Second-hand copiers can spill secrets At a warehouse in New Jersey, 6,000 used copy machines sit ready to be sold. CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports that almost every one of them holds a secret.
Nearly every digital copier built since 2002 contains a hard drive--like the one on your personal computer--storing an image of every document copied, scanned, or e-mailed by the machine.
In the process, it's turned an office staple into a digital time-bomb packed with highly personal or sensitive data.
Recipe Calls for "Freshly Ground Black People" (AP) An Australian publisher is reprinting 7,000 cookbooks over a recipe for pasta with "salt and freshly ground black people."
Penguin Group Australia's head of publishing, Bob Sessions, acknowledged the proofreader for the Pasta Bible should have picked up the error, but called it nothing more than a "silly mistake."
The "Pasta Bible" recipe for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto was supposed to call for black pepper.
The Subscription Trap If you've ever opened your credit card bill to find that you've inadvertently joined a club you've never heard of, at a cost of $10 or more a month, you're not alone. Millions of Web consumers have been snared by similar tactics. Our tips will help you fight back.
How can companies make more than a billion dollars selling a service that almost no one wants? By signing up millions of members who don't know that they're becoming members.
A survey by credit card company Visa estimates that nearly three in ten Americans have been stung by a subscription trap. Here's how it works: You buy airline tickets or flowers or a digital camera at a site like Orbitz, US Airways, or FTD--and just when you think you've completed your transaction, you get an offer for cash back or free shipping. So you click the button, and a screen appears asking for your e-mail address in exchange for that attractive little benefit. It seems like a small price to pay, so you comply and then finish your purchase.
Three months later, as you review your credit card statement, you discover that you've been dunned for $50 in membership dues by some company you've never heard of, for a club that you never knew you belonged to and that you've never received any benefit from. (Even when the offer promises something like cash back or free shipping, those promises often apply to your next purchase, not the one you just completed).
Unfortunately, getting your money back isn't easy. According to some angry consumers, getting a full refund required writing a letter (the old fashion way) and waiting months to receive a credit card chargeback.
Welcome to the world of posttransaction marketing, a billion-dollar industry that most people have never heard of.
Swine Flu is Officially Over: UK National Pandemic Flu Service to be Closed
(NaturalNews) The UK Government has announced that, as of February 11, the National Pandemic Flu Service (NPFS) is to be shut down, following a `steady decline` in the number of cases of swine flu. This has been taken by many to signal the end of the swine flu scare in the UK, and it is hoped that the incessant promotion of toxic antiviral drugs will finally begin to dwindle too.
Health minister Gillian Merron said: "The Department is today announcing the decision to stand down the NPFS with effect from 1am on February 11 2010. This is being done in response to the steady reduction in the estimated number of swine flu cases in the community and is in line with our overall aim of ensuring the operational response is appropriate to the level of threat posed by the virus."
Naturally, many are questioning how appropriate the Department of Health`s response was to the much-hyped threat posed by swine flu. In the spring of 2009, Health Minister Andy Burnham and Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson warned that more than 65.000 could die in Britain alone. Instead, the figure reached just 411. Whilst no doubt a tragedy for those involved, around 3,000 people die of seasonal flu in Britain each and every year.
Allegations have been made that the fearful stance taken by the Government was not one based on naivety, but a deliberate attempt to manufacture consent for the massive spending spree required to subsidise the pharmaceutical industry for another year. And estimated 256m pounds was spent on anti-viral drugs when, due to the financial crisis of 2009, public finances were under more scrutiny than usual. At the time, the World Health Organisation pointed out the raw data showed that the threat posed by swine flu was minimal for otherwise healthy individuals, and that all flu strains were prone to quickly developing resistance against anti-virals like Tamiflu.
When Schools Spy on Their Students, Bad Things Happen Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorld
Sometimes even I am blown away by how mind-numbingly stupid people can be when it comes to technology. I'm not talking about people who can't find the "any" key. I'm talking about institutional stupidity, the kind you only get when you mix technophobic bureaucrats and geeks with no sense of boundaries.
In case you haven't been following the plot of Webcamgate, starring the Lower Merion School District in Southeastern Pennsylvania and a cast of thousands, here's the skinny.
The suit came about after Blake Robbins was called into the assistant principal Lindy Matsko's office last November to discuss "inappropriate behavior" he was displaying -- at home. The proof? A snapshot of him taken with his laptop's Webcam.
Apparently Matsko thought Blake was popping pills. According to Robbins, he was merely eating candy: Mike-N-Ikes. (A classic gateway drug -- before you know it, he'll be deep into Good-N-Plenty and then totally hooked on Tic Tacs.)
The idea that the school could peer into the Robbins' home -- and by implication, the homes of nearly 2,400 other students in the district -- blew their minds. It also may have violated dozens of federal and state laws regarding privacy, wiretapping, and electronic communications, as alleged in their suit PDF.
