The Weekly Round-Up: 27.02.04

Sophos consultant and anti-virus expert Graham Cluley is good for two things:

1. Informed, media-friendly comment on the latest malware scare

2. Round-Up fodder

Last week, our Graham arrived home from a brief sojourn in Mexico sipping tequila (though presumably not the brand with the big worm in the bottle) to find that his arch-nemesis, female Belgian virus writer Gigabyte, had been arrested (see here).

In recent years Gigabyte launched a variety of Graham Cluley-themed viruses (see here).

One virus launched a game on infected PCs which challenged owners to correctly answer questions about the man she nicknamed 'Graham Clueless' in order to reduce the damage the malware inflicted on the computer.

Meanwhile, another game required infected users to perform a desperate damage limitation exercise by entering a virtual coconut shy and knocking Cluley's heads (metaphorically speaking) off the stands.

Cluley claims Gigabyte brought her downfall upon herself after she courted celebrity in the media - just two days before her arrest, she appeared on a Dutch radio station and talked about her virus writing.

In conversation with a silicon.com journo this week, Cluley admitted to be devastated to be out of the country at the time of the arrest - and therefore be unable to comment on it (see here).

"I couldn't believe it when I heard the news," he said. "Of all the times to spend a week in Mexico."

Cluley scorned the celebrity-chasing virus writer: "Gigabyte was far from the genius she tried to portray herself as.

"A smarter virus writer would never have been caught and never let her media vanity rule her head."

The Round-Up would have to agree that "media vanity" is a terrible vice, Graham...

However, an additional snippet of information from the security expert left the silicon.com editorial team reeling.

Cluley confessed that his girlfriend would put on a Low Countries accent and pretend to be the female virus writer. Playing it for laughs, we're assured.

A couple of years back, after Cluley courted Gigabyte's ire by suggesting the reason for all the attention was that the virus author had a crush on him.

At the time, the Round-Up suggested the two give in to the love that dare not speak its name and succumb to their unspoken passions (see here - although be warned: bad poetry lies within).

So maybe the advice hit home after all.

One can imagine bedrooms full of candles, film-wrapped boxes of Sophos anti-virus products and soft, seductive words whispered over Barry White's lyrics: "Oh... you big shtud... patch mar hole..."

The latest legal spat between Apple Computer and Apple Corps, the Beatles' corporate face, took on vaguely farcical proportions this week.

The skirmish between the two companies centres around the Mac maker's commercial venture into the music arena - spearheaded by the iTunes Music Store and the iPod MP3 player.

Apple Corps claims the move into online music breaches an existing agreement between the firms over the respective use of the Apple trademark.

However, events kicked off (relatively speaking) after the judge presiding over the case this week admitted he owned an iPod and speculated this might mean he should be disbarred from hearing the case (see here.

Apple Computer's legal team were clearly delighted with the revelation and suggested they might supply Justice Edward Mann one of the highly popular gadgets for free.

Still, this can only do good things for the credibility of high court judges. Who would have thought a man in a dodgy white wig and ermine robes could ever be considered 'street'?

The lawyers representing Apple Computer have also urged the High Court to rule that the lawsuit should be heard in California rather than in London, which is Apple Corps's preferred venue.

Surely a compromise is required? The Round-Up's preference would be to see the case taking place on the roof of the Apple Store in New York thereby ensuring Jobs, McCartney and Starr feel equally at home.

Meanwhile, the throng of musicians queuing up to sue the pants off Apple increased this week as the legal representatives of rapper and all-round bad boy Eminem joined the increasingly packed litigation party ( seehere.

The rapper's record company is incensed that Apple used lyrics from his song Lose Yourself in an ad for the iTunes Music Store.

The ad featured a young boy with an iPod singing the lyrics to the song (taken from Eminem's debut movie 8 Mile - see the Round-Up is also 'street') and was aired on TV music station MTV and the Apple website.

