Spammers Bounce Back After Host Shutdown

60% are just acquaintances, study finds

(NEWSER) - A fifth of your Facebook friends are people you don’t even know—and three-fifths are just acquaintances, a study finds. The fact that only 20% of your friends are your actual friends may not come as a surprise to the average Facebook user, notes AllFacebook.com , but it’s a fact worth remembering: After all, the more unfamiliar friends you have, the greater your risk of getting malware and spam. Why keep so many so-called friends? 54% of responders to the survey, conducted by GoodMobilePhones , cited politeness, while 34% said they wanted to look more popular. More»

Spam down to a quarter of August levels as botnets go quiet

(NEWSER) - Along with assorted wildlife, there appears to have been a mass die-off of something else: spam emails. Spam levels, which had been dropping steadily since August, plummeted rapidly in late December, reports the BBC . Some 200 billion spam messages were being sent every day in August, but just 50 billion were being sent daily in December, according to security firm Symantec. More»

Spam worm halts work at NASA, Comcast

(NEWSER) - An email spam virus swept through corporate America's inboxes yesterday, causing servers to be shut down at major operations including Comcast, AIG, Disney, and NASA. The virus spread through emails with the subject line "Here you have," which contained a link that downloads a virus that sends the same email to everybody in a user's address book. The Department of Homeland Security is investigating, reports ABC News . More»

Agency had no standing to regulate Comcast, 3-judge panel rules

(NEWSER) - A federal court today said the FCC does not have the power to force Internet service providers to treat all traffic equally. The ruling, in a closely watched case concerning Comcast's ban on BitTorrent, is a blow to the Obama administration’s crusade for net neutrality. But the FCC failed to show that regulating ISPs falls within “its statutorily mandated responsibilities,” a three-judge appeals court panel ruled. More»

Cyber sex loses its luster, and using 'LOL' exposes you as a liar

(NEWSER) - Sure, Chatroulette is great if you really want to see a lot of bored guys —but at least four online activities are much more difficult on the site. From Andrew B. at CollegeHumor :

• Snagging sexual predators: If the pervy old guy is staring right at your police uniform, it’s going to be hard to convince him you’re really a 12-year-old girl.
• Spamming: “HEY CHECK OUT MY HOTT SITE WITH LOTS OF PICS” doesn’t work nearly so well when there’s an actual camera that would, theoretically, expose a spambot for what it really is.