You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz

It was hard to follow tech news this week without getting icky lawyer-stuff all over you. Also: A former high-tech CEO looks for better position in D.C., and Google seeks employees who speak nothing but geek. AT&T filed suit against Verizon, Intel got sued by New York State, an alleged cable modem hacker got indicted, and EMI sued to stop a tiny music Web site from sharing The Beatles' love. Do you have the qualifications to ace this week's quiz?

Now hand over your résumé and begin. 1. The Beatles' music will finally be available in disc-less digital form this December. Give yourself 10 points and a pat on the back for each correct answer. Where will you soon be able to find the Fab Four? a. On Apple's iTunes Storeb. On Verizon phonesd. At BlueBeat.comc. On an apple-shaped USB drive 2. New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is beating on Intel like a drum, accusing the chip giant of all manner of bad behavior.

What's the dispute about? a. Verizon's attempts to wrest the iPhone from AT&T b. AT&T's claim to offer the "fastest 3G network" c. Verizon's exorbitant early termination fees d. Maps 4. Pew Research has conducted a study of the dominant ways people interact. Which of the following is one of the official charges? a. Misleading advertising b. Strong-arming PC makers using bribery and coercion c. Shipping defective merchandise d. Charging exorbitant early termination fees 3. AT&T is suing Verizon. How many days per year, on average, do Americans communicate via cell phone? a. 210 b. 195 c. 125 d. 72 5. Watch your back, Twitter. What's this new blessed blog called? a. TweetBabyJesus b. HeavenlyTwits c. ChristianChirp d. ChristianTwerp 6. "The decisions made in Washington impact every family and every business, of any size, in America. A new microblog has formed and it's apparently got God on its side. Throughout my career, I've brought people together and solved problems, and that is what I plan to do in government: Set aside ego and partisanship and work to develop solutions to our problems." What former high-tech CEO plans to bring the hard-won lessons of business management to Washington, D.C.? a. Jerry Yang b. Carly Fiorina c. Hector Ruiz d. Meg Whitman 7. Alleged cable modem hacker Ryan Harris was indicted this week by federal prosecutors in California.

Which of the following questions is not on Lin's list? a. How many golf balls can fit in a school bus? b. There's a latency problem in South Africa. What is Harris's hacker alias? a. DerCable b. DerEngel c. DerSpiegel d. DerWeinerschnitzel 8. Careers coach Lewis Lin has released a list of 140 questions Google asks of prospective employees. Diagnose it. c. Explain the significance of "dead meat." d. Why are manhole covers round? 9. The Doodle - the six-letter logo that adorns Google's otherwise sparse home page - changed multiple times in the last week to honor various icons of childhood. Add the volume of apps in the iPhone Store, rounded to the nearest large number. Which of the following was not a Google Doodle? a. Wallace and Gromit b. Sesame Street c. Asterix & Obelix d. The Great Pumpkin 10. Take the number of iPhones Apple sold the first weekend it was available in China and multiply by the new early termination fee Verizon plans to charge users of smartphones who bail on their contracts. Download that to your Windows Mobile phone and pray someone will buy you an iPhone for Christmas.

Where will you soon be able to find the Fab Four? What do you get? a. 1,850,000 b. 185,000 c. 18,500 d. 1,850 Answer key Question 1: The Beatles' music will finally be available in disc-less digital form this December. Correct Answer: On an apple-shaped USB drive The digitally remastered tunes will be available from record company EMI on a 16GB key drive shipped in a container made to resemble Apple Corp.'s Granny Smith-style logo. Tomorrow never knows. At press time BlueBeat.com, which was selling Beatles tracks for 25 cents each, found itself sued by EMI. The odds of the site surviving until December?

Question 2: New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is beating on Intel like a drum, accusing the chip giant of all manner of bad behavior. Correct Answer: Strong-arming PC makers using bribery and coercion Cuomo's 83-page complaint echoes what the European Union fined Intel $1.5 billion for, and AMD has been suing Intel over since 2005 - the company kicked back billions to computer makers who agreed to limit the use of AMD chips in their machines, and threatened those who would not be bribed. Which of the following is one of the official charges? Others argue that, with the price of computers plummeting regardless of Intel's bad behavior, the harm to consumers is largely imaginary. Question 3: AT&T is suing Verizon. Looks like somebody's running for governor.

