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YouTube sues user who extorted others through fake takedown requests
A lawsuit filed by YouTube yesterday claims that a user abused its copyright infringement reporting system to extort fellow YouTubers and carry out a swatting attack. YouTube alleges that Christopher Brady, of Omaha, Nebraska, filed dozens of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices, which falsely claimed that materials posted by other users infringed his copyrights. Not only were the takedown notices bogus, they were allegedly part of Brady's plan to extort money from those users.
Researchers out faux product review groups with a lot of math and some help from Google
Ever consulted a crowdsourced review for a product or service before committing your hard-earned funds to the cause? Have you wondered how legit the opinions you read really are? Well, it seems that help is on the way to uncover paid opinion spamming and KIRF reviews. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have released detailed calculations in the report Spotting Fake Reviewer Groups in Consumer Reviews -- an effort aided by a Google Faculty Research Award. Exactly how does this work, you ask? Using the GSRank (Group Spam Rank) algorithm, behaviors of both individuals and a group as a whole are used to gather data on the suspected spammers. Factors such as content similarity, reviewing products early (to be most effective), ratio of the group size to total reviewers and the number of products the group has been in cahoots on are a few bits of data that go into the analysis. The report states, "Experimental results showed that GSRank significantly outperformed the state-of-the-art supervised classification, regression, and learning to rank algorithms." Here's to hoping this research gets wrapped into a nice software application, but for now, review mods may want to brush up on their advanced math skills. If you're curious about the full explanation, hit the source link for the full-text PDF.
Apple references bogus devices in iOS 5.1B1 config file
Apple is getting crafty and peppering an iOS 5.1B1 config file with references to fake devices. These bogus devices were discovered in the USBDeviceConfiguration.plist file and first reported by 9to5Mac. The file is reportedly one that many sleuths examine when they're looking for new device information hidden in iOS. These bogus references are meant to thwart developers from looking any further, but it will probably have the opposite effect. Most developers will have a good chuckle at these fake devices and turn towards the lower level files where the real information can be found.
EnergyStar program certifies 'gasoline-powered alarm,' other imaginary abominations
It'd be pretty difficult for you to reach Engadget without having seen the EnergyStar logo on something along your way here. Whether it was as part of your motherboard's bootup sequence or on the box of your new TFT monitor, EnergyStar certification has become a de facto standard for most electronics being manufactured nowadays. What you might not have known -- but probably could have guessed -- is that the process for obtaining that sticker is far from bulletproof. The American Government Accountability Office has recently done a bit of spy work by putting forward imaginary products and false claims to the validating authority, and regrettably found its bogus items "mostly approved without a challenge." The auditors' conclusion was that the program is "highly vulnerable to fraud," and the stuff they've had certified would seem to corroborate that verdict. Hit up the Times article for the full story of governmental incompetence while the Department of Energy -- the body responsible for running the program -- tries to get its act straightened out. [Thanks, Adam]
A "plastic bag" or "an iPad case"? You be the judge.
I was surfing on Amazon over the weekend and decided to see what would come up when I searched for "iPad". One of the first results was: TrendyDigital WaterGuard Waterproof Case/Cover for Apple iPad, Blue Border and what caught my attention was that it only had one star. That seemed pretty severe, given that the iPad was only available for pre-order on Friday. How could an accessory already be getting bad reviews?! The answer? Amazon reviewer ffass from Brooklyn, NY United States gave it a one-star review because "This appears to be a $20 plastic bag. Very trendy, indeed." ffass went on to say: "Wow. 'TrendyDigital' hopes that hyperventilating iPad users will be crazed enough to by [sic] this $20 bag for their spiffy new gadgets. Give me a break." Sure enough, that's what it looks like, although to be fair it also has a strap to "wear around neck or shoulder." The product description says it is a "Great companion when you use your Ipad [sic] at the beach, near the pool side, in the bathtub or at the kitchen table." One man's "plastic bag" is another man's "custom-made form fitting transparent case" and these are the distinctions which make marketing the multi-billion dollar industry that it is. I learned from Neven Mrgan than you can, in fact, use an iPhone in a plastic bag (useful for checking recipes on your iPhone while cooking), so it is possible that this "WaterGuard" case would work just fine. What strikes me as odd is that when I went back to look today, the review no longer appears on the product page. If I go to fass' profile page, the review and rating still appear, but if you click through to the product page it says "No customer reviews yet." I can't offer any explanation for this, and I wouldn't want to jump right into conspiracy theories when some sort of technical glitch seems much more likely, but I suspect that we will start to see a wide range of random iPad accessories of debatable merit start to show up. Have you spotted any? Let us know in the comments.
Friday fakes: The best of the bogus
TUAW presents to you the best of the obviously fake device shots we've seen in the last couple of weeks. On occasion they're beautiful renderings that are worth a second glance, other times they're out of focus shots that tipsters swear were taken quickly at a meeting on the Apple campus. In any case, they're a lot of fun. Let's begin with this gem from the French blog Le Journal du Geek. In a post titled "Encore un peu de MacBook Touch?" ("Again a little MacBook Touch?"), we see what looks like a page from an Apple website: This fake is fabulous! It shows the device being about the size of what everyone would like to see, with about a 10" diagonal display. They give it a plausible name instead of the lame "iPad" moniker, the power button is located away from the middle of the device, and the faux photos show it being used with a dock, as a music keyboard in GarageBand, and flipping from landscape to portrait. Very cool, and they even endow the MacBook touch with drool-worthy specs on the website.
'MacGuard' double-plus ungood, avoid
The fine folks at Intego sent out a warning this morning about MacGuard, a bogus piece of software that claims to clean up your system and remove adware, spyware, and trojans. It doesn't. According to the warning, MacGuard is simply a clone of a Windows app called WiniGuard. The company releasing the software, Innovagest 2000 SL, may be using the credit card numbers they harvest during the purchase process for "nefarious purposes." WiniGuard "hijacks the user's desktop and typically displays exaggerated or false claims of spyware found to frighten the user into paying for the program," according to Sunbelt Malware Research Labs. While our fine readers wouldn't get suckered into such a scheme, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles might not be so educated. If you know someone with a Mac who might fall for this, do them a favor and forward them this warning. The MacGuard website is at macguard.net.
Mac "G6" now available for $499
Want an Intel-based Mac but don't want to pay Apple's prices? A company called Red PCs may have what you're looking for -- if you're willing to face the wrath of Apple's lawyers. Red PC is now offering something they're calling a "PowerPC G6 Macintosh" for $499. According to the specs, the box is basically a generic Pentium-based PC running a hacked version of the Intel version of Mac OS X. For your $499, the company is also throwing in copies of Photoshop CS2 and Microsoft Office 2004, making this quite the deal, given that Photoshop alone can go for over $400. But, then, we assume you're prepared to deal with Adobe and Microsoft's lawyers as well if you're ready to buy this. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as the case may be), the Red PCs web site seems to be down, though the machine is still listed on the Alibaba.com site as available for purchase with free global shipping and a one-year warranty.[Via OSX86]
