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Escalating Cyber War Spells Trouble for Internet Freedom

Eric Blair
Activist Post
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:40 UTC
cyberwar graphic
© n/a
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." - Gandhi

The cyber war escalated to a whole new level yesterday. The U.S. government shut down the popular website MegaUpload at the behest of corporate interests. The Feds accused MegaUpload of stealing $500 million in potential lost revenue from copyright holders.

Almost immediately, the hacktivist group Anonymous retaliated by launching massive DDoS attacks on several websites including the US Copyright Office, Department of Justice, FBI.gov, Universal Music Group, Music Picture Association of America, and the Recording Industry Association of America. The attack called "Operation MegaUpload" is also said to be targeting Whitehouse.gov.

Many Internet freedom and privacy activists are cheering Anonymous' assault against the U.S. Government and the corporate interests that control it. But I'm getting the eerie feeling that Anonymous is playing right into the hands of those who wish to control and censor the Internet.
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Airplane

France: More Cracks Found in Airbus A380 Wings

Tim Hepher
Reuters
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Gonzalo FuentesAn Airbus A380, the world's largest jetliner, takes part in a flying display during the 49th Paris Air Show at the Le Bourget airport near Paris June 26, 2011.
Airbus said on Thursday it had discovered more cracks in the wings of two A380 superjumbo aircraft but insisted the world's largest jetliner remains safe to fly.

It is the second time in as many weeks that hairline cracks have been reported in the wings of the double-decker aircraft, which first entered service four years ago, and they are expected to lead to additional safety checks.

"Airbus confirms that some additional cracks have been found on a limited number of non-critical brackets ... inside the wings of some A380s," the planemaker said in a statement.

"Airbus emphasizes that these cracks do not affect the safe operation of the aircraft".

Airbus has dismissed calls to ground its superjumbo fleet over the cracks, which first came to light during repairs of a Qantas A380 that was damaged by an engine blowout shortly after taking off from Singapore in November 2010.
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Phoenix

5 Unemployed Moroccans Set Selves on Fire


CBS News
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:31 UTC

Five unemployed Moroccan men set themselves on fire in the capital Rabat as part of widespread demonstrations in the country over the lack of jobs, especially for university graduates, a rights activist said Thursday. Three were burned badly enough to be hospitalized.

Once rare, self-immolation became a tactic of protest in the Middle East and North Africa ever since a vegetable seller in Tunisia set himself on fire in December 2010 to protest police harassment, setting off an uprising that toppled the government and sparked similar movements elsewhere in the region.

The Moroccans were part of the "unemployed graduates" movement, a loose collections of associations across the country filled with millions of university graduates demanding jobs. The demonstrations are often violently dispersed by police and in some towns and cities have resulted in sustained clashes.

While the official unemployment rate is only 9.1 percent nationally, it rises to around 16 percent for graduates.
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Pistol

US, Tennessee: 3 Fatally Shot in Memphis; Suspect Turns Self In


The Associated Press
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
Authorities say a domestic argument turned violent when a man fatally shot his girlfriend and her parents in the family's home in south Memphis. The suspect then turned himself in to authorities with his 4-year-old in tow.

Memphis police say they found the girlfriend, Pashea Fisher, 23, and her father, Arithio Fisher, 56, dead in a bedroom early Thursday. Her mother, Patricia Fisher, 46, was taken to a hospital, where she later died.

Police have withheld the name of the suspect because he has not been charged. Spokeswoman Karen Rudolph says the shooter left the home but then surrendered to authorities about two hours later. He showed up at a police station with his and his girlfriend's daughter. The girl was turned over to children's services officials.
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Beer

US: Florida Police Officers Paid to Drink Alcohol, Eat Doritos On the Job

Eric Pfeiffer
The Sideshow
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© unknownThe "Intoxilyzer 8000"
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) has fallen under scrutiny for paying several employees to drink alcohol on the job in order to test a breathalyzer.

Last October, the department allocated $300 for Jim Beam whiskey, Doritos and drink mixers. The Herald Tribune reports that it was part of an effort to preserve the embattled "Intoxilyzer 8000" from being phased out. 15 law enforcement employees were then invited to department headquarters in Tallahassee to drink and eat on the job.

The department set up a video camera to record the events, while FDLE crime analysts, staff assistants and Capitol Police officers drank. Blood tests were then taken and sent to a local lab with a total price tag of $8,000 for the effort.
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Phoenix

US: Fire at Professor's New Jersey Home Yields Cache of Child Porn

Wayne Parry
The Associated Press
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© The Associated Press/Wayne ParryThe Eagleswood N.J. home of Gamal El-Zoghby is seen on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012.
A single magazine from the 1970s with pornographic images of pre-pubescent girls was enough to get a New York architecture professor arrested after firefighters found it while battling a blaze in his home at the Jersey shore.

