Immigration, Citizenship and Border Security With / And Stephen Colbert

It was a funny look at a serious issues facing United States and perhaps many other developed countries today. Following video is the opening statement by the comedian, a hearing of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship and Border Security (from C-SPAN 9/24/10 coverage). C=SPAN has the complete series here, http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/29...

RIAA under "Operation Payback" Just As MPAA, And AiPlex!

RIAA sites, RIAA.org and RIAA.com are under DDOS attacks that started a while ago with MPAA and Indian Anti Piracy site called AIPLEX.
The anti anti-piracy movement dubbed, "Operation Payback" by the members of the Internet collective Anonymous.
AIPLEX supposed to have quoted to a news paper;

"How can we put the site down? The only means that we can put the site down is [by launching a] denial-of-service [attack]. Basically we have to flood [the site] with millions and millions of requests and put the site down."

 I would like to see their faces now! Panda Security have dubbed this weekend’s attacks as “the future of cyber protests“.
When I tried to access RIAA and MPAA today, I got following responses.

The group released an anonymous press release which stated;

Operation:Payback is a bitch.
DATE \September 19, 2010\
To whom it may concern,
This is to inform you that we, Anonymous, are organizing an Operation called “Payback is a bitch”. Anonymous will be attacking the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), the MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America), and their hired gun AIPLEX for attacks against the popular torrent and file sharing site, the Piratebay (www.thepiratebay.org). We will prevent users to access said enemy sites and we will keep them down for as long as we can. But why, you ask? Anonymous is tired of corporate interests controlling the internet and silencing the people’s rights to spread information, but more importantly, the right to SHARE with one another.The RIAA and the MPAA feign to aid the artists and their cause; yet they do no such thing. In their eyes is not hope, only dollar signs. Anonymous will not stand this any longer.We wish you the best of luck.
Sincerely,
Anonymous,
We are legion.

You can get more info at Torrent Freak.

"Google Me"? Google's Social Media Layer Emerges

Techcrunch asked Google about the ways to slay competing dragons like facebook, in the social networking world. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google had a few words to say that summarizes all "Google Me is not a product, it’s a social layer across all products"(more after the jump).

Arrington: How important is social to google’s future, and how might google go about competing with a large established competitor?
Schmidt: Our view of social is a little different than what everyone has been writing. we want our core products to get better from social information. The best thing that could happen is if Facebook opened up its network and if we could just use that information…Failing that, there are other ways in which we can get that information.
We are trying to add a social component [to google's core products] to make them even better. With your permission…and knowing more about who your friends are, we can provide more tailored recommendations, search quality will be better.
A reasonable expectation [of launch] will be the Fall.

Thechcrunch

Impersonation Could Soon Be Outlawed In CA

Do you see me now?
According to BBC News, State of California may pass a bill, authored by State Senator Joe Simitian, outlawing online impersonation (E-impersonation). The bill seeks to update the current identity laws on the books, which go back more than a century to 1872.
"Our identity is one of the most personal things we have, and when someone misuses that it seems there ought to be some sort of deterrence, In the days when the original law was written, no-one could have anticipated Facebook or Twitter or even e-mail - all of which are ripe for the kind of online impersonation this bill seeks to address. It seems to be that for anyone who engages in this kind of behaviour there ought to be consequences." Senator Simitian told BBC News.
While this look good in the view of increasing Identity theft and associated crimes, EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) worries that the bill too wide and one of the big casualty of this proposed law will be political parody.
"We have over the past several years seen a new form of political activism emerge online that involves 'credibly impersonating' public officials and corporate executives for the purposes of political satire," said Ms McSherry.The way it works is that this impersonator makes an outrageous statement to cause a press controversy and bring attention to an issue.It is important that for this to work, one credibly impersonates the executive or official and I am worried a judge will look at this bill and feel this applies to that kind of speech. The bill does not include enough protections for satire and parody, in my view," said Corynne McSherry, senior attorney at EFF.
She pointed out Yes Men, who are activists who engage in such parody to make a wider point. One of its members appeared on a BBC World News program as an apparent representative of Dow Chemical on the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster in India, claiming the company accepted responsibility for what happened.
BBC

Is Microsoft Throwing More Than Bing At Google?

Looks like Google is being called into be questioned by Texas Attorney General for it's supposedly anti-trust conduct.
The Texas AG already have asked about some companies that have complaints against Google.It seems that some of the web sites wants to be in the top regardless of their content or intentions. These companies have alleged that Google is unfair in its conduct of search engine ranking and what ever else and even have sought courts aid and have failed in proving their cases.
According to a post published on Google's public policy blog, some of these companies seem to have some common facts  related Microsoft behind them. Comscore tells us that there is a big difference in search engine market share between the two companies. After trying to woe users with various offerings to use Bing for search, it seems the reactions are bit stagnant. Bing has 11% while Google has 65.8% with Yahoo in the middle with 17.1% in explicit core searches in July 2010. (“Explicit Core Search” excludes contextually driven searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.)
So is it possible that this is similar to Microsoft's SCO tool against Linux a few years ago, against Google? Well these are the sites sighted by Google in the post, you may decide! Follow those links below as they are not Google sites.

