One of the best and most revolting ways to get people to install your nasty software is to tell them that it's actually security software. Thus is the case with many anti-virus products which are actually viruses themselves. The worst part about this scenario is that people won't ever detect the malware because they would need an anti-virus to do that and they think they've already got one.

Fortunately, rather than just push out unwanted software to people through Windows update, Microsoft has added the very useful and surprisingly responsible function of scanning, detecting, and removing known malware from users' systems.

Not only does this help a lot of people, it hurts the scumbags who try to scam them while at the same time increasing the over-all security of the Internet. Nice move.

Normally, you choose when and how much to pay on a credit card statement and this is how it should be. People can make mistakes, but that's what late fees and interest are for. The situation is balanced and needs no adjusting. Well, I think it needs some adjusting in consumers' favor, but whether you agree with me or not, it certainly doesn't need adjusting in the credit card company's favor.

The Consumerist has reported that the new changes to American Express usage terms allows them to debit your account in cases of "errors or questions". In other words, they can debit your bank account whenever they feel like it. If they think you did something wrong or they have a computing glitch, you may find yourself suddenly charged for some arbitrary amount.

I don't know about you, but the last thing I need is sudden and unexpected charges to my bank account. If this move is typical of AMEX, then perhaps that's the reason they are such an underdog in the credit card industry.

Swiss chemists have created a material that even when soaked underwater for 2 months, comes out completely dry.

The material is very durable, but won't survive in a washing machine. However, if you can't get it wet, perhaps it doesn't need to be washed as much

(H/T to Slashdot for the link)

Today I found a neat article about a website that displays an animation of how to do a google search so the next time someone asks you to find something on the Internet for them, you can use this to help them while mocking them at the same time

Related topic(s):

Let Me Google That For You

There are many photoshopped and altered photos on the net. The easiest way to find them is to type "not photoshopped" into Google because people are big fat liars. One that constantly makes the rounds and is often listed as "amazing not photoshopped rabbit" is one of those times.

It's FAKE. Duh!

This is the real one

The photo on the right is very hard to find on the net because the ones showing him at odd angles increasing his apparent size are so much more fun, but the fact is that the rabbit is big, but not THAT big. Whether camera angle, photoshop or both, it's fake and obviously so. Can we please stop spreading the lies now?

Classmates is constantly annoying us with those bogus ads that claim that someone is looking for you on classmates.com. Someone finally signed up, checked and found that no one was actually looking for him, and is suing them.

Good.

I hope the rats go out of business and that Reunion.com is next.

Apparently, "flushing" your engine can destroy it and leave your car a useless lump.

(H/T to Digg.com for the link)

The artist of this comic is clever, a great artist and prolific! He's done a comic every day for the last 7 or more years which is really amazing since they're all really good. Yesterday's was a gem and I thought I'd share.

A while back, I blogged about how I was suddenly kicked without warning or reason from Yahoo Answers service even though I was a level 5 member with over 25% best answers. I thought that was a terrible way to treat your users and it seems I was far, far from being the only one.

Then comes this story which I felt deserved some attention. If you plan to involve Yahoo in any part of your business, you might want to think twice:

A few weeks ago, I got an email from Yahoo (which I used for hosting my business email, website, and blog). They told me I was violating their TOS (Terms of Service) but gave me no specifics whatsoever. After a bit of research, I found that my blog had been “hacked?? by someone who inserted hundreds of links back to their “drug related?? site among other things. Within 24 hours of receiving the email from Yahoo, I “cleaned up?? the “hacked?? blog – this took me about 3 hours of work to do. Then 24 hours later, without any warning, Yahoo DEACTIVATED my account. I lost all my business email, my website, my blog, my Yahoo groups that I was managing, etc. etc.

When I contacted Yahoo customer service, they said there was nothing they could do and that I would have to “email?? the Yahoo Abuse team. (An interesting process, especially since they had just TERMINATED my EMAIL account!) Despite my efforts to contact Yahoo Corporate, Yahoo Abuse Department, etc. – I was NEVER able to reach ANYONE at Yahoo that was willing to even talk to me. All communication was via email.

The net result – Yahoo said they would not reactivate my account, and would not give me back any of my data files. They said I had violated their Terms of Service (TOS) and even though someone else “hacked?? my blog, it was MY RESPONSIBILITY. And even though I immediately “cleaned?? the hacked blog, they claimed there was still something wrong with the blog – but would not tell me ANY DETAILS as to specifically what was still wrong.

