As Facebook has grown in popularity, it has also become a primary target for hackers and spammers. An increasing number of Facebook users are having their accounts compromised. Each newly compromised account is then used by the hackers and scammers to propagate their scam further. You don’t need to be an idiot to have your account compromised. If you are caught off guard for a second, you may accidentally fall for one of these scams. Learn how to protect yourself in this article.

1. IQ Quiz Ads

While Facebook has spent the past year trying to cut down on the number of misleading advertisements on the site, the fact remains that a small percentage of users still get duped into purchasing services they don’t really want. The IQ Quiz Scam has become ubiquitous on the Facebook Platform, and those users who install applications can expect to see an advertisement for an IQ Quiz Scam at some point. In December we covered one application developer who was using spammy techniques to get new users to install their application and ultimately click on the IQ Quiz advertisements.

As soon as you click on one of the ads, you’ll be brought to a site where you’re asked up to 10 questions which are relatively easy to answer. You will then be prompted to enter your phone number to view the results. Don’t enter your phone number! If you do, you will be charged upwards of $10 a week directly to your phone bill. While most phone companies are willing to refund you for your first purchase, they won’t do it after the first occurrence. That’s because the phone companies generate billions of dollars each year off of these types of transactions.

If you want to protect yourself from IQ quiz scams, do not enter your phone number into any sites outside of Facebook.

2. I’ve Been Robbed! Western Union Me Money!

You’re browsing around Facebook and suddenly one of your friends IMs you to tell you that they’re stuck in another country, they’ve been robbed, don’t have a wallet, and need money to get out of the country. It’s a horrible situation but what are the odds that they found a computer to log on to in order to instant message you? Even worse, what are the odds that one of your friends who was traveling abroad got robbed and wasn’t able to find anybody to help them out?

I’ve been with people who’ve lost their wallet abroad and needed to get money sent via Western Union, however if the person can get access to Facebook, they probably can access a phone. While you should always help out your friends, you can avoid being duped by international fraudsters by asking your friend to call you in order to wire the money. Unless your friend is in the middle of a jungle in the Congo, they should be able to call you.

Most of the times that this happens, it is a scammer who has stolen your friend’s account and is systematically going through and IMing each of their friends to try and get money wired to them. Don’t fall for it!

3. Facebook Phishing Landing Pages

One of the most common ways Facebook accounts get compromised is through simple phishing scams. The way it works is that a user’s account is compromised by a hacker and the hacker then uses that account to automatically post links on each of that user’s friends’ walls. Sometimes the system will send messages to the friends such as “Check out this funny video of you!” with a link that redirects to a page with a fake Facebook login page (as pictured above).

It’s pretty straight forward, and it’s easy to avoid, however countless people have fallen for this scam. The easiest way to tell if it’s a scam is by looking at the URL of the page you land on. The best way to protect yourself is, anytime you see a Facebook login page, leave it and go to http://www.facebook.com in your browser. That way you can ensure you are logging in to the correct site.

4. Koobface Worm That Automatically Hijack Your Account

We’ve written about the Koobface worm on a number of instances, and while Facebook has worked to aggressively prevent the worm, it continues to spread today. The scam is pretty straight forward. In the attack, a user will receive a message from what appears to be one of their friends. The message will say things like “Paris Hilton Tosses Dwarf On The Street; Examiners Caught Downloading Grades From The Internet; Hello; You must see it!!! LOL. My friend catched you on hidden cam; Is it really celebrity? Funny Moments” and many others.

Included in the message will be a link to a page which appears to be a YouTube video. If you click on the video, you will be prompted to “upgrade your Flash player now” and will then be asked to download a file which contains the Koobface worm. If you download and install the file, your computer will automatically log in to Facebook and send similar messages to your friends. The best way to avoid this scam is to avoid all links that are posted on your wall or in your inbox that are out of the ordinary. Also, never download a file after clicking on a link.

