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A few people have noticed Google has been popping up with an interesting error message recently.
When you search on Google, you may get a message that says: "We're sorry, but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application." You are then given a CAPTCHA, which are those distorted letters that you have to decipher and type into a box to ensure the computer you're actually a human.
It's annoying, and it's been popping up more and more recently. Why? Well, no one seems to know exactly why, but Joanne Kubba from Google sent me a link to this blog: http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2007/07/reason-behind-were-sorry-message.html. For those of you who just want the short answer, it all boils down to Google trying to prevent bots, worms and other malware from exploiting its search engine.
OK, fair enough. But is there a less irritating way of doing this? The last thing I want to do in the middle of a search is play "prove-I'm-human" with the computer.
A moment of silence
A lot of technology sites had an interesting news article last week: Gary Gygax, the inventor of Dungeons and Dragons, died at the age of 69. I thought: why is this on the tech page? Then it dawned on me. The geeks who played Dungeons and Dragon when they were kids are the same geeks who work, use and write about technology today. This writer included.
For those of you who don't know, D&D is a role-playing game involving mythical creatures.
But Gygax's real legacy isn't just that he invented a game favoured by teenage boys; it will be that he inspired an industry. The geeks who played D&D were quick to move the game's complicated rules and multi-sided dice on to computers, and the video game industry that exists today wouldn't be the same without Gygax. The entire MMORPG industry, which includes game like World of Warcraft, is little more than D&D moved into the online world. It may be for geeks, but it's still a multi-billion dollar industry. Blizzard Entertainment, the company that produces WoW, saw revenues of over 1.1 billion in 2007.
From now on, my money's going in the mattress
Eva Chen, CEO of the anti-malware company TrendMicro, has an interesting take on a new evil security threat that may be waiting for us: bankers.
Chen pointed out during a phone conversation from Paris that a lot of layoffs have taken place in the financial sector, and the main focus of the layoffs have been traders, possibly with wives and children accustomed to living on six-figure salaries, with a lot of insider information on how the banking systems works. Chen points out during times of recession, crime usually increases as normally honest people try to make ends meet.
While there have been no documented cases of a laid-off banker gone hacker, the fact that Chen was calling from Paris was significant. It was there that a "rogue trader" from Societe Generale was caught trying to hide almost five billion euros in bad trades. That trader wasn't trying to steal, but it shows what a banker can accomplish when he knows how to work the system.
The geeks who played Dungeons and Dragons were quick to move the game's complicated rules and multi-sided dice on to computers.
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