The school district's response? Yes, we have the ability to activate students' webcams remotely, but it's strictly used for tracking lost or stolen laptops, says school superintendent Dr. Christopher W. McGinley. No, we didn't tell any of the students or their families about it. Oops. Our bad.
Another Terrorist Stopped by Vigilant TSA Officer: 4-Year-Old Boy in Leg Braces
PHILADELPHIA, Penn. (CBS) Now we know how the "Crotch Bomber" got through security – TSA screeners are busy terrorizing disabled toddlers.
4-year-old Ryan Thomas is developmentally disabled as a result of being 16 weeks premature and has to wear corrective braces. His ankles are malformed and his legs have little or no muscle tone. He only just learned how to walk, briefly, on his own, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
But that didn’t seem to matter to the Transportation Security Administration screeners at Philadelphia International airport.
It was Ryan's first trip to Disney in March 2009, according the paper's columnist Daniel Rubin. All was going well for the Thomases -- they had gotten to the airport with hours to spare before their flight, but as it turns out, they would need that extra time.
Ryan's father was breaking down his son's stroller to put it on the conveyor belt as his wife, Leona, walked Ryan through the metal detector. As expected the alarm went off and Leona tried to explain the situation, the paper said.
The screener replied that the boy would have to take the braces off and walk through the detector again. When Leona Thomas attempted to walk with Ryan she was told he would have to do it alone.
She tried, calmly, to explain that Ryan could barely walk with the braces, let alone without them, but the compassionless screener was deaf to her pleas, according to the newspaper.
Meanwhile Bob Thomas was getting increasingly agitated. He is an officer in Camden's emergency crime suppression team, so he understood the need for security, but this was overkill, he told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The Thomases eventually complied and Ryan made it through on his own, but Bob immediately asked for a supervisor. The supervisor was less than sympathetic and stood by the screener's actions. A fellow police officer even told Bob Thomas to drop it and go enjoy his vacation.
But Bob Thomas didn’t forget and after his trip he called the airport manager. Eventually, with help from Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Daniel Rubin, the TSA finally responded to the incident saying that the boy never should have had to remove his braces and they would be looking into what went wrong that day in March.
For the Thomases that probably feels like too little too late.
Issuer of 79.9% Interest Rate Credit Card Defends Its Product
APR Shocks Many, but Issuer Says They Are Pricing for the Risk
If you have bad credit in the new era of credit card regulation, be prepared to pay -- dearly -- for the privilege of using credit. That's the message underlying recent credit card offers that feature jaw-dropping interest rates of up to 79.9 percent.
The sky-high rates may be a sign of things to come in the market for so-called subprime credit cards as issuers who lend to the riskiest of borrowers try to figure out how to stay in business and comply with the new credit card reform law.
"We need to price our product based on the risk associated with this market and allow the customer to make the decision whether they want the product or not," according to a statement issued by Miles Beacom, CEO of Premier Bankcard, the South Dakota credit card marketer that mailed test offers in September and October featuring 79.9 percent and 59.9 percent annual percentage rates (APRs) on cards with $300 credit limits. Premier markets credit cards issued by First Premier Bank.
Yes, It's Legal
A national bank charging 79.9 percent interest on a credit card is legal -- as long as the issuer fully discloses the terms as required by the federal Truth in Lending Act. Still, the high rate has been met with shock across the country because it is so much higher than prevailing APRs and penatly interest rates. The CreditCards.com Weekly Rate report national average for bad credit credit cards was 14.15 percent on Feb. 12.
A friend of mine asked me to do this post. I've seen stories in the news about scientists working on cloaking devices, similar to the ones we see on Star Trek. I saw an episode of That's Impossible on TV about the work being done on achieving a real cloaking device. Of course the military is interested in this technology, for obvious reasons. They have been helping with some of the funding into the research presently being done around the world. Here are 3 articles that you might find interesting:
British Army tests 'invisible' tank, ala James Bond style
Quite reminding you of Q or David Copperfield, the Ministry of Defense has unveiled a new technology that can make tanks invisible. They carried out secret trials recently and have stated that the invisible tank would be ready for service by 2012. The technology involves using cameras and projectors to beam images of the surrounding landscape onto a tank. As a result, anyone looking in the direction of the vehicle only sees what is beyond it and not the tank itself. According to a soldier present at the trial, "This technology is incredible. If I hadn't been present I wouldn't have believed it. I looked across the fields and just saw grass and trees - but in reality I was staring down the barrel of a tank gun."
New Steps Towards A Real Invisibility Cloak Invisibility technology: no longer just for rarefied parts of the spectrum
Ouch, Harry Potter. Your new movie doesn't premiere for two months, yet real scientists are already one-upping you
Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Cornell University both said last week they've designed invisibility cloaks that work in the visible-light spectrum. OK, so they're not big enough to cover a budding young wizard sneaking around at night, but hey, it's a step.
