Facebook vs. Google+

Man is purely a social animal. That’s one thing social networks love to exploit. As they say, we want to stay connected at an instinctive level.
Mark Zuckerberg has created such an addictive platform which lures us again and again. We fill it with every nuisance we can. The concept which was born in the quiet rooms of Harvard is now the most used social networking service.
Google has now entered the arena with Google+, but why does it need to?

Google was fine without a social networking service wasn’t’ it?

Well, the answer is no!. Comscore provides us with some staggering stats.
Online video is exploding, with annual user growth of more than 45 percent. Mobile-device time spent increased 28 percent last year — with average smartphone time spent doubling. And social networks are now used by 90 percent of U.S. Internet users — for an average of more than four hours a month.
None of this is a newsflash. Every venture capitalist, Web publisher, and digital marketer is hyper-aware of these three trends. But what is happening to the rest of the non-social web?
If we exclude just Facebook from these stats, the consumption in terms of minutes of use decrease nearly nine percent between March 2010 and March 2011.
Now considering that the usage of Facebook increased over 69% over the same period, it won’t be wrong to say that Facebook is absorbing the usage minutes from whole of the non-social web.

The rest of the non social web is also called the ‘searchable’ web. Which is becoming less relevant. Making Google less relevant too. And Google is really nervous about that.
Facebook has locked Google out of it. All the shares, likes, names, status or any other data is not searchable by Google. Unlike twitter, which had a deal with Google for it’s ‘real-time’ search. The deal recently ended and the Google ‘real-time search’ page mysteriously disappeared without any explanation from the side of Google.

The Ideology Change

Web was nothing but just a bunch of ‘documents’ connected through hyperlinks until a geek of Harvard changed the whole paradigm. Now the word ‘connected’ means something else. Facebook connects people, not pages.
Google still works through searching the keywords. They see the ‘documents’ as the basic entity of web unlike Facebook and twitter where ‘people’ are the basic entity. Google has to embrace a whole new ideology for this new business. Applying the previous brute force cannot be of any help.
Anyone who had to make himself or his company famous had to play the Google’s game. SEO and all that stuff, being over obsessed with keyword. A whole math and algorithm driven approach. Now, it’s more of a common sense which makes you well connected with your target audience.
Its not the collision of two giant companies, it’s the ideologies clashing.

However, Google+ is getting positive feedback mostly by now, though it ran out of disk space and spammed user by it’s notification recently.It’ll take time to sort out the bugs. Thankfully for Google, Facebook has one major flaw – It’s privacy policies. It has always been in news due to this concern. And Google can use this well, to wipe out the embarrassment of failure of Orkut and Google Buzz.

I may be wrong, but one thing is sure – There is no parallel existence here. One of them will thrive and other will go and meet other failed league of MySpace or some even more miserable names like Yahoo Buzz or ‘ConnectU’ which failed even before anyone could hear their names. Only time can tell. but jokes apart IMHO whichever lets you stalk your ex-girlfriend efficiently – Wins!

A war without foot soldiers?

You must have read some of those Orwellian dystopian novels about the world going shitty and all. Well it’s not that much of a fantasy if we look at what’s actually happening.

I know it’s a bit late to talk about it, but this computer worm (or a more colloquial term ‘virus’) named Stuxnet continues to amaze me every time I think about it. It’s been known since last fall as a virus which was mainly targeted at Iranian nuclear stations.

What is Stuxnet?

In a brief, Stuxnet is one of the most complex worm ever created. Build on about 10,000 lines of code that should have taken years to make. It took Symantec, the largest and most widely known security firm, months to reverse engineer the code.

This hell of a virus used a special zero-day attack that hadn’t been seen previously that changed a Windows file icon shown in Explorer so that just viewing the file would compromise the PC. One single zero day can be sold at the black market for $100,000 and this little beauty used 20 of them. After that the first instruction was to sit dormant until a specific target is found.

What was it targeting?

The software is specifically designed to target the Siemens controller that runs 9,000 centrifuges in Iran, Stuxnet managed to destroy 1,000 of them At Natanz, Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility. In November last year but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad conceded that it “managed to create problems for a limited number of our centrifuges.” Speaking to a press conference Monday, he said the problems were resolved.

Who did it?

Now it doesn’t look like the work of some script kiddies. It surely must be state sponsored, as European digital security company Kaspersky Labs said the attack could only be conducted “with nation-state support.” There was a lot of talk — on the Internet and in the media — that Stuxnet was a joint US-Israeli project. I think that’s probably the most likely scenario. It was highly professional work.

A new attack was waved only by sitting behind the computer desks. No foot soldiers were involved, no triggers were pressed but sure it can cost lives. Moreover, the source code of the virus was made available for the public to fiddle with, it can be redesigned to be even harder to detect. They is no way to tell who will use it and what for?

Well, that’s it for today. Until next time – Stay secure! and skeptical (Shameless plug)

Apple Care Leaked Document–’Just pretend to help’

Let’s face it- One of the major selling points are those people saying “Oh! I have a Mac, I won’t get viruses” (As shown in this ad http://youtu.be/M3Z386vXrt4).  But recently the scenario is changing, and the pace of it is quiet incredible. If that utopian illusion goes away; it’s gonna hit the Apple sales really hard and Apple just can’t afford that.

