Retailers aren't the only ones gearing up for the holiday season. Criminals are also out in force.
To highlight the increased crime during the holidays, security company McAfee has come up with the "12 Scams of Christmas" ranging from bogus electronic greeting cards that deliver malware instead of cheer to fake charities that steal your money and your identity.
It's especially important to be extra careful this time of year, says McAfee's David Marcus. "The bad guys know people are spending more time online, they're paying more bills online so [the criminals] stand a chance of being a bit more successful this time of year.
In a podcast interview (scroll down to listen), Marcus counted down the 12 scams of Christmas starting with:
- Charitable phishing scams: Marcus warns consumers to be wary of e-mails that appear to be from legitimate charities. Not only will they take your money and deprive charities of needed funds, but they will also steal your credit card information and identity.
- Fake invoices from delivery services: During this period, scammers will send out fake invoices and delivery notifications appearing to come from Federal Express, UPS, the U.S. Postal Service or even the U.S. Customs Service saying that they were unable to deliver a package to your address. They ask you to confirm your address and give them credit card information to pay for delivery.
- Social networking friend requests: Bad guys take advantage of this social time of year by sending out authentic looking friend requests via e-mail. Marcus recommends that you not click on those links but sign into Facebook and other services and look for friend requests from the site itself. Clicking on a link could install malware on your computer or trick you into revealing your password.
- Holiday e-cards: Be careful before clicking on a holiday e-card, especially if it's from a site you haven't heard of. This is a way to deliver malware, pop-ups, and other forms of unwanted advertising. Some fake e-cards will look like they come from Hallmark or other legitimate companies, so pay close attention and make sure it's from someone you know. If you're going to send an e-card, be sure you're dealing with a reputable service lest you risk infecting yourself and your friends.
- Fake "luxury" jewelry: If you see an offer for luxury gifts from companies like Cartier, Gucci, and Tag Heuer at a price that's too good to be true, it probably isn't true. These links could lead you to malware and take your money or merchandise that will probably never arrive (or be fake if it does). Some of these sites, according to McAfee, even display the logos of the Better Business Bureau.
- Practice safe holiday shopping. Make sure your wireless network is secure and be sure you're shopping on sites that are secure. Though it isn't an iron clad guarantee, you should look for the lock icon in the lower right corner of your browser and make sure the Web page starts with https. The "s" stands for "secure."
- Christmas carol lyrics can be dangerous: Bad guys know that people are searching for holiday related sites for music, holiday graphics, and other festive media. During this time, they create fraudulent holiday related sites.
- Job search related scams: With the unemployment rate at 10.2 percent, there are plenty of job seekers looking for work. Beware of online offers for high paying jobs or at-home money making schemes. Some of these sites ask for money up front, which is a good way for criminals not only to steal your "set up fee" but misuse your credit card too. Marcus said that some "get rich quick" sites are all about money laundering, asking you to accept an inbound financial transfer and pay them.
- Auction site fraud: McAfee has observed a rise in fake auction sites during the holidays. Make sure you're actually going to eBay or whatever site you plan to deal with.
- Password stealing scams: Criminals use low-cost tools to uncover passwords, in some cases planting key logger software to record keystrokes. Once they get your passwords, they gain access to bank accounts and credit card accounts and send spam from your e-mail accounts.
- E-mail banking scams: A common type of phishing scam is sending out official looking e-mails that appear to come from your bank. Don't click on any links but type in your bank's Web address manually if you need to access your account.
- Files for ransom: Hackers use malware to gain control of your computer and lock your data files. To access your own data you have to pay them ransom.
Listen to Larry's interview with McAfee's David Marcus
Listen now: Download today's podcast
Apple on Thursday released iTunes 8.1, which includes a fix for a vulnerability that could lead to theft of usernames and passwords if a podcast containing malware were subscribed to.
The software update addresses a design issue in the iTunes podcast feature that made it possible for a subscription to a malicious podcast to cause an authentication dialog to be displayed that could prompt the user for log-in credentials to the podcast server, Apple's advisory said.
The issue affects Mac OS X v 10.4.10 and later. The issue was reported by Simon Bellwood.
iTunes 8.1 also fixes a vulnerability that could allow maliciously crafted Digital Audio Access Protocol messages to cause a denial of service on computers running Windows XP or Vista. Fortinet's Fortiguard Global Security Research team is credited with discovering this bug.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Playing with sound files is something not all of us aspire to do in any greater detail than clicking "Buy Now" in iTunes. But this is one of those cool Mac niches that is filled with possibilities you might not have thought about before.
