Giant Gaping Pothole in the Internet is Being Fixed

Although looks can be deceiving from time to time, I am the quintessential geek when it comes to computer technology. I love all things about it and find it quite fascinating. That’s why this next story, reported on both Yahoo News and CNN.com, caught my (insert simultaneous gratuitous hair toss here) gorgeous, warm brown eyes today.

Apparently, there is a huge gaping security hole which allows scammers to target ordinary people when they’re typing in legitimate Web addresses. The scammers then re-direct the computer users to malicious sites and steal their information.

Yahoo News reports that if the trick is done properly, computer users are unlikely to detect whether they’ve landed at a legitimate site or an evil double maintained by someone bent on fraud. Great – more things to worry about while surfing the Net.

Now while I found this news to be quite disturbing, it wasn’t half as disturbing as discovering the photo and title of the guy who discovered this big gaping hole. For a second there, I thought I was being directed to a malicious site. Scary.

Shown on Yahoo News

The following text is taken verbatim from Yahoo News. And I quote:

“In this undated photo provided by IOActive Inc., Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration testing for Seattle-based computer security consultant IOActive Inc., is shown.”

I can only imagine how THAT topic comes up in business networking conversations.

Bob: “I’ve been the President of Mergers and Acquisitions at JoBlow Inc. for about 5 years now. But enough about me.”

“So Dan, what do YOU do?”

Dan: “Well, Bob, I’m the Director of Penetration Testing for IOActive.”

Bob: “Wow – I didn’t think they actually tested out condoms before putting them out to market. Cool job, dude.”

And in related news, Tito Ortiz is working on patching the giant gaping hole between Jenna Jameson’s legs…