• Foundem -- the British price comparison site that is backed by ICOMP, an organization funded largely by Microsoft. They claim that Google’s algorithms demote their site because they are a direct competitor to our search engine. The reality is that we don’t discriminate against competitors. Indeed, companies like Amazon, Shopping.com and Expedia typically rank very high in our results because of the quality of the service they offer users. Various experts have taken a closer look at the quality of Foundem’s website, and New York Law School professor James Grimmelmann concluded, “I want Google to be able to rank them poorly.”

• SourceTool/TradeComet - SourceTool is a website run by parent company TradeComet, whose private antitrust lawsuit against Google was dismissed by a federal judge earlier this year. The media have noted that TradeComet is represented by longtime Microsoft antitrust attorneys, and independent search experts have called SourceTool a “click arbitrage” site with little original content.

• myTriggers - Another site represented by Microsoft’s antitrust attorneys, myTriggers alleges that they suffered a drop in traffic because Google reduced their ad quality ratings. But recent filings have revealed that the company’s own servers overheated, explaining their reduced traffic.

"Social Networking System" Patented By Amazon

Using PlanetAll in 1998, Amazon has convinced USPTO that it invented the "Social Networking System", with a description which sounds like good old BBS, used in the dial up days;

'A networked computer system provides various services for assisting users in locating, and establishing contact relationships with, other users. For example, in one embodiment, users can identify other users based on their affiliations with particular schools or other organizations. The system also provides a mechanism for a user to selectively establish contact relationships or connections with other users, and to grant permissions for such other users to view personal information of the user. The system may also include features for enabling users to identify contacts of their respective contacts. In addition, the system may automatically notify users of personal information updates made by their respective contacts.'

You can socially engage in a discussion about this patent, prior arts associated and what facebook is going to do at Good old Slashdot!

Cold War Kids At CAL Berkeley On CAL Day!

 
UC Berkeley is having a free concert on Saturday, April 17 | 4-6 p.m. | Memorial Glade

Bring your blanket and sit on the grass to cap off Cal Day with live music on Memorial Glade with the Cold War Kids, an indie rock band from Long Beach. Band members are Nathan Willett (lead vocals, piano, guitar), Jonnie Russell (guitar, vocals, percussion), Matt Maust (bass guitar), and Matt Aveiro (drums). This event, sponsored by the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC), celebrates Global Outreach (GO) Week, highlighting UC Berkeley's commitment to public service and global awareness.

SXSW Foursquare Badges Released By Mistake

Technical misadventure has released SXSW 2010 Special Edition badges to users this morning at forsquarebadg.es and two users who got the badge have tweeterd their luck.
The site also revealed 15 special badges to be released at this year’s SXSW 2010 conference, which starts this week in Austin, Texas.

City Tours From Google Labs

Google Labs have published about multi-day (or single day if you are the fast walking type) walking tours of major cities given a starting address. For startes, there are a few cities and walks suggested;

• Union Square, San Francisco
• 34th Street and 5th, New York
• London, England
• Dame Street, Dublin, Ireland
  

Except Dublin, I have walked the other cities, more or same the suggested routes. Let Google find nearby points of interest for you or (new!) create your own tours from your own and others' "My Maps".

Try City Tours

Friendster Sold To MOL Global.

Friendster Mol Global Weseepeople.blogspot.com

The social networking site Friendster has been sold to MOL Global, a Malaysian payments company. Friendster is one of the oldest social networking companies that had a face lift recently. Eventhough it has lost the glamour a glitter in the USA, it still has a lot of users (about 75 Million) else where, mostly in Asia.
MOL Global Pte. Ltd, an affiliate of leading online payment solutions provider MOL AccessPortal Berhad handles payment transactions totaling  an annual payment volume of over US$200 million. It provides systems to collect payments for online content and services.

“The merger with Friendster will continue to transform the social networking industry, combining a highly intuitive and successful social media site and online marketing channel with an integrated payment platform and content network which includes games, goods, gifts, music and video. We are creating a unique company that will be well positioned to provide content to a huge, regional user base, here in Southeast Asia,” said Ganesh Kumar Bangah, president and chief executive officer of MOL.

“Friendster and MOL are both industry pioneers and are close partners. This combination is a natural progression of our relationship and will be an industry-changing event, The new combined entity gives Friendster the kind of financial backing, retail distribution, and e-commerce infrastructure that will enable us to accelerate our strategy and create a locally relevant, fun experience for our users in Asia, both on and offline.” ” said Richard Kimber, chief executive officer at Friendster.

The combined entity will maintain offices in various locations, around the world, including Mountain View, CA (USA), the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. Ganesh Kumar Bangah will become the Group Chief Executive Officer of the combined entity while Richard Kimber will become the Non-Executive Chairman.