WARNING from FBI: The ALUREON VIRUS - may lose your internet

Warning from FBI: If you have 'Alureon' virus on your PC, you WILL get kicked off internet on Monday

• Hundreds of thousands of PCs still at risk worldwide
• Virus 'spoofs' popular websites in attempt to steal personal information
• Around 50 Fortune 500 companies still have virus in their machines
• FBI 'ring-fenced' the virus late last year - but protection ends on Monday
• Scroll down for advice on checking your PC

By EDDIE WRENN
DAILY MAIL
July 5, 2012

If you have a virus on your machine, there is a very real risk you will get kicked off the internet on Monday.

Web-users are being warned to ensure their computers are clear of the nasty 'Alureon/DNS Changer bot'.

This piece of software found its way onto hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide late last year. The software was designed to re-direct you away from trusted websites, towards spoof websites in a bid to steal financial and personal information.

When the attack was noticed, the FBI took the unusual step of setting up a 'safety-net', routing infected machines through their server to stop the 'spoof' attacks.

But these servers will be taken down on Monday, and when this happens, people still infected are likely to lose their internet connection without warning.

Users whose computers are still infected on Monday will lose their ability to go online, and they will have to call their service providers for help deleting the malware and reconnecting to the Internet.

WORRIED? FOLLOW THESE SIMPLE STEPS TO CHECK YOUR PC
If you are worried about this, and want to put your mind at ease, follow these steps:

1) Visit this FBI-approved site - http://www.dns-ok.us - and see if you get an 'all-clear' green background or an 'at risk' red background.

2) If you have a red background, visit http://www.dcwg.org/fix which lists free virus scanner and removal software.

Our personal recommendations from the free range are Microsoft Windows Defender and Avira.

For more information, visit here: http://www.dcwg.org/detect/

(click here to read the full article)

Teenagers 'sexting' nude pics far more than previously thought

Nearly a third of teenagers have 'sexted' nude photos of themselves - and 57% have been harassed to send pictures

• Teenagers who 'sext' are more likely to have sex
• Female teenagers feel 'harassed' to send pictures
• Far higher than previous estimates
• Practice is modern version of 'You show me mine...'

By ROB WAUGH
DAILY MAIL
July 3, 2012

Smartphone risk: A study in American
schools found that a third of teenagers
had sent a nude picture of themselves,and 
57% had been asked to.

Image Credit: DailyMail

Teenagers are 'sexting' nude pictures of themselves far more than previously thought.
A study in American schools found that close to a third of teenagers had sent a nude picture of themselves, and 57% had been asked to.

Teenagers who engaged in 'sexting' were also more likely to have sex.

Researchers claim that 'sexting' via email or text has become a modern version of 'You show me mine, I'll show me yours.'

The alarming figures are in contrast to previous studies which have estimated that a mere 1% of teenagers had sent naked pictures.

But the new study is much larger, and, researchers suspect, more accurate.

Researchers surveying nearly 1,000 students at seven schools in southeast Texas found that 28 percent of adolescents have sent a nude pictures of themselves through electronic means; more than half (57 percent) have been asked to send a nude picture; and about one-third (31 percent) have asked for a nude picture to be sent to them.

These rates are substantially higher than recently published peer-reviewed data suggesting that only a little more than one percent of teens had sent naked pictures.

[...]

Moreover, teen girls — but not boys — who engaged in sexting had a higher prevalence of risky sexual behaviors, including multiple partners and using drugs or alcohol before sex.

Jeff Temple, UTMB assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, believes this gender difference may be attributed at least in part to social beliefs about sexting, particularly that it may be perceived permissively and positively for boys and thus, not considered risky or to be associated with other dangerous behaviors.

Girls, on the other hand, may be perceived as promiscuous if they sext. If willing to risk reputation, they may be inclined to take other risks as well...

(click here to read the full article)

Facebook NOW has facial recognition...now a bigger asset to the CIA and intelligence agencies

Facebook buys facial recognition startup Face.com
by Jennifer Van Grove
Reuters
June 19, 2012

Facebook has purchased facial recognition startup Face.com, the companies announced Monday morning.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a complaint in
2011 against Facebook over their facial recognition capabilities.

