Beware how you Google

Security researchers warn that a one-letter typo in Google's domain name could lead to a massive virus- and spyware-infection attack. A simple misspelling of Google's domain name could lead to a Web surfer's worst nightmare. The malicious site, googkle.com, is infested with Trojan droppers, downloaders, backdoors and spyware, and an unsuspecting user only has to visit the page to be at risk of computer hijack attacks, according to a warning from Finnish anti-virus vendor F-Secure Corp.

Click on the link to read the entire story.

Computers and Internet

best places to live in rural america

Progressive Farmer.com has compiled a list of the 100 best rural counties in which to live. They started with 600 counties with rural areas that met their population, population density and income criteria. Then They ranked them by health care (the number of hospitals and clinics in the county); education (student/teacher ratio and number of higher learning institutions); climate (average temperature and rainfall); pollution index (ranked against the national average); crime index (personal and property crime ranked against the national average); and tax burden (county sales tax and state income tax only, since pro p e rty taxes vary too widely between municipalities). In each category, they used OnBoard's most recent stats.

After crunching the numbers, their editorial board looked at the intangibles, such as quality of life, leisure and cultural pursuits, and scenery. The selections stayed true to the numbers but also reflected subjective opinions about the counties chosen. They also talked to residents in these counties.

rural living

Culture

Google search memory in beta testing

Google wants to become an extension of a user's online memory. Google on Wednesday (04/20/05)launched a personalized Web search service that stores users' search histories, builds individualized search data into Web results and suggests related searches.

Called My Search History, the service, currently being beta tested, is available through Google Labs, the company's site for service prototypes. With the search-history release, Google Inc. joins competitors such as Ask Jeeves Inc., Amazon.com Inc.'s A9.com and Yahoo Inc. in attempting to make search more personal.

Marissa Mayer, director of consumer Web products for Google, said My Search History should eventually become an integral part of Google.

Computers and Internet

Internet

google

Ad skipping could cost 27 billion

Ad skipping and on-demand viewing could cost the TV industry $27 billion in lost revenue over the next five years.

Television

world bank/imf spring meetings

High oil prices might be pushing the world economy into trouble. Oil prices are 70% higher in real terms compared to two years ago. On April 7th, the economists suggested that the world get used to an "oil shock" that was permanent. Higher oil prices certainly have not helped the Japanese economy and the unemployment rate in Germany is 8.9%. The IMF reckons that global growth in 2005 will be 0.8 percentage points lower than last year.

The world economy is much less oil-intensive than it used to be. In contrast to the supply shocks of the 1970s, much of the recent run-up in prices has been caused by rapidly rising demand: oil is dear in part because some economies, especially America’s and China’s, have been growing vigorously. Central banks’ strong reputations for fighting inflation have stopped the translation of higher oil prices into wage-price spirals. These fortuitous conditions may not last, but for now they are good reasons not to be too pessimistic.

Economics

liquidity bubbles

There have been a lot of very confusing market situations as of late. Inflation concerns ratchet up and bonds rally. The dollar strengthens due to rising interest rates on said inflation concerns while rates actually fall. The Dow Jones Transport stocks rally in the face of surging oil prices and then fall when crude retreats. What’s causing all this schizophrenic behavior?

Quite clearly the huge swings we have been seeing in everything from crude oil to soybeans have been fund driven. The sheer amount of money that is available to be thrown into various markets is staggering. And where did this money come from you might ask? Of course from our friendly central bank we would reply. The Federal Reserve has been printing money and thus providing liquidity in a manic fashion. This money has flowed first into stocks, then housing, then crude oil, and now commodities in general. It seems as there are liquidity driven bubbles popping up everywhere.

It's the big money pushing things around.

commodity futures

Business

Economics

scientists destroy flu strain

The WHO has advised 5000 labs in 18 countries to destroy the deadly flu strain so that a world-wide epidemic does not break out. The 50 year old flu virus was sent to labs so that studies could begin.

Science

Current events

LexisNexis Data on 310,000 People Feared Stolen

Data broker LexisNexis said Tuesday that personal information may have been stolen on 310,000 U.S. citizens, or nearly 10 times the number found in a data breach announced last month.

An investigation by the firm's Anglo-Dutch parent Reed Elsevier determined that its databases had been fraudulently breached 59 times using stolen passwords, leading to the possible theft of personal information such as addresses and Social Security numbers.

technology

Business