could be revealing a lot more about your life than you think, potentially putting your home and family at risk, reports CBS 2′s Chris Wragge.
“Tips to Turn Off Geo-Tagging on Your Cell Phone"
August 20, 2010 | Ki Mae Heussner, ABC News
Keeping tabs on your favorite celebrities might be easier than you think -- and much easier than they want. But they likely have no one to blame but themselves. According to two teams of computer scientists, Hollywood stars could be unintentionally giving up the exact locations of their homes and private whereabouts through pictures uploaded to the Internet, leaving them wide open to attacks by tech-savvy thieves (not to mention unwanted visits by starstruck fans).