PC Worlds First Look: Skype for the iPhone

"At long last, Skype has made it to the iPhone. Skype for iPhone offers features similar to those found in the company's other mobile versions, which work on Windows Mobile, Android, and Java-based phones. It lets you see when your Skype contacts are online and available; make free Skype-to-Skype calls; use the SkypeOut feature to make calls to landlines and cell phones; send instant messages to your Skype contacts; and receive incoming calls via a SkypeIn number. You can't make video calls or conference calls, as you can with the desktop version of Skype, but you can, reportedly, accept an incoming conference call (though we weren't able to test this feature).

Skype for iPhone requires Wi-Fi to make any kind of voice calls. 9to5Mac was able to make voice calls over AT&T's 3G network on an iPhone running the not-yet-released 3.0 software; we tried the same thing on a 3G iPhone running the current 2.2 software, and were unable to connect."

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Help Your PC Friends Through The Conficker Virus/Worm Tomorrow

"Millions of PCs the world over are infected with Conficker. Yes, your Mac is safe. No, that guy who continues give you such insights as "Macs suck" since 1994 is not safe. So let's do our best not to snicker."

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Apple Mac malware: caught on camera

"Pob in our analysis labs blogged earlier this week about a new variant of the RSPlug Trojan horse for Mac OS X that he had written protection against. One of the ways in which the OSX/RSPlug-F Mac Trojan horse is being distributed by hackers is in the form of a poisoned HDTV/DTV program called MacCinema.



Oh, and Windows users shouldn't feel too smug about this either. If you visit the site on a Windows computer, it will serve up a malicious Windows executable from the Zlob family of malware rather than a Mac OS X Trojan horse."

This attack does not depend on any browser vulnerabilities - it works by the user being convinced via social engineering that this is a program that they would like to run on their computer.

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Skype handles more international calls than AT&T

"Skype has become the world's single largest provider of international calls, surpassing even incumbent telcos like AT&T. Unfortunately for the company, few of these calls generate any revenue, and corporate parent eBay grows impatient.

Skype might not be performing quite as well as parent company eBay would prefer a $2.6 billion acquisition to perform, but that hasn't dampened worldwide enthusiasm for the VoIP service. Skype is so popular, in fact, that new numbers out from TeleGeography suggest that it has become the "largest provider of cross-border voice communications in the world." Take that, AT&T!

Actually, AT&T probably doesn't care, since long distance has lost some of its revenue-generating luster, but the surging popularity of VoIP no doubt keeps future-thinking execs up at nights. Skype's revenues are more modest than the big telcos, despite its usage numbers; at eBay's annual meeting earlier this month, the company said that Skype pulled in $550 million in 2008."

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1000s of GM Workers Get Company Cars & Gas

"General Motors continues to slash costs. But even as the company asks for more taxpayer loans, there's one perk GM refuses to give up: a company car and company-paid gas for about 8,000 white-collar employees.

Kleinbaum says it's one thing for a company to offer such a generous perk when it's making tons of money, but GM lost more than $30 billion last year. The company has already received more than $13 billion in taxpayer loans to avoid bankruptcy and is asking for up to $16 billion more.

GM insists its employees appreciate the impact of high fuel prices, but one current GM staffer interviewed for this story said the perk does blind some people. He recalled that when gas spiked last summer, a colleague complained.

It wasn't because of the cost. It was because he had to swipe his credit card twice to fill up the tank of his big SUV.

A former GM economist estimates that last year alone, the automaker spent nearly $12 million on fuel for its staff."

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$38 for a Cup of Coffee?

"Would you pay $38 for a cup of coffee? Clifford Phillips of Wash., did. He used his debit card to pay for a latte, not knowing there wasn’t enough money in his checking account to cover it. The bank could have declined the transaction for insufficient funds. Instead it approved the electronic payment and hit his account with a $34 overdraft fee.

At most banks and some credit unions, most checking accounts are now automatically enrolled – as a customer service – in an overdraft protection program. The financial institution lets you spend more than you have, loans you the difference (up to a certain amount) and hits you with a hefty fee."

read more | digg story

New worm can infect home modem/routers

"A new botnet, “psyb0t” is the first known to be capable of directly infecting home routers and cable/DSL modems.

The malware contains the shellcode for over 30 different Linksys models, 10 Netgear models, and a variety of other cable and DSL modems (15 different shellcodes).

A list of 6000 usernames and 13,000 passwords were also included, to be used for brute force entry to Telnet and SSH logins which are open to the LAN and sometimes even the public WAN side of the routers. Generally, routers do not lock a user out after a number of incorrect password attempts, making brute force attacks possible."

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