Last night, Google unveiled something called "Gmail Labs." It can be found under your Settings tab in Gmail, as pictured above (click to see more detail). Of course, typically, this will roll out gradually to users, so you may not see it, though it went live at 6 PM PDT Thursday night, so most should have it by now.
The Information Security Research Team (INSERT) claims to have discovered a security flaw in Gmail that allows a spammer to send thousands of bulk e-mails through Google's SMTP service undetected, bypassing both Google's ID fraud protection mechanisms and its 500-address limit on e-mail.
I haven't hidden the fact that I've been a victim of ID theft before. I've also had the good fortune to be one of the employees whose past IBM employee data was lost. This story, however, is a wake-up call: you shouldn't casually trust any shareware or freeware program - or even service.
