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Facebook Permanately Deletes Social Fixer’s Page

By Christine Hall on September 12, 2013 |

Browsers, Internet, News and

Facebook Permanately Deletes Social Fixer’s PageSocial Fixer's Matt Kruse

More bad news for Matt Kruse, the developer of the popular Social Fixer plugin that gives users some control on how their Facebook displays on their computer, as well as giving them some special features.

I told you on September 3rd that the plugin’s Facebook page had been removed without warning. At that time, Mr. Kruse was in the process of “appealing” Facebook’s decision–if that’s the proper word. While the social site did offer-up a button to click to request that Facebook reconsider their opinion, that was it. No text box to plead one’s case was offered.

As of yesterday, the page has been completely removed for violating “community standards.”

Continue readingFacebook Permanately Deletes Social Fixer’s Page

Phishing Scam Masquerades As LinkedIn Connection Request

By FOSS Force on September 5, 2013 |

Internet, News and Security

We’ve noticed in the last week there’s a new email phishing campaign that uses emails masquerading as LinkedIn connection requests.

Although most tech savvy users long ago learned email best security practices (don’t click on links in emails unless you’re absolutely sure you know the source of the email), sometimes we get lulled into complacency and automatically click on links from trusted sources.

Continue readingPhishing Scam Masquerades As LinkedIn Connection Request
Social Fixer’s Facebook Page RemovedSocial Fixer's Facebook graphic

Social Fixer’s Facebook Page Removed

By Christine Hall on September 3, 2013 |

Browsers, Internet, News and

Beginning yesterday, users of Social Fixer have been greeted by an announcement when they log onto Facebook, informing them that the popular browser extension’s Facebook page has been removed without warning.

Social Fixer, a plugin that works with most browsers, allows users to change how their Facebook newsfeed and other pages are displayed and how they operate. Although very popular, the extension has always been a thorn in Facebook’s side. It’s not surprising that Zuckerberg and his minions would now find even less to like about the plugin, since Wall Street has been prodding them to get serious about monetizing the massive amount of traffic that flows through the social network.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingSocial Fixer’s Facebook Page Removed
And the Best FOSS or Linux Blog Is…FOSS Force Best Blog--2013 Award

And the Best FOSS or Linux Blog Is…

By FOSS Force on August 26, 2013 |

Internet, Media and Polls

In this competition there’s a winner but no losers.

Although only one site gets to call themselves the “FOSS Force Best FOSS or Linux Blog–2013” winner, in reality everybody in the competition has won.

Today we are announcing the winner from a field of ten great blogs, all of which have already won our elimination round. Before that there were 19 truly great blogs in our competition, nine of which had been chosen by visitors to our site, the other ten being hand-picked by us here at FOSS Force as a way of getting things going. They are all winners just by dint of being in the running.

Continue readingAnd the Best FOSS or Linux Blog Is…
TOR Case Appears to Be Infringement of RightsTor Logo

TOR Case Appears to Be Infringement of Rights

By Christine Hall on August 8, 2013 |

Internet, News and Security

I shouldn’t have to say this, but child pornographers and users of child porn are scum and deserve just about any sentence meted out to them. This absolutely doesn’t mean, however, that we willy-nilly throw their rights out the window in order to catch them. Remember, in the United States we still claim to believe in the concept of “innocent until proven guilty.” If they forgot to teach you that in school, Google it. Try “Bill of Rights” as your search term.

With that out of the way, let’s get into our story…

Tor LogoIt appears more and more that the malware caper discovered this weekend on the TOR network was all about harvesting MAC (media access control) addresses. We’ll probably never know the whole story of who’s behind this, but we’re getting enough pieces so that we can hobble together a broad picture of what happened.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingTOR Case Appears to Be Infringement of Rights
Is the NSA Targeting TOR?NSA hacks TOR

Is the NSA Targeting TOR?

By Christine Hall on August 7, 2013 |

Internet, News and Politics

I like the expression, “Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water.” I almost used it to open this article, but I didn’t. It would be inaccurate. Nobody in his right mind would consider the Internet waters safe at this junction in time.

Today while surfing tech sites looking for items for our news feed, I ran across an item on the Beeb titled Users of hidden net advised to ditch Windows, with the “hidden net” being TOR. Since it always brightens my day to discover some security geek has found yet more vulnerabilities in Redmond’s finest, I checked out the news item.

It wasn’t what I thought. TOR was singling-out Windows not because of any newfound security issues with Redmond’s operating system, but because TOR had been compromised with malware that was specifically designed to infect Windows machines.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingIs the NSA Targeting TOR?
MIT Reviews Aaron Swartz, Google’s 100 Million Takedowns & More…DMCA

MIT Reviews Aaron Swartz, Google’s 100 Million Takedowns & More…

By FOSS Force on August 2, 2013 |

Business, Copyright, Hardware, Internet, Media, Mobile, News, Patents, Politics, Security and

FOSS Week in Review

USPTO shoots down Apple patent

There seems to be more than enough tit-for-tat to go around in the ongoing patent battle between Apple and Samsung. If we wanted to be snarky, we’d say we haven’t seen this much legal maneuvering since the last days of the Beatles and the “sue me, sue you blues.”

Continue readingMIT Reviews Aaron Swartz, Google’s 100 Million Takedowns & More…
Eolas Doesn’t Own Internet, Ubuntu Hacked & More…Ubuntu Edge

Eolas Doesn’t Own Internet, Ubuntu Hacked & More…

By FOSS Force on July 26, 2013 |

Business, Distros, Hardware, Internet, Mobile, News, Patents and Politics

FOSS Week in Review

Ubuntu Edge–computing on the go-go

Probably the biggest news in all of tech this week, not just the FOSS world, came with Canonical’s announcement on Monday of the Ubuntu Edge. In case you’ve been away camping somewhere all week, the Edge is a hybrid device that can function both as a high end smartphone, running either Android or Ubuntu Touch, or it can be hooked up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse to work as a conventional PC running Ubuntu Linux.

That news alone would be dumbfounding enough, but as the pitchman on TV always says, “Wait! There’s more…”

Continue readingEolas Doesn’t Own Internet, Ubuntu Hacked & More…
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