Posts Tagged ‘blog’

Twitter, Facebook Warn Users of Email Password Scams

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Twitter has followed Facebook in warning users to avoid malicious emails with attachments that claim to provide a new password.

Opening such an attachment can unleash malware that may ultimately crack the passwords on the user’s computer beyond social media accounts, warn Internet security firms.

“Remember, Twitter doesn’t send emails asking you to download or open attachments. Don’t fall for that trap!” the micro-blogging site posted on its Twitter.com/safety page.

Twitter then provides a link to its “Keeping your Account Secure” guidelines page.

Facebook issued its own warning earlier in the week about “another spoofed email going around” that claims it’s from the social media site and asks the recipient to open an attachment to receive a new password. Facebook says to delete such emails and warn friends of the scam.

“Remember that Facebook will never send you a new password in an attachment,” said the post on Facebook’s security page.

McAfee’s Security Insights Blog describes the attachments in the Facebook emails as “potentially very dangerous considering that there are over 400 million Facebook users who could fall for this scam.”

The attachment is a “password stealer” that installs when the user clicks on it, McAfee said.

“Once installed, the password stealer can potentially access any username and password combination utilized on that computer, not just for the user’s Facebook account,” the online security firm said.

One clue that signals a user of a spam email is poor grammar and awkward phrases, such as the greeting: “Dear user of facebook.”

Tags: , , ,
Posted in twitter | No Comments »

Twitter anywhere to bring Twitter everywhere – Pocket-lint

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Twitter has hinted at a new service it is calling @anywhere on Monday at SxSW in what many believe is the company’s attempt at taking on Facebook Connect.

Although Twitter has said that it won’t release further details until its official developer conference in April, that didn’t stop founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone spilling some of the beans via the company’s blog and session at the media conference in Austin, Texas.

“We’ve developed a new set of frameworks for adding this Twitter experience anywhere on the web. Soon, sites many of us visit every day will be able to recreate these open, engaging interactions providing a new layer of value for visitors without sending them to Twitter.com”, commented Stone on the company blog.

According to the company, site owners need only “drop in a few lines of javascript” to get the new offering up and running.

Before a world wide web roll out, Twitter will be testing the new system with a number of “big” sites that include Amazon, AdAge, Bing, Citysearch, Digg, eBay, the Huffington Post, Meebo, MSNBC.com, the new York Times, Salesforce.com, Yahoo!, and YouTube.

Stone goes on to say:

“Imagine being able to follow a new York Times journalist directly from her byline, tweet about a video without leaving YouTube, and discover new Twitter accounts while visiting the Yahoo! home page—and that’s just the beginning. Twitter has proven to be compelling in a variety of ways. With @anywhere, web site owners and operators will be able to offer visitors more value with less heavy lifting.

Expect more details in the middle of April.

We will keep you posted.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in twitter | No Comments »

Twitter Expected To Take The Wraps Off Its Advertising Platform Today

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Later today, Twitter CEO Evan Williams will be interviewed by Umair Haque of the Havas Media Lab at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas. We’ll of course be covering any announcements that will be made by Williams on stage, but we expect that at least part of the keynote address will be centered around the company’s advertising platform.

Update: please refer to our live blog from the Williams keynote address, and the details of the announced ‘At Anywhere’ platform.

Twitter made a memorable splash at SXSW three years ago, and will likely have opted for the conference as the right place to detail its digital advertising plans, which it hopes will become a major source of revenue in addition to its realtime search outsourcing deals with major Internet players like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, which are said to have already turned the company profitable on an operational basis.

Just for reference: the company also switched the flip on the geolocation feature for its website in time for SXSW.

Nobody knows for sure whether Twitter will effectively be launching its proprietary ad platform today, but there’s a good chance it will, at least to a subset of advertisers. the company’s head of monetization, Anamitra Banerji, stated as much during a talk at an advertising industry panel on 22 February when he said Twitter’s online ad platform would debut in beta form ‘in a month or so’.

In addition, GigaOM’s Mathew Ingram at the time cited a source from the media industry who said Twitter was working with several major partners for the imminent launch, including “new and traditional media”.

We – and others – have speculated before about what Twitter ads could or should look like and last November, Twitter COO Dick Costolo told us at our Realtime Crunchup that the new ads will be “fascinating”, “non-traditional” and that “people will love it”.

I’ve yet to come across any form of digital advertising that people truly love, and Twitter is tricky territory for advertising as it revolves primarily around personal, direct communication between individuals. it isn’t anything like putting display ads up on a newspaper site (or even a social network), or matching search keywords with relevant text ads.

