Daily Bits

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WoW Players Target of New Phishing Scam

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World of Warcraft players, beware! You are now the target of a group (or groups) of cyber criminals. The scam’s premise is nothing new – the cyber criminals send e-mails to WoW gamers, asking them to verify their Battle.net account. In order to do so, the gamer has to enter his password. Of course, the web site to which the gamer is directed to is a fake one, and once the details are inputted – poor gamer!

Discovered and made public by F-Secure, a Finnish antivirus vendor, the scam is only one of the tactics that various cyber criminals are using. Another on going thing is someone sends you a chat message on WoW. This is in relation to the new Cataclysm beta. Spam Fighter shares the details:

Tom Kelchner, Security Researcher at Sunbelt, states that his friend Douglas got one message in a chat session from a person who employed the handle “BlizzalCOL” during the WoW game. He told him about the availability of the beta so the Cataclysm on the World of Warcraft map could expand, as reported by Sunbeltblog on July 13, 2010.

Kelchner further wrote that the message spread via an URL that took to Cataclysmtest.net looking like the login page of WoW.

He added that to determine the destination of the Cataclysmtest.net, he fed an unreal username and password to the site. Surprisingly, they were accepted, implying that the site was possibly stealing login information. Hence, it was a phishing site.

With WoW accounts being in high demand – especially those who have well-established characters – these developments are not surprising at all, are they? Needless to say, WoW players ought to be even more careful about using their login details.

A Note of Caution to Safari Users

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Everyone knows that Apple’s computers outperform Windows-based computer practically in all levels. However, don’t just sit back and think that, since you’re using a Mac, you shouldn’t be concerned about security issues.

Recently, a flaw in Apple’s web browser Safari was discovered by a security researcher. The flaw involves Safari’s auto-fill feature. Because of a bug, malicious web sites can harvest information that the user inputs on the browser. This information can be anything from name, e-mail, phone numbers, address, and more.

Jeremiah Grossman is the guy who discovered the flaw. He is the chief technology officer of WhiteHat Security, a computer security company. He says that he had contacted Apple prior to publishing his findings in his blog. This was back in June. However, he merely got an auto-reply from the company, and no follow up communication ensued.

If you’re thinking that this might just be part of a smear campaign against Apple, think again. The technology giant has acknowledged that the flaw does exist. They gave a statement saying that they are taking the issue seriously and are working towards fixing it at the soonest possible time. Other than that, however, they did not give any information.

What should you do in the meantime? I suggest switching to another web browser till Apple gets things together. Alternatively, if you feel disloyal doing that (I don’t see why, though), disable the auto-fill feature of your Safari. Seth Weintraub provides more information on this.

Graphic Novels Specifically Designed for the iPad

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Hardcore graphic novel lovers just might be shaking their heads. I know a number of people who will not even consider reading their graphic novels in digital format, and I totally respect that. However, there are also people who get quite excited about the idea of graphic novels being available in digital format.

With the prevalence of e-book readers (e-book reader wars, remember?), it is not a surprise that graphic novels are soon going to be staple content. This is actually not a new idea since there are graphic novels that have been converted to digital format. Two groups are looking to change that now.

Cognito Comics and Tall Chair, two start ups based in San Francisco are working on creating comics specially designed for the iPad. The New York Times recently covered this development, and shared how David Burwen (Executive Producer of Cognito) showed his graphic novel Operation Ajax. This is based on the nonfiction book All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer.

Their verdict?

“Animated transitions give the comic a cinematic feel, and also give the artist more control over how the page unfolds. The format provides an opportunity to make supplementary material such as photos and documents available within the relevant comics panel.

It’s different from anything I’ve seen in digital comics. Technologies like ComiXology’s “guided view” create a smooth experience by moving the reader from panel to panel, but you’re still reading your basic, old-fashioned comics page.”

I believe that this will introduce a new age in graphic novels. Pretty soon, I think we will be seeing more titles available for download.

Firefox: IBM’s Browser of Choice – Should You Follow?

