The Internet Herald

Web problems hit release of al Qaeda 9/11 video

2008-09-21T02:53:00.009-07:00

By Firouz Sedarat

al QaedaSeptember 11 attacks

The delay of the much-touted 87-minute video, caused in
part by the main Islamist websites crashing, has thwarted al
Qaeda's yearly celebration of its attacks on U.S. cities in
2001.

But the full version hit websites on Friday, eight days
after the anniversary.

On it, senior al Qaeda commander Mustafa Abu al-Yazid vowed
that Western forces in Afghanistan would face "more large-scale
attacks ... where they least expect it" and called for
militants in Pakistan to step up their fight.

"In order for jihad in Afghanistan to continue and be
victorious, you must stand with your Mujahideen brothers in
Afghanistan and ... strike the interests of Crusader (Western)
allies in Pakistan," said Abu al-Yazid, a commander of al Qaeda
fighters in Afghanistan.

A suicide car bomber attacked the Marriott Hotel in the
Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Saturday, killing at least 40
people and starting a fire that swept through the hotel.

Al Qaeda has marked the anniversary of September 11 in the
past with releases including a tape on September 7 last year in
which its leader, Osama bin Laden, appeared on video for the
first time in nearly three years, addressing the American
people.

It was unclear why the websites normally favored by al
Qaeda had gone down. By Saturday, the two most popular were
still out of action.

TONGUE-IN-CHEEK

Some suspected they had been targeted by hackers. India's
Hindustan Times pointed the finger at intelligence websites
that track militant sites on the Internet, which responded in
tongue-in-cheek fashion.

Rusty Shackleford of My Pet Jawa (www.mypetjawa.mu.nu)
denied his web group was behind any cyber-attack on the
websites. "But if I was responsible I'd deny it," he said.

Aaron Weisburd of www.internet-haganah wrote: "The
actual reasons for this are not known to me (and I would say
that even if I actually knew what was going on)."

This further delayed the release and unnerved al Qaeda
sympathizers, one of whom wrote: "May God bless you my
brothers, but the password is wrong."

The video also showed al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman
al-Zawahri accusing predominantly Shi'ite Muslim Iran of taking
part in a Western "crusade" against Islam.

The closure of the Sunni websites coincided with a
widespread cyber attack which shut down some 300 Shi'ite sites,
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency said. Fars blamed this on
hardline Wahhabi Sunni hackers in the United Arab Emirates.

www.sistani.orgGrand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistaniyoutube

(Editing by Elizabeth Piper)

Suspect Nabbed in Palin E-mail Hack

2008-09-21T02:53:00.007-07:00

Steve Bosak, newsfactor

Vice Presidential candidateSarah PalinWeb sleuths

According to reports in Knoxville's Tennessean, Democrat State Representative Mike Kernell admitted that his son, David Kernell is being questioned by authorities in connection with the crime. The Secret Service and the FBI launched an official investigation on September 17.

Kernell, 20, is a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Rep. Kernell refused to disclose any further information about his son, including his whereabouts.

Not-So-Secure Security

In a message on a Web site frequented by hackers, a poster who identified himself as 'rubico' explained how he cracked Palin's Yahoo! account. The hacker tracked Palin's Yahoo! e-mail address from materials posted in the media, and then used the 'password reset' function to get into the account.

Analysts, of course, note that such security questions are less than secure. The hacker continues in his message to express frustration over his inability to download all the material. He then posted the password to the board after leaving screen captures of a few messages, family pictures and the inbox on the Wikileaks Web site, and asks other hackers to check out the material.

Alarmed by the message, another anonymous message board member logged into the Palin account, changed the password again, then contacted the Palin family with the new password and a warning that someone had hacked the account.

Tracking the Hacker

After determining that 'rubico' had used a proxy server in an attempt to cover his tracks, it appears that the Ctunnel proxy service, operated by Gabriel Rumuglia, cooperated with FBI investigators to track the elusive IP address of the culprit by turning over IP cache records. The trail allegedly leads back to David Kernell.

It appears Kernell's YouTube, MySpace and e-mail addresses have been terminated; one email address began with 'rubico10.' Kernell apparently used variations on the 'rubico' handle on other Web groups he belongs to, such as a chess group and other e-mail accounts. Bloggers such as Michelle Malkin and the Register were instrumental in tracking down leads to the perpetrator and tracking the path of the hacker through a proxy service.

Other fallouts from the hack are continued allegations in major newspapers that Palin was violating ethics standards by using a private e-mail count to conduct state business and the refusal of the Associated Press to turn over e-mail communications with the hacker. Some Web sites posted the e-mail addresses of Palin's family members and even posted Crystal Palin's cell phone number.

