Download Squad

Gmail fights PayPal and eBay phishers

Gmail is all about privacy this week -- first with the introduction of remote log-in controls and monitoring and now by incorporating a new feature that automatically rejects a message from would-be phishers attempting to get information about your eBay or PayPal account.

Although Gmail has had a pretty good track-record at identifying phishing messages, even labeling them with a red-warning label as such, by its own admission, the system isn't perfect. This is no longer true, however, for phishing messages that appear to come from "paypal.com" or "ebay.com." PayPal and eBay are now using DomainKeys and DomainKeys Identified Mail to sign all of their mail. What this means is that if a message purporting to be from paypal.com or ebay.com doesn't pass the DomainKeys or DKIM authentication process, Google won't even accept the message at all -- it is automatically rejected. So phishing messages attempting to gleam information for your PayPal or eBay account won't even show up in your spam folder.

[via Official Gmail Blog]

Protocol Buffers go open source

Google uses thousands of different data formats day in and day out, but encoding the information from those formats (most of which is structured, not flat) required a customized solution. That solution, Protocol Buffers, is now being made available to the community.

Protocol Buffers is essentially an IDL, sans much of the complication. Google designed Protocol Buffers to be sleek, simple and fast. If you need to parse lots of different file formats and are looking at a good way of encoding that information, read the Protocol Buffers documentation, it might be a good solution.

[via Google Open Source Blog]

Walking directions for Google Maps

With gas prices rising, walking from place to place has suddenly become a more viable alternative for many of us. Google Maps is testing out a new feature, walking directions, perfectly suited for those of us who prefer to stay away from the car when possible.

The feature, which is still in beta (so be careful when walking in unfamiliar areas) has been spotted in New York, though we're sure other cities will roll out soon. Much like driving directions and transit directions, walking directions is aimed at making it easier to get from place to place.

[via Google Operating System]

YouTube Screening Room, round two

Two weeks after first launching Screening Room, YouTube's destination for quality short films, a new playlist is now available for your next computerized short film festival.

This second round features films from the UK, the US and Canada. The third round of shorts will be available on July 18.

[via YouTube Blog]

Viacom v. YouTube and what it means for your privacy

In the still-continuing Viacom v. YouTube legal battle, Viacom scored a victory recently when the court ordered YouTube to turn over viewing logs, including usernames and IP addresses. Google had appealed the request before, but the court ruled that the logs SHOULD be turned over. Google is now asking the court and Viacom's attorneys to allow them to redact IP addresses and usernames from the viewing logs, as they are not necessary to determine "general viewing practices" and Google promises to continue to fight the good fight.

Frankly, we don't really care if Viacom finds out we watched that clip from Punk'd where Zach Braff goes insane and almost kills the child actor 200 times -- but we are happy YouTube (and Google) are fighting to protect our privacy.

[via YouTube Blog]