To learn more about the Koobface worm, check out the information at the Kapersky Lab.

5. Other Malware Applications And Links

While we’ve attempted to highlight the primary scams, hackers and scammers are constantly evolving their strategies to steal passwords, and take over computers. The best thing to do is always be weary of strange links posted to your profile or inbox as well as avoid downloading any files that you’re prompted to, no matter what. While many of the scams on Facebook are harmless to your computer, its important to protect yourself against any viruses and worms.

Some Facebook applications have used toolbars among other things to make money from their application. Some of these toolbars will significantly damage your computer. The bottom line is this: be on guard any time you see something suspicious. If you do happen to fall for a scam though, make sure to immediately change your password. If you aren’t able to access your account because you were phished and your password was reset, fill out this form.

Koobface icon via thingamatech

Soulja Boy gives ’shout out’ to slave masters

Young rapper astounds crowd at awards bash by claiming that slavery helped black people get out of Africa

Soulja Boy … no word yet on his opinions of the Ku Klux Klan. Photograph: PR

He may well inspire a dance that’s worth 40m YouTube hits, but that doesn’t mean Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em is an expert in race relations. At BET’s Hip-Hop Awards wrap event last week, the 18-year-old Atlanta rapper shocked the crowd by coming out in favour of slavery.

The shock statement came when BET correspondent and former Rolling Stone contributor, Touré, asked various stars which historical figure they most hated. After Soulja Boy failed to give a response, Touré tried to prompt him, saying “Others have said Hitler, bin Laden, the slave masters … ” at which point Soulja Boy said: “Oh wait! Hold up! Shout out to the slave masters! Without them we’d still be in Africa. We wouldn’t be here to get this ice and tattoos.”

The stars were answering questions based on the Proust Questionnaire, a series of questions popularised by French writer Marcel Proust. An adapted version appears regularly in Vanity Fair magazine.

“I thought [the Proust Questionnaire] would be a way to get beyond image and into who they really are,” wrote Touré on his Daily Beast blog. “Most of the guys gave good, thoughtful, intelligent, sensitive answers.”

The rapper’s fans have claimed Soulja Boy’s youth as an excuse, although many bloggers have been more critical. As 4 Cryin Out Loud asks, “How old was Ice Cube when he first emerged and was writing rhymes for Eazy – like 16?”

Butetown’s Mount Stuart Primary School celebrates Islamic festival of Eid

Dec 1 2009 by Katie Norman, South Wales Echo

EID festivities have been in full swing at a primary school.

Pupils, parents and teachers all enjoyed a special assembly in celebration of the Islamic festival at Mount Stuart Primary School, in Butetown, Cardiff.

Youngsters took part in a special Eid fashion show, sang celebratory songs and told the assembly about research they had done into famous people who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca.

The school’s deputy headteacher Yvonne Scott said: “It was lovely. Every child in school took part, from the nursery right up to Year Six.

“We do it every year because it’s important for us to celebrate everyone’s religions in school.

“We all like to get together and celebrate Eid and we will return in a fortnight to celebrate Christmas.

“The more understanding and knowledge we give the children about different religions, hopefully the more understanding and accepting everyone will be.”

The iPhone comes to Tesco — will a price war follow?

by Mike Butcher on November 25, 2009

[UK] Is an iPhone price war about to break out? After Vodafone and Orange bagged the iPhone – after O2’s two year monopoly expired in September – we learn today that Tesco, the UK supermarket leviathan, is to sell the iPhone on Tesco Mobile, its MVNO joint venture partnership with O2.

Both iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS handsets will be sold in Tesco Phone Shops and online through Tesco Direct in the UK, possibly before Christmas. There’s even a pre-regsitration website Tescomobileiphone.com – but it’s showing a 500 Internal server error. [Update: You can now get to pre-registration here].

