Zango affiliates are offering gateway access to pirated films, including the Hollywood blockbuster The Dark Knight, in a bid to induce users into accepting adware.

Freetards who accept the offer are likely to to be disappointed with the shaky videocam footage of the eagerly awaited next installment in the rebooted Batman franchise, and the dodgy sound.

Christopher Boyd, director of malware research at IM security firm FaceTime, has identified two sites (one registered by someone in China and another by a person in China) offering the ropy content in exchange for installing Zango adware. The Indonesian site further sweetens the pill by offering Hellboy 2: The Golden Army as well as The Dark Knight and other recent hit films.

Zango spokesman Steve Sratz said that the sites concerned are not hosting copyrighted content and are only acting as a search engine for this content. By only acting as gateways to the unsanctioned content they are operating within the terms of partnership agreements. If industry rules change Zango will review this position, he explained.

Symantec is buying PC Tools, which sells PC utilities software designed to boost the security and privacy of Windows-based computers, Symantec said on Monday.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the year.

The purchase will allow Symantec to expand its reach in emerging regional markets, the company said in a statement.

PC Tools, an Australia company, will continue to offer products under the PC Tools brand and will maintain separate operations within Symantec’s consumer business unit.

It is funny that during the 90’s Symantec also bought their major competitor in the pc utility market, called, PCTOOLS, I guess history repeats itself.

A pedophile who acted as a “librarian” for a global Internet child abuse ring was jailed on Monday after one of the biggest undercover police investigations into online abuse in Britain.

Unemployed Philip Thompson, 27, amassed nearly a quarter of a million indecent pictures of children, including thousands in the two most serious categories.

He was jailed for a minimum of 45 months after pleading guilty to 27 child abuse charges at Teesside Crown Court in Middlesbrough in the northeast of England.

Police said undercover officers have identified 360 suspects worldwide, made more than 50 arrests in Britain and saved 15 children from abuse during the long-running investigation.