A Trojan is introducing malware into thousands of computer systems worldwide, and the number is growing by the hour. The malware is being introduced by MSN Messenger files posing as pictures, mostly seeming to come from known acquaintances.

The files are a new type of Trojan that has snared several thousand PCs for a bot network within hours of its launch earlier on Nov. 18 and is being used to discover virtual PCs as a means of increasing its growth vector.

Sure, instant messaging is fast and efficient. For many teenagers, it’s also a great way to avoid those OMG moments–that’s "omigod"–of mortifying face-to-face confrontations. More than four in 10 teens, or 43 percent, who instant message use it for things they wouldn’t say in person, according to an Associated Press-AOL poll released Thursday. Twenty-two percent use IMs to ask people out on dates or accept them, and 13 percent use them to break up.

Overall, nearly half of teens age 13 to 18 said they use instant messaging, those staccato, Internet-borne strings of real-time chatter often coupled with enough frenzied multitasking to fry the typical adult brain. Only about one in five adults said they use IMs–though usually with less technological aplomb or hormone-driven social drama.

Microsoft won a patent dispute over technology that helps computers boot up faster Thursday. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, charged Microsoft with infringing on U.S. patent 5933639, which was issued in 1999 to Acceleration Software International Corp.

The suit asked the court to award the patent holder US$2.50 per copy of Windows XP sold in the U.S. By Microsoft’s account, that could have amounted to $600 million to $900 million. Microsoft argued that there are many ways to improve the boot speed of PCs and that XP uses different technology than that in the patent.

The worst-case scenario used to be that online ads are pesky, memory-draining distractions.

">But a new batch of banner ads is much more sinister: They hijack personal computers and bully users until they agree to buy antivirus software. And the ads do their dirty work even if you don’t click on them.

The malware-spiked ads have been spotted on various legitimate websites, ranging from the British magazine The Economist to baseball’s MLB.com to the Canada.com news portal. Hackers are using deceptive practices and tricky Flash programming to get their ads onto legitimate sites by way of DoubleClick’s DART program. Web publishers use the DoubleClick-hosted platform to manage advertising inventory.

Google has added another weapon to its arsenal to help programmers move data from the productivity applications of Microsoft and others. Launched Nov. 15, the Google Apps Email Migration API is an application programming interface that lets software developers create tools that can move email from any data source to Google Apps’ Premier, Education or Partner editions.

The new software opens up email migration to the broadest range of possibilities and builds on an email migration tool Google launched June 25 that lets administrators move email from their IMAP mail systems to Google Apps.

Maurice Johnson, a freshman studying interior design at Harcum College, spends hours each day online, both for work and play. One thing he rarely does, though, is open his campus email account.

Moe, as his friends call him, has his own fashion label and regularly corresponds with other designers through his MySpace page. He chats with friends through instant messaging. He also has a few commercial email accounts that he checks daily.

But his Harcum account lies dormant. Not only does he prefer other means of communication, but the college email addresses are too complicated to give out to friends or to check online.

Teenagers are abandoning their Yahoo! and Hotmail accounts; do the rest of us have to? For the technophobic older generation, signing up for an email account was a concession to the youngsters–if the kids don’t call home, we’ll just reach them through the computer.

Those of us older than 25 can’t imagine a life without email. For the Facebook generation, it’s hard to imagine a life of only email, much less a life before it.

Laplink and Webroot Software announced a partnership that gives PCmover customers the ability to eliminate spyware and viruses from their old PC before they start transferring applications, files and settings via PCmover–ensuring their new PC remains free of infection. A free 30 day unlimited trial version of Spy Sweeper–the antispyware utility with antivirus tools–will be integrated within the latest version of PCmover.

A Microsoft executive calls the ease with which two British e-crime specialists managed to hack into a Windows XP computer as both "enlightening and frightening."

The demonstration took place Monday at an event sponsored by Get Safe Online–a joint initiative of the U.K. government and industry. At the event, which was aimed at heightening security awareness among small businesses, two members of the U.K. government intelligence group Serious Organized Crime Agency connected a machine running Windows XP with Service Pack 1 to an unsecured wireless network. The machine was running no antivirus, firewall, or anti-spyware software and contained a sample target file of passwords to be stolen.

Microsoft’s Network Access Protection platform is being extended to Linux and the Mac in heterogeneous network environments through third-party products. The software maker announced at its TechEd IT Forum that UNETsystem will release Linux and Macintosh versions of its Anyclick for NAP (Network Access Protection) product next year.