Facing a booing crowd in Europe, a PayPal executive tried to explain why his company blocked donations to WikiLeaks. He cited a letter from the State Department calling the secrets-sharing site illegal. Sadly for him, no such letter exists — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A small army of activist hackers orchestrated a broad campaign of cyberattacks on Wednesday in support of the beleaguered antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks, which has drawn governmental criticism from around the globe for its release of classified American documents and whose founder, Julian Assange, is being held in Britain on accusations of sex offenses.
Targets included Mastercard.com, which stopped processing donations for WikiLeaks; Amazon.com, which revoked server space from the group; the online payment service PayPal, which cut off its commercial cooperation; the lawyer representing the two Swedish women who have accused Mr Assange in the sex case; and PostFinance, the Swiss postal system’s financial arm, which closed Mr Assange’s account after saying he provided false information by saying that he resided in Switzerland — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Australia’s foreign minister has said the US is to blame for the release of thousands of diplomatic cables on WikiLeaks, not its Australian founder, Julian Assange — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Picture the scene: An intelligent young American reporter and her able cameraman are on assignment deep the heart of the old Cold War super power. Their story: Ten thousand protestors, led by a priest, outside a military school that has been proven to train death squads, rapists and high ranking war criminals. Each year some of the protesters deliberately cross into the base and are arrested, in an effort to draw attention to the plight of those killed and have the school closed.
This year, however, the police are more aggressive than usual, and they arrest protestors who remained outside. The journalists are arrested too. They are held for 32 hours then released after paying a fine.
It’s the kind of story that you’d expect to see in the hourly headlines on CNN — and every other western 24 hour news channel for each of those 32 hours. Afterward, there would have been extended exclusive interviews, maybe even on Oprah or Larry King.
And it might well have been — if it weren’t for the fact that the old Cold War superpower in question wasn’t Russia but the US — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The latest document release by WikiLeaks has attracted predictable condemnation from those who have a vested interest in maintaining a veil of secrecy over their activities. To a large extent the Australian media have missed the point of the document disclosures — via redwolf.newsvine.com
In 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide’s The News, wrote: In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win.
His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch’s expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.
Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The US regards the Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd, as an abrasive, impulsive ”control freak” who presided over a series of foreign policy blunders during his time as prime minister, according to a series of secret diplomatic cables.
The scathing assessment, detailed in messages sent by the US embassy in Canberra to the secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton over several years, are among hundreds of US State Department cables relating to Australia obtained by WikiLeaks and made available exclusively to the Herald. — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The Oriental hornet has a unique ability to harvest solar energy, scientists have discovered.
The large wasp species has a special structure in its abdomen that traps the sun’s rays, and a special pigment that harvests the energy they contain.
The discovery helps explain why these hornets have a large yellow stripe across their body and why they become more active as the day gets hotter.
It also changes our understanding of how insect metabolism can work — via jcatom.newsvine.com
The Jewel Box is designed to retail precious stones, and accommodate administrative offices. The building is shaped by both program and the geometries of crystals — via ArchDaily
Trying to make extra press for its boutique in the Taipei 101 building that still holds the title of the tallest not only in Taiwan but the whole Asia, the Italian brand offers a new Panerai Luminor 1950 10 Days GMT Taipei 101 Limited Edition automatic watch — via World Watch Review
A coded manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered in a public library in the French city of Nantes — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Seem like the Swiss watchmaker gradually commences sales of their new Tag Heuer Monaco Vintage Chronograph watch (Ref. CAW211B.FC6241). According to the corporate press release, the watch will be powered by the well-known TAG Heuer Calibre 11 automatic movement, which is essentially ETA 2892-A2 base caliber with a Chronograph module from Dubois Depraz — via World Watch Review
A group of academics is proposing a system of underground tunnels which could deliver food and other goods in all weathers with massive energy savings.
The Foodtubes group wants to put goods in metal capsules 2m long, which are shifted through underground polyethylene tubes at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour, directed by linear induction motors and routed by intelligent software to their destinations — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The founder of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has been arrested by the Metropolitan Police — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The Google e-bookstore is finally open.
After years of planning and months of delays, the search giant Google started its e-book venture on Monday, creating a potentially robust competitor in the digital book market to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The Ribera del Duero region, one of Spain’s foremost wine producing areas, is home to a new winery for the Faustino Group. The Faustino Winery is Foster + Partners first winery and was an opportunity to look afresh at the building type, using the natural topography of the site to aid the wine-making process and create the optimum working conditions. The trefoil plan reflects the principal process stages, with the operational support and visitors facilities strategically located in the center of the building. The public areas are on a mezzanine level along with a restaurant with views of the surrounding landscape. Two volumes house the ageing processes and are strategically buried into the natural slope of the site taking advantage of the thermal cooling benefits of the earth — via ArchDaily
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) will be asked to investigate a fake letter from the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) which demanded money from a user for breaching copyright law — via redwolf.newsvine.com
I’m (was?) a Twitter user. This past week I found it utterly weird that none of the words #wikileaks, #cablegate, #cables, #Assange were actually trending
. I even tweeted about this 5 days ago. Today, my fears of secret censorship seem to be coming true. It appears that Twitter is censoring all these words, so they don’t appear in the (much-used) Twitter trends
list. Update 1: A Twitter staffer replied to the blog post saying that their trending algorithm doesn’t always result to the most popular terms. Update 2: More investigation about what might be going on — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Researchers are tracking a new botnet that has become one of the more active DDoS networks on the Internet since its emergence early last month. The botnet, dubbed Darkness
, is being controlled by several domains hosted in Russia and its operators are boasting that it can take down large sites with as few as 1,000 bots — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Anonymous has launched a broad-ranging campaign in support of WikiLeaks, starting with a DDoS assault on a PayPal website.
The denial of service attack lasted for eight hours and resulted in numerous service disruptions, Panda Security reports — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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