The hacker Web site that 'rubico' posted on, 4Chan.org, was most recently in the news when some members coordinated an online information blitz and attack on the Church of Scientology.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin begins blogging

2008-09-21T02:53:00.005-07:00

GoogleSergey BrinParkinson's Diseasegenetic testing

While Brin is no stranger to news-making webcasts and online press announcements, he made a blogging debut Thursday by sharing personal musings in a post at the Blogger weblogging website Google bought in early 2003.

Brin wrote of his mother being diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and how testing by 23andMe, a company started by his wife Anne Wojcicki, shows he has a gene mutation that "markedly" increases his chances of getting the illness.

"This leaves me in a rather unique position," Brin wrote.

"I now have the opportunity to adjust my life to reduce those odds. I also have the opportunity to perform and support research into this disease long before it may affect me."

Brin told of working with The Parkinson's Institute and the Michael J. Fox Foundation to combat the disease and provided links to the organizations' websites.

"I feel fortunate to be in this position," Brin wrote.

"Until the fountain of youth is discovered, all of us will have some conditions in our old age, only we don't know what they will be. I have a better guess than almost anyone else for what ills may be mine and I have decades to prepare for it."

Brin wrote of comparing his genes with those of relatives and of checking whether his DNA links him to others with his family name.

Founded by Wojcicki and Linda Avey two years ago, California-based 23andMe offers genotyping for a price of 399 per person.

Comcast details changes for managing Web traffic

2008-09-21T02:53:00.003-07:00

Comcast CorpWeb traffichigh speed Internet network

The move comes after the Federal Communications Commission
voted last month to uphold a complaint that Comcast had
violated the regulator's open-Internet principles by hindering
peer-to-peer traffic from applications such as BitTorrent.

Comcast said on Friday that under the plan designed to give
all users their "fair share" of bandwidth it would focus on
managing the traffic of customers who are using most bandwidth
when the network is congested.

It said it will use software on its network to determine if
particular subscribers have been the source of high volume of
traffic and will temporarily give traffic from those
subscribers a lower priority status.

It said that when a subscriber's traffic is assigned a
lower priority status its traffic could be delayed if the
network is congested but would not be delayed if there is no
congestion.

Comcast said it expect to have the new traffic management
system in place across its network by the end of December.

U.S. Internet service providers such as Comcast have been
overwhelmed by the rapid growth of online services including
peer-to-peer applications as well as online video, music
downloading and photo-sharing, and are seeking ways to
cost-effectively avoid network congestion.

Comcast, which has more than 14 million high-speed Internet
subscribers, had previously said it was changing its network
management practices to ensure all Web traffic is treated
essentially the same.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Anshuman Daga)

Comcast: No complaints on new Internet management

2008-09-21T02:53:00.001-07:00

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer

Comcast CorpInternet trafficcable modemtrial runs

The new system is set to replace the current one, which drew a sanction from the Federal Communications Commission, for all Comcast subscribers by the end of the year.

In its filing Friday, the cable company said the new system kicks in only when Internet traffic in the area approaches congestion. It then identifies which customer accounts are using the greatest amounts of bandwidth and slows down their Internet traffic until the traffic jam eases.

"Customers will still be able to do anything they want to online, and many activities will be unaffected, but they could experience things like: longer times to download or upload files, surfing the Web may seem somewhat slower, or playing games online may seem somewhat sluggish," the company said in a filing with the FCC Friday.

In a precedent-setting ruling, Comcast was ordered by the Federal Communications Commission in August to institute a new traffic management system, and provide details on its workings by Friday.

Under its older system, still in place for the majority of subscribers, Comcast blocks or delays some forms of Internet file-sharing to prevent traffic jams. In its August ruling, a divided FCC sided with consumer groups who had complained that in discriminating against certain forms of traffic, the system violated the FCC's guidelines on the openness of the Internet and the unwritten principle of "Net neutrality."

Months before the FCC's order, Comcast responded to the investigation by saying it would institute a new management system that treats different traffic types equally by the end of the year.

The new system has been tried out in: Colorado Springs, Colo.; Warrenton, Va.; Chambersburg, Pa.; Lake City, Fla.; and East Orange, Fla.

The trials show that less than 1 percent of customers have their traffic slowed on a typical day, Comcast said.

"Comcast did not receive a single customer complaint that could be traced to this new congestion management practice, despite having publicized the trials and notifying customers involved in the trials via e-mail," it said.

While complying with the FCC's ruling, Comcast has also challenged it in a federal appeals court, saying it was legally inappropriate and unjustified.

Google ramps up defense of Yahoo ad search deal

2008-09-21T02:52:00.015-07:00

By Dawn Kawamoto, CNET

Googlesearch advertisingYahoo

The Internet search giant posted an FAQ on its proposed partnership and its affect on advertising prices on its public policy blog Thursday and followed it up with another posting Friday on it's potential affect on competition.

In both cases, Google makes the argument that the deal would not harm competition nor lead to increased advertising prices.

