Notes From All Over

Chinese Fingerprints Found in Google Attacks

An American computer security researcher has found what he says he believes is strong evidence of the digital fingerprints of Chinese authors in the software programs used in attacks against Google. The search engine giant announced last Tuesday that it had experienced a series of Internet break-ins it believed were of Chinese origin.

The company's executives did not, however, detail the evidence leading them to the conclusion that the Chinese government was behind the attacks, beyond stating that e-mail accounts of several Chinese human rights activists had been compromised. In the week since the announcement, several computer security companies have made claims supporting Google's suspicions, but the evidence has remained circumstantial.

Now, by analyzing the software used in the break-ins against Google and dozens of other companies, Joe Stewart, a malware specialist with SecureWorks, a computer security company based in Atlanta, said he determined the main program used in the attack contained a module based on an unusual algorithm from a Chinese technical paper that has been published exclusively on Chinese-language Web sites. The malware at the heart of Google attack is described by researchers as a "Trojan horse" that is intended to open a back door to a computer on the Internet. The program, called Hydraq by the computer security research community and intended to subvert computers that run different versions of the Windows operating system, was first noticed earlier this year.

Mr. Stewart describes himself as a "reverse engineer," one of a relatively small group of software engineers who disassemble malware codes in an effort to better understand the nature of the attacks that have been introduced by the computer underground, and now possibly by governments as well. "If you look at the code in a debugger you see patterns that jump out at you," he said. In this case he discovered software code that represented an unusual algorithm, or formula, intended for error-checking transmitted data.

He acknowledged that he could not completely rule out the possibility that the clue had been placed in the program intentionally by programmers from another government intent on framing the Chinese, but he said that was unlikely. "Occam's Razor suggests that the simplest explanation is probably the best one."

Ohio County Pays Man $1,500 For Bat Bite

An Ohio county has agreed to pay $1,500 to a man who was bitten by a rabid bat and turned to a little-known state law that allows for compensation. Commissioners in Delaware County, north of Columbus, voted Thursday to provide 61-year-old David Froehlich with the maximum reimbursement under the law, even though he put in his request for the money two days late.

The law allows a person hurt by a rabid animal to seek a county's help with the medical bills. But the request must be made within four months of the bite, and Froehlich just missed the window. A prosecutor who reviewed Froehlich's claim said he was surprised to learn of the law.

Froehlich's wife said her husband was bitten Aug. 22 and that insurance didn't cover the $5,000 hospital bill.

From: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com

Man Cited For 'Rocking Out' To John Denver

Police responding to a complaint of loud noise have cited a Fond du Lac man for "rocking out" to the music of John Denver.

A police who responded to the man's apartment last week could hear Denver's music through the door. The officer pounded on the door but the man didn't answer. Finally the officer found out the man's name from a neighbor and called to him, bringing the man to the door.

When asked why he had the music so loud, the man said he was "rocking out." The Reporter newspaper in Fond du Lac reported that the 42-year-old was cited for unnecessary loud noise. The ticket could result in a fine of about $210.

The late Denver is known for such hits as "Rocky Mountain High" and "Take Me Home, Country Roads."

From: The Reporter, http://www.fdlreporter.com

Blooming 'Corpse Flower' Stinks Up Museum

A 7-foot tall flower is stinking up the Milwaukee Public Museum, and the plant attracted a crowd despite its scent.

Commonly known as a carrion flower or a "corpse flower," the plant started blooming at the museum over the weekend. The corpse flower has a smell that has been compared to baby diapers or rotting flesh, reported Milwaukee news station WISN.

Botanists said the corpse flower emits the smell of rotting meat to attract insects in the jungles of Sumatra. The deep-red flower also takes on the look of a piece of meat. While blooming, the flower warms up to complete -- in a bug's eye -- the illusion of a carcass.

The smell won't last long; botanists say the large leaf-like flower will soon drop form the plant and it will return to a dormant state for about four months.

Bernanke Asks GAO To Review Fed Role In AIG Rescue

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke took the unusual step today of asking Congress' investigative arm to conduct a "full review" of the Fed's role in bailing out insurance giant American International Group.

The Fed chief's move is aimed at defusing criticism of the government's $182 billion rescue. The bailout sparked public outrage and demands in Congress for more information, especially after it was revealed that millions in bonuses would go to employees in the AIG division most responsible for the company's need for a bailout.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has a probe under way that seeks to provide a fuller picture of the AIG bailout. Those lawmakers are especially interested in details involving billions in payments AIG made to Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms that did business with the insurer. Some lawmakers want to know why those firms were fully paid and why concessions weren't demanded.

Walmart Slapper Found Guilty

A Gwinnett County judge found a 61-year-old man guilty Tuesday of slapping a toddler he didn't know in a Stone Mountain Walmart. The judge found Roger Stephens, 61, guilty of child cruelty in the second degree.

The judge sentenced Stephens to five years -- with six months of the sentence served in jail and another six months under electronic monitoring. Since Stephens has already been in jail for five months, he will be out of jail in one month.

The rest of his sentence will be probation and will include mental health evaluations and treatment. He also will not be allowed to have unsupervised visits with children under 12. Stephens no longer contested the charges of child cruelty which stemmed from an incident at a Stone Mountain Walmart in August.

Police said Stephens slapped a stranger's 2-year-old who was crying inside the store. According to witnesses, Stephens slapped the girl four or five times with an open hand after telling her mother, "If you don't shut her up, I will."

The child's parents were in the courtroom Tuesday and asked a judge for a stiff sentence for Stephens. The parents had asked for at least one year in prison. Stephens' attorney had asked for 6 months of probation. Stephens has been incarcerated since August.

Notes From All Over

Georgia Family Gets Facebook Glitch Surprise

A Georgia mother and her two daughters logged onto Facebook from mobile phones last weekend and wound up in a startling place: strangers' accounts with full access to troves of private information. The glitch - the result of a routing problem at the family's wireless carrier, AT&T - revealed a little known security flaw with far reaching implications for everyone on the Internet, not just Facebook users.

In each case, the Internet lost track of who was who, putting the women into the wrong accounts. It doesn't appear the users could have done anything to stop it. The problem adds a dimension to researchers' warnings that there are many ways online information - from mundane data to dark secrets - can go awry.

Several security experts said they had not heard of a case like this, in which the wrong person was shown a Web page whose user name and password had been entered by someone else. It's not clear whether such episodes are rare or simply not reported. But experts said such flaws could occur on e-mail services, for instance, and that something similar could happen on a PC, not just a phone.

"The fact that it did happen is proof that it could potentially happen again and with something a lot more important than Facebook," said Nathan Hamiel, founder of the Hexagon Security Group, a research organization.

AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said its wireless customers have landed in the wrong Facebook pages in "a limited number of instances" and that a network problem behind those episodes is being fixed.

8-Year-Old Cub Scout On Terror Watch List

Travel is a hassle for an 8-year-old Cub Scout from New Jersey. That's because Mikey Hicks shares the same name of a person who has drawn the suspicion of the Homeland Security Department.

His mother told The New York Times she sensed trouble when her son was a baby and she couldn't get a seat for him at a Florida airport. She says airline officials explained his name "was on the list." He was patted down as a 2-year-old at Newark Liberty International Airport.

The newspaper says the boy's name appears to be among 13,500 on the "selectee" list, which sets off a high level of security screening. Transportation Security Administration spokesman James Fotenos says the agency will cross-check names with birth dates and gender in the coming months.

Haiti: Where Will All The Money Go?

How difficult will it be for the United States and other donors to track the millions of dollars in earthquake aid headed to Haiti? U.S. government auditors pulled out of the country years ago after concerns over kidnappings and other crimes scuttled their efforts to monitor Haiti's spending of $45 million in U.S. aid after storms there killed thousands.

Corruption, theft, violence and other security problems and Haiti's sheer shortage of fundamentals - reliable roads, telephone and power lines and a sound financial system - will add to the challenges of making sure aid is spent properly as foreign governments and charities try not only to help Haiti recover from this week's devastating earthquake but to pull itself out of abject poverty.

Past efforts haven't been easy. The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, faced problems on a smaller scale in 2005 and 2006 as auditors tried to review the use of roughly $45 million in aid the U.S. provided after Tropical Storm Jeanne struck Haiti in September 2004, killing more than 2,000 people, injuring more than 2,600 and affecting an estimated 300,000 others.

The inspectors wanted to visit projects funded with the money to measure progress. But after an initial fact-finding trip to Haiti, it was considered too dangerous for them to go back. They could visit only projects deemed safe as destinations. In summer 2005, many employees of the Agency for International Development - which is coordinating the current U.S. response to the earthquake - were temporarily pulled out of Haiti, according to government reports.

Haiti is one of the poorest places on Earth. Most basic public services are lacking, people typically live on less than $2 a day, nearly half the population is illiterate and the government has a history of instability. The public has little opportunity to be sure that aid to the government is used honestly and well. Nor is following the money easy for donors, including the United States, 700 miles away and one of the country's biggest helpers.