Shortly before noon on Tuesday, firefighters received a report that the waterfront home of 76-year-old Gamal El-Zoghby was ablaze. They doused the flames, and were checking for hidden pockets of flame behind the walls by pulling down panels of sheet rock, when the magazine fell from behind one of the panels, State Police spokesman Trooper Christopher Kay said.

The home was unoccupied at the time the fire broke out. Some time afterward, El-Zoghby arrived at the house, then went to a nearby State Police barracks, where he was questioned and charged with child endangerment before being released on his own recognizance.

Reached Thursday by The Associated Press at his home in Manhattan, El-Zoghby refused to discuss the case, referring questions to a lawyer who later declined comment.
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Info

US: Man Convicted of Killing Georgia Girl Found Dead


The Associated Press
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:36 UTC
Image
© Police HandoutRyan Brunn
A 20-year-old maintenance worker who this week pleaded guilty to molesting and killing a 7-year-old girl was found dead of an apparent suicide in his prison cell Thursday, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.

Ryan Brunn was found unresponsive at 4:15 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson, said spokeswoman Kristen Stancil. Brunn was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:37 p.m., Stancil said in an email to The Associated Press.

Brunn pleaded guilty on Tuesday to killing Jorelys Rivera on Dec. 2. Her body was found in a trash compactor at the Canton apartment complex where she lived and he worked. At the hearing, Brunn explained his actions in chilling detail before apologizing to Rivera's family. A judge then sentenced him to life in prison without parole.
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Heart - Black

US, Ohio: Woman Accused of Putting Daughter's Body in Trash

Kim Palmer
Reuters
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Celeveland Police DepartmentKaliyah Parker
A Cleveland woman pleaded not guilty on Thursday to charges that she had tampered with evidence by putting her five-year-old daughter's body out with the trash, officials said.

India Parker, 35, was arrested in December after police issued a missing person's report for her daughter Kaliyah Parker, who was last seen by relatives in 2006. India Parker also denied charges of desecrating a corpse.

Prosecutors said that between November 1 and December 31, 2006, Parker kept her dead daughter in the child's bed for about one week, according to Cuyahoga County prosecutors' spokeswoman Maria Russo.

Russo said that Parker placed her daughter's body in a trash bag, put the trash bag into a garbage can and set it out on the curb for pick-up by the City of Cleveland Sanitation workers.
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People

Ethiopia Sends Elders to Help Release Abducted Tourists

Aaron Maasho
Reuters
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC

Authorities in Ethiopia's northern Afar region have sent elders to try to secure the release of two German tourists and two Ethiopians kidnapped by gunmen and who the government believes are now inside Eritrea, officials said on Thursday.

The four were part of a group of 27 tourists attacked by gunmen at dawn Tuesday. Two other Germans, two Hungarians and an Austrian were killed in the raid.

Ethiopia has accused neighbour and arch-foe Eritrea of being behind the attack, saying it had trained and armed the gunmen. Ethiopia also blamed an Afar rebel movement it said was backed by Eritrea for kidnapping five Westerners in the region in 2007.

"We believe they are inside Eritrea now," a spokeswoman for Ethiopia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

A Hungarian, a Belgian and another person of unknown nationality who lives in Brussels were wounded in the attack and have been taken to a hospital in Mekele, northern Ethiopia's largest city.
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Display

Anonymous Forces DOJ and Several Others to Protest SOPA / PIPA

Steve Ragan
The Tech Herald
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 01:48 UTC
anonymous graphic
© n/a
Anonymous, in response to the indictment of Megaupload and its removal from the Internet, has forced the U.S. Department of Justice, the MPAA, the RIAA, Universal Music, the U.S. Copyright office, and BMI to protest SOPA and PIPA. How? By launching a massive DDoS strike, which at the time this story was posted, had been active for nearly an hour.

Within minutes, less than an hour after Megaupload fell from the Internet, and the DOJ released a press statement on the Megaupload indictment, Anonymous reacted. With a statement warning the government that they should've "expected" them, OpMegaupload was launched.

On a massive scale, including a reported 5,635 people (or more than 20,000 depending on the source) who armed themselves with LOIC in order to participate in the DDoS, Anonymous went on a rampage.

(Note: Sources close to the operation have said that there are about 1,200 people on IRC, and that the reported numbers for LOIC are suspect. In any case, lower numbers have not seemed to have impacted the DDoS at all, as each of the domains remain off-line.)
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