TechBlog

Thousands of Facebook users are warning each other about a Christmas Tree virus said to be spreading in the form of a rogue application on the social network. The only problem with this warning? It’s utterly bogus. Here’s a typical message being shared widely on Facebook: WARNING!!!!!!…..DO NOT USE THE Christmas tree app. on Facebookplease be advised it will crash your computer. Geek squad says its oneof the WORST trojan-viruses there is and it is spreading quickly.Re-post and let your friends know. THANKS PLEASE REPOST! ...

Yesterday, Apple pushed out the much anticipated update to its mobile operating system – iOS 4.2. Although most of the headlines have focused on new functionality Apple has introduced, such as bringing folders and multi-tasking to the iPad, there’s a much more important reason why you should be considering updating your Apple iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. Security. According to an Apple knowledgebase article, iOS 4.2 includes more than 40 security fixes designed to better protect iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users. ...

 The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined two organizations for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act – the first to be issued under new tougher guidelines in the UK. The security breach at Sheffield-based firm A4e happened in June 2010, after the company issued an unencrypted laptop to an employee in order to do work from home. The laptop was subsequently stolen from the employee’s house. That wouldn’t have mattered too much, of course, if the laptop hadn’t contained sensitive information. Unfortunately it carried personal data relating to 24,000 people who had used community legal advice centers in Hull and Leicester. ...

Avira TechBlog: Thanksgiving and according holidays are very close – a time in which many people have the time to do (online) shopping. The cyber criminals are eager for their share, so it’s time to remember some safety measures. We are expecting to see spam and phishing campaigns luring the recipients to visit malicious web sites. These web sites usually look quite legal and official. As precaution, don’t follow links from emails to online stores and online payment systems, but use bookmarks or type in the addresses directly into the browser’s address bar. And of course just visit shops which you already know. Some scams can be identified by very low prices – if they look too good to be true, they usually are! ...

For those who missed this update on Nov 18: 7-Zip 9.20 was released. 7-Zip for 32-bit Windows: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/sevenzip/7z920.exe Mirror: http://www.filehippo.com/download_7zip_32/ 7-Zip for 64-bit Windows x64: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/sevenzip/7z920-x64.msi Mirror: http://www.filehippo.com/download_7-zip_64/ What’s new after 7-Zip 4.65 (2009-02-03): 7-Zip now supports LZMA2 compression method. 7-Zip now can update solid .7z archives. 7-Zip now supports XZ archives. 7-Zip now supports PPMd compression in ZIP archives. 7-Zip now can unpack NTFS, FAT, VHD, MBR, APM, SquashFS, CramFS, MSLZ archives. 7-Zip now can unpack GZip, BZip2, LZMA, XZ and TAR archives from stdin. 7-Zip now can unpack some TAR and ISO archives with incorrect headers. 7-Zip now supports files that are larger than 8 GB in TAR archives. NSIS and WIM support was improved. Partial parsing for EXE resources, SWF and FLV. The support for archives in installers was improved. 7-Zip now stores NTFS file timestamps to ZIP archives. Speed optimizations in PPMd codec. Speed optimizations in AES code for Intel’s 32nm CPUs. Speed optimizations in CRC calculation code for Intel’s Atom CPUs. New -scc{WIN|DOS|UTF-8} switch to specify charset for console input/output (default = DOS). New -scrc switch to calculate total CRC-32 during extracting / testing. New additional “Open archive >” item in context menu allows to select archive type for some files. It’s possible to specify Diff program in options (7-Zip File Manager). 7-Zip now can open/copy/compress disk images (like \.\c:) from \.\ folder. 7-Zip File Manager now doesn’t use temp files to open nested archives stored without compression. The console version now doesn’t show entered password. New small SFX module for installers (in Extra package). Disk fragmentation problem for ZIP archives created by 7-Zip was fixed. Some bugs were fixed. New localizations: Hindi, Gujarati, Sanskrit, Tatar, Uyghur, Kazakh.

Reuters: Google Inc plans to hire more than 2,000 people around the globe, bumping up its workforce as it expands into new markets and battles for talent with faster-growing rivals. The world’s largest Internet search engine, whose finance chief told investors in September that the Internet industry was waging a “war for talent,” has job openings listed for 2,076 positions on its website, according to a Reuters tally on Thursday. ...

Take a look in the email I got from AOL: Hi! There are hundreds of millions of people of all ages using email across the globe today. And because communication is often very personal, we realize a one-size-fits-all solution isn’t always the right answer. So, while we’re proud of the AOL Mail that you know and love today, earlier this week we launched a new email product, code named: Project Phoenix. ...

VirusTotal has just coded a Google Chrome browser extension to interact with VirusTotal. The extension adds an option to the context menu to analyze links with VirusTotal’s URL analysis engine. Unlike the VTzilla Firefox extension, it does not embed an additional “Scan with VirusTotal” option in the browser’s file download dialog (mainly because Chrome’s API does not allow to do so). Having said this, it does include a top menu bar popup that enables quick VirusTotal searches and direct submission of the page being viewed to VirusTotal. ...

Adobe Reader X is now available! Download Reader X for desktop at http://get.adobe.com/reader/ or access the mobile app on the Android Market via your Android device. With over one billion downloads, Adobe Reader continues its leadership as the global standard in PDF viewing and interaction. Reader X for desktop enables an even greater level of interaction with the ability to share feedback through the use of Sticky Notes and Highlighter tools, as well as view a larger variety of content types including drawings, email messages, spreadsheets, videos, and other multimedia elements. You can also take advantage of the added security of Protected Mode in Reader X, which helps ensure safer viewing of PDF files. ...

BBC: The once dominant MySpace has turned to the company that stole its crown, Facebook, for help to drive users to its ailing site. The two launched Mashup with Facebook, to let MySpace users log in to their Facebook accounts through their MySpace page. This means users can port over their likes and interests listed on Facebook. In turn users will get a stream of entertainment content based on these preferences. ...