Good morning. After reading today's edition of Random Access, disconnect from the Internet and turn off the computer. Find something else to do today.
What other choice is there when being "wired" increases your chances of getting fleeced on a daily basis? Or that if the right tools were put into place, an Internet virus could kill us?
| ___About Random Access___ Random Access is a daily column by Robert MacMillan that explores the latest trends in technology and how they are changing daily life. Random Access won't tell you why a new gizmo will revolutionize your ad server. It will tell you about episodes from daily life -- exasperated waiters who use blogs to vent about their customers, whole runs of salmon injected with nanoparticles for individual tracking in Norwegian fjords and the growing number of DJs who are sick of being sidelined in favor of iPods. (Only one of these stories is fake.) Most of what you see will be culled from news sources and blogs from around the world, though we will supplement Random Access with original files on the novel, unusual, bizarre and reactionary happenings in the world of technology and society. E-mail: Send links and comments. | | |
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On the phleecing front, Wired.com reported today that "pharming" is turning into the latest method for digitally sophisticated pirates to relieve you of your personal information. Yes, just think of it. If there weren't already enough dangers to worry about on the Internet, someone had to come up with yet another twist on substituting "ph" for "f" so a staid-but-reliable English term could morph into sinister-sounding techno-slang.
Pharming is a short way of describing the process of... well, it's difficult to distill into plain English, but the end result is that the perpetrators redirect people from legitimate Web sites to fake versions that prompt people to fork over their usernames and passwords. Once that's done, thieves bring in quite a haul. Chris Risley, who runs a company called Nominum (Don't ask what it does; it's too complicated to go into here), characterized the practical effects of pharming: "Phishing is to pharming what a guy with a rod and a reel is to a Russian trawler."
Apparently the technology and processes used to wage phishing and pharming attacks differ, but the "net" effect is the same -- your personal data winds up in criminals' hands. And yes, there are some scary reports of pharming attacks. Wired reported: "According to information provided by the SANS Internet Storm Center and internet-monitoring firm Netcraft, this past weekend would-be pharmers attempted to exploit a known vulnerability in Symantec's firewall, redirecting some users from eBay, Google and weather.com to three sites that attempted to install spyware on visitors' computers."
Businesses that rely on the Internet are looking at different ways to fight the problem, Wired said, and one that looks promising involves the quaint idea of using the telephone as part of the transaction. "Some financial institutions, whose users are the prime targets of phishing and pharming scams, are experimenting with 'multi-factor authentication' logins, including things like single-use passwords and automatic telephone call-backs confirming that a transaction is about to take place."
But what if the only phone you have runs over your virus-encrusted Internet connection? Just a thought ...
Driving Christine
Hey wait, didn't I say something about Internet viruses causing DEATH?
Yes, but it was just a tease, at least for now. Sunday's New York Times did report, however, that the tools are falling into place for computer viruses to start affecting our lives in another seat where we spend much of our time -- the car.
"That frightening prospect has had Internet message boards buzzing this year, amid rumors that a virus had infected Lexus cars and S.U.V.'s. The virus supposedly entered the cars over the Bluetooth wireless link that lets drivers use their cellphones to carry on hands-free conversations through the cars' microphones and speakers," the New York Times reported. "The prospect is not so implausible. A handful of real if fairly benign cellphone viruses have already been observed, in antivirus industry parlance, 'in the wild.'"
