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Links - Microsoft Malware and Lockouts, Idiots Press SOPA Forward, US "Bailouts" add up to $16 Trillion

Reader's Picks



  • Hardware



  • Security



  • Some Google reports on mostly Windows Malware.

  • This issue is brought up periodically by Microsoft people as part of their campaign to screw Google. According to them, if Google does not protect users from Microsoft flaws, they are guilty. When Google does protect Windows users, they are guilty of slander against website owners. I'm not sure why the people at Google bother, but their studies offer first rate insight into just how bad it is to be a Windows user on the web..



  • Four Years of Web Malware
    Google’s Safe Browsing initiative has been protecting users from web pages that install malware for over five years now. Each day we show around 3 million malware warnings to over four hundred million users whose browsers implement the Safe Browsing API. ...


  • The Ghost In The Browser Analysis of Web-based Malware
    We have seen evidence that web-based malware is forming compromised computers into botnet-like structures and believe that a large fraction of computer users is exposed to web-based malware every day. Unlike traditional botnets that are controlled by a bot master who pushes out commands, web-based malware is pull based and more difficult to track. Finding all the web based infection vectors is a significant challenge and requires almost complete knowledge of the web as a whole. We expect that the majority of malware is no longer spreading via remote exploitation but rather as we indicated in this paper via web-based infection.


  • The Nocebo Effect on the Web: An Analysis of Fake Anti-Virus Distribution
    Fake AV is responsible for 50% of all malware delivered via Ads, which represents a five-fold increase from just a year ago.


  • Generic Malware Debunking Post [2008]
    It may be possible that our malware flagging system has false positives, but I can’t recall a single case that I’ve seen where there wasn’t some security hole or malware that was a true issue for the website owner.


  • How Google handles malware: a historical overview [2007]
    Almost exactly a year ago, Google and other search engines were raked over the coals for exactly the opposite reason: allowing users to get infected with malware from search engine results.


  • Defence/Police/Aggression

    • Israel Basically Threatens to Assassinate Teen Hacker Who Leaked Israelis’ Credit Cards
      His attack is "a breach of sovereignty comparable to a terrorist operation, and must be treated as such," Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said in a speech on Saturday ... A commentator on Ynet, Israel's most popular news site, argued the hack was "no different than missile strikes and should be addressed similarly."


    • Israel and the US are murdering Iranian scientist.


    • Police thugs in Florida murdered a man with pepper spray.
      This photo is a picture of a [62 year old] man who is strapped to a chair naked inside a jail for hours with a hood over his face. That evokes thoughts of being tortured ... taken in the final hours of Christie's life. ... The District 21 Medical Examiner ruled his death was a homicide because he had been restrained and sprayed with pepper sprayed by law enforcement officers. But to this day, nobody has ever been charged with a crime... he was pepper sprayed 10 times over a 48-hour period ... His heart failed from the shock of the pepper spray.




  • Cablegate



    • Wikileaks revealed US espionage of Indigenous Peoples in 2011
      Wikileaks revealed extensive espionage of Indigenous Peoples ... the US feared the power of Indigenous Peoples, specifically their claims to their traditional territories, a right stated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Further, the Declaration states the right of free, prior and informed consent before development proceeds and protects intellectual and cultural property rights.

      Here we see that the confused concept of "intellectual property" is a one way instrument of power and that the US government often acts as a tool of large companies.





  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Rick Santorum's idea of subsidizing "synfuel"
      From 2003 through 2005, TIME estimates, the synfuel industry raked in $9 billion in tax credits. ... some plants spray newly mined coal with diesel fuel, pine-tar resin, limestone, acid or other substances--a practice that industry critics call "spray and pray." Other operators mix coal-mining waste with chemicals, coat it with latex and blend it with untreated coal to form briquettes. ... the whole point isn't creating a profitable new energy resource for the U.S.; it's about collecting the tax subsidy.


    • Spin Cycle: Will Changing Global Hydrology Throw the Geopolitical Machine Off-Balance?

      How global warming and groundwater depletion are making problems around the world.







  • Finance



  • Anti-Trust

    • Claim: Microsoft now paid royalties on 70% of US Android smartphones
      LG has become the latest in a long line of Android handset vendors to sign a patent licensing agreement with Microsoft. ... This is the eleventh agreement between Microsoft and Android-using OEMs, with other licensees including Samsung, HTC, and Acer. In total, Microsoft says that more than 70 percent of all Android smartphones sold in the US are covered by a similar patent agreement. The only major manufacturer now without a license agreement is Motorola Mobility.

      Payment is pure speculation by the author. A comment in this article calls to mind the correct pronunciation of "M$" which is "shit". I quit using the abbreviation "M$" because Google does not index it, not because I thought it was inappropriate or in some way shameful.





  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



  • Censorship



    • SOPA news blackout

      Corporate media likes SOPA, so the blackout is no surprise.



    • Rep. Lamar Smith Decides Lying About, Insulting And Dismissing Opposition To SOPA Is A Winning Strategy
      SOPA sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith has decided that his best strategy continues to be to ignore any and all criticism of SOPA and pretend that none of it "is legitimate." ... Dismissing the concerns of pretty much the entire tech sector and their users

      Incidently, SOPA would shut down Lamar Smith's own web site for copyright violation. Way to go!



