Umair's Blog: 18/04/2010

Tip: Going Undercover

Sometimes you don't want to leave traces on your computer of some site you visit. Google Chrome's incognito windows are made just for this. Visit a website in an incognito window, and when you close the window, the browser has no record of you having been there.

Of course, you probably knew that. What you might not have known is that you don't have to use the Tools menu in the upper corner of the window to get an incognito window. Just hit ctrl-shift-n, and one will pop right up. (And it's command + shift + N on a Mac.)

If there's a particular link you want to open in incognito mode, you can right click the link and select "Open link in incognito window", and you'll navigate to it without leaving any tracks.

Posted by Peter Kasting, Software Engineer

Spotlight: Google Sites templates

In November, we launched site templates, making it easier to get started when creating a Google site. We've enjoyed watching the gallery grow. We have been particularly impressed by some of the recent templates created by Over the Top Marketing, including the Mom's club, travel journal, wine club, PTA, daycare center, bible study, and home project site templates.

SADA Systems has also created some great templates to help businesses get started on common sites, including project tracking workspace, client engagement, crisis management, team site, training, extranet, and intranet site templates.

To get started with a new site click on the "use this template" button in the header of any template, or browse our gallery for more templates at sites.google.com.

Posted by: Scott Johnston, Product Manager, Google Sites

Spotlight: Google Sites templates

Show customers where you'll go with Google Places

Not all businesses serve their customers from a brick-and-mortar storefront. Folks like photographers, piano tuners, and plumbers tend to travel around town to provide their services, and may operate from home. To better connect with all the customers they serve, these businesses can now use Google Places to specify a service area -- that is, where they’re willing to travel to do business.

If you operate one of these types of businesses, you can set a service area for a listing in your Google Places account quickly and easily. If you have a limit to how far away you’re willing to travel, you can set your service area as a circle around a specific location. If you have a particular list of places where you work, you can list your areas served (by zip codes, cities, counties, or even neighborhoods).

When customers search for you on Google Maps, they’ll see something like this:

If you run your business from a home or private office and don’t have a location for customers to visit, you can choose to show your service area but mark the listing address as private in your Google Places account. When a customer searches for you, they’ll see the business service area, but no specific location marker:

In addition to letting business owners list their service areas, we’ve also aggregated data from third-party sources to expand the number of businesses with service areas and help keep the information accurate and up-to-date. To see a business’ service areas, click on the “show service area” option (when available) in the info bubble. To learn more about service areas on Google Maps and in your Google Places account, take a look at this short introductory video we’ve put together:

Posted by Ari Bezman, Product Manager

About Google Code Jam 2010

Do you enjoy solving tough problems and grappling with technical challenges? Then enter Google Code Jam!

Google Code Jam is a programming competition in which professional and student programmers are asked to solve complex algorithmic challenges in a limited amount of time. The contest is all-inclusive: Google Code Jam lets you compete in the programming language and development environment of your choice.

And, this year, for the very first time, the final competition will take place in Google’s Dublin office.

Visit http://code.google.com/codejam to register now (you can register any time until the end of the 24-hour Qualification Round - Saturday, May 8, at 23:00 UTC) and get up to speed on the rules. You can also practice on problems from previous contests. It’s a good idea to check out the competition arena and get comfortable with the interface, competition format and types of problems that you’ll encounter in the contest (http://code.google.com/codejam/archive.html).

You can also learn more about Code Jam by following the team on Twitter or Facebook and by joining codejam-announce@googlegroups.com to receive announcements about the competition or google-code@googlegroups.com to discuss Google Code Jam with other contestants.

The Rise of Fake Anti-Virus

Posted by Niels Provos, Security Team
For years, we have detected malicious content on the web and helped protect users from it. Vulnerabilities in web browsers and popular plugins have resulted in an increased number of users whose systems can be compromised by attacks known as drive-by downloads. Such attacks do not require any user interaction, and they allow the adversary to execute code on a user’s computer without their knowledge. However, even without any vulnerabilities present, clever social engineering attacks can cause an unsuspecting user to unwittingly install malicious code supplied by an attacker on their computer.

One increasingly prevalent threat is the spread of Fake Anti-Virus (Fake AV) products. This malicious software takes advantage of users’ fear that their computer is vulnerable, as well as their desire to take the proper corrective action. Visiting a malicious or compromised web site — or sometimes even viewing a malicious ad — can produce a screen looking something like the following:

At Google, we have been working to help protect users against Fake AV threats on the web since we first discovered them in March 2007. In addition to protections like adding warnings to browsers and search results, we’re also actively engaged in malware research. We conducted an in-depth analysis of the prevalence of Fake AV over the course of the last 13 months, and the research paper containing our findings, “The Nocebo Effect on the Web: An Analysis of Fake AV distribution” is going to be presented at the Workshop on Large-Scale Exploits and Emergent Threats (LEET) in San Jose, CA on April 27th. While we do not want to spoil any surprises, here are a few previews. Our analysis of 240 million web pages over the 13 months of our study uncovered over 11,000 domains involved in Fake AV distribution — or, roughly 15% of the malware domains we detected on the web during that period.

Also, over the last year, the lifespan of domains distributing Fake AV attacks has decreased significantly:

In the meantime, we recommend only running antivirus and antispyware products from trusted companies. Be sure to use the latest versions of this software, and if the scan detects any suspicious programs or applications, remove them immediately.