Placebo AV - The Ultimate Solution

From the well known security icon DOXdesk, we are told

Today's AV is a dead loss. But you can't simply not install any, or everyone will complain. That's where PlaceboAV comes in! It's the fantasic anti-virus solution that's super-fast and absolutely reliable... because it does nothing at all.

A detailed evaluation by a DSLReports Anonymous Poster boasts

PlaceboAV from 419 Software Development, the Nigerian anti-malware experts, is absolute magic!

I'm beta testing the soon-to-be-released ProPlus version which has anti-virus anti-rootkit, anti-spam, anti-popup, anti-adware and antiphlogistine in one small (only 22kb) package.

I had Norton, Kaspersky, NOD32, Trend, McAfee and Avira running on my PC and they all told me I had Vundo, Zlob, Mist, Badtrans, and several serious rootkit infections.

When I uninstalled them all and installed PlaceboAV ProPlus it gave my PC a clean bill of health on the first run. How's that for disinfection efficiency?

PlaceboAV never needs updates, and it won't slow down your PC because it uses no CPU resources.

The good news is that the 5 years ProPlus license will be free! (419 Software requires a notarized copy of your birth certificate and your credit card details and bank account password for identification purposes only.)

Best of all, if you join the beta team you get a bonus of 100,000 shares in the company for only $10,000.

My friends and business associates keep telling me I'm sending them infected emails, but they're still using the same old crappy AVs I got rid of, so what would they know?

Better get yours, folks, before the introductory price expires, and they go to 6 month subscriptions.

But, if you actually install it, heed this warning from DOXdesk.

DOXdesk is not responsible for any viruses you get whilst using PlaceboAV under the impression it is actually doing something. Well, we probably are responsible, but we're not going to do anything about it and you'll not get a penny out of us. Go away now.

And, if you're humour impaired, note the Wikipedia definition of placebo.

A placebo is a substance or procedure which a patient accepts as a medicine or therapy but which has no specific therapeutic activity for the condition. Any effect is thought to be based on the power of suggestion.

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419 Conference And Travel Scams Now

Surely you're well used to the email that starts

Dear Sir,
I so desperately need your assistance.

and goes on to suggest to you how you can get $1,000,000 or more by helping some endangered African citizen smuggle a quantity of hidden funds, or maybe diamonds, into the USA. I bet you'll appreciate a new twist on that old 419 scam - where you are invited to a two site International Conference (first California, then Africa), and you pay only for your hotel booking in the African half of the conference.

PaperGhost, MVP - Security, presents an intriguing description of his invited participation, in the 2008 World Youths Organisation conference on ChilD Abuse and Racism.

Get your passports up to date, folks (not).

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Kaspersky Internet Security Falsely Identifies All BlogSpot URLs With Phishing Attack Warning Messages

Kaspersky Internet Security, with its update of 8 February 2008, has apparently falsely identified all of "*.blogspot.com" as containing malicious code which indicates a phishing attack. Kaspersky customers, as well as numerous bloggers, are discussing this issue in their various support forums.

If your computer is protected by Kaspersky, you've probably already observed a warning, as most of my blogs are hosted on BlogSpot. My apologies to you, if you've been alarmed by this unfortunate problem already.

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RIAA Again, Admitting To Lies This Time

The RIAA has been pushing our legislators for bills to protect their pocketbooks, such as the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007. This was justified based upon a 2005 MPAA study, where they blamed 44 percent of the movie industry's losses on college students illegally downloading movies.

Associated Press MPAA Admits Mistake on Downloading Study reports

But now the MPAA, which represents the U.S. motion picture industry, has told education groups a "human error" in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss.

And it gets better.

Mark Luker, vice president of campus IT group Educause, says it doesn't account for the fact that more than 80 percent of college students live off campus and aren't necessarily using college networks. He says 3 percent is a more reasonable estimate for the percentage of revenue that might be at stake on campus networks.

NewsWeek, in MPAA admits mistake on downloading study reports

The original report, by research firm LEK, claims the U.S. motion picture industry lost $6.1 billion to piracy worldwide, with most of the losses overseas. It identified the typical movie pirate as a male aged 16-24. MPAA said in a statement that no errors had been found in the study besides the percentage of revenue losses that could be attributed to college students, but that it would hire a third party to validate the numbers.

It's time for our legislators to take a hard look at bills like H.R.4137. The MAFIAA has been out of control for some time, and this needs to stop.

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Talk About Mixed Emotions

Hackers vs the RIAA. Hackers 1, RIAA 0.

Apparently the RIAA is so busy suing consumers that they forgot to hire a decent programmer. With a simple SQL injection, all their propaganda has been successfully wiped from the site.

As a networking / security consultant, I dislike hackers, even though I was one (very lame, I know) long, long ago.


Big smile of the week.



But I hate the RIAA (now calling themselves the MAFIAA - seriously!) even more. So I will say

Congrats

to the hackers.

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Alan Ralsky Indicted

The Detroit Free Press reports, in Mich. spammer, 10 others indicted in alleged Chinese stock pump-and-dump scam, that

Michigan spam king Alan Ralsky , his son-in-law and nine others have been indicted in Detroit on charges of violating federal anti-spam laws

.

Unfortunately, the most serious charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. But, it's a start.

Happy New Year 2008.

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