Invaders from the Pepper Planet (and Others)
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Analysts at SophosLabs, the research arm of antivirus software vendor Sophos, have discovered a spyware-borne Trojan, dubbed Troj/Erazer-A, that seeks out and destroys movie and music files that it suspects to be illegal copies transmitted via peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks.
The Trojan looks through P2P file sharing folders, seeking out formats such as AVI, MP3, MPEG, WMV, GIF, and ZIP. When it finds these files, it wipes them out and places a copy of itself in the folder, using tempting names such as game.exe, goporn.exe, nero7.exe, and officexpcrack.exe, according to Sophos.
"The Erazer Trojan is a vigilante worthy of a Charles Bronson movie, taking the law into its own hands. However, it's perfectly possible for the Trojan to aim poorly and wipe out innocent files, too," says Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "Malware is not the way to fight Internet piracy."
Laura Rowley had a well-written article published at Yahoo! Finance, titled "What I Wish I Knew Then About Home Buying", acting like writting a letter the homebuyer she was four years ago. Among the valuable points are: "know the asking and selling prices and key features of neighboring homes", "look at the bones of the place and the layout", "buy something you can potentially live in forever, rather than a starter home", "take the 15-year mortgage", and "do a little more research on the schools before you buy".
The full article is here.