Hasta La Gadget!

Unless you happen to be using the right phone on the right carrier, you might not know that Google Wallet is even a reality: the close association with NFC-based mobile payments on one network has largely kept it out of the public eye. Many more are about to see Wallet in action now that Google has quietly introduced it to the web. No, you won’t tap your phone against your computer screen; the web version is mostly targeted at microtransactions and gives readers more than a few ways to buy without getting burned, such as long and blurred-out previews, a narrow price range between 25 to 99 cents and an Instant Refund option that gives no-questions-asked credit within half an hour. Only Oxford University Press as well as Pearson’s DK and Peachpit publishing wings are known to be testing Wallet at this stage, but Google is already soliciting new partners for the e-commerce service before the customary blog post is active — a sign that Mountain View is eager to get Wallet on the web rolling a little faster than its slow-moving mobile counterpart.

Filed under: Internet, Google

Google Wallet reaches the web, reminds most of us that it exists originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Oct 2012 07:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Officials in Iran have been busy over the last few months setting up the country’s new national information network. Once that information network was set up, Iran moved to block certain Internet services such as YouTube and Google search. Iran later said that it accidentally blocked access to Google Gmail at the same time.

New reports are coming out of Iran that claim cyber attackers targeted the country’s infrastructure and communications companies. According to the officials, the attacks disrupted the Internet across the entire country. Report of the disrupted Internet access was announced by Mehdi Akhavan Behabadi, secretary of the High Council of Cyberspace yesterday.

The official said the attack that occurred yesterday included “traffic of several gigabytes” that hit the Internet infrastructure and slowed down access across the country. The official said that the attacks were “organized” and “have in mind the country’s nuclear, oil, and information networks.”

Iran is no stranger to cyber attack. In 2010, the country was hit by the Stuxnet computer worm that officials believe was planted by Israel or the US. Some reports indicate that Stuxnet was designed to cause damage and set back Iran’s nuclear program.

[via Reuters]

Iranian Internet disrupted by cyber attacks is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you’ve spent any time on the Internet back in the early 2000’s, you definitely ran into Webshots. It was the photo sharing service everyone used before Photobucket, before Flickr or Picasa, and before Facebook and Instagram. Hell, you still might have pictures on Webshots! Well, you better go get them because they’re about to get deleted. More »

We’ve all had it happen to us before: we’re browsing the web when we’re greeted with a pop-up alert claiming that our computer is infected and that our immediate action is required. Most tech savvy people wouldn’t be tricked into falling for that, but for a while, these scams had many computer users legitimately scared. A handful of people involved in one of these scareware scams have been ordered by a US District Court to pay out a whopping $163 million FTC fine today, after it was discovered that they scammed more than 1 million people out of money.

Those people, Kristy Ross, Sam Jain, and Daniel Sundin, were hit with the $163 million fine to repay the victims they ripped off throughout the years. In addition, Ross has been banned from selling software that interferes with a user’s computer. Ross and co. were responsible for one of these seemingly endless scareware schemes, alerting Internet-goers to non-existent problems on their computers, and then charging $39.95 and up to “fix” the issues. The scam ran from 2000 to 2008, and in that time, the trio pulled in tens of millions of dollars from confused and scared PC users.

Three other people involved in the case, Marc D’Souza, Maurice D’Souza, and James Reno, settled with the FTC in 2010, and aren’t required to pay back the $168 million. The group operated under the name of Innovative Marketing Inc., which bought space for legitimate-looking ads on major websites. When users would click on the ads, they would be taken to an Innovative Marketing website, where they were told that any number of malicious programs were discovered on their computer and then urged to purchase bogus software to fix the issues.

This is a big step in the right direction for the FTC, but unfortunately, scareware still runs rampant today. It’s a problem that probably won’t ever go away entirely, so users need to stay vigilant when it comes to surfing the Internet and believing those illegitimate alerts. This may not be the last we’ve heard of scareware, but it’s definitely the last we’ve heard of Innovative Marketing Inc.

[via Threat Post]

FTC slaps scareware distributor with $163 million fine is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The last time Digg was something worth thinking about, Iraq was in the midst of civil war and Justin Timberlake was on the radio. The site went to ruin. It sold for pocket change. And now, with no warning, it’s back—and it’s beautiful. And the team that pulled it off isn’t sure what to do now. More »