Hackers Love Gray Powell

I am sure by now that all of you have heard of the next gen iPhone that was left behind by an Apple Engineer at a Redwood City bar. Heck it's now even on the New York Times. I feel bad for the guy and am a little miffed at Gizmodo for sharing his name. But now that is is already out there everyone knows him, Gray Powell. I am not interested in talking about the technology or the, "Human" situation. I am interested in, "Speed to Market".

You see, the thing that really amazes me is how fast hackers have capitalized on this Internet meme. in less than 24 hours they have created hundreds of websites to fool you into clicking on an executable that will bring your poor computer to it's knees.

Take a look at this image I saved of a Google search for Gray Powell.

Notice all the nice "This site may harm your computer" notes that Google was so kind to add?

In less time than it takes to say, "Famously Secretive Silicon Valley Computer Firm", hackers have lined up to take advantage of you.

Surf carefully young padawan.

A Brief note on the the Google/Chinese intrusion/withdrawl

I just wanted to publicly put my support behind Google's choice to put their foot down after the Chinese government sponsored intrusions into their networks.

By now, I am sure, many of you may have heard about this, but for those who have not here is their statement and some links:

We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

Google's Statement: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html

New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/world/asia/14beijing.html

US Dept of State response: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/135105.htm

The EFF response: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/01/uncensoring-china-bravo-google

You can test if they are sticking to thier guns by searching the Chinese Google site yourself at http://www.google.cn/

If they choose to have a spine and stick to this they will finally resolve their problems with their own motto, "Don't be Evil". Let's hope they do.