Saturday, February 18, 2012

Mid Day International News

Mid Day International News

Student gets eight month jail term for Facebook hack

Posted:

A 26-year-old British student, who stole sensitive information from Facebook's internal network, has been jailed for eight months.
Glenn Mangham, could have easily brought down the 31 billion pounds empire after he hacked into three of Facebook's servers from his bedroom in the northern England city of York between April and May last year.

Using the code name 'Gamma Ray' he stole the secret code 'that gives Facebook its value' and downloaded it to his hard drive on his home computer, The Daily Mail reports.

The software development student from York downloaded 'highly sensitive intellectual property' including valuable computer 'code' when he hacked the world's largest social network.

According to the paper, Mangham, who it is believed has Asperger's and was said to have 'no social life' claimed that his work was 'ethical hacking' and he breached the security so that he could find vulnerabilities within the site, which the developers could then strengthen.

Mangham said that although he knew he was breaking the law he thought the company would be 'grateful' for his information based on his previous experience.

"It was to identify vulnerabilities in the system so I could compile a report for lack of a better word that I could then bundle off to Facebook and show them what was wrong with their systems," he told the court.

Facebook discovered the security breach during a system check and, despite his efforts to delete his digital footprint, Mangham was arrested by the Met's e-Crime unit last June.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of securing unauthorised access to computer material with intent and one of unauthorised access to computer material.


Aretha, Stevie Wonder to sing for Whitney

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Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder will sing at Whitney Houston's private service today.



Publicist Kristen Foster also confirmed that invitations went out to Houston's ex-husband, Bobby Brown; her co-star in The Bodyguard, Kevin Costner, and Oprah Winfrey.

Houston's longtime musical mentor, Clive Davis, will speak at the funeral.

The eulogy will be given by gospel singer and longtime family friend Marvin Winans.

To keep away gawkers, police say streets will be shut down for six square blocks around the church.

The funeral service will be streamed live through the website livestream.com/aplive and will be available on some satellite services.

The funeral comes one week after Houston was found in her hotel bathroom. Officials are waiting for the results of toxicology tests that will help them ascertain how the 48-year-old died. Houston was one of the world's best-selling artists from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, selling 170 million records worldwide.


Amanda Knox signs Rs 20-cr book deal

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The student, who spent 4 years in Italian jail, has inked a deal with HarperCollins for a tell-all

Amanda Knox has a book deal. The young exchange student whose conviction and eventual acquittal of murder charges made headlines worldwide has an agreement with HarperCollins to tell her story.


Set in ink: Amanda Knox will pen a book detailing the terrifying ordeal
of her four years in prison. File pic

The 24-year-old Seattle resident, imprisoned for four years in Perugia, Italy, has not publicly discussed her ordeal beyond a brief expression of gratitude upon her release in October last year.

"Knox will give a full and unflinching account of the events that led to her arrest in Perugia and her struggles with the complexities of the Italian judicial system," HarperCollins said in a statement.

"Aided by journals she kept during her imprisonment, Knox will talk about her harrowing experience at the hands of the Italian police and later prison guards and inmates. She will reveal never before-told details surrounding her case, and describe how she used her inner strength and strong family ties to cope with the most challenging time of her young life."

The book, currently untitled, is tentatively scheduled for early next year.

Financial terms were not disclosed, but an official with knowledge of the negotiations said the deal was worth $4 million (Rs 20 crore) for world rights.

Some 20 publishers were interested in the book and Knox met with seven, all of whom submitted bids during a recent auction.

HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham said Knox, who studied creative writing, would work with a collaborator.

Her editor will be Claire Wachtel, whose other authors have included crime novelist Dennis Lehane, journalist Cokie Roberts and US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.

The memoir was considered a hot property because the world has yet to hear all the details from Knox , who was found guilty in 2009 of murdering her 21-year-old British housemate, Meredith Kercher, and spent four years in prison.

An Italian court in overturned Knox's conviction in October.

Also cleared was her boyfriend, Rafaele Sollecito, leaving Ivorian drifter Rudy Guede as the only person convicted in a killing investigators believe was carried out by more than one person.

Armed thieves raid Greece's Olympia Museum

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Greek cultural minister resigns after robbers wearing hoods steal between 60 and 70 items of 'incalculable value' after breaking in, tying female employee

Armed robbers have stolen several dozen artefacts from Greece's Ancient Olympia Museum, which houses one of the most important collections of ancient Greek antiquities, police and reports said.


Robbing greece's pride: According to officials, the armed thieves
made away with around 60-70 items and smashed display cases

Two robbers wearing hoods broke into the museum yesterday before tying up the one female employee on duty at the time, reports from Greece said.

The robbers then used hammers to smash display cases, taking away between 60 and 70 items.

"According to the results of the investigation so far, unknown persons immobilised the guard of the museum and removed bronze and clay objects from the displays, as well as a gold ring," a police statement said.

Police set up roadblocks around the museum. The mayor of Olympia, Thymios Kotzias said that the robbers, who had a gun, first disabled the alarm and then struck as the guard shift was being changed.

"We must wait and see what the local archaeology supervisor will say, but the items were of incalculable value," Kotzias was quoted as saying.

