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NY Times Mistakenly Sends Email to 9M People

It was apparently just a miscue, not spam

(Newser) - Nearly 9 million people got a puzzling email from the New York Times today, but fears of a massive hack are apparently unfounded. Turns out, it was good old-fashioned human error. The newspaper meant to send the email only to a few hundred people who had recently canceled home delivery,... More »

Inventor of Microsoft's Spam Filter Out to Kill HIV

David Heckerman says spam, HIV present similar challenges

(Newser) - David Heckerman, the man who invented the spam filter for Microsoft, is taking on another scourge against humanity: HIV. Sound like a stretch? It’s not, Heckerman insists: He’s a medical doctor, and HIV and spam are strangely similar problems. "We have an adversarial situation going on between... More »

Facebook Slammed by Massive Porn Attack

Graphic, violent images flood news feeds

(Newser) - Forbes has a warning for you: "You may not want to check Facebook at work today." Why? Because, as numerous outlets are reporting , your news feed may have been inundated with porn and disturbing images thanks to a huge spam attack. One tweet sums it up: "... More »

Spammers Actually Deliver What You Order

Researchers surprised credit cards weren't abused

(Newser) - Researchers probing the world of spam were surprised to discover that the email-box-clogging lowlifes of the Internet aren't quite as scummy as one would expect. The investigators, whose study involved making numerous purchases from spammers, found that the goods ordered—including pills and fake Rolexes—were usually delivered, reports... More »

Finally! Study Discovers Way to Kill Spam

3 financial companies control most spam-prompted card payments

(Newser) - Researchers in California think they’ve found spammers’ weak point—and say it could be used to help kill off the industry. To make their discovery, the researchers spent months trying to attract all the spam they could before buying thousands of dollars worth of products advertised in those emails.... More »

Beware of Links Promising Photos of Dead bin Laden

Unless, you know, it's a link to a Newser story on the topic

(Newser) - Clicking on links that promise to show photos or video of a dead Osama bin Laden is a bad idea, cybersecurity experts warn. Spammers and scammers have moved even faster than usual to spread malicious links aimed at Facebook and Google users, reports the Los Angeles Times . "The bad... More »

20% of Your Facebook Friends Are Strangers

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... More »

Spam Levels Plummet Worldwide

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... More »

Meet the Guy Who Sues Spammers for a Living

Daniel Balsam is doing his part to clean up the Internet

(Newser) - Eight years ago, Daniel Balsam quit his job as a marketer and went to law school—all so that he could make a living by suing email spammers. "I feel like I'm doing a little bit of good cleaning up the Internet," says Balsam, who has racked up... More »

17-Year-Old: I Caused Twitter Meltdown

'I did it merely to see if it could be done,' says Pearce Delphin

(Newser) - Remember the "mouseover" bug that sent unwitting Twitter users to Japanese porn sites yesterday? Well, it was caused by a 17-year-old Australian schoolboy. Pearce Delphin says he was the first one to try the mouseover trick. "I did it merely to see if it could be done ... that... More »

Facebook Phishing Scam Sends You Fake Passwords

(Newser) - A new Facebook phishing scam plaguing inboxes—with the sender appearing to have an email address sourced from Facebook—sends recipients attachments with "new passwords" and very exuberantly notifies them of such in the subject line. The usual advice applies: Don't open that attachment. Read the full article . More »

Mouseover Security Flaw Plagues Twitter

Site says it's got a patch in place

(Newser) - Twitter says it's patched a widespread security flaw today that redirected users to third-party sites (sometimes porn) or hit them with pop-up ads. This one was especially heinous, notes Mashable , because it took effect when users simply rolled over an offending link instead of clicking on it. It used... More »

'Here You Have' Virus Slams Major Firms

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... More »

Spammers Will Pay You $1 to Crack This Code*

*Provided you do it 1,000 times

(Newser) - Captchas—those squiggly words you occasionally have to decipher on websites—can prove that you're not a spambot, but they can't prove you're not a teenager from India who's working for a spambot. Enterprising spammers are getting past the squiggly code the way any enterprising corporation would: They're outsourcing, the... More »

How to Stop Annoying Email Forwards

StopForwarding.com a blunt, yet effective tool

(Newser) - Mass email forwards can quickly cross the line from amusing distraction to unwanted annoyance. If you care deeply about stopping someone you know from sending borderline -spam, you might be bold enough to try stopforwarding.com . The website sends a curt, anonymous email informing the person that a friend has... More »

4 Things You Can't Do on Chatroulette

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’
... More »

Spam King Ordered to Pay Facebook $711M

Sanford Wallace may face jail time

(Newser) - "Spam king" Sanford Wallace has been slapped with a $711 million judgment for spamming Facebook users. A California judge found that Wallace, who used phishing techniques to access Facebook accounts, violated a law against sending "false and misleading" marketing emails. The judge permanently banned Wallace from accessing Facebook... More »

Hackers Get 43 Cents for Every Hijacked Mac

(Newser) - Mac users, beware: the Russians are after you. A notorious network of spammers in the country pays hackers 43 cents for every Mac they infect with fake software, an investigator says. At a security conference in Switzerland, the researcher laid out a specific scheme to get Mac users to install... More »

Hookers Are Turning Off Twitterers

Rising tide of porn spam threatens family market

(Newser) - Porn spam is becoming more prevalent on Twitter and the site needs to step up enforcement or risk losing plenty of users, writes Sarah Lacy in BusinessWeek. Prostitutes seem to have flocked to Twitter of late, Lacy writes, noting that her husband received 43 scantily clad "followers" in just... More »

Twitter's Meltdown: Blame the Russians?

(Newser) - So why did Tweets fall silent for much of today? One leading theory traces the problem to the unlikeliest of places—the conflict between Russia and Georgia, CNET reports. It goes like this: A pro-Georgia blogger with accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and the other sites affected by today's slowdown attracted... More »

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