For instance, have you ever wished you could easily record a phone call for a job interview? How about automatically record your favorite radio program from the Internet, even if it's on in the middle of the night? Ambrosia Software's WireTap Studio, recently updated to version 1.0.8, is an inexpensive and efficient way to record and edit pretty much any audio that you can play on your Mac. You can select any combination of software application (Skype, for example) and hardware device (say, your Mac's microphone), and record the output quickly and easily.
WireTap Studio's dynamic formatting means you can check your sound quality on the fly before deciding on a format.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Once you're set up, simply click record, and the end result will be a clean recording of your conversation for your job interview, podcast, custom playlist, or iMovie project.
WireTap Studio offers a complete set of editing tools and lets you export to a variety of compressions and audio formats. Possibly my favorite feature is called LivePreview, which is a button that allows me to hear what my audio will sound like in different formats and levels of compression, before I start recording. This is great when your needs require the file to be under a specific size, yet you want the best quality possible.
Want WireTap to record while you're asleep? Simply setup a time and date for your session and the software does the rest.
(Credit: CNET Networks)WireTap Studio costs $69 for the full version (link above is to 30-day demo), but if you have specific recording needs, this is the perfect software for the job and may be worth the price.
Podcaster lets you subscribe to podcasts from your iPhone.
Correction: The price of the app has been corrected from the original post.
Apple has told Alex Sokirynsky that he cannot distribute his Podcaster app for iPhone via the Apple iTunes store since, he reports, "it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes." This is a crime that Apple is perpetrating on iPhone users, and it is a lie, since Podcaster does something iTunes doesn't do, and it adds real functionality to the iPhone that lots of people, like me, really want.
Read more: Tom Krazit's Apple to Podcaster: No App Store for you.
Podcaster lets you sign up for podcasts from your iPhone. You can then stream them, or download them to your phone for later listening when you are offline (like on an airplane). Apple's own iTunes software (which runs on Windows and Mac PCs, not the phone itself) lets you subscribe to podcasts, but the only way to get them onto your phone is to sync it with your computer. If you're out and about without a computer (or, like me, your travel laptop doesn't have your installation of iTunes), you can't update your podcasts. And that, my friends, sucks.
Podcaster is the solution to Apple's oversight. It works well, even if it isn't all that pretty. You can search for podcasts by name, and the system will download the titles of recent episodes. If you hit play on an episode, the product streams the podcast from its source. (It uses the YouTube player, so the interface rotates to landscape mode whether you like it or not.) Or, as I said, you can tag individual podcasts for downoad--but not a whole series.
Once you subscribe to a podcast, you can view all the episodes, and then either stream or download them.
The app is "sandboxed" on the iPhone, so it has no knowledge of podcasts subscribed to from your iTunes account. Nor can you play your Podcaster podcasts from within iTunes. And it's not nearly as pretty as iTunes is. It's also got a few bugs. But it is highly functional, and useful.
And although Apple doesn't want you to have it, you can still get it, at least for now. Sokirynsky is sending it to people using a workaround Apple created to let developers distribute iPhone apps to testers. Go to www.nextdayoff.com for an e-mail form. You will eventually need your phone's UDID number, which is easy to get: See these instructions from TUAW.com.
The app is $9.95 (via PayPal donation). Sokirynsky notes that Apple has the capability to remotely disable apps, though, and I would not be surprised to see Apple turn this app off considering that it's being distributed outside of Apple's own marketplace. I also have heard that there may be a cap on the number of copies of an app that can be distributed with this workaround.
I'll spare you the paragraphs of righteous indignation I could write about how Apple is dealing with this. I'll just say: Apple, I'm very disappointed. You should do better.
iTunes needs little in the way of an introduction--especially for Mac users. Apple's popular media player comes equipped with the capability to play your music, rip CDs, help you buy music from the iTunes Store, and much more. Those with new iPhones (or the latest firmware update) should definitely download this latest version to gain access to Apple's iPhone App Store.
Check out this First Look video with Download.com's Jason Parker to find out a little more about iTunes, along with some features and hot-keys experienced users may not already know.
