Free Republic

SOUTHEAST Queenslanders should be on the lookout for large black funnel-web spiders as big as an adult hand. As the hot, humid weather arrives, the potentially deadly spiders are on the move, with the first reports of the season this week. Queensland Museum senior curator Robert Raven said yesterday sightings of male funnel-webs had been confirmed at Mt Tamborine in the Gold Coast hinterland and Mt Glorious, west of Brisbane. With summer temperatures and rain, male funnel-webs would be active until at least March or April. Males often wandered at night searching for females, especially during rain. They are black,...

As social media become more popular, it is inevitable that enterprising politicians will use it promote themselves, connect with constituents, and garner votes. The White House has a blog, several Senators and House members tweet, and elected officials and candidates at all levels of government are using social media to get out their messages. But just as use of social media by voters is coming into conflict with existing election laws, some politicians are discovering that their use of social media may clash — or at least create possible problems — with existing campaign and government disclosure laws. Last summer,...

I need some Freeper help...Usually I'm asking advice about guns or stuff. But I need a different kind of help...a techie solution. A gadget. A CHEAP gadget. I'm setting up a video-conferencing solution for my company. What we'll be able to do is participate in each other's sales meetings, via the web, via webcam and microphone. It's not a static environment, but one where the leader is moving around, from place to place in the room; sometimes at the whiteboard...other times at another place in the room. I've kinda got the camera thing figured out. But what I need is...

Flu-wary telecommuters may clog Web networks, GAO says By Cecilia Kang Wednesday, October 28, 2009 As the spread of the H1N1 flu keeps more Americans away from work and school, a federal report warns that all those people logging on to the Web from home could overwhelm Internet networks. The Government Accountability Office reported earlier this week that if the flu reaches a pandemic, a surge in telecommuting and children accessing video files and games at home could bog down local networks. And if that were to happen, it is not clear whether the federal government is prepared to deal...

The wild, wild Web, where anything goes, could become less wild this year if federal regulators have their way. The Federal Trade Commission on Monday took steps to make product information and online reviews more accurate for consumers, regulating blogging for the first time and mandating that testimonials reflect typical results. Under the new rules, which take effect Dec. 1, writers on the Web must clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products. Testimonials will have to spell out what consumers should expect to experience with their products. Until now, companies just included disclaimers...

WASHINGTON — There’s no kill switch for the Internet, no secret on-off button in an Oval Office drawer. Yet when a Senate committee was exploring ways to secure computer networks, a provision to give the president the power to shut down Internet traffic to compromised Web sites in an emergency set off alarms. Corporate leaders and privacy advocates quickly objected, saying the government must not seize control of the Internet.

I spend much of my time trying to read news articles and visit various web sites that have these new (expanding) advertisements. Some have click out boxes others do not. I spend a lot of time trying various techniques to get rid of those ads so that I can read the articles I am researching. Is there some technique to make them disappear? Better yet - Is there someone who one can complain to to get rid of that style of ad? Many are subscription only and I see no reason to subscribe just to complain that I can't read...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Sept. 14 (UPI) -- Forty-three percent of young Swedes interviewed for a national study said they believe getting paid for sex is acceptable, authorities in Sweden said. The study from the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs also suggested an estimated 20,000 Swedes between the ages of 16 and 25 have sold sex, primarily through connections made on the Internet, The Local reported Monday. Young people interested in selling sex often suffer serious emotional problems, board spokeswoman Inger Ashing said. "There is a higher instance of problems with family relationships and many show other signs that they don't...

BOSTON (AP) -- When Shanghai blogger Isaac Mao tried to watch a YouTube clip of Chinese police beating Tibetans, all he got was an error message... ...Mao thought the error -- just after the one-year anniversary of a crackdown on Tibetan protesters in China -- was too suspicious to be coincidental, so he reported it on a new Harvard-based Web site that tracks online censorship... ...Zittrain started Herdict in February -- a month before China's block began -- to aggregate reports of online inaccessibility and help users detect government censorship on the Web as soon as it happens. Having tracked...

