Here's hoping no other mother's teenage son supports her career in quite this way! The Verdun, Germany, prosecutor's office said it was possible that 18-year-old Sven Jaschan's motive for creating the Sasser worm that "caused chaos around the world ... may have been to drum up business for his mother." Sven's mom and stepfather run a computer tech-support business, Reuters reports. The boy "could … [Read more...] about Sasser kid: He did it for mom?!
Rapid growth in hate sites: New study
To a parent, this means our kids can encounter hate and bigotry - sometimes graphically depicted - on the Web as easily as pornography. SurfControl, a UK-based Net-filtering company that monitors thousands of Web sites in this category, found that the number of hate and violence sites has increased 25% just since January, and 300% since 2000, The Register reports. SurfControl says it was … [Read more...] about Rapid growth in hate sites: New study
Sasser kid caught
It took a week for law enforcement to find at least one of the alleged creators (notice all those qualifiers) of the latest Net scourge, and he's a teenager. Either police are getting faster, or international cooperation better, but he appears to have been an 18-year-old German high school student was arrested last Friday and later released, having admitted to creating the Sasser worm that … [Read more...] about Sasser kid caught
No more 99 cents/tune?
Young music fans may increasingly be hitting up Mom or Dad for "legit" downloads, witness iTunes's latest news. Apple "has now signed agreements with EMI, Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG), Sony, Universal, and Warner that will see prices on some songs rise from 99c to $1.25, an increase of over 26%" - lower, at least than the $2.99 the labels had been pushing for, The Register reports. As for album … [Read more...] about No more 99 cents/tune?
Sasser not carried by email
Just when we thought we had a handle on virus-by-email-attachment. Neither you nor your kids could get your PCs infected by the Sasser worm by opening an email attachment. It just arrives through a port on PCs that aren't secured with the latest Microsoft patch. "The worm spreads by scanning different ranges of Internet addresses using a specific application data channel, or port, numbered 445," … [Read more...] about Sasser not carried by email