Update: The Swen Worm. Yes, It’s Nasty

 The Swen Worm is turning out to be a nasty one. It can execute code automatically, it looks like a genuine Microsoft email and it randomizes itself, making it hard to identify. TechNewsWorld reports the worm, also known as “Gibe” or its more technical name of “w32.swen@mm,” takes advantage of a well-known vulnerability in Internet … Read more

Software: See Ya Later, ‘Gator

 Here’s one way to get rid of spyware and adware — software that’s inveigled its way onto your computer and is phoning home on your browsing habits, usually to throw unwanted ads onto your screen. interMute, Inc. has released a new version of SpySubtract, that detects and safely removes spyware and security threats, which includes … Read more

Update: A Sobig Primer

 From the Annoying And Pointless Email Notification Dept comes this: an automated alert from a website that doesn’t quite get it. As you know, the Sobig virus/worm spreads like crazy because it raids people’s address books and then fires off copies of itself to emails it finds there. But to confuse people into thinking the … Read more

News: Big Brother’s Net

 For those of you interested in how the Internet is not an unrestricted place for everyone, Reporters Sans Frontieres/Reporters Without Borders last month published their second annual report on censorship in cyberspace, “The Internet under Surveillance – Obstacles to the free flow of information online” which details “attitudes to the Internet by the powerful in 60 … Read more

Link: Warchalking RIP?

 Interesting article by Nick Langley of ComputerWeekly about ‘The demise of the warchalkers’ (warchalkers are those folk who advertise, via street scribblings, the location of publicly available and free Internet access via WiFi points: “The fall in warchalking has been attributed to the rise in public wireless Lan services, either those that are paid for or … Read more