If the iPad had existed in the 80s, maybe this is how Survivor would have recorded its hit song “Eye of the Tiger.” This techno trio recorded the classic song using only the iPad apps Real Drums, Pro Keys, Baby Scratch, and Guitar Mania.

Full Story: Forevergeek

Remember when the Pirate Bay tried to raise enough money to buy the Principality of Sealand? Well, this is a bit different. Torrentreactor.net, one of the most popular torrent sites on the Internet today, says it has bought the small village of Gar, in the Tomsk province of Russia. The single requirement was that the town rename itself to “Torrentreactor.”

Whether this is legit or not is still unclear at best. The folks at TorrentFreak, who were first to report on this, say that while they’ve attempted to contact the authorities in Tomsk, they haven’t received any word back yet. This, coupled with the fact that torrent sites in general are notorious for pranks and publicity stunts, makes the whole thing look like a hoax. It certainly doesn’t help that the image used by Torrentreactor.net has what appears to be a well-shopped sign that reads “Torrentreactor” in Cyrillic text. When you view the image, note the weathering of the text. The town was supposedly just renamed, so the text should be brand new, shouldn’t it?

According to Torrentreactor.net, the village has been sitting in near desolation until now. The 214 inhabitants make a living their selling vegetables in other nearby towns. There are three computers in the whole village; one at the administration office and two at the school — but only one has access to the Internet and it’s via dial-up modem. None of the villagers had any idea who or what Torrentreactor.net was.

Full Story: Download Squad

MANILA CITY, METRO MANILA – On the day President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III delivered his first State of the Nation Address, a new and seemingly improved Gov.PH website also went up.

This time, the website is more like a professional blog than the standard HTML website that had been in use during the entirety of former President Gloria Arroyo’s term.

The site is now called the Official Gazette and is said to be edited at the Office of the President as mandated under Commonwealth Act No. 638.

Gone are the links to the other government websites and press releases, which are normally updated on a daily basis. The site manager has also removed the online forum that allowed registered users to post topics related to the government.

Instead, the new Gov.ph site includes just the entire speech of President Aquino in his first SONA, about 11 photos, and his “Platform of Government” that is essentially Aquino’s platform during the campaign season.

As for the removed online forum, it has been replaced or enhanced an official Govph Twitter account, which also went up last July 26. Like the Official Gazette, the Govph Twitter only has the transcript of President Aquino’s SONA, both in English and Filipino. The Govph twitter account has at least 1,000 followers as of July 28.

Full Story: Yahoo PH

In the May 10 Philippine automated elections, he became an overnight Twitter celebrity in the country for his witty @pcosmachine tweets. Now, Yves Gonzalez, better known online by his other Twitter handle @doblezeta, is the new spokesperson of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority.

Fittingly, as of this writing, he is conducting a real-time public training for his team using the test Twitter account @MMDAtweets

Twitter users can send their traffic-related questions by directing their queries to @MMDAtweets. Again, this is just a test account, to test logistics and response time before they launch the official MMDA Twitter account.

Full Story: Yahoo PH

A wide swath of the net’s top websites, including MTV, ESPN, MySpace, Hulu, ABC, NBC and Scribd, were sued in federal court Friday on the grounds they violated federal computer intrusion law by secretly using storage in Adobe’s Flash player to re-create cookies deleted by users.

At issue is technology from Quantcast, also targeted in the lawsuit. Quantcast created Flash cookies that track users across the web, and used them to re-create traditional browser cookies that users deleted from their computers. These “zombie” cookies came to light last year, after researchers at UC Berkeley documented deleted browser cookies returning to life. Quantcast quickly fixed the issue, calling it an unintended consequence of trying to measure web traffic accurately.

Flash cookies are used by many of the net’s top websites for a variety of purposes, from setting default volume levels on video players to assigning a unique ID to users that tracks them no matter what browser they use. (Disclosure: The last time we reported on this issue, we found that Wired.com used one to set video preferences.)

Full Story: Wired

Note to crooks: the grab-and-snatch iPhone tactic just got a little more risky now that GPS apps can tell police exactly where you are after you take it.

Horatio Toure, a 31-year-old crook in San Francisco, learned this the hard way.

He pedaled up on a bike, snatched a woman’s iPhone, then rode away. He didn’t know the victim was part of a company’s demonstration of a real-time GPS tracking program called Alert & Respond from Covia Labs,  SF Gate tells us.