What's the dispute about? AT&T claims the map ad is misleading because it implies AT&T offers no data coverage over much of the United States, when it in fact offers slower 2G service. Correct Answer: Maps More specifically, AT&T is suing Verizon over an ad campaign showing maps of their respective 3G coverage, with Verizon's mostly full and AT&T's nearly empty. Thus suggesting a new AT&T ad slogan: Slow service is better than no service. How many days per year, on average, do Americans communicate via cell phone? Question 4: Pew Research has conducted a study of the dominant ways people interact.

Correct Answer: 195 According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Americans communicate face to face an average of 210 days a year, followed by mobile phones (195 days), texting and landlines (tied at 125), e-mail (72), instant messaging (55), and social networks (39). Their conclusion: Technology is not turning us into hermits. Pew did not release data showing how many people talk on their phones, text, or e-mail during face-to-face meetings. The caveat? Question 5: Watch your back, Twitter. What's this new blessed blog called?

A new microblog has formed and it's apparently got God on its side. Correct Answer: ChristianChirp The service was launched by Net entrepreneur James L. Paris after Twitter allegedly shut down his account temporarily for "posting an article in support of Rush Limbaugh." FYI, Paris's other venture, ChristianMoney.com, aims to "help you make the most of God's money." Because, after all, He's got more money than, well, Himself. Throughout my career, I've brought people together and solved problems, and that is what I plan to do in government: Set aside ego and partisanship and work to develop solutions to our problems." What former high-tech CEO plans to bring the hard-won lessons of business management to Washington, D.C.? Correct Answer: Carly Fiorina The former HP chief confirmed long-standing rumors by officially joining the U.S. Senate race in California. Question 6: "The decisions made in Washington impact every family and every business, of any size, in America. She'll be fighting Republican Assemblyman Chuck Devore for the chance to challenge Senator Barbara Boxer a year from now. Question 7: Alleged cable modem hacker Ryan Harris was indicted this week by federal prosecutors in California.

Considering the shape HP was in when she left, Fiorina might have a better shot running on the Amnesia Party ticket. What is Harris's hacker alias? He's facing up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Correct Answer: DerEngel Harris, author of "Hacking the Cable Modem," has been charged with conspiracy and fraud for allegedly selling software and modded modems that allowed customers to access cable ISPs and/or boost their bandwidth for free. No word yet whether he also plans to run for the Senate in California.

Which of the following questions is not on Lin's list? Question 8: Careers coach Lewis Lin has released a list of 140 questions Google asks of prospective employees. Correct Answer: Explain the significance of "dead meat." The actual question is "Explain the significance of 'dead beef'," the answer to which involves hexidecimal code. So unless you bone up before the interview, you are in fact dead meat. The other questions on Lin's list are equally baffling to the uninitiated. So much for those dreams of a comfortable retirement fueled by Google stock options.

Which of the following was not a Google Doodle? Question 9: The Doodle - the six-letter logo that adorns Google's otherwise sparse home page - changed multiple times in the last week to honor various icons of childhood. Correct Answer: The Great Pumpkin However, which Google Doodle you saw depended on where you were sitting. Question 10: Take the number of iPhones Apple sold the first weekend it was available in China and multiply by the new early termination fee Verizon plans to charge users of smartphones who bail on their contracts. Googlers in the United Kingdom saw Wallace and Gromit (in honor of the animated duo's 20th anniversary). U.S. searchers saw the Doodle visited by the Cookie Monster, Big Bird, and others (Sesame Street turned 40 this week). Ancient Gauls Asterix & Obelix got the Doodle treatment for their 50th anniversary (visible in 43 countries, but not the States). Also in the mix: various Doodles for Halloween and the Day of the Dead (in Mexico). Do you suppose Google has a Chief Doodle Officer, and if so, what kind of questions would you need to answer to get that job? Add the volume of apps in the iPhone Store, rounded to the nearest large number.

What do you get? Download that to your Windows Mobile phone and pray someone will buy you an iPhone for Christmas. Correct Answer: 1,850,000 China Unicom signed up 5,000 new subscribers, or one iPhone for every 263,000 people. (By contrast, Apple sold 1 million 3GS models over a similar time frame in Europe and the United States.) Verizon plans to ding its customers $350 for weaseling out of their commitments, minus $10 for every month they stayed in contract - or roughly double what it charged in the past. So 5K * 350 + 100K = 1,850,000. Subtract the apps related to beer drinking, plastic surgery, or farting, though, and you're down to around 10,000. Come back next week for another gaseous quiz. Apple proudly announced its iPhone Store now serves more than 100,000 apps.

