More Malware Fun

Dan Goodin, over at Ars Technica’s Risk Assessment, writes about a fun new way jerky hackers want to jank up your computer. An analytics company had their server hacked, presumably by a password-reset spear fishing scheme. This allowed the bad guys to insert code into an analytics package that loads in the background to collect information and track how ads are tracked when you click around the internet. Scary stuff.

On top of that, NanoCore runs only on Windows, so people visiting on machines running other operating systems were immune to the attack.

Phew. I’m safe.

I know that Macs aren’t totally immune to malware and viruses, but I sure do read a lot about issues that only affect Windows. This kind of crap, not the ads, is why the smart money is on selective content blockers, not ad blockers.

UPDATE: Over at Daring Fireball, John Gruber notes that this affected nocturnal readers of the Economist website.

That's A Lot of Plusses!

Paul Thorrott, on his Supersite for Windows:

I’ve often described Windows 8 as Windows 7++, because — and contrary to a peculiarly widespread belief — it’s really just a combination of everything that’s great about Windows 7 plus a ton of new desktop improvements, all tied to a new mobile OS I still call Metro. On that note, Blue is Windows 8++: It’s Windows 8 plus a ton of improvements

So, if we’re doing the math correctly, Windows Blue is just Windows 7++++. Or is it Windows 7+16? I don’t know if we add or multiply made up modifiers.