Just 10 minutes later and only a half-mile from the scene of the crime, police nabbed him.  He was booked into jail on suspicion of grand theft and possession of stolen property.

Of course, this is great publicity for the new service, but as we reported Apple’s Find my iPhone program for MobileMe subscribers has also already tracked down another unlucky iPhone thief in much the same manner.

Full Story: Cult of Mac

I was exploring some cool, funny and interesting pictures on the web, when I stumbled on this “500 worst password” image on Flickr. After reading the list of passwords It made me think because although this is hilarious it is also a serious matter. Some  internet users today usually use some of the passwords that are listed on the image. Using unsafe passwords will make your account vulnerable for any attacks. I posted an article a year ago on how you can make a good password.

Full Story: PC Tech Notes

A man has been arrested for spying on more than 150 girls in their bedrooms by hacking into their computers and using their webcams to watch them, provoking warnings that others will be doing the same thing.

The hacker, from the Rhineland area, is suspected of having infected computers with a program enabling him to manipulate webcams, a spokesman for the Aachen state prosecutor confirmed on Friday.

Thomas Floß from the association of data protection advisors, discovered the case, according to a report in the Westfalenblatt newspaper. He often visits schools to talk with children about data protection and sensible behaviour on the internet.

His presentation includes a video showing how children can be spied on via their webcam.

“I want to show how dangerous webcams are,” he said. “I became suspicious when from February, increasing numbers of girls expressed the suspicion this was happening to them.”

Two girls told him the little lights on their webcams were not going out when they had finished using them. On examining one of the computers Floß discovered a so-called Trojan computer program which was being used to control the equipment, and which had been spread via the chat service ICQ.

Full Story: The Local.de

Hot on the heels of recent threats from Vice President Joe Biden and Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel directed at sites offering unauthorized movies and music, last month U.S. authorities targeted several sites they claimed were connected to the streaming of infringing video material.

‘Operation In Our Sites‘ targeted several sites including TVShack.net, Movies-Links.TV, FilesPump.com, Now-Movies.com, PlanetMoviez.com, ThePirateCity.org, ZML.com, NinjaVideo.net and NinjaThis.net. In almost unprecedented action, the domain names of 7 sites were seized and indications are that others – The Pirate Bay and MegaUpload – narrowly avoided the same fate.

Fears remain, however, that this action is only the beginning, and that more sites will be targeted as the months roll on. Indeed, TorrentFreak has already received information that other sites, so far unnamed in the media, are being monitored by the authorities on copyright grounds.

Full Story: Torrent Freak

We’ve all been there. You’re either at work or school or university and you desperately need to visit LiveJasmin — or play FarmVille. But the computer won’t let you! ‘Page not found’ it says. 404 my foot! You’re being firewalled! You’re being blackholed! You’re being COCKBLOCKED!

Fortunately, in most non-enterprise cases (if you work at IBM, this guide probably won’t work), networks are set up by technicians that don’t know their RJ45 from their RJ14, their patch cable from their patch server, their silicon from their silicone — in short, most corporate and educational networks are easy to break out of.

With this guide, you can be surfing Facebook, jacking off to Cam4 or playing World of Warcraft within 10 minutes. Some of the methods described are easy to pull off, and some will require technical expertise. Still, if you’re reading this from work you’ve got plenty of time to blow, eh?

Full Story: Download Squad

Celluloid-worthy beauty Anna Chapman, arrested by the FBI for belonging to an Russian espionage network called “the illegals,” may also go down in history as the spy who loved Macs.

On January 25, the 28-year-old told her 175 Facebook friends: “My new Mac has been the buy of the year…Love it!”

It wasn’t an easy relationship, though. According to the FBI documents, her spy job was plagued by network problems that made transmitting her weekly Wednesday intelligence reports via a private wireless network at Starbucks and Barnes and Noble in New York a major hassle. Documents didn’t mention which Apple laptop
she used.

When asked how she was doing by another Russian agent, Chapman replied, “Everything is cool
apart from connection,” which the FBI investigator understood to mean the technical difficulties with the laptop-to-laptop covert communications
. (See page bottom of page 9 of the complaint, here).

Alas, even today’s agents of espionage aren’t as tech savvy as one would assume. He responds:

“I know you are having some problems with the connections. I am not the technical guy…I don’t know how to fix it, but if you tell me, I can pass it up.”

Full Story: Cult of Mac

The move is reckoned to make it easier to separate porn from mainstream web sites. At a public meeting in Brussels yesterday, ICANN general counