Technology: December 2008 Archives

2008 was twice a leap year. Not only did we have our quadrennial bissextile day, we had an extra second there, just before 6 p.m. Tulsa time. I hope you used it well.

Both leap days and leap seconds serve the same purpose -- keeping the clock and calendar in line with the movement of the earth. This BBC news item explains how this happens, and we get to see the innards of Big Ben and how they slow the pendulum down (using pre-decimalisation pennies for weight) just enough to allow for that extra second before the clock strikes 12.

(If you're a Spinal Tap fan, you'll be tickled by the volume control on the BBC video player.)

I was looking for the remaining schedule for Tulsa Ballet's presentation of The Nutcracker, and saw this on the Google search results:

Tulsa Performing Arts Center

This site may harm your computer.

The Nutcracker (Tulsa Ballet-Tulsa). The well-known holiday fairy tale springs to life through the dreams of a child as The Nutcracker and Mouse King battle ...

www.tulsapac.com/ - Similar pages -

Google's Safe Browsing diagnostic site gives the following explanation for the Tulsa PAC website:

What is the current listing status for www.tulsapac.com?

Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer.

Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 1 time(s) over the past 90 days.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 26 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 2 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2008-12-15, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2008-12-13.

Malicious software includes 2 scripting exploit(s), 1 trojan(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 4 new processes on the target machine.

Malicious software is hosted on 4 domain(s), including 17gamo.com/, dbios.org/, yrwap.cn/.

1 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including yrwap.cn/.

This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS40139 (JACKSON).

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, www.tulsapac.com did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.

Has this site hosted malware?

No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.

How did this happen?

In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.

Google advises, "If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google's Webmaster Help Center."

(BatesLine is clean, by the way.)