The Bahama botnet, a sophisticated network of compromised computers that is wreaking click-fraud havoc among advertisers, is also snatching away Web traffic and revenue right from under the nose of mighty Google. As part of its design, the Bahama botnet not only turns ordinary, legitimate PCs into click-fraud perpetrators that dilute the effectiveness of ad campaigns. It also modifies the way these PCs locate certain Web sites through a malicious practice called DNS poisoning. In the case of Google.com, compromised machines take their users to a fake page hosted in Canada that looks just like the real Google page and even returns results for queries entered into its search box
Wikileaks.org, the online clearinghouse for leaked documents, is working on a plan to make the Web leakier by enabling newspapers, human rights organizations, criminal investigators and others to embed an upload a disclosure to me via Wikileaks
form onto their web sites. The upload system will give potential whistleblowers around the world the ability to leak sensitive documents to an organisation or journalist they trust over a secure connection, while giving the receiver legal protection they might not otherwise enjoy
Researchers have demonstrated a penny-sized nuclear battery that produces energy from the decay of radioisotopes. As radioactive substances decay, they release charged particles that when properly harvested can create an electrical current. Nuclear batteries have been in use for military and aerospace applications, but are typically far larger
For the first time, astronomers have confirmed that an asteroid contains frozen water on its surface. Analysis of asteroid 24 Themis shows evidence of water ice along with organic compounds widespread across the surface. The scientists say these new findings support the theory that asteroids brought both water and organic compounds to the early Earth, helping lay the foundation for life on the planet
The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) had sent iiNet over 1000 copyright infringement notifications over a seven-day period, the Federal Court heard yesterday. The notifications that AFACT and other copyright owner lobbyists had sent to iiNet over a period of about five months totalled more than 7500, iiNet’s barrister Richard Cobden told the court. He also said that AFACT and other copyright owner groups’ requests persistently asked the ISP to cut its customers’ services off. Cobden said the volume of AFACT’s notifications were akin to spam, and that iiNet had suffered a constant bombardment
of notifications, which, he said, were unreasonable and burdensome
Book geeks in New Zealand yesterday went woohoo
that Amazon’s shipping the Kindle ebook reader to the region now, and WTF?
when they realised the device will bypass Aotearoa. Why would you do that, Amazon? New Zealanders also read books and it’s a bigger market than Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Wallis and Futuna for instance, all locations that Amazon’s happy to ship the Kindle to
Amazon’s hyped e-reader Kindle is coming to Australia, with plans for the device to begin shipping on 19 October. Until now, the popular e-reader has only been available to customers in the US. Now, however, the Kindle is being sold in countries across the globe. International readers, including those from Australia can pre-order the device on this site. The price for the international Kindle sits at US$279. A spokesperson for the company said that there would likely be an Australian price but it had not been released as yet
The director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, stopped using internet banking on his wife’s orders after nearly falling prey to an email phishing scam. Mueller made the light-hearted revelation during a speech at the Commonwealth Club in California on Wednesday to illustrate the dangers of the scams, which trick people into handing over sensitive information — often when the scammer poses as a financial institution
A colossal new ring has been identified around Saturn. The dusty hoop lies some 13 million km (eight million miles) from the planet, about 50 times more distant than the other rings and in a different plane. Scientists tell the journal Nature that the tenuous ring is probably made up of debris kicked off Saturn’s moon Phoebe by small impacts. They think this dust then migrates towards the planet where it is picked up by another Saturnian moon, Iapetus
Google’s web-based e-mail system, Gmail, has been targeted as part of an industry-wide phishing scheme
. The firm said that it had immediately safeguarded the affected accounts. BBC News has seen two lists that detail more than 30,000 names and passwords from e-mail providers, including Yahoo and AOL, which were posted online. The lists also include details of thousands of Microsoft Hotmail users. Google said fewer than 500 of its accounts had been affected by the scam. However, the search giant revealed that it had discovered a third list, but would not say how many accounts it showed
Charles Kao, whose work in the 1960s laid the foundation for today’s long-distance fiber-optic networks, has won a share of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics. Kao, sometimes referred to as the father of fibre optic communications
, was formally honoured by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication
More than eight out of ten Mac owners also own a PC, according to a new piece of research. The NPD survey found that 12% of US computer-owning households have a Mac. However, 85% of those also own a Windows PC, suggesting that the Mac/PC divide is nowhere near as clear cut as both Apple and Microsoft suggest
Thousands of accounts on web-based e-mail system Hotmail have been compromised in a phishing attack, software giant Microsoft has confirmed
Experts are sharply divided as to whether consumers can expect cheaper broadband when Pipe Networks lights up its newly built Sydney-Guam cable later this week
Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the group responsible for the launching the Ministry of Silly Walks and the Parrot Sketch on an unsuspecting world, was on Monday celebrating 40 years since the comedy sketch show was first broadcast. The show, which was written and acted by John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman, first aired on October 5, 1969 and ran for a total of 45 episodes. It was the Pythons’ surreal and satirical humour which shot them to global fame in the 1970s, as they broke new ground in what was acceptable in terms of both style and content
Archaeologists have discovered Stonehenge’s little sister — just a mile from the famous monument. The prehistoric circle, unearthed in secret over the summer, is one of the most important prehistoric finds in decades. Researchers have called it Bluehenge
after the colour of the 27 giant Welsh stones it once incorporated — but are now missing
Doctoring broken bones in the future could be easier and simpler — thanks to a metallic glass material that can be used to make dissolvable screws, pins or plates. Bone fractures or breaks are routinely fixed in place with metal implants to encourage healing. These are usually made from corrosion-resistant steel or titanium, but have to be removed in a second operation once the bones have mended
In August the bandwidth supplier to The Pirate Bay was ordered by a court to disconnect the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker from the Internet. Within hours the site had relocated to a new host which immediately received similar entertainment industry threats. Now it seems the Bay has left Sweden, setting sail for Ukraine
While filtering methods for botnet spam are now quite effective, a new breed of static-IP address spammers has evolved, and their spam evades many filters. It is time to target the next great spam problem, snowshoe
spam
This week the Annals of Improbable Research hosted its 19th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. This year was no less ignoble than the previous 18, with such delightful discoveries as applications for panda poo and observations from a lifetime of knuckle cracking. Except for one award: the gas mask bra, which, while ridiculous and hilarious at face value, has far more going on below the neckline. Elena Bodnar, who lives in Chicago, got her start as a scientist in Ukraine, when she witnessed the devastating effects of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in 1986. She noticed, among other things, that women were wearing bras that may have been lacy but were certainly not life-saving
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