Governments and companies should limit the snooping they do on web users. So said Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, who said that growing oversight of browsing could have a pernicious effect. A greater part of the value of the web lay in the lack of constraints on what people could do with it. He also warned that attempts to censor what people could say or what they could do online were ultimately doomed to failure. Open triumph "When you use the internet it is important that the medium should not be set up with constraints," he...

NEW YORK — Google and Facebook have rushed out services in Farsi. Twitter users have changed their home cities to Tehran to provide cover for Internet users there. Others have configured their computers to serve as relay points to bypass Iranian censorship. In the aftermath of the disputed Iranian election, Internet companies and individuals around the world have stepped in to help Iranians Twitter delayed a scheduled maintenance shutdown so that people could continue to access the microblogging site while scores of Americans set up remote proxy servers so Iranians could access blocked Web sites from inside their country. All...

Don't look now, but the web is rescuing Western Civ. That being the college course that once was meant to teach kids about their inheritance -- about Socrates, the Bible, the Renaissance, Mozart, Shakespeare and all that. When the Boomer Left decided in its egomaniacal arrogance to abolish Western civilization it stopped teaching all those treasures of past and present in favor of All The Things We've Done Wrong -- anti-Western Civ, so to speak. So kids (like B. H. Obama) come out of college convinced they have to Save the Planet from the Evil Western Civ White Guys. The...

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) published last month a detailed 268-page dossier disclosing the addresses and specifications of hundreds of U.S. nuclear-weapons-related facilities, laboratories, reactors and research activities. The document, which was removed from the Web on Tuesday, is a draft declaration of facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog, required under agreements that the United States signed in 2004. It is considered highly sensitive though technically not classified. The vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Christopher S. Bond, Missouri Republican, said the disclosure revealed "a virtual treasure map for terrorists."

REXBURG, Idaho — Obtaining a physical body is an essential part of earth life, Elder Bednar stated, and it gives God's children the chance to have experiences that otherwise would not be possible. He said, "Our relationships with other people, our capacity to recognize and act in accordance with truth, and our ability to obey the principles and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ are amplified through our physical bodies." He noted that Lucifer, who because of his rebellion against God, does not have a body, "attempts to influence us both to misuse our physical bodies and to minimize...

Last year, when law professor Joel Reidenberg wanted to show his Fordham University class how readily private information is available on the Internet, he assigned a group project. It was collecting personal information from the Web about himself. This year, after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made public comments that seemingly may have questioned the need for more protection of private information, Reidenberg assigned the same project. Except this time Scalia was the subject, the prof explains to the ABA Journal in a telephone interview. His class turned in a 15-page dossier that included not only Scalia's home address,...

Taking aim at the way news is spread across the Internet, The Associated Press said on Monday that it will demand that Web sites obtain permission to use the work of The A.P. or its member newspapers, and share revenue with the news organizations, and that it will take legal action those that do not.

Yasser Arafat's official Web site posted pictures Monday that it said showed the late Palestinian leader's modest bedroom, offering a glimpse into the way he lived under Israeli siege during the final two years of his life. The spartan room included a single bed, a lamp and a narrow closet containing Arafat's iconic wardrobe: five military-style suits and four checkered black-and-white Palestinian scarfs.

* Governments, corporations snooping on website visits... * Next big thing on Web is linked data...* Berners-Lee says future of Web is on mobile phones Surfers on the Internet are at increasing risk from governments and corporations tracking the sites they visit to build up a picture of their activities, the founder of the World Wide Web said on Friday. Tim Berners-Lee, whose proposal for an information management system at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research CERN 20 years ago led eventually to the World Wide Web, said tracking website visits in this way could build an incredibly detailed profile...

<p>It all began 20 years ago today with a frustrated 29-year-old programmer who had a passion for order.</p> <p>Tim Berners-Lee, now famous as the founder of the World Wide Web, was working as an obscure consultant at Cern, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, in the suburbs of Geneva. Berners-Lee loved the laboratory. It was full of stimulating projects and creative people, but his work, and the work of his colleagues, was stymied by the lack of institutional knowledge.</p>

Have not used my web-site in four or five years. It was developed using MS Frontpage. It worked for a non-techie like me. I have not kept up with website software changes over the years. Is there better software out there? Can the whole design be ported over?

<excerpt>In the middle of last week I tipped over from a state of mild fearfulness about the global economy to one of wild panic over what is to become of us. On Wednesday, I became host to all sorts of crazy worries – big, unmanageable ones as well as little, stupid ones. I worried about there being anarchy on the streets of London – while at the same time fretting over whether I should have painted the boxroom cream rather than white. This is the sort of mixed-up mental state I am familiar with from bouts of wakefulness at three...

Just by reading this online story, you are part of a groundbreaking trend. According to a new study from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released last week, the Internet has passed newspapers as the most popular source for news. Only television surpassed the Net, with about 70 percent of Americans saying they get most of their national and international news from the ubiquitous box. About 40 percent say they get most of their news from the Net, an increase of 16 percent from September 2007. Newspapers are the main source for about 35 percent. This...

The celebrated openness of the Internet -- network providers are not supposed to give preferential treatment to any traffic -- is quietly losing powerful defenders. Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers. At risk is a principle known as network neutrality: Cable and phone companies that operate the data pipelines are supposed to treat all traffic...

Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance. Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm. The disclaimer lives on at Google News, where we are assured that: The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program. A few years ago, Google's apparently unimpeachable objectivity got some people very excited, and technology utopians began to herald Google as...

License Plates for the Internet - The Blueprints for Obama's Assault on the Internet The report's recommendations emphasize taking away cybersecurity from DHS in order to create a special department to oversee cybersecurity. It recommends ending the division between civilian and national security systems. And calls for establishing "international norms" when it comes to the internet. And it focuses a good deal on identity verification, not just for Federal employees, but for ordinary Americans as well. The report urges a move away from passwords, and toward physical identity verification, via a device that would verify an individual's identity. And calls...

Militants are being encouraged to use the online site through postings on other Islamic forums on the Internet. Wednesday, December 3, 2008 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Islamic extremists are being instructed on how to use the popular video-sharing site YouTube as a way to disseminate propaganda videos, a U.S.-based terrorism monitor said on Tuesday. Militants are being encouraged to use the online site through postings on other Islamic forums on the Internet, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. Last week, an extremist authored step-by-step instructions on posting video to YouTube, which he described as "one of the most famous and biggest...

YOUTUBE is cracking down on sexy videos in a bid to clean itself up. In a blog posting, the video-sharing website revealed it would be enforcing a "stricter standard for mature content". The popular site – which already bans porn – said it will be "tightening the standard for what is considered 'sexually suggestive'". "Videos with sexually suggestive (but not prohibited) content will be age-restricted, which means they'll be available only to viewers who are 18 or older," the Google-owned website said. "Our goal is to help ensure that you're viewing content that's relevant to you, and not inadvertently coming...

In 2006, Thailand announced it was blocking access to YouTube for anyone with a Thai I.P address, and then identified 20 offensive videos for Google to remove as a condition of unblocking the site. ‘If your whole game is to increase market share,’ says Lawrence Lessig, speaking of Google, ‘it’s hard to . . . gather data in ways that don’t raise privacy concerns or in ways that might help repressive governments to block controversial content.’ In March of last year, Nicole Wong, the deputy general counsel of Google, was notified that there had been a precipitous drop in activity...

A 19-year-old Mississippi man faces federal charges for sending threatening e-mails to black college students after the historic election of Barack Obama to the presidency, the U.S. attorney's office said Thursday.

<p>MIAMI (AP) - A South Florida college student killed himself by overdosing on drugs in front of a live online audience as some computer users egged him on, some debated his method, and others tried to talk him out of it.</p>

<p>Thursday, November 20, 2008 The Pentagon has suffered from a cyber attack so alarming that it has taken the unprecedented step of banning the use of external hardware devices, such as flash drives and DVD's, FOX News has learned.</p> <p>The attack came in the form of a global virus or worm that is spreading rapidly throughout a number of military networks.</p>

NEW YORK – Transition officials call it Obama 2.0 — an ambitious effort to transform the president-elect's vast Web operation and database of supporters into a modern new tool to accomplish his goals in the White House. If it works, the new president could have an unprecedented ability to appeal for help from millions of Americans who already favor his ideas, bypassing the news media to pressure Congress."He's built the largest network anyone has ever seen in politics, and congressional Republicans are clueless about the communications shift that has happened," Democratic strategist Joe Trippi proclaims. The results, he says, "will...

The presidential election of 2008 was won on the internet. Obama not only raised huge amounts of cash, but liberal bloggers were able to control the news on the web through manipulation of social networking sites like reddit.com and digg.com. To prepare for future elections, we must start organizing now. It was clear in the middle of October what had happened, and it was becoming increasingly clear that the manipulation was done by just a few thousand dedicated bloggers, and social networking addicts.

Months later, the problem of Internet addiction in China became a personal problem for me when my apartment was robbed. The police determined that the camera I lost (with 500 photos from a recent trip to Chengdu), as well as a computer and a Gerber knife had probably been pawned by local schoolboys to fund their Internet game addictions. Two weeks later, I caught two of them climbing over a wall and sneaking into my apartment building. I chased them halfway down the street in dress shoes before I finally gave up...

I am sick to death of seeing ads for Hussein whenever I go on the web. For instance, I just went to foxbusiness.com and there were two ads for the socialist. I guess they're sponsored by either the Messiah's campaign or the Democrat party. If I click on them, does that mean they pay Fox? I have no intention of supporting this jerk or "registering to vote"...I wonder though if this would help drain their monies. Anyone know how web advertising works?

BBC News (09/15/08) Ghosh, Pallab Sir Tim Berners-Lee is helping to create the World Wide Web Foundation, a new organization that will certify Web sites it finds to be trustworthy and a reliable source of information. Berners-Lee says there needs to be a new system that will give Web sites a label for trustworthiness once they have proven to be a reliable source. “On the Web the thinking of cults can spread very rapidly and suddenly a cult which was 12 people who had some deep personal issues suddenly find a formula which is very believable,” he says. “A...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is not only firing women up on the campaign trail but she is also exciting women on the Web. A dot-com startup is seeing a huge rise in traffic because it asked women what they think of Palin. In a Silicon Valley coffee shop, women were checking the latest political news wirelessly on Thursday. That is good news for Deborah Perry-Piscione. Her Web-based startup, bettyconfidential.com, just surveyed women about what they think of Palin. The company got a wide-ranging response. "Women are somewhat torn because they think she's terrific," Piscione said. "Incredible to have a woman...

Excerpt - Google have announced plans to take on Microsoft and Firefox with their own open-source browser, codenamed Chrome, by releasing a specially drawn comic by Scott McCloud explaining the app. Based on the existing Webkit rendering engine, Chrome will integrate not only tab-based browsing but Google Gears and a newly integrated search and address system called Omnibox. ~ snip ~

Jay Mariotti, a firebrand sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, announced he is quitting the print biz loudly proclaiming that newspapers are "dying" and that he didn't want to go down with the ship of the struggling industry. Naturally, the management of the Sun-Times is not amused. Mariotti told Chicago's CBS 2 news that newspapers are in serious trouble and he wanted out before he was forced out. "It's been a tremendous experience, but I'm going to be honest with you, the profession is dying,'' Mariotti told CBS 2, "I don't think either paper [Sun-Times or Chicago Tribune] is going...

Winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature are entitled to grand pronouncements, or else what is it for? So Doris Lessing, last winter, anathematised the entire internet, declaring that it had “seduced a whole generation into its inanities”. According to Lessing, the web helped to create “'a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned, and where it is common for young men and women who have had years of education to know nothing of the world”. One might wonder how she knew this with such certainty. How many of these young men and women...

In typical fashion, House Democrats are trying to pass rules that stifle debate and require regulation. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) sent a letter to the Chairman of the Committee on House Administraion Kevin Brady. The letter is a response to a debate about whether the House should allow members to use YouTube, first raised by Rep. Kevin McCarthy back in April. From that story: The reason is simple enough: The Franking Commission frowns on official links to campaign-related Web sites, political parties, advocacy groups and "any site the primary purpose of which is the conduct of commerce." Well, Capuano's proposal...

We asked technology innovators, luminaries, and users what the Web might be in five to ten years. Sir Tim Berners-LeeDirector of the World Wide Web Consortium and inventor of the Web; Cambridge, MA"I would like to see the Internet reach people in rural areas and help alleviate poverty. I would like to see more people reaching the Web from devices big and small, fixed and mobile. I look forward to more voice technology--in hands-busy scenarios such as driving, and also to increase accessibility (e.g., for people with low vision). The long tail of video on the Web is creating a...

Web users are getting more ruthless and selfish when they go online, reveals research. The annual report into web habits by usability guru Jakob Nielsen shows people are becoming much less patient when they go online. Instead of dawdling on websites many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave. Most ignore efforts to make them linger and are suspicious of promotions designed to hold their attention. Search rules Instead, many are "hot potato" driven and just want to get a specific task completed. (snip) This makes them very resistant to highlighted promotions or other...

Computer attacks typically don't inflict physical pain on their victims. But in a rare example of an attack apparently motivated by malice rather than money, hackers recently bombarded the Epilepsy Foundation's Web site with hundreds of pictures and links to pages with rapidly flashing images.

Web could collapse as video demand soars By Lewis Carter Last Updated: 2:52am BST 07/04/2008 The internet could grind to a halt within two years under the pressure of booming demand for online video, experts have warned. Last year it was said that YouTube consumed as much capacity as the entire internet took up in 2000 Soaring visitor numbers to video websites such as YouTube and the BBC's iPlayer are putting the copper wires, which underpin parts of the internet, under severe strain. Experts warn that unless billions of pounds is spent on upgrading the web's infrastructure, it could slow...

Ashley Qualls doesn't sound like a typical high school student. Maybe that's because the 17-year-old is the CEO of a million-dollar business. Ashley is the head of whateverlife.com, a website she started when she was just 14 — with eight dollars borrowed from her mother. Now, just three years later, the website grosses more than $1 million a year, providing Ashley and her working class family a sense of security they had never really known. It all started with capitalism 101, the law of supply and demand. Ashley became interested in graphic design just as the online social networking craze...

Google may eventually be displaced as the pre-eminent brand on the internet by a company that harnesses the power of next-generation web technology, the inventor of the World Wide Web has said. The search giant had developed an extremely effective way of searching for pages on the internet, Tim Berners-Lee said, but that ability paled in comparison to what could be achieved on the "web of the future", which he said would allow any piece of information — such as a photo or a bank statement — to be linked to any other. Mr Berners-Lee said that in the same...

Hamburg (dpa) - A senior German judge was temporarily removed from his post Friday after images of child pornography were discovered on a private computer. The official, chairman of the Hamburg social welfare law tribunal, had requested leave during an inquiry. A panel of fellow judges in the northern city ruled that the allegations were so grave that he must give up his post for the time being. He is allowed two weeks to appeal. Police in the city of Mainz, where the computer was found in the home of the judge's girlfriend, announced the inquiry in December. An online...

PALERMO, Sicily - When it came down to business, Cosa Nostra could always count on fear. No more. In a rebellion shaking the Sicilian Mafia to its centuries-old roots, businesses are joining forces in refusing to submit to demands for protection money called "pizzo." And they're getting away with it, threatening to sap an already weakened crime syndicate of one of its steadiest sources of revenue. The Mafia has a history of bouncing back from defeat, but this time it is up against something entirely new: a Web site where businessmen are finding safety in numbers to say no to...

CAIRO, Egypt — In Iran, a large red icon pops up on computer screens. In Syria, there's a discreet note from the filter. Other Arab nations display "blocked" in bold lettering or issue crafty "page not found" replies. However the censors put it, the message is clear: You're not permitted to see this Web site. Governments in the Middle East are stepping up a campaign of censorship and surveillance in an effort to prevent an estimated 33.5 million Internet users from viewing a variety of Web sites whose topics range from human rights to pornography. As a result, millions of...