Tell Facebook users at your house to be very alert when social-network friends seem to say they've just got to check out this or that video. That scenario happens all the time - which is why it's used by social-engineering hackers to infect social networkers' computers. Where the new worm comes in is an extra step for which users need to be on the alert. The way it works is, they get a link … [Read more...] about New Facebook worm
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Google Street View fear campaign
This campaign falls into the large "Predators" category of national anxiety. I'm referring to StopInternetPredators.org's campaign against Street View, the new photographic part of Google Maps. The organization is calling it "an entirely new threat to our families and children." We feel strongly that parents' fears about kid safety need to be reduced and understanding increased, so I'm pointing … [Read more...] about Google Street View fear campaign
Googles deals with sex chat on Lively
Last week I wrote about Google's launch of Lively avatar chat, ending with a caveat that seems to apply to so much of the social Web: that there were sex-related chat rooms in the Popular Rooms list. This week CNET reports the same: "Despite some injunctions to the contrary, sexual overtones are creeping into" Lively, with the qualification that "a little snooping around revealed some evidence of … [Read more...] about Googles deals with sex chat on Lively
Google’s new avatar chat
Google's Lively.com, introduced this week, is kind of Second Life Lite. Both provide software you download to create your own avatar (a cartoon-like digital representation of yourself). But instead of creating and living in a piece of a very large virtual world, as in Second Life, with Lively you simply create a chatroom (or choose and customize one someone else has created and made available to … [Read more...] about Google’s new avatar chat