Two teams, led by Michal Lipson at Cornell University and Xiang Zhang at the University of California Berkeley, said their nano-scale invisibility cloaks allow light to flow around a hidden object as water flows around a rock. The cloaks contain a mirrored edge with a bulge that appears as though it's flat.
The feat solves an age-old problem faced by children huddling under blankets: You'd still see the cloak, but now you would have no idea what lies beneath.
New Metamaterials Could Produce Sonar Cloaking Device Acoustic metamaterial bends sound waves to hide ships from sonar, effectively rendering them sonically invisible
A new material created by researchers can refocus sound around certain objects and effectively render them sonically invisible to sonar. No natural material can do this, so man-made “metamaterials” must be created in order to toy with the laws of physics to essentially bend sound back on itself. Mind blown yet?
The technique, which bends light well beyond its natural tendencies, has been used for years in lenses used ultra-high-resolution imaging and has also been applied to real visible-light cloaking devices. The same theory is in use here, making a sort of acoustic lens, a material covered by a set of cavities which, when filled with water, work together to resonate with each other and refract the sound.
I meant to post this earlier, but here's a video of a Christmas prank that was played on one guy by his friends. Don't think I've ever seen anything like this before. Here's the news video from CNN. I found the video of Louie coming home to find his apartment gift-wrapped. His girlfriend, Molly (who was in on the prank), taped his reaction when he saw what his friends had done to his apartment:
Louie's Reaction!
His friends are part of a Chicago Improv group. You can read more about the prank on their blog post called, Merry Prankmas!
E-tailers snagged in marketing 'scam' blame customers
First, the good news for consumers: the U.S. government's investigation into how dozens of well-known online stores worked with controversial marketers to "deceive" customers out of $1.4 billion has prompted some retailers, including Continental Airlines, to sever ties with the marketers.
Now, the bad news: the marketers--Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty--are still in business and judging from the responses of many of the retailers involved, such as Priceline, Classmates.com, FTD, Shutterfly, and Orbitz, it will be business as usual. They see nothing wrong with the marketing practices that millions of angry online shoppers and members of the U.S. Senate have called a "scam," "robbery" and "theft."
While the U.S. Senate Commerce committee produced a staggering amount of documentation during a hearing last week that appears to show consumers are misled into signing up for so-called loyalty programs, the retailers continue to suggest it's their customers who are at fault.
The controversy began last May, when the Commerce committee launched an investigation into the practices employed by Vertrue, Affinion, and Webloyalty. The committee's investigators found thousands of complaints going back years from people who said they discovered "mysterious charges" on their credit cards and struggled to discover how they got there.
Retailers aren't the only ones gearing up for the holiday season. Criminals are also out in force.
To highlight the increased crime during the holidays, security company McAfee has come up with the "12 Scams of Christmas" ranging from bogus electronic greeting cards that deliver malware instead of cheer to fake charities that steal your money and your identity.
It's especially important to be extra careful this time of year, says McAfee's David Marcus. "The bad guys know people are spending more time online, they're paying more bills online so [the criminals] stand a chance of being a bit more successful this time of year.
In a podcast interview (scroll down to listen), Marcus counted down the 12 scams of Christmas starting with:
1. Charitable phishing scams: Marcus warns consumers to be wary of e-mails that appear to be from legitimate charities. Not only will they take your money and deprive charities of needed funds, but they will also steal your credit card information and identity.
2. Fake invoices from delivery services: During this period, scammers will send out fake invoices and delivery notifications appearing to come from Federal Express, UPS, the U.S. Postal Service or even the U.S. Customs Service saying that they were unable to deliver a package to your address. They ask you to confirm your address and give them credit card information to pay for delivery.
3. Social networking friend requests: Bad guys take advantage of this social time of year by sending out authentic looking friend requests via e-mail. Marcus recommends that you not click on those links but sign into Facebook and other services and look for friend requests from the site itself. Clicking on a link could install malware on your computer or trick you into revealing your password.
I found these 3 articles online today about the supposed safety of the new swine flu vaccines that are currently being released around the world. The state of New York is mandating that all nurses & doctors receive the swine flu vaccine or else they will lose their job. Some are suing the state to keep from losing their job or being forced to take the vaccine.
The vaccines contain thimerosal, which has been linked to autism and Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS); they also contain squalene, which has been linked to Gulf War Syndrome. Gee, I wonder why many people are very hesitant to taking these vaccines?
The swine flu is no more deadly than the regular flu that is out now. More people have died from the regular flu than have died from the H1N1 virus. I believe that this "pandemic" is being blown greatly out of proportion by the media, public health officials and governmental organizations around the world. They are trying to scare people into taking a vaccine that has never been proven to be safe! It was rushed into production without proper testing! The drug companies have been given immunity from lawsuits that may arise because of deaths and injuries that the vaccines might cause. Big Pharma stands to make BILLIONS from these swine flu vaccines! It seems that we didn't learn our lessons from the 1976 swine flu scare. So, are we now doomed to repeat it?
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