A large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and could hit the Earth in late February or March, government officials said Saturday.
The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret.
“Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation,” said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, when asked about the situation after it was disclosed by other officials. “Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause.”
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When it first launched in 2004, Facebook swept across college campuses and became forever embedded in our popular culture.Just two short years later, anyone older than 13 could join, making the social networking site one of the most popular sites on the Internet with 60 million registered users. It became so popular, in fact, that a 2006 study found that college students named the site as the second most “in” thing, tied with beer and sex - losing only to the ubiquitous iPod.
So how could something that became as popular as two of the most common college traditions go so wrong in just a few years after its creation?Even though many of us enjoyed the welcomed distraction of friending, tagging and poking people for countless hours, it soon became apparent that Facebook was going to have to do more than connect us with our friends to hold our attention - and keep turning a profit. And it was downhill from there. Unfortunately, to accomplish its revenue goal, the creator of the billion-dollar Facebook decided it would have to sell our privacy to the highest bidder. And with the extremely profitable market that the site had captured so quickly, it wasn’t unexpected. Sure, students quickly caught on that maybe posting everything on Facebook wasn’t such a good idea. When public scandals involving inappropriate photo postings continued to make the news on campuses across the country, users became more selective about what they were posting on the site. After all, not everyone wanted the world to see documented proof of a typical weekend’s worth of their debauchery. However, the more clandestine, corporate violations of personal privacy that a Facebook account might allow were not so obvious to the millions of the site’s devotees. We can trace the beginning of the end of Facebook as we knew it to Nov. 7. The site introduced Facebook Beacon, a marketing scheme that includes a system to allow users to share information about their activities on other Web sites. When people realized that what they purchased or viewed on these “partner Web sites” was immediately published on Facebook without their permission, red flags went up across cyberspace. Realizing the potential for destructive blows to his company’s net worth, founder Mark Zuckerberg made yet another public apology for the way that a new application was launched. Beacon was later changed to require that any actions transmitted to the site would have to be approved by the user. But, by then, the damage was already done. So, when it was revealed last week that Facebook is now the target of an investigation from the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office, it came as no surprise to us. The site is currently facing questions about how it protects users’ data after someone complained that the social network did not fully delete their information even after they had terminated their account. We won’t try to deny the potential benefits of having a Facebook account, which is why we were so infatuated with it in the first place - hell, you can even friend the Alligator if you want. But we continue to be disappointed with the way the site is transforming into another tool for corporate America’s quest to acquire more consumers at the expense of personal privacy. The once genius idea generated from a Harvard student’s dorm room has become a corporate pirate holding hostage something some people would be willing to pay any price to have access to - our information.
Published on The independent Florida Alligator By the Editorial Board
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Last May, the web sites of a number of high-ranking Estonian politicians and businesses were attacked over a period of several weeks. At the time, relations between Russia and Estonia were chillier than usual, due in part to the Estonian government’s plans to move a World War II-era memorial known as the Bronze Soldier (pictured below at its original location) away from the center of the city and into a cemetery. The country’s plan was controversial, and led to protests that were often led by the country’s ethnic Russian minority. When the cyberattacks occurred, Estonia claimed that Russia was either directly or indirectly involved—an allegation that the Russian government denied. Almost a year later, the Russian government appears to have been telling the truth about its involvement (or lack thereof) in the attacks against Estonia. As InfoWorld reports, an Estonian youth has been arrested for the attacks, and current evidence suggests he was acting independently—prosecutors in Estonia have stated they have no other suspects. Because the attacks were botnet-driven and launched from servers all over the globe, however, it’s impossible to state definitively that only a single individual was involved.
Dmitri Galushkevich, a 20-year-old Estonian student, launched the DoS (denial-of-service) attacks from his own PC last year. Although he’s a native Estonian, Galushkevich was angry over his government’s plans to move the statue, and launched the attack as a means of protesting the decision. The fact that a single angry student was able to impact international relations between two countries is an startling development. Understanding why Estonia and Russia got into a tiff about a war memorial statue in the first place, however, requires that we take a trip down history lane.
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Truecrypt is one of the most vital tools that any geek should have.
TrueCrypt is a software system for establishing and maintaining an on-the-fly-encrypted volume (data storage device). On-the-fly encryption means that data are automatically encrypted or decrypted right before they are loaded or saved, without any user intervention. In plain English, Truecrypt will create encrypted drives that you can mount hide your data and dismount in just a few seconds.
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After my old AP fried to death, I had to buy a new access point. I got an new Edimax EW-7206APg for 80$. Well after installing the hardware on the roof, for better reception it took less then two days for problems to arise. Suddenly the AP wasn’t receiving any signal, I contacted the ISP and he said that the network was up and running. After some digging around, we found out that the problem is in the Network cable. The only thing is that we only figured that out at about 22:00. Witch meant that the cable cannot be replaced or fixed at the moment since the ISP guy didn’t have any plugs. Well, what should I do? Spend the evening without an Internet connection when the AP is perfectly fine? That just seems like a big waste to me. So, we brought the AP down from the roof and installed it on a ladder, and I had to sit in the cold so i can work, since I only had a short network cable that cannot reach were I usually place my laptop.
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On January 10, four young men from Université Saint-Joseph’s Zahle campus were held in Zahle prison for a week on charges of making crude and harassing remarks on a Facebook group dedicated to a female student at the university. Another underage female student was also named in the complaint but was released to the custody of her father. The plaintiff has accused the other students of defaming her, a criminal charge in Lebanon.
Posted in Social Networking, eLaw |
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Have you noticed any of the following symptoms on your computer:
A new toolbars in your Internet Browser that you didn’t install
Your browser has been crashing without any justification
Your browser home page has changed on its own
…Then you most probably have spyware/adware on your PC
Spyware can be easily installed on computer simply by surfing through the web, witch leaves lots of system vulnerable to their attacks. They can be used to track user behavior online, redirect users to specific websites, launch ads directly in the desktop.
Spybot Search & Destroy searches the computer for +100000 different type of adware and spyware that hijacked the system.The application is well supported and updates are constantly available.
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With Blogging becoming more and more popular, Content syndication has become more popular then ever, allowing people to be constantly aware about any updates on their favorite websites and blogs.
A persistent problem for Syndication standards is the existence of two feed formats: RSS & Atom, more specifically RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0
RSS 2.0:
RSS 2.0 is the most widely used format in the Feed Syndication industry, it’s copyrighted by Harvard University, and enjoys support from big company names such as Yahoo and Microsoft, plus it’s the format used by Wordpress witch helped RSS 2.0 gain much of it’s popularity in the blogosphere.
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The Washington Post reports:
the latest RIAA lawsuit against a P2P file sharer, some new, disturbing facts have come to light. It turns out the RIAA wants to make CD ripping, the act of copying music from a legally purchased CD to your PC, illegal.
Jeffrey Howell, an Arizona man accused of keeping a 2000 song collection on his computer, is accused of keeping “unauthorized copies of copyrighted recordings”, music he ripped from legal, store-bought CDs…
Yeah folks, that’s what it came down too, even ripping music on your OWN computer, from your OWN CD, that you purchased with your OWN money is unauthorized, according to the RIAA.
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As you may have noticed from Google logo, today is the 25th anniversary of the full switchover to TCP/IP on the ARPANET took place January 1, 1983.
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