Symantec has announced that online criminals have started to remotely redirect your home network router’s DNS server so that whenever you type in a financial institution or other trusted site, your browser will instead be redirected to a bogus or phishing Web site.

The practice, called pharming, usually attacks the DNS servers directly, but this latest attack brings it all home (if you are using broadband connectivity). Fortunately, the routers and institutions affected by this current attack are limited to one country, Mexico, but Symantec warns that word of this real-world attack could bring similar attacks elsewhere…

According to a blog by Zulfikar Ramzan, a researcher at Symantec, “the attackers embedded the malicious code inside an e-mail that claimed it had an e-card waiting for you at the Web site gusanito.com. Unfortunately the e-mail also contained an HTML IMG tag that resulted in an HTTP GET request being made to a router (the make of which is a popular router model in Mexico). The GET request modified the router’s DNS settings so that the URL for a popular Mexico-based banking site (as well as other related domains) would be mapped to an attacker’s Web site.”

Change the password out of the box. Change the password out of the box!

There is no patch for stupidity in any country.

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Three Little Pigs ‘too offensive’

A story based on the Three Little Pigs has been turned down from a government agency’s annual awards because the subject matter could offend Muslims.

The digital book, re-telling the classic fairy tale, was rejected by judges who warned that “the use of pigs raises cultural issues”.

Becta, the government’s educational technology agency, is a leading partner in the annual schools award.

The judges also attacked Three Little Cowboy Builders for offending builders.

Scott Seigal was awakened one recent early morning by a cell phone text message. It was from his girlfriend’s mother…

His friends’ parents have posted greetings on his MySpace page for all the world to see. And his 72-year-old grandmother sends him online instant messages every day so they can better stay in touch while he’s at college…

Increasingly, however, he and other young people are feeling uncomfortable about their elders encroaching on what many young adults and teens consider their technological turf…

Gary Rudman, a California-based youth market researcher, has heard the complaints. He regularly interviews young people who think it’s “creepy” when an older person — we’re talking someone they know — asks to join their social network as a “friend.” It means, among other things, that they can view each others’ profiles and what they and their friends post.

“It would be like a 40-year-old attending the prom or a frat party,” Rudman says. “It just doesn’t work.”

Are you the Creeper or the Creeped?

FOXNews.com

Is it Bigfoot? A Tusken Raider from the first “Star Wars” movie? Or just a rock? British newspapers went crazy Wednesday morning about an image from Mars that appears to show a humanoid figure descending a shallow hillside. The “alien” is actually a blurry detail in a huge panoramic photograph snapped on the edge of Mars’ Gusev crater by NASA’s Spirit rover in early November, and posted on NASA’s Web site on Jan. 2. Naturally, it took the Photoshop skills of dedicated bloggers to find the “humanoid.” “NASA scientists have been puzzled by the peculiarly life-like image,” declared the Times of London, despite the apparent fact that no one from NASA has had any comment. The skeptical Web site BadAstronomy.com, however, scoffed, “Puhlllleeeeze. A man? It’s a tiny rock only a few inches high. It’s only a few feet from the rover!”

Yes, its alien conspiracy day on DU. The original NASA photo is here. You can zoom in and spot the Martian! Hint: its in the group of rocks on the bottom left side.

Interviewers with the Mutual UFO Network met with about 200 people who said they saw something mysterious in the night skies over Stephenville in late December and early January…

While members of the organization met Saturday with the witnesses, at least a couple hundred onlookers gathered as well, some wearing aluminum-foil hats.

Several dozen people — including a pilot, county constable and business owners — insist they have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it…

Homeland Insecurity wins again. They chased ’em away.

London’s East End is notorious for its criminals, from serial murderer Jack the Ripper to mobsters the Kray twins.

The latest candidate for this rogue’s gallery is Janet Devers, a 63-year-old woman who runs a vegetable stall at Ridley Road market. Her alleged crime: selling goods only by the pound and the ounce.

Ms. Devers, whose stall has been in the family for 60 years, faces 13 criminal charges stemming from not selling her produce by the kilogram and the gram. She stands accused of breaking a European Union-instigated rule that countries must use metric measures to standardize trade. The rest of Europe is metric…

“It’s disgusting,” said Ms. Devers of the charges. “We have knifings. We have killings,” she said. “And they’re taking me to court because I’m selling in pounds and ounces.”

