TigerDirect News Update for December 11, 2006
This is the TigerDirect news update for Monday, December 11, 2006.
Today’s podcast includes:
- Spam on the Rise
- Bogus Spyware has Korea up in Arms
- The Wii outsells PS3 in it’s first month of sales
- WiMax the new ‘copper’ network
Podcast:
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Spam on the Rise
MOST internet users already know it: spam is on the rise again as senders of unwanted email find new ways to circumvent filtering systems.
A study released last month messages now account for 91 per cent of all email, and over the past 12 months the daily volume of spam rose by 120 per cent. California-based IronPort Systems reports that worldwide spam volumes increased from 31 billion messages daily in October 2005 to 61 billion messages per day in October 2006.
Security experts cite two key reasons for the surge, which has come after a brief respite in which spam appeared to be stabilising.
Spammers are using massive networks of hijacked computers called “bot-nets” to send the emails. Mr Postini said more than one million infected computers are being used for spam and virus attacks each day, with 50,000 or more active at any instant.
Spyware Detected
BOGUS anti-spyware makers are a growing source of public concern in South Korea, according to an online security firm.
Many fraudulent anti-spyware makers extorted money from users by lying that they had found intrusive programs on users’ computers, AhnLab said Wednesday. “Through pop-up windows, they claim malware such as viruses, worms or trojans were scanned on your computer and ask for money to treat those malwares,” AhnLab spokesman Park Keun-Woo said.
“In many cases, however, those scanned programs are simply non-existent, or cookies that are not really harmful for your computer and can be easily erased,” he said.
Many of the deceptive anti-spyware makers hired part-time workers to spread their bogus programs, which are placed on the internet in bundles with free video clips or cartoons in blogs and internet cafes.
Joke about the Wii, But it sells!
The Nintendo WII outsold the PlayStation 3 by more than double in the US in November as the newly launched video game consoles challenged the Xbox 360 for market share.
Nintendo sold 476,140 of its Wii consoles in the US in November while Sony managed to sell 196,580 of its new PlayStations, according to industry tracking group NPD. During the month, Microsoft sold 511,300 of its Xbox 360 consoles, which it brought to market a year ago.
WiMax the ‘new copper’
SPECTRUM for the wireless technology WiMAX, which offers speeds faster than the latest copper-based broadband, is “gold” and headed for a big future, according to Motorola chief executive Ed Zander.
The technology has been chosen by US telco giant Sprint Nextel for a $US3.5billion ($4.4billion)-plus deployment that will cover 100 million people across major US cities.
Samsung telecoms chief Kitae Lee said at the ITU this week that there will be 130 million subscribers for mobile WiMAX by 2011, and that in the next year mobile WiMAX will deliver speeds of up to 100 Mbps, with nomadic WiMAX delivering speeds up to 1Gbps. Samsung has committed more than $US800 million to WiMAX.
Photo Credit: AntiSpam.BR
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