Monthly Archives: January 2009

The Hazards of Recommending

Think twice before you agree to recommend someone on LinkedIn. They may be a logic bomber. You may have already read about the fired Fannie Mae sysadmin who allegedly placed a virus in the mortgage giant’s software. The virus was a bad one: it was set to execute at 9 a.m. Jan. 31, first disabling… Read More »

The Problem With Memory Sticks

… is that you forget you have them in your pocket. According to Credant Technologies, a Texas-based security company, about 9,000 USB sticks have been left in people’s pockets in the UK when they take their clothes to the dry cleaners. This is based on a survey (no link available; sorry) of 500 dry cleaners… Read More »

Still Sneaky After All These Years

I still retain the capacity to get bummed out by the intrusiveness of software from companies you’d think would be trying to make us happy these days, not make us madder. My friend Scotty, the Winpatrol watchdog, has been doing a great job of keeping an eye on these things. The culprits either try to… Read More »

Malware Inside the Credit Card Machine

(Update, July 2009: A BusinessWeek article puts the company’s side; maybe I was a little too harsh on them in this post.) This gives you an idea of how bad malware is getting, and how much we’re underestimating it: a U.S.. company that processes credit card transactions has just revealed that malware inside its computers… Read More »