People make a lot of technical matters in security, but the most important force behind malware is social engineering, not some vulnerability or bad design.

You must have seen them by now: ads for "Antivirus XP 2008" or some variant of that name. In fact, here are some of the newer names used for essentially the same attack.

But the most interesting way this threat has been spread has been is through advertising, most infamously through Google sponsored links.

When it launched onto the scene late last year, gOS (which stands for good OS) made quite a splash for getting Linux into the U.S. retail giant WalMart.

gOS has one simple goal: make a lightweight, web-heavy operating system that anyone can use.

As soon as gOS loads, you'll see the new Google Gadgets sitting off to the left of the screen, not unlike the Gadgets shelf that ships with Windows Vista.

Those of us who are a little less biased, and have a chunk of common-sense, realise it simply isn't user-friendly enough to provoke a mass move from the much friendlier Microsoft Windows.

Like it or not, eye candy, special effects, translucent windows, etc, are inevitably going to attract 'normal' PC users.

Seriously, installing applications on Linux is awful. Don't flame me or berate me with examples of how easy it is - it's not.

Half the time it's full of trials, tribulations, problems, and manual hacks - this is simply not good enough for a simple non-technical user.

The Linux distributors could at least focus on supporting the major OEM product lines with installs that work correctly out of the box.

Two days ago we wrote about the "I Am Rich" iPhone application, which, for the staggering sum of $1,000, provided you with - get ready for it - a glowing red screen.

However, a vocal number of observers were shocked by what they saw as a dereliction of gatekeeper "duty" by Apple. Now, in response to the protests, Apple has removed the application without notifying or explaining to the developer why.

One resourceful HP purchaser decided that he was as mad as hell and not going to take it any more, so he got on the phone to HP and asked for a refund.

After many days of phone calls, emails and the kind of delay-and-divert tactics from HP which would put a lesser man off of the hunt, our Hawaiian hero emerged victorious clutching a cheque for two hundred bucks. Which given that Vista retails for $240 is quite a result.

"Piracy is BAD" proclaims every copyright dependent industry lobby group. "Downloading is stealing" is another popular one. How about "downloads are a lost sale"? Ubisoft clearly didn't believe that last one, as they distributed a no-cd patch from the scene group RELOADED as a fix for one of their games.

After lots of complaining and attempts to fix things themselves, one Ubisoft employee found a solution. A zip file was uploaded to the help/support site, named "R6Vegas2_fix.zip".

However, someone ran a hex edit and it appears the fix was not Ubisoft code but actually a "no-cd" crack released by the Scene group RELOADED, as shown here.

A rare Mac OS X Trojan has been spotted on the internet. The AppleScript-THT Trojan horse exploits a vulnerability within the Apple Remote Desktop Agent to load itself with root privileges onto compromised Mac machines.

Keystroke logging on compromised systems, taking pictures (using the built-in Apple iSight camera) or capturing screenshots are among the hacker exploits enabled by the malware, Mac security outfit SecureMac reports.

Speaking at yesterday's Wedbush Morgan Securities annual Management Access Conference, the Atari founder suggested that game piracy will soon be a thing of the past thanks to a new chip.

"What that says is that in the games business we will be able to encrypt with an absolutely verifiable private key in the encryption world - which is uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords - which will allow for a huge market to develop in some of the areas where piracy has been a real problem."

"The TPM will, in fact, absolutely stop piracy of gameplay."

Steve Ballmer is in no way disappointed with Windows Vista. It is selling "incredibly well", he told a press conference in Herzeliya, Israel today.

"Vista sells on almost 100 per cent of all the new consumer PCs around the world," the Microsoft CEO proclaimed.

Whether Vista really is an upgrade, or just something of a weighty and awkward downgrade can still be argued, but Ballmer puts the problems down to the "tricky" balance between compatibility and security.

MySQL will start offering some features (specifically ones related to online backups) only in MySQL Enterprise.

The user base for MySQL Enterprise is much smaller than for MySQL Community. That means these critical features will be tested by only a few of their customers. So, in effect, they will be giving their paying customers real, true, untested code.

They will indeed develop new features in MySQL Enterprise (in 6.0), without making them available in MySQL Community.