Hasta La Gadget!

Well, I guess this was inevitable.

Last week, we reported that spam-tracking outfit Spamhaus had put out a bulletin warning visitors to beware of wikileaks.info, a WikiLeaks mirror site not officially affiliated with Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks organization.

Somehow, the dot-info site is where visitors are automatically sent to if they type in WikiLeak’s original domain: www.wikileaks.org (the exact way that switch happened remains somewhat murky–WikiLeaks.info claims they had no part in it).

Wikileaks.info is hosted by an organization that Spamhaus categorizes a Russian cybercriminal outfit that is breeding ground for spam, malware, and other assorted digital underbelliness.

WikiLeaks.info has denied any malware exists on their site. The site had even put out a “press release” on their site claiming the allegation against their site’s host are “false” and “none of our business” and went on to call for people to contact Spamhaus and “voice your opinion.”

This past weekend, Spamhaus site was the victim of a DDoS attack from AnonOps, the cyber vigilantes who fight on the side of all things leaked and wiki. In response, Steve Linford of Spamhaus sent out the following plea on behalf of his organization to say, in part (full text here):

Because they are using a Wikileaks logo, many people thought that the
“press release” was issued “by Wikileaks”. In fact there has been no
press release about this by Wikileaks and none of the official Wikileaks
mirrors sites even recognise the wikileaks.info mirror. We wonder how
long it will be before Wikileaks supporters wake up and start to
question why wikileaks.info is not on the list of real Wikileaks mirrors
at wikileaks.ch.

Currently wikileaks.info is serving highly sensitive leaked documents
to the world, from a server fully controlled by Russian malware
cybercriminals, to an audience that faithfully believes anything with a
‘Wikileaks’ logo on it.

Spamhaus continues to warn Wikileaks readers to make sure they are
viewing and downloading documents only from an official Wikileaks mirror
site. We’re not saying “don’t go to Wikileaks” we’re saying “Use the
wikileaks.ch server instead”.

Hey, guess what? We’re going to get another tablet at CES in January. No huge surprise there–we’re anticipating an utter deluge of the devices at the show. Motorola is seemingly attempting to undercut some of those last minute iPad/Samsung Galaxy Christmas purchase with a little teaser of its own announcement.

The company used its @MotoMobile Twitter page to kick off speculation, tweeting, “Might want to hold off on that tablet purchase until 2011.” The page linked to a tongue-in-cheek CGI tour of the “evolution of tablets,” including such detours as the Rosetta Stone (“Good graphics, but weight makes for difficult portability”) and the Ten Commandments (“Excellent durability, but zero flexibility”).

The company also used the occasion to take potshots at the competition, the iPad (“It’s like a giant iPhone, but…it’s like a giant iPhone”) and the Samsung Galaxy Tab (“Android OS, but Android OS…for a phone”). The video finishes on a shot of what we’re led to assume is the shrouded unannounced Motorola tablet.

Not a lot of info here, but between the Samsung comment and the fact that Motorola has had some recent success with Android, as of late, we can probably assume that the thing will run Google’s mobile–the tablet version. The goofy little animated bee also hints at the use of the Android “Honeycomb” build. As for a name? The Motorola Evolution, perhaps?

Check out the video, after the jump.

How many dedicated LTE-capable USB modems does Verizon need? At least three, apparently, because we’ve just been sent shots of Novatel’s upcoming USB551L that looks perhaps a tad glossier and sleeker than the Pantech and LG models that have preceded it. Hard to say from the spec sheet here, but it looks like there’s at least a chance this is LTE-only without CDMA / EV-DO fallback since there’s no explicit mention of it; unlikely considering how small Verizon’s LTE footprint is for the time being, but you never know. More importantly, there is explicit mention of Mac support, something the carrier’s current options lack. No word on a release date or pricing, but we imagine it won’t be long now that these dummy units — which you can see in the gallery below — are floating around.

Novatel’s USB551L LTE modem for Verizon in the wild, does Mac support out of the box originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 17:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tweet for a chance to win a Chrome OS notebook. We have five prototypes to give away courtesy of Google.

Beating out Verizon, Canada’s Rogers becomes the first carrier in North America to pick up the Pre 2 today, hawking it for CAD $99 — about $97 — as long as you’re willing to put your name down for a new three-year contract with a qualifying voice and data plan. Since Rogers runs HSPA on 850 and 1900MHz, you can bet this is pretty much the same phone Palm is offering unlocked in the States for $450; you’re just paying a little less upfront and a whole lot more over time. Six of one, half-dozen of the other, as they say.

Palm Pre 2 lands on Rogers today, $99 on three-year contract originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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