And, equally illegally, in bowls. Ten of the counts against her relate to purveying produce, such as hot Scotch-bonnet peppers, by the bowl.

Detailed and infuriating tale. She faces $130,000 in fines. These clowns must have learned their law from the RIAA.

Thanks, Helen

Three men were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of involvement in an armed robbery and bomb scare in the Swedish west- coast city Gothenburg earlier in the day. Police chief Krister Jacobsson described the overnight heist of the city’s main post terminal as “spectacular,” and said it caused major disruptions for commuters and inhabitants…

Several cars were set ablaze on nearby access roads after the suspects fled. Several suspicious devices including a box marked “bomb” were also spotted.

The robbers also spread metal spikes at several locations, likely to prevent pursuing vehicles.

Police believed at least 10 people took part in the robbery and that five vehicles were set ablaze, said Klas Friberg, who is leading the investigation for the Gothenburg police….

At least the Swedish coppers didn’t find it necessary to reassure a supposedly trembling public that the thieves were not terrorists.

Click for larger.

Given that she describes herself as a human pet – and is happy to walk around on a lead – Tasha Maltby is used to odd looks and even odder remarks. But nothing had prepared her for the reaction of the bus driver who allegedly told the self-styled Goth and her boyfriend: “We don’t let freaks and dogs like you on.” Miss Maltby and her fiance Dani Graves were so angered they have complained to the bus company of being “victimized”.

“It is definitely discrimination, almost like a hate crime,” 19-year-old Miss Maltby said yesterday. The music technology student had this defense of her lifestyle.

“I am a pet, I generally act animal like and I lead a really easy life,” she said. “I don’t cook or clean and I don’t go anywhere without Dani. It might seem strange but it makes us both happy. It’s my culture and my choice. It isn’t hurting anyone.” The bus driver, however, has obviously not been listening. He has repeatedly refused to allow Mr Graves, 25, and his “pet” on to his bus in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Last month, with Miss Maltby on a leash as usual, the couple tried to board a bus at the bus station. The driver, who was off duty, was standing near the door. Mr Graves alleged: “He shoved me off the bus. He called us freaks and he called Tasha a dog.

An insult to dogs everywhere, Woof!

Thanks to Ian Warner

Scotland is considering lobbying the United States to lift a ban on haggis, hoping to boost sales of the sheep-stomach-based national dish.

Wild Haggis

The U.S. banned imports of Scottish haggis after Britain’s outbreak of mad cow disease, which is linked to the human brain illness Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

Scotland’s government insist its haggis — which usually contains the heart, liver and lungs wrapped inside a sheep’s stomach lining — is safe and wants the ban lifted.

For Hogmany or Burns night, I usually rely on my Canadian kin – or a reliable smuggler in Boston. :)

Within minutes of posting a story on CNN’s homepage called “Gender or race: Black women voters face tough choices in South Carolina,” readers reacted quickly and angrily.

Many took umbrage at the story’s suggestion that black women voters face “a unique, and most unexpected dilemma” about voting their race or their gender…

The story states: “For these women, a unique, and most unexpected dilemma, presents itself: Should they vote their race, or should they vote their gender?”

An e-mailer named Tiffany responded sarcastically: “Duh, I’m a black woman and here I am at the voting booth. Duh, since I’m illiterate I’ll pull down the lever for someone. Hm… Well, he black so I may vote for him… oh wait she a woman I may vote for her… What Ise gon’ do? Oh lordy!”

Tiffany urged CNN to “pull this racist crap off” the Web site and to stop calling Hillary the “top female candidate.”

“Stop calling Barack the “Black” candidate,” she wrote.

Bravo, Tiffany. I wish we had html for “sarcasm”.

There were rumours sweeping the markets all morning of a looming interest rate cut from the US. And the confirmation of that speculation is intrinsically disturbing: though some investors will have made a killing…

It hasn’t cut rates as much as three quarters of a percentage point for as long as I can remember. And it made the decision to slash a week before its scheduled meeting. If it looks like panic at the Fed, smells like panic at the Fed, and quacks like panic at the Fed, well many will say it is panic at the Fed.

And what if the evasive action doesn’t work..?

Calloo, Callay, O frabjous day.

Let’s all run out and buy a house. Or two!