    • Senator Leahy Hopes To Rush Through PIPA By Promising To Study DNS Blocking... Later?!?
      Rather than drop the DNS blocking, or even hold off on voting on the bill -- both of which would be sensible steps in a much bigger process, he wants to rush the bill through... but ignore the DNS provisions until there's a chance to "study" the impact of them:

      The senator also makes false claims about industry support.



    • Artists hate SOPA


    • Cory Doctorow: The internet is the best place for dissent to start
      Zuckerman is the director of MIT's Centre for Civic Media and the founder of Geekcorps, an NGO that sends technologists to the developing world to work on locally initiated, sustainable technology initiatives. He knows an awful lot of the daily, gritty reality of the internet's place in free speech and justice contexts in some of the world's most brutal and censorious regimes. ... revolutions are touched off by everyday people with everyday grievances – arbitrary detention, corruption and police brutality – and those people will use the tools they are familiar with to get the word out. ... the only way to keep activists, dissidents, and those who struggle against brutal oppression safe is to somehow convince the people who make the world's most popular social tools to harden them from the get-go.

      Facebook, Twitter and the government responsible for SOPA and the US Patriot act can be counted on to screw people, not protect them so we need to keep moving our neighbors to federated networks and freedomboxes. Google seems to understand and might escape Patriot act reporting by federating G+. It is easy to DDoS a known website and easier still to spy on a single company. Federated networks force oppressive governments to watch everyone and then break everything.





  • Privacy

    • US customs can and will seize laptops and cellphones, demand passwords
      former MIT researcher, David House - was returning from rest and relaxation in Mexico when federal agents seized his laptop. ... the government wanted to know more about House's connections to Bradley Manning, the US Army private accused of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks. ... last year alone, 5,000 devices were seized.

      You can't trust a laptop device has left your sight, so you are better off serving data to yourself with OpenSSH and carrying nothing if you must visit the US.





  • Civil Rights



    • US Citizens: Demand NDAA rollback and the closure of Guantanamo Bay.
      Indefinite detention without charge or trial is fundamentally contrary to the democratic values that our system of government rests upon. The recent law that authorizes the indefinite military detention of American citizens is an outrage and must be rolled back. Additionally, the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, which continue to be a dark spot on our national conscience, should be closed.


    • NDAA
      Colin Powell's former chief of staff sees #NDAA as "road to tyranny," also believes it will be used to target Occupy and other peaceful protest groups.


    • New Bill Known As Enemy Expatriation Act Would Allow Government To Strip Citizenship Without Conviction
      Congress is considering HR 3166 and S. 1698 also known as the Enemy Expatriation Act, sponsored by Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Charles Dent (R-PA). This bill would give the US government the power to strip Americans of their citizenship [without trial]... even though the language of the NDAA has been revised to exclude American citizens, the US government merely has to strip Americans of their citizenship and the NDAA will apply.


    • Republicans continue to deny basic facts about health care in the US.
      44,789 Americans die each year because they have no health insurance. ... Any health care system that denies necessary care on the basis of wealth is evil. It doesn't matter how you micromanage it, or tinker with it. It's evil.


    • All forms of torture are still common




  • Copyrights

    • CDs and DVDs are now so worthless that burglars won't steal them.

      It's not because people are downloading the same things, it's because there's so much more and better than physical publishers can provide.



    • Ithika and MIT come out against the Research Works Act
      AAP [Association of American Publishers] has therefore been widely criticised for its support of the RWA, and some in the research community have called on members of the association to disavow both the bill and AAP’s support for it.


    • Ars Technia is surprised to find themselves on the MPAA's enemies list.
      we're really on the MPAA's side; they just don't realize it. We're both content creators who support copyright and want to see creators get paid for their efforts. But copyright maximalism is the wrong way forward.

      It should be obvious by now that big publishers are pushing censorship and restrictions for their own interests, they will happily screw writers, musicians and everyone else they can.





  • Recent Techrights' Posts

    A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe, by Richard Stallman
    "The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place"
     
