UGN Info Manager
UGN Info Manager
Some time last Sunday night, UGN spam-slamed which put us in 'sever hell' for most of the week. We thank all those who wrote to let us know.
Spam-Slam is a common technique used by spammers to evade detection or blocking. The spammer uses your email address in the "Sent by" and "Reply To" fields for millions of spams. Those bounced by improperly configured servers are returned to YOU rather than the spammer. UGN's mail boxes averaged 2 to 4 bounce messages PER MINUTE from well-intentioned postmasters all over the world.
If you receive spam supposedly from any name at "user-groups.net" be very wary of it. Rest assured we did NOT send any spam. Please do not report the spam, do not 'black-list' it. Just delete it. We were blocked by AOL for three days, and by Comcast for about 24 hours. High-tech as these two may seem, their servers are dumb, and filter by the sender's address rather than the sending IP address.
REMEMBER: you will receive ONLY ONE email from us per week, if you are subscribed. That's it. PLEASE add user-groups.net, and mac-pro.net to your spam filter's WHITE LIST. Thanks.
Topping this latest round of reports are some scary new developments in cypercrime -- dramatic increases in attacks from China -- one China hacker claims hacks on the Pentagon. They'll be targeting next week's IRS stimulus payments with new phishing tools that let criminals cover their tracks... ALSO: PayPal anti-phishing to block browsers * Spam Hits Google Calendar * hacker attacks via Orkut, Facebook * Subpoena Phishing Attacks Rise * and others in this SafeNet Phishing Alerts issue
While analyzing all that spam from last week -- about 36.8 spams per hour, 24/7 -- another disturbing trick emerged. Several spammers have taken to using anti McCain headlines in the subject line. One example read "Where did McCain get that wife?" another wrote "McCain turns back on U.S. Military in Iraq" ... the main problem is, the spam contains only a single link to a web site. Clicking the link takes you to servers in Korea or Poland which automatically begin attempting to download zombie malware. Although we believe Mac users are immune to these programs, one can never be too safe. So far, there have been none which attack Obama or Clinton, but surely they can't be far behind. I'm working on an article which exposes this new practice, but with all the server hell this week, I just didn't get it finished.
A UGNN reader at a Norwalk, CT firm is searching to hire 3 game testers/gamers to work onsite at their client's facility in New York city. They asked me to pass this along to our UG readers ...
I just came from the Mac Minute web site. The Flack family has posted a brief article in appreciation of the thoughts of so many people who worked with Stan over the years. MacMinute: Stan Flack
What should the next iPhone have? * Quake 3 Ported to iPod Touch * 3G iPhone: Walt Mossberg * 3G iPhone pics * Nokia offers Tube as iPhone rival * Samsung's iPhone Killer * iPhone software * iPhone TV streaming * iPhone Blu-Ray Player Remote * Chinese know iPhone * Sync your Firefox bookmarks with the iPhone * iPhone slashes prices in Germany * and many others
In the past, I have talked some about the Computer Museum and Apple Folk Tales as ways to relive the past. See the full story...
I first came across the issue of port forwarding when I was still somewhat active on AOL and tried to use AOL's client for MacOS X. I couldn't get the client to connect via my router. (Read More)
This site has been around almost as long as Apple has been shipping Safari. But it appears to have reached a crossroads. See the full story...
Agile Web Solutions just released AllBookmarks 3.0, a major upgrade to the free Bookmark Manager that provides access to all your browser bookmarks in one place. See the full story...
I may have mentioned this site in the past. But I just came across it again and was reminded how user friendly it is. Of course, it talks about Mac Freeware.
For some, running a retail operation with a Mac seems... well, just cool. Now it can be done, and done well. See Checkout
Fred sez: Morphing is one of the cooler manipulations you can do with images -- and Morph Age Pro now puts face recognition to work for itelligent morphing! Very cool.
It's zippy, flippy, hippie, and trippie... you'll like Jumsoft's new collection of clip art! They say it's for Apple's Pages... but you can use it anywhere! See the full story...
This easy-to-use plug-in for Adobe Photoshop, effortlessly lets users convert their Photoshop designs into CSS-rich, standards-compliant webpages from within Photoshop with just a click of the mouse (Read More)
The new Sharing Assistant makes it super easy to create the files you want for making a DVD, putting them on your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV, or playing in full quality on another Mac. PDEE (Personal Digital Export Expert)
Fred sez: This wonderful game is truly reminiscent of early Mac games -- which thrilled us back at the dawn of graphical games on the computer! Chopper Rocks!
TweakerSoft has added PDF, EPS import and improved SVG import to their latest upgrade of VectorDesigner -- the perfect application for vector drawings, diagrams and illustrations, raster image handling, filtering and color correction (Read More)
Love all. Trust a few. Do wrong to none.
-- William Shakespeare
Trust, like the soul, never returns, once it is gone.
-- Publius Syrus
Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.
-- Erik Pepke
Have a great week... (See last week)
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