A new type of Internet-based attack is spreading in which Flash-based ads seize control of a Web surfer’s clipboard and paste in a link to a malicious site in the hopes that it will be spread from there into e-mails, blogs, and instant messages.

“Someone wrote a little piece of Adobe Flash code to copy text to the clipboard. Then they put it in a loop, to do it once a second. Then they put it in an innocent-looking flash-based banner ad, with their harmful URL as the payload. Then they signed up for some advertising networks, and submitted their bad ad, presumably paying considerable $$$ to get it featured on sites that you and I visit regularly, such as MSNBC and Digg. And when someone has this ad loaded, they can copy all they want, but everything they paste will be just that URL. So if you are writing an e-mail to Aunt Millie, telling her to look at your eBay auction located at (paste), or to download Picasa to organize her photos - download here (paste), she’s going to get the virus when she visits the bad site.”

The ads have been spotted on MSNBC.com, Newsweek.com, and Digg.com, and victims have reported on numerous forums and blogs that they appear to be fake alerts that a virus has been detected on the computer and offer to clean it up, according to antivirus vendor Sophos.

The malware appears to affect
Mac, Windows, and Linux machines and
Firefox, Internet Explorer, and
Safari browsers, according to ZD Net’s Zero Day blog.

The malicious link, which includes “xp-vista-update” in the URL, is copied into the clipboard and can not be over-written by copying new text to the clipboard. Users must reboot the computer to remove the link, The Register reports.

If you are using AT&T bandwidth, and you can tap into its data centers for data recovery, you’ve just solved a major problem in a theoretically secure manner.

Automation: How does the data get from internal servers to the cloud, or how does it get from individual desktops?
Security: What is the security model that can be applied and managed universally?
Data integrity: How do I know that my data is actually my data if I am not in private space or virtual machines?
Risk: What is the risk of losing my data without a defined service-level agreement?

Realistically, many large corporations won’t trust their data to Google or Amazon.com (and they probably shouldn’t). However, they will trust IBM, AT&T, and other big companies, as they start to expand their offerings.

The broad adoption of virtualization can be very beneficial but can also present some challenges, considering the lack of tools and options available. And considering that virtual machines are what most of today’s clouds are built on, odds are that you will run into the very real challenge of how you even manage your virtual machines effectively.

It won’t be long before we start seeing storage clouds popping up. My bet is on the big IT vendors to get there first.

One way this lack of attention to disaster recovery could be addressed would be direct connectivity from one cloud-computing provider to another, giving users the ability to replicate data. Alternatively, users could set up virtual-machine farms internally that push the data to the cloud as a backup.

Managed backup and data recovery services do exist today, but they tend to be very expensive “enterprise-class” or very mediocre consumer-oriented services. There should be a way for cloud infrastructure to become a real option for enterprises.

Here are a few of the issues that would need to be addressed:

The vast scale of services like Amazon S3 or Google Apps provide new ways to establish or augment backup and disaster recovery plans.

Worse yet, not all virtual servers included in an organization’s disaster recovery plan will be backed up. Only 37 percent of respondents to the survey said they back up more than 90 percent of their virtual systems.

Probably the most interesting part of this whole thing is that Starbucks is using Salesforce.com Force platform for the interaction with consumers.

Now the company is now trying crowdsourcing as its way to the future. (Note to self: get Starbucks to put my blog excerpts on its coffee cups)

Starbucks is a company that followed it’s vision as the market leader for so long it makes me wonder if they can act in any other way–that is, even if they get good feedback, can they act upon it? From the results so far it seems like there is fair shot–especially considering that people are asking for a loyalty program and wifi, 2 things that are cheap and achievable.

Starbucks pioneered the notion that coffee should be $3 a cup, and its been a great business model. However, the company has been late to the party on 2 areas: lower cost options and better tasting coffee, the confluence of which has caused the stock price to sag as the repeat visitors dipped.

As a Peets coffee addict (though I am coffee-free for 2 weeks now) who really misses Dunkin Donuts, I got to the point where I didn’t even bother with Starbucks as the flavor and consistency just didn’t work for me anymore.

Via Gawker

Given that my calling plan covers the US and Canada, I assumed my data plan would, too. Nope. I pay $59.99 per month for an “unlimited” data plan on my wireless card. It’s surprising just how limited that “unlimited” plan is.

UPDATE: TechCrunch has data that indicates AT&T’s text messaging rates aren’t so great, either. How about $1,310 per megabyte?

AT&T Wireless is gouging its customers (and no, I’m not the only one - this hapless fellow got dinged $6,000 by AT&T for using his phone in Mexico, while this iPhone user got hit with $3,000). $1,450 for a 96 megabytes is unconscionable. It bears no rational relation to AT&T’s own costs of delivering the service.

commentary

(Credit:
Matt Asay)

Yes, that’s really $1520.76 for one month’s usage of my wireless card. But the shocking thing is that $1450.19 of it came from using the card for under three hours to pull down a total of 96 megabytes of data. That’s roughly $15 per megabyte. What a bargain!