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
    IRC logs for Tuesday, October 21, 2025
    The Fall of Windows: From Something to Nothing
    Of course Microsoft will pretend everything is fine and "just trust the hey hi" (AI)
    Sounds Like Fedora is Ready to Become Less of a Slave of Microsoft (GitHub)
    This seems like a belated move in a positive direction
    XBox is a Dead Microsoft Product in a Dying Industry
    It's probable that another wave of XBox layoffs is just over the horizon (maybe even before month's end)
    Progress on Techrights Site Search
    Fun times
    IBM's Bluewashing of Red Hat Means the Layoffs Are Silent, Barely Reported
    Don't wait to hear about "Red Hat layoffs"
    Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Happy Disconnection, AWS Falling Apart, Closing of Gemlog Blue
    Links for the day
    Full Audio of Today's Richard Stallman Talk in the Technical University of Munich
    Free/Libre software and freedom in the digital society
    Microsoft XBox is Just Vapourware (Promises of Hardware That Doesn't Exist), Real Products Perish
    just as developers lose interest in developing for XBox Microsoft is increasing the costs imposed upon them
    Slopwatch: Fake Articles (Slop) in "Linux" Clothing in Google News (Noise)
    all about what Google does
    Links 21/10/2025: Even "Inventor of Vibe Coding" Rejects Vibe Coding, USPTO Experiments With Slop in Examination
    Links for the day
    Richard Stallman Talk Now Available for Viewing (Archived Copy, Not Live-streamed)
    This recording is over 2 hours old
    Links 21/10/2025: AWS-Induced Chaos and Social Control Media Curbs
    Links for the day
    Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Programming, StarGrid, Brand-New Palm OS Strategy Game in 2025, and Chatbot as Addiction Mechanisms
    Links for the day
    The African Lion and the American Cowards
    Safaris exist for people to watch and enjoy animals
    Amazon Web Shenanigans Perfectly Timed for Today's Talk by Richard Stallman
    Maybe listen to him instead of looking for excuses to ridicule the messenger
    Mission:Libre Has Taken Off (Project by Carmen Maris)
    there will be a lot more to report on next month (after the event)
    Techrights to Publish More EPO Leaks Next Week
    We're meanwhile also doing lots of work on search, whose interface now looks better
    Links 21/10/2025: 'The Lost Art' of Neon Signs and Twitter (X) to Enable Identity Theft (or Handle Theft) as a Service
    Links for the day
    Plagiarism With LLM Slop: Hindustan Times (HT Digital Streams Limited) Has Become a Slop Factory/Hub
    What a disgrace
    Next Week We Launch Search at Techrights
    We're planning to launch it some time next week. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Thursday.
    Talk by Richard Stallman Will be Live-streamed in Less Than 10 Hours
    Happy hacking
    "No Kings" in the Software World (GAFAM Should Not Exist, Either)
    "No Kings" is a good slogan. Let's start by ridding ourselves of masters, not only those who reside in DC or visit DC
    Every Morning
    Bugs/edge cases combined with automation can spell disaster
    Insane, Deliberately Dishonest, or Just Another Bigot?
    very intellectually-dishonest human being
    A Lot of Techrights is Built on Perl
    Perl also runs the sister site
    The Register MS Selling Slop for Microsoft (Vapourware, Ponzi Scheme, False Claims)
    What will be left of The Register MS if it keeps repeating falsehoods and looking to profit from Ponzi schemes?
    analytics.usa.gov Says Less Than 14% of Web Requests (to Government Sites) Come From Vista 11
    Vista 11 was released more than 4 years ago!
    People Who Attempt to Take Down Correct Information Need a Doctor a Day
    “Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 20, 2025
    IRC logs for Monday, October 20, 2025
    Vista 11 is Sinking While Microsoft is PIPing (Mass Layoffs But Silent Layoffs)
    We're witnessing a shift in platform dominance
    Richard Stallman is Having a Good Week Already (Stallman Was Right About 'Clown Computing')
    That alone is worth bringing up in his talk
    An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle"
    Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
    When Prominent GNU/Linux Distros Are Run by Spies
    What has Microsoft Canonical become?
    More Publishers and Companies Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux", Not "Linux"
    It's not to see InstallAware saying GNU/Linux this week
    Google News is Now Promoting a Parasitic Slopfarm Called "findarticles.com", Where Plagiarism of "Linux" Articles is Rampant
    Does Google even care about the slop epidemic? Google itself is a vendor of slop now (and it calls it "Gemini")
    Gemini Links 20/10/2025: Pumpkin Carving, "Hey Hi", and Other Buzzwords
    Links for the day
    Slopwatch: Google News Promoting Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
    What is the value of Google News if so many results in it are fake 'articles?
    Rejecting 'Snoop-Phones' and Turning "Old" Phones (or Tablets) Into Freedom-Respecting Appliances
    Paul Fernhout (pdfernhout.net) wrote back to Akira Urushibatathis this past weekend
    Our Uptime This Year Was Better Than AWS (Also a Lot Cheaper)
    We never used "the cloud"
    Amazon Web Shenanigans
    An ongoing, experimental endeavour
    Death of Elias Diem: FSFE mailing list archives hidden
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Links 20/10/2025: Louvre Museum Reveals Weakness, About 7 Million Protest US Turning Into Oligarchy/Monarchy
    Links for the day
    They Should Have Listened to Techrights Over a Month Earlier (Xubuntu Site Compromised)
    we reported this issue about 40 days earlier and nobody did anything about it
    Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science)
    Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
    Apple is the Company of Dictators and Worse
    Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
    Counting Unhatched Eggs Is Not Counting Chickens
    Everything here will persist as normal
    Barry Kauler Explains That Puppy Linux and EasyOS Exclude Systemd to Keep Things Simple
    Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
    The "Infinite Bread"
    The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
    Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works)
    If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
    In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time
    The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
    Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data)
    Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 19, 2025
    IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
    Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot')
    Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
    Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With
    4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
    Liberation From 'The Feed'
    They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
    Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD)
    We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles