surfnburn

Happy Birthday, Katie... I hope all of your wishes come true.

No! The computers went down, and there have been a lot of tough draws..

No first dance; we were married at San Francisco city hall. I think "Stars Go Blue" would be a good song for a second marriage.

Happy Birthday ZZ! I hope all of your wishes come true. And thank you for all of your cool videos... We enjoy them so much.

Oh...I love that place, Beth.. "Yes, we have thousands of bananas on the beach of Terschelling Island, Netherlands. The fruit washed ashore after a cargo ship lost several containers in a North Sea storm."

I love your photos, Danny. The kiss is great....lol Thanks for stopping by and sharing with us.

Yay....they did something to the page. It looks good!

Eeeeeeek....Eeeeeeew Nurk. I'm amazed that you didn't lose your appetite. My daughter suggested Chuck E. Cheese.....lol I think she's right. That place is surreal. (Haha...the chipmunk is like a big rat.... But it didn't stumble and die in front of me...lol)

I'm surprised...lol

Yeah...I know a few who had their sites hacked. It's bothersome and a pain to fix. But since the site is for fun, it's not really a big deal. Also, it happens frequently enough, so people know to suspect unusual posts. I still like the Myspace. There's more to it than I originally thought. I found some interesting artist sites and some fun stuff in addition to the music. Also, it's a good way to share stuff with friends. It's interesting that these high profile sites are being hacked and rehacked. Tom at Myspace is getting a bad rep. They're not handling the problem well.

I like the season.

LOL... http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=21061965

haha...my brain would so no activity on this subject...lol This Is Your Brain on Politics Published: November 11, 2007 This article was written by Marco Iacoboni, Joshua Freedman and Jonas Kaplan of the University of California, Los Angeles, Semel Institute for Neuroscience; Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania; and Tom Freedman, Bill Knapp and Kathryn Fitzgerald of FKF Applied Research. Skip to next paragraph Multimedia Slide Show This Is Your Brain on Politics IN anticipation of the 2008 presidential election, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to watch the brains of a group of swing voters as they responded to the leading presidential candidates. Our results reveal some voter impressions on which this election may well turn. Our 20 subjects — registered voters who stated that they were open to choosing a candidate from either party next November — included 10 men and 10 women. In late summer, we asked them to answer a list of questions about their political preferences, then observed their brain activity for nearly an hour in the scanner at the Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. Afterward, each subject filled out a second questionnaire. While in the scanner, the subjects viewed political pictures through a pair of special goggles; first a series of still photos of each candidate was presented in random order, then video excerpts from speeches. Then we showed them the set of still photos again. On the before and after questionnaires, subjects were asked to rate the candidates on the kind of 0-10 thermometer scale frequently used in polling, ranging from “very unfavorable” to “very favorable.” For the rest of the article go to... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11freedman.html?ref=opinion

