Warning: Outdated browsers invite attacks by hackers If you are using an outdated internet browser to surf the internet, you are putting your computer at risk of being attacked by hackers. So says a new report by a group of researchers. It contends that as many as 637 million internet users worldwide, about 40 percent, are using insecure web browsers, such as older versions of Internet Explorer. The report stems from an effort by researchers to determine the cause of a rising number of hacker attacks on browsers. The answer they came up with: Users are not updating to the latest versions, which have so many more safeguards. They found that only 52 percent of Internet Explorer users are using the latest version of IE 7. The study compares internet browsers to food, and suggests that like packaged foods, browsers ought to have expiration dates.   Facebook defacing: Fake page tags woman a hooker Facebook may be a great place to go to keep up with friends, but not everyone there is a friend, as Kerry Harvey came to realize this week. It turns out someone ripped off her personal information and created a fake Facebook page on the popular social networking site that listed the 23-year-old Brit as a prostitute. Harvey says she's received obscene phone calls and photos on her cell phone. The advertising sales executive says the experience has ruined her life and she’s calling for stricter measures to prevent the same thing from happening to others. Hers is just the most recent among a series of calls for stricter controls for social networking sites to prevent identity theft and cyber bullying, which appears to be increasingly common. In June, a 13-year-old boy committed suicide after being teased for being a fan of “Emo” music on Bebo, and Mathew Firsht, also a Brit, is suing a former schoolmate for creating a fake Facebook profile that he claims contains false statements about him, including his sexual orientation.   Ultimate DVR-busters: Cactus Kid and Cactus Girl One of the best weapons against DVRs, we're told, are ads that viewers actually want to see, and in that spirit Britain's Oasis, a brand of juice, has come up with what may be the ultimate captivating TV spot. Viewers are asked to choose the ad's ending. The campaign relates the adventures of Cactus Kid, who is half man and half cactus (green and prickly but with a man's head). His devoted girlfriend is Cactus Girl, and the two are united by their love for each other and their dislike of water. The first three 30-second spots cover the drama of their life on the road together in the style of classic American road movies. But the final spot has been shot with two different endings. Viewers can vote online for how they would like to see it all end for Cactus Kid and Cactus Girl. The ending with the most votes will be the one that airs on TV.   Latest newspaper threat: New online obit venture First newspapers lost job ads to Monster.com, then classifieds to Craigslist.com. Now they're at risk of losing yet another smaller but still important revenue stream to the internet: Paid obituaries. Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor is testing a new web site, Tributes.com, for a full-blown September launch, and this would come at a time when newspapers are already facing ever-worsening declines in other areas of advertising. Online obituaries have been around for some years, with more than 650 papers belonging to Legacy.com, a network that manages their online obituary sections for a fee and sees 12 million visitors monthly. But Taylor plans to entirely bypass newspapers, relying on funeral homes and other sources for background on the deceased. Tributes claims a database of 82 million records of deaths going back to 1937. Tributes will be ad supported but will also gain revenue by charging for virtual memorials. Its investors include Dow Jones & Co. and Eons.com, a social web site Taylor created that targets Baby Boomers. Tributes is not the first effort to build an online obituary network that operates independently of newspapers. One problem has been in gathering death notices from the nation’s 22,000 funeral homes.