SPAM - More Than Ever

Ever since the expansion, and loosening of controls, of domain-names (especially in Europe) I've notice an vast proliferation of SPAM.

Example domains:

• @bborc.top
• @caorc.top
• @eeaorc.top
• @faorc.top
• @paorc.top

What I noticed (as shown in example above) is these sites only change the characters between "@" and 'dot-whatever' sometimes changing only one character.


REF:  The Spmhaus Project

ALSO:  Google's Fighting Spam

EMAIL CLIENT - Pegasus on Windows 7

Well, I finally found an eMail Client that works with Windows 7 64bit AND does everything I wanted.

Pegasus Mail

It has all the options that I had with Agent on my Windows XP system.  Agent failed to work on  my Windows 7 64bit due to a MAPI problem.

Here's my Pegasus window:

It has a nice, though hard to use, filtering system.  And setup was very good but not intuitive.

The options are extensive, but again something seems missing, like:

• Notification Options, like turning off delete confirmations
• Setting compose-email editor options, like setting default font and size

So far, I like it very much.

INTERNET - Spam or Not to Spam Cyber War

"Cyber War Over Spam Slows Access for Internet Users" PBS Newshour 3/27/2013

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  A dispute between an online company that sends spam emails and a company trying to mitigate spam has led to the one of the largest reporter cyber attacks in history, creating slow access to common sites like Netflix for millions of web users.  Hari Sreenivasan talks over the case with Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times.

HARI SREENIVASAN (Newshour):  One company fights spam; the other is said to be behind sending those pesky e-mails.  A dispute between the two has led to one of the largest reported cyber-attacks in Internet history, the result, widespread congestion that's slowing access for millions of users to sites like Netflix.

Nicole Perlroth has been covering the story for The New York Times, joins me now.

NOTE:  For users, this is what eMail client filters are for.  Delete spam eMails, or move spam to a [Spam] folder.

INTERNET - Google Warning for GMail Users

"Google to warn users targeted by state-sponsored attacks" by Josh Rogin, Foreign Policy 6/5/2012

UPDATE: A senior Senate aide confirmed that this evening he received a warning on his Gmail account that Google suspected he had been the target of a state-sponsored cyber attack.

Web giant Google is about to announce a new warning informing Gmail users when a specific type of attacker is trying to hijack their accounts -- governments and their proxies.

Later today, the company will announce a new warning system that will alert Gmail users when Google believes their accounts are being targeted by state-sponsored attacks. The new system isn't a response to a specific event or directed at any one country, but is part and parcel of Google's recent set of policy changes meant to allow users to protect themselves from malicious activity brought on by state actors. It also has the effect of making it more difficult for authoritarian regimes to target political and social activists by hacking their private communications.

"We are constantly on the lookout for malicious activity on our systems, in particular attempts by third parties to log into users' accounts unauthorized. When we have specific intelligence-either directly from users or from our own monitoring efforts-we show clear warning signs and put in place extra roadblocks to thwart these bad actors," reads a note to users by Eric Grosse, Google's vice president for security engineering, to be posted later today on Google's Online Security blog, obtained in advance by The Cable. "Today, we're taking that a step further for a subset of our users, who we believe may be the target of state-sponsored attacks."

When Google's internal systems monitoring suspicious internet activity, such as suspicious log-in attempts, conclude that such activities include the involvement of states or state-backed initiatives, the user will now receive the specialized, more prominent warning pictured above. The warning doesn't necessarily mean that a user's account has been hijacked, but is meant to alert users that Google believes a state sponsored attack has been attempted so they can increase their security vigilance.

Google wants to be clear they are not singling out any one government for criticism and that the effort is about giving users transparency about what is going on with their accounts, not about highlighting the malicious actions of foreign states.

"If you see this warning it does not necessarily mean that your account has been hijacked. It just means that we believe you may be a target, of phishing or malware for example, and that you should take immediate steps to secure your account," Grosse writes. "You might ask how we know this activity is state-sponsored. We can't go into the details without giving away information that would be helpful to these bad actors, but our detailed analysis-as well as victim reports-strongly suggest the involvement of states or groups that are state-sponsored."

Google insiders told The Cable that Google will not be giving out information on which governments it sees as the most egregious violators of web privacy. For Google, the new initiative is not an effort against governments but a way to help its users help defend and protect themselves.

Users who click through the new warning message will be directed to a page that outlines commonly seen security threats and suggests ways users can immediately raise their level of security on Gmail.

"We're constantly working to prevent harmful activity on our services, especially attempts to compromise our users' information," the insider said. "The primary message is: we believe that you're a target so you should take immediate steps to protect your account."

The new announcement comes only days after the company said they would alert users in mainland China when they use search terms that are likely to be censored by the Chinese government. According to another of Google's official blogs, that move was meant to improve the search experience for Chinese users by allowing them to avoid terms that would result in stalls or breaks in their search experience due to government filters.

