Everything But the Kitchen Sink
This is one of those weeks during which lots of things caught my attention but not one of them was big enough to stand as the primary article on TechByter Worldwide. So this week you get a laundry list of topics that you might find worthwhile, amusing, interesting, useless, boring, or stupid. Step right up! One size fits all! Here we go....
Mac Botnet Boasts Half a Million Infected Machines
If you're one of those Mac owners who believes that Macs are inherently resistant to all malware, here's your wake-up call: Russian anti-virus company Doctor Web sounded the first alarm this week about a Mac-only botnet that has taken over 550,000 Mac computers, including some that are located in Cupertino, which is also Apple's home town.
Apple computers are growing in popularity and they're becoming more attractive targets for the bad guys. It's true that the underlying operating system Macs run on make those computers more resistant to some kinds of attacks but Macs have been spared, in part, because fraudsters depend on volume. Windows is still the world's largest operating system but Apple has taken enough market share to make Macs an attractive target.
Other sources place the number of infected machines well above 600 thousand and, in case you consider a warning from a Russian antivirus company not to be credible, consider this: On Tuesday, Apple released a patch to address the threat. In other words, this is not a late April Fools Day joke.
According to Wikipedia, the BackDoor.Flashback.39 trojan targets an unpatched Java vulnerability within Mac OS X. Oracle fixed the vulnerability in February but Apple didn't distribute the patch to Mac users until April 3, after the vulnerability had already been exploited.
Computers are infected after the user is redirected to a compromised site where Javascript code loads an infected applet. The computer then downloads and runs other malicious code. Lobotomized machines are then used for illegal activities.
Doctor Web says that 57% of the infected computers are in the United States, 20% are in Canada, and about 13% are in the UK.
For more information, visit the Doctor Web website.
Apple's Chinese Workers Will Get a Break
The company Apple hired to look into working conditions at Foxconn factories in China has criticized the long hours the company demands of workers, working conditions, and pay. Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, has insisted that the company, headquartered in Taiwan, do a better job and Foxconn says that it will reduce working hours and increase wages.
Cook, who became Apple's CEO shortly before Steve Jobs died seems to have taken a personal interest in the situation at the company that manufactures many of Apple's products.
Walter Isaacson's book about the life of Steve Jobs included an explanation of how Cook worked with Jobs. Cook came to Apple in 1997 and was charged with improving the company's disjointed and largely dysfunctional manufacturing operations. By working with various manufacturing partners, most of of them in Asia, Cook was able to convert Apple's manufacturing operations to what they are today.
Jobs never visited any of the factories in China.
Apple's 2012 annual report, published in January, identified 156 companies that supply parts and manufacturing for Apple's products. That was a first. Labor rights activists caution that reports of poor working conditions are often followed by promises to do better but when the spotlight is removed, the substandard conditions return.
Apple specifies that factory workers cannot be asked to work more than 60 hours per week. Yes, that is one third longer than the standard US work week. But even with these restrictions in place, more than 10% of the factories that create Apple products do not comply with the restrictions according to Apple's annual report.
For its part, Foxconn says that by July 2013 it will reduce its work week to 49 hours, which is the limit set by Chinese law. Yes, July 2013 is more than a year from now.
Not a Good Week if You Work for Yahoo
The ever-shrinking Yahoo plans to drop another 2000 employees. That's about 14% of the company's remaining workforce. The company owns some popular websites and it's profitable. So what's behind the reductions?
CEO Scott Thompson says that the "restructuring" will allow Yahoo to be more innovative and that the changes will put the company's customers first. Over the past 2 months, says Thompson, management has "fundamentally re-thought" every part of the business and will continue to actively consider all options.
This means cutting to the core business units: media and communications. In a memo to employees, Thompson said that Yahoo's content, media, and communications experiences must be "best in class".
Yahoo will also focus on making its "core platforms and systems a genuine strength for Yahoo." Thompson says this means improving personalization and bringing new products and services to market faster than before. (At least I think that's what he said. The memo is couched in some pretty heavy PR-speak that obfuscates when it should clarify.)
According to the CEO's memo, Yahoo is "intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities. Our goal is to get back to our core purpose — putting our users and advertisers first — and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal." See what I mean?
The changes aren't much of a surprise. Thompson had announced earlier that he would be making significant changes, possibly to avoid the fate of former CEO Carol Bartz, who was fired when she was unable to push Yahoo in the right direction.
In making the announcement, Yahoo didn't say where the cuts would be made but did note that the company expects to save $375 million a year by making the job cuts. Severance packages will cost the company about $125 million to $145 million.
