Study: Growing menace
is phishing & not spam
Internet spam is a
non-threatening problem compared with phishing and identity theft.
According to a new survey by the email marketing firm Bigfoot Interactive,
phishing and ID theft have taken the lead as internet users’ primary
worries. Phishing uses email and web site formats that look like those of
legitimate businesses to lure people to sites and convince them to
disclose personal information such as credit card and Social Security
numbers. More than one-third of consumers surveyed in New York said they
have received phishing schemes. Sixty-four percent said they could detect
such an email when they received it. Sixty-five percent said they use
anti-spam filtering to help determine if incoming messages are authentic.
Publishers settle with freelancers over web work
The tab for freelance works that appeared online or in
databases might
rise
to $18 million for publishers including The New York Times. That’s the
expected settlement in the class action suit brought by writers groups
including the Author’s Guild and National Writers Union against
publishing giants, including The Times, Time Inc. and The Wall Street
Journal, contending that thousands of stories appeared in online databases
without writers’ consent. Bolstering the claim is a 2001 Supreme Court
decision that found the principles of copyright protection applied to
online distribution of editorial content as well. Under the settlement,
publishers will pay up to $1,500 for stories with registered copyrights
and up to $60 for those without. All parties are said to be in agreement
on the terms of the settlement, which will go before a judge for approval.
This marks a big win for writers, once approved. It will vindicate
freelance writers who deserve compensation and control of their work in
the electronic marketplace, said Nick Taylor, president of Author’s
Guild.
InfoSpace enters the world of cell search engines
Ever tried looking up movie times from your cell phone? You
may reach the theater before you find the listings. Search engines on
mobile phones are not only unwieldy, they often kick out either a long
list of results that require endless scrolling or nothing at all. Enter
InfoSpace. In 2005, the online directory provider is rolling out ambitious
plans aimed at serving users of cell phones, PDAs and other hand-held
internet devices, bringing it in direct competition with online giants
Yahoo and Google. InfoSpace’s new mobile search engine will be designed
for easier use, enabling users to make queries by either talking to the
phone or typing in it. And instead of 20 results, a search will bring back just
the two or three best ones it can find. In addition, InfoSpace will
offer location-based services that tap into its massive local directory
information. The company expects to launch its services within the next 12
months.
Mac
accessory maker nixes virus-design contest
It’s rare for a technology firm to want people to
design viruses that attack its software, but that is exactly what
Tennessee-based DVForge had in mind until it thought better of it. The
company builds Apple accessories and had offered a $25,000 prize for the
best virus, but it has dropped the idea out of fear that it might lead to
criminal charges. The prize money would have gone to the first person to
infect two unprotected G5 PowerMacs running OS X 10.3 before July 31. The
contest was intended as a challenge to anti-virus firm Symantec, which
claimed in its recent Internet Security Threat Report that Apple
Macintosh’s operating system faces high risk from viruses. DVForge CEO
Jack Campbell was so offended that he offered to double the reward to
$50,000 if any employee of Symantec won the contest.
Forget
texting, pint-sized novels are next big thing
Just as text messaging is finally catching on in the U.S.,
with a quarter of cell phone owners using the service, here comes yet
another trend that’s bound to leave us squinting in the dark. The hot
new trend out of techno-loving Japan has people enjoying the latest
bestseller, an embarrassing sex manual, or even an old classic, right
from the tiny glowing LCD screens of their cell phones. Yes, they’re
novels on the go, right there in your two-inch flip phone. In a country
where the use of mobile phones as a one-stop communications center is
widespread, this new technology is simply the natural next step. But will
Americans embrace it? Maybe. Random House recently bought a stake in VOCEL,
a company that provides mobile phone products like SAT prep programs. It
also reached licensing arrangements with VOCEL to provide cell phone
access to the publisher’s Living Language foreign language study
programs and Prima Games video game strategy guides. That’s still a long
way from flipping through “The DaVinci Code” from your Nokia, meaning
plenty of time to get those text-messaging skills down.
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