But the blog postings were only part of its busy week. On Wednesday, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told reporters during a press conference that the company planned to proceed with the deal, in absence of any challenge from regulators. The companies expect to move forward with the deal in the second week of October to mid-October, one source familiar with their plans said.

But what Yahoo and Google have not made clear is what their plans will be should the antitrust division of the Department of Justice, or a multi-state task force, announce plans to challenge the deal by filing a lawsuit to block it, or should regulators seek a temporary or permanent injunction. The companies, for example, could demonstrate their resolve and still move forward with the partnership, despite knowing it would wrap them in legal wrangling with regulators.

Google, however, said in a statement:

"When we announced our deal with Yahoo we agreed to give the Department of Justice several months to review the deal before we began implementing it, and we continue to cooperate with regulators as that process continues. Ultimately we have confidence that they'll be able to conduct their review within that time period and allow us to move forward."

And on Tuesday, Google's chief economist Hal Varian disputed reports of potentially higher advertising costs should his company do its advertising search partnership with Yahoo in his blog.

Such efforts by the Internet giant follow a couple of events last week which may not bode well for its nonexclusive partnership agreement with Yahoo. The Association of National Advertisers announced its opposition to the Google-Yahoo deal. And, on top of that, word began to spread that the Department of Justice had hired seasoned antitrust litigator Sandy Litvack to assess whether a case could be won in trial against the partnership.

Online pharmacies may face stricter regulation

2008-09-21T02:52:00.013-07:00

By Stephanie Condon, CNET

Financial Web sites get busy amid turmoil

2008-09-21T02:52:00.011-07:00

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer

Wall Street

Online brokerage Scottrade Inc. saw its highest-volume trading day ever on Thursday. The two previous days were also among the eight busiest Scottrade has ever had, spokeswoman Kelly Doria said, and overall, orders were up 60 percent from the same week last year. She said the service suffered no loss of availability.

Some online trading sites saw a slowdown from all the activity. In some cases Thursday, the sites were performing as much as 12 times slower than normal, according to Keynote Systems Inc., a San Mateo, Calif.-based company that measures Web site performance.

The company did not specify which sites performed the slowest, though it cited online brokerage E-Trade Financial Corp. as one that held up well.

Some trading sites' performance slowdowns meant they were operating at only 95 percent availability meaning 5 percent of users couldn't complete what they wanted to do. And in one case Friday morning, a trading site showed only 78 percent availability. But by later in the day, it and other trading sites with significant problems detected by Keynote were back to normal.

The week has been extremely volatile, beginning with massive losses Monday as investors woke up to two storied financial firms gone in a buyout and a bankruptcy. There was a rebound Tuesday, another plunge Wednesday and rallies on Thursday and Friday.

Charles Schwab Corp., the nation's largest discount brokerage, "definitely saw higher-than-usual traffic this week," said spokeswoman Sarah Bulgatz in an e-mail. But she added that efforts to add capacity "seemed to have paid off" with the exception of "some minor issues" at the market open Friday due to very heavy volume. These issues have since been resolved, she added.

At investment management company Vanguard Group, online activity was busy Thursday, about what the company sees during tax season, said spokeswoman Rebecca Cohen. She said investors log on to the site to check their accounts "any time there is volatility" in the markets.

Hitwise, an Internet traffic-monitoring service, said visits to online broker-dealers and financial news Web sites like Yahoo Finance have been up by about a third this week, with attention steadily increasing as the week progressed.

The financial turmoil didn't appear to be causing online versions of runs on banks. Keynote's index of banking sites which include JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citibank as well as troubled Washington Mutual Inc. did not show any significant issues or slowdowns, said Shawn White, Keynote's director of external operations.

___

AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson and Business Writer Eileen AJ Connelly contributed to this report.

Democracy of language in new Internet dictionary

2008-09-21T02:52:00.009-07:00

definition of words

Wordia offers everyone the chance to record and upload
a video of themselves defining their chosen word in a complete
democratization of the language that will have Samuel Johnson,
the compiler of the first dictionary, turning in his grave.

Another offering is "nascent" which suggests that wordia is
a nascent technology that "takes something quite dull like a
dictionary and makes it not quite as dull."

The organizers hope their new online audio-visual
dictionary will become a living language archive. Time will
tell.

(Reporting by Jeremy Lovell; editing by Paul Casciato)

eBay looking to unload StumbleUpon?

2008-09-21T02:52:00.007-07:00

By Dawn Kawamoto, CNET

eBayStumbleUpon

According to a report in TechCrunch, eBay has hired Deutsche Bank to handle a sale of its Web site discovery service StumbleUpon, which it acquired a little over a year ago for roughly $75 million.

StumbleUpon takes a gander at the Web sites that people have visited and makes recommendations about other sites and videos that they may like.

In the report, TechCrunch cites a source who says that eBay is hoping to use Deutsche Bank to land the "right buyer," though the asking price is unknown and uncertainty exists whether the online retailing giant will be able to get what it paid, or will have to run the proverbial blue light special.

According to the report:

In July, StumbleUpon had 1.3 million worldwide visitors and 25 million page views. Twelve months earlier, the service attracted 4.4 million visitors and 31 million page views (ComScore).

StumbleUpon currently has more than 6 million registered users.

Cisco to buy messaging software company Jabber

2008-09-21T02:52:00.005-07:00

Cisco Systems Incinstant messaging software

The two companies did not disclose financial terms.

Denver-based Jabber provides open instant messaging
technology that supports different devices and applications,
and allows users on separate networks, such as Google Talk or
Yahoo Messenger, to connect with each other.

"With the acquisition of Jabber, we will be able to extend
the reach of our current instant messaging service and expand
the capabilities of our collaboration platform," Doug
Dennerline, senior vice president of Cisco's Collaboration
Software Group, said in a statement.

Cisco said it expects the deal to close by the end of
January.

(Reporting by Tiffany Wu; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Clip strategy links Lionsgate, YouTube

2008-09-21T02:52:00.003-07:00

By Andrew Wallenstein

YouTubeGoogle

As many as six multi-minute clips from individual Lionsgate
films including "3:10 to Yuma," "Good Luck Chuck," "Cooler" and
"Akeelah and the Bee" are aggregated at the Lionsgate Shop
Channel. A banner on the page leads to Lionsgateshop, where
the films highlighted in the clips are available for purchase.
That e-commerce site, which has been up since January, could
see a significant traffic boost with YouTube.

Lionsgate Shop is the most aggressive move a studio has
made to monetize YouTube beyond advertising on the site or
posting film trailers.

The channel is still a work in progress. Each individual
video player page carrying Lionsgate video eventually will
carry a link leading to a relevant purchase opportunity at
Lionsgateshop.

"This is a propeller airplane version of this service,"
said Curt Marvis, president of digital media at Lionsgate.
"We're hoping to get it to supersonic jet phase in the next six
months with more clips and a more engaging experience."

Marvis indicated that he also is in talks with other online
video hubs about creating similar arrangements with Lionsgate.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Google's U.S. share of Web search reaches 63 percent

2008-09-21T02:52:00.001-07:00

Google Inc

Yahoo Inc, the No. 2 player in the U.S. Web search market
saw its share of the business drop 0.9 percent to 19.6 from
July while Microsoft, the No. 3 U.S. player, slipped 0.6
percent to 8.3 percent, according to comScore Inc.

IAC InterActiveCorp's Ask grew 0.3 percent to retain
its fourth-place ranking while Time Warner Inc's AOL edged up
0.1 percent to 4.3 percent, according to August monthly data
published by the market research firm said.

Google's growing share of Web search and, by extension, its
even larger role in the related market for Web search
advertising, has lead rivals and some industry trade groups to
complain to competition regulators in the United and Europe.

ComScore estimates that the number of searches performed by
U.S. Web surfers on the five top search engines was virtually
unchanged at 11.75 billion searches compared with July. The
figure excludes searches users perform for mapping, local
directory information or user-generated videos, it said.

(Reporting by Eric Auchard, editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

Canadian Western Bank looks east via Internet

2008-09-21T02:51:00.011-07:00

By Lynne Olver

stock prices

Canadian Western Bank, which operates primarily in the
provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and
Saskatchewan, did a "soft launch" of its online bank this week,
President and Chief Executive Larry Pollock told Reuters on
Thursday.

"We're just testing the market," Pollock said, noting that
the online bank had been planned for six or eight months.

"I guess there could never be a bad time or a good time,
it's just something we're testing for now," he said.

"We don't know how much money we're going to get ... we
don't really know what to expect."

Called Canadian Direct Financial, it offers savings
accounts and guaranteed investment certificates. New customers
need a bank account at another Canadian financial institution
to get started.

"It will give us access to geographical markets that we're
not in," Pollock said. "We're in the four Western provinces
only, so by using the Internet we can access markets right
across the country."

The Edmonton, Alberta-based bank already operates online in
its direct-to-consumer home and auto insurance unit, where
Pollock said half of all auto policies are now sold online.

Various Internet banking options have sprung up in Canada
in the past decade, with insurance companies, retailers and
credit unions getting involved. Many of them lure customers
with high interest rates.

But customers can switch in and out of high-interest
savings accounts very quickly, Pollock noted, and if the
financial institution pays a high rate to customers while
investing the funds in low-yielding securities, "how do you
make money?" he asked.

"If we launched this and got C$2 (billion) or C$3 billion,
we wouldn't know what to do with it, we'd be earning a negative
spread on it as well," Pollock said.

However, the beauty of online deposit-taking is that growth
can be controlled, he added. Really good rates will attract
lots of money and low rates won't.

"It's a convenient way to supplement your liquidity if you
need to ... you can crank the rate up, get some money, turn it
down, stop it," he said. "It's sort of like turning the tap on
or off."

