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Sun, 27 Apr 2003
New Themes Available for Mac OS X Jaguar
Ever since the release of Mac OS X, users have been tinkering with the interface. Over the past few months there has been many new themes released which are compatible with Mac OS X Jaguar.
SmoothStripes version 3.0.1 by Mac Themes is an Aqua-like theme but without stripes, and comes in many variations (regular, all-blue, gloss).
Brushed version 2.2.3, also by Max Themes, gives the brushed metal look (like iTunes) to every application in Mac OS X (Carbon or Cocoa).
Or if you prefer the look of Classic Mac OS 9, you can give Classic Platinum version 1.2.3 a try. Made by Max Themes, it try's to resemble as much as possible the Platinum Mac OS 9 interface on Mac OS X.
If you're looking for a theme lighter on the eyes, give Milk version 1.6.1 (you guessed it - also made by Max Themes) a try, which also comes with an optional look-alike Safari theme.
Like the look of BeOS? Give SS BeOSX a try by SwizCore Studio's. Also available there is a theme of NeXTSTEP, which is what Mac OS X was before Apple purchased it.
There are many more themes available, these are just a few that I found interesting. You can search Google to find more.
Spammers reach a new low
The Register reports a disturbing new tactic some spammers are starting to use: Trojan horses similar to ones used for DDoS attacks.
Pressed by increasingly effective anti-spam efforts, senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail are resorting to outright criminality in their efforts to conceal the source of their ill-sent missives, using Trojan horses to turn the computers of innocent netizens into secret spam zombies.
"This is the newest delivery mechanism," says Margie Arbon, director of operations of anti-spam group MAPS. "I've been looking for it for a year, and in the last couple of months people have actually found Trojans that are doing it... They're carrying their own SMTP engines. Failing that, they install open proxy software."
One of those programs popped up last week. Named "Proxy-Guzu," when executed by an unwitting user the Trojan listens on a randomly-chosen port and uses its own built-in mail client to dash off a message to a Hotmail account, putting the port number and victim's IP address in the subject line. The spammer takes it from there, routing as much e-mail as he or she likes through the captured computer, knowing that any efforts to trace the source of the spam will end at the victim's Internet address.
Trojan horses generally rely on their wielder's ability to trick innocent people into executing them. Proxy-Guzu, naturally, arrives as spam -- in one sighting the program was offered as a naughty peek at an online webcam.
One early victim of the malware, posting to an anti-virus message board, says he detected it only when his desktop firewall program alerted him to large quantities of outgoing e-mail messages sent to unfamiliar addresses, with subject lines like "Don't tell your parents about this!" and "your bill."
You can read the full article here.
Thankfully none of the spamware trojans affect the Mac - yet.