New York Times tricked into serving scareware ad

Scammers tricked the New York Times' Digital Advertising department into placing a malicious ad for fake antivirus software on the NYTimes.com Web site over the weekend, the company confirmed Monday. According to the Times, the scammers initially claimed to be Internet phone provider Vonage, and had placed what appeared to be legitimate Vonage ads on the Web site. The newspaper had warned of the scam advertisement Sunday, after receiving about 100 e-mails from concerned readers.

However, sometime over the weekend, they switched these ads for aggressive pop-up advertisements that tried to trick victims into thinking that their computers were infected. When the complaints started pouring in, the Times first suspected that the ad had been unauthorized, and pulled third-party advertisements from the site. The point of the scam was to sell worried computer users a product called Personal Antivirus, a fake "scareware" product that bombards victims with popup ads until they either hand over their credit card information or somehow manage to remove the program. But on Monday spokeswoman Diane McNulty confirmed that the ad had been submitted directly to the company's online ad department. "The culprit masqueraded as a national advertiser and provided seemingly legitimate product advertising for a week," she said via email. "Over the weekend, the ad being served up was switched so that an intrusive message, claiming to be a virus warning from the reader's computer, appeared. " Technology executive Troy Davis was hit with the ad after he clicked on a Times story about Dubai on Saturday night. This gave the criminals a way to include embedded Web pages in their copy that could be hosted on a completely different server, outside of the control of the Times. After his antivirus software warned him not to visit the article, he performed an analysis of the site and discovered that the Times was allowing advertisers to embed an HTML element known as an iframe into their advertisements.

Apparently the scammers waited until the weekend, when it would be hardest for IT staff to respond, before switching the ad by inserting new JavaScript code into that iframe. It was, of course, all just a fake. That code redirected Davis's browser to the Web site that served a pop-up ad designed to look like a Windows system scan that had found security problems on his system.

Brocade partners with Thales for network-based encryption appliance

Data storage switch maker Brocade Communications Systems Inc. and Thales e-Security Inc. today announced the integration of the Thales Encryption Manager for Storage (TEMS) with the Brocade encryption SAN switches. The new switch centralizes the data encryption process within storage area networks (SANs) by eliminating the need to deploy multiple storage encryption systems in front of primary storage arrays. The combination of TEMS, a standards-based encryption key management appliance for storage, and the Brocade Encryption Switch is aimed at securing enterprise data and addressing regulatory requirements surrounding customer data. The Brocade Encryption Switch and the Brocade FS8-18 Encryption Blade the rebranded Thales TEMS - are part of a family of SAN-based encryption appliances that target sensitive corporate data with high performance and centralized fabric management for both disk and tape-based storage systems.

The TEMS encryption blade supports the draft IEEE P1619.3 key management specification. The new appliance also consolidates and automates the management of encryption keys for storage systems. According to Brocade, subsequent releases will also support the recently announced OASIS KMIP key management standard . Encrypting sensitive information has become a security requirement for organizations across all industries, especially as data breaches continue to make headlines. Pricing for the new appliance was not immediately available. Establishing standards like IEEE P1619.3 and KMIP is a significant first step toward simplifying encryption key management, but it is up to leading vendors to offer solutions that support these standards, said Jon Oltsik, principal analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, in a statement.

University researchers to study video games' affect on health

Nine research teams from universities across the U.S. will study how interactive video games such as the Wii Active could help fight childhood obesity and how mobile phone games could help smokers quit or reduce tobacco use. Lieberman, a leading expert in the research and design of interactive media for learning and health behavior change, said the new interactive gaming studies will provide "cutting-edge, evidence-based strategies that designers will be able to use in the future to make their health games more effective." The nine teams, chosen from among 185 proposals, have been awarded between $100,000 and $300,000 each from $1.85 million in grant money offered by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation . The researchers will lead one- to two-year studies of digital games that engage players in physical activity and/or motivate them to improve how they take care of themselves through healthy changes in lifestyle; prevention behaviors; cognitive, social or physical skills; chronic disease self-management; and/or adherence to a medical treatment plan. The teams will also focus on how video games can be designed to help people change behaviors and self-manage chronic illnesses as well as improve communication with autistic patients. "Digital games are interactive and experiential, and so they can engage people in powerful ways to enhance learning and [change health-related behavior], especially when they are designed on the basis of well-researched strategies," said Debra Lieberman, a communication researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research. For example, the research teams will delve into the popular dance pad video game Dance Revolution to see how it might help Parkinson's patients reduce the risk of falling, or how facial recognition games might be designed to help people with autism better identify others' emotions.

