The Economist has a chart from Kaspersky Lab, a security firm, that shows that spam mail is on a decline. Supposedly, it’s a combination of spam filters actually working, the authentication of senders and more police crackdowns on Nigerian princes. In fact, in the past year, junk mail has declined from around 80% to 67%. Do you guys agree with this study? Are you noticing less spam in your inboxes? More »
Some people love Facebook, some people hate it. For me, it’s somewhere in-between. Unlike some other services like Twitter for which I keep a tab or a screen open, I check on what’s happening on FB a couple of times a day, no more. Facebook has announced that effective December 20, they will allow a small group of users to pay in order to have their messages routed directly to your inbox.
During the test, Facebook will let select non-connected users send messages into your inbox, instead of going to the “other” folder. It’s supposed to be an experiment that will validate the usefulness and create a new revenue stream for Facebook. They’re claiming it’s supposed to discourage unwanted messages and facilitate delivery of messages that are relevant and useful. Has anyone ever heard of useful spam? I haven’t.
On the plus side, there will be a maximum of one message per user per week – and is charging $1 per message – so it’s unlikely that it can be abused by spammers – at least not yet. However, it’s unclear how the service will evolve once the testing ends.
[via Facebook]
Welcome to Wednesday evening everyone, just two more work days to go and then we’re at the weekend again. Today we found out that new Nexus 4 orders won’t ship for another 4-5 weeks, and that’s if you’re ordering the 16GB model – those who order the 8GB model might be waiting as long as two months. Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer said that Windows Phone sales these days are four times greater than they were in autumn 2011, which is definitely a good sign, while we learned that RIM has lost a big patent case against Nokia in Sweden.
Windows Phone 7.8 will be hitting handsets in early 2013, though we’re not sure of an exact release date at the moment. A couple of unlucky SMS spammers have been hit with a hefty fine after their company was accused of sending out millions of annoying text messages, but they claim that they had permission to send all of those text messages to the recipients. Google announced today that it has purchased Incentive Targeting, a company that focuses on helping advertisers deliver coupons to consumers more effectively.
Apple parts providers will be increasing their yields in Q1 2013, which should help with those stock shortages we keep hearing about, and today we got our first glimpse at Will.i.am’s new line up of iPhone accessories. There’s a new Facebook bug that is adding users to groups they left long ago, and HTC has brought on a new CMO to retool the company’s marketing efforts. TSMC might not be able to keep up with demand once Apple starts relying on the company for its CPUs, and Ballistic has a new line up of cases for the iPhone, Nokia Lumia 920, and Samsung Galaxy S III. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said that the Grand Theft Auto series is still special because it doesn’t release annually, and Sharp unveiled its new IGZO 32-inch 4K display today.
Finally tonight, we have a couple of reviews for you check. First up is Craig Lloyd with his review of the HTC Windows Phone 8X from Verizon, while Chris Burns gives us his review of the T-Mobile Nexus 4. That does it for tonight’s evening Wrap-Up, we hope you enjoy the rest of your night folks!
SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: November 28, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Spam is annoying, and we all do whatever we can to prevent it from getting to us, but sometimes it can still slip through the cracks, especially via SMS. UK residents Christopher Niebel and Gary McNeish have been fined £440,000 (about $700,000) by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office for sending out almost 800,000 spam text messages per day.
The two gentlemen ran a company called Tetrus Telecoms, which sent out hundreds of thousands of spam text messages per day. The text messages, which were sent on behalf of claims management companies looking for compensation cases to pass on to lawyers, read, “CLAIM TODAY, you may be entitled to £3500 for the accident you had. To CLAIM free reply CLAIM to this message. To opt out text STOP”.
In order to make it possible to sent these hundreds of thousands of spam text messages, Niebel and McNeish used up around 70 mobile phone SIM cards per day, but they brought in over £7,000 (almost $11,200) in sales every day, but the company’s directors were earning thousands more than that. The SIM would be inserted in a card reader that was connected to a computer, and text messages would be continuously sent until each SIM card’s text message limit had been reached.
In their defense, Niebel and McNeish claim that the company had permission to send out the texts because the users on the lists they were using had given their consent to be contacted, and Niebel said he provided evidence to the court to prove it. Needless to say, the two gentlemen will be challenging the fine.
[via Android Community]
Spammers fined $700,000 for sending out millions of spam text messages is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Papa John’s has clearly been a little over-eager with its digital promotion. Now, it’s facing a $250 million class-action lawsuit over all the spammy text messages it’s been sending you and everybody else around the US. More »
Bogomil Shopov, a Bulgarian blogger and digital rights activist, bought 1.1 million Facebook names, user IDs and e-mails for the ridiculously low price of 5 dollars. Yes, for a price of a Subway footlong, Shopov was able to get his hands on your personal data from Facebook. What a deal! More »
Everybody wants a better Captcha. Trying to type in those distorted words can be a serious pain, and it’s becoming less and less of an impedance to ever-more-intelligent spam bots. The Civil Rights Captcha takes a different approach; you’ve got to have a little empathy. More »
If you’ve got a business that has an extraordinary amount of likes on Facebook and have suddenly felt a bit lighter today, you’re not alone: the social network has brought out the axe. This week Facebook has begun implementing many of the changes and rules they outlined in a very basic way several weeks ago regarding fake accounts and likes. If you’ve payed for likes from odd sources or are the sort of person who makes large amounts of fake accounts just to like your own products, you might be in for a wakeup call.
This situation is being reported by multiple sources who speak on the fan count of large pages like Zynga’s Texas HoldEm Poker which TechCrunch says lost 96,000 fans in less than 24 hours. Facebook has noted that most pages will not experience any gigantic changes in their amounts of likes and “real” Facebook fans, but they should expect some manner of change or another in numbers. Do not be afraid though, these changes are not in the number of actual users, but robots and accounts created just for likes instead.
In other words, if you’ve got a page that’s liked by nothing but accounts with single photos of a strangely promiscuous lady who has little to no information up about herself, only a note about how she’s “new to this Facebook thing”, you’ll be seeing some drops. This is part of Facebook’s big plan to give another new wave of legitimacy to the social network universe – with the cuts of the unreal masses, investors will be able to have a much more accurate view of how Facebook is doing (with real humans.)
Have a peek at a few more recent Facebook bits and pieces in the timeline below to see how the company has been changing since they went IPO earlier this year. As a public company, their initial offering did not do so fantastically well. Now that they’re a few months down the road, they’re staying tough about everything, even the knocking off of their own huddled robots.
Facebook terminates fake accounts with extreme prejudice is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Following up on its promise to tighten account security following a recent breach, Dropbox is now offering two-step login authentication to users who install the service’s latest experimental desktop build. The team says the functionality will roll out to all users in the coming days, but listed full instructions to forum users who just can’t wait. Those who op-in only need to download a new version of the Dropbox desktop software and activate the feature in their account settings. Once set up, Dropbox will require all unrecognized machines to provide a code, culled from an authenticator app or received via text message. The firm also provides an emergency back-up code that’ll disable the feature should you lose your phone. Feeling insecure? Check out the source link below to get started.
Update: Dropbox just made it official, detailing set up instructions once more on the Dropbox blog.
Dropbox two-step login verification available in experimental build, coming to all accounts soon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Aug 2012 04:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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