It must be a novel experience for the controversial rapper to hire a legal team for the purposes of prosecution rather than defence.

The 15-page lawsuit said Eminem has never nationally endorsed any commercial products and added that "even if he were interested in endorsing a product, any endorsement deal would require a significant amount of money, possibly in excess of $10m".

Which is almost certainly constitutes the most anyone has had to pay for a string of homophobic, misogynistic obscenities in legal history.

And finally on the iPod this week a warning for the gadget's users from Macworld magazine, which suggested that device's users are being targeted by muggers on the lookout for the distinctive white ear phones.

It seems iPod theft is on the rise. Be careful out there...

The hated pop-up advert took another body blow this week after research found the advertising medium is more loathed than Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da smeared over the sole of an Apple lawyer's loafer.

The research found that web users have developed a Pavlovian approach to dealing with the pesky blighters - most are instinctively shut down within 2.5 seconds of appearing.

The average time for a pop-up to communicate the company's branding is apparently 8.5 seconds, meaning very few ads manage to get their message across before being banished.

However, this is quite fortunate according to both the findings of the study and silicon.com readers (see here).

Web consultancy Bunnyfoot Universality (real name, apparently) found that pop-ups are so loathed they effectively constitute "commercial suicide" and could actually harm the reputation of businesses that use them or even host them on their websites.

The study found that in addition to damaging brands, the ads are almost completely ignored by surfers and offer very poor return on investment.

The article attracted a lot of feedback from silicon.com readers and you all seem to be in agreement.

"I hate pop-ups and refuse to purchase anything from a company using them," fumed Levi R Porter of South Dakota.

Nigel Perry of Bristol, who was probably stressed enough after spending several hours trying to drive a few hundred yards in the West Country city on Thursday evening after a snowfall brought utter chaos to the region, gnashed his teeth and raged: "Pop-ups are remarkably irritating because they obscure what I want to see and thereby waste my time, so: I just avoid websites that have them."

Readers complained about the obtrusive nature of the medium. The words "frustrating", "annoying" and "irritating" popped up, so to speak, in many of the comments we received.

"Yes they do grab recipients' attention! Enough to convince them NEVER to consider the company as a trustworthy supplier..." howled silicon.com reader Nick Cole while frothing at the mouth.

"...they are arrogant and insulting and what makes them more annoying is the inability to control what they may be doing reliably and that they pop-up over the top of what you are trying to read," he added, shortly before he toppled off his chair in Dundee in disgust.

Meanwhile, with Microsoft threatening to add a pop-up blocker to the ubiquitous Internet Explorer browser, the days of the format could be well and truly numbered (see here).

Join the debate and let us know what you think by registering a reader comment or emailing editorial@silicon.com - especially if you happen to be a pop-up fan. God help you...

And finally this week, a spectacular party political digital blunder from the Liberal Democrats - the party that likes to click 'send' and then shriek "Oh buggery and damnation!"

Charles Kennedy's boys and girls in orange managed to give their political opponents a healthy advantage by accidentally emailing them the party's next election plans.

According to Ananova, the draft manifesto was sent accidentally to all 30 Labour members of the Welsh Assembly. Tidy.

The gaffe means the opposition now has plenty of time to discredit new Liberal policies prior to the election.

A Liberal spokesman this week played down the significance of what was claimed was merely a "discussion document produced for the annual party conference".

(The same spokesman then narrowed his eyes and threatened nasty something and not-terribly-liberal about "disciplinary action" against the member of staff responsible for the email mishap.)

The 'manifesto' apparently confirmed plans by the party to scrap the New Deal employment scheme, the Department of Trade and Industry and Child Trust Fund.

Other than that, the Labour party members who received the email said there was very little new in the document.

Which would seem to confirm it's the genuine article, then...

The Round-Up will return next Friday, until then take a gander at the headlines of the week and please take a few moments to complete a short user survey here.

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