One from the “why didn’t I think of THAT” department: a fisheye lens from a standard peephole just like in your front door. You can pick up a peephole (sans door) for around $10 at most hardware stores and be shooting cool ultra-wide-angle, amusingly distorted images with your point-and-shoot digicam in the time it takes to simply tape it to your lens.

…….

Virgil Griffith created the Wikipedia Scanner to catch companies and organizations who were editing Wikipedia articles to their own benefit. In this article, you’ll take a close look at how the WikiScanner works, look at some particularly controversial or simply bizarre examples of anonymous editing and consider some of the reactions to the WikiScanner. You’ll also see how you can use the WikiScanner to see what some organizations and companies may be up to on Wikipedia.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/wikipedia-scanner.htm

in response to this story……:

http://www.slyck.com/story1422.html

“…………

Many people have become familiar with the mechanics of the RIAA lawsuit engine. One of the agents of the RIAA, such as Media Sentry, downloads a file from an unsuspecting file-sharer. A screenshot is made of the individual’s shared directory, or several files are downloaded to ensure a viable case. The individual’s IP address is then obtained. The RIAA then subpoenas the file-sharer’s ISP requesting the personal information associated with that IP address when the alleged upload occurred. The RIAA then informs the unsuspecting file-sharer of an impending lawsuit, but also gives the option to settle. A typical settlement costs between $3,000 and $5,000 US.

…………..

The new RIAA plan implements a device called a “pre-lawsuit letter”. The plan is currently underway, as the RIAA has already sent 400 of these letters to various college campuses. Basically, the letter is sent to the collegeor university, and is then forwarded to the student. Instead of threatening a lawsuit outrightly, within 20 days the student has the option to settle at a “discount”. The RIAA would not elaborate on how much this discount was. We can only speculate that it is less than the current financial lawsuit threshold of $3,000.”

i give you a song…..

Buddy you’re a boy, make a big noise
Playing music in school, gonna be a big man some day
You got music on myspace
You big disgrace
Kickin your ipod all over the place

We will, we will, sue you
We will, we will, sue you

Buddy you’re a young man, pirate man
Shoutin’ in the school gonna take on the MAFIAA some day
You got music on myspace
You big disgrace
Wavin’ your napster all over the place

We will, we will, sue you
We will, we will, sue you

Buddy you’re an old man, poor man
Pleadin’ with our lawyers gonna make you pay today

You lost your court case
You big disgrace
The MAFIAA kicked you off of myspace

We will, we will, sue you
We will, we will, sue you

THIS IS THE VERY REASON WHY I RARELY EVER DO A *DEBIT* WHEN MAKING A TRANSACTION, RATHER I ALWAYS CHOOSE TO *CREDIT*, WHETHER IT’S ‘MY’ BANKS CARD OR A CREDIT CARD.

.credit one to my paranoia.

http://techweb.com/wire/security/181502468

The unfolding debit card scam that rocked Citibank this week is far from over, an analyst said Thursday as she called this first-time-ever mass theft of PINs “the worst consumer scam to date.”

Wednesday, Citibank confirmed that an ongoing fraud had forced it to reissue debit cards and block PIN-based transactions for users in Canada, Russia, and the U.K.

But Citibank is only the tip of the iceberg, said Avivah Litan, a Gartner research vice president. The scam — and scandal — has hit national banks like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Washington Mutual, as well as smaller banks, including ones in Oregon, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, all of which have re-issued debit cards in recent weeks.

“This is the worst hack ever,” Litan maintained. “It’s significant because not only is it a really wide-spread breach, but it affects debit cards, which everyone thought were immune to these kinds of things.”

Unlike credit cards, debit cards offer an additional level of security: the password-like Personal Identification Number, or PIN.

“That’s the irony, the PIN was supposed to make debit cards secure,” Litan said. “Up until this breach, everyone thought ATMS and PINs could never be compromised.”

Litan’s sources in the financial industry have told her that thieves hacked into a as-yet-unknown system, and made off with data stored on debit cards’ magnetic stripes, the associated “PIN blocks,” or encrypted PIN data, and the key for that encrypted data.

The problem, she continued, is that retailers improperly store PIN numbers after they’ve been entered, rather than erase them at the PIN-entering pad. Worse, the keys to decrypt the PIN blocks are often stored on the same network as the PINs themselves, making a single successful hack a potential goldmine for criminals: they get the PIN data and the key to read it.