Canadian Western, the country's seventh-largest bank by
market value, has reported a 16 percent rise in net income in
the nine months ended July 31, but it is the country's
worst-performing bank stock in 2008.

($1=$1.06 Canadian)

(Reporting by Lynne Olver; editing by Rob Wilson)

EFF sues U.S. over NSA surveillance program

2008-09-21T02:51:00.009-07:00

By Steven Musil, CNET

Electronic Frontier FoundationBush administrationAT&T

In addition to suing the National Security Agency, the nonprofit Internet advocacy group also names President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, as well as others.

"For years, the NSA has been engaged in a massive and massively illegal fishing expedition through AT&T's domestic networks and databases of customer records," senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston said in a statement. "Our goal in this new case against the government, as in our case against AT&T, is to dismantle this dragnet surveillance program as soon as possible."

The EFF said the evidence it would present is the same evidence central to a class-action lawsuit it filed in 2006 accusing AT&T of opening up its telecommunications facilities to the NSA for use in spying on the phone calls and e-mails of "millions of ordinary Americans." Such a practice violates free speech and privacy rights spelled out by the U.S. Constitution and also runs afoul of federal wiretapping law, the EFF claimed.

The ACLU won a brief victory in a similar case filed against the NSA when a federal judge ruled in 2006 that the NSA's surveillance program "ran roughshod" over Americans' constitutional rights Americans and violated federal wiretapping law. However, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit in 2007 on narrow procedural grounds without addressing the legality of the program. The suit effectively died earlier this year when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in an appeal.

In July, the Senate approved a bill that would rewrite federal wiretap laws by granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies as long as the government claims the request was "lawful" and authorized by the president.

After the EFF's 2006 lawsuit was filed, reports of a secret room in an AT&T building in San Francisco surfaced and have become central to the nonprofit group's litigation.

Although EFF's lawsuit was filed before allegations about the room surfaced, reports of its existence have become central to the nonprofit group's attempts to prove AT&T opened its network to the NSA. Former AT&T employee Mark Klein released documents in 2006 alleging the company spliced its fiber optic cables and ran a duplicate set of cables to Room 641A at its 611 Folsom Street building.

The deleted portions of a legal brief accidentally released in 2006 sought to offer benign reasons why AT&T would allegedly have a secret room at its downtown San Francisco switching center that would be designed to monitor Internet and telephone traffic. (AT&T has publicly neither confirmed nor denied cooperating with the National Security Agency.)

Initial details of the surveillance program surfaced in late 2005 in a Los Angeles Times article that quoted an unnamed source as saying the NSA has a "direct hookup" into an AT&T database that stores information about all domestic phone calls, including how long they lasted.

Internet group sues Bush for electronic eavesdropping

2008-09-21T02:51:00.007-07:00

by Glenn Chapman

President George W. Bushtelephone calls

The suit was filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which took the administration to task for what it argued is "illegal surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans."

EFF lawyers filed a suit against AT&T in 2006 charging the US telecoms giant had opened up its network to National Security Agency (NSA) agents without proper court-approved warrants.

This year Congress passed legislation granting US telecommunications firms immunity from domestic spying lawsuits.

Wrangling about the constitutionality of that act has stalled the AT&T lawsuit as well as a slew of similar litigation aimed at other telecommunications firms.

EFF lawyers said Thursday the new lawsuit is aimed squarely at government officials, thereby sidestepping the immunity act.

"Our goal in this new case against the government, as in our case against AT&T, is to dismantle this dragnet surveillance program as soon as possible," said EFF senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston.

"For years, the NSA has been engaged in a massive and massively illegal fishing expedition through AT&T's domestic networks and databases of customer records."

The suit names Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as attorneys general, the NSA director and 100 "john does" yet to be identified.

It accuses them of personally violating the US constitution and a host of federal laws by helping orchestrate or carry out illegal snooping of Internet and voice communications.

The lawsuit asks the court to order federal officials to account for and then destroy information illegally-obtained from AT&T databases and to pay unspecified cash damages.

Bankston said the EFF had ample evidence that the NSA "is vacuuming up millions upon millions of ordinary AT&T communications."

EFF attorneys expect federal officials to argue to the court that a "state secrets privilege" protects them from the litigation because information revealed while defending themselves could threaten national security.

Bankston dismissed such a defense, saying the EFF is not interested in exposing what US spies may have found but only whether they had proper legal authority to snoop on US citizens' telephone and Internet communications.

The US District Court judge presiding over the suits against the telecom firms earlier rejected the "states secret" argument by government lawyers who have appealed his decision.

Consideration of the appeal has been suspended pending resolution of whether the granting of immunity to telecoms companies forces the dismissal of the cases in the lower court.

