Archive for 'Internet'

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s prostitute scandal is still big news in New York. In February earlier this year, the former Governor was caught in a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel.

The story quickly swept the tabloids, all of who soaked up Spitzer’s downfall with little mention of how and why his crimes actually came to light.

Spitzer was originally flagged when a series of Suspicious Activity Reports - reports that banks must to file with the Treasury to assist in investigating anything from money laundering to terrorist activity were submitted.

The prostitution ring that counted Spitzer as a customer had been responsible for shady bank accounts, checks and wire transfers of up to $400,000, they soon became under-investigation.

According to the FBI’s complaint:

“In or about October 2007, the FBI and the United States Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigative Division (IRS-CID) began an investigation focusing on an organization suspected of conducting prostitution and money-laundering crimes in the United States and Europe.”

The investigation began with a suspicious activity report on Spitzer. According to the Wall Street Journal, Spitzer’s transactions were regular and always kept under $10,000. A pattern that the Feds class as suspicious.

“There has been a massive federal crackdown on money laundering in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and banks have been extremely diligent in filing such reports. Those reports often include details of transactions done by innocent people.”

According to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) there have been 4.7 million SARs filed as of June 30, 2007.

(Click Here To Read More…)

For the last 18 months Google has been working to develop their personal health records solution. So far we haven’t been given much insight into what the product will be like, however there is promise that it will be comprehensive and user-friendly.

As of last month Google received a large endorsement from the Cleveland Clinic to help in the development of the technology.

The big medical center has now started a pilot project to begin linking the health information for some of its patients with Google’s personal health records.

Cleveland Clinic currently employs a sophisticated IT system to store their 100,000+ patient’s personal health records.

But a sizeable portion of those patients are retirees that may spend four or more months elsewhere, typically in Florida or Arizona. When these patients travel, their electronic health records don’t follow them explains Dr. C. Martin Harris, the clinic’s chief information officer.

“It forces the patient to become his or her own medical historian,

“Google personal health record is a solution to that problem”

Using Google’s technology, a person can approve the transfer of their medical records from the clinics computers to series of secure Web pages.

The pilot project is scheduled to last six to eight weeks, and will involve approx 10,000 patients.

Marissa Mayer, a vice president, who took over management of the health team six months ago said, “The project with Cleveland Clinic is “a milestone” for Google”.

Google’s personal health records is still in development, and it will be introduced publicly and made widely available, after the pilot project is concluded, Ms. Mayer said.

With Cleveland Clinic being at the forefront of health information technology, the recent endorsement is more promise that Google’s Personal Health Records will provide a one-stop solution for all health records.

Although we may not know much until the release of the product, what we do know is that Google will offer a fresh new user-interface as well as automated data links, so the patient does not have to type in personal data, as is required with some personal health records.

The recent endorsement from the Cleveland Clinic has also prompted other medical centers to sign up.

“This is truly a patient-controlled health record, and that’s a very significant step in the drive toward a more consumer-oriented system of health care,” said Dr. John D. Halamka, chief information officer of the Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Halamka is also chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, which plans to link its electronic patient records with Google personal health pages.

With email providers giving away more and more online storage space, many people have taken to using their email account to store personal information.

While being able to access your details using an internet connection may seem like a good idea, an inbox/outbox or folder with passwords, bank account numbers, account usernames and other crucial information is a jackpot bonanza for identity thieves who manage to hack your email.

Even if you are careful not to store this type of information in your email account, you may still be inadvertently revealing personal information in emails conversations between family and friends.

The worst of it all is that you may never even know if your email is being hacked. A hacker can easily read an email then mark it as unread, if nothing appears to be different how are you going to know?

The easiest way to find out if your email is being hacked is by setting up an electronic tripwire which alerts you if an unwanted intruder breaks into your account.

1. For our example we will use OneStat. You must first sign up (you can leave a fake name and URL but must provide an email address).
2. You will receive a welcome email from OneStat, with a link to download an attachment. The attachment will contain your account number, write this number down and delete the attachment; you wouldn’t want a hacker to find this information!
3. Change the name of a text document to something that will attract an email hacker such as ‘password list’ or ‘account number and pin’. Also change the file format from a text to a website page, for example ‘account number and pin.htm’
4. Then attach this dummy file to an email and send it to the account you want to monitor. Make sure the email subject title also lures in the snooper (List of Passwords, Bank Details etc)
5. Now the trap is set, if someone opens the email and the attachment, OneStat will record a hit. If you log into your account everyday you will be quickly notified if anyone has been snooping around.

The OneStat account page then gives you details on each “visitor” including the date and time they accessed the web document and more importantly their location and IP address!