In this case, Litan said, the thieves used the information to crank out counterfeit debit cards, then emptied accounts at ATMs. She estimated that they absconded with “at least a couple of thousand records, maybe more” and have cashed out to the tune of “millions already.”

The victim of the hack attack isn’t yet known, although some banks have pointed fingers at OfficeMax, which has denied that its system was penetrated.

Litan believes it much more likely that a third-party processor or terminal supplier was involved; the silence about the victim could point to a processor, she said, because they have the most to lose by the negative publicity.

Last summer, credit card processor CardSystems was hit with a massive breach that involved millions of accounts; CardSystems essentially sank under the publicity, and was later bought by Pay By Touch. In February 2006, the FTC reached a settlement with CardSystems that require it to adopt more stringent security measures, but the company remains open to consumer lawsuits that could mean millions in payouts.

No matter who is to blame, the bank industry is only about halfway through cleaning up the breach, said Litan. And more of the same is on the way.

“This will become a trend with criminals,” she bet. “Hackers will do this as much as they can” because it’s far easier to empty checking accounts at ATMs than to buy goods with purloined credit cards, then sell the goods to generate cash.

So what’s a consumer to do?

“Security is tight at the ATM, but point-of-sale is a whole other story,” said Litan. “Look at your [debit card] account on a regular basis, and don’t use a PIN-based debit card at point-of-sale,” she recommended. “I never do.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>……………
in other news……………..

THE EFF [& YOU] TAKES ON SONY
The settlement process has begun in The Electronic Frontier Foundation class action lawsuit against Sony BMG for the flawed digital rights management(DRM) that Sony BMG released in millions of CDs over the last several years.

DMusic has been working with EFF to notify as may people as possible so they can get some redress against Sony BMG pursuant to the class action settlement, or alternatively, choose to seek compensation against Sony BMG individual in their own lawsuit.

Music fans who bought the affected CDs can submit claims for clean music. Many customers are also eligible for extra downloads or a small cash settlement.

SO PLEASE CHECK OUT http://www.eff.org/sony/ for more details about the settlement, including a list of the CDs affected. AND MAKE sure you don’t stick an infected CD in your computer – it will plant malicious spyware that is difficult to remove!

—————————————————-

IF YOU NEED TO KNOW EXACTLY HOW TO CHANGE YOUR COMPUTER SETTINGS, SO THAT CDs/DVDs ARE NOT ALLOWED TO INSTANTANEOUSLY INSTALL HIDDEN ‘GEMS’ WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE WHEN YOU PUT THEM INSIDE YOUR PC, CHECK HERE:
http://audiomind.livejournal.com/149551.html

For those of you who haven’t heard by now…..

Account Hijackings Force LiveJournal Changes
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/01/account_hijacki.html
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=06/01/20/1831245

[Tools that might help you, considering the madness above]
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
http://hewgill.com/software/ljdump/

If you ever have to recover files from an unbootable drive or try to bring a dead PC back to life, here’s a free, zero-footprint tool you shouldn’t be without = BartPE!

Bart’s Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD

Google Refuses Data Request From Bush Administration Google refuses to comply with a White House request for search data, which the Bush administration hopes to use to revive an anti-porn law that was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.

http://update.techweb.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/etgc0GTTVw0G4T0EAfi0EL

Kill Spyware Dead: Part 1
Spyware’s a scourge on even the savviest users. Here’s how to get rid of it.

http://update.techweb.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/etgc0GTTVw0G4T0EAG50Ew

15. Kill Spyware Dead: Part 2
It’s much more effective–and much less stressful–to keep spyware off systems by preventing infection in the first place. Get defensive. Learn how to keep your system spyware-free.

http://update.techweb.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/etgc0GTTVw0G4T0EAEi0Em

Nikon Corporation has made the decision to focus management resources on digital cameras in place of film cameras.

http://www.nikon.co.uk/press_room/releases/show.aspx?rid=201

Konica Minolta quits photo market

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4627002.stm

The BBC reports that if you’re a DJ, playing your digital copies of files off a laptop or mp3 player is illegal. The UK royalty collection agency, PPL, demands that such DJs pay £200 for a license in order to do so. [From the article, 'Many DJs are still unwittingly breaking the law by playing unlicensed digital copies of tracks months after a new permit scheme began, the BBC has found. This includes legally-purchased downloads, which are normally licensed only for personal use, as well as copies of tracks from records or CDs.'] [my remarks=PFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTT.....]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4609378.stm

++The Right Way To Redirect Multiple Parked Domains++

http://www.highrankings.com/issue060.htm#seo

http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php