Sergey Brin starts blog, tells of Parkinson's risk

2008-09-21T02:51:00.005-07:00

By Stephen Shankland, CNET

GoogleSergey Bringenetic mutationParkinson's disease

The inaugural post on Brin's blog, too.blogspot, is titled "LRRK2" after the gene that he found carries a mutation called G2019S, which, "while rare even among people with the disease, accounts, in some ethnic groups, for a substantial proportion of familial Parkinson's," Brin said in the blog post.

"It is clear that I have a markedly higher chance of developing Parkinson's in my lifetime than the average person. In fact, it is somewhere between 20 percent to 80 percent, depending on the study and how you measure," Brin said.

Brin's mother and her aunt both have Parkinson's, and recent research has uncovered a genetic link in some cases of the disease, Brin wrote. And through the services of start-up 23andMe, co-founded by his wife, Anne Wojcicki, and Linda Avey, he found that he carries the same mutation. The research is still early, though, he said. And he had an optimistic take on the news.

Brin said the knowledge gives him some power.

"I know early in my life something I am substantially predisposed to. I now have the opportunity to adjust my life to reduce those odds (e.g. there is evidence that exercise may be protective against Parkinson's). I also have the opportunity to perform and support research into this disease long before it may affect me," he said. "And, regardless of my own health, it can help my family members, as well as others."

Google snags 63 percent of searches in August

2008-09-21T02:51:00.003-07:00

Google InccomScore Inc

Google accounted for 63 percent of searches by U.S. surfers in August, up from 61.9 percent in July and 56.5 percent in August last year.

The increase came at the expense of the second- and third-largest players in the market, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Yahoo's share fell to 19.6 percent from 20.5 percent in July and 23.3 percent a year ago.

Microsoft's share was 8.3 percent, down from 8.9 percent in July and 11.3 percent a year ago.

ComScore's report excludes searches for mapping, local directory and user-generated video sites.

The measures rely heavily on online recruitment techniques dismissed by more traditional pollsters, and the company was criticized several months ago for a separate report on paid search clicks, which relies on a similar panel as the data on search market share.

Lehman Brothers analyst Douglas Anmuth said the report suggested that Google's strength in search is intact, and the company remains a top pick.

Google shares rose $24.59, or 5.9 percent, to close Thursday at $439.08.

Yahoo starts web page makeover

2008-09-21T02:51:00.001-07:00

Yahoo

The pioneering California Internet firm is letting randomly chosen users in Britain, France, India and the United States test a "next generation design" of a homepage used by more than 400,000 people worldwide.

"We're working on a new homepage that will help you get more out of the Internet, make more of your precious time, and make sense of all the things going on in your world," Yahoo vice president of Front Doors said in an online posting.

Yahoo seeks feedback on the redesign before rolling it out to all users in coming months.

The new look is part of a website overhaul that includes opening the platform so users can plug-in mini applications created by outside software developers.

The revamped Yahoo homepage has a "dashboard area" featuring tools for people to check weather forecasts, local events, and Web-based email accounts from Yahoo, Google and AOL without leaving the website.

Yahoo claims more than 500 million users worldwide but has been struggling to cash-in on its popularity.

Yahoo's sagging fortunes and Google's ascension as Internet advertising king prompted Microsoft on January 31 to offer to buy Yahoo for 44.6 billion dollars in a half-cash, half-stock deal.

Microsoft was eager to combine online resources with Yahoo in order to better battle Google.

Microsoft walked away from negotiations May 3 after Yahoo rejected an offer it raised from 31 dollars to 33 dollars per share, which amounted to 47.5 billion dollars.

Yahoo subsequently made a deal with Google to put its online advertising expertise to work on Yahoo websites. That deal is to take effect later this year if it passes muster with US anti-trust regulators.

Hacker: impersonated Palin, stole e-mail password

2008-09-21T02:50:00.005-07:00

By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer

Republican vice presidential candidateSarah Palin

The hacker guessed that Alaska's governor had met her husband in high school, and knew Palin's date of birth and home Zip code. Using those details, the hacker tricked Yahoo Inc.'s service into assigning a new password, "popcorn," for Palin's e-mail account, according to a chronology of the crime published on the Web site where the hacking was first revealed.

The FBI and Secret Service launched a formal investigation Wednesday. Yahoo declined to comment Thursday on details of the investigation, citing Palin's privacy and the sensitivity of such investigations.

The person who claimed responsibility for the break-in did not respond Thursday to an e-mail inquiry from The Associated Press.

"i am the lurker who did it, and i would like to tell the story," the person wrote in the account, which circulated on the Internet. What started as a prank was cut short because of panic over the possibility the FBI might investigate, the hacker wrote.

Investigators were waiting to speak with Gabriel Ramuglia of Athens, Ga., who operates an Internet anonymity service used by the hacker. Ramuglia told the AP on Thursday he was reviewing his own logs and promised to turn over any helpful information to authorities because the hacker violated rules against using the anonymity service for illegal activities.

