joke-boy - Slashdot User

FTC Kills Scareware Scam That Duped Over 1M Users 329

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 10, 2008 @08:45PM from the don't-let-it-happen-to-you dept.

coondoggie writes "The Federal Trade Commission today got a court to at least temporarily halt a massive 'scareware' scheme, which falsely claimed that scans had detected viruses, spyware, and pornography on consumers' computers. According to the FTC, the scheme has tricked more than one million consumers into buying computer security products such as WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe, and XP Antivirus. The court also froze the assets of Innovative Marketing, Inc. and ByteHosting Internet Services, LLC to preserve the possibility of providing consumers with monetary redress, the FTC stated."

Comment Re:Initial Confusion (Score 1) 470

by joke-boy on Thursday May 22, 2008 @04:51PM (#23511064) Attached to: Favorite navigation method?

Etak is a reference to one of three things, and I'm not sure what the poll creator intended. It is a Polynesian navigation concept, whereby a pilot of a small ship envisions himself to be on the bow of the ship, with the ship always pointed "north" and the world rotating around him. It could be a reference to this.

A Menlo Park company (that I used to work for) named itself Etak after this. That company developed hardware, software, and data for navigation. The company was eventually purchased by NewsCorp, then sold to Sony, then sold to Tele Atlas. It primarily developed North America digital map data, and for quite a while, any digital U.S. source had either NAVTEQ or Etak data in it. So it could be a reference to the company.

Etak also sold one of the first in-car navigation systems, called the Navigator. They patented the digital map display method of placing the car at the center of the map and rotating the map regardless of NSEW so that the car was always going "up". The Navigator used this. So it could be a reference to the Etak Navigator.

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