YahLover

- First of all, don't visit the url included in green in this post! Do visit this link for more information on this trojan called YahLover and get the latest Panda Antivirus + Firewall 2008 to protect your computer.

My Egyptian friends (2 of them) sent me theses messages in what seemed to be Vietnamese, with the same link:

" Tha nguoi dung noi se yeu minh toi mai thoi thi gio day toi se vui hon. Gio nguoi lac loi buoc chan ve noi xa xoi, cay dang chi rieng minh toi... http://chendang.net/nguyen/"

" Nha'm chen dang an ti`nh nay ma lo`ng nguoi nao co hay !!! Van biet yeu thuong la` tro` dua` ma` minh van me say ;))... http://chendang.net/nguyen/ "

"Me kiep ghet nhat la thang nao` ma` choi con virut do' , ai bi vao day xoa no nhe'... http://chendang.net/nguyen/ "

"Bay gio` bu`n wa' chang biet lam gi` , gui? ta.ng ba kon trang nay vao choi... http://chendang.net/nguyen/ "

"Tha nguoi dung noi se yeu minh toi mai thoi thi gio day toi se vui hon. Gio nguoi lac loi buoc chan ve noi xa xoi, cay dang chi rieng minh toi... http://chendang.net/nguyen/ "

"Con gai nha ai ma` xinh the ko biet nua~ , dep ghe vao day di ... http://chendang.net/nguyen/"

I actually went into a Vietnamese chatroom to find someone to translate it for me... And guess what I did find someone and he did do his best to help me "understand" what it was all about. You don't need to know what the text says but all you need to know is not to click on this link since if your computer is not well enough protected you will get "infected" and you'll be the next one spreading this worm. Apparently, it's called Yahlover !

The sole purpose of the website you reach by clicking the link is to infect your computer and use your Yahoo messenger friends list to spread itself. It's very annoying, especially for your friends they might get sick of receiving all those phony messages from you and if you don't solve the problem quick enough... they might even be tempted to ignore you...

I've received those messages from two of my friends without them being aware of it, something like that happened to me briefly in the past but this one contact has been sending those messages to me over and over again even when I'm offline... He's thinking about reinstalling his OS... drastic measures!

I don't understand to point of such creation. I even less understand why yahoo has not done anything against it.

Tags: yahoo messenger , virus, worm, chendang.net

Crisscross Network

I've [finally] found another website to meet people online for free, Crisscross Network. It allows you to have a detailed profile with photos. You also can search their database to find people you'd be interested in. The "network" side of it allows you to add people as contacts/friends. It reminds me of Friendster except that it's much more sober and it's not designed to build a network with people you already know but to actually find new people. At the time of writing this, the service is 100% free and without any ads.

As for my own [unusual] experience with it. I joined, created my brief-not-well-thought-out-photoless profile and within minutes (or was it hours???) someone wrote me. On the very first day we wrote each other twice, promising isn't it?

What does the Crisscoss website have that the others don't? First of all, it's free, many website will offer you the exact same service only with a paid membership. It's not crowded with commercials like many other sites offering these services for free. It's coupled with a news site from which you can get news from the USA or Japan. You can write down your goals and check when you've achieved them. I'm only discovering the features since I've only been a member for a few days but the interaction among the members seems promising.


Tags: crisscross friends

Friendster, Hi5 and Orkut

Have you ever heard of Hi5? No? Maybe you've heard of Friendster? Neither? Orkut maybe? Nay? You're kidding right....

They are social networking websites. They typically allow you to have a profile, a photo album, an online journal etc... Their particularity lies in the fact that you can "connect" to your friends and your friends’ friends hence the networking part. As far as the networking part is concerned, those sites are very powerful, amazingly powerful. You're wondering what this old school buddy of yours you haven't seen in over 10 years have become? Chances are he kept in touch with someone who's a relative of a good friend of one of your friends’ friends and he's connected to him on Hi5 or Friendster and what do you know, while you're browsing your friend's friends' network you come across his profile and that's where you see he's grown a full beard and has married his long time girlfriend -or whatever it is that you find out that he's been up to-

I have a Friendster account and not one but two Hi5 accounts and also an Orkut account - thank you Dozy ;) -.

Most of my friends as in real life friends from Haiti are on Hi5. In fact there is a really large number of Haitians on Hi5, young, old, if they have an email that they actually use, it is very likely that they are also on Hi5 where they usually take the time to put a few pictures and write about themselves, it's amazing I've come across profiles of old classmates I had not seen in years.... If you are Haitian Hi5 is the social networking site for you.

Friendster? It’s more of the same but where are the Haitians? They’re all on Hi5 so you will find very few of them on Friendster. Of all the people located in Haiti that are on Friendster the vast majority is not Haitian.

I've come to Friendster completely by "accident" and if you go on my profile now you'll see that I don't even have a single friend but and it's a major BUT, somehow I managed to meet one person on there. Actually I probably should say, somehow someone managed to find me... I've only been contacted by a few people on Friendster, a hand is too much to count them but only one actually was interested in staying in touch with me and ultimately meeting me! He's from Sri Lanka and he's working here in Haiti. We communicate mostly via email. We're supposed to meet in the weeks to come. - Don’t get any ideas now…-

Nevertheless, those websites are not for meeting people - even if they claim otherwise-, yes it might happen since they allow you not only to view the profiles of other members but also to contact them and all this absolutely free. The only "problem" is that most of those members are not there to meet new people. No, they are there to keep in touch with their friends, people they already know. Therefore, if you try initiating contact with a person you do not know he/she will most likely not answer you or respond negatively. On Hi5 I never accept requests or answer messages from people I don't recognize unless it's a woman.

As for Orkut, it's a quite "closed" environment and I've not seem advertisement so it's rather sober. I've not been an Orkut member for long but I have one friend and as you've guessed it, it's Dozy. Also I've come across Sudhu's profile -how? I don't remember- but he is distantly connected to me via Dozy's network, which means he knows people who know people who know people [...] who know Dozy, at least that's what Orkut says.

Of the people I've mentioned on this blog, you can spot Nick on Friendster, Sudhu on Orkut, Dozy on Orkut and Hi5 , Basam on Hi5, Ravi on Hi5.