Sex Sex Sex and More Sex. And, Teens.

Folk’s, every now and again I come across an article on the Web that I feel my readers should see.

Sexting – A Real Problem or An Overreaction?

“According to sexologists, anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists, a common denominator amongst humans is the degree to which they think of sex…

Sex and tech, it seems, have come together, (the pun is not intended), and that has generated a Pandora’s box of problems and issues that need to be resolved socially, legally, and I suspect for some; morally…

One of these  problematic issues, is the issue of sex, tech and teens; more precisely – teenaged sexting.”
Please click here to read this terrific article. (It will open in a new tab.) Since here in the US, teens are being arrested for sexting under Pedophile Laws…

Today’s free link(s):
For the media’s spin, watch GMA — Let’s Talk About Sexting.
Teens caught ‘sexting’ face porn charges — USA Today.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Skype Phishing Returns*

Chat Message Scares Reader Into Installing Malware

Folks, after a brief quiet period, criminals are once again using Skype to send phishing “chats” in an attempt to defraud you. So, I am re-posting this article. It is the exact same ruse I first warned of last year, but the name has changed.
This attack will reappear every so often with a slightly different name and URL…

Yesterday a Skype chat window opened on my machine, and presented me with a dire warning from someone named “Software Update” “Registry Scan Online®” Today’s flavor. It said that “WINDOWS REQUIRES IMMEDIATE ATTENTION” and, it provided me with a solution. 

(Click on image to see large version)

Please, folks, tell me you have spotted this for what it is. Please tell me that you knew –instantly– that this is a cybercrime attempt; that it is Phraud-ulent.

Please tell me that you know what will happen if the link provided in this message is clicked; and, please, please, please tell me you would never click the link.

Just in case you aren’t sure:
* “Software Update” “Registry Scan Online ®”  Today’s flavor doesn’t exist.
* “http://www.onlinemonitor.info” “http://www.registryscan.com” Today’s flavor is not registered in ARIN (the registry of Internet addresses).
* clicking the link will allow scripts to run, and/or take you to a poisoned Website which will install malware on your machine, or/and it may take you to a site that will sell you a rogue anti-spyware program
(please read my article, Is that antispyware program really spyware).

* Microsoft DOES NOT alert you via Instant Messaging. No legitimate company does. Period. Ever.
This is a classic example of a hacker’s attempt to get you to click their link.

All of this so they can rip you off. It’s their full time job.

Please point your less-savvy friends and family to this article and educate them to the dangers of spam (unsolicited) messages and tell them– NEVER CLICK THE LINK.
[Note: while this article directly references the VoIP client Skype, you may see this type of thing in other Instant Messaging/Chat programs, and social networking communications.]

[addenda: Peter Parkes (Skype Blogger) wrote and asked me to remind my readers to, quote, “Please report users who send these messages to abuse@skype.net – that will help us to block them where appropriate.”]

Today’s free link: Pirated Windows 7 leads to malware, botnet

Today’s free downloads(s): I have assembled on my Website a collection of links to the best free anti-malware programs to help you prevent infection.. and clean up if you’ve been infected. To see them, click here.

Related: Bill Mullins has posted a very complete tutorial, Think You Have A Virus?– Some Solutions, which is quite probably the best one-stop lesson on malware I have ever run across. (I also recommend his How Fake/Rogue Software Affects Real People.)

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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The lingo that you do

Folks– business obligations require a reposting today…

I have an embarrassing confession to make–I don’t always know how to translate what someone has text-ed into English. I need a Text-to-English dictionary. This is just one more fact, added to an already long list of facts, that tells me I’ve gotten ‘old’. We didn’t have texting when I was a teenager.

I think part of my problem stems from the fact that we have had an explosion of an “extreme” (or maybe I should say “X-treme”) phenomenon in this country. Everything has become X-treme this, and X-treme that. There are the X-Games featuring X-treme Sports, X-treme Motorcross, X-treme Snowboarding…we even had X-treme Football for a while. Guys are no longer content jumping their motorcycles across small creeks, they want to fly, and they do loop-the-loop’s now.

At first I thought texting was simply X-treme Abbreviation. And then I thought it might be a combination of Vanity Licenseplate Language and X-Abbreviation. This thinking allowed me to read some of what I saw, but not all. I could decipher “gr8” and “l8r”, but not “b4n”. It didn’t help that I wasn’t a “texter” myself (Use a cellphone and give myself ear cancer? Not this fella!).

