Hooray for all the individuals who don’t want everything they post online automatically associated their actual identity!

Google social vice president Vic Gundotra said Google+ will begin allowing people to use pseudonyms. While the Electronic Frontier Foundation declared victory, after having lobbied against Google’s requirement that people use their real names, Gundotra did not actually say when pseudonym support will be enabled.

via Google shifts stance on Google+ anonymity, will support pseudonyms.

And it doesn’t even have AdBlock Plus!

A review of 100 Google Chrome extensions, including the 50 most popular selections, found that 27 percent of them contain one or more vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers either via the Web or unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots.

via More Than One-Fourth of Google Chrome Extensions Contain Vulnerabilities – Dark Reading.

It’s a one-day-only event, but it’s a start.

The Internet Society, an organization dedicated to the good of the Internet, is organizing “World IPv6 Day” on June 8 of this year. Web giants Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, with a combined one billion visitors per day, are participating by enabling IPv6 for their main services that day. Content distributors Limelight and Akamai are also joining the party by enabling their customers to participate. But unlike during the IETF IPv6 experiment, IPv4 won’t be turned off.

via Tech giants to enable IPv6 on “World IPv6 Day” in June.

See also:

Arbor Networks surveyed IPv6 adoption in the summer and found less than a tenth of a percent of all traffic used IPv6, “almost below the threshold of what we could measure,” according to Craig Labovitz, the chief scientist at Arbor Networks.

via  IPv4 Address Exhaustion Not Instant Cause for Concern with IPv6 in Wings – IT Infrastructure – News & Reviews – eWeek.com.

Google has revealed Android 2.3, codenamed Gingerbread, a new version of its popular mobile platform. It introduces a handful of modest user interface enhancements—such as a more refined touchscreen keyboard—and brings some noteworthy performance improvements that are largely intended to boost Android gaming.

Alongside the release of Android 2.3, Google has also announced plans to launch the Nexus S, a new smartphone that was developed in collaboration with Samsung. Much like Google’s Nexus One, the new phone in the Nexus series will be available unlocked with a pure Google experience. The unlocked version will be sold at Best Buy for $529 without subsidy, and T-Mobile will be selling it on contract for $199.

The aptly named Nexus S looks like the love child of the Nexus One and the Samsung Galaxy S. The touchscreen-only device has a four-inch curved “contour” Super AMOLED display, 1Ghz Hummingbird processor, 1GB of internal storage, and a 1500 mAH battery rated for 6.7 hours of talk time. The handset showcases some of the new hardware features of Android 2.3, such as support for near-field communication (NFC), which can be used for close-range contactless data exchange.

via Google serves hot Gingerbread, unveils Android 2.3 and Nexus S.

Interesting tidbit on how the FBI tracked down a Russian spammer:

So how did the FBI get its man this time around? By busting the US-based distributor of fake Rolex watches who used Mega-D to send a good chunk of his spam. That led them on a trail that culminated in ePassporte, a money transfer service, and they found Nikolaenka’s name and e-mail addresses attached to his account.

Nikolaenko had made another mistake: the e-mail accounts were Gmail addresses, and it was no trouble at all for the US to get a subpoena, forcing Google to cough up the account information. FBI agents found copies of the botnet software and much else of interest among the e-mails.

via How the FBI nabbed a Russian spam king in Las Vegas.

Can your security system prevent intrusion by an unethical government?

China’s government was indeed behind the hack on Google’s Gmail system earlier this year according to a cable captured by the controversial Wikileaks organization.

via Chinese Government Ordered Hack on Google Servers: Wikileaks – Security – News & Reviews.

Jeremy Schoemaker tracked down a hacker by making good use of logs:

So now here is where it gets interesting…. Now that I had figured out how the person was hacking into my box I was curious how in the hell the person found the file. It was in a subdirectory that I had not used in YEARS. There was no link to it from anywhere on my site. The directory structure it was in was like … html/oldforums/oldstuff/badfile.php . How in the hell did this person find this file? Well after going through the logs greping for the ip range that hacked my box I found that the person found my site from Google! Specifically using Google code search. Now while this was interesting it still did not explain how the page was even indexed…. ohh wait I use Google Sitemaps and I had it on to index everything the default setting OUPS!!

Which is a good reminder of Step One to Security: Change the defaults, ASAP.

via How Hackers Are Using Google To Pwn Your Site.