Just last month, a private group, the Heritage Foundation for Haiti, urged Haiti's government to complete an audit of a $197 million emergency disaster program to respond to corruption allegations over how the money was handled. Haiti's senate cited the allegations when it removed Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis in November and replaced her with Jean-Max Bellerive.

The U.S. has promised at least $100 million in earthquake aid. That comes on top of substantial spending by the United States in Haiti in recent years for economic development such as the country's textile industry, humanitarian assistance, environmental programs, and law enforcement, including trying to stop the use of Haiti as a pass-through point for narcotics en route to the United States.

Apart from earthquake relief, senators working on the next annual foreign assistance budget have proposed at least $282 million for Haiti; the House proposal would provide at least $165 million. Much of the U.S. government's aid to Haiti comes through the Agency for International Development, which has provided at least $800 million from budget years 2004 through 2008, agency figures show.

At least $700 million more was pledged to Haiti by governments, international givers and charities at an April 2009 donors conference. Former President Bill Clinton, a United Nations special envoy to the country, told the U.N. Security Council in September that he was "100 percent committed to delivering tangible results to the U.N. and most importantly the people of Haiti."

The Haitian government relies on foreign aid to keep itself and its economy operating. In a December 2008 Gallup survey, 60 percent of Haitians interviewed said there had been times that year when they didn't have enough money to buy food, and 51 percent said there were times when they couldn't afford shelter.

Statistics about Haiti, as gathered by the U.S. government, chronicle a grim standard of living. According to the CIA and State Department, 1 in 8 children in Haiti dies before age 5. The life expectancy is 59 to 62 years. Malaria, typhoid and dengue fevers and other life-threatening illnesses long ago wiped out in the industrialized world still plague Haiti.

Thousands View Solar Eclipse In Africa And Asia

Thousands of people in Africa and Asia viewed an eclipse Friday as the moon crossed the sun's path blocking everything but a narrow, blazing rim of light. The path of the eclipse began in Africa - passing through Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Somalia before crossing the Indian Ocean, where it reached its peak, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Web site.

The path then continued into Asia where the eclipse could be seen in Maldives, southern India, parts of Sri Lanka, Myanmar and China. Clouds obscured the partial solar eclipse in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, disappointing residents who were up early to catch a glimpse.

The eclipse is known as an annular eclipse because the moon doesn't block the sun completely. Annular eclipses, which are considered far less important to astronomers than total eclipses of the sun, occur about 66 times a century and can only be viewed by people in the narrow band along its path.

In Uganda, locals refer to an eclipse as a war between the sun and moon.

Friday's eclipse was visible from a 190-mile-wide path that passes through half the globe, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Web site.

Hundreds gathered to view the phenomenon in southern India's Dhanushkodi, a tiny town at the tip of a rocky strip of land jutting out into the ocean, where the eclipse could be seen for about 10 minutes. In the southern Indian city of Bangalore, hundreds went to a planetarium to see it. But others in India were gripped by fear and refused to come outdoors. Hindu mythology states an eclipse is caused when a dragon-demon swallows the sun, while another myth says the sun's rays during an eclipse can harm unborn children.

In northern India's Haridwar town, hosting the Kumbh Mela - touted as the world's largest religious gathering - thousands of devout Hindus were expected to mark the eclipse by taking a dip in the frigid waters of the sacred Ganges river. The eclipse could also be viewed in Indian capital New Delhi and Mumbai, the financial hub.

In Male, capital of Maldives, hundreds of people watched the eclipse with special glasses in an open field as it reached its peak.

The last total eclipse of the sun was on July 22, 2009, when it was visible in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, China and some Japanese islands.

Associated Press writers Sinan Hussain in Male, Maldives; Aijaz Rahi in Bangalore, India; Godfrey Olukya in Kampala, Uganda and Ronald Bera in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report.

360 News & Comment

The world's largest atom-smasher has been shut down for two months following a helium leak, just ten days after it was switched on amid great fanfare to probe the secrets of the universe.

"There has been an incident in a test. One section of the machine will have to be repaired," James Gillies, a spokesman for the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), told the AP. A CERN spokesman said in a funny, high squeaky voice that a fault resulted in a "large helium leak into the tunnel.”

Is it just me or did all the wild weather, volcanoes and earthquakes just suddenly stop when they turned off the atom smasher? It’s so quiet, weather-wise. You know, almost a little too quiet when you hear this next story....

