Jamie noticed the news that Google Update is now Open Source. The article acknowledges the privacy and security concerns of an application that is always running in the background of your machine, and authorized to install new software. And Google made the logically obvious conclusion that releasing the source code would alleviate those concerns.
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Hugh Pickens writes “The British government’s Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT), a 200-strong Home Office unit created 18 months ago, has said in meetings it wants to ‘flood the internet’ with ‘positive’ interpretations of Islam and plans to train government-approved groups in search engine optimization techniques, which it is hoped will boost their profile online and battle radicalization. A Home Office spokesman confirmed search engine optimization training is part of the government’s anti-radicalization strategy. ‘In order to support mainstream voices, we work with local partners to help develop their communication, representational and leadership skills. This support could include media training, which can help make their voices heard more widely, and support the development of skills which allow communities to be more effective in debate.’ However the effectiveness of search engine optimization in reducing traffic to extremist websites has been dismissed by academics. A report produced by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) said young Muslims were much more likely to be directed to extremist material online by web forums and offline associates than by Google or other search engines. ‘Tweaking the results for supposedly extremist terms would be largely ineffectual, not least because it is unlikely that any but the most callow wannabe terrorist would use a mainstream search engine to find banned material.'”
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Eurogamer has an article which takes a look at how various game companies deal with gold spammers in their games. Some, like Mythic, take a hard stance, literally telling farmers and sellers to “go to hell.” Others engage in an arms race to block such behavior, sometimes to the detriment of normal users. “In fact, a former Jagex source tells me that when Jagex banned all IPs connected to gold selling, ‘they lost 10 per cent of their membership, and still haven’t recovered in terms of numbers since they did it two years ago. Even though they have almost stopped gold selling in RuneScape, it has cost them two million active accounts; i.e. there were four million players, there are now two million players, of which less than one million actually subscribe.'” Still more companies are experimenting with real money trading (RMT) to at least establish some control and security over the situation.
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“National Security Agency has access to both stand-alone systems and networks running Microsoft products”
CurtMonash writes “Twitter was hit Saturday by a worm that caused victims’ accounts to tweet favorably about the StalkDaily website. Infection occurred when one went to the profile page of a compromised account, and was largely spread by the kind of follower spam more commonly used by multi-level marketers. Apparently the worm was an XSS attack, exploiting a vulnerability created in a recent Twitter update that introduced support for OAuth, and it was created by the 17-year-old owner of the StalkDaily website. More information can be found in the comment thread to a Network World post I put up detailing the attack, or in the post itself. By evening, Twitter claimed to have closed the security hole.”
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – The dreaded Conficker computer worm is stirring. Security experts say the worm’s authors appear to be trying to build a big moneymaker, but not a cyber weapon of mass destruction as many people feared.
Minimise the risk of infection with these essential tips
 Boston Globe |
Thai protesters target Asia summit
Reuters By Martin Petty PATTAYA, Thailand (Reuters) – Thai troops repelled anti-government protesters at a resort hosting an Asian summit on Friday as leaders began arriving for a meeting meant to focus on the global financial crisis. Video: Thai protesters target Asian summit – 10 Apr 09 Al Jazeera Thai Protest Blocks Summit Meeting New York Times Los Angeles Times – guardian.co.uk – WA today – ABC Online all 1,399 news articles Langue : Français |
 CBC.ca |
Man handed life sentence in high-rise murders
Globe and Mail VANCOUVER – Sobs from victims' family members rang out in a high-security courtroom Thursday as horrifying details of the Surrey Six killings – one of BC's worst cases of gang violence – were disclosed to the public for the first time. Bacon brothers have their day in court Calgary Herald Man guilty in Surrey murders sentenced to life CTV.ca CBC.ca – Surrey Leader – The Province – The Gazette (Montreal) all 87 news articles |
They’re baaaack. Those impish Chinese government cyber-saboteurs we last saw posing as 20-foot high trees to trigger the 2003 northeast power outage are back in an all new adventure, this time in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.
