A self-replicating worm Linden Labs dubbed “grey goo” overtook online game Second Life Sunday, forcing the game’s owners to block all logins but their own for about half an hour. According to comments on the company’s blog, the worm planted spinning gold rings in the world. Perhaps a Pavlovian response by fans of Sega’s old Sonic the Hedgehog game, or an indication of the general curious nature of people playing Second Life, players willingly interacted with the objects, spreading the worm even further. As the worm spread, players reported serious lag in the game.

News source: Security Blog

Google accidentally sent out e-mail containing a mass mailing worm to about 50,000 members of an e-mail discussion list focused on its Google Video Blog, the company said Tuesday.

“On Tuesday evening, three posts were made to the Google Video Blog-group that should not have been posted,” Google said in a statement, posted late Tuesday night.

“Some of these posts may have contained a virus called W32/Kapser.A@mm — a mass mailing worm. If you think you have downloaded this virus from the group or an e-mail message, we recommend you run your antivirus program to remove it,” said the statement, which was attributed to the Google Video Team.

W32/Kasper.A@mm is better known as the Kama Sutra worm. Discovered in January of this year, it deletes files and registry keys on affected systems. It is blocked by most antivirus software.

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News source: PCWorld

Several MySpace pages offer what appear to be YouTube videos that trigger the installation of adware when played, a security company has warned.

The sexually explicit videos can be found on a number of user pages on the MySpace social-networking Web site, Websense said in an alert Monday. They look like YouTube videos, but are in fact hosted on a copycat “Yootube.info” Web site, Websense said. That Web site was still online as of Tuesday evening.

“When users click on the video, they are directed to a copy of the video,” Websense said. People are then redirected to the Windows Media Player, which will pop up a license agreement with installation of an adware program called Zango Cash, it said.

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News source: c|net

Microsoft Corp. will unlock the digital-distribution capabilities of its next-generation console, Xbox 360, to Hollywood studios beginning November 22.

Xbox 360 gamers in the U.S., totaling at least 3 million, will be able to purchase TV shows and download them to their gaming hard drive as well as rent and watch movies on their consoles.

The first wave of content will include dozens of high-definition and standard-definition offerings from such partners as Warner Bros. (“Batman Forever,” “V for Vendetta,” “The Nine”), Paramount Pictures (“Nacho Libre,” “Jackass: The Movie”), MTV Networks (“South Park,” “SpongeBob SquarePants”), CBS (“CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “Survivor”) and Turner Broadcasting (“Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” “Robot Chicken”).

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News source: Washington Post

Following the lead of rivals Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., top Internet search engine Google Inc. on Thursday is expected to release a downloadable version of its Gmail email feature for cell phones.

The free software, to be available only in the U.S., is compatible with more than 300 cell phones, and can be downloaded by pointing a phone’s Web browser to gmail.com/app or by text messaging the software to a phone from a personal computer.

Unlike its wired Web version, cell phone Gmail does not come accompanied by ads.
“We want to provide relevance and targeted ads, but with a cell phone’s small screen and all that, it’s tricky,” said Tony Hsieh, a product manager with Google’s mobile team.

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News source: MarketWatch.com

Electronic Arts Inc. is taking the wraps off of a major overhaul to its download service for computer games, signaling the largest video game publisher’s commitment to the growing trend of online distribution.

The Redwood City-based company said it plans to officially announce the new portal, EA Link, on Friday, though the retooled service was running Wednesday.

It replaces an earlier service called EA Downloader, the company’s admittedly clunky year-old effort at offering downloadable content for its PC games.

With EA Link users can download materials faster, search for products in a more organized fashion, launch purchased games directly, and have their payment information, including a new online payment option through PayPal, linked to their accounts.

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News source: NewsVine.com

In celebration of Halloween and trick-or-treaters everywhere, I’ve put together a list of the top 13 online destinations, search engines and services I’ve found over the past week which specialize in the October holiday.

Top 13 Halloween Sites, Searches and Destinations:

1. Yahoo’s Halloween 2.0 : Yahoo was the first of the major search engines to switch over to a Halloween logo a day early, on the 30th (for mischief night?) and has set up a special Halloween section of Yahoo with scary Podcasts, top scary movies, Halloween photo uploads from Flickr, and Yahoo Games especially for the witching hour.

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News source: Search Engine Journal

Internet Explorer 7 is designed to make browsing safer. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the new security features, including Active X opt-in, the Phishing Filter, cross-domain security, enhanced privacy protection, and an international character alert.

Some sensationalistic reports of a security flaw immediately followed Internet Explorer 7’s final release, but the vulnerability turned out to be in Outlook Express rather than IE. In fact, Microsoft has put a great deal of effort into making IE 7 more secure. Here are some of the new IE 7 security features and what they can do for you.

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News source: TechRepublic

A network administrator for a peer-to-peer Internet file-sharing system has been sentenced to five months in prison for copyright infringement.

Grant T. Stanley, 23, was also given five months of home detention, three years of supervised probation and a $3,000 fine for his role in the Elite Torrents service, which used a sharing technology known as BitTorrent. Stanley, who had pleaded guilty to copyright-related charges, was sentenced Oct. 17.

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News source: Washington Post

The award-winning Web browser is now faster, more secure, and fully customizable to your online life. With Firefox 2, we’ve added powerful new features that make your online experience even better.

Download: FireFox 2.0 (Windows, English 5.6MB)
View: FireFox Homepage