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Earlier this month, IBM made an announcement that Firefox is now the default browser of the company. The announcement came straight from the horse’s mouth – Bob Sutor, the vice president of open source and Linux at IBM’s Software Group. In his blog, he said:

We’re officially adding a new piece of software to the list of default common applications we expect employees to use, and that’s the Mozilla Firefox browser.

Firefox has been around for years, of course. Today we already have thousands of employees using it on Linux, Mac, and Windows laptops and desktops, but we’re going to be adding thousands more users to the rolls.

This development definitely gives Firefox points in the browser wars. Here’s the thing – if such a group as IBM has publicly announced its browser preference, should we follow suit?

I don’t know what browser you’re using, but I have been switching between Firefox and Chrome in the past year. Before that, Firefox was my main choice. I have been having to pull up Chrome because of speed issues (I know Firefox is supposed to be fast but for some reason I have problems with this), but Internet Explorer has been out of the picture for the longest time.

Why should you even consider following IBM’s example? Sutor gives his reasons for his browser of choice:

• Firefox is stunningly standards compliant, and interoperability via open standards is key to IBM’s strategy.
• Firefox is open source and its development schedule is managed by a development community not beholden to one commercial entity.
• Firefox is secure and an international community of experts continues to develop and maintain it.
• Firefox is extensible and can be customized for particular applications and organizations, like IBM.
• Firefox is innovative and has forced the hand of browsers that came before and after it to add and improve speed and function.

Is that enough for you?

UK Gamers Love the Xbox 360 S

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First it was the PlayStation 3. Now it’s the Xbox 360’s turn to get downsized – physically at least. The Xbox 360 S was launched in UK stores on Friday, and it looks like the British gamers are loving the changes.

According to MCV UK, the launch was the biggest for a “revised home console.” Selling for £199.99, the console was welcomed by gamers with open arms. In fact, some stores even opened their doors at midnight just to make the console available to their customers. More from the report:

“[The Xbox 360 S] surpasses the launches of both PS2 Slim and PS3 Slim and recording over two days around the same as the original Xbox 360’s launch sales total back in week 48, 2005.

This is even more impressive when you take into account that the original Xbox 360 was launched across two versions (Pro and Core).”

So what’s hot about the new Xbox 360? This version is basically slimmer and sleeker than its predecessors. It has a built in 250 GB of storage plus Wi-Fi. This is really not a surprise as anything that comes with less than 250GB and without Wi-Fi will probably not make any impact today. As an added value, the console is supposed to run on “whisper quiet,” which will make the whole experience better. More so, the Xbox 360 S is ready for Kinect, which Microsoft is touting as the turning point in the history of gaming.

Just so you know, there has been news of dissatisfied customers returning their brand new Xbox 360 S the very next day. Apparently, this new version isn’t free from the bugs and errors that Microsoft has become known for. This shouldn’t deter hardcore Xbox fanboys from purchasing the new console, though.

Adios, Google Nexus One

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This is what happens to me when I do not go online for two solid days: I get disoriented. (Trust me, I didn’t want that to happen, but Mr. Murphy just had to pay me a visit.)

Anyway, when I read about the Nexus One web store shutting down for real – I just went wowza! Of course, if I were actually using my brain, I would have remembered that Google announced this shutdown earlier this year. Still, the announcement made on Friday just makes things seem so final:

Earlier this year, we announced that we will be closing the Nexus One web store. This week we received our last shipment of Nexus One phones. Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google. Customer support will still be available for current Nexus One customers.

The good news – at least for those who are still interested in the phone – is that the Nexus One will not totally disappear from the market. In Europe, the phone can be purchased via Vodafone. In Korea, it will be KT. The same announcement also said that the phone just might be available in other locations depending on “market conditions” – that is, if enough people will make noise about it, I guess.

I suppose that despite the initial excitement over the Nexus One’s primary point of sale, it just really isn’t something that works well. After all, wouldn’t you want to hold and play with the unit before spending your money on it? Google learned the hard way. Then again, when Nexus Two comes out, things just might be different.