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Co-founders of YouTube Steve Chen and Chard Hurley have made a nice little profit/investment/treat-thing-involving-money after selling their services to Google – by purchasing the social bookmarking site Delicious from 90’s search engine, Yahoo! Inc.
Since last year, Yahoo! have desperately been seeking a way out of the Delicious debacle – but with no interest around the December mark, the business took the decision to put Delicious out of its misery by cutting jobs and setting a deadline of July 2011 for either its sale or termination of services.
The YouTube duo plan to incorporate Delicious into their newest scheme, Avos, with plans to expand the service. In an Avos statement, Chen and Hurley have been described as having “firsthand experience enabling millions of users to share their experiences”, before finishing on a PR high of promising to “take Delicious to the next level”.

Hurley and Chen hope that Delicious will be “the best information discovery service” available on the worldwide web – and any existing users will be requested to undergo procedures followed by the new owners, or be able to export their information should they choose to leave.

There’s no worse sickness than that of love.  A disease, illness – it can be a deadly virus; which was true for millions of Internet users when malware known as the ‘Love Bug’ invaded inboxes and email servers across the world in May 2000.  Taking on the form of an attachment featuring the subject title of “I love you”, the malware overwrote multimedia on any machine impacted by the virus, before forwarding duplicates of itself to all the contact in the user’s Windows Address Book.

But bad news in the media industry has a funny way of becoming good news, and a film based on the virus named ‘Subject: I Love You’ is to have its premier screening on Friday at California’s Newport Beach Film Festival. Starring ex-Superman actor Dean Cain and True Blood’s Kristin Bauer, the film describes itself as an “action-packed romantic drama based on the destructive ‘I Love You’ computer virus”.

The plot basically follows like this: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy tries to win girl back by writing a detrimental computer virus – but the actual intention of the Love Bug was to in fact swipe access passwords by a computer science student living in the Philippines.

Here’s an obligatory trailer!  Enjoy!

More than 100 military dossiers containing prisoners’ details at the US detention camp have been released by whistleblowing site WikiLeaks, with plans to reveal a further 600 classified files in the next month.

Over 750 documents have been distributed to publications such as The Guardian, The New York Times, National Public Radio (NPR) and The Washington Post. The files have been described by The Guardian as detailing nearly every prisoner’s experiences since being held captive at the camp since opening in 2002, with claims to many prisoners being held on the “flimsiest grounds” or confessions based on torturous acts of “maltreatment”.

It has been reported that around 779 people have been held as prisoners, with another 172 still at the camp.  The Guardian have claimed that many were flown to the detention facility in cages, with some of the prisoners including children, the elderly, as well as the mentally ill. 

“It is unfortunate that The New York Times and other news organizations have made the decision to publish numerous documents obtained illegally by WikiLeaks concerning the Guantanamo detention facility.  These documents contain classified information about current and former GTMO detainees, and we strongly condemn the leaking of this sensitive information,” reads a statement from Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, and Ambassador Dan Fried, special envoy for closure of the Guantanamo Detention Facility,” explained a source for the Pentagon.

The Guardian have claimed that with the documents showing detainment details for prisoners, the US are far more concerned about obtaining intelligence as opposed to the imprisonment of terrorists; and that nearly 100 of the prisoners were described as having psychotic or depressive illnesses, with the paper stating “many” going on hunger strike or attempting suicide.

The son of Kaspersky Lab’s CEO has allegedly been kidnapped, with the criminals setting ransom for his release at €3 million.

According to Russian news source, Lifenews.ru, Ivan Kaspersky went missing two days ago.  Since his disappearance, the police, the Criminal Investigation Department and the Russian secret service have made it their priority to locate the missing person.

Reports have suggested that his father, Eugene Kaspersky, was at the InfoSec event in London when he learnt of his son’s disappearance, and immediately flew to Moscow where it is believed Ivan may have been abducted whilst travelling to work.

Kaspersky Lab are yet to confirm the news update, which was only reported by the BBC earlier today.

The founder of the anti-virus software company, Eugene Kaspersky, is understood to be one of Russia’s wealthiest men, and narrowly missed out on being ranked as one of the Forbes’ 100 richest people in Russia.

Mr Kaspersky’s personal fortune is estimated at around €800 million, with his ex-wife Natalya the firm’s chairwoman.

Google has launched an innovative application allowing businesses to upload, manage and distribute mapping information through its Google Earth and Google Maps services.

Announced earlier today, it is due to be released for public use later this year, with the Google Earth designed to replace the original GIS (geospatial information system) software with a system completely web-functional.  It’s been reported that the two organisations – the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and Ergon Energy – have already agreed to use the scheme.

“We chose Google Earth Builder as our strategic geo-spatial platform as it enables the enterprise with the necessary performance, scalability, flexibility, visualisation richness, and seamless device/platform interoperability, to transform asset management and service delivery of a large, geographically dispersed Energy Utility,” stated Ergon Energy programme director, James Bangay.

The Google Earth Builder allows users to make map “layers” which Google Earth and Google Maps then publish.  Every bit of information is stored and processed which is then manipulated on Google’s servers.  The search engine giant describes the service as both cost and time effective than the traditional GIS software.  “Server load and provisioning are handled by Google’s cloud technology so you spend less time maintaining and updating servers and software,” the company explained.