For example, Google said that Chinese users searching the character for "river," which is "jiang" in Chinese, causes technical problems. The same character is also used in the search for former Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

Google didn't specifically mention Chinese censorship in its notice about Chinese search terms, apparently in an effort not to antagonize the Chinese government any more than necessary. Google and Beijing have been at odds since 2010, when the company announced it would no longer censor search terms on the Google.cn and moved the bulk of its Chinese operations to Hong Kong.

That move followed a series of Gmail attacks in 2010, directed at Chinese human rights activists, which were widely suspected to be linked to the Chinese government. Following those attacks, the government-controlled People's Daily publicly accused Google of being an agent for U.S. intelligence agencies.

While last week's announcement and this week's announcement are both being presented by Google as user based initiatives not directed at foreign governments, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been speaking out publicly and forcefully in recent months about the potential negative role governments can play in circumventing internet freedom.

"While threats come from individuals and even groups of people, the biggest problem will be activities stemming from nations that seek to do harm," he said in London last month.

UTILITY - MozBakcup

MozBackup (Mozilla Backup) is a utility to backup profile files for Firefox browser or Thunderbird eMail client.

(click for better view)


Tested at work to import Thunderbird from a WinXP desktop to Win7 desktop, which I had to use because Easy Transfer did NOT import the Thunderbird profile.

IMPORTANT: The reason Win7's Easy Transfer did NOT import the Thunderbird was because I did the transfer when logged on as Administrator. Turns out that Thunderbird restricts access to the user account, even by the Administrator.

This restriction ALSO applies to MozBackup, you must be logged on to the user account for it to work.

MozBackup exported/imported Thunderbird eMails, settings, Thunderbird saved passwords, etc., without a hitch.

Those doing a WinXP to Win7 migration should try MozBackup.

Note that restricted access to a folder like Thunderbird uses is similar to what the better Antivirus Utilities do to protect the utilities' home folder.

INTERNET - NNTP Usenet Newsgroup System

This article is about the Usenet and their Newsgroups that use NNTP.

This system is the outgrowth of the old Bulletinboard system of the DOS days. Think of it as the electronic version of the old office or school cork-board bulletin boards where ANYONE can post notices and the like.

NNTP

The Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) is an Internet application protocol used for transporting Usenet news articles (netnews) between news servers and for reading and posting articles by end user client applications. Brian Kantor of the University of California, San Diego and Phil Lapsley of the University of California, Berkeley authored RFC 977, the specification for the Network News Transfer Protocol, in March 1986.

As you can see, this is only a specification that can be use by ANY provider via a NNTP Server.

Usenet (aka Newsnet)

Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.

Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980.[1] Users read and post messages (called articles or posts, and collectively termed news) to one or more categories, known as newsgroups. Usenet resembles a bulletin board system (BBS) in many respects, and is the precursor to the various Internet forums that are widely used today; and can be superficially regarded as a hybrid between email and web forums. Discussions are threaded, with modern news reader software, as with web forums and BBSes, though posts are stored on the server sequentially.

This is the distribution system. Note that NO one entity owns this system. It's public.

ISPs usually have their own NNTP Servers and included access as part of their service. But NNTP Servers are very resource intensive. Both in storage space needed and maintenance, including the cost evolved. This is why many ISPs have dropped their NNTP service.

The industry is shifting to specialized NNTP (Usenet) Providers. They do not provide connection the the Internet, just the Usenet service. Many have a subscription fee, which is how the make their money. Example, I use Forte's APN which charges me a monthly fee.

Newsgroups

A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations. The term may be confusing to some, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on the World Wide Web. Newsreader software is used to read newsgroups.

Despite the advent of file-sharing technologies such as BitTorrent, as well as the increased use of blogs, formal discussion forums, and social networking sites, coupled with a growing number of service providers blocking access to Usenet (see main article) newsgroups continue to be widely used.

Bold emphasis mine

Examples of Newsgroups:

• microsoft.public.windows.vista.general


• alt.politics.usa


• sci.space.station


• comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg

The main reason I am posting this article is there is a misleading notice being propagated in blogs and Usenet posts that the Microsoft Newsgroups are going away. NOT true.

Microsoft does not own nor control the Usenet system. So Newsgroups in the microsoft.public. series are NOT going to go away. The ONLY way this would happen is that EVERY Usenet Provider worldwide dropped these groups from their servers.

What is happening is Microsoft is dropping the microsoft.public. series form THEIR Usenet servers. They have switched to their Live Forums.

To read Newsgroup posts, you do have to use a Usenet capable client.

Outlook Express includes this feature. There's also clients like Thunderbird (freeware, eMail + Usenet), and Agent (eMail + Usenet) that I use at home.

Note that the examples above are both eMail and Usenet clients. This is because Newsgroup posts are very close to eMails. In fact in Newsgroup posts format the only difference is the "headers." Example: eMails have a To: email-address/name while Newsgroup posts are to a group like alt.politics.usa.