Most of us here have heard of Geeksquad, but for those of you who havent, they are one of Americas largest (if not THE largest) computer repair group. Consumerist.com placed a hidden application on their honeypot computer to record what the technician does behind the scenes. The only thing the Geeksquad technician was supposed to do was install iTunes, instead he searched around for personal photos and porn and copied them to his USB thumb drive.

The full story and video of the Geeksquad agents actions can be found HERE.

COMPUTERWORLD has posted an article about hackers who make and send fake e-mails to businesses.

The e-mails tell the user that it comes from the Better Business Bureau and it says that a customer has made a complaint against the business of the user.

A Microsoft Word attachment is included with the e-mails and the files have .pdf extensions.

One of the branches of the Better Business Bureau has warned business in February due to a similar attack. Instead of an attachment, hackers used hyperlinks to trick the users instead.

This new attempt by hackers captures the data of the user’s PC by using a keylogging software. Then it uploads the data on a server somewhere in Malaysia.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

A huge problem has occured on Chinese computers due to an update from Symantec Corp.

It affected those who were using the Windows XP operating system. It occured about 1:00 a.m. Beijing time on Friday. The main problem was that a virus-signature update mistook two critical files in windows\system32 directory as Trojan horses. The two files that were quarantined are netapi32.dll and lsasrrv.dll.

The PCs that have been affected and rebooted will now show only a blue screen at start-up.

An hour and a half after, a new signature update was released but it was too late for those who rebooted their PCs.

A similar thing happened in March. It also involved Symantec.

Source: PC WORLD

Antivirus developer, Symantec, has filed lawsuits for fraud, unfair competition, trafficking, and other offences to different firms in the US and Canada.

The firms are:
1. Acortech
2. mPlus
3. Rowcal Distribution
4. Logical Plus
5. SoftwareOutlets
6. Global Impact
7. Directron
8. eDirect Software

The first 7 firms are located in either California, New York, Florida, or Texas. The eight firm is located in Canada.

The software that are affected are:
1. Norton SystemWorks
2. Norton AntiVirus
3. Norton Internet Security
4. pcAnywhere
5. Symantec AntiVirus Small Business Edition

The article at The Register did not mention if the stores were selling counterfeit versions of software other than Symantec’s.

Source: The Register

A headmaster / schoolteacher named Alexander Ponosov is in a trial due to purchasing computers which has illegal version of Microsoft’s Windows operating systems. The court is charging him the equivalent of half-a-month’s salary which is equal to 266,000 rouble that Microsoft lost.

The court says that its interest is not in prosecuting schools or teachers, it is in helping students develop the technology skills they need in the 21st century.”

Microsoft had a response to this specific issue and they said “Mr. Ponosov’s case was initiated by Russian authorities under Russian law. Microsoft neither initiated nor has any plans to bring any action against Mr. Ponosov.”

This is the second time that Ponosov got in trouble with the same issue.

Source: Engadget

An announcement has been made by Matt Domsch, who is the Linux Software Architect for Dell, that the Latitute line of Dell will join their n-Series which are systems that are sold with no operating systems included. Along with the Latitude line, the other lines that are in the n-Series are Dimension and OptiPlex lines.

This move brought the Dell laptops to the kind of Linux laptops. The current Latitude models that are in the n-Series are D420, D520, D620 and D820.

There is no specific version of Linux included with the purchase on any of those models.

Source: DailyTech

In an Iowa court, where an antitrust action against Microsoft is currently happening, a software expert testified that Microsoft uses undocumented API which stands for Application Programming Interfaces.

On one of the emails of a product manager at Microsoft, he wrote, ‘All I can say is holy API batman…I’m not kidding…we are talking about literally 500-800 APIs here, no joke,’

These undocumented APIs supposedly allows Microsoft’s developers to code better programs than their competitors when creating programs specifically for the Windows operating system.

The expert added that these were included in a CD-ROM but it is in a very low profile to discourage developers on implementing them.

BECTA, which stands for British Educational Communications and Technology Agency announced that schools should not upgrade to the new Windows operating system, Vista, and the new Office upgrade which is version 2007.

Some of the reasons are the costs and they also said that both of them are not “must have”. Another reason is that many students were trained on an older version of Office and the 2007 version does not have a feature that can revert back to the classic interface.

Schools are also advised to wait for BECTA’s final report which will be released in 2008.

According to Aaron Kornblum who is Microsoft’s attorney of Internet Safety Enforcement, botnets are the top cyber threats in today’s current technology.

He said “Botnets are really where it’s at for serious cyber criminals, because of their concentrated power. That power can be used for all sorts of malicious conduct on the Internet.”

The computers which are compromised are the main source for spam, phishing, and other malicious attacks. They are responsible for some internet frauds such as clickfrauds which boost billings of web advertising.

The IT industry looks much different from the outside than it does from the inside. There are secrets and tricks about how it operates that nobody knows except those who are in the industry. Kind of like a weird cult. That is, until now. Here’s my list of what everyone who wants to enter the IT industry should know.

Read More at BrainBox.com