I’m very curious to find out what will be so non-traditional and fascinating about Twitter’s ad model, and if they’ve effectively been able to come up with a way that will prove both beneficial for online advertisers and non-disruptive for its many millions of users throughout the world. I’m also looking forward to April, when Twitter will likely be outlining its revenue strategy with third-party developers at its first ever Chirp conference.

My (educated) guess is we’ll know more this afternoon – William’’s keynote starts at 2 PM.

(Image via eHow)

Tags: , ,
Posted in twitter | No Comments »

Twitter Deploys New Anti-Phishing Service | threatpost

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Twitter is launching a new service designed to prevent users from being tricked into visiting malicious Web sites after clicking on shortened URLs in direct messages or Twitter messages.

The new Twiiter anti-phishing service, which launched Tuesday, essentially serves as a proxy between users and whatever sites the links are pointing them toward. When a user clicks on a shortened URL in a Twitter messages, he first will be routed through the new Twitter service, which will inspect the link and prevent the user from visiting the page if it looks malicious.

In a blog post, Twitter’s director of trust and safety, Del Harvey, said that the company is deploying the service as a way to keep users safe from the increasing levels of phishing and other malicious activity on the site.

“By routing all links submitted to Twitter through this newservice, we can detect, intercept, and prevent the spread of bad linksacross all of Twitter. even if a bad link is already sent out in anemail notification and somebody clicks on it, we’ll be able keep thatuser safe. since these attacks occur primarilyon Direct Messages and email notifications about Direct Messages, thisis where we have focused our initial efforts. for the most part, youwill not notice this feature because it works behind the scenes but youmay notice links shortened to twt.tl in Direct Messages and emailnotifications,” Harvey wrote in the blog post.

As Twitter’s popularity has continued to increase in recent months, so has the level of malicious activity. There have been a number of phishing campaigns on the service lately, many involving fake direct messages with links to malicious sites. because Twitter has a limit of 140 characters for each message, it automatically shortens virtually all URLs posted in tweets.

The problem with this is that the shortened links obfuscate the destination page that the user will be taken to, making it virtually impossible for them to know whether a site is malicious before they visit it.

As part of the new service, Twitter will be sending some links through a new shortening service, twit.tl.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in twitter | No Comments »

Twitter's New Security Strategy: Rewriting Some Users' Links …

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Beset by phishing attacks and other scammy behavior, Twitter is taking a step I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else before: The social messaging service says it may change the text of its users’ messages in order to protect them.

Specifically, Twitter is going to rename links that users send to one another via direct messages, which allows the company to track them and shut them down if they turn out to be malicious. You’ll be able to identify the renamed links, because they’ll be shortened using a “twt.tl” prefix.

In typical Twitter fashion, the company has a blog post that explains the change, but in somewhat vague and hazy terms. as best I can tell, what Twitter is really doing is rewrapping some links that users send with its own code.

This doesn’t appear to change the core characteristics of the link–publishers and marketers who use the bit.ly link shortening service, for instance, will still be able to track the data generated by their links. But it does give Twitter the ability to track bad behavior.

If you want to view the move in a positive light, you can think of it as the tag an airline slaps on your luggage when you check it–the only changes to your message are superficial. Or, if you’re so inclined, you could shiver just a bit at the thought of a messaging service changing any part of your message, no matter how trivial.

Twitter only announced the change this evening, but the company appears to have been testing it for some time: Searching Twitter for “twt.tl” turns up shortened links going back several days. as best I can tell, this one–what appears to be the retweet of a direct message from a marketer–is the first one to show up in public:

There’s a good chance many or most Twitter users won’t see the shortened links–if you’re not sending or receiving direct messages, you may never see one, period. But Twitter seems to leave the door open to expanding the program to regular tweets as well: it has posted notes that the company has “focused [its] initial efforts” on direct messages and email.

Just to be clear, I checked with Twitter spokesman Sean Garrett via email. Here’s our exchange:

Q: But to be clear: do you reserve the right to change links in regular tweets?

A: this is our focus right now.

Print View Comments Tagged: Internet, MediaMemo, Peter Kafka, Twitter, blogs, digital, bit.ly, code, email, links, marketers, messages, phishing attack, prefix, Publishers, Sean Garrett, social messaging, track, Tweet, twt.tl | permalink

Tags: , , ,
Posted in twitter | No Comments »

Twitter Use Explodes, Hits 50 Million Tweets Per Day

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

Recent reports saying Twitter’s popularity is declining might not be very accurate. Users of the micro-blogging social network are posting more messages than ever — as many as 50 million 140 character-long messages every day, the company on Monday announced in a blog post.

Call it noise or information overload, but Twitter measured over 600 tweets per second from its users, Twitter’s Kevin Weil blogged. The social network is just growing larger and larger, with more users joining every day, Twitter says.