It's an All-Yahoo News Week
Facebook has fired return shots at Yahoo after Yahoo filed suit against Facebook, claiming that Facebook is illegally using Yahoo's patented technology. This legal activity might have something to do with Facebook's planned initial public stock offering that's planned for this spring.
Responding to a Yahoo lawsuit that claims Facebook violated 10 of Yahoo's patents, attorneys for Facebook filed motions in San Francisco federal court that deny those claims and accuse Yahoo of infringing on 10 patents held by Facebook -- including a method of "tagging" photos and other digital content, for which Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is listed as lead inventor.
[OPINION] Software patents have done far more to harm the US economy and the software and Internet industries than they have done to protect anything. There. I'm glad that I got that out of the way. Now, on with the story ....
Facebook's IPO is expected to raise billions and that makes it an attractive target for the struggling Yahoo. That doesn't mean Facebook is squeaky clean, though, and Facebook recently acquired more than 700 patents from IBM.
Money changes things. Yahoo and Facebook have cooperated on several joint ventures. But now Yahoo says that Facebook is liable for the cost of using techniques that it developed — instant messaging (wasn't that AOL?) and the ability to customize Web content and serve online ads.
In its counter-claim, Facebook says that Yahoo is using techniques developed by Facebook to retrieve information, share content with other users, and provide recommendations to friends. In other words, it's a typical he-said, she-said situation.
Anonymous: White Hats or Black Hats
The group known as Anonymous has apparently broken into some Chinese websites and defaced them. Does that make these guys good or bad? Freedom fighters or terrorists?
Government sites and sites run by official state agencies were among the targets. Anonymous says that the attacks were a in protest of the government's control of its citizens and it urged Chinese citizens to create their own protests.
Anonymous claims to have defaced 485 sites and the group posted e-mail addresses and other personal details it found on the sites. The message Anonymous posted on the sites told the Chinese government that it is not infallible and that eventually its "vile regime" will fail.
Chinese Internet users must contend with what is called the "Great Firewall of China" that strictly limits access to sites that the government considers to be subversive. To help counteract the firewall, Anonymous posted information about how to beat the restrictions.
One problem, though: Most of the information was in English, not Chinese.
The Chinese government denies any knowledge of the attacks but news reports indicate that most of the sites Anonymous claims to have attacked were off-line in the days following the event.
Google Found to be Evil in Australia
I'm one of the people who has complained many times about misleading ads that routinely show up on Google -- ads that promote, for example, 80%-off Ipads. These are ads that anyone with an IQ much above 80 will know are fraudulent but they continue to appear and Google continues to be paid for them.
Now an Australian court has found Google guilty of engaging in "misleading and deceptive" conduct. According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ruling means that Google and other search engines will be held liable when they allow fraudulent ads to be served along with search results.
Google thought it had dodged this bullet when it won a court ruling but Australia's Federal Court overturned that decision.
The ads in question appeared between early 2006 and mid 2007. Searches for the term "Honda" returned ads for a Honda competitor and the ads suggested that the competitor was working with Honda Australia.
Google says that it's not responsible for the misleading ads and blames the advertiser. The advertiser is, of course, ultimately responsible. But [OPINION], it seems to me that Google needs to take at least some interest in what its advertisers are promoting. Overall this seems to be a correct ruling and one that might have some effect on Google's US operations.
E-Books Are No Longer the Future
For about 20% of us, books are no longer always physical objects that are stored on shelves. One in five Americans now reads books electronically. That's the result of a survey by the Pew Research Center.
The survey, underwritten by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, conducted interviews with 2,986 Americans aged 16 and older in November and December of 2011 and these were followed up by additional work in January and February 2012.
Pew says that 4 times more US readers now read e-books compared with a similar survey less than two years ago. Electronic books are even winning space on the bedside table as 45% of the survey respondents said they read e-books in bed, slightly edging out the 43% who read dead-trees versions in bed.
Just 4 years ago, e-book sales were under $100 million per year. Last year they neared $2 billion and some analysts predict sales of $3.5 billion this year. Amazon.com has more than half of that market.
[OPINION] The advantages are obvious. Earlier this week, I heard an interview on NPR with linguist David Crystal, who discussed his new book, The Story of English in 100 Words. The book sounded interesting and I found that it was available from Amazon. Minutes later, I was reading it on my computer screen. Later, I continued reading the book on a Kindle and, during lunch the following day, I read more on an Android tablet. The book is with me whenever I have access to a computer.
Electronic readers are now available for $100 or less and analysts suggest that market penetration will exceed 25% by 2016. That may be an underestimation. This is the kind of technology that can go from zero to one hundred almost overnight.
The author's image: It's that photo over at the right. This explains why TechByter Worldwide was never on television, doesn't it?
