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Best of the Week: Fall Phishing, The Police's Drummer Talks Tech

by Warren Riddle on October 11, 2009 at 04:26 PM


Thank Zod it's Friday. Even though the air is growing crisp and the foliage is beginning to colorfully explode, the sweet, welcome relief of autumn has unfortunately been marred by evil phishers, grifters, and scam artists. The first full week of October began with news that 10,000 stolen Hotmail passwords had appeared on the Web, quickly followed by the discovery of an additional 20,000 compromised log-ins from other major providers. Perhaps most troubling was that an investigation into the Hotmail assault revealed that the most common password on the nefarious list was "123456."

The cyber criminals didn't limit their evil deeds to e-mail, though; this week, the FBI issued a public warning about a months-old Facebook phony friend scheme. Thankfully, these scams are all avoidable, so take a look at these easy and essential steps to ensure safe passage through the Web. Not all of the news this week was bad, though. Check out the remaining, more uplifting stories so you can focus on a beautiful fall weekend instead of worrying about all that virtual villainy.
  • The 'Gross National Happiness Index,' which tracked Facebook status updates for two years, determined that the two saddest days on the social networking site were those of Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson's deaths, revealing that humans haven't completely become emotionless automatons completely devoid of empathy. Yet.
  • No one is immune to an occasional, accidental slip of the finger, or an unintentionally misspelled word, but sometimes the typos can have disastrous consequences. Take, for instance, these five terrible, but true (and hilarious if it didn't happen to you) mishaps.
  • Stewart Copeland, the drummer for seminal punk/reggae/rock/pop band The Police, revealed to the Switched staff that he wields both an iPhone and a BlackBerry, and that, on occasion, even he commits the pocket-dial foul.
  • We got to test drive the new Sony PSP, and while it may be the best PSP yet, noticeable flaws and a lack of upgrades keep it from being an absolute gaming necessity.

Tags: bestoftheweek, top

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