Ultimately, the main purpose of Anonymous holding this protest was the attention they would get for the cause. Unfortunately, due to a cold turnout, what is being reported is not that people care about their freedom of speech but quite the contrary.
More:
http://tech2.in.com/opinions/web-services/why-the-anonymous-protest-was-just-lukewarm/315322
Known in the cyber security industry as “active defense” or “strike-back” technology, the reprisals range from modest steps to distract and delay a hacker to more controversial measures. Security experts say they even know of some cases where companies have taken action that could violate laws in the United States or other countries, such as hiring contractors to hack the assailant’s own systems.
In the past, companies that have been attacked have mostly focused on repairing the damage to their computer networks and shoring them up to prevent future breaches.
But as prevention is increasingly difficult in an era when malicious software is widely available on the Internet for anyone wanting to cause mischief, security experts say companies are growing more aggressive in going after cyber criminals.
It’s odd that fine and intelligent people don’t focus on one possible answer to this conundrum, one that surely has offered copious evidence over time: people are innately greedy, thoughtless, rapacious beasts.
Sometimes, they don’t think because they can already touch the hull of their new 100-foot yacht, lick the front door of their new faux-Georgian mansion, and sniff the finely honed interior of their new pink Tesla.
Might it be that the Facebook IPO disappointment wasn’t down to Availability Bias, but Sure Thing Syndrome?
More:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57454778-71/how-facebook-investors-fooled-themselves/
There’s a new kind of fear that seems to be creeping in to the storylines of the next round of AAA blockbuster video games. These aren’t the usual, fantastical fears of zombies or alien attacks in the classic vein of countless dumb action games, but rather fears of very real social and political problems that have been distorted to seem even more terrifying.
More:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/op-ed-e3-games-exploit-real-fears-in-a-tumultuous-world/
Not everyone will be or needs to be a Creative Genius—whatever that means—but nurturing that side of our mental makeup is an important part of life.
More:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/06/imagine-a-society-that-fosters-creativity/
Yes, some corporate boards seem to be listening to shareholders, particularly on contentious issues like the seven-figure cash bonuses that helped define hyperwealth during the boom. Since the bust, corporate America on the whole has moved to tie executive pay more closely to long-term performance by skewing executive paychecks more toward restricted stock, which can’t be sold for years.
But rewards at the top are still rich — and getting richer. Now that 2011 proxy statements have been filed, the extent of executive pay last year has finally become clear. Median pay of the nation’s 200 top-paid C.E.O.’s was $14.5 million, according to a study conducted for The New York Times by Equilar, a compensation data firm based in Redwood City, Calif. The median pay raise among those C.E.O.’s was 5 percent. (The full list is available here.)
That 5 percent raise is smaller than last year’s. But it comes at a time of stubbornly high unemployment and declining wealth for many ordinary Americans. Even corporate pay experts say that this is hardly the kind of change that will quell anger over the nation’s have-a-lots by the have-lesses, particularly in an election year.
Amazon’s cloud music service is fully licensed by the top-four record labels, numerous sources have told CNET.
The labels and Amazon aren’t talking, but my sources say Amazon is expected to roll out new features for the company’s cloud-music offering in the United States sometime in July.
More:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57453873-93/amazons-music-cloud-is-licensed-by-all-top-labels/
The world is on now on the brink of a global credit crisis that could be far worse than the tumultuous events of 2008. The ongoing sovereign debt crisis in the southern reaches of the Eurozone indicate that bank runs in the region will continue, and that more bank closure “holidays” will be declared. Under a bank holiday, virtually all deposits could be frozen and irredeemable for days, weeks, or even months. The key question is: Will this crisis spread to the rest of Europe and then even to the United States? I urge SurvivalBlog readers–particularly those in Europe–to be proactive, to stay “ahead of the power curve.” While the Generally Dumb Public (GDP) wakes up some morning to hear news of a bank holiday, you will have long hence prepared yourself.
Digits Lost in the Ether–Redeemable Mañana?
Most people don’t realize that printed U.S. currency and minted coins amount to less than $800 billion, worldwide. That is just a small portion of the aggregate Money Zero Maturity (MZM) money supply that now exceeds $7 Trillion. So what is in your bank account is just electronic money, and there is absolutely no way that even a fraction of depositors could get physical cash to redeem the digits in their accounts. If there is a bank holiday declared, there will undoubtedly be severe restrictions on cash withdrawals when banks re-open. Given the precedent of the limits on withdrawals of a few institutions during the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, I predict that withdrawal restrictions could go on for many months.
Here are 20 Reasons why America’s next bank holiday will be a nightmare.
The social-networking giant will pay millions to charity. The proposed class-action lawsuit could have included nearly one of every three Americans, with billions of dollars in damages.
More:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57454700-93/facebook-to-pay-millions-to-charity-in-ad-settlement/
The notorious hacker and alleged credit card trafficker, Vladislav Khorokhorin, has been extradited from France to the US over the alleged theft of around US$9.5 million from over 2,100 ATMs in some 280 cities worldwide in less than 12 hours.
American authorities consider Khorokhorin to be among the founders of an international cyber-criminal network called CarderPlanet – “one of the most sophisticated organizations of online financial criminals in the world,” according to the US Secret Service Assistant Director for Investigations, Michael Merritt. The criminal network employed about 7,000 people, based mostly in Eastern Europe and CIS countries. American secret services shut down the network in 2004, since when they had been tracking criminals at large.
Vladislav Khorokhorin, aka “BadB”, was arrested in Nice by order of Interpol order while boarding a plane to the Russian capital on August 7, 2010.
In the United States, he faces criminal charges filed against him in the District of Columbia and in the Northern District of Georgia. If a guilty verdict is passed in connection with fraud, he could be sentenced to 10 years behind bars and a fine of US$250,000. A conviction for theft could add another two years to the prison term and an additional fine of US$250,000.
More:
http://www.rt.com/news/hacker-extradited-france-khorokhorin-964/
Pakistan will employ the help of Google to track down militants in the country’s troubled border zones. Security checkpoints have thus far been unable to control the influx of insurgents that slip into Pakistan from neighboring Afghanistan.
“We must use the latest advances in information technology to gather information on the movements of militants on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border,” said PM Gilani in a meeting with Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Emerson Schmidt.
He stressed that over 40,000 people cross the Afghan-Pakistani border every day and it is impossible for authorities to keep tabs in some areas because of rough terrain.
Schmidt for his part stressed the importance of the construction and maintenance of databases to aid in the fight against insurgency.
Google is currently looking at setting up Universal Service Centers at every union council throughout Pakistan.
“The aim of these centers is to provide Government-to-Citizen and Government-to-Business services acting as an IT hub in rural areas. I would also like your support to make these centers successful,” the prime minister said.
More:
http://www.rt.com/news/pakistan-google-terrorist-gilani-913/
Whittaker: Nearly 10 years ago, “Cleanfeed” was designed to protect the British public from child abuse imagery. A decade later, the same system is used to enforce ISP blocks on sites like The Pirate Bay. How did the U.K. fall into “censorship creep”?
And another copy of this article here, just in case: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/-8216censorship-creep-pirate-bay-block-will-affect-one-third-of-uk/5235
Wait a minute? Didn’t he write something like this before? Yep, he did:
ZDNet’s Zack Whittaker: it’s the BPI you should blame for your freshly-squeezed glass of Pirate Bay censorship
http://vrritti.com/2012/06/08/zdnets-zack-whittaker-its-the-bpi-you-should-blame-for-your-freshly-squeezed-glass-of-pirate-bay-censorship/