Security Pro Admits to Hijacking PCs for Profit A Los Angeles security professional has admitted to infecting more than a quarter million computers with malicious software and installing spyware that was used to steal personal data and serve victims with online advertisements. John Kenneth Schiefer, 26, variously known online as "acid" and "acidstorm," agreed to plead guilty to at least four felony charges of fraud and wiretapping, charges punishable by $1.75 million in fines and nearly 60 years in prison. Investigators say Schiefer and two minors -- identified in the complaint only by their online screen names "pr1me" and "dynamic" -- broke into about 250,000 PCs. On at least 137,000 of those infected systems, Schiefer and his cohorts installed programs that allowed them to control the machines remotely. The malicious "bot" programs also allowed the attackers to steal any user names and passwords that victims had saved in Internet Explorer. Schiefer is thought to be the first in the United States to be accused of violating federal wiretapping laws by operating a "botnet" -- the term for a large grouping of hacked, remotely controlled computers -- according to Mark Krause, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles. In an exclusive interview with Security Fix, Schiefer said he's been experimenting with computers and writing software in one form or another since 1991, when he first discovered Internet relay chat(IRC) forums, a vast sea of text-based communications networks that predates instant-messaging software. There are tens of thousands of IRC channels all over the world catering to almost every imaginable audience or interest, including quite a few frequented exclusively by hackers, virus writers and loose-knit criminal groups. IRC channels have traditionally been among the most popular means of controlling botnets. For the past several years, Schiefer has acted as an administrator for "#bottalk" and "#rizon," two of the more active hacker chat rooms on IRC, where the discussion ranges from pop culture to methods for improving the latest bot programs and identifying which Web sites most recently got hacked. Schiefer said he and his friends spread the bot programs mainly over AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). By using malicious "spreader" programs such as Niteaim and AIM Exploiter, Schiefer and his co-conspirators spammed out messages inviting recipients to click on a link. Anyone who took the bait had a "Trojan horse" program downloaded to their machine, an invader that then tried to fetch the malicious bot program. Schiefer admits he and friends used several hjacked PayPal accounts to purchase Web hosting that helped facilitate the spreading of their bot programs. Schiefer's employer -- Los Angeles-based Internet telephony provider 3G Communications -- let him go in March 2006 after he filed a series of disability claims. His job at the time was to help secure communications networks for businesses. Schiefer claims that he stopped all of the malicious activity in early January 2006. "Ever since then, I've been more trying to create a positive thing and trying to prevent crap like this happening," he said. "I kind of saw the error of my ways and decided I'd had enough." Later that month, federal agents raided his home, seizing computer equipment and other evidence. Schiefer also said he had installed adware on machines he and his friends controlled, making a 20 cent commission each time they installed a piece of software from TopConverting, a now defunct adware company formerly owned by Simpel Internet, a marketing company based in the Netherlands. Schiefer acknowledged that in mid-2005, he made more than $19,000 in commissions from TopConverting by installing to hijacked computers. The government claims he made the money installing adware over a period of a month in June 2005. Schiefer said he earned that sum in less than one week's time. Schiefer admitted that he spent most of that week's earnings the following month entertaining himself and friends at DefCon, a massive hacker and security research conference held annually in Las Vegas. Interestingly, I featured TopConverting in a February 2006 story I wrote for The Washington Post Magazine, which chronicled the exploits of "0x80," a hacker who -- like Schiefer -- made thousands of dollars a month installing adware on machines he had seeded with bot programs. From that story: "Majy says TopConverting, which did not respond to requests for comment for this article, paid him an average of $2,400 every two weeks for installing its programs. He got 20 cents per install for computers in the United States and five cents per install for PCs in 16 other countries, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom. A nickel per install doesn't sound like much, unless you control a botnet of tens of thousands of computers." According to an FBI informant who asked not to be named, Schiefer was a member of Defonic, a hacker group that included the individuals identified in the paragraph above as Zach "Majy" Mann, as well as "0x80". Another member of Defonic --- Cameron "cam0" LaCroix -- earned his reputation after breaking into Paris Hilton's cell phone account and later leading the group in breaching data giant LexisNexis, a stunt in which cam0 and several others pulled sensitive records on more than 310,000 people, including a number of Hollywood celebrities. Most former members of the Defonic crew are now either in jail or have only recently been released from prison. Schiefer said he regrets his actions, and hopes that the cooperation he has shown with law enforcement in the case so far will lighten his sentence. "I don't think anyone should feel sorry for me," Schiefer said. "What I was doing was wrong [and] stupid, and I got caught." By Brian Krebs | November 10, 2007; 6:03 PM ET Fraud , Misc. , U.S. Government Previous: Patch Tuesday Preview, And a Windows Warning |

Yep, I agree. So does all their shareholders! It's sad when business management practices stagnate and fail. Someone should have been looking at new ways to adapt to the changing market; that's their job! Where are the artists? Who thought that Hampton's thing was a viable market??? Things are set up so that executives are paid well even if they screw up. They don't even have to try and they're financially rewarded. WTF? The market is the acid test. It won't lie.

I was thinking about trade and China, and trade works both ways. American cigarette companies are making a killing in China. I'm sure it's one of their biggest markets.

I'm the only one...LOL Yes! True, China has terrible human rights problems. It has also been invaded by foreign countries who have hosted the Olympics. There were some major human rights issues related to those invasions. I guess we can wait until China is a better country. But I think an argument can be made for changing a country by creating a social exchange. Anyway, that's my view. I don't know what to say about lead in the products ordered by American companies who profit from them. Imports are subjected to American safety laws... Someone isn't on the job in the US.

Wow....Nice graphic. Thanks Danny and Marion...

He's confused. Pete Campbell is from Jacksonville...LOL

Haha...Don't let Linda distract you.. Isn't he cute? I love the shot on page 179.

haha Sharon....come to the dark side.........That's what we call it...LOL Well, I hate to say it but if they're talking about code, it can be put anywhere on the net. I hope everyone has good virus protection.

LOL, Christine...I want my cats to my clean my house...

I have to wonder who's monitoring kids toys in our country. As far as I know, there are strict manufacturing guidelines that would apply to imports. Jeezz...kids will eat anything that looks like candy. I'm sure that's why they were doing it.

What a terrible tragedy. Schools here have learned to watch for signs of disturbed kids. I imagine they'll do the same in Europe. I guess someone with psychological issues can get ideas from anyone on the internet.

I love the garden, Beth... This cool..