The 80/20 rule is popular in economics, and it can be applied in much of your life. We haven't done the exact math, but at WOT we can roughly agree that 80 percent of our value is represented by 20 percent of our users. And from that 20 percent, there is an even smaller elite group that we want to recognize for their contributions.

The WOT Top Member award goes to those members who serve the WOT community by giving freely of their time, knowledge and advice to help others stay safe on the Internet.

• Athlonite is an experienced computer user who freely gives advice on the WOT forum and other technology forums.
• BobJam is an active participant in the WOT forum, giving advice and technical support, and he is not at all grumpy.
• Codhead is an active participant in the WOT forum, giving advice and technical support with a dose of British humor.
• Flyaqua is an active participant in the WOT forum, giving advice and opinions. He has added comments to numerous sites’ scorecards, including many in German.
• Phantazm has contributed by writing comments explaining ratings on numerous sites, participating in the WOT forum, offering advice and solving technical problems. He is also active in the WOT Google group.
• Xp54321 has given numerous ratings along with being an active participant in the WOT forum. He is also active in the WOT Google group.
• wehaveitall is an active participant in the WOT forum giving advice and technical support. He has independently created the WOT Google group and WOT fan page, and he has facilitated the creation of a WOT wiki. He was winner of the WOT Million Download Contest.

The Top Member award can be seen on your profile page. If you would like to suggest a WOT user for a future Top Member, Scambuster or Publicity award, please email us at awards@mywot.com.

In the run up to the day that celebrates romance and friendship, the makers of last year's bot Trojan Storm, are busy spreading their version of love. Seems that they want people to "Be My Valentine" more than ever this year.

Security companies have issued warnings to avoid new spam messages with subject lines such as “Falling in love with you”, “I belong to you”, and “I love being in love with you.” Once the link in the email is clicked the user is brought to a site that has an image of 12 hearts and has the bold text "Guess, which one is for you?" If you click anywhere on the picture, you give yourself the unromantic gift of malware.

I'd rather have roses or chocolate, wouldn't you?

If you're not twittering yet, don't be left out of the fun! WOT has a page of our very own and you are invited to follow us.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a real-time messaging system that enables you to broadcast short messages to your friends or "followers." It also lets you specify which Twitter users you want to follow so you can read their messages in one place. All Twitter messages are limited to 140 characters, which is part of the fun. It is designed to work on a mobile phone as well as on a computer, so each message can be sent as a single SMS alert.

Click here to follow WOT on Twitter.

Firefox Facts resident tech guru, Mitch Keeler, also known as "the media rock star of the web hosting industry“ for his work on The Web Hosting Show, posted an awesome interview with WOT's CEO Esa Suurio. Read One on One with CEO of Web of Trust.

The WOT Scambusters award goes to those members who have discovered and reported threats that could do harm to others’ computers, personal data and wallets. These hardworking members use their own time, with no compensation from WOT, to seek out and expose dangerous links. The entire WOT community benefits from their efforts. This award is our small way of saying thank you and to express our appreciation for what you do.

• Bonsai Rosebushes discovered and reported a innocent site that had been hijacked and redirected innocent users to a malicious site that downloaded rogue software.
• Cotojo verifies numerous rogue applications by testing them in a safe environment. He also publishes a list of known malicious software on Free PC Security. 
• logicman uncovered and reported spam advertisements disguised as consumer advice.
• lordpake uncovered an incident where a fraudulent security site’s forum was actually a mirror of Yahoo’s Q & A site.
• MysteryFCM verifies numerous rogue applications by testing them in a safe environment and supports WOT when challenged by site owners who are not always polite. He maintains UR I.T. Mate Group.
• xxxy seeks out and reports huge quantities of spam links thereby protecting all of our inboxes.
• Yatti420 has been a contributing member of WOT for a long time now, building our ratings base even before we had scorecards.

If you would like to suggest someone for the Scambusters award, or the upcoming Top Member award, please email us at awards@mywot.com.

We are doing some planned hardware maintenance work on WOT servers today. This may cause some short interruptions in the WOT service within the coming couple of hours. We will update this message to inform you when the work is done. Thank you for your patience.

Update: Maintenance was completed in scheduled time and the service was unavailable only for a couple of minutes.

John Rempel's troubles began in July 2007. He said he got an e-mail from someone claiming to be a lawyer with a client named David Rempel who died in a 2005 bomb attack in London, England, and left behind $12.8 million.

John Rempel said he quit his truck driving job, lost friends, borrowed money and crossed the globe in pursuit of a non-existent inheritance, after he was contacted by e-mail in what is known as a Nigerian 419 scam.

Read the full story on how international scam artists bilked John Rempel and his family of $150,000 at http://tinyurl.com/8cewcq

By making this public John hopefully will help others to avoid falling for a Nigerian scam.

The WOT Publicity award goes to those members who have enthusiastically spread the word about WOT. Even in modern times, "word-of-mouth" references are the most valuable type of advertising. Here we recognize the WOT members who have helped to create "buzz" for our add-on, helping us to reach nearly 3 million downloads!

You have used your personal or professional blogs, social networking sites, business or school contacts and other innovative techniques to help spread the word. Thank you!

The Publicity award can be seen on your profile page and in the January Inside MyWOT newsletter.

• Bill Mullins coined the phrase “people-driven security” when recommending WOT to the readers of his popular blog, TechThoughts.  Bill’s specialty is in security and system tools, and he frequently shares tips, downloads and software reviews.
• BobJam actively promotes WOT through his participation in various forums and frequently shares his knowledge and advice.
• Bobo2854 uses the microblogging site Twitter and his personal page on LiveSpaces to promote WOT.
• Bpvette created a WOT group on Facebook to increase awareness of Internet threats and how WOT can help protect people.
• Cotojo promotes WOT through his Free PC Security blog and videos. Colin’s goal is to pass on interesting information and links to free programs and utilities that make surfing the net safer and more secure.
• Donnab is a Microsoft MVP and member of the Alliance of Security Analysis & Professionals (ASAP). She has supported WOT through her Internet security forum Calendar of Updates.
• Foolsville has promoted WOT on his Foolsville 2.0 blog.
• Frank J promotes WOT through his blog Techjaws, a technology news site aimed at the general public and  technology enthusiasts. 
• FrankZ promotes WOT through his former technology website PC Buster and his new site Kixtrix. Frank has run WOT awareness campaigns at his school.
• hichez created a youtube video recommending WOT.
• Luis9955 created a youtube video explaining the WOT addon.
• Marko created a youtube video that shows how to download and install WOT.
• Reprotected created a youtube video comparing the WOT addon to SiteAdvisor.
• Sandnsurf is an emergency physician who generally writes about medical subjects. He has recommended WOT through his blog.
• Spacequad promotes WOT through his Spacequad antispam website.
• TechPaul promotes WOT through his Tech for Everyone blog, where he regularly posts how-tos, tricks and tips and general computing advice.   
• YoKenny actively promotes WOT through his participation in various forums.
• wehaveitall created a WOT Fan blog, WOT fanpage and a WOT Google group whose work includes creating a wiki.

 If you would like to suggest someone for the Publicity award, please email us a awards@mywot.com.

Congratulations to David, aka g7w who is the winner of the first Fantastically Creative WOT logo contest. g7w's thoughtful design delighted the judges and inspired some lively discussion at HQ. He will receive a $100 gift card from Amazon.com. Thanks to everyone who participated in the logo contest. We hope to do this again in the future.

g7w's winning design

My father was looking forward to my visit during Christmas vacation, not only because he wanted to reunite with his only child, but because he wanted me to fix his computer. I consider myself an average computer user, but he calls me his "computer guru." Thanks to all I have been exposed to concerning computer security, I put that moniker to the test.

Poor old dad uses his computer daily for his digital art, but during a recent move he let his antivirus software expire. His machine started getting popups, browser redirects and his inbox was inundated with spam, causing him much distress and difficulty while working. Frightening warnings appeared on the screen notifying him of viruses, which he was sure he must have. Unfortunately, he fell for one of the rouge antivirus products in the 2009-antispyware family and ordered it with his credit card. After paying $59.95, he still got all that annoying stuff, plus alarming reports every 5 seconds saying that his machine was infected. Needless to say, he was furious!

It took some work, but we managed to get his computer clean of the rogue software with the help of Malwarebytes’ Anti-malware. Thanks to Colin at Free PC Security and WOT users for introducing me to that.

Dad's new ISP had a free McAfee suite available for subscribers in his tier, so we installed it, updated the database and ran a scan. Then we made sure all other software was updated by running a Secunia scan to check for vulnerabilities. And to keep his Internet surfing safer we installed Web of Trust.

I feel confident now that he is protected, but I left detailed instructions on how to use these tools, plus I will email him with reminders. I earned the title "computer guru" this time.

Meanwhile, Daddy is anxiously awaiting his credit card bill and is ready to refuse payment and report this rogue company. I sure hope he gets some satisfaction.

I hear about these cases all the time and I even made a video about it for WOT, but to come face to face with a real occurrence of this type of fraud was eye-opening. My elderly dad is on a fixed income and can't afford to spend money foolishly. His computer is his lifeline out to the broader world now that he's retired, and he felt violated and hurt when he realized he was ripped off. I was happy to read Esa's posting about the FTC's restraining order for sellers of "scareware."

Thank you friends of WOT for helping me help my dad. Together we must keep up the struggle for a safer Internet for everyone.