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

If you’ve never done it before, swapping out an optical drive is a piece of cake. Unplug the power and interface connectors, slide out the old drive, then slide in the replacement. Reconnect the cables and you’re pretty much good to go. You’ll need a system with a parallel interface (this is not a SATA drive) and some LightScribe CD and/or DVD media. Head to the official LightScribe site to learn everything else you need to know about the technology.

Newegg has the Samsung SH-S202N 20X internal DVD burner with LightScribe technology for just $26.99. It’s a new unit with no rebates, free shipping, and mostly positive reviews.

The day I bought myself a LightScribe DVD drive was the day I put away my Sharpie marker forever. Sure, it takes upwards of 20 minutes to burn a custom label on a LightScribe disc, but the results are vastly superior to my chicken scratch.

At least one Psystar customer has received their Open Computer, as I continue to await mine.

(Credit:
Psystar)

Check out this video on Gizmodo of the Open Computer, which sounds like an airplane taking off, in all its glory. I ordered a unit two weeks ago that was supposed to ship on Monday, but I haven’t received an updated notice that it has left the factory. My colleague Rich Brown in CNET Reviews is also expecting a review unit for a formal review of the product, so watch for that in the coming days.

Mac clones large and small are popping up all over the place these days.

Psystar has managed to get past a tumultuous week earlier this month to get Open Computers into the hands of its customers. The Open Computer is being sold with
Mac OS X Leopard as a preinstalled option for Psystar’s customers, in what is expected to at some point draw some legal attention from Apple.

Asus originally promised we’d have the Windows version of the tiny Asus Eee PC in December. The Taiwan-based company now says we can expect it in late February or early March. Though the original date came and went, it certainly hasn’t stopped customers from ordering the Linux-based version: the company reportedly moved 350,000 units in the first quarter it was available.

Asus launched the first Windows version of its popular Eee PC in Japan on Thursday, according to a report in The Register.

Called the Eee PC 4G-X, it will come pre-loaded with Windows XP Home Edition. It has the same specs as the original 4G model with Linux introduced last fall: 4GB of storage, Intel Celeron processor, 512MB of RAM, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, and more.

The Japanese launch is good news for potential U.S. buyers of the computer, a cross between an oversized Internet tablet and a notebook, because it means the U.S. version is coming very soon.

(Credit:
Erica Ogg/CNET News.com)

The U.S. version of the Eee PC, pictured above, uses a Linux-based operating system. Next month we'll see the Windows XP version.

Convention reports, both text and video, from the two winning “journalists,” will then be featured in MySpace and MSNBC’s campaign coverage.

Contest judges will be MSNBC personalities Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist, as well as MySpace president Tom Anderson (yes, that Tom) and Lee Brenner, director of the site’s “Impact” political activism section. They’ll choose five finalists, from whom two winners will be chosen by members of MySpace.

MySpace’s political initiatives didn’t end with the primaries: the News Corp.-owned social network has unveiled a contest in conjunction with NBC News and MSNBC.com in anticipation of the major parties’ campaign conventions.

Entrants, who must be MySpace members who are 18 years or older, must answer one of the following questions via a video submission: “Why do you vote?” “Why are you the best person for this job?” and “How will you stand out in the crowd and get the scoop no one else can?” Entries open at noon Pacific time on Thursday, and close on July 16.

Man & Machine is asking for monetary damages and for a court to issue an injunction to prevent Apple from selling any more of its Mighty Mouse devices.

(Credit:
Apple)

A computer peripheral maker filed suit against Apple and CBS on Tuesday, claiming the companies are infringing on its trademark for the “Mighty Mouse” device.

CBS owns the rights to the Mighty Mouse cartoon and licensed the use of the name to Apple. The network was named in the lawsuit because Man & Machine says it doesn’t have the right to license the name. Both Man & Machine and CBS have trademark applications for the name and are currently dueling for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s approval.

Maryland-based Man & Machine says it was selling its chemical-resistant and waterproof mouse to hospitals a year before Apple sold its single-button mouse of the same name.

In math, two negatives make a positive. In the fledgling world of desktop Linux, unfortunately, this is unlikely to be the case.

Learn what? Well, perhaps we could learn from this that “partnering” with Microsoft on patent immunity is no excuse for a good business. Xandros’ deal with Microsoft didn’t do it any favors. Ditto for Linspire. To be fair, this patent foolishness was just the tip of the iceberg on Linspire’s and Xandros’ problems, but it sure didn’t help.

Carmony then goes on to declare that this merger may well be a merger of equals, but they’re both equally weak. This is not a merger of which the open-source world can be proud. It’s something to learn from and then move on.

This will end up being a completely insignificant event for Linspire shareholders, and the end for Linspire customers. I predict this was done to: 1) help [Linspire owner and founder Michael] Robertson drain the company of its cash and resources…2) help Robertson save face by issuing a “Linspire Acquired by Xandros!” press release, instead of living with the public humiliation that Linspire failed under his leadership…3) Give Xandros (also seemingly on life support) a press release, and perhaps some way for them to spin this to investors to raise money.

According to reports from OStatic and others, Xandros is buying Linspire. Who cares, you ask? Certainly not the former CEO of Linspire, Kevin Carmony, who had this to say as to the importance of the acquisition: