How the NSA searches for threats of terrorism:

Email – Recipient and Sender address, subject, date and time.

Internet – Sites visited and searches made.

Mobile Phone – Numbers incoming or outgoing, length of call and location.

Landline – Numbers incoming or outgoing and length of call.

Financial – Information about bank accounts, transfers and credit card use.

Airline – Information about passengers.

Obviously this work is done by very sophisticated software; this monitors the above for any suspicious patterns. If the software is triggered it is them when the human side comes into play it is when things can get really worrying.

Source [WSJ]

The case in example is Norway, its data protection laws state that internet service providers have to delete all data that is recorded against an IP address no later than three weeks after collecting it.

This means that any pay up or else threat from the copyright holder’s lawyers, without this data any threat of legal action will be pointless.

However, under EU law the ISP’s are required to hold on to data for at least six months. This is yet another case of the EU passing a rule that some member states simply ignore in order to keep to their own rules.

Source [Torrent Freak]

Despite the obvious security measures put in place, one bank in the US has fallen victim to a bank account hacking scheme designed to empty bank accounts after installing Trojan horse software onto unsuspecting bank customers computers.

It seems to be a Russian job as the money was wired to accounts in the country after the Trojan had obtained the bank customers details as they logged into their bank accounts. Around $112,000 was stolen in this way. The culprit Alexey Mineev faces up to two years in prison.

Source [Mac World]

There have been calls to kick these pirates of the internet or to fine them, but these schemes would appear to attack the wrong people.

The new idea being talked about is speed restrictions, the industry say that those file sharers who have been warned about their online activities could have the broadband speed restricted and thus make downloading big files a chore.

However, these methods of prevention can easily be bypassed by a determined file sharer. The answer is in the hands of the industry itself, if only they embraced the new technology in front of them, then maybe file sharing could become a money spinner for them.

Source [Torrent Freak]

Yet this list has grown to contain the details of over a million people, in the US and from abroad, this list is maintained by the FBI and has a thirty five per cent error rate! That means that there are around 350,000 people on the terror list, who should not be there.

It’s a worry time considering the amount of money and time invested in this list, yet governments worldwide are obsessed with building lists and data bases on people as they attempt to predict who is going to commit a crime and where.

Source [Pub Record]

Spammers have found that that torrent sites such as the Pirate Bay are suffering from spam attacks on a regular basis that appear in the comments sections.

These spammers are leaving comments that promise to speed up downloads; fake copyright warnings and infected torrents, over the years these spam attacks have cost the torrent site users millions of pounds.

Speed is the key to a torrent user’s computer, the promise of a hundred per cent increase in speed is popular hook to gain the interest of users, but the increased speed never materialises and the user is out of pocket.

Source [Torrent Freak]

BREIN who happens to be funded by the film, gaming and music industry are looking at the Usenet community claiming that they are criminals and as such have found that the Usenet users are not happy with that.

However, the organisation keeps railroading through the internet threatening small sites with legal action, these sites cannot afford to go to court to defend themselves, so guilty or not they have no alternative but to close down, this is way that BREIN operates, apparently.

Source [Torrent Freak]

The EU commissioner responsible, Neelie Kroes has made it clear that the fine of around $1.45 billion is justified because the consumer market has no choice in what chip they use when choosing a computer.

The global market for computer chips is currently worth around twenty two million Euros per year, which just shows the size of the market and the European market is worth around a third of that figure, hence the fine being in relation to that.

Source [NY Times]

But this is not a government where free thinking people are crushed this is the USA and currently there is legislation going through congress that could see bloggers who are found to harass, intimidate, coerce or cause distress to people ending up in jail for up to two years.

Currently this bill is in front of the House Judiciary Committee, it actually runs in line with the anti-hacking statute, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, this has been used successfully in cyber bullying cases.

Source [Wired]

The army say that social networking allows the army to reach younger people aged between eighteen and twenty four, who virtually live and play on the internet twenty four hours a day.

Not only that the army, air force and navy are all active on twitter and have a huge following too, this proves that social net working is key marketing tool for any business or organisation enabling them to be able to reach people that they never dreamed would be interested in signing up big time.

The military on the Net:

Army: http://www.twitter.com/USArmy

Air Force: http://www.youtube.com/afbluetube

Marine Corps: http://www.myspace.com/marinecorps

Source [Yahoo]