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Defense officials in Israel claim that Facebook, a social networking site, compromises national security. They released a set of rules preventing members of the armed forces and employees of the Defense Ministry from posting classified information on their social networking sites. Officials said that some soldiers posted photographs of themselves with equipment that are deemed classified. They are not prohibited to create accounts on social networking sites, officials said; they are only not allowed to reveal their identities and other information that would tell of what they do and where they work and information that could possibly threaten national security.

More details at Time.

Image source: IMEMC

by: Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor.com Fri Dec 21, 1:33 PM ET

Apple and Think Secret, a Mac rumor Web site published by Nicholas M. Ciarelli, have come to an agreement in a nearly three-year-old lawsuit. The financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Ciarelli has agreed to shut down ThinkSecret.com.

Ciarelli posted a press release on his Web site that said the agreement results in a “positive solution” for both sides. “I’m pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits,” Ciarelli said in a statement.

Apple was not immediately available for comment.

Ciarelli’s Argument

Apple targeted Ciarelli with a lawsuit after he posted details about the Mac Mini computer prior to an official announcement at January 2005’s MacWorld. The suit also named Ciarelli’s company, dePlume Organization LLC.

The suit claimed that Ciarelli induced company employees to break confidentiality agreements with Apple. Ciarelli, the complaint argued, obtained the information illegally by posting an online request for Apple insiders to disclose trade secrets.

Ciarelli, who was also an editor at the Harvard Crimson, launched Think Secret when he was 13 years old. After Apple filed suit against Ciarelli, he told the Harvard Crimson he had a right to the same protections as other investigative journalists.

“I talk to sources of information, investigate tips, follow up on leads, and corroborate details. I believe these practices are reflected in Think Secret’s track record,” he told the paper in 2005. Ciarelli’s attorney based his arguments on the First Amendment right to free speech. Ciarelli had a right to publish the information, he said, because it was legally obtained.

Continue reading from: news.yahoo.com

NEW YORK—In a year that saw the release of such best-selling products as the Motorola RAZR 2 V8 and the wildly popular Casio XD-SW4800 handheld dictionary, no personal electronics product launch was more highly anticipated than the November 13 debut of the second-generation Microsoft Zune mp3 player.

The sleek new Zune, whose record-breaking sales have made the Zune name synonymous with “mp3 player,” was so sought-after that thousands formed long lines outside hip, minimalist Microsoft Stores across the country days before the device went on sale. In Midtown Manhattan, the hysteria reached such a fever pitch that some were willing to pay as much as $200 for a spot in line.

“How could you not want one?” said self-described “Microsoft fanatic” Maria Arkin, who, like many others scrambling to be among the first to get their hands on the new Zune, expressed disappointment upon learning that sales were limited to just two units per customer. “It’s amazing. There’s just nothing else like it on the market.”

Continue reading from: theonion.com

Software giant Microsoft offered to acquire Yahoo in January of this year, only to be rejected in February, saying that Mr. Gates’ company underestimated their value. Now, the company is being more aggressive and set an April 26th deadline for Yahoo to accept its $41 billion proposal, with a warning that if Yahoo still would not budge, they would initiate a hostile takeover for a lower value.

Since Yahoo’s initial rejection of Microsoft’s offer, it began to consider deals with Google, MySpace and AOL, but has not come up with an alternative to Microsoft’s proposal. Microsoft, on the other hand, is determined to do anything to close the deal.

More details at CNN.com.

Image sources: Yahoo, Wikipedia.com

If you have personal or business contacts from the Middle East or India, don’t expect to hear from them via-electronic mail or private messages coming from them for a week or so. The reason being that they have been disconnected from the World Wide Web; it’s not because of some strict government crackdown or terrorist activity, but rather because of two damaged undersea cables in the Mediterranean.

There was disruption to 70% of the nationwide network in Egypt, and India suffered up to 60% disruption.
UK firms such as British Airways have told the BBC that call centres have been affected by the outage.
Industry experts said it could take up to one week to repair the damaged cables and resume full service.
International telephone calls, which have also been affected, are being rerouted to work around the problem.

Repairs are currently being done as we speak. In the meantime, go out and experience real life for a change.

Source

In US, an allegedly isolated ISP for malicious attacks and content has been shut down and tagged as a “black hat” or “attack” site by the US FTC that says it has ample evidence to do so. The company is allegedly hosting many malicious sites that have been determined to be one of the US’s havens for such criminal activity. The hosting firm has of course absolutely denied this and say they are willing to take the case to court. Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter has become one of the most successful startups that have managed to make it big in the ever improving social net. They have however become a larger target for malware makers or hackers, who capitalize on the sheer number of people that can be hit in one go that takes almost no time to accomplish. The micro-blogging site is founded on the very much secure framework of Ruby that is already robust on it’s own. Read the rest of this entry »

That’s according to Microsoft which has stuck to their deadline for their most stable and most used operating system platform. The OS is set to go offline with some sales allowed for laptops that have been made between HP and the software giant from Redmond as they have already set quota’s for manufacturing of units that cannot support Vista’s demanding requirements the more so for Win 7. Read the rest of this entry »

The successor to the much failed Vista series of Operating systems has been announced along with several launches Microsoft plans for the year. Their own search engine, Bing has just been released but it still is too early to tell as to it’s progress or success. It is getting traffic or use but many experts say this is merely due to the initial efforts of advertising and of course, the ever present curiosity of people who jump into everything that is new on the internet. Read the rest of this entry »

Image Source:img.tomshardware.com

This weekend culminates the 20th year of the existence of the Internet Worm. The very first, major worm that proliferated on the Internet through infection. Even though the internet has evolved into something much more complex, worms are still destructive, ever more complicated than the first worms that littered the net. It still is a headache for system administrators. Though it hasnt gone on headlines over the years but the worms are far too difficult to repair now than two decades ago. Robert Tappan Morris launched in 1988, the very first worm in the form of an application designed to count the total number of systems on the internet at that time. It was created to propagate across Unix systems by using certain system vulnerabilities in how r-services authenticate internet connections. Due to a bug in its design, the Worm propagated more than the necessary attempts. It made the infected computers much more slower because of resource usage. Morris was caught eventually. The worms that followed were destructive as ever, the Melissa, I Love You viruses made headlines due to the fact that it hit critical institutions in the US.