Snippets 12-06-2010

It’s been a busy week here, getting all the new site stuff sorted. Lots of thanks go to Koth for keeping the stories forum ticking over.

Viral Video: BP Spills Coffee

Video:

Embedded Content

UCB Comedy shows us what happens when BP spill coffee…

Spanish judge likens file sharing to book lending

While the anti-filesharing brigade run rampant on Boards and get away with insulting and belittling those against Eircoms deal with Irma, TorrentFreak reports that a Spanish judge has compared the act of file sharing online is akin to lending friends books.

Back in 2005, four people were arrested for running a popular file sharing forum that linked to movies and music.

The owners made no money from people file sharing and kept the site running through advertising. The Provincial Court of Madrid has closed the case, saying no offenses have been committed.

In their ruling, judges Ocariz, Gutierrez and Campillo said that “..since ancient times there has been the loan or sale of books, movies, music and more. The difference now is mainly on the medium used – previously it was paper or analog media and now everything is in a digital format which allows a much faster exchange of a higher quality and also with global reach through the Internet.”

The judges noted that all this takes places between many users all at once without any of them receiving any financial reward.

Lawyer Carlos Sanchez Almeida, whose law firm defended the case, said that the decision meant that the judges were sending a clear message to the government, informing Culture Minister González Sinde that there is a “red line that should not be crossed.”

“The judges have taken a stand for freedom on the Internet,” he added.

The decision cannot be appealed.

Torrent Freak

Two for One Wikileaks stories:

#1 Soldier arrested

A soldier who released a video showing a helicopter attack to Wikileaks has been arrested. Army Specialist Bradley Manning is being held in Kuwait “for allegedly releasing classified information,” according to the U.S Military.

The video (posted here) showed the helicopter killing 12 people in Baghdad, including two Reuters reporters.

Wired magazine, which initially reported the arrest on its website on Sunday evening, said Manning, an intelligence analyst, came under suspicion after he told a former hacker during an email exchange that he had leaked the video. Wired did not disclose its sources but quoted from what it said Manning had written.

The magazine said Manning also claimed to have leaked other classified information, including video of a 2009 bombing in Afghanistan that killed dozens of civilians and 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables.

Wired reported that WikiLeaks had previously acknowledged it was in possession of the bombing video. It said only one U.S. diplomatic cable had been posted by WikiLeaks.

There was no immediate comment from WikiLeaks, but a person involved with the group said WikiLeaks did not know if Manning used its services because all its sources are anonymous.

“Our legal advisers have started working on the case, and are verifying how much this military investigation is violating the rights of our sources and us,” the person involved with WikiLeaks said in an email.

The Pentagon said investigators were taking a very careful look at what classified information might have been divulged by Manning.

Reuters

#2 Pentagon hunting Wikileaks founder

Julian Assange, founder of popular whistle blower site Wikileaks, is being “hunted” by officials who believe he is about to leak secret State Department cables.

American officials said Pentagon investigators are convinced that Assange is in possession of at least some classified State Department cables leaked by a 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist, Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland, who is now in custody in Kuwait.

As The Daily Beast reported June 8, Manning, while posted in Iraq, apparently had special access to cables prepared by diplomats and State Department officials throughout the Middle East, regarding the workings of Arab governments and their leaders, according to an American diplomat.

The cables, which date back over several years, went out over interagency computer networks available to the Army and contained information related to American diplomatic and intelligence efforts in the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, the diplomat said.

the DailyBeast

Assange has cancelled recent upcoming appearances due to “safety concerns”.

Twitter Suicide Hoax

Reality tv “star” Tila “Tequila” Nguyen (yeah,I had to wiki it too) was in hot water this week after some weird pictures and tweets were posted, worrying fans.

The Los Angeles Police Department received calls to check on Nguyen, following these messages: “I feel tired. I’m going to take my medicine and sleep all day. Don’t worry about me.”

The Shot at Love celebrity had also posted bloody images.

The police issued her with a warning for the hoax.

The tweets blamed “Jane” — a possible multiple-personality character of her own making — for cuts that she said were made to her arm (but that apparently turned out to be fake).

Nguyen subsequently removed the bloody pictures from her site saying, via Twitter, “Calm the f— down! I ain’t trying to commit no suicide you dumbf—s! Well that’s the last time I will EVER share somethin w/u idiots!”

LAWeekly

It’s not the first time Nguyen has used talk of suicide to seek attention. Back in 2009, this was her Twitter:

Hard rock ministry visits schools,tells kids gays and lesbians should be jailed.

