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Cached CommonsはWebベースのオープンソース・ソフトウェア。jQueryやPrototype.js、各種MVCなどJavaScriptが利用されるケースは増え続けている。それに伴ってWebブラウザ側で読み込 [...]

iOS/Windows/Mac/Linux: Free service Notifo is a kitchen sink of push notifications for your iPhone or desktop, pushing Twitter updates, your favorite RSS feeds, Google Voice alerts, and more straight to your iPhone or desktop notification utility. And it's extremely hackable. More »

itwbennett writes "According to Harvard magazine, Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted at its meeting on May 11 to require instructors to officially inform the Registrar 'at the first week of the term' of the intention to end a course with a formal, seated exam, 'the assumption shall be that the instructor will not be giving a three-hour final examination.' Dean of undergraduate education Jay M. Harris 'told the faculty that of 1,137 undergraduate-level courses this spring term, 259 scheduled finals--the lowest number since 2002, when 200 fewer courses were offered. For the more than 500 graduate-level courses offered, just 14 had finals, he reported.'"

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Automatically mutes volume at shutdown and startup.

Lots of stores are looking to make space for their big fall inventory push, and everything left over from summer is going cheap. Time to look into cars, appliances, holiday airfare, and other good buys in September. More »

When Google launched its Chrome Web browser in 2008, it was clear that the product had considerable potential. Its emphasis on performance and a its intriguing minimalistic user interface attracted a lot of well-deserved attention. Today, exactly two years later, Chrome has over 80 million users, a 7.52 percent global market share (21.87 at Ars, making it the second most popular browser here behind Firefox), and is gradually creeping into the mainstream.

It wasn't entirely clear at first if the browser would have real staying power or if it would be cast aside unfinished like so many of Google's other ambitious *cough*Wave*cough* experiments. But Google's commitment hasn't waned, and it's increasingly evident that the browser is an important part of Google's platform strategy and long-term aspirations for the future of the Web. To mark Chrome's second anniversary, Google has announced the official release of Chrome 6, a new major stable version of the browser.

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You can get extra Gmail storage pretty cheaply from Google, but eagle-eyed reader gthing lets us know that you have read access to that storage even after you cancel your subscription. More »

Computers have made to-do list management radically easier, but a to-do list that is anchored to your desk isn't a particularly effective one. This week we want to hear about your favorite mobile to-do list manager. More »

devjj writes "For the past year or so I have been trying (and failing) to figure out a reasonable solution for bringing my large media library to my living room. All of my media lives on an Ubuntu server that sits on my network. It's been very reliable and it's fast enough for streaming purposes. My content is exposed via SMB. It's the living room side where I keep running into problems. I am currently using Windows 7 and XBMC, but the case is too big and noisy, I don't particularly care for Windows, and the whole thing just seems overkill. What I want is a device that can present a decent UI that the non-Slashdot crowd would be able to use, but that is still powerful enough to stream full-fidelity 1080p. I dream of a small box that can transcode video over a network, but that's probably a pipe dream. The new Apple TV would be great if it could connect to network shares. What say you, Slashdot? Is what I'm looking for possible, or should I just give in to the iTunes/Amazon/whatever juggernauts?"

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Microsoft is warning about a new piece of malware, Rogue:MSIL/Zeven, that auto-detects a user's browser and then imitates the relevant malware warning pages from Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome. The fake warning pages are very similar to the real thing; you have to look closely to realize they aren't the real thing. The ploy is a basic social engineering scheme, but in this case the malware authors are relying on the user's trust in their browser, a tactic that hasn't been seen before. 

Beyond the warning pages, the actual malware looks like the real deal: it allows you to scan files, tells you when you're behind on your updates, and enables you to change your security and privacy settings. Performing a scan results in the product finding malicious files, but of course it cannot delete them unless you update, which requires paying for the full version. Attempting to buy the product will open an HTML window that provides a useless "Safe Browsing Mode" with high-strength encryption. To top it all off, the rogue antivirus webpage looks awfully similar to the Microsoft Security Essentials webpage; even the awards received by MSE and a link to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center have been copied.

While the malware is a pretty good attempt, it's not perfect. The goal is to get the user to download and install something, shelling out some cash in the process, which neither of the three browser vendors would ever recommend. The Firefox warning page, meanwhile, has an obvious typo ("Get me our of here"). In addition, it's suspicious that a webpage is going out of its way to tell you it is protecting your purchase. It's also not hard to check that the supposedly detected files do not actually exist on the user's computer. All of these missteps should raise red flags immediately; having said that, we've still not before seen this level of detail and effort from the bad guys.

Malware progress

Just two years ago, a fake malware warning page and a fake antivirus looked like this:

Now, we've got a much more believable malware warning that changes based on which of the top three browsers you are using (compare Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome):

We have a full-blown webpage that tries to sell a fake antimalware product and rips off Microsoft's own offering:

Finally, here's the fake antimalware product which uses various Microsoft security icons:

Malware authors have come a long way recently and this latest effort is worrying because even informed users can easily be tricked by something like this. Thankfully, there's a universal rule that still applies: don't download something simply because a webpage says you should.

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