"If you're doing something illegal and causing me issues by doing this, I'm willing to cooperate," Ramuglia said. "Obviously this is the most high profile situation I've dealt with."

The break-in of Palin's private account is especially significant because Palin sometimes uses non-government e-mail to conduct state business. Previously disclosed e-mails indicate her administration embraced Yahoo accounts as an alternative to government e-mail, which could possibly be released to the public under Alaska's Open Records Act.

At the time, critics of Palin's administration were poring over official e-mails they had obtained from the governor's office looking for evidence of improper political activity.

Details of this week's break-in, if authentic, were consistent with speculation by computer security experts who said Yahoo's "forgot-my-password" service almost certainly was exploited. The mechanism allows customers to retrieve or change their password if they can verify their identity by confirming personal information such as birthdate, zip code and the answer to a "secret question," such as a childhood pet's name or school mascot.

Palin's hacker was challenged to guess where Alaska's governor met her husband, Todd. Palin herself recounted in her speech at the Republican National Convention that the pair began dating two decades ago in high school in Wasilla, a town near Anchorage.

"I found out later though (sic) more research that they met at high school, so I did variations of that, high, high school, eventually hit on 'Wasilla high'," the person wrote.

The McCain campaign issued a statement describing the hacking as an invasion of Palin's privacy.

Sarah Palin's E-Mail Hacked, Personal Mail Posted

2008-09-21T02:50:00.003-07:00

Steve Bosak, newsfactor

Republican vice presidential candidateAlaska Gov. Sarah Palin

Tracing the Hacker

The alleged screenshots were published on the Wikileaks Web site, which publishes leaked government, corporate and religious documents and protects the identity of the sources. From there, the e-mail spread throughout the Internet.

Hacking into an e-mail account may be punishable by up to five years in prison under federal law. Local statutes may also have been broken.

According to a report in the Register, a proxy server operated by Ctunnel in Fairbanks, Alaska, was used to anonymously attack the Yahoo account. IP addresses from incoming users are allegedly held in cache on the Ctunnel server at another facility in Chicago and could identify the hacker.

In fact, in a post discovered on a hacker-oriented Web site, a user named "rubico" posted, "THIS [hack into Palin's account] was serious business, yes I was behind a proxy, only one ... I didn't know how to [download] all that stuff, so I posted the pass[word], and then promptly deleted everything."

Getting to the Chicago server may not be problematic for the FBI or Secret Service. Charles Silverman, a Chicago-based attorney, said it all depends on whether the government wanted a warrant or a subpoena. "The main difference being that warrants need probable cause, whereas subpoenas merely need reasonable suspicion," he said.

Legal consequences for the hacker may be dire. Silverman said, "If the e-mail search or release was done in a threatening manner, or seemed designed to intimidate or release potential security information, then the Secret Service could make an arrest. If this was done for embarrassment and/or political gain, then it would be solely FBI jurisdiction. I suspect that the Secret Service is part of the investigation to see if there was an attempt to find security information, then the perpetrators would be guilty of the inchoate crime of attempted harm and/or conspiracy to harm."

When we contacted the Chicago facility, an associate at FDC Servers, Peter Karl, had no knowledge of any authorities requesting access. "We have over 3,000 servers here," Karl said. "The authorities would have to contact the server owner. We have no access to their data."

Worth the Time?

Much scrutiny has been focused on Gov. Palin since her nomination to be the running mate of Republican presidental candidate Sen. John McCain. Last night the McCain campaign released a terse statement condemning the hack.

Reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Associated Press have speculated about Palin's use of a private Yahoo account to conduct Alaska business, yet the posted e-mails appear to be personal, with no government content. Family photos were also posted on the Internet.

"rubico's" post concluded, "I read though the emails ... ALL OF THEM ... before I posted, and what I concluded was anticlimactic, there was nothing there, nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped."

Microsoft Visual Studio upgrade eyed

2008-09-21T02:50:00.001-07:00

Paul Krill

MicrosoftVisual Studiocompany's software development environment

The software development platform focuses on four main "pushes," according to a blog post this week by Jeffrey Schlimmer, a program manager at Microsoft. The blog reflects on a presentation delivered at the Visual Studio Extensibility Conference by Microsoft Principal Product Unit Manager Paramesh Vaidyanathan and Rico Mariani, Microsoft architect, in Redmond, Wash. this week.

The four pushes include experience, in which Visual Studio is intended to become the developer's favorite application; customer focus, with an emphasis on small-to-medium business developers; platform, offering the latest technologies; and architecture, to improve infrastructure.

A Microsoft representative confirmed that Visual Studio 10 is the codename for the next version of Visual Studio but said the company has not announced a release date. The company also plans a new version of Visual Studio Team System for application lifecycle management dubbed "Rosario."

Microsoft released the Visual Studio 2008 upgrade last November.