“People who use Facebook enjoy sharing photos and memories with their friends, and Face.com’s technology has helped to provide the best photo experience,” a Facebook spokesperson told VentureBeat. “This transaction simply brings a world-class team and a long-time technology vendor in house.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but previous reports pegged the acquisition price at between $80 million and $100 million. The deal, which is still pending, is expected to close within the coming weeks.

Founded in 2007, Face.com makes technology that can identify people in photos and even guess a person’s age. The company makes mobile-friendly products such as a developer API and an iOS camera application called KLIK that uses facial recognition technology to help users...

(click here to read the full article)

BEWARE OF THE NEW SPY IN THE SKY - APPLEGOOGLE

APPLEGOOGLE plan military-grade cameras to take powerful satellite images...

By VANESSA ALLEN
DAILY MAIL
June 10, 2012
Image credit above: DRUDGEREPORT

Spy planes able to photograph sunbathers in their back gardens are being deployed by Google and Apple.

The U.S. technology giants are racing to produce aerial maps so detailed they can show up objects just four inches wide.

But campaigners say the technology is a sinister development that brings the surveillance society a step closer.

Hyper-real: 3D mapping services used by C3 Technologies (as purchased by Apple) will form the main part of the software giant's new mapping service.

Google admits it has already sent planes over cities while Apple has acquired a firm using spy-in-the-sky technology that has been tested on at least 20 locations, including London.

Apple’s military-grade cameras are understood to be so powerful they could potentially see into homes through skylights and windows. The technology is similar to that used by intelligence agencies in identifying terrorist targets in Afghanistan.

All powerful: Apple's newly-acquired technology uses military-grade camera equipment to produce realistic 3D maps of big cities and residential streets

Google will use its spy planes to help create 3D maps with much more detail than its satellite-derived Google Earth images.

Apple hopes its rumoured mapping service for the iPhone and iPad will overtake the hugely popular Google Maps

Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, warned that privacy risked being sacrificed in a commercial ‘race to the bottom’.

‘The next generation of maps is taking us over the garden fence,’ he warned. ‘You won’t be able to sunbathe in your garden without worrying about an Apple or Google plane buzzing overhead taking pictures.’

He said householders should be asked for their consent before images of their homes go online. Apple is expected to unveil its new mapping applications for its iPhone and other devices today – along with privacy safeguards. Its 3D maps will reportedly show for the first time the sides of tall buildings, such as the Big Ben clock tower.

Google expects by the end of the year to have 3D coverage of towns and cities with a combined population of 300million. It has not revealed any locations so far.

Apple hopes its rumoured mapping service for the iPhone 

and iPad will overtake the hugely popular Google Maps 

Current 3D mapping technology relies on aerial images taken at a much lower resolution than the technology Apple is thought to be using. This means that when users ‘zoom in’, details tend to be lost because of the poor image quality.

Google ran into trouble when it emerged that its Street View cars, which gathered ground-level panoramic photographs for Google Maps, had also harvested personal data from household wifi networks.

Emails, text messages, photographs and documents were taken from unsecured wifi networks all around Britain.

Google claimed it was a mistake even though a senior manager was warned as early as 2007 that the extra information was being captured. Around one in four home networks is thought to be unsecured because they lack password protection.

Little has been revealed about the technology involved in the spy planes used to capture the aerial images.

But they are thought to be able to photograph around 40 square miles every hour, suggesting they would be flying too quickly and at too great a height to access domestic wifi networks.
Like Google Maps, the resulting images would not be streamed live to computers but would provide a snapshot image of the moment the camera passed by.

MILITARY TECHNOLOGY
     Apple’s spy planes are believed to be equipped with technology developed by defence 
     agencies to guide missile strikes.

     Each plane is equipped with multiple cameras taking high-resolution photographs of 
     buildings and landmarks from every possible angle, which are then compiled to make three-
     dimensional images.

     The military-grade images are taken at a height of around 1,600ft, meaning people below 
     are very unlikely to realise they are being photographed.

     The cameras can be installed on planes, helicopters or even unmanned drones, although 
     there are safety restrictions about the use of the latter in Britain.

     A small plane carrying the cameras can photograph up to 100 square kilometres (38.6 
     square miles) every hour.

Google pixellates faces and car number plates but faced criticism after its service showed one recognisable man leaving a sex shop and another being sick in the street.

Amie Stepanovich, of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre in America, said she believed Apple and Google would be forced to blur out homes in the same way Street View pixellates faces.

She said: ‘With satellite images, privacy is built in because you can’t zoom down into a garden. Homeowners need to be asked to opt in to show their property in high definition – otherwise it should be blurred out.’

Apple has previously used Google for its mapping services but last year it emerged it had bought C3 Technologies, a 3D mapping company that uses technology developed by Saab AB, the aerospace and defence company.

At the time C3 had already mapped 20 cities and it is believed to have added more with Apple’s backing. Its photographs have been shot from 1,600ft and one C3 executive described it as ‘Google on steroids’.

There are already 3D maps available online for most big city centres, but the images are often low resolution, meaning they are of little use for navigation and users cannot zoom in on detail.
Critics have argued that Apple and Google will face a backlash if they offer detailed 3D mapping of residential areas in suburbs and rural locations.

New Microchip Knows Your Location To Within Centimeters (Infowars)

Forget a chip in your forehead – the ‘mark of the beast’ is the cell phone

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The development of a new microchip for cell phones that knows the user’s location to within a few centimeters confirms the fact that contrary to biblical fears about mandatory implantable microchips, people have willingly exchanged their privacy for convenience and that the cell phone itself is the de facto “mark of the beast”.

“Broadcom has just rolled out a chip for smart phones that promises to indicate location ultra-precisely, possibly within a few centimeters, vertically and horizontally, indoors and out,” reports MIT Technology Review.

“In theory, the new chip can even determine what floor of a building you’re on, thanks to its ability to integrate information from the atmospheric pressure sensor on many models of Android phones. The company calls abilities like this “ubiquitous navigation,” and the idea is that it will enable a new kind of e-commerce predicated on the fact that shopkeepers will know the moment you walk by their front door, or when you are looking at a particular product, and can offer you coupons at that instant.”

Over 82% of Americans own cell phones, with around half of these being smart phones. In the near future, the majority of Americans will own smart phones that will have the ability to track their location down to a few centimeters.

(click here to read the full article)

X-37B: Secret U.S. Air Force space plane in orbit more than a year - and no one knows what it`s doing

X-37B: Secret space plane 1 year on mystery mission
RT News
Published: 09 March, 2012, 16:27

The X-37B spacecraft (AFP Photo/US Air Force) RT

The US Air Force’s highly secret robotic space plane continues to circle our planet a year after being launched, with no authoritative version of the shadowy mission purpose presented to public.

Since the original test mission of the first X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle One (OTV-1) that was performed in April 2010 and lasted the promised 270 days, the US Air Force has been insisting the X-37 program is a purely scientific undertaking and a testing platform of new technology.

Very little has been revealed about the spacecraft. The only information available on the successive OTV-2 mission launched on March 5, 2011, with an Atlas 5 booster rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida is that the space plane is an 8.8-meter- long and 4.5-meter-wide solar-powered vehicle.


An artist's rendition of the X-37B as it might look like orbiting Earth (AFP Photo / NASA) Video: Launch of Atlas-V 501 with X-37B OTV-2 from simmisuper YouTube channel

The experimental spacecraft was supposed to return to an airstrip in California nine months later in December – but that never happened.

In the meantime, a third X-37B space plane mission is being prepared with a launch possibly going to be performed before the end of this year.

From the very beginning space enthusiasts have been proposing different versions of what the spacecraft is supposed to do while circling the planet at declared orbits varying from 200 to 750 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.In the meantime, a third X-37B space plane mission is being prepared with a launch possibly going to be performed before the end of this year.
From the very beginning space enthusiasts have been proposing different versions of what the spacecraft is supposed to do while circling the planet at declared orbits varying from 200 to 750 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.

The initial idea has been that the spacecraft is a new type of a surveillance satellite that can change orbits to fly above the desired territory on Earth. This version has had a go because the craft did fly over Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Pakistan and changed orbits not once.
...

(click here to read the full article and view more images)


Infographic depicts the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle is an unmanned space test vehicle for the USAF (CREDIT: Karl Tate, SPACE.com)

Beware of Facebook...

Photo credit: Infowars

Visit:
Infowars.com
PrisonPlanet.com
PrisonPlanet.tv

Dangers of Facebook, now a massive government spying machine

The Terrible Truth About Facebook

Uploaded by TheVideoPatriot on Jul 19, 2009
http://youtu.be/UJqGbA2tLww

Think you have any privacy when it comes to a social networking site? Think again. Just take a look at who has invested in the site and open your eyes.
[Video property and courtesy of The Video Patriot`s Channel, please give proper credit and citation]    

Zack says FB is losing ground with young people
who find the relationships built there are shallow
ones., credit: NYPost/Angel Chevrestt

Why I quit Facebook
A New York City high-school senior, 18, explains why he quit Facebook
By ZACH PROCHNIK
NY POST
Last Updated: 2:23 AM, February 12, 2012
Posted: 10:34 PM, February 11, 2012

It’s Saturday night, and I am at the house of a good friend. After the usual hours spent playing Xbox and watching “1000 Ways To Die,” I ask him if it would be OK if I used his computer. I want to check my Facebook, because I’d last checked it that morning — and who knows what I’d been missing since then? Best-case scenario: a notification from the girl who — despite the fact that our passion is unspoken — has posted on my wall claiming that she was checking my page and has suddenly realized her true feelings for me. Maybe on top of that a cool, funny kid sent me a friend request saying that I was “the man” and we should be homies for life. No big deal, I get that all the time.

I hit enter. My eyes immediately jump to the top left of the screen. The page loads and my heart drops. All I can see is blue. Blue, the color of 21st century social mediocrity. The color of people’s indifference towards you. I quickly realize the reality of my situation: The world does not revolve around me. My friends all have other friends. Every minute that I spend navigating the Facebook universe, I am shrinking.
But as I scroll down my home page, I realize that I’m not the only one desperate for attention. Every status and post seems to be saying “I’m here! Tell me that I’m somebody!” Hundreds of kids are selling their identities — like livestock at a market — for a couple of comments and “likes.”

As I scan my alleged friends’ profiles, I’m seized with feelings of jealousy and rejection. I want to say to them “I thought I was your friend! So who the are these 200 other guys commenting on your stuff?” As our circles get wider, our interactions become fewer.
I joined Facebook four years ago. and at first it was amazing. You’d friend someone, and you’d be linked to all their friends. In fact, the standard that classified a kid as your friend was quickly dropped. That girl your friend told you about was now your “friend”; that friend of your sibling was now your “friend.” You now shared everything with anyone whose name or face looked vaguely familiar.

This quickly wore me down. Being constantly informed that you make up just a small portion of another person’s life erodes the feeling that you are at all meaningful to them.
Adolescence, to begin with, is a time of awful social anxiety. Now a website exists that exacerbates your most irrational social fears to the point of paranoia. Instead of just a private hormonal case of nerves, this is a massive, corporate crowd-sourced paranoia that a huge economic sector is encouraging us to take part in.
On Facebook, I saw how I was taking time away from being with my real friends to feel bad about all the other people who were hardly even part of my life.

Leaving it was easier said than done, however. I couldn’t find where to deactivate my account. I had to look up “how to deactivate Facebook” on Google. After navigating multiple pages, I found a tiny link at the bottom of the security-settings page. After clicking the link, a page popped up with bright photos of my good friends and me. “Jake will miss you,” one caption read. “Jules will miss you,” and another saying “Aaron will miss you.” All of my friends were smiling at me and telling me they would miss me.

I was struck by the irony of this statement about how my different friends would miss me when I left. When you’re an adolescent, what Facebook is really all about is creating a sense of distance between you and your friends, not about strengthening the relationships. Distance because it makes you realize that you’re both lost in a crowd. Worse still, this website that profits off the data it collects about me by selling it to advertising companies is now trying to hold onto me by enlisting my friends to seduce me into staying.

Why are my friends going to miss me? My friend Raymond is still sitting next to me playing video games. I’m still talking to people in the halls at school. Maybe next time someone takes a cool picture, they’ll call me up to hang out and stare at a screen side-by-side, which is what real friends do.

I’m not the only one who is deactivating my Facebook account. I’ve had other friends tell me that they’re sick and tired of going on Facebook everyday hoping to connect, but ending up feeling only more disconnected. Lost in the hype of the company’s stock-market debut this year is that while Facebook is ubiquitous, it may also be a fad.

Before I went off Facebook, my friend made a status update saying,“Deleting your Facebook is like running away from home. You do it for attention but you’ll be back one day.” But I’m not doing it for attention. I’m doing it so I won’t go there when I’m hungry for attention, only to end up feeling more alone.

Zach Prochnik attends a Manhattan public high school.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/unfriend_VhP9QLXispf2RzznaNHPNK#ixzz1mPdgmpnn

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The Curse of Social Networking

Life outside Facebook and Google Plus
Posted by Muslim Faith on January 16, 2012
MuslimFaith.Wordpress.com
Sheikh Danish Riyaz

Image: MuslimFaith

I see after the advent of social networking sites and before that was chatting rooms, people are so overwhelmingly busy in virtual lives on Facebook and Google Plus that they have completely forgotten about their real lives. They have developed dual character in which they behave so good virtually so that unknown people can praise them virtually and back home they are what they really are. The person who is not on Facebook is like a person who does not exist and people ridicule him. Now relatives don’t visit each others homes and exchange gifts with each other, but now they Poke each other virtually and they message each other and this is where we are heading with our next generation. Youth is so much busy in social networking that their social networking does not have a particular time, but whether they are in classroom with teacher in front of them, they are talking with parents, walking, travelling, they are on-line for this all the time.


Parents come back home from their jobs and they stick to TV for news and children in need of their time but parents say, go didn’t I brought you iPod and Broadband connection, so go do that I’m busy. Parents are busy in each others argumentation hence children try to search for on-line pair of parents who can listen to them all the time. Time has come to the extent that if their profiles get hacked or they lost their password, they mourn for that like they lost their child and I’m an eyewitness of this thing.


I want to write more about this curse of social networking and chatting time where we now live virtually and we are aware of the world news but we hardly know about out own family members, but I think this is enough for the people of intellect as a reminder!


-Sheikh Danish Riyaz

Sexting: A Growing Heinous Phenomenon: By Carly Nicola

The Dangers of the Digital World

Posted: November 24, 2010; by Carly Nicola

Sexting is a result of advances in technology enabling new forms of social interaction. Sexting is the act of sending sexually explicit messages, photographs or videos through some form of technology in digital media, mainly involving cell phones and internet. Anyone can participate in the act of sexting, but it has become typically common among many teenagers and young adults. The new forms of technology that we use have a big risk on the people who are using the digital media irresponsibly. With all these new forms of technology, it enables us to send photographs and videos more easily and more often. Sexting has become so common among teenagers, that they are partaking in this activity as a social thing; however the social danger with sexting is that the messages can so very easily be spread and it will be completely out of the sender’s control. Interestingly, 22% of teens admit that technology makes them personally more forward and aggressive (CosmoGirl and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2009.)

Many teenagers aren’t aware that sending or receiving explicit photographs to their peers is actually illegal and is correlated with child pornography. Sexting can result in very legal repercussions. Sexting is becoming more and more dangerous and it is not uncommon for teenagers to be charged with the distribution of child pornography or the possession of child pornography. The United States especially has such strict anti-child pornography laws, which is of course good; however many teenagers and young adults aren’t aware that they can be charged for these acts. Some people are even charged as sex offenders, and will have to live their whole lives with that title.

...Many people, especially teenagers don’t realize how big of a deal that sexting is or simply using electronic media to send something explicit. Teenagers are often unable to recognize long term consequences. There are lots of things to think about before sending explicit messages to others. Don’t forget that when you send something digitally to someone else, it’s theirs to keep afterwards and do whatever they want with it, because you can never take that back, once the message is sent you cannot un-send it. There is also no changing your mind in cyberspace, anything you send or post, in all reality will never truly go away. Also, don’t forget the laws of our country, and the consequences of committing the crimes according to the law. In all reality, don’t assume anything you send is going to remain private because it’s likely that at one time or another messages will get shared or sent to someone else. Let’s face it sexting is a very risky, and dangerous activity to be involved in....

(Click here to read the full post and view related videos)

The Dangers Lurking on the Online Community of Craigslist: By Jade Dreyer

image: dangersofdigitalworld

Click here to read the full blog post