'I quit'
The Greek minister of culture, Pavlos Geroulanos, submitted his resignation following news of the robbery. It was not known whether the resignation had been accepted by Prime Minister Lucas Papademos. The museum is next to the site, about 200 miles west of Athens, where the ancient Olympics were held.

About Olympia museum
The Archaeological Museum of Olympia, one of the most important museums in Greece, presents the long history of the most celebrated sanctuary of antiquity, the sanctuary of Zeus, father of both gods and men, where the Olympic games were born. The best artworks are the sculpture of Hermes by Praxiteles, Nike of Paionius, Miltiades' helmet and the pediments from the temple of Zeus, picturing the myth of Peleus and Hippodameia on one side, and the myth of Apollo, the Centaurs and the Lapiths.

Did you know?
Before every Olympics, the flame is lit near the Temple of Hera, near the museum


Hitler had son with French teen

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Adolf Hitler had a son with a French teenager while serving as a soldier during the First World War, according to new evidence. Jean-Marie Loret, who died in 1985 aged 67, never met his father, but went on to fight Nazi forces during the Second World War.


Love child: Hitler is said to have had an affair with Charlotte Lobjoie,
16, as he took a break from the trenches in June 1917. File Pic/Getty
Images

His extraordinary story has now been backed up by a range of compelling evidence. Hitler is said to have had an affair with Loret's mother, Charlotte Lobjoie (16), as he took a break from the trenches in June 1917.

Hitler made his way to Fournes-in-Weppe, a small town west of Lille, for regular leave. There he met Lobjoie, who later told their son: "One day I was cutting hay with other women, when we saw a German soldier on the other side of the street.

"He had a sketch pad and seemed to be drawing. All the women found this interesting, and were curious to know what he was drawing. I was designated to approach him."

The pair started a brief relationship, which resulted in the birth of Jean-Marie, who was born in March 1918.

Lobjoie later told Jean-Marie: "When your father was around, which was very rarely, he liked to take me for walks in the countryside. But these walks usually ended badly. In fact, your father, inspired by nature, launched into speeches which I did not really understand."

Lobjoie ended up giving her only son away for adoption in the 1930s to a family called Loret. Just before her death Lobjoie finally told Jean-Marie that his father was arguably the most infamous dictator in human history.

Loret then began investigating his past in great detail, employing scientists to prove that he has the same blood type as Hitler, and that they even have similar handwriting. Photographs of the two also reveal a resemblance.


French to tightrope across Niagara Falls

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Nik Wallenda gets the green light to be first to attempt 1,800-foot-long walk on a two-inch thick rope

It may not have been the most appropriate choice of phrase. But when Nik Wallenda was told he was to be allowed to attempt a tightrope walk across Niagara Falls, he said: "I'm thrilled to death."


Nerves of steel: Nik Wallenda holds six Guinness World Records and
is delighted about getting permission about walking across the famous
gorge

If the 33-year-old daredevil survives his 1,800 foot-long walk on a two-inch thick rope over the famous site, he will become the first to ever achieve the feat.

After months of campaigning, Wallenda was yesterday given permission by Canadian officials to attempt the death-defying stunt this summer. He had already secured support from the American side of the falls last year.

Wallenda, who comes from a long line of circus performers, will walk across the most powerful waterfall in the world on a wire rope without a safety net.

The stunt will take up to 40 minutes through mist and spray, 220 feet above the bottom of the gorge.

It is the first time anyone has attempted to walk on a tightrope over the actual waterfall " in 1859 the acrobat Charles Blondin crossed the gorge on a tightrope, but his stunt was downstream from the actual waterfall.

Stunts over the iconic attraction, which forms the international border between the Canadian province of Ontario and the US state of New York, have been prohibited for more than 100 years.

After giving Wallenda permission to perform his stunt, the Niagara Parks Commission insisted it could be attempted only once every 20 years.

Dream come true
Wallenda, from Florida, said, "It's been a dream of mine since I was six years old. I haven't had a chance for it to settle in yet. I'm thrilled to death. This was a dream many told me was impossible. I'm blessed, that's all I can say."

Wallenda, who lives with his wife Erendira and their three children, has been tightrope-walking since he was two.

In 2008, he walked and then cycled across a high-wire suspended from skyscrapers in Newark, New Jersey.
The feat won him a place in the Guinness Book Of Records for the longest and highest bicycle ride on a high-wire.

He currently holds six Guinness World Records.

Family of acrobats
His great-grandfather Karl founded the Flying Wallendas, the family's daredevil circus act. However, he fell to his death aged 73 from a tightrope in high winds in Puerto Rico in 1978.

His great-grandson said, "My family has always been taught to never give up. We've gone through it all, triumph and tragedy. So at no point did I think I would throw in the towel."

Wallenda will wear suede shoes designed to grip the wire in the wet and will train on a full-scale high-wire rig on an airport runway in Pittsburgh, with simulated mist.

"I'll be walking through the mist thrown off by the falls," he added. "I've done walks further and higher. This will be the most iconic."

Last September, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill giving him one year to perform the feat.

Janice Thomson, chairman of the Niagara Parks Commission, said, "This decision was approved in part in recognition of the role that stunting has played in the history and promotion of Niagara Falls.

We have made it clear that this is a very unique one-time situation. It's not an everyday activity and will not be allowed to become an everyday activity."


Posted by Harshad at 7:28 AM

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