And then it dawned on me: these kids are using an Adult-proof secret code. They don’t want me to decipher it. The world suddenly made a lot more sense. My friends and I had used code too.

Fotunately, there are resources available for those of us who are “lingo”-handicapped. If you see “A/S/L”, but don’t understand what it means, you can find out (age/sex/location?) — and if you are a parent concerned about your kid and what they’re doing and saying on the Internet and in chatrooms — I suggest you do. If you’re like me, and just want to try to increase your “hipness” quotient (or just avoid some terrible faux pas), you will also find these translation resources useful and interesting. My favorite is below:

Free link of the day: Lingo2Word. “Lingo2word is devoted to demistifying the new Internet shorthand language of Text messages, Chat rooms and Emails. We are devoted to the fun of text messaging in all forms, there is a whole new fun language out there just waiting for you!”

Copyright © 2007 Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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E-mail is dead.

Loyal Friends and True know that Tech–for Everyone is always on the cutting edge of technical innovation, and that I am a World Renown Tech Journalist whose fame springs from bringing you the latest in breaking IT news. (Ignore the man behind the curtain.)

It is my skill and extensive research (ahem) that allows me to be the first to inform you, Dear Reader, that e-mail, as we know it today, is utterly passe — completely old hat– and, like, so yesterday that it ‘gags me with a spoon’.

Yes my friends, e-mail is dead.
(And you heard it here first.)

Some of you are surely saying, “Why, Tech Paul! E-mail is the single greatest contribution to society that the IT Geek’s ever made! It enables commerce, and has facilitated ‘Globalization’! A couple billion e-mail messages are sent everyday! Dead? Surely you are mistaken!”
Right? You did say that?

It is true… it is very hard to picture a world without e-mail (I can envision a world without spam e-mail just fine, thank you very much) and it is impossible to deny that the ability to send electronic messages has radically altered the way we communicate with friends and family, conduct business, and.. share jokes. Yes, e-mail has had an incalculable impact on our lives.
Keywords: “has had”.

My extensive (ahem) research, and whetted-finger-held-aloft-to-the-Winds-of-Change , tells me (and now I’m telling you) that a New Thing has come along which is going to replace e-mail entirely.. and that is a little thing I have named “v-mail”. (With a little “v”. To those of you old enough to remember Victory Mail, I salute you.) The little “v” stands for “video”.

My Award-Winning* Nose for News has led me to uncover a service (which I am revealing as Today’s free link:) that allows us to send 30-second video clips of ourselves instead of boring -old letters and words and punctuations and stuff. No longer will we need emoticons and “smileys”. Avatars are doomed too. Video, my friends, trumps them all!

Why type “wink”, when you can just.. well.. wink?!

Bonus: Typos and outright misspellings will no longer embarrass us, and ruin careers! (Bad hair days are another story..)

As I mentioned in my recent article Climb aboard the VoIP bandwagon, at this stage in the game you really should have a webcam, and the odds are pretty good that, by now, you have added a microphone and used Skype or SightSpeed  to make calls or video conference (aka “video chat”).
* With v-mail, you don’t have to worry about if your “buddies” are available at the moment.. you just create your message and send it.
* With v-mail, you don’t have to download any special software, or manage a “Contacts” list.. it is entirely browser-based (it uses Flash).
* With v-mail, you don’t have to pay any subscription fee.
* It is one-click simple. (And you don’t have to learn that “texting” lingo used in Instant Messaging/Chat.)
* It is not some new “beta” thing. It has actually been around for a while now, and it works like it should.

Now.. when you add all that up, doesn’t it spell the end of e-mail to you too?
Today’s free link: Get your v-mail at EyeJot (or, go there and take a look at their “how it works” examples). All you need to do is provide your first name and a valid e-mail account (doesn’t have to be one of your real accounts). This creates your eyejot account. Your microphone and webcam are automatically detected, and you can start recording your v-mail right away.
Folks.. don’t you want to be an early-adopter, nay, trendsetter, for once? Blow your kids away and be the first to send a v-mail.

* The prestigious Annie Award. (An award that I just made up, and named after a beloved family pet.)

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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