Computer Guys & Gal | The Kojo Nnamdi Show

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Computer Guys & Gal

Order a CD or TRANSCRIPT of this program.

Items discussed on today's show

Broadband Rights?
Finland: Broadband Is a Legal Right

Google Android
Why Google Didn't Kill the Standalone GPS
Verizon: Droid Does
Engadget: Motorola DROID review
MobileCrunch: Smartphone Showdown: iPhone 3GS vs Motorola Droid
Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0

Apple
Magic Mouse
New iMac
Mac mini server

Peace Innovation
Peace Innovation @ Stanford
Peace on Facebook

ICANN
ICANN OKs International Domains:

3D Laptop
Acer Aspire AS5738DG Review: 3D On the Small Screen

Pendant Camera for Live Blogging
New camera promises to capture your whole life

Scam of the Month Highlights

Allison Druin sent us the following email scam she says University staff and faculty often receive:

Dear Webmail Account User,

This message was sent automatically by a program on
Webmail admin center which periodically checks the size of
inbox. The program is run automatically to ensure no user inbox grows too large. If your inbox becomes too large, you will be unable to receive new emails.

Just before this message was sent, you are currently running on 20.9GB. You have has exceeded the storage limit
which is 20GB. To help us re-set your Account space on our database prior to maintain your inbox,you must reply to this e-mail. Click below:

(malicious link here)

If your inbox grows to 22.0 GB, you will be unable to receive new email as it will be returned to the sender.

NB:Your Webmail Account Expire in Two (2) Days. After you read this message, it is best to REPLY with the required information to upgrade MailBox. Reply to this message immediately to re-activate your Account.

Thank you for your cooperation.
Webmail Help Desk.
System Administrator.

Allison's comments:
The scam gets a number of our university's new students (grad and undergrad) as well as faculty.
They try and make the email look like something from our technology support desk, but they fail in 3 ways:

1. Their email address is always from somewhere far away (e.g., Ohio).
2. They ask you to click on a link (our tech support would never ask you to do this).
3. And they always ask for your password and login (truly never do this).

What is amazing is I've been seeing these emails for years and they never seem to go away!

Bill Harlow points us to "Live CDs" to help avoid dangerous malware during online banking, explained in detail on WAPO's Security Fix blog.

Bill's Comments:
A "Live CD" is a version of the OS that can be run entirely from CD. Everything loads into system memory. Nothing is written to the hard drive. It's like running a fresh version of the OS every time.