Although this may not stop your email being hacked, it’s a good way to monitor your account. If your email does get hacked then you should quickly change your password to something stronger.

Also if you see the hacker’s location and you only know one or two people in that area, then it can narrow down your list of possible suspects.

With most of the population owning a cell phone, the numbers of text messages flying around the airwaves has drastically increased over the last 5 years. And with spammers try to expand their audience, text messages have become fertile territory for malicious spam adverts.

Estimates vary greatly regarding the exact percentage of spam text’s out there, however Clouldmark - a San Francisco company that makes anti-spam software for carriers – claim that the problem is on the increase with numbers expected to quadruple by the end of the year.

(Click Here To Read More…)

Stumble Upon is a collaborative web search tool that utilizes a growing Stumble Upon community to help you cut down on Googling and get better directed to what you are looking for.

Developed by Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, Justin LaFrance, and Eric Boyd,“StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click Stumble!, we deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences.”

This web search tool comes in the form of a browser add-on which can be found for Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera.

Click Here To Download StumbleUpon

How StumbleUpon Works

StumbleUpon finds a new site every time you click the ‘stumble!’ button; once you find a page that you like, you can rate the page by giving it a ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down.’

The pages which StumbleUpon send your way are based on your ratings of previous pages, as well as ratings from your friends and other users with similar interests. In this way, websites with great content get recommend for the next user by real people – not heartless machines.

The StumbleUpon community is extremely large and continuing to grow. In July 2006 StumbleUpon had around 1 million users and as of December 2007, the community had grown to over 4 million. The rising number of the stumble upon community was something that eBay noticed back in May 07 when they acquired StumbleUpon for a whopping $75,000,000 (75 million) USD.

(Click Here To Read More…)

We would like to introduce our new military and government financing partner High Tech Credit, a partner of 800HighTech. Who is High Tech Credit? Well, High Tech Credit was formed by the 800HighTech joining up with the guys who kept CompUSA alive for as long as it did. They left CompUSA after its doors closed and got right to work building up the partner base and delivering the goods under 3rd Coast Marketing LLC. With 800HighTech’s customer base growing, we needed to offer a larger product range and pre-configured computers and laptops at the best possible price for our Armed Forces and Civilian DoD customers. It was also imperative that we continue to provide fast shipping that included overseas military address and combat zones.

Military Armed Forces High Tech Credit Financing

High Tech Credit is offering new best buy computer electronics media with financing for Armed Forces and Civilian DoD government contracted employees. Regardless of adverse credit history, receive bad credit history secured loans for high performance consumer electronics at military discount rates. Low monthly payments and zero money down with allotments through mypay DFAS Mil. All orders are guaranteed approval loans and include free shipping overseas. Shipments to troops stationed CONUS also include express overnight shipping.

(Click Here To Read More…)

With the popularity of last month’s blog post Free Adobe Photoshop Plug-ins and Effects, I wanted to make sure we did a follow up to this.

Now you have the tools to get the job done, but what good are these tools if you don’t know how to use them. We have compiled a list of popular FREE tutorials on how to master Adobe Photoshop.

Adobe Photoshop is by far the leader in graphic design and photo editing. It is an advance software that has seemingly limitless possibilities. It may be difficult to use at first, but once you start learning you will be able to easily combine, blend, and invent new methods to help capture your photo.

(Click Here To Read More…)

News of the GoldenEye XBLA being dumped is storming across the internet. Those who thought it was only a rumor that the game was being developed, found out that it existed when it was being halted.

According to 1UP, an XBLA version of Rare’s classic N64 shooter GoldenEye was being ported with the same graphics, sound. It was also noted as having multiplayer over XBLA.

The 2 months before completion project scrap was due to a disagreement between Microsoft and Nintendo on how to split proceeds.

This however does not mean Game Over for GoldenEye XBLA. Social Internet networks are trying to take a stand and complain to get the project started back up.

Here is comparison footage featuring GoldenEye XBLA

I am sure everyone has heard about it, but what exactly does it meant to have your identity stolen and how much of a threat is it actually.

What is Identity Theft

Identity theft is a catch-all term for crimes involving illegal usage of another individual’s identity. The most common form of identity theft is credit card fraud. While the term is relatively new, the practice of stealing money or getting other benefits by pretending to be a different person is thousands of years old.

According to the non-profit Identity Theft Resource Center, identity theft is sub-divided into four categories:

* Financial Identity Theft (using another’s identity to obtain goods and services)
* Criminal Identity Theft (posing as another when apprehended for a crime)
* Identity Cloning (using another’s information to assume his or her identity in daily life)
* Business/Commercial Identity Theft (using another’s business name to obtain credit)

Identity theft may be used to facilitate crimes including illegal immigration, terrorism and espionage. Identity theft may also be a means of blackmail. There are also cases of identity cloning to attack payment systems, including medical insurance.

