Cyber criminals go phishing after Wells Fargo crash

In the wake of last week's Wells Fargo computer crash, online scammer's are attempting to cash in, reports IDG News Service.

Starting on Sunday and continuing until Tuesday, many Wells Fargo online banking operations and ATMs were taken offline by the computer crash. A computer security expert has said that the phishing community is now planning ways to take advantage of the crash.

Joel Helguson, a security consultant, told IDG: "They've talked about spooling up their engines and networks to take full advantage of this. "Everybody is sitting there waiting for a bank to screw up. It's like following behind an armored car, waiting for them to make a big mistake, and Wells Fargo just made a big one." Many customers said that transactions that they carried out before the crash have not shown up on their online accounts.

The bank stated: "Using our back-up facilities, we restored internet banking service in about one hour and 40 minutes Sunday, August 19th and within hours, customers could access Wells Fargo Phone Bank Centers and make basic ATM transactions."

Time Warner Goes Small With VOD

Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC - message board) is rolling out video-on-demand (VOD) services for the first time in some of its smaller markets, thanks to a new back-office configuration from Tandberg Television and a centralized, satellite-based video delivery system.

Initially, Time Warner Cable's National Division is using the Tandberg kit to offer VOD in four markets: Clarksburg, W.Va.; Dothan, Ala.; Fort Benning, Ga.; and Terre Haute, Ind. The MSO expects to expand it to 10 additional markets by year's end. (See table.)

Time Warner's National Division consists mostly of smaller, more scattered cable systems.

The MSO is offering VOD services in some of those systems using a special configuration of Tandberg's OpenStream system, but managing VOD services centrally from the National Division's headquarters in http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifDenver. The operator is also using Tandberg's "Xport Producer" system to deliver local on-demand content to each system.

Click here for the entire story.

Convert Your Old Analog TV To A Digital TV

Broadcom Announces Complete Digital TV Receiver System Designed to Meet the NTIA's Digital-to-Analog TV Coupon Program

New Digital Television-on-Chip Enables OEMs to Deliver NTIA Coupon-Eligible Converter Boxes that Extend the Lives of Millions of Analog-Only Televisions in the U.S.

Broadcom Corporation, a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced a complete digital television receiver system targeted at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA's) digital-to-analog converter box program. The program, which is part of a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) initiative, includes a budget of $1.5 billion that will be used to assist U.S. households in making an affordable transition from existing analog televisions to digital by providing coupons to households to defray the cost of digital TV converter boxes. Broadcom has introduced a turnkey digital television-on-chip (TVoC) and associated software to enable these digital-to-analog converter boxes, extending the lives of analog-only TVs.

As written in the Department of Commerce's Federal Register, dated March 15, 2007, the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 (the Act) directs the FCC to require full-power television stations to cease analog broadcasting and to only broadcast digital transmissions after February 17, 2009. As a result, televisions that receive over-the-air broadcasts through rabbit ear antennas will no longer work after February 17, 2009. At that point, the analog television spectrum will be freed up for public safety initiatives and will be auctioned off by the U.S. government for such applications as wireless networking.

For those consumers who want to continue receiving broadcast programming over-the-air using analog-only televisions not connected to cable or satellite service, a small digital-to-analog converter box will be required. These converter boxes are expected to be available in early 2008, at which time the NTIA has been authorized to create a digital-to-analog converter box assistance program for eligible households. As a result, the NTIA will provide two $40 discount coupons per household that consumers can redeem directly from retailers for these NTIA-qualified digital converter boxes. There is a total of 33.5 million coupons budgeted for the program, which begins January 1, 2008 and concludes on March 31, 2009.

Announced today is the Broadcom(R) BCM3543 ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) receiver designed to receive ATSC high definition television (HDTV) broadcasts and convert them to NTSC (National Television Systems Committee) signals. Utilizing 65 nanometer process technology, the BCM3543 is a highly integrated, low power digital TVoC receiver that provides superior ATSC signal reception targeted at the NTIA's coupon-eligible "analog switch-off" converter box program. The BCM3543 features on-chip support to convert all ATSC standard and high definition inputs to 480i output formats for display on analog TVs.

"Broadcom is very excited to support the transition from analog-to-digital broadcasting by enabling our OEM partners to produce and quickly deliver digital-to-analog converter boxes as part of the NTIA coupon program," said Dan Marotta, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Broadcom's Broadband Communications Business Group. "With the introduction of the BCM3543 ATSC receiver, Broadcom continues its leadership in the digital television market and demonstrates its ability to efficiently integrate a wide variety of technologies required to meet the demands of the market."

Facebook Addicts Cost Employers Billions

Workers surfing the social networking site Facebook are costing billions of dollars in lost time, according to research by an internet security firm.

Up to $4 billion a year is being lost by businesses due to workers voraciously logging on to the site, the research from SurfControl found. Chairman of SurfControl, Richard Cullen, was quoted by Reuters as saying: "People love being there and telling people what they are doing right now, what their thoughts are right at this second.

"It's so interactive that people just get addicted to watching their Facebook groups all the time." Mr Cullen's findings are based on a Facebook user who works the typical schedule of nine to five and spends an average of one hour on Facebook every day. Facebook allows one to search for friends and acquaintances, send messages and post pictures. With hundreds of new users logging on every day, Facebook has become the latest craze in internet social networking.

The site's name is derived from the "facebook's" used by colleges in the US identifying the college's staff which are given to incoming freshman students. Currently Facebook has an estimated 34 million users, with the city of London in the UK having the network with the most users.

