TechBlog

h-Online: A file with 11 million password hashes belonging to users of the online games platform Gamigo has been circulated on the internet. According to an analysis by ZDNet, 8.2 million different email addresses are also part of the 478MB file. Around 3 million of these belong to users from the US, 2.4 million are German addresses and 1.3 million are supposed to originate in France. The list also includes corporate email addresses from companies such as IBM, Siemens, Deutsche Bank and the German insurance company Allianz. ...

Time Techland wrote: When I learned this morning, via Twitter, that the small company behind Mac/iOS e-mail app Sparrow was being bought by Google, I almost didn’t need to read the startup’s announcement to know the upshot. Google and Facebook buy itty-bitty web companies all the time. And the acquired businesses typically convey what’s happening in an eerily consistent five-step ritual: Announcement of thrilling acquisition Reiteration of startup’s wildly ambitious founding notion Explanation that either Google or Facebook is the best place to change the world Acknowledgement (or sometimes non-acknowledgement) that the startup’s product is being discontinued or is going into limbo Expression of heartfelt gratitude to various supporters, usually including the consumers who are losing their something they liked So it seems to be going with Sparrow: Its five-person team will be working on Gmail henceforth; the existing Sparrow apps aren’t being discontinued, but they apparently won’t get any updates, either. ...

h-online: The TeamViewer developers have released updates for a potential security vulnerability discovered in the remote access tool. The company recommends that users install the security updates immediately. Versions 5 to 7 of the Windows, Mac OS X and Linux editions of TeamViewer Full and TeamViewer QuickSupport are affected. The flaw does not appear to have been discovered in TeamViewer Host. The company has not offered any details of the vulnerability, but updated editions of the software can be obtained from the TeamViewer Download page. The new version can simply be installed over the previous installation. ...

h-online: Mozilla has implemented changes to Firefox 14 that address concerns raised by privacy-conscious users over the “new tab” feature in Firefox 13. The Firefox developers have changed the browser’s behavior so that sensitive information should no longer leak via screenshots of web sites. When opening a new tab, Firefox 13 shows users a grid of screenshots of their most visited pages. After this feature was introduced, several users complained to Mozilla and pointed out that the feature also takes screenshots of sensitive web sites such as login pages for online banking sites. ...

Eric Jackson in Forbes Wrote: There are so many intriguing aspects of Marissa Mayer‘s hiring at Yahoo! (YHOO). However, what intrigues me the most is the what the future strategic direction of Yahoo! will be under her watch and what this means for the company’s future relationships with Google (GOOG) and Facebook(FB) (not to mention Microsoft(MSFT)). Presumably, Marissa already has the start of a strategic vision. And she said as much in a leaked memo yesterday: ...

Independent: If you’re a fan of fake Rolex watches and cheap Viagra look away now. A huge spam botnet responsible for an estimated 18 billion messages a day has been taken out by security researchers. The four year old botnet – known as Grum – is believed to have been responsible for around 18% of the world’s spam emails. A botnet is a cluster of infected computers used by cybercriminals to send a variety of spam emails – often offering cheap Viagra, fake watches or unusual dating solutions. ...

The Smoking Gun: Christina Aguilera contends that the recent hacking of her e-mail account had stripped her of a “feeling of security” that now “can never be given back,” according to a victim’s impact statement submitted to a U.S. District Court judge in Los Angeles. The singer’s statement was prepared in advance of the sentencing of Christopher Chaney, the Florida felon/online stalker who has pleaded guilty to illegally accessing the e-mail accounts of more than 50 victims (many of them Hollywood figures). ...

ZDNet: Indonesia’s communications and information ministry has shut down more than one million pornographic Web sites ahead of Islamic holy month of Ramadan commencing Jul. 19, according to a newswire. Observers of the Muslim month of fasting refrain from eating, drinking and sexual relations from dawn until sunset. All of the sites were reportedly outside the country and more will be clamped down this month, XBIZ newswire reported Wednesday. However, this does not mean that such sites will be allowed to operate during the rest of the year, Indonesia’s communication and information minister, Tifatul Sembiring said. ...

Mashable: Sophos’s NakedSecurity blog outlined the threat on Wednesday. The company’s SophosLabs intercepted a “spammed-out email campaign” which was designed to spread malware. Sophos provided the following example: The blog notes that the email address above misspells “Facebook” as “Faceboook.” The link takes the user to a malicious iFrame script, which exposes the user’s computer to malware. However, within four seconds, the user’s browser is directed to a presumably innocent Facebook page like the one below to act as a smokescreen. ...

H-Online: Spammers are currently sending large volumes of spam to users of cloud storage service provider Dropbox. The H’s associates at heise Security have so far received four different pieces of German-language spam at an email address used solely to register with Dropbox, and some of their readers have reported the same problem; similar reports can also be found on the Dropbox forums. In almost all cases, the spam is for suspicious-looking online casinos. ...