Someone grafitied my followers

In the last 2 days somebody replaced all my blog followers with spurious links. I deleted them moments ago, but the original followers are gone. They had to be sacrificed to remove the junk left behind by some reprehensible person who remains anonymous. Following this an effort will be made to inform the friends of this badness.

News:BT seeks moratorium on internet piracy cases

By Jonathan Fildes Technology reporter, BBC News

BT is seeking a moratorium on legal applications to obtain details of its customers who are alleged to have illegally shared files online.

The firm outlined its stance following a high-profile data breach at London law firm ACS:Law last week.

The leak saw thousands of customers' details from various ISPs - including BT-owned PlusNet - published online.

BT said that it wanted a temporary halt on all new and existing applications until a "test case" could be heard.

more here
Comment: As you know, file sharing is common on line. This may have effects from innocent users sharing what they created, to unscrupulous people who attempt to obtain copyright material and sell it for profit. We are not concerned with people sharing family photos or a child's kindergarten pictures here. Those cases involving original or copyrighted work involving great effort and those that are unique and of a high standard are individual works difficult or impossible to replace.

For example, as an author, I worked for years to complete a novel (now published on line at Return by John Durham). Could you imagine my sense of betrayal to discover someone had copied it and was selling the work on his own site claiming he or she had the right to do so? If that happened, I would feel betrayed, used and preyed upon by such a person. How would you react to such treatment?

News:Change to 'Bios' will make for PCs that boot in seconds

1 October 2010 Last updated at 09:11 GMT
Change to 'Bios' will make for PCs that boot in seconds
By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

New PCs could start in just seconds, thanks to an update to one of the oldest parts of desktop computers.

The upgrade will spell the end for the 25-year-old PC start-up software known as Bios that initialises a machine so its operating system can get going.

The code was not intended to live nearly this long, and adapting it to modern PCs is one reason they take as long as they do to warm up.

Bios' replacement, known as UEFI, will predominate in new PCs by 2011.

The acronym stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface and is designed to be more flexible than its venerable predecessor.

"Conventional Bios is up there with some of the physical pieces of the chip set that have been kicking around the PC since 1979," said Mark Doran, head of the UEFI Forum, which is overseeing development of the technology.

more here

End of the Road for Xmarks

September 27, 2010
4:04 pm

Posted by: Todd

Categories:
Xmarks
As I write this, it’s a typical Sunday here at Xmarks. The synchronization service continues operating quietly, the servers chugging along syncing browser data for our 2 million users across their 5 million desktops. The day isn’t over yet, but we’re on track to add just under 3000 new accounts today.

Tomorrow, however, will hardly be anything but typical, for tomorrow one of our engineers will start a script that will email each of our users to notify them that we’ll be ceasing operations in around 90 days.

This post attempts to summarize the Xmarks story: how we got to be the most heavily used browser synchronization service in the world and yet still find ourselves pulling the plug.

More here

News:Tech Know: Hacking the everyday

By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News
29 September 2010 Last updated at 08:22 GMT

Ellie Gibson meets hip-gyrating and chain-smoking robots when she visits technology artists.

In our regular series talking to makers and hackers, Tech Know takes time to get to know artists who hack everyday objects in their work.

When the history of maker culture is written, the Mutoid Waste Company (MWC) will have a volume all to itself.

Back in the 1980s, this group of artists toured the country and when they hit a town, found the scrapyard, built a huge sculpture from what they could salvage and then moved on.
Continue reading the main story
TECH KNOW: HACKING AT HOME

* A journey into sound
* BBC Micro gets a new lease of life
* The amateur rocketeers
* Going to robot class

It started many of its members on a lifetime of tinkering, hacking and making.
more here

Note from the blog master: Posts on this subject are provided to inform. This web master does not support or condone the activities of illegal hackers.

Secretive customers

At this time of year a number of businesses adjust and update web sites and services to keep things up to date. It's a time to improve things and let people know you are around.


In this case, one such promotional business is behaving secretively. They don't want to reveal their contact details for some reason.

Can you see how hard it might be to benefit from their services when one hides behind an IP number? One such business (not to be named) is asking me to pay their bill for services. That's normal in most cases, but in this one, they have not given me a physical address to send payments to.


Does this seem to be self defeating?

I can't find them, but they will go to court to get money if I don't pay up!
The only option at this point is to wait until they do something about it.
When they send documents, they may well contain the necessary information. Can you imagine running a business this way?

News:Space-age mapping of the world's forests

By Peter Bowes BBC News, Los Angeles
Peter Bowes takes a crane ride high above the forest canopy

Using satellites and lasers, scientists have produced a unique map that details the heights of the world's forests.

For the first time, using a uniform method, the map spans the entire globe. Scientists from Colorado State University and Nasa say it will help them build an inventory of how much carbon the world's forests store and how much is recycled back into the atmosphere.
more here