mynewhopeumc.org

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

On Sunday, Wikinews interviewed creator of memorial site LisaMcPherson.org, former Lisa McPherson Trust employee and long time Scientology critic Jeff Jacobsen.

LisaMcPherson.org is a memorial site created in 1997 containing information on her death and the resulting legal case against the Church of Scientology.

Lisa McPherson died in 1995 while in the care of the Church of Scientology. After a car accident, she became mentally unstable. Scientologists removed her from the hospital and placed her in the Introspection Rundown, she died 17 days later while still in care of the Church. She was used as an icon during Project Chanology, the protest of the Church of Scientology by Anonymous. Protesters were pictured with signs that said “Remember Lisa McPherson” and “Ask Scientology Why Lisa McPherson Died”, other protesters had posters with her picture on it.

Monday, March 19, 2007

This week Google’s on-line video sharing website YouTube launches its own awards ceremony. The site will present the best user-generated videos posted during 2006 in seven categories. The starting point is Monday and users will end voting on Friday. Winners will get their trophies on March 26.

The categories that YouTube is going to present include: most creative or inspirational video, best series, as well as music video or commentary and best comedy. The last category, number seven, is called “most adorable video ever” and it is to continue the tradition of videos starring cats and dogs while asleep.

Those that are nominated are able to promote themselves on YouTube during the following five days. These users are also able to plead for votes.

The $1.65 billion Google’s acquisition gathered a huge number of fans. According to Jamie Byrne, head of YouTube product marketing, 2006 was a pioneering year for sites that rely on user’s content.

However, companies like Viacom, believe one category is missing – “Best Professionally Produced Copyrighted Video.” Last week Viacom sued Google together with YouTube for more than $1 billion. The lawsuit states that the ever increasing popularity of YouTube is due to a massive uploads of copyrighted videos including “The Colbert Report” and “South Park“.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006 Tangent Computer, a computer services and hardware company based in Burlingame, California has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft. The lawsuit filed on February 14, 2006 claims that Microsoft continues to breach federal antitrust laws.

Tangent alleges that Microsoft fosters tactics “to prevent and destroy competition” while raising prices of its software to “supra-competitive levels.” Tangent is arguing that the tactics are a violation of section 2 Sherman Antitrust Act, a federal law prohibiting unfair business practices and monopolies.

The lawsuit details legal issues which have faced Microsoft since the 1980s, and requests that an amount of monetary damages to be determined by a jury at a trial.

Tangent is an original equipment manufacturer who has purchased and installed Microsoft operating systems since 1995. In addition to their hardware business, they also provide Internet content monitoring, spam filtering, anti-spyware and adware solutions, network vulnerability assessments, active directory tools and migration services.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

The United States Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing unveiled a new United States one hundred-dollar bill Wednesday morning. This is the first time that the one hundred dollar note has been redesigned since 1996.

Until now the one hundred dollar note, along with the one and two dollar notes, was not part of the newest batch of dollar note redesigns. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing redesigned the series 2006 5, 10, 20, and 50 dollar notes previously.

The new one hundred dollar note will contain new security and design features. Along with a new stylized portrait of Benjamin Franklin, the note also features a quill pen and inkwell on the obverse. On the reverse it has a new larger printed ‘100’ in gold lettering. The new security features include a EURion constellation, a new more secure watermark, and a new feature called ‘motion’ which uses 650,000 micro lenses to create a moving image.

The note was originally slated for release in 2008 although budget constraints pushed the release date back to late 2009 or early to mid 2010. The note will go into general circulation by early 2011.

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Friday, May 19, 2017

Yesterday, Zomato, a food ordering and restaurant finding company, announced security breach of more than 17 million accounts, via their official blog. A hacker operating under the alias nclay uploaded evidence to prove they had the stolen data — hashed passwords and emails — for sale, Hackread.com reported. Zomato later announced they contacted the hacker, who asked Zomato to organise a bug bounty programme.

The food ordering company, with 120 million monthly users, said the payment information of the users was not located with this data and was not leaked. Zomato said it uses PCI Data Security Standards.

As a security measure, all the passwords of the involved Zomato accounts were reset and all of the accounts were forcibly logged out from the application and website. The company said only hashed passwords were compromised.

Hashed passwords are encrypted and, per Zomato, every password had a different “salt”, for cryptographic salting was performed before hashing the original password. A “salt” is a random set of characters added before encryption to make decryption to obtain the original passkey more difficult.

The hashed password itself can not be used to access the account. In the blog post before contacting the hacker, saying “internal (human) security breach”, Zomato suggested this could have happened after a worker’s development account was hijacked. After contacting the hacker, and promising a bug bounty programme on Hackerone, they said, the hacker agreed and removed the stolen data which was put on sale on the dark web. Zomato said they are looking forward to working closely with the ethical hacker community on security vulnerabilities.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Inflation in Zimbabwe is now the world’s highest at 11,000 percent and rising. Reports first came in that the value of the Zimbabwean dollar had reached an all-time low two days ago, at which point the official inflation rate was 4,500 percent. Even though this was already high enough to be the world’s highest, to make matters worse, independent financial sources estimated the figure to be closer to 9,000 percent. Yesterday, reports came in that inflation had risen to 11,000 percent.

US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell is reported to have told The Guardian newspaper over the telephone that he believes inflation “will hit 1.5 million percent by the end of 2007, if not before,” adding that he “know(s) that sounds stratospheric but, looking at the way things are going, I believe it is a modest forecast.” Dell went on to predict that president Robert Mugabe would be forced out of power by the hyperinflation, a prediction also made by opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Dell added that he felt Mugabe would be out in “a matter of months, if not weeks” and justified his comments with the rationale that “It destabilises everything. People have completely lost faith in the currency and that means they have completely lost faith in the government that issues it.” Tsvangirai comments to the Associated Press were that: “He’s got an economy that’s down on its knees, he knows he cannot sustain it.” Despite this, Mugabe has expressed intentions to stand for the next election.

Exchange rates for the U.S. dollar have reached an official 15,000-1, but on the black market, according to one anonymous illicit money trader, deals have reached 140,000-1 in cash, with a shortage of bank notes creating a 200,000-1 premium on bank transfers and large overseas deals reaching as much as 300,000-1. Meanwhile, in the course of a week the black market exchange for the UK£ has risen from 160,000-1 to 400,000-1. Despite these increases, Mugabe remains adamant that his currency should not be devalued, and is keeping official exchange rates fixed, with the rate for the US$ fixed at 250-1.

The dealer said that added uncertainty had arisen from talks held between the current government and the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. The official press services published propaganda describing the talks as the opposition negotiating “in bad faith” for its own political gain.

Shops are running out of goods due to the huge cost of imported goods and the lack of local ones due to the closure of inflation-crippled factories. “If it goes on like this, we’ll have nothing to sell, we’ll have no staff and we’ll have to close down completely,” said one store manager, who was unnamed because he feared retaliation by the state for being a “prophet of doom”. Other shops have been closing down temporarily to change their prices.

Hyperinflation is also worsening already crippling poverty in Zimbabwe, with people unable to afford the necessary goods for survival. State regulations limit bank money withdrawals to Z$1.5 million per day, hopelessly inadequate given current currency values. One person’s pension company informed him he would no longer receive statements because the value of his pension fund had decreased to less than that of a postage stamp.

The state daily Chronicle in the second city of Bulawayo reported that Western countries were planning to become involved with the situation upon Mugabe’s departure with a rescue package valued at US$3 billion. Western officials have confirmed that budget proposals exist relating to, according to the Associated Press, “food support, public services reform and the rebuilding of agriculture and general infrastructure over five years in a new political landscape led by reformist Zimbabwean politicians.” However, state media again ran propaganda-based stories, saying that Western powers and their close political friends, who state media call the “Fishmongers Group”, were “working overtime to destroy the economy, mutilate the Zimbabwe dollar, foment civil unrest and then dangle a rescue package to win the support of gullible politicians.”