MS takes down Kelihos botnet

Microsoft claims to have delivered a fatal legal blow to Kelihos, a botnet that stole sensitive personal information stored on computers it infected, and was capable of delivering almost four billion spam messages per day, writes The Register.

The takedown was achieved in part by obtaining a secret court order shutting down 21 Internet addresses, including cz.cc, a free domain name registration service based in the Czech Republic.

The underlying lawsuit was unsealed only after the command and control servers that relied on the domains were severed from the Internet, making it impossible for the 42 000 or so infected computers to receive updated software and instructions from the Kelihos operators.

Once again, Android has thoroughly stomped the competition, according to a survey of US smartphone users by Nielsen, says Digital Trends.

As of August, 43% of all smartphone owners in the US use a device that runs Google's mobile operating system. Of those who purchased a smartphone in the past three months, 56% chose an Android device over everything else.

Apple's iPhone line remains solidly in second place, with 28% of the US smartphone market. The same number purchased an iPhone in the past three months.

Apple's iPad captured 80% of the tablet computer market in the US and Canada in April to July, a report has said, notes the BBC.

The iPad accounted for six million of all 7.5 million tablets shipped in North America during the second quarter of 2011, according to research group Strategy Analytics. It described Apple as a “formidable market leader”.

However, it added that Amazon - which is expected to unveil its own tablet this week - could become a big challenger.

Keeping with his commitment to only eat what he kills, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shot and killed a bison for food, according to Mashable.

Questions about Zuckerberg killing a bison began to surface during his f8 keynote last week. During his presentation, one box on his Timeline profile displayed that he was cooking bison burgers. This naturally raised a question with many audience members: did Zuckerberg kill a bison?

The answer is apparently yes, he did kill a bison. According to Fortune, Zuckerberg recently obtained a hunting licence and killed the bison now featured on his Facebook Timeline.