Operated via Google’s distributed infrastructure, all the information is backed up and stored to a number of data centres, letting you share your mapping information with those both in and out of your company.  Summarising the initiative as “competitively priced with traditional mapping products,” the service will be accessible in more than 100 different countries across the world.

Online dating site Match.com are to screen their members against the national sex offender registry after one of the site users was accused of rape, following a meeting between himself and the female user claiming the alleged attack.

The woman is reported to have met the male user through Match.com who previously held six convictions for sexual battery.  She claims the man followed her and committed the rape on their second date, and believes the incident could have been averted had Match.com implemented a screening process.  The accused party pleaded not guilty, claiming the sex was consensual.

The site has agreed to enforce the screening procedure, however officials for the service don’t feel that the screening process will be enough to prevent future cases.

“We’ve been advised that a combination of improved technology and an improved database now enables a sufficient degree of accuracy to move forward with this initiative, despite its continued imperfection,” said president for Match.com, Mandy Ginsberg.

“We want to stress that while these checks may help in certain instances, they remain highly flawed, and it is critical that this effort does not provide a false sense of security to our members,” she explained.

The screening procedure is expected to go live within the next two or three months, and with over 20 million members using the service, the outcome of the case could greatly affect other dating sites and the need to implement such a process.

“The world’s most resilient bittorrent site” PirateBay have announced that they are openly backing TubePlus – an innovative hybrid video-sharing website that brings both content from BitTorrent sites as well as Hotfile and Megaupload.

Instead of searching and downloading the files, TubePlus users can find their favourite TV shows and films then stream them direct into their browser via an interface similar to that of popular media sharing site YouTube.

Currently the PirateBay/YouTube combination is anything but ship-shape; as the site appears to not always suggest the appropriate file-sharing links when searching for key words.  But through the amalgamation of cyberlocker sites along with a more conventional BitTorrent tracking solution, the service will become easily accessible as well as more efficient in delivering the desired outcome.

However, bringing in a variety of file-sharing modes into a simple-to-use video player may result in a meltdown, due to rights holders in Hollywood and anti-piracy groups including the RIAA looking to shut down TubePlus.

The bittorrent site has long been involved in many a legal battle, with three of the founders currently in prison for allowing users to illegally download copyrighted material.

Look what Google found!  And look what I found for you!  After being subjected to some poorly directed films of late – mainly, The Last Airbender – some very frustrated Internet users have taken it upon themselves to set up a charitable cause, labelled the ‘M Night School’ campaign.  By donating a dollar towards this worthy fund, the aim is to raise enough money to send M Night Shyamalan to film school.  Again.

“Certainly, there must be 150,000 of us film lovers out there who are tired of his schlocky plot twists, canned dialogue, and over-commercialized image as an ‘auteur’.”

It goes on to add: “If we all donate just one dollar, we can send M Night back to NYU so he gets the help we all so desperately need.”

As soon as the target amount is reached, it is hoped to present Shyamalan with a cheque in order to fund him to receive the rehabilitation needed to be the director he once promised us he would be.

It may take some time though, as the current total stands at just under $500.  But should Shyamalan turn down this opportunity, then someone else will be gifted with the prize fund.

However, my ‘Sixth Sense’ tells me Shyamalan may be otherwise preoccupied.

Web development company Automattic, the firm behind the popular blogging service WordPress, recently announced an attack on its servers which resulted in anonymous cybercriminals being granted access to sensitive code.

Only coming to light yesterday, the barrage on many of the company’s servers left the unknown attacks with full low-level authority into the system, following their online assault on the server’s “root” account.  This type of invasion gives the assailants total control over the target systems.

“We have been diligently reviewing logs and records about the break-in to determine the extent of the information exposed, and re-securing avenues used to gain access,” explained Automattic’s Matt Mullenwegg.  “We presume our source code was exposed and copied.”

Whilst WordPress is a public open-source platform allowing users to alter, download and even redistribute the source code (in accordance with the GNU General Public Licence), it is possible that the attackers have come across code that was never intended for public circulation.

“While much of our code is open source, there are sensitive bits of our and our partners’ code,” Mullenweg said – and even confessed that it was likely that the attackers have copied this ‘sensitive’ code for their own benefit.

It is thought that user profiles for Automattic’s WordPress services, WordPress.com, do not have any of their information shared during the hack, however, the company are warming their users to follow appropriate password policies by using an assortment of passwords for different sites as well as ensuring that their passwords are encrypted well enough to avoid any dictionary attacks.

“Our investigation into this matter is ongoing,” Mullenweg said, “and will take time to complete.”

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We’ve all been there, you look at the screen, look at the window, look at the screen, look at the window, next thing your day dreaming about flinging your malfunctioning your laptop or PC out the window in a desperate attempt to make yourself feel better. Well apparently you’re not alone; according to recent studies destruction is the most popular method of choice when an upgrade is wanted.

“Shockingly, over a quarter of the office workers surveyed feel that the quickest and most efficient method of replacing outdated technology, such as laptops and mobile phones, is to deliberately destroy or irreparably damage them,” reveals the study which surveyed 600 IT managers and 3,000 employees in the UK, France, and Germany.

Luckily for you, if you’re looking to avoid throwing your computer out the window in response to your unreliable web hosting, we can help you. With Layer 7 you can get Load Balanced hosting so if one of your webserver fails your website wont. (And your computer will be safe for another day!)