The research teams will study participants' responses to health games played on a variety of platforms, such as video game consoles, computers, mobile phones and robots. "The pace of growth and innovation in digital games is incredible, and we see tremendous potential to design them to help people stay healthy or manage chronic conditions like diabetes or Parkinson's disease. The studies will focus on diverse population groups that vary by race and ethnicity, health status, income level and game-play setting, with age groups ranging from elementary school children to 80-year-olds. However, we need to know more about what works and what does not, and why," Paul Tarini, team director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Pioneer Portfolio, said in a statement. The nine grant recipients are:

Phishers Dangle Some Brand-New Bait

In September 2009, some unlucky visitors at the New York Times Web site clicked on an ad that attempted to install malware. The Times later acknowledged the scam in a posting on its Web site: "Some NYTimes.com readers have seen a pop-up box warning them about a virus and directing them to a site that claims to offer antivirus software.... The advertisement displayed a popup window informing readers that their computer might be infected with a virus; only by purchasing a new antivirus product could they be sure of having a clean system.

If you see such a warning, we suggest that you not click on it. Phishing 2.0 Phishing refers to an attempt to collect usernames, passwords, and credit card data by posing as a legitimate, trusted party. Instead, quit and restart your Web browser." Phishers and scammers use this and other new tactics to deceive unsuspecting victims. Often the deception in­­volves using e-mail sent from a trusted address. Most people wouldn't reveal their social security number or mother's maiden name at a strange site.

Originally, phishing applied to the banking and payment industry only, but now it also covers theft of log-in credentials to games, and personal passwords to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Modern browsers and security software flag such content and ask you whether you're sure you want to send it; some block it with a red-and-black warning label. Fake Antivirus Software an Emerging Problem Rogue antivirus products are among the latest phishing in­­struments to appear, and many are quite convincing. So phishers have adopted new tactics. Bearing names like Antivirus 2009, AntiVirmin 2009, and AntiSpyware 2009, they have interfaces similar to those of real antivirus apps.

Such ac­­tions by phishing malware are fairly common. Some rogue antivirus products have their own keywords on search engines and cite fake reviews recommending them (including one that I supposedly wrote). The rogue antivirus product that showed up on the New York Times site installed malware that, if executed, would have lowered the security settings in Internet Explorer, run executable files, and altered the system Registry. The real security apps knew it, too: Legitimate antivirus vendors AVG, Comodo, Kaspersky, McAfee, Microsoft, Nod32, and Sophos, (among others) detected this particular piece of malware within the first few hours. In this "chat-in-the-middle" attack, as soon as the victim en­­ters a user name and password at the designated online site, a chat window opens up and a scammer posing as a customer service rep at the bank requests additional personal information to confirm the identity of the account holder. Customer-Service Fakes Another phishing gambit is a variation on an old scam: The crooks mass-mail a seemingly personalized e-mail message, ostensibly from a bank, containing a fake online chat option. By providing these details, the victim gives the thief crucial data.

Jon Miller, director of Accuvant Labs, a security consulting firm that works with Fortune 500 companies and several U.S. government contractors, says that the New York Times incident isn't unusual. Small Potatoes Roger Thompson, chief research officer at AVG, says rogue antivirus products are common: "The bad guys are clearly making money at it." Besides benefiting up front by selling the rogue antivirus product, they collect credit card information for future identity fraud. Further, he notes that he has seen an upsurge in the use of malware tailored to customers of particular banks and other financial institutions. For phishing attacks such as fake chat sessions and fake keywords, AVG's Thompson says, users need to develop a healthy dose of skepticism, and learn how to kill the browser using Task Manager. Protect Yourself AVG makes a free product called LinkScanner that blocks new phishing attacks, yet allows users to safely view any site.

That won't stop Web-based exploits, but it will give you a way to defeat social engineering attacks. Accuvant's Miller recommends several common-sense antiphishing strategies: