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NSFW: Mexican Drug Gangs Taunt Each Other On YouTube By Showing Dead Rivals

Everton — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 01:37:36 +0000

Two rival Mexican drug gangs ar taunting each other by posting videos on YouTube of their bloody victims on YouTube, according to Reuters. The war between the north eastern Mexico’s “Gulf Cartel”and “traffickers based in the western state of Sinaloa” headed by Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman – last year claimed more than 2,000 victims.

In one YouTube post, a user “offers about $4,500 to anyone who can show proof of having killed members of The Zetas, ‘via photo, video or presenting the body’.

I’m surprised that YouTube haven’t been removing the videos. One video shows a man being shot in the head, and another a series of photos showing “an execution victim, his missing face a mangled mess of flesh”.

I guess as long as there are no copyright issues, YouTube doesn’t care.

I’ve Really Lost Faith In The Digg Community Now

Everton — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 13:00:19 +0000

Some of the idiots who stalk Digg and leave inane comments have gone too far now in my view.Â Spencer H. Kim, father of James Kim who tragically died last year, posted a story in the Washington Post laying out some criticisms of the way the search was conducted for his son and family.

The story got Dugg, and got the usual not so nice ‘treatment’ from digg users in their comments.Â Although, I agree with some of the basic views of some users that James Kim made many mistakes that resulted in him losing his life, I’m stunned by the lack of sensitivity in the way that these views have been presented.

What has really got me fuming though, are the comments left by obviously digg users on the Washington Post, in response to Spencer’s article, which are insensitive and totally inappropriate.Â Don’t they know that Spencer Kim and his family are still grieving?Â Don’t the pre-pubescent morons realise that sometimes it’s best to keep your views to yourself, and show a little respect?

Four Million UK Users Hit By ID Theft

Everton — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 11:29:06 +0000

Figures released by Sainsbury’s Bank have shown that 4.1 million Britons have fallen foul of identity theft.Ã‚Â The average cost of the theft was Ã‚Â£3,039 and six per cent claimed to have lost more than Ã‚Â£10,000.

I got stung myself last year.Ã‚Â I suddenly started seeing charges for hotel stays and petrol on my credit card (very weird) and in total my card got ripped off for around Ã‚Â£2k.

I think it’s sad that card security is still so poor, both online and offline.Ã‚Â It’s got so bad that I now shred all my personal documents and I don’t use my credit card in restaurants etc unless the waitress processes the transaction in front of me.

Have you been stung recently?

More: vnunet

The Guardian Experimenting With Letting Users Add Un-moderated Content

Everton — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 11:08:26 +0000

The Guardian newspaper started an experiment today that is just asking for trouble in my view.Ã‚Â They’ve setup a shared del.icio.us account that will allow users to post links directly to the Guardian website.

This is definitely going to be abused by spammers, as the only way they can remove a link is after it has been published. I give the experiment a week before it is pulled.

More: Guardian

Whoops! TimesOnline Caught Linking Through To Porn Site

Everton — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 21:18:28 +0000

There’s been a lot of coverage today about the top 10 viral videos online. At number 1 is the classic Star Wars Kid video, that has been remixed literally hundreds of times.

I first spotted this story on The Times when I woke up this morning. What made me laugh was that whoever wrote the article had just cut and paste the links to the other sites in the Top 10, which also included the link to a site that was showing the infamous Paris Hilton sex video!

By lunchtime, the link had been removed and I’m almost certain that whoever wrote the article got a serious ticking off.

Looking at some of the top 10 though, I’m not sure how accurate this list is. Where is the famous coke & mentos video for instance?

SETI@home Hacked By Aliens!

Everton — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 23:00:00 +0000

Well it hasn’t happened yet, but The Guardian Unlimited reports that particle physicist Richard Carrigan has warned that ET and his buddies could use SETI@home to infect Earth’s computers with malicious code.

If ET is out there I’m sure he’s got better things to do with his time like getting his spaceship kitted out with the latest quantum flux capacitor for his next intergalactic jump. What’s probably more likely is some criminal network trying to hack SETI@home to send spam or attack other networks, especially now that the Guardian has highlighted the potential of the network!

More: DownloadSquad, Silicon Valley Sleuth

Skype To Remain Independent

Everton — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 09:45:32 +0000

There has been a lot of speculation that Skype is up for sale, with News Corp featuring in most of the rumours. However, it looks like Skype will remain independent with US venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which owns between 10 and 20% of Skype, saying:

“The company is worth a lot more independent.”

Man Dies Playing Computer Games

Everton — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 20:17:57 +0000

Aqute discovered an interesting story of a 28 year old man who died of heart failure due to exhaustion after playing video games for a solid 50 hours, only stopping for toilet breaks.

Some of my colleagues come into work on Mondays bragging about spending 30 hours plus playing World of Warcraft.Ã‚Â Although their enthausism for the game is infectious and has almost convinced me to give it a try, I’m resisting as I don’t want anything to dominate my life that much, particularly not a game.

More: Aqute Research

News Corp Buys Intermix Media/Myspace.com For $580 Mill

Everton — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:59:18 +0000

News Corp., the media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, is buying the online company Intermix Media Inc., owner of the social networking site MySpace.com, for $580 million in cash.

At the same time it is being acquired by News Corp., Intermix is also buying the other 47 percent of MySpace.com that it doesn’t already own.

Silicon Valley Sleuth Please Read!

Everton — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 14:45:41 +0000

I’m posting this here as I know you read my blog as you’ve linked to me a few times and I couldn’t find anyway to contact the person within vnunet who runs the blog.

For the last couple of days I’ve been getting a ridiculous amount of traffic from your site which I don’t think is ’slashdotting’ and it’s eating up my bandwidth allowance! I think there’s an error somewhere on your servers.

Could you please let me know what’s going on please.

Thanks!

Finally Made 1,000 Visitors Per Day

Everton — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 05:23:58 +0000

For the last two days I’ve finally had over 1,000 visitors per day (Actually I had over 3,000 yesterday but something weird is going on with referrals for Silicon Valley Sleuth so I’m not counting those) which apparently makes my blog one of the bigger ones! I just want to say thanks to everyone who’s taken the time out to visit my blog.

Nokia and Intel partner on mobile WiMax

Everton — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:51:59 +0000

After a hot and cold relationship with WiMax in the past, Nokia has thrown its support behind the high-speed wireless technology.

The Finnish mobile giant announced on Friday that it is partnering with Intel to develop 802.16e — which could potentially support high-speed wireless access over much longer distances than are possible with Wi-Fi today.

“WiMax will be an important technology complementing 3G technologies. It will also create new opportunities for the consumer and enterprise markets,” said Tero Ojanpera, Nokia’s senior vice president and chief strategy officer.

Ojanpera told journalists on Friday that 802.11e could be better than 3G at handling data services, such as video downloads. This suggests that Nokia believes future mobile devices would support both wireless technologies.

Google Stops Downloads Of Its Web Accelerator

Everton — Fri, 13 May 2005 15:41:07 +0000

Google has disabled downloads of its Web Accelerator software less than a week after introducing the service. The suspension follows reports that the software was caching sensitive content, such as user control panels to online forums and even potentially online banking details.

To read the full story on The Register click here

Reuters launches free mobile news service

Everton — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 16:06:41 +0000

Reuters have launched a free mobile news service providing business, sports, entertainment, as well as market data and global share price information. The service is available at mobile.reuters.co.uk

“The free service delivers the top ten news stories written by Reuters correspondents in 200 bureaux around the world. Each story is illustrated with pictures from photographers on the scene.Ã‚Â It is available on 70 different Web-enabled handsets, including LG,
Motorola, Nokia, Siemens, Panasonic, Sharp and SonyEricsson.”

Spammer given nine years – (ZDNet UK News)

Everton — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 10:15:34 +0000

Yet another spammer hits the dust. A spammer responsible for sending over 10 million junk emails a day has been jailed for nine years by a US judge.

Jeremy Jaynes, also known by his alias, ‘Gaven Stubberfield’ , is believed to have raked in between $500,000 (Ã‚Â£260,000) and $750,000 a month through sales of products from the spam and was rated as the eighth most prolific spammer in the world by spam watchdog Spamhaus.

Do you think that going after individual spammers will create a significant reduction in the number of spam emails flying around the web, or do ISPs and technology companies need to do more?

For the full story click here

Google bosses to be paid $1 per year

Everton — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 11:05:41 +0000

The Register have just reported that some of Google’s senior executives will get paid just $1 this year, with no other bonuses or share options. Won’t have much impact on the billionaires though (Co-founder Schmidt has a ten per cent stake worth about $2.7bn.)

Maybe some of the UK’s fat cat bossess will take heed and follow their example…..

Online libel: How To Avoid

Everton — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 11:55:08 +0000

I just read a timely article on The Register about anonymity for online libellers.

A fund manager, Terry Smith, chief executive of city firm Collins Stewart Tullett, won undisclosed damages from Jeremy Benjamin, another fund manager after Benjamin had posted what he now accepts as false allegations on the Motley Fool forum, www.fool.co.uk under a pseudonym. The Motley Fool who were forced to give over Benjamin’s details by a court order, had already taken down Benjamin’s post once Mr. Smith contacted them. However, the damage had already been done.

Last night at Blogs in Action, David Carr, who is a director with Big Blog Company, but also happens to be a lawyer, gave an impromptu presentation on the minefield that is online libel.
David pointed out that website owners and bloggers need to be concerned about online libel. David reiterated that the internet is not outside the law and that you can’t post whatever you like.

Just because you didn’t write any potentially libellous articles does not exonerate you, and David ran through an interesting case concerning Demon Internet to prove his point.

Site owners do not have to police their comments, but if someone posts something that is potentially libellous, you are obliged to take it down if someone tells you that they think it is libellous.

This however, puts bloggers in a difficult situation, because if the statement proves to be true rather than libellous, then if by removing it your actions could be deemed libellous.

To counter this, David recommended that site owners put a disclaimer on their site saying that any comments are permitted only because the site owner is letting you post, and that any comments will be removed for any reason at the absolute discretion of the site owner.

Ericsson to sue Sendo- ZDnet

Everton — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 17:11:28 +0000

Could this spell the end of Sendo?

Sweden's Ericsson has sued UK-based mobile phone firm Sendo for infringements on its GSM and GPRS handset technology patents, the telecom equipment maker has said<

Ericsson said in a statement on Wednesday it wanted monetary damages from the privately held firm as well as an injunction against the continued sale and marketing of Sendo's mobile phones.

For the full article click here

Mobile gaming is the fastest growing area in the games market

Everton — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 06:57:56 +0000

The increased quality of games across all the handsets means mobile gaming has become the fastest growing area in the games market, reports The Guardian. While console games and the consoles themselves experienced a slump in figures between 2002 and 2003 in the US, mobile games have rocketed from $243m (Ã‚Â£131m) to $587m over the same period.

According to industry analysts Informa Media, this is a figure that’s set to increase seven-fold to a whopping $3,783m by 2007. We can expect to see more big names following in the footsteps of Ubi Soft and Microsoft.

Ubi Soft has already successfully ported two of its well-known licenses, Splinter Cell and
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, onto mobile phones.