Net users resigned to spam

Internet users are not warming up to the spam plague, but are getting used to it, reports BBC.

According to a poll of US Internet users by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 52% of people complain that junk e-mail is a big problem and 28% of users are getting more spam than they did a year ago.

However, the numbers of people saying the deluge of spam made them use e-mail less has shrunk, leading research conductor Deborah Fallows to conclude that people are "just learning to live with it".

Last year the Pew Internet Project found that 29% of people were using e-mail less because spam was such a problem, but this year only 22% of people said they were sending fewer messages because of spam.

The number of those who felt spam made being online unpleasant was also down from 77% last year to 67%.

The report found that the types of spam that people received have changed too. Pornographic spam is being replaced by phishing attempts that try to trick people into handing over financial details.

US universities are turning out some of the worst programmers in their history, reports The Inquirer.

While US universities used to win international programming competitions, they now fail to make even the top 10 in the world finals of the Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest.

The University of Illinois tied for 17th place - the weakest result for the US in the 29-year history of the competition.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University won, followed by Moscow State University and St Petersburg Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics. Ontario`s University of Waterloo came fourth.

According to San Francisco Gate, Asian and Eastern European schools have been scoring increasingly well in the world championship, but a US school hasn`t won since 1997.

Security experts have warned users of an attempt by hackers to access their computers under the guise of a Microsoft security update.

Sophos`s spam labs have intercepted an e-mail campaign intended to direct innocent computer users to a bogus Web site, posing as Microsoft`s official Web site for critical security patches. However, if users follow the links in the e-mail and try download updates from the Web site, they are infected by the Troj/DSNX-05 Trojan horse, which allows hackers to take remote control of the infected PC, reports TechTree.

E-mails sent by the hackers claim to come from "Windows Update" and include subject lines such as "Update your windows machine", "Urgent Windows Update" and "Important Windows Update".

The body of the e-mail claims to link to Microsoft`s Windows Update site but instead links to a Web site under the control of the hackers.