Alert!!! New Web Ads Contain Hidden Viruses

On a Saturday night at the end of May, visitors to the forums section of Digital Spy, a British entertainment and media news Web site, were greeted with an ad that loaded malicious software onto their computers. The Web site's advertising system had been hacked.

A number of such attacks have occurred this year, as perpetrators exploit the complex structure of business relationships in the online advertising world, with its numerous middlemen and resellers.

Web security experts say they have seen an uptick in the number of ads harboring malware as the economy has soured and publishers, needing to boost their ad revenues, outsource more of their ad-space sales.

Viruses can be incorporated directly within an ad, so that simply clicking on the ad or visiting the site can infect a computer, or ads can be used to direct users to a nefarious Web site that aims to steal passwords or identities.

In most cases, the problem becomes apparent within a matter of hours and quick fixes are put in place, but that's not fast enough for Internet surfers whose computers end up infected or compromised.

"The system is only as safe as its least secure members, and some of these members can be strikingly insecure," says Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who researches Web security issues.

EWeek.com, a technology news site owned by Ziff Davis Enterprise, in February displayed an ad on its homepage masquerading as a promotion for Lacoste, the shirt maker.

The retailer hadn't placed the ad -- a hacker had, to direct users to a Web site where harmful programs would be downloaded to their computers, says Stephen Wellman, director of community and content for Ziff Davis.

Battlefield Robot Is a Snake

Israeli defense researchers are working on a robot snake that can sneak through cracks and into buildings to send back sound and video of enemy movements — or even plant explosives.
That's according to the Jerusalem Post, which cites a news report from Israel's Channel 2.
A video clip shows the six-foot-long robot, covered in camouflage, winding its way through rocks and tree stumps, its "head" a flat camera lens ringed by LED lights.
The "snake" can also prop up its front sections vertically to peer over obstacles.
It's remote-controlled by a soldier, who uses a laptop both to guide the robot and to see and hear what it's feeding back. The Israel Defense Forces plan to equip combat units with search-and-surveillance models, which could also be useful to find survivors trapped within collapsed buildings.
Future models might be used to plant bombs in enemy facilities.

There's little that humans fear more in the natural world than snakes. The phobia is ingrained in our DNA, some scientists think, and may have driven the evolution of our keen eyesight.
So how appropriate that a battlefield spy robot would be designed to look and slither like a snake. The 2-foot robot, with a camera at its snout, is covered in a snake "skin" and was made after researchers studied how real snakes move.
You'd have to be on the same team to love this bot (and soldiers do love their robots).
Other engineers have designed snake-like robots because they can get into tight corners to do work or inspect things. Even NASA has dabbled in Snakebots.

According to sources,the snake is also potentially able to explode on reaching a suitable target, after which it isn't good for much any more.