Eric_Utah - Slashdot User

Latest IE Tab Plus developer update pushes spyware-> 0

Submitted by Eric_Utah on Sunday October 17 2010, @01:14PM

Eric_Utah writes "While making a purchase from Amazon in Firefox today I noticed a stalled "transferring data from superfish.com" data pipe and assumed it was part of Amazon's cloud. However, some type of "Window Shopper price comparison" pop-up appeared when I was browsing products afterward. A quick search revealed the spyware had been pushed with the IE Tab Plus developer update I'd received this morning. Others are reporting the same issue. IE Tab Plus has long been regarded as a safe extension and has been downloaded over 3 million times. The privacy policy makes no mention that your web searches are being sent to a 3rd party for marketing purposes. What does this say about the safety of approved extensions and updates pushed from addons.mozilla.org?

http://support.mozilla.com/ta-LK/questions/759008
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10909/privacy/"
Link to Original Source

Comment: Recover for freshwater? (Score 2, Interesting) 323

by Eric_Utah on Saturday August 07 2010, @06:53PM (#33176438) Attached to: 100-Sq.-Mile Ice Island Breaks Off Greenland Glacier

I'm curious what technical challenges would have to be overcome to actually recover this frozen water. Many parts of the world are undergoing severe freshwater shortages. A very large block of frozen water seems like it could be very useful to answer that problem. Could getting at least part of it into into a reservoir be technically / economically possible?

Off the top of my head, I was musing about getting it into the Great Lakes, but the channels and locks in the Great Lakes Waterway are obviously far too small to move something this size. If it were eventually towed to a port, what could be done with it? How fast would it melt?

Comment: Routine management? (Score 1) 364

by Eric_Utah on Sunday February 21 2010, @06:28PM (#31222718) Attached to: PA School Defends Web-Cam Spying As Security Measure, Denies Misuse

I'll withhold judgment seeing how there are a lot of accusations with no actual evidence presented. I wouldn't be surprised if it the school had nothing to do with starting the webcam. Instead, it's entirely possible that the student opened the webcam with something like Photobooth to record/display images and the school was able to see what they were doing via a remote desktop type program. Here's an example of a school doing just that in this Frontline video (skip to 4:37):

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/learning/schools/how-google-saved-a-school.html

When I saw that program on TV a couple weeks ago, it didn't strike me as unusual at all. It's normal for companies (or schools) to keep their own computers communicating with admin servers for updates, management or remote assistance services. Privacy violation wasn't something that jumped out at in me when I saw that as I've always assumed that computers owned & managed by other parties are monitored.

Admins activating a webcam remotely isn't really justifiable unless it's in the pursuit of stolen gear, but keeping an eye on the software, clickstream and desktop is probably within their realm of responsibilities. They would probably be on the receiving end of "You gave my child an evil machine filled with drug recipes and pr0nogrpahy!" lawsuits if they didn't manage the systems.

Kids these days.... Can't even figure out how to boot their own thumbdrive OS to bypass that stuff. :(