A recent security update to Microsoft Windows, MS05-002 KB891711, is causing crashes for a lot of Windows 98 and Windows ME users, leading to issues with IE, blue screens of death and even, some are reporting, a black screen of death. The MS05-002 KB891711 security patch, released in January, was…

Microsoft Windows users are the target of a particularly titillating new worm, which in turn is targeting Microsoft itself. “Watch Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt caught on TAPE! SEXY CLIP! WATCH IT!”, the email says. And apparently you’d be surprised by how many people can’t resist opening such an email…

Iowa has joined the ranks of states which are specifically targetting spam and spyware, along with identity theft, with the passage of their new suite of computer crime bills. One bill prohibits the transmission of spam, another spyware, and a third makes it a crime to misappropriate the personal information…

Have you heard about the “broadcast flag”? It’s an anti-copying scheme for digital broadcasts which has been mandated by the FCC. The broadcast flag is essentially a two-part scheme: part one is the flag itself – a little bit of data included in the digital broadcast stream which says “hey,…

Scott “I don’t need money” Richter, notorious spammer, has filed for bankruptcy in the face of a lawsuit from Microsoft.

Quick, what would you say is the most obvious way for data to end up in the wrong hands? If you said “having the laptop on which it resides stolen”, give yourself a pat on the back. Now quick, what is one of the most preventable forms of data theft?…

Forget RFIDs (although Amal Graafstra won’t be able to any time soon). Barcoding, Inc., has announced a system that uses regular old wifi to track physical assets. Being called a “Wi-fi asset location system”, Barcoding explains that it works by placing a special wifi chip on each physical asset which…

DVForge, known to Mac lovers the world ’round for such products as the SightFlex, MacMice, and the Ball, has cancelled its contest in which it offered $25,000 to the first person who wrote a virus directed at OS X, and who could incapacitate at least two PowerMacs. Wrote DVForge CEO…

A Washington man, Amal Graafstra, has had an RFID chip implanted in his left hand, with plans to automate such functions as unlocking his car door, unlocking his house door, and logging on to his computer, all based on the code contained in the RFID chip embedded in his hand….

Have you ever sold anything on eBay? Be it a grilled cheese sandwich with the image of the Virgin Mary, your ex-girlfriend’s wedding dress with you in it, or your unwashed underwear, the IRS may want its cut. Nothing is beneath the IRS. And that is why the eBay community…

You did know that your computer isn’t the only place you can have spam shoved in your face, right? TiVo knows this. Show Aunty a device which is connected to a network, and Aunty will show you a device capable of being exploited with pop-ups. TiVo knows this, too. And…

Ok, forget the Holy Grilled Cheese Pan being sold on eBay. Mother of five Terri Iligan put her name, “Terri Iligan”, up for sale on eBay, agreeing to give up the name Terri Iligan, and adopt whatever name the highest eBay bidder wanted her to adopt. And someone bought it!…

Ok, now this is a really cute use of the Internet. It’s kind of like WheresGeorge meets Linked In. You register on the site, and then you write your name (just a first name is fine) and the website address on the margin of a dollar bill (yes, it’s legal…

MSN Messenger has been added to the list of instant messenger programs which require heightened vigilence. Two security companies have discovered that there are two worms, one old and revised, and one new, which are targetting MSN Messenger users. As if we don’t have enough to worry about with phishers…

A particularly effective phishing scam has targeted Yahoo Messenger this week. The reason it is so successful is because the phishing scam involves the Yahoo Messenger user being sent an IM message which appears to come from someone on the user’s Yahoo Messenger buddy list. Ouch. The message suggests that…