(PhysOrg.com) -- Abrupt climate change has occurred on earth many times over the past millions of years. Climate scientists hypothesize that these sharp transitions may be caused when the earth system reaches a tipping point, or a critical value, resulting in a change of several degrees. These abrupt transitions have caused, for example, the formation and melting of glaciers throughout the earth, North Africa’s change from savannah to desert 5,000 years ago, and various other changes.

Now, a recent study has shown that there might be an early warning signal that heralds climatic tipping points. By analyzing the geological records of eight ancient abrupt climate shifts, scientists have found that each shift is each preceded by a period of relative calm.

Like the calm we’re experiencing right now. Anybody else want to join me in cheering for just a little earthquake right now just to shake things up? Or maybe we should turn that atom-smasher back on!

(PhysOrg.com) -- Why does it seem many people begin with political preferences and then try to find reasons justifying their inclinations? Why is it so difficult to sway people who care deeply about politics no matter how compelling the facts or persuasive the prose? University of Nebraska-Lincoln research may help to answer these questions.

By monitoring people's physical sensitivities to things like sudden noises and threatening visual images, political scientists were able to conclude that physiological reactions help predict variations in political beliefs.

For the first time, political scientists show that people who are physiologically highly responsive to threat are likely to advocate policies that protect against threats to the social unit: favoring defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism and the Iraq War. In contrast, people who are less startled by sudden noises and threatening visual images are more likely to support foreign aid, liberal immigration policies, pacifism and gun control.

I’m so curious to find out if that’s true-right-wing-religious-conservatives are that way because they’re more easily startled. So maybe the first question at the first presidential debate should just be, “Boo!” And then we’ll know whether McCain really is the conservative he says he is!

And there is other new research into the differences between Republicans and Democrats.

Half of all Americans believe they are protected by guardian angels, one-fifth say they've heard God speak to them, one-quarter say they have witnessed miraculous healings, 16 percent say they've received one and 8 percent say they pray in tongues, according to a survey released Thursday by Baylor University.

The wide-ranging survey of 1,648 adults, who were asked 350 questions on their religious practices last fall, reveals a significant majority who are comfortable with the supernatural.

“Mystical experiences are widespread,” said Rodney Stark, co-director of Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion.

The survey, which has a margin of error of four percentage points, also revealed that theological liberals are more apt to believe in the paranormal and the occult - haunted houses, UFOs, communicating with the dead and astrology - than do conservatives.

Baylor researchers also criticized a much-ballyhooed “new atheism” as a barely discernable trend, saying the number of Americans who are atheists has stayed at 4 percent since 1944.

Why? Atheism is a “godless revolution that never happened,” the survey said, adding that irreligion often is not effectively transmitted to children who, when they reach adulthood, often join conservative religious denominations.

Peter Fenwick has been doing some amazing research on stuff just like for his book, “The Art of Dying.” What percentage of Americans have been visited by the dead? It’s all in the book. Plus a whole chapter on how to die a good death.

Maybe Microsoft’s marketing department ought to read that.

Two weeks ago there was a weird two-minute commercial with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld all about shoes and edible computers? It lasted two days before the whole campaign was yanked.

Now, in their latest battle against the surging Apple products, the Microsoft marketing geniuses decided to hire a look-a-like actor for the Mac “I’m a PC” commercials. Except there’s a hitch.

(Computerworld) Several digital images that Microsoft Corp. has posted on its Web site to trumpet its new "I'm a PC" advertising campaign were actually created on Macs, according to the files' originating-software stamp.

Four of the images that Microsoft made available to the press display the designation "Adobe Photoshop C3 Macintosh" when their file properties are examined. The images appear to be frames from the television ads which just started running.

Once more the Microsoft marketing department just might be hitting Ctrl + Alt + Del and having to reboot all over again.

Walter

360 Briefs and Notes

The Return Of Planet-X
["And the name of the star was Wormwood”...Revelations 8:11]

If you like parallels between what is happening before us in the 21st Century and Bible Prophecy, then I suggest you take a look at http://www.returnofplanet-x.com/forecast.asp and http://www.returnofplanet-x.com/

For some time now, researcher Dr. Jaysen Rand has been discussing the arrival of Planet X, an object he said is somewhere in size between Saturn and Earth's moon. The body, which may be part of a brown dwarf star, is due to swing our way between 2009 and 2012, possibly in two passes, he detailed. Rand had just returned from Russia, where he met with Col. Marina Popovich and her ex-husband General Pavel Popovich, both of whom he said were aware of the coming of Planet X and its potential destructive consequences.