Google Gadget Could Be Misused

The Google Gadget application could potentially be used for phishing by cyber criminals, according to an internet researcher.

Robert Hansen recently told Google that hackers could devise site on the gmodules.com domain which could be used for phishing. The domain is trusted by many antiphishing websites. Mr. Hansen suggested that the internet search engine giant be more draconian about who can use the domain in order to prevent it being abused.

However, Hansen said that when he told Google about the weakness, the company responded by saying that the perceived flaw is a known part of the site's operations. Hansen is the chief executive of the internet research company SecTheory. Alex Stamos, a researcher with Isec Partners, said in an email to the IDG News Service: "They have to have this throw-away domain to jail modules written by other people,"

"It's not an unreasonable model and it's the best they can do to host content created by malicious parties while not exposing themselves to attack." Google Gadget is used by web designers and web masters to display different pieces of information on their pages, such as the weather or stock market data.

Fake IRS Emails Phish For Victims

Emails pretending to be from the IRS are being sent out over the internet, reports the Pittsburgh Tribune.

However, the emails are in fact phishing scams trying to lure their recipients into divulging their personal financial details. The paper gave this example of one of the emails: "After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity, we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $109.30."

However, according to Dave Stewart, a spokesman for the IRS in Philadelphia, the service never sends out emails to citizens. Of phishers, he said: "They cast the net far and wide, and they only need a few people to fall for the scam."It's amazing how prevalent the problem is and it's not going to go away any time soon."

The IRS has told those that receive phishing emails to forward them to phishing@irs.gov. Doing so is a "huge help" tracking down those responsible for the scams and prosecuting them, Mr Stewart said. Meanwhile, the security firm RSA has said that there is to be a rise in the number of phishing scams which use fake web pages, known as man in the middle scams.

Simpsons Movie Pirated

A pirated version of the new Simpsons movie, which was just released earlier this month, has already turned up on the web, it has been reported.

The movie originated in a home in Australia, which was raided by police on Friday after an investigation by Australian police, Fox and the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT). An unnamed 21-year-old Australian male is to appear in court in October where he will be charged, according to Australian police. If found guilty he could spend up to five years in prison.

According to AFACT the film was recorded using a cell phone and appeared on the Internet before the movie was released in the US. AFACT executive director Adrianne Pecotic said: "Within 72 hours of making and uploading this unauthorized recording, AFACT had tracked it to other streaming sites and P2P systems."

The movie had already been downloaded more than 110,000 times and sold as a DVD globally, she added.

Free VoIP Phone Calls Await Small Businesses.

A small VoIP vendor Fonality has announced a product that allows small to medium sized business to make free VoIP phone calls. The free software known as Trixbox Pro by Fonality Inc. and supports up to 20 employees that runs on nearly any PC and nearly all telephones. Click here for the story in PCWorld.

VoIP Outages Anger Users

Voip grows in popularity as prices continue to drop vs. traditional phone services. But if you have ever been the victim of an outage you know how frustrating it can be. Last month VoIP provider SunRocket closed their doors and shut off their service to 200,000 subscribers.

That's when a company called TeleBlend stepped in and with the help of various carriers are working to restore service to the old SunRocket customers. But SunRocket left such a mess of their company that it seems TeleBlend is having a difficult time maintaining service. On August 8, they had a disruption in their service, but are working with IP networking company Global Crossing and ex SunRocket customers who are the ones most affected. Click here for the full story.

DIRECTV Partners With CURRENT Group To Enable Broadband And VoIP Services

DIRECTV Partners With CURRENT Group To Enable Broadband And VoIP Services to Its Customers

DIRECTV, Inc. and CURRENT Group announced today a wholesale distribution agreement that will enable DIRECTV to offer its customers CURRENT's innovative BPL (Broadband Over Powerline) high-speed Internet service and VoIP services at the end of 2007/beginning of 2008. DIRECTV customers will be able to access the Internet by plugging a BPL modem into virtually any outlet in their home. This easy-to-use symmetrical service can send data faster than the typical cable modem service in use today. The increased upload speed is particularly important as users rely on greater
speeds to play interactive games or send significant volumes of digital content through the Internet.

Under the terms of the agreement, DIRECTV will have access to CURRENT's BPL network, initially in the Dallas/Fort Worth BPL network that will cover approximately 1.8 million homes and businesses over the next several years. DIRECTV will be able to market a bundle that includes DIRECTV high-speed Internet and VoIP services to its residential customers. In addition, the agreement provides DIRECTV the ability to add other geographic markets as CURRENT builds out its network. CURRENT's BPL network enables both Broadband services and Smart Grid solutions designed to improve efficiency and reliability while reducing the environmental impact of electric service.

"We are pleased to partner with DIRECTV to offer them the ability to bundle their world-renowned satellite video services together with BPL high- speed Internet and VoIP services," said Tom Casey, CURRENT's chief executive officer. "Consumers in Dallas will have a compelling new choice for their broadband service and, at the same time, feel good about the fact that the same Internet network is helping to improve the efficiency and reliability of the electric grid while reducing its environmental impact."

"Our agreement with CURRENT gives our customers another high-quality, easy-to-use option to pair broadband services with DIRECTV's video offerings," said Evan Grayer, vice president of Broadband for DIRECTV. "By choosing this bundled option, DIRECTV customers will now be able to enjoy fast, reliable and secure high-speed Internet service anywhere they have a power outlet in their homes."