Tesco Mobile focuses on the low end of the market with voice and text, and we’re told the prices will be “competitive”. But there is no word yet on data packages, which is something of a necessity where the iPhone is concerned. As an MVNO, Tesco has a fairly free hand regarding the the markets it goes after – and this is usually a market O2 itself is less interested in targeting as it tends to concentrate on higher value customers. O2 says it has sold over one million iPhones since September 2007.

Could it be possible that Tesco might offer a deal which forces the larger players to discount? Now that would be interesting.

Furthermore this move fires yet another starting gun on the iPhone app race. As if it was hard enough to find an iPhone app developer in the UK prior to this, with the mainstream approval of the Tesco iPhone, it certainly will be now.

The Reverend Al Green

Paul Sexton tells the story of soul man Al Green

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   4/4. Green’s friends and colleagues talk about working with the enigmatic star.

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      3/4. Paul tells how Green’s life took a dramatic turn in 1973.

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      2/4. Paul tells the story of Green’s fateful meeting with artist and producer Willie Mitchell.

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      1/4. Paul Sexton travels to Memphis to tell the story of Al Green, the last great soul man.

Film walks bridge between ska and reggae

By: Bernard Perusse

Enlarge Image 

The Tamlins perform backup vocals in a scene from Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae. (MUSEE D’ART CONTEMPORAIN AND THE MONTREAL INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL )

There are at least a couple of versions of how rocksteady came to be. A common account involves scorching conditions in Jamaica during the early part of 1966, which might have called for a slightly slower musical tempo, more conducive to dancing than the fast-paced ska beat.

The explanation offered in Stascha Bader’s wonderful documentary Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae centres on singer Hopeton Lewis, who asked his musicians to slow down the beat during the 1966 recording of Take It Easy.

Movie Review

Rocksteady: The Roots Of Reggae

Directed by Stascha Bader featuring Ken Boothe, Derrick Morgan, Judy Mowatt

Cinematheque: Fri 9:45, Sat 9:00, Sun 7:00

Four stars out of five

“I could not follow the ska beat,” Lewis says. “It was too fast. I asked Gladdy (pianist Gladstone Anderson) to slow it down.”

To illustrate the point, guitarist Ernest Ranglin (a man whose name should be spoken with hushed reverence far more often) plays patterns from both styles.

Oddly, a 50-song box set of rocksteady classics on the blue-chip Trojan label does not even include Take It Easy.

Whether it came about by design or accident, one thing is certain: rocksteady, the bridge between ska and reggae that produced some classic Jamaican sides between 1966 and 1969, has rarely been given its due. Bader’s film goes a long way toward righting that wrong.

In the style of Wim Wenders’ Buena Vista Social Club, Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae reunites some of the old-timers behind those great records to revisit their hits in the studio and, ultimately, to perform a live show.

Along the way, they tell their stories while Bader examines the political, social, economic and cultural changes that surrounded the music.

The era started with optimism, inspired by Jamaica’s 1962 independence from Britain. Early in the film, singer Judy Mowatt remembers the brief period as a romantic one, with no violence in the streets.

The arrival of young people from the countryside into the urban ghettos of Kingston, where there was no work for them, soon changed that. Their appearance on the scene spawned a delinquent (rude boy) subculture that began to leave its mark on the subject matter of the songs.

The Rastafarian movement, fuelled by a 1966 state visit from Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, also came to the foreground.

It’s a fascinating look at the times, but what keeps one coming back to this film, and its excellent soundtrack, is the music.

Lewis, Mowatt, Marcia Griffiths, Ken Boothe, Leroy Sibbles, U-Roy and the Tamlins are some of the artists who allow us to let rocksteady touch our hearts again, with joyous, stirring, R&B-influenced shuffles like People Rocksteady, Silent River Runs Deep, Stop That Train, Shanty Town (007), Equal Rights and Tide Is High.

A scene featuring Morgan performing an acoustic version of Tougher Than Tough at the site of Kingston’s Palace Theatre, where he started his career in 1957, is as thrilling as they come.