“Noooo! The giant Spambot is coming to steal our personal details and crush our fragile human bodies!”

Who knew there was such a thing on the internet as a bad neighbourhood? And we don’t just mean under questionable bridges in WOW where you can find trolls willing to do some very under-the-radar things to your avatar!

New research put forward by Giovane Cesar Moreira Moura of Netherlands’ University of Twente suggests that 50% of all the pain-in-the-arse mail you see spamming up your inbox originates from just twenty ISPs. Moura identified that some ISPs even specialise in particular types and methods of spamming, including defence mechanisms and protocols targeting common phishing scams and so on.

Here in Money4Machines HQ we like to think of ourselves as a pretty savvy bunch when it comes to things like internet security. But it was still interesting to see things from this whole “bad neighbourhood” perspective. According to the study, more than 42,200 ISPs were analysed. Of these, around 50% of all nefarious little phishing scams and junk mails came from just TWENTY ISPs. There networks were mostly found in Brazil, India, part of Africa and Vietnam. The worst offender was a Nigeria ISP called Spectranet, on which 62% of its addresses were identified as spam-inclined!

We can help you sell mobile phones, sell Macbook Pros and whatever else you’ve got lying around, but we can’t be your spam filter. Our experts advise giving your inbox spam filters regular checks to stay on top of the game. And don’t forget, when you do the whole ‘sell my mobile‘ we won’t spam you with newsletters and other bits of nonsense (it’s really not our style!)

We all pretty much live and breathe in the form of avatars and online personae, and that means a certain amount of stickiness when it comes to internet privacy. Do you trust all apps to handle personal details appropriately? How would you know if they didn’t?

We reported yesterday on the 14,000+ tech patents registered last year, and a huge proportion of those are apps for your smart devices. Do you know who has access to your details?

Back in May 2011 it was reported that WhatsApp wasn’t doing everything in it’s power to keep your messages private. A flaw in the software left the app open to hacking, and since they weren’t bothering to encrypt messages, it meant your little missives were easily hackable and readable by anyone with the skill to exploit the loophole. Bottom line, it’s not the first time WhatsApp has got into hot water over privacy.

But this time things are a little more official. The service has been criticised for requesting access to registered users’ contact address book and then recording all user details, including those of people not signed up to WhatsApp. Only iPhone users were given the option to add contacts manually, therefore missing out the folks who hadn’t signed up to WhatsApp. But before you sell Samsung devices or head to Money4Machines‘ quote page to sell mobile phones not running iOS, it’s worth remembering that since this news has come to light, it’s likely WhatsApp will be forced into making changes.

When we arrived to start all your ‘sell my mobile‘ quote orders this morning, WhatsApp still hadn’t commented on the story as it swept across tech news websites, but we’ll keep you posted on any developments that pop up over the next few days.

“I am bloody not on Facebook. And I’m not on Twitter either… “Woke up this morning, had an egg.” What relevance is that to anyone? Social networking? Just call each other up and go to the pub and have a drink.” – Daniel Craig

You might be the kind of person who hits the Facebook bookmark before your morning coffee is filtered. You could even be one of those folks who wake in the night as their iPhone 5 vibrates with a new Tweet. Hey, it’s no criticism! Here in the Money4Machines office we’re obsessed with social media to the point of posting pictures of our own cats on the company blog.

But a growing number of folks are viewing communication platforms like Twitter and Facebook as more of a hindrance – a form of anti-social media – than anything else.

Here in the M4M office we spend our days helping you do everything from sell iPad from Manchester to sell games consoles for cash. We run our business over the internet because it’s convenient for our customers and for us. It’s not that we’re too lazy to pop over and pick up the Playstation 3 you’re selling, it’s just that it’s not practical for either of us.

It’s estimated the average Brit checks Facebook at least once before arriving at work in the morning. We also check our emails on our smartphones about 20 times per day.

The figure we found bouncing around is about 129 hours per year just checking up on Facebook newsfeeds in little bursts throughout the day. That’s 129 hours where we’re not even updating our own status or uploading photos. Just reading what old school friends we haven’t seen since graduation are filling their weekends with.

The bottom line seems to be that life is about taking the time to stop and smell the roses (or pizza or whatever else you like). Social media is a fantastic invention and a real marker of the century, but how about taking a less time to update your status, and a little more time to fill life with…well, life!

And don’t forget, if you want to sell mobile devices and live the serious lo-fi life, you can use a good old fashioned landline to get in touch (maybe even a phone box if you’re feeling really committed!)

Back in mid-October, tech website, Gizmodo, reported on US statistics that indicate smartphone muggings are becoming increasingly popular. The issue appears to be a growing problem in urban areas, specifically.

According to the Associated Press, smartphone robberies now account for between 40-50% of thefts in major US cities like New York and San Francisco. The problem has become so prevalent that US Senator Charles Schumer and New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly have spearheaded a new scheme whereby carriers and the Federal Communications Commission will run a national database to track stolen handsets from it’s launch in late 2013.

Here in the UK, smartphone robberies are said to be one of the driving targets behind knife crime. Smartphone robberies at knifepoint rose by 7% in just a single year, with the aim of many being identity theft. The market for such handsets sees foreign identity fraudsters sometimes paying twice the value of the handset in order to access the data inside. Contacts, emails, internet history, passwords etc – they’re all a goldmine for fraudsters.

In the year up to June 2012, police in England and Wales recorded almost 15,000 robberies involving knives. It’s thought around 25% of smartphone robbery victims are under 16-years-old.

UK gadget company, Money4Machines, say staying safe is all abut vigilance and being smart with your devices.

“It’s that old situation of ‘out of sight, out of mind’, especially for people walking the streets alone. Listening to your iPod, chatting on your Galaxy S3 – you wouldn’t flash wads of cash around, so keep your smartphone hidden but accessible in an emergency.

One of our team said she never uses her smartphone in the street if she can help it, always opting to go into a supermarket or pub to chat.

The lesson seems to be that if you want to hold onto your devices and sell your mobile when it’s time to upgrade, be smart with how you use your smartphone.”

There would be no more SURPRISE BEAR!

Messing around on the internet is kind of like our religion. According to this splendid infographic from Mashable, internet access means we consume about three times as much information on a daily basis as folks did back in the 1960s. We also check our emails/switch between computer programmes about every two minutes during our work days.

So, the internet has crept into our daily lives, making websites like Money4Machines a quick easy way to sell laptops, smartphones, old Kindles, old iPads and whatever else you’ve got floating about. Mashable minions reckon we don’t just do everything online now, we do everything online and at the same time (how often do you have to feverishly remind yourself to stop flicking between windows and finish one task at a time?)

But what if it all just… went away?

We’d have to re-learn how to learn

Our marketing pawns are just about old enough to remember a time when Wikipedia was considered cheating. Essays and learning and study-ish things came from books if they wanted to be credible (we mean the info came from books, not that they were sneakily copied out!)

Now, we’re big fans of Jimmy Wales, but the likes of Wikipedia have detrimentally changed the way we store and access information. We no longer bother to remember the exact dates of the Yalta Conference or length of Henry V’s reign or how long the gestation period of an elephant is. Instead, we remember HOW we found the information.

Can you remember our sell for cash UK rates exactly? No, and why should you bother if you can use less brain power to remember the route you took to the answer? In a way it’s pretty sensible, what with us being exposed to three times as much information as our pre-internet days and all; it means we can keep up. But in an internet-free world we’d have to re-learn all those old revision techniques and memory tricks!

We would have to go places to do things (so would we do less?)

Our SEO lady is off on her jollies in a couple of weeks for a month in Thailand and Laos. She researched everything from local Bangkok bus services to the cheapest flights and best recommended jungle walking boots. She did it all online. It took ten minutes to book her flights and first hotel. Without the internet, she’d have had to go to that edifice of ancient knowledge – the library – read a bunch of books, pop to a few travel agents, chat to people who’ve been (in person) and generally spend time figure out what the hell is the best way to travel down the Mekong and where to buy the best pad thai.

But here’ the thing – if we had to actually get up and go and do things, would we bother? It’s estimated 34% of UK students will take a gap year in 2012. As recently as 1999, most gap year students weren’t taking the year out to get hammered on a Thai beach; they were volunteering in Africa, working with animals in Bolivia, sailing around the world for charity or undertaking some other challenging feat. The point is that they were driven to accomplish something. Fast forward to the about 2010 and most gap year students admit that their ‘lust for life’ is more ‘thirst for beer’, a journey made possible by the good old faithful internet, the Bank of Mum and Dad and the ease of social media!