A colleague forwarded this along to me from eWeek:
People will click on anything.
That was evidenced by the 409 people who clicked on an ad that offers infection for those with virus-free PCs. The ad, run by a person who identifies himself as security professional Didier Stevens, reads like this:
Drive-By Download
Is your PC virus-free?
Get it infected here!
drive-by-download.info
Stevens, who says he works for Contraste Europe, a branch of the IT consultancy The Contraste Group, has been running his Google Adwords campaign for six months now and has received 409 hits. Stevens has done similar research in the past, such as finding out how easy it is to land on a drive-by download site when doing a Google search.
In a posting about the drive-by download campaign, Stevens says that he got the idea after picking up a small book on Google Adwords at the library and finding out how easy and cheap it is to set up an ad.
Read more…
The point of this entry? Well, pay attention to what you click, not everyone on the ‘net has your best interests at heart. Be safe out there! Malware and spyware really are just a click away, often hidden behind things that look familiar or are misleading. Clicking is, of course, fun, but don’t forget to be a little skeptical, particularly if a site doesn’t look quite right.
Attribution: Unknown
Location: Unknown (Perhaps in a Virgin Clubhouse?)
A picture is worth 1,000 words…I think I’ll just let the picture speak for itself. Or, if you’re inspired, use the comments feature if you have a suggested caption…If you enjoyed this entry, you might enjoy this book:
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader, a Wonderful World of Odd
Click the image to retrieve a full-sized file (3.7Mb)
There is an amazing amount of detail in this photo taken April 10, 2003 with a 250m resolution. Very cool stuff. With the large image (not the thumbnail presented above) you can zoom in pretty aggressively to see detail. Satellite photos are unbelievable now in their clarity – not so long ago, they were grainy black and white images that required magnification to get useful information. Makes you wonder what resolution of photo is available to intelligence services now…
Every so often I find something that is innovative and useful. ExpertVoter is just such tool. Check out the snap of their user-interface below:
Click the image to enlarge.
This page is not yet complete (meaning, there isn’t video from every candidate on every issue) but you can see this has promise as an educational tool. There’s nothing like seeing and hearing the candidates talk about an issue as a clue to what makes them tick. This in and of itself isn’t enough, but it sure is a great tool in this age of media to be able to paint pictures of candidates using their images and words on the issues.
Great work ExpertVoter, we’ll visit you often over the next couple of years.
