Jianjun's Blog

FireFox now displays a warning (see picture on the left, click to see large image) when you are tricked to click on some of the ‘Pics for MSN Friends’ phishing site URLs created by the so-called ‘TST Management Inc.’

At the time of writing, a new URL emerged and, according to the ‘official’ phishing site’s server status report, “c0mpics.info” is now the most active site that’s hoaxing not only MSN users, but ICQ users.

When you visit the phishing site (never do it!), a window pops up displaying content from ‘awesomeoffers.info’ (see picture below, click to display large image) saying, ‘We’re sorry! This offer is not available in your area. You will

be redirected shortly. If you are not automatically redirectly, please click here.’ Then you are served ads from various sources.

Thanks to our fellow netizens, sites such as jumphost.info, ther1ng.info, etc. were alerted as potential phishing sites by FireFox. But if you are using IE or Safari, the chances are you won’t see these warnings.

Personally I think MSN and ICQ should do their fair share of work and warn their users never trust any offline messages containing such links. That will be the most effective and proactive way to deal with these bad guys. However, each one of us who knows about the phishing attempt can also lend a helping hand by telling our MSN/ICQ or other IM buddies about this and report any such sites through FireFox or IE.

Here’s how:

FireFox:

When you are on that site, click on ‘Help’ -> ‘Report Web Forgery.’

French version, click on ‘?’ -> ‘Signaler un site contrefait…’

IE:

When you are on that site, right-click this icon on bottom status bar.

*UPDATE*

Good news. As on June 6, all phishing sites from the so-called ‘TST Management Inc.’ have been down. But I am not sure if they are simply banned by the ISP in Hong Kong and are in the process of finding other server locations. If you find any further information, please let me know. Thanks.

*UPDATE-1*

The phishing sites are back on again. A new one to watch:

“freakpics.info”

I stayed up late last night and was up early this morning. But it didn’t help with my WordPress blog’s ’404 Not Found’ problem.

Actually it happened yesterday afternoon when I installed a plug-in that tampered with my .htaccess file. The install document was so badly written in some sort of English that in the end I was driven nuts and uninstalled it. I manually removed the part that it inserted into my .htaccess, but didn’t realize I probably mistakingly deleted/altered some of the old codes along the way.

The home page looked fine but all permalinks returned a ’404 Not Found’ error – and I didn’t find that until this morning when I checked visitor statistics! If you experience a similar problem, i.e. you can visit the home page of your database driven site (not necessarily WordPress) but each individual page returns a ’404 Not Found’ error, check your .htaccess file. It’s not your database problem.

Learn how to earn money using your blog

Fring is an integrated instant messaging/VoIP service that works on your mobile device. With Fring, you can log into your Skype, Twitter, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Gtalk, ICQ, AIM, Fring and SIP accounts simultaneously over wireless plans such as EDGE, GPRS and WIFI.

Fring promises encrypted data transfer when you submit credentials of these services through the mobile interface, giving you peace of mind.

Once you are logged in, it automatically imports all your contacts. A green icon means the contact is online and available. Away, busy or unavailable buddies are marked orange. When a buddy is offline, the icon turns gray.

Fring’s intuitive interface makes you feel at home the first time you use it. As you see in the photo above, Chinese characters in my MSN buddy’s name are nicely displayed.

Fring client is currently localized into 6 languages, including Simplified Chinese, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish. As they are still in Beta, I expect to see more languages over time and more professional translations.

Now Chinese users may feel confused when they see ‘On/Off’ under the ‘Show Fring Signature’, etc. menus being translated as “连接/断开”(Connect/Disconnect). Some other problems also need to be addressed.

How much bandwidth does Fring use and how about the sound quality?

Fring Support says each 1M bandwidth equals to 15 minutes of Fring call (Fring to Fring). I tried it on my EDGE plan. The bandwidth usage of the one-minute Fring test call was around 90K, and the sound quality was amazingly good! SkypeOut and SIP (I use FWD) calls, however, were not as satisfactory – in other words, you can’t use them for any serious communication and they use too much bandwidth. 3G/WIFI connections should give much better quality.

You can set Fring to run in the background if instant mobile messaging is important to you. When you receive a message or a call via Fring, it’ll alert you with distinctive tones. But the software does eat your battery. When I had it in the background for about 20 minutes, the battery became hot too.

Overall, Fring is still useful when you are traveling but suddenly have something urgent to discuss with your friend on MSN or you simply want to catch up with the Twitterati while waiting for your plane at the airport.

Fring website