Leaders of a “hard rock” ministry, that visits schools in America, have praised Malawi for imprisoning a gay couple (link to our story on the horrible conviction).

Frontman Bradlee Dean (a bad Axl Rose impersonator), called the decision very moral, while his co-host said “They sentence people for crimes against nature.”

Jake McMillan continued with “We have got countries all over the world that are standing for what’s right and what’s wrong. In Rwanda, there’s legislation right now that repeat offenders of homosexuality will spend their life in prison.”

“Because they love and value life and they love and value that which God gave,” said McMillian. “And so they enforce laws against that which destroys life which again is crimes against nature”

The group later brought in Bishop Harry Jackson, an anti-gay marriage activist in Washington, D.C., who praised the group’s work. “I believe a great awakening is about to come forth,” said Jackson. “I believe you are a part of it and those that hear the sound of your voice are revolutionaries.”

minnesotaindependent

Dean later tried to back peddle, saying he was taken out of context by the Independent.

Scienceblogs.com have countered his whimpering though, with a great round-up of what he said and what the context was, showing that the fundamentalist is lying and doesn’t stand behind his previous religious bile.

And a week earlier, praising Muslims for being more moral than Christians because they want to put gays to death:

“Muslims are calling for the executions of homosexuals in America. This just shows you they themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian God, but they seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do, because these people are livid about enforcing their laws. They know homosexuality is an abomination.”

Again, not ambiguous at all. It’s a very clear statement. Dean is doing what people like him always do when they screw up and get too explicit: Blaming the messenger and lying.

Read the entire Scienceblogs post

Viral Video: Obama & Kick Ass song

Video:

Embedded Content

Via Autotune the news.

Blogosphere panic as Wordpress.com goes down

Wordpress,the popular blogging platform, went offline this week, taking millions of blogs with it.

Wordpress.com, where you can have all the fun of a blog but with none of the techy side, bounced online and offline as bloggers gazed with fear at 404 messages.

The site team responded quickly, taking an hour to get blogs back online. One hour later, the site again had gone offline, taking 10 million blogs with it. Again.

After more frantic first aid, the site was back up, and seems to remain so.

114,000 high-profile iPad owners’ details accessed

The military,politicians,business men and celebrities were left vulnerable this week due to a gaping security hole in the Apple iPad.

Film mogul Harvey Weinstein, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff at the White House, are all believed to have been caught up in the expose, carried out by a firm called Goatse Security.

The security group took advantage of a vulnerability in AT&T’s security systems to get hold of the data. AT&T was informed of the vulnerability and has since closed the loophole, reports Gawker. It is thought that some elements of the data list were shared with unknown third parties before the flaw was patched, leading to fears that some user accounts have been compromised.

Gawker reports that the specific information exposed by the breach included the email address of iPad users signed up to 3G data plans on the AT&T network, along with their unique ICC-ID number which is used to identify SIM cards and associate that data with a specific user.

The Telegraph

Wait, Goatse?! See Gawker for info on who the team are. Don’t Google it. For the love of god don’t Google it.

This is another embarrassment for Apple, who are having an odd time lately.

Speaking of Security…

Jmcdermott.ie has a great guide to computer security and quick fixes.

Computer security is certainly an area of concern for computer users. Knowledge in this area is very poor to be honest. Prevention is most certainly better than cure and to help kick this off is by educating people.

I am fixing (curing, perhaps) one to two laptops a week with viral issues and I see the same issues all the time. The anti-virus software is out of date and has never been used to scan and there is no other protection on top of that. In some instances there was two out-of-date anti-virus programs. The operating system is never updated and in some cases the firewall had been turned off. Have a look at the full post to see what free programs are recommended.

I have compiled a Quick Fix Guide to removing viruses, spyware and malware and which recommended free software you can download and use. As usual, by using this free guide you are agreeing that I’m not accountable in any way if you encounter any problems – you can always ask me for help though, always use caution if you are not sure or contact someone you know who’s somewhat computer literate.

JMD

Read the full guide HERE.

The Good The Bad and The Fugly:

The Good: Legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page was given a place in the Mojo Hall of Fame.

The Bad: The Irish Miscarriage Scandal. Awful stories coming to light.

The Fugly: Rosanna Davisons comments on Twitter. The beginning of a new bitchiness online following her Bebo shame of 2007?

* * * * * * * * * *