Paul's Tech Talk

Getting Twitter on your Cricket QA30 Hint Phone!!

PaulMay 24, 20094 Replies

So you want to use [intlink id=”3222″ type=”post”]Twitter with Cricket Phones[/intlink]. I have found a few ways to post to Twitter with http://Identi.ca . I can post to twitter with emails going to Identi.ca. They give you a unique email address that you can use to post and You can receive twitter like sms through them. They do have an options for Cricket but again you would have to use email to post but you can receive through text messaging without a problem.

This Phone comes with it’s own Email application so you would just use the phone to do the emailing. I’ve not gotten this phone just yet because Cricket won’t let me test it out but I am going to assume that with this phone having email capabilities, you can get around the twitter problem very easily. You can use Twittermail to send and receive through your email application. You can receive replies to your email address almost instantly.

Unlike Identi.ca, you can only send to Twitter but can’t receive any updates on twitter. You could however start using Identi.ca exclusively but that would be torture because most of your friends are using Twitter. I wish Cricket would let me test this phone out and find out other secrets for my users.

The Motorola Evoke QA4 has an Email application on it too but right now it is $279 and is on pre order. I am expecting this to also be able to send and receive email just like the QA30 Hint from Cricket. If anyone wants to submit a review on either phone just [intlink id=”995″ type=”page”]email me or contact me through other services[/intlink] and I’ll give your credit to the review.

*update*

Looks like Cricket Wireless is providing use with a twitter app call Twit Twit. I haven’t played with it but I find it is at least a nice gesture on their part. If anyone has played with this application, I would like to hear how well this does!!

Upgrading to Twitter Pro — ztrx.net Phishing attempt in the wild!!

PaulMay 23, 2009

I just got this alert from a friend of mine and I thought I would share it with you. It looks like there is a new phishing attempt going on with websites try fool it’s users into going http://ztrx.net and From the looks of it. It looks like this:

[ad]The message some users got were:

Upgrade to Twitter Pro – Visit http://bit.ly/[CENSORED] to upgrade your account

It seems that if you get this message on your account you should report it to @Spam and let them know. If you happen to get given out your password it is strongly recommended that you reset your password to prevent any further unauthorize access to your accounts. You should change your password as soon as possible. This is the first attempt they have tried this this weekend so be on the look out for more phishing attempts.

New Spam Campaign for Cooltweeting.com

PaulMay 23, 20096 Replies

I got an Email that shows that people are giving out there twitter accounts password for a Free Mac book air. I did a Search for cooltweeting.com and well you take a look.

The Site Cooltweeting.com looks to be a phishing for your information by wanting you to do this:

[ad]As you can see this looks pretty simple and some users would think this is true. I do wonder how I am going to receive email from them if they don’t have my email in the first place? You have to read the fine print on this one here I will make it bigger:

You agree to receive emails from trusted 3rd parties containing special offers and promotional emails.

Powered by BrandGivewayCentre.com. BrandGivewayCentre.com is an independent rewards program and not associated with any of the above listed merchants or brands. The above listed merchants or brands in no way endorse or sponsor BrandGivewayCentre.com’s offer and are not
liable for any alleged or actual claims related to this offer. The above listed trademarks and service marks are the marks of their respective owners. BrandGivewayCentre.com is solely responsible for all Gift fulfillment. In order to receive your gift you must: (1) Meet the eligibility requirements (2) complete the rewards bonus survey (3) complete the number of sponsor offers in the redemption instructions
(4) Follow redemption instructions.

As you can see you will have to complete a number of offers to get this macbook. I also check out the source page for this so called page and here is what I find:

Now we see there is a a file on the server called “viraltweets.php” which we can’t access because it is a protected file and even though they say they don’t store this that doesn’t mean they don’t grab your email address and other personal information while they send this tweet out. afterall if you read the fine print, you agree to recieve emails from third parties? which begs the questions how do they get your email and other information? They will get it through your twitter account. As we know the from time to time it isn’t always a good idea to give out your twitter password because it can be easily abused. This is definately just spam. If you do use this page you will probably start getting even more email spam. They obviously have a way to unsubscribe but that usually is used to just confirm you have an email address. I will let you decide if it is worth a macbook or not but you’ll probably have to pay 2 times as much in offers just to get the macbook in the first place.

Personal Antivirus just scareware

PaulMay 22, 200910 Replies

I was going through checking a site brought to my attention from a reader and I went there and yep he told me it might be [intlink id=”3114″ type=”post”]scareware[/intlink] and it was:

If you click “Cancel” or “Ok” you will still get to this page:

[ad]It is on the Malicious site : http://maleware-live-pro-scanv1.com. You can also see it tries to scare you with the tactic of knowing your IP address and where you are in the world, it’s called Geo-ip Location. It tries to convince you have a virus, but in reality it is just trying to scam you out of money. Although if you go to the site you will see that there is no company information. That is the first clue this is a scam or scareware.

Personal Antivirus gets installed in unsuspecting computers by way of exploits, backdoors, Trojans, or unsafe downloading practices. This usually means that if you have it you should remove it by any means necessary because this software has been know to cause more and more trouble as time goes by. This software is fake ware, it tries to tell you have a virus and that they can get rid of it. In fact, this software is not designed with Antivirus engine in it but to illicit pop ups and warning to raise the users security concerns about the computer in question. Downloading programs from bit torrents or other unsafe ways can and most likely will have these types of programs installed alongside the program you wanted.

*[intlink id=”4403″ type=”post”]Personal Antivirus Scareware Site and How to Remove it[/intlink]*

Threat to System : Moderate

[rating:4/5]

Advice : Do a Complete system scan and make sure you don’t have any more hidden malware. Most of the time if you have one Trojan, you usually have more. Personal Antivirus has been know to have some type of program installed on the system in question and should be removed.

I recommend :

[ad#SUPERAntiSpyware]

On a side not, if you are wondering why I think I know I am not infected with these virus for those who are probably asking that question is because I already have a [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]dependable free anti-virus[/intlink] software installed. Don’t forget to visit the Forums for other ways to watch for spyware or scareware. I will always recommend buying antivirus software from vendors you know and not ones that are fly by the night scams.

Facebook and Twitter Phishing going on today!

PaulMay 21, 2009

According to Techcrunch we have one phishing site ground around peoples inboxes on facebook with it say “Check areps.at”. You go to the site and you will think your at the facebook login but your not. I wouldn’t suggest going to any of these sites, it has been reported by Phishtank.

[ad]Some of the sites to avoid today are : “nutpic.at, bests.at, areps.at, kirgo.at” each site will make you think your at facebook but this is what most will call a [intlink id=”3419″ type=”post”]Phishing scam[/intlink]. Some other things to avoid are some Twitter phshing going on today as well.

According to Trend Micro there is one where the url looks like it is a twitter url but isn’t (tvviter[dot]com). The site is what people would call a typosquatting site. This makes people think they are on twitter but aren’t. If you go to these to sites and have given out your passowrd, it is strongly recommended that your reset them:

Facebook password reset page

Twitter password Reset Page

If you would like to know more about what phsihing is please check out my blog for more information. Don’t forget to check out the forums for more information on this or just to talk about anything on your mind.

*Some reports I am seeing is some of these sites might be trying to get you to install the [intlink id=”2249″ type=”post”]Koobface virus [/intlink]so please be careful, will update when I find out more.*