COMPUTER NEWS

Misdials help 'crammers' ring up millions in phone bill scam

by By David Cho

Roy and John Lin made a devilish fortune in the details of phone bills, according to a federal investigation.

The San Francisco brothers hired overseas telemarketers to offer directory assistance and other services to small businesses and ordinary Americans, according to a major case to be unveiled this week by the Federal Trade Commission. But their real goal was to sneak small, unauthorized fees onto thousands of monthly bills and hope the charges would go unnoticed, court documents state.

The scheme, known as "cramming," proved to be a boon, the documents show. The Lins' alleged take: $19 million over five years.

The Lins are among a resurgent wave of crammers who may be ensnaring millions of Americans, federal officials and consumer advocates say. A decade ago, the scam was so widespread that it became one of the most profitable business lines of the Gambino crime family.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

ASCII Art: Turn Your Photos Into Text Pictures

Posted by Dave Johnson

A very long time ago, back before there were high-resolution color monitors and digital cameras, computer geeks amused themselves by arranging text on the computer screen into rudimentary, two-color pictures known as ASCII art. Until recently, I had assumed that ASCII art was extinct, but I was wrong - just like the slew of Web sites you can use to create silly and unusual special effects with your photos, there are sites you can use to easily transform your favorite photos into ASCII images. It's fun--let's give it a shot.

Your Name in ASCII

If you didn't use a computer back in the Stone Age of Computing, it's entirely possible you've never even seen an example of ASCII art. When I was an engineering student in college, I saw it all the time. People would make large, elaborate pictures and add them to the signature block of their e-mail messages, for example. Even people with no artistic skills would, at a minimum, render their name as an ASCII drawing.

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COMPUTER TIPS

03/10/10 Don't let criminals into your computer

Newk's Nook: Antivir is but one of many Internet scams. Kim Kommando explains this one and how to protect yourself.

The program known as variously as Antivir, Antivir 2010 and Antivir Antivirus. It is a rogue anti-malware program. There are many, many of these things.

Typically, they start with a pop-up while you're on the Internet. They offer a free scan. Assuming you bite, they announce you have Trojans and viruses on your computer. Send us money, they say, and we'll clean your computer.

Of course, none of this is true. Let's say you actually bought this software. After you ran it, you might want to rerun the original scan. It would "find" the same things.

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SECURITY

Is cellular wireless more secure than Wi-Fi?

Kim Kommando

Properly encrypted home Wi-Fi is very secure. Outside sources can't access your network. And you only share it with people you trust.

Public Wi-Fi is a different story. Anyone using the same Wi-Fi point can potentially access your data. Why? Public hotspots typically are not encrypted. Or, they could use inadequate encryption.

A data thief would use software called a packet sniffer. These programs analyze all traffic going through the router. This is where crooks spend most of their energy. Wi-Fi is everywhere. And it's often easy to steal the information.

Of course, some of that data will be encrypted. E-mail systems encrypt passwords, for instance. But e-mail itself is not encrypted. So, it could be stolen by someone using a sniffer.

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TECH

Electronic Ink Vendors Say Color E-Readers Due in 2010

By Michael J. Miller

E-reader technology is moving ahead, with faster speeds, color, and video on the horizon, according to vendors I spoke to at the DisplaySearch U.S. Flat Panel Display conference this week. In particular, E Ink and Qualcomm MEMS Technology both told me they expect we'll have color e-readers with low-power displays within the next year.

At the conference, Sriram Peruvemba, vice president of marketing for E Ink, (now owned by Prime View)estimates that 5 million e-book readers were sold in 2009. But that number will grow to 98 million by 2018. He said he thinks the number can be even higher, with dedicated e-textbooks with flexible color displays, especially in emerging markets.

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BELOW THE FOLD

Microsoft to demo new cloud-computing advances at research showcase.

Natural-user-interface projects like the Mobile Surface and Project Gustav are hardly the only new research projects that will be on display at Microsoft's TechFest 2010 research showcase this week. The company also will be showing off a number of cloud-computing advances it has been honing in its research labs.

A few of these TechFest 2010 highlights in this area, which I unearthed on the company's Web site:

Cloud Mouse: A joint project from MSR Asia and MSR Cambridge, the Cloud Mouse is a new "interaction device" for cloud computing. It sounds like another natural-user-interface (NUI)-type project that deals with "new interaction metaphors" and new ways of handling the input/output of data.

There aren't many details posted yet, but here's a bit from the cloud mouse description on the MSR site:

"Every user will have one. It will be a secure key to every user's cloud data. And, with six degrees of freedom and with tactile feedback, the cloud mouse will enable users to orchestrate, interact with, and engage with their data as if they were inside the cloud."

Cloud Faster: Two projects are part of this initiative, one called "Application Proxies at the Edge," (Wide-area TCP) and the other, "DCTCP Transport Optimization for Datacenters." What's interesting to me about these projects is they are the result of collaborations between the Bing and Windows Core Operating System Networking team. Microsoft is planning to demo how its protocol tweaking will improve the performance of Bing Web sites, according to the write-up on the research site.

There's a bit more information which isn't hidden (at least not at the moment) on the MSR Web site:

"To make cloud computing work, we must make applications run substantially faster, both over the Internet and within data centers. Our measurements of real applications show that today's protocols fall short, leading to slow page-load times across the Internet and congestion collapses inside the data center. We have developed a new suite of architectures and protocols that boost performance and the robustness of communications to overcome these problems."

Anyone have any guesses as to how these cloud projects might look if/when they are ever commercialized, based on these early snippets of information?

Update (March 2): In Microsoft Research other cloud-computing news, Microsoft and Cray Computer announced they plan to collaborate on "a prototype system that aims to significantly lower the cost of running cloud-computing systems by combining "super efficient power delivery, high-density packaging and innovative cooling technologies," according to TechFlash. This isn't the first collaboration between Microsoft and Cray; the pair announced plans for a $25,000 supercomputer running the HPC SKU of Windows Server 2008 a couple of years ago.