Talk about the latest detailed news on botnets! The ultimate of an inside look at botnets - it is the real, first-hand account of what happened this week when a zombie botnet woke up, based on some unseen signal triggered or programmed by the botnet owner, and took over hundreds of customer computers at a large US broadband ISP.
Read More… (From The Internet Patrol)

Microsoft had a “Live”-ly Wednesday, releasing beta versions of three different Live products. via Application Development Trends
Read More… (From Email Spam News)

Forbes has an article on (alleged) spammer Robert Soloway, described as one of the top 10 spammers in the world. Other blogs including Ed Falk and Spamnation are also reporting on the story.

I don’t have much new to add other than my response to a couple of quotes:

He continued his activities even after Microsoft won a $7 million civil judgment against him in 2005

So Soloway, even after a $7 million setback, was able to continue his activities. And, this was only two years ago. Obviously he rebounded quite nicely from adversity and spamming is still quite profitable for him. The article goes on:

In court Wednesday afternoon, Soloway pleaded not guilty to all charges after a judge determined that - even with four bank accounts seized by the government - he was sufficiently well off to pay for his own lawyer. He has been living at the ritzy Harbor Steps apartments near Pike Place Market and drives an expensive Mercedes convertible

I don’t live in Seattle but I’ve been there a few times. Pike Place Market is in the heart of the downtown and you’d have to be pretty well-off in order to live there.

A couple of months ago I saw the movie “Thank-you For Smoking” where a smoking lobbyist says that the reason most people do unethical things is pretty much the same for everyone - it pays the mortgage. I guess in Soloway’s case it does that, and then some.

Edit: Now that he’s arrested, I wonder who’s going to take over his botnet if it hasn’t been done already? He could probably sell it to pay his legal defense.

Read More… (From Terry Zink’s Anti-spam Blog)

Grand jury indictmentsA 27-year-old man, dubbed the Spam King by investigators, has been arrested in Seattle where he has been indicted on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, fraud in connection with electronic mail, and money laundering.Original post by Dougal and a wordpress plugin by Elliott
Read More… (From The War on Spam)

In the latest twist in the E360Insight vs World + Dog saga, E360 is now claiming they were attacked by a hacker who broke into their system and sent porn spam from their servers and stole their intellectual property. See Spamsuite copy of their Motion for Expedited Discovery. In short, they’re asking the court to allow them access to the records of the ISP they believe was the source of the attack. The motion specifically names all of the defendants in their lawsuit rather than John Does, implying that E360 thinks one of the defendants is responsible.

More info in the Usenet thread “e360 Site Hacked“.

Now, it’s entirely possible that their site really was broken into, but to suggest that one of the defendants in the case had anything to do with it is nonsensical. By pursuing this lawsuit, they’ve managed to make themselves one of the most despised entities on the internet, and an attraction to countless crackers and script kiddies. There’s no shortage of suspects in this case.

Meanwhile, in other news, they’ve also filed petitions (1), (2) to withdraw earlier motions they made essentially asking that Spamhaus be held in contempt and that Spamhaus be compelled to provide certain information. The likely reason here is that they’re acknowledging that they won’t win on these issues. Alternatively, they’re trying to finesse the timing.
Read More… (From The Spam Diaries)

“Without industry-accepted assessment criteria, end users are forced to make choices based on personal experience. Certification will allow end users to consult expert advice before making an informed choice.”

Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content management solutions, recently announced has become a charter member of the Anti-Spam Product Developers’ Consortium. via AME Info
Read More… (From Email Spam News)

“He’s one of the top 10 spammers in the world”

A 27-year-old man described as one of the world’s most prolific spammers was arrested Wednesday, and federal authorities said computer users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail. … via The State
Read More… (From Email Spam News)

Google’s acquisition of security company GreenBorder Technologies is a sign the search giant wants to bolster confidence in its browser-delivered applications amid growing threats from malicious software on the Internet.
Read More… (From Network World on Security)

Spyware - this is one of the biggest threats to security and privacy in the internet today. Spyware intrude, break and enter our computers and pose a great threat especially with more malicious spywares. Leaving a home or business computer unprotected from spyware is just like leaving the front door open to intruders. The internet […]
Read More… (From Technology News for your Daily Use)

World of Warcraft is by far the best and largest MMORPG out yet. World of Warcraft follows a long history of the original strategy game warcraft. There were 3 popular titles that were released previously that were also an extremely big hit. Warcraft, Warcraft II, Warcraft III and the 2 expansions “The Frozen Throne” and […]
Read More… (From Technology News for your Daily Use)

Everyone in marketing faces it at one time or another - reluctance to pick up the phone and make calls. Logically, it makes no sense to feel that way. We believe in our product or service. We have a script that’s either been given to us or one that we’ve carefully written out. We have […]
Read More… (From Technology News for your Daily Use)

The Register reports that there is a new round of highly-targeted phishing going around, disguised as a letter from the Better Business Bureau. The email is sent to high-level executives, and according to the article, over 1400 of them have been tricked into sending sensitive information to the phishers. The executive is told that there’s been a complaint, and they should click on a link to read it. The link actually installs malicious spyware which then forwards everything it can get its hands on to a website controlled by the attackers.

The Better Business Bureau has issued a warning about the attack.

By the way, the spyware works by attaching itself to — wait for it — Internet Explorer. Please, people, what have I told you about installing Firefox? Friends don’t let friends run IE or Outlook.
Read More… (From The Spam Diaries)

Spammer Robert Soloway has been arrested in Seattle, Washington, a week after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of identity theft, money laundering, and mail, wire, and email fraud.
Read More… (From Spam News)

Theres lots of news out there which I wont bother you with because youll be reading it elsewhere. But here are some links in case: Palm has a new mini laptop called the Foleo. I like the idea, but I…
Read More… (From loose wire blog)

Is your computer acting funny? Are you having trouble surfing the web like you normally would? Is your computer slow, sluggish and unresponsive lately? Than you just might be the victim of adware on your machine.Whats adware? It’s usually some kind of software of free application that has been installed on your computer that either […]
Read More… (From Technology News for your Daily Use)

Since January, Ive spent a lot of time interviewing IT executives for a benchmark research report on Security and Information Protection. The statistical analysis of the results of this research shows some interesting trends. Its been a
Read More… (From Network World on Security)

While studying to pass the BSCI exam and preparing to earn your CCNP certification, you’ll quickly notice that while OSPF and ISIS are both link-state protocols, there are a lot of differences between the two. One major difference is the way the two protocols handle hello packets.Hello packets are imperative to keeping OSPF and ISIS […]
Read More… (From Technology News for your Daily Use)