Do you listen to music or streaming radio while you work? I find I'm much more efficient when there's some music in the background or maybe a podcast if I find something interesting online or at the iTunes store. But one thing that breaks my concentration is the need to continually go back to iTunes to make new selections. To keep the distractions at a minimum, I like to set up my music or podcasts beforehand and get to work.
As a software reviews writer, I spend a lot of time using a word processor with my hands on the keyboard. So when the music I'm listening to changes to something I don't like or when a podcast gets a little too distracting, the last thing I want to do is leave my word processor and search around on iTunes. Fortunately there's a program that lets me control iTunes using hot keys.
Use the default hot-key setup or customize Synergy with your own.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Synergy (Leopard) is a long-time favorite of mine for quickly switching songs in iTunes. It places some basic controls--like play, pause, and skip--in the menu bar for convenience, but where Synergy really shines is in its use of hot keys. Without touching the mouse, I can quickly adjust volume, skip tracks in either direction, shuffle playlists, rate songs, and even quickly bring up iTunes if I absolutely must choose something different. One of the best things about Synergy is how it elegantly brings up a floating window at the beginning of every song with artist name, track information, and album art so I always know what's playing.
The linked version of Synergy above will only work with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, but you can get Synergy for older Mac OS versions here. Whatever your operating system, Synergy makes listening to music while you work much more convenient and, at less than 10 bucks to register, it's worth every penny.
The newly free NewsGator suite has a remarkably powerful set of tools for managing RSS feeds, and without a doubt one of the program's best features is its FeedStation podcast catcher. Fully synchronizable with the Webware version of NewsGator, the Windows version, FeedDemon, comes bundled with FeedStation and preset integration settings for iTunes and Windows Media Player, but not WinAmp.
Laugh all you want at the llama, but the latest WinAmp has an impressive feature set, and is far more flexible than the industry favorite iTunes. However, its podcast manager is clunky and only marginally better than iTunes' native podcatcher, and that's frustrating. Using WinAmp's smart view function, I'll show you how to set its Podcast folder to automatically check for podcasts managed by third-party software.
... Read more
Bridging the gap between podcasting and music discovery is SpotDJ, a Web service and iTunes plug-in (download SpotDJ for Windows or Mac) that lets listeners record audio clips, or "spots," about their favorite songs or musical artists.
The site has the grassroots appeal of letting amateur DJs like Greg expound upon the libertarianism of Oingo Boingo while also providing inside information from artists themselves, from The Donnas to Taylor Hicks. I recently was lucky enough to be given a tour of the service by CEO and co-founder Kevin Barenblat.
Essentially, SpotDJ analyzes your iTunes or iPod playlists and adds relevant recorded audio clips, which provide more information about the song or the artist you just heard. You can set your preferences to increase or decrease the frequency of provided clips, and also specify whether or not you only want clips from your friends or from the entire SpotDJ community. Creating spots is a snap. You can simply upload a prerecorded MP3 file (up to 90 seconds long) to the SpotDJ site, record your clip with a Flash-based Web interface, call in your recording via phone, or use the aforementioned iTunes plug-in.
After listening to a clip from former Rolling Stone reporter Ben Fong-Torres that included some cool historical information about the Doors, I was immediately reminded of those NPR segments that dive into the backstory of a popular song or album. For those of us who love music and learning more about artists and songs, these informational clips can provide valuable context to the music that we listen to. That said, not all of the content is up to the quality of Ben Fong-Torres, and many of the user-recorded spots are rather generic.
Although Barenblat said that the community currently includes "thousands," it's clear that it's still quite young. The success of SpotDJ will obviously depend on quality submissions from users of the service. You may care about what Lars from Metallica thinks about current music (for the audio impaired, he likes Sword), but do you really care what Candeelion has to say about Ludacris?
SpotDJ profile page
(Credit: CNET Networks)Unfortunately, the iTunes plug-in definitely shows its beta status. I had difficulty getting it to surface via the Windows task bar, and I also encountered problems with my playlists stopping after listening to user-recorded spots. That said, the premise is original and addictive. I only recorded one spot to test out the service, but I've already been thinking about all sorts of jokes, commentary, and background information that I'd like to record for some of my favorite songs.
Check out my first spot about the Mates of State's "Like U Crazy" and tell me what you think. Do I have the chops to be a pro DJ? (I think not.)
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