On May 2, 2011, A Mac OS security vendor company discovered a Mac defender fake antivirus. A form of a Trojan horse for Mac. Since then many new variants of this Trojan have come up and they are infecting the Mac users on a big scale. The ultimate goal is to make users provide their credit card number to clean the supposedly present malware on their system. Let me tell you, I just love the whole concept of Trojan disguising themselves as Anti-Malwares.  

 

 

But if you are a Mac user infected by this malware, don’t run to the Apple Care, because they won’t do a shit about your problem. They are officially instructed to deny the fact that such a malware even exist. When such a large number of people are falling prey to this scam, Apple’s response is less than helpful.

According to the leaked document; Apple tell their support reps to tell the customers:

"Apple’s [sic] doesn’t recommend or guarantee any specific third part [sic] anti-virus protection over another. However I can suggest several third party virus protection programs that you may want to consider researching to find the best one for your needs."

But they still have their heads buried in the sand when it comes to assisting their customers. The memo, acquired from an outsourced support company, says:

"Things you must never do according to the client [Apple]."

• You cannot show the customer how to force quit Safari on a Mac Defender call

• You cannot show the customer how to remove from the Login items.
• You cannot show the customer how to stop the process of Mac Defender in their Activity Monitor.
• You cannot refer the customer to ANY forums or discussions [sic] boards for resolution (this includes the Apple.com forums)

Even if you say it’s a hype. Apple’s reaction explains better than it is required.

I’ll be making updates on this issue if any. Until next time.. stay secure!

Update: The original document (Click to enlarge) :

Blog Active Again!

This blog is going to be back soon after lying inactive for more than a year I think.

Just a few minutes ago, while listening to ‘Knocking On Heaven’s Door’ on a window rattling volume I decided to resume blogging.  I’m a bit tired of sitting jobless at my home, hope it’ll provide me some occupation in this two months long vacations at least.

Well, I’ll try to make it more of a mixed bag now, unlike before rather than to sticking with a niche genre, and yes I’ll be changing the theme too to a minimalistic one. Lets see how it goes, you can expect a post very soon.

Until then Adios!!!

Google Stops Censoring Search Results In China

Google has kept its promise by ceasing the censorship of search results in China. All the traffic will now be redirected to the its Hong Kong site.

"Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong,"

David Drummond, chief legal officer at Google, wrote in a blog post.

"We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement,"

"We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk isa sensible solution to the challenges we’ve faced—it’s entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China". Drummond said.

Drummond also acknowledged that Google team is well aware that China can anytime block access to their services so they have also created a web site to monitor the status of different services provided by Google. As of today Youtube, Blogger and Google Sites are blocked and Docs, Picasa and Groups are partially Blocked. Users can experience quite slowdown due to increased load on Hong Kong servers. Google says it will take some time for them to fix the glitches.

It all started two months ago on 12 January when Google revealed about a sophisticated cyber attack designed to steal intellectual property on it , and more than 20 other companies designed to steal intellectual property by exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer which has not been fixed yet. The attack has been named ‘Aurora’.

Despite having the largest market share in the world Google is a distant number second in China after Baidu. However loosing a market with such a great potential can eventually harm Google.

China has responded to this by saying

“This is totally wrong. We’re uncompromisingly opposed to the politicization of commercial issues, and express our discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations and conducts.” said an official in charge of the Internet bureau under the State Council Information Office "Google has violated its written promise it made when entering the Chinese market by stopping filtering its searching service and blaming China in insinuation for alleged hacker attacks,"

And The Award For The Dumbest Malware Attack Goes To…..

 

When you’ve been working any length of time in the computer security business, you get pretty used to hearing from folks that the guys who write the viruses must be "evil geniuses".

Well, not all of them are that smart.

Take this attack, for instance, which Sophos just spotted in one of our spam traps. It wins my award for the dumbest malware attack I’ve seen this week.

A Christmas card? In March? Hmm..

Okay, I’ll give the bad guys the benefit of the doubt. They do say Christmas comes earlier every year I suppose, so lets assume the hackers are just "getting in before the rush".

Sophos detects the attached file (Christmas Card.zip) as Troj/CryptBx-ZP

Mcafee Warns Of Facebook Worm

Facebook has been one of the most targeted platform for hackers. Mcafee has warned facebook users of recent sapm flood that tells recipients that the passwords on their Facebook accounts have been reset, urging them to click on an attachment to obtain new login credentials, according to anti-virus software maker McAfee Inc.

The email looks like the following:

If the attachment is opened, it downloads several types of malicious software, including a program that steals passwords.

Dave Marcus, McAfee’s director of malware research and communications, said that he expects the hackers will succeed in infecting millions of computers.

"With Facebook as your lure, you potentially have 400 million people that can click on the attachment. If you get 10 percent success, that’s 40 million," he said.

“You can submit information about any fake Facebook email to the Facebook Security Team. Facebook also has a great security page that I recommend to all Facebook users.” Says Mcafee.