According to Dr. Rand, we can expect the intensifying of bad weather - the current Midwest flooding will get worse. This will be followed by earthquakes that could take apart major West Coast cities, he added. Planet X is probably pushing and pulling a debris field along with it, which could cause further problems such as dislodging asteroids, stated Rand. He believes that Planet X is the same as Wormwood, written about in the Book of Revelation. Further, he said the 3rd Secret of Fatima warned of a "giant pestilence that comes from heaven" that would cripple and destroy the papacy.

2008 G-Day: Offense tops Defense 17-3
ATHENS, GA – The University of Georgia football team held its annual G-Day spring game Saturday, April 5, at Sanford Stadium. The Red team, representing the first-team offense and second-team defense, defeated the Black team by a 17-3 score. Despite the rain, the game drew a crowd of 19,874 and benefited the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Athens.

“I really enjoyed today,” said Georgia head coach Mark Richt. “I’m thankful the awful looking skies held out and allowed the game to be played well. It looks like we have some well-conditioned, good-looking athletes. They played hard, they competed and the coaches were great as well. I truly appreciate the fans who braved the forecast. All around it was just a very good day.” Throughout the spring, through mat drills and practices we have shown good mental toughness,” said Richt. “The players’ attitude and demeanor is where we need it to be. Now it’s time for the seniors and our leaders to take over until camp. The coaches can’t go and watch them practice so the players need to continue to progress.”

The Bulldogs open up the 2008 regular season August 30 in Athens as they take on Georgia Southern.

Civilization in Decline
The Pentagon revealed that, yes, it did mistakenly send four fuses for nuclear missiles to Taiwan when it meant to send helicopter batteries, but, second, not to worry, because it caught the error, er, 18 months later, but still . . .

So there’s a brain-damaged truck-crash victim who can’t even remember that her son was just killed in Iraq and who wins $1M from the trucker, and first the lawyers, etc., suck out $580k of that, leaving $417k, and then Wal-Mart stockholders suck that out, since she was covered under Wal-Mart’s health-insurance plan, whose fine print says she has to give up insurance payouts.

The AP found an “ultimate fighting” club in Carthage, Mo., with 11 kids ages 6-14 (including a girl) that couldn’t be prouder to live in the only state that lets kids be cage fighters . . . . . The NY Times yesterday revealed that a 22-yr-old CEO of a Pentagon contractor, operating out of a nondescript Miami Beach office, has done over $300m worth of business providing munitions for the Afghanistan gov’t, representing a humongous profit because nearly all the munitions were old, expired, obsolete relics discarded by other countries, and furthermore, some were from China, which would be illegal, and of course, the Pentagon was all shoulder shrugs about it until Times reporters came along (Bonus: CEO was carrying a forged driver’s license and had a domestic stay away order against him) . . . . . Berlin Zoo came under fire because exotic animals seem to vanish without a trace, and a Green Party pol said it’s because the Zoo had become overpopulated (to increase attendance, since the public loves cute little critters) and is now forced to sell surplus to abattoirs and researchers.

The drug war is so bad in Palomas, Mexico, that the police chief ducked across the border to Columbus, N.Mex., for asylum, but the war’s bad there, too, e.g., armed robbers recently commandeered a dentist’s office while the mayor was getting a root canal . . . . . With 114 “underperforming” schools to take care of, the Massachusetts Board of Education spent parts of more than three recent meetings concentrating on, er, looking for a sweeter word than “underperforming” . . . . . Nigeria, land of major-league scams, gets all wussy: cheating in a fishing tournament . . . . . Leading Economic Indicator: Among the fire-sale real estate on the market in Grand Rapids, Mich.: the headquarters building of the Home & Building Ass’n of Greater Grand Rapids . . . . . What century are we in? The U.S. Supreme Court had to reverse a state court judge in Louisiana who kept a jury all-white (judging a black murder defendant) by "excusing" a black student from the jury because he didn’t want the poor guy to miss any classes, but he kept a white self-employed contractor with a sick wife.

This week's customer no-service award.....
goes to Quark Xpress, once the industry leader for desktop publishing software. They have outsourced their customer (no) service and tech (no) support department to such an extent, that it is nearly impossible to carry on an end-user conversation. Other week's customer no service losers include the Atlanta Braves and The Home Depot just for being so misguided and focused on the bottom line to the point that they forgot why they're in the business in the first place. Still in perennial losership is WMAC 940 AM.

Biggest Loser of the Week:
Floridian Frank Singleton, released from jail after a misdemeanor trespassing charge, walked out to the parking lot and tried to jack a car, and that one is a felony (Bonus: He was arrested at the scene, slowed down because the car was a stick-shift, which he couldn't drive.)

Walter