Also note that Yahoo provides its customers access to a version of WordPress for doing “blogs?? – but the version they provide is very outdated, and the version they provide has significant security holes in it!!

If I had been hosting my other business website on Yahoo I would have immediately been “out of business?? and it would have cost me literally tens of thousands of dollars.

From a legal perspective, I see a possible violation by Yahoo of the Federal Trade Commission Act prohibiting unfair acts in trade and commerce in that Section 15 [Termination] of the Terms of Use is unfair to impute that unexpected technical or security issues or problems that I did not cause is a “Cause?? for termination. In addition, there may also be a violation of the Yahoo Privacy Policy under its section on Confidentiality and Security. There could even be a possibility of a Sarbanes Oxley securities issue.

My questions to Yahoo which still has never been answered:
1. How did I violate the TOS?
2. What section did I violate?

If Yahoo fails to return valuable data to me, then I believe I can find sufficient legal bases to convince Yahoo to release the data to me – but at what cost? I can’t really afford to go up against their big corporate legal team!

I hope someone (hopefully you?) can publish my story to at least warn other small business owners to NEVER use Yahoo hosting services for their business. The risk is way too high!

What appalls me the most is that I have been a loyal small business customer of Yahoo for over FIVE YEARS! And this is how they treat a “good customer??? Seems like they’ve chosen to punish their good customers for the acts of unscrupulous hackers!

Is this the way Jerry Yang (Yahoo co-founder) is choosing to treat his customers? Perhaps he has more problems than just what the AllThingsDigital blog posted a few days ago:
“There are very real questions about whether Yang has the right talent and temperament for the job at hand … After all, the stock is in the basement, after Yahoo (YHOO) lost a lucrative bird in the hand in the form of a $31 per share offer from Microsoft (MSFT). Next, a weak economic environment is forcing it to cut deeply into the muscle of its many businesses, with slashing out 20 percent or more of costs, a worrisome trend if Yahoo hopes to grow when we all eventually emerge from the downturn. And, of course, more key executive departures, weak employee morale and an overall inability to clearly articulate the changes Yang has been trying to make at the company, such as its laudable open platform efforts.??

Maybe we should add “atrocious customer service?? to the list of Jerry’s problems/issues?

The kicker here is that they are essentially holding HIM responsible for THEIR poor security.

Ha ha! I love the title of this post from Lifehacker today.

Though to be honest, I'm holding my full gloat for when Bush is walking out of the Whitehouse for the last time.

To make a copy, you don't even need access to the physical key as long as you have a photo. Of course, if you have a bump key, you don't even need to do that.

I've been barred from voting in Maryland before and I expected this to be no different. I was not disappointed.

Today I went to my polling place bright and early and explained to them that I'm a computer professional and refuse to use machines that have a proven record of insecurity. Such poorly designed machines are no better than playing video poker where your odds of winning aren't random, but decided by rules someone wrote into a computer.

They originally decided that I could use the provisional ballot, but once the two judges talked, they took it from me and said that if I wouldn't use the machines, I couldn't vote.

Now some would say, "don't be such a chump and just use the machines! You're like my grandfather who won't use computers because he's afraid of the technology!" But there's a huge difference between protesting the use of a technology out of suspicion and ignorant fear and doing so due to analysis of careful scholarly research. A simple Google search of "accuvote ts" brings up link after link of studies done on the Diebold machines showing flaw and security issues. These aren't hypotheicals, they've been done and demonstrated.

Then someone will likely say, "you knew this was going to be a problem, so why didn't you go to your elections office or request an absentee ballot or such?"

That's all well and good assuming you know about that. Granted, I knew this would likely be an issue because of last time, but what about the first time I tried or anyone else who runs into this issue during this election? Besides, it's not our job or responsibility to become familiar with all the voting rules, regulations, procedures, addendums etc. I wanted to see if the voting system worked the way it is currently set up so I read the information they sent in the mail and I went to my polling place and followed every direction.

Some have told me that I'm throwing away my vote, but am I really? I like to think that what I'm actually doing is sacrificing my vote to raise awareness of several important issues:

Maryland should not have purchased these machines, should have discontinued their use upon discovery of their vast array of vulnerabilities, should sue Diebold for our money back + punitive damages, and at the very least should give us the option of not using them. None of these came to be and the result is such that I'm forced to use the machines or not vote at all and that's not OK.