The evolution of Twitter is phenomenal. when the service launched in 2007, there were only 5,000 tweets per day; by 2008, the number soared to 300,000, according to the stats released by the micro-blogging service.

The statistics released by Twitter do not include spam accounts and there were no details on geographical spread. Twitter didn’t say how many users it has either, though comScore estimates that in January the service attracted around 75 million unique visitors from around the world.

But despite the huge growth Twitter saw, the company is yet to come up with a revenue model for the service. Meanwhile, Facebook is still the largest social network, with its 400 million users updating their statuses 60 million times per day.

You can follow PCWorld on Twitter @pcworld, and you can find Daniel Ionescu @danielionescu.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in twitter | No Comments »

Dead Naked Playboy Sex Kittens « The Final Taxi

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Yeah the title of this blog is a little off colored but when else does a podcast/ blog about dead people get to use such ‘keyword” that the sex surfers will pick up on.

Ok—so now that we found out that Anne Nicole Smith died of a drug OD ( was there a doubt?) maybe we will not see any more news about her for a while. After thinking about Smith, I said what about the other Playboy pinups that have died tragically in the years?

How any other Playmates suffered an unfortunate fate?

I was surprised to see that there have been several who have had tragic ends.

One of the most famous would be the December 1953 Playboy Playmate, Marilyn Monroe. Playboy’s first cover girl and 1950s actress died when she was only 36 on Aug. 5, 1962, of an overdose of sedatives used for insomnia. her housekeeper discovered her lying nude and face down on her bed at her home in Los Angeles, with the phone in her hand. She was already dead.

Monroe, nicknamed the “Blonde Bombshell,” was a leading lady in films including “Some like it Hot,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “How to Marry a Millionaire.” among her three ex-husbands were baseball great
Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller. She was also romantically linked to Frank Sinatra. I keep hearing conspiracy theories that she was murdered over rumored relationships she was having with President John F. Kennedy and/or his brother, Sen. Robert Kennedy, or because of alleged ties to the mafia and the Communist Party. in the end, her cause of death was deemed “probable suicide.”

The next famous death of a Playmate would be Sharon Tate. I loved her in “The Fearless Vampire Killers” and “Valley of he Dolls.” her film director husband, Roman Polanski, did the Playboy shoot on the set of one of her films. the tragic death happened when she stabbed to death in the couple’s house in August 1969 by members of mass murderer Charles Manson’s family. Four friends were also killed in the spree. the details were told in the best selling book, Helter Skelter. Manson was convicted of murder for those five victims and two others in 1971 and remains in prison, though he has bragged of killing dozens.

The next Taxi rider is Dorothy Stratten, Playmate of the Year in 1980. She was just taking off in the movie and TV industry. She had appeared in Skatetown USA and Autumn Born in 1979. I loved her in Ameicathon, where she played the John Ritter’s wife ( the first lady?). the film also starred Harvery Korman and Fred Willard. her starring role was in the Sci-fi comedy Galaxina in 1980. She did very well. She also appeared in Fantasy Island and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. in 1980, she was found shot to death in Los Angeles in what police believed was a murder-suicide involving her estranged husband and ex-manager Paul Snider. Stratten was only 20. ( For more on her rent the film Star 80 starring Mariel Hemingway and Eric Roberts. )

Miss February 1977, Star Stowe, dated Kiss band member Gene Simmons and then was known for tattooing a bright blue star on a private part. Stowe slipped from the spotlight and into erotic pole dancing, prostitution, alcoholism and drug abuse after moving to Ft. Lauderdale. Only days before her 41st birthday, in 1997, Stowe was found murdered in Coral Springs, Fla.

A drug overdose also apparently took the life of Elisa Bridges, the magazine’s miss December 1994. She was found with a massive amount of Heroin in her system.

Willy Rey, a Vancouver woman featured as Playboy’s 1971 centerfold, took her own life at age 23 by consuming a large quantity of barbiturates in August 1973.

Others who took off their clothes in the magazine died young in car crashes. Claudia Jennings, the Playmate of the Year in 1970 and also miss November 1969, was killed in an accident in 1979 at the age of 29 when she fell asleep at the wheel of her VW convertible in southern California.

Famous actress Jayne Mansfield was Playboy’s February 1955 Playmate. She died in 1967 at age 34 when the car she was traveling in slammed into the back of a truck in Louisiana.

Anne Nicole Smith, born Vickie Lynn Hogan, was on the cover of Playboy four times. She not only wanted to live like Marilyn Monroe but she died like her too. Over dose on ‘legal drugs’ and naked make a bad combination it seems.

Tags: ,
Posted in caroline mcwilliams | No Comments »