Extensibility capabilities in Visual Studio 10 include a new text editor based on Microsoft's WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) technology, as well Microsoft Extensibility Framework capabilities and support for multiple languages.

Later plans for the platform call for macros and other end user extensibility via VSTA (Visual Studio Tools for Applications) as well as more add-ins that can be built in managed code. A common project system is anticipated as well as richer types and protocols for discovery, activation, and manipulation. A visualization model also is on the agenda.

Modernization features in Visual Studio 10 include enabling a WPF-based look and feel of the shell. A full WPF shell is planned for later on, according to Schlimmer's blog. Other improvements slotted as happening later include extensive use of a parallel framework to utilize multicore hardware to boost Visual Studio responsiveness.

Scalability plans for Visual Studio 10 include improvements in Visual C++ performance and the elimination of quadratic algorithms in C# and Visual Basic project systems. A new editor is planned also. Subsequent to Visual Studio 10, Microsoft is eying a common/scalable project system and common low-level storage in language services.

Visual Studio 10 also uses Live Search and integrates community ratings. Developers with multiple machines can synchronize using Live ID/Mesh technology. Instant Messaging at some point will become an integral part of the small team development experience in Visual Studio, according to Schlimmer.

Finland to offer high-speed broadband for all by 2016

2008-09-21T02:48:00.010-07:00

"I have estimated that building fibreoptic cable networks in areas where they would not be built commercially will cost around 200 million euros, of which the government could pay a maximum of one third, so around 67 million euros (97 million dollars)," Harri Pursiainen, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, told AFP.

He added that telecom operators, regions, municipalities and financial support from the European Union were expected to cover the remaining two-thirds of the price tag.

Communications Minister Suvi Linden said earlier the government was committed to helping finance fibreoptic networks in remote areas but would decide later this year on specific details.

The government hopes to offer a connection speed of at least 100 megabytes per second to all households by 2016, but in a first step it aims to secure broadband of at least one megabyte per second by 2010.

"More than 99 percent of households are expected to have access (by 2016). A couple of thousand households are situated in areas where getting a fibreoptic connection to two kilometres (1.2 miles) from the house is impossible," Linden said.

The Finnish communications regulatory authority (FICORA) said in June there were some 1.92 million broadband subscriptions in the Nordic country, which has a population of 5.3 million.

High-speed Internet connection is seen as necessary to provide more efficient data transfer for companies and households, which would enable more Finns to work or run small businesses from home and would secure access to online services in remote areas.

"We are strongly committed to developing an information society and we want to promote productivity and efficiency," Linden said.

She cited as an example some regions in northern Finland where there are vast distances between towns and where video link-ups and other services requiring Internet connections faster than one megabyte per second were a necessary part of daily life.

US blogger sentenced to three months in Singapore jail

2008-09-21T02:48:00.009-07:00

"I think I will appeal," Gopalan Nair, 58, said in a brief telephone interview with AFP.

An official with the Supreme Court did not provide details but confirmed the sentence, which was issued Wednesday.

Local newspapers said Nair was given until Saturday to settle his affairs before he is taken to prison.

"I'm going to serve the sentence," Nair said, adding he has no regrets. "I only wrote a blog. I didn't go out and kill anybody."

In his blog, Nair had criticised a legal hearing at which Singapore founding father Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, testified in a defamation case they filed against an opposition party.

Nair was charged with insulting Justice Belinda Ang Saw Ean by saying she was "prostituting herself during the entire proceedings, by being nothing more than an employee of Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his son and carrying out their orders," a court document said.

Justice Ang presided over the defamation hearing. Nair, a former Singapore lawyer and now a US citizen, had denied the charge of insulting a public servant.

"You have scandalised and attacked Justice Belinda Ang, the judiciary, and the system of administration of justice in Singapore," Justice Kan Ting Chiu said in sentencing Nair, according to a report in The Straits Times.

"The rights of freedom of speech and expression are qualified and... do not entitle you to insult Justice Ang in the way that you have done."

While he had no regrets, Nair told AFP that maybe his language could have been "a bit moderated."

Nair could have been jailed for up to one year and fined 5,000 Singapore dollars (3,500 US) on the charge of insulting a public servant.

Sentence scrapped against blogger critical of Moroccan monarch

2008-09-21T02:48:00.007-07:00

King Mohammed VI

The appeals ruling in Agadir overturned the sentence by a lower court, finding that certain procedural measures in the country's press code had not been respected.

"I am very satisfied by the Agadir appeal court's decision which was fair," Erraji told AFP.

"In all my writings I never sought to attack the king," he added.

Earlier this month a lower court in Agadir found Erraji guilty of criticising the Moroccan monarch on his blog, www.hespress, ordered him jailed for two years and fined him 5,000 dirhams (440 euros, 630 dollars).

In the article, Erraji wrote that "the king encourages his people to 'al-Ittikal'," an Arabic word that means to rely on handouts.