Friday, March 19, 2010

The Feds Want To Be Your Facebook Friend

From the article;

In a quaint presentation, cybercrime prosecutors last year gave fellow Department of Justice officials an introduction to social networking sites and their possible investigative uses. In detailing the possible value of sites like Twitter and Facebook, lawyers John Lynch and Jenny Ellickson--both with the department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section--noted that information gathered could "establish crime or criminal enterprise" and "prove and disprove alibis."
So who are your friends and Twitter followers?

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Cyber Crooks Leave Traditional Bank Robbers in the Dust

Interesting articel; "Organized cyber criminals stole more than $25 million from small to mid-sized businesses in brazen e-banking heists in the 3rd quarter of 2009 alone, federal regulators said last week. In contrast, traditional stick-up artists hauled less than $9.5 million out of U.S. banks over that same time period last year."

Where Not To Put A USB Drive

From the article;
MARCH 2--In a bold and bizarre attempt to destroy evidence seized during a federal raid, a New York City man grabbed a flash drive and swallowed the data storage device while in the custody of Secret Service agents, records show. Florin Necula ingested the Kingston flash drive shortly after his January 21 arrest outside a bank in Queens, according to U.S. District Court filings. Necula and several codefendants had been transported to a Secret Service office in Brooklyn, where they were to be questioned and processed. While there, and in the view of investigators, Necula "grabbed Subject Flash Drive 2, which had been on his person at the time of his arrest, and swallowed,"

New Netbook Wallpaper

I adjusted the resolution on some of my pics and some that I have found to 1024 x 600 for my netbook and thought I would share. Enjoy;




Saturday, March 13, 2010

Pailin To Testify Against Her Email Hacker

I have mentioned Sarah Palin before. Now it looks like she will be testifying in the Yahoo email hacking case.
From the article; "Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will testify in person against the college student accused of breaching her Yahoo mail account and leaking some of its contents online, according to published reports."
My point is still that Palin broke the law. It looks like the state of Alaska may agree: "Palin also said the interception of personal and official phone numbers "created paralysis" by severing easy communication with her "Alaska staff". The admission supports claims she may have skirted state laws requiring official business to be carried out using email accounts maintained by the government."
Well see what happens.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

TED Top Ten

I posted about TED in the past. A CNN article mentioned TED recently and I checked out a few more of the new talks. From the CNN article;
Here are 10 big ideas from TED2010...
$60K a year can make you happy
Psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman says millions of dollars won't buy you happiness, but a job that pays $60,000 a year might help.
Save the world through games
Jane McGonigal, a game designer, says playing online video games gives people "superpowers" that help them improve the real world...
Anonymity promotes honesty
Christopher "Moot" Poole runs one of the seedier corners of the Internet. His site, called 4chan, is known as a den of porn, hacking and anonymous rants...
We can end slavery
Kevin Bales, founder of a group called Free the Slaves, said he was surprised to learn slavery still existed when he read a pamphlet saying just that...
Moral ideas are right or wrong, not both
Writer Sam Harris -- who is perhaps best known as a stern critic of organized religion -- says we use science to prove or disprove hypotheses, and we should similarly use evidence to say some activities are moral and others are not...
'What we eat is really our chemotherapy three times a day'
William Li, president and medical director of The Angiogenesis Foundation, which focuses on the connection between blood vessel growth and aggressive cancers. There are 11 FDA-approved drugs that inhibit growth of blood vessels that sustain cancers, but Li pointed out that there are a number of foods and beverages that could offer substances that accomplish the same thing -- and could help prevent cancer...
The ukulele can stop war
Ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro says his traditional, Hawaiian instrument, which he learned to play at age 4, can make the world a less violent place...
$28 billion mostly wasted on placebos
Holding up bottles of herbal supplements, writer Michael Specter spoke out against what he sees as a growing rejection of science. He says it's resulted in parents refusing to vaccinate their children due to an unfounded connection to autism and people shunning genetically modified foods that have the potential of helping the world fight increasing hunger.
The herbs, he said accomplish one thing: "They darken your urine. You want to pay $28 billion for dark urine? That's OK."
'Stop politicians doing stupid things that spread HIV'
Elizabeth Pisani, epidemiologist who has studied drug abusers and sex workers who are involved in the spread of HIV-AIDS, said nations that have followed former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's example by creating programs to provide sterile needles to drug abusers are much more successful in curbing the spread of the disease...
Every eight days, the toll of a Haiti quake
Esther Duflo, a professor in MIT's economics department, said, that every day, 25,000 children die of preventable causes, adding up every eight days to the approximate death toll of the Haiti earthquake...

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Are You Telling People To Rob You?

So how much information do you share online? Do you share where you are? "A new website called PleaseRobMe.com does nothing more than aggregate publicly shared check-ins, but its name and purpose attempt to shed more light on the dangerous side effects of location-sharing."
There have been several incidents where people have been robber, or their homes trashed, after posting there location or when they are going to be home.