How Much of a Threat is Identity Theft to Me?

Surveys in the USA from 2003 to 2006 showed a decrease in the total number of victims but an increase in the total value of identity fraud to US$56.6 billion in 2006. The average fraud per person rose from $5,249 in 2003 to $6,383 in 2006.

Defense Link Article About Military Member Identity Theft Battle

The 2003 survey from the Identity Theft Resource Center found that :

* Only 15% of victims find out about the theft through proactive action taken by a business
* The average time spent by victims resolving the problem is about 40 hours
* 73% of respondents indicated the crime involved the thief acquiring a credit card
* The emotional impact is similar to that of victims of violent crimes

(Click Here To Read More…)

Staying up to date with the latest software and applications can be expensive. Professional applications like Photoshop and Microsoft Office certainly don’t come cheap, even the Windows operating system required to run your PC is costly.

Many are unaware of expensive applications’ free open source and online alternatives.

Click To See The Battle Plan of The Software Wars

Open source products comprise the work of many collaborators. Each person works on small portions of a project, and anyone is welcome to contribute. The finished product is available freely for anyone to download or even modify.

After the jump is a list of fourteen free open source applications.

(Click Here To Read More…)

Google is a name synonymous with bettering someone else’s idea. But we should certainly not be the ones complaining, as they steam roll the competition they continue provide us with more user-friendly and lets not forget ‘free’ services and applications.

A new Google service, dubbed “Knol,” is set to compete with the Web’s largest data base of reference work, Wikipedia. The firm revealed that the new website project will invite individuals to write “authoritative articles” on their areas of expertise.Google hopes that Knol (the name derived from “knowledge”) articles will cover “all topics, from scientific concepts … to entertainment.”Significantly, the project will see Google help generate new editorial content, a process its executive have previously said it is “philosophically opposed to.”In a Google blog posted last month, Udi Manber, Vice President of Engineering wrote,

“The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content”

As on Wikipedia, the content will be free to access. However, one major difference is that Knol’s authors will be able to attach advertising to their work and take a share of revenues.

(Click Here To Read More…)

Google are always up to something, and we could dedicate a whole blog to them if we simply had the time on our hands! In what seems to be their never ending quest to take over the Information Technology World they have announced yet another FREE application, language translations for the Google Talk chat client.

Using the same technology as, the translation application is delivered as a series of chat bots. These tools can quickly translate a phrase or paragraph for you, and they can also be added to group chats to act as real-time translators.Google lists out about 30 total language bots with which are all logically named according to their translation duty, such as en2ko@bot.talk.google.com, signifying English to Korean translation. English is the dominant language across the translations; however there are some non-English bots available such as fr2de.

(Click Here To Read More…)

I know for military members and their families, duty stations and overseas deployments can either put you at a disadvantage or be a once in a life-time experience. Regardless, of where you were on New Years Eve, you were most definitely not everywhere. If you found yourself at a house party or with the family in front of the T.V., you might have caught the 24 hour feed of New Years traveling across the globe.

(Click Here To Read More…)

Photoshop has clearly become the industry standard software for graphic design and digital photography. Those of you who are Photoshop savvy will know that plug-ins and filters can extend Photoshop capabilities by providing new functions and effects. For those of you who aren’t, perhaps its time to explore Photoshop’s expandable features.

(Click Here To Read More…)

The performance of your WiFi home network is highly dependent on the signal strength of the router or the wireless access point (base station). This signal is greatly affected by distance, obstructions and interference.

There are several ways to boost your range and signal strength. There is a selection of different antenna enhancers available on the consumer market as well as some DIY hacks to create your own expander.

D.I.Y Boosters

You can boost your WiFi signal considerably well using kitchenware or even old cans.

Check out this video on how to create your own wireless enhancer.

You can also use a sheet of manila folder and aluminum foil to create the parabola reflector:

1. Download and Print out a template of a parabola
2. Use it to score an outline onto a manila folder with a pen or pencil
3. Apply glue to the side of the folder that is not scored for the reflector (with the slots)
4. Apply aluminum foil with dull side down onto the glue
5. Don’t apply foil to the support part (with the tabs)
6. Turn the manila folder over and cut out the shiny new parabolic
7. reflector
8. Cut out the reflector part (with the slots) and the support part (with the tabs)
9. Bend the reflector - with the foil in back - and insert the tabs of the support part
10. Apply tape to keep two parts together
11. Poke the antenna through hole (about 1/2 way down pole) and pivot the reflector to point in desired direction

(Click Here To Read More…)