Bots rule in cyberspace
,----[ Quote ]
| USA TODAY REPORTS that on an average day, 40 per cent of the 800 million
| computers connected to the Internet are bots used to send out spam, viruses
| and to mine for sensitive personal data.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/17/bots-rule-cyberspace
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2008-03-16-computer-botnets_N.htm
In part (among many other reasons), that happens to explain why those Web stats
are favourable to Win/IE.
Also somewhat related to this:
Web creator rejects net tracking
,----[ Quote ]
| Plans by leading internet providers to use Phorm, a company which tracks web
| activity to create personalised adverts, have sparked controversy.
|
| Sir Tim said he did not want his ISP to track which websites he visited.
|
| "I want to know if I look up a whole lot of books about some form of cancer
| that that's not going to get to my insurance company and I'm going to find my
| insurance premium is going to go up by 5% because they've figured I'm looking
| at those books," he said.
|
| Sir Tim said his data and web history belonged to him.
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7299875.stm
Phorm 'illegal' says policy group
,----[ Quote ]
| Online advert system Phorm is illegal in the UK, the Foundation for
| Information Policy Research (Fipr), has argued in an open letter.
|
| BT, Talk Talk and Virgin have all signed up to use Phorm, which targets
| adverts to users based on web habits.
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7301379.stm
Related:
In zombies we trust
,----[ Quote ]
| A little over a year ago, I wrote an editorial where in back-of-the-envelope
| style (.pdf) I estimated that perhaps 15-30% of all privately owned computers
| were no longer under the sole control of their owner. In the intervening
| months, I received a certain amount of hate mail but in those intervening
| months Vint Cert guessed 20-40%, Microsoft said 2/3rds, and IDC suggested
| 3/4ths. It is thus a conservative risk position to assume that any random
| counterparty stands a fair chance of being already compromised.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=661
Over 50% of corporate desktops infected with malware: IronPort
,----[ Quote ]
| The report also reveals that more than 50% of corporate desktops
| worldwide are infected with some type of spyware with the rate of
| infection as high as 70% in the United States. Trojans or malicious
| system monitors represented over 7% of the infections. Rootkits and
| trick loaders, which reinstall spyware and other obfuscation techniques,
| make remediation very difficult thus prevention is the key to stopping
| these threats.
`----
http://www.crn-india.com/breakingnews/stories/66870.html
Botnet 'pandemic' threatens to strangle the net
,----[ Quote ]
| Cerf estimated that between 100 million and 150 million of the
| 600 million PCs on the internet are under the control of hackers,
| the BBC reports.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/26/botnet_threat/
|
|
