States Taxing iTunes? »

Economically, things are tight everywhere you look these days and State budgets are feeling the pinch too.  This year, States have seen drastic reductions in collections from income tax (if a person’s income drops, so does their tax), sales tax (people are not buying as much) and property tax.

Well, the Governor of New York is proposing one measure that is sure to get music lovers up in arms: impose a state tax on iTunes and “digitally delivered entertainment services.” Awesome!

Governor Peterson’s proposal still needs the approval of New York State Legislators, but I am sure there are 49 other states paying close attention to the outcome of the iTunes tax bill (or iPod tax, as they are calling it).

So, your $0.99 music download might be going up to $1.06 .  If bills like that are passed, I bet there will be a marked increase in music and movie file sharing.

Koobface Virus Shows Up on Facebook »

Facebook has quickly become one of the most popular Social Networking websites around and that is something that virus writers, hackers and other bad guys have certainly noticed.

There have been reports of those wacky Nigerians hacking into Facebook accounts and impersonating the user to try to scam money from their friends and reports of a Facebook javascript bug.

Now, there are reports of a virus called Koobface in circulation on Facebook.  Here is how it works:

• A hacker infects a Facebook user’s PC
• The hacker then sends messages to the user’s Facebook friends.  The messages say something like “You look just awesome in this new movie” or something seemingly innocent like that.
• A link contained in the message sends the recipient to a website where they are prompted to download a supposed update of Adobe’s Flash Player, so they can “view the video”.
• If the recipient clicks the link, their PC is infected and the cycle continues.

The hackers are taking advantage of the climate of trust the exists on Facebook.  Friends feel that any message they receive from one of their friends on Facebook should be trusted because of the privacy features in place.  We tend to let our guard down and not think that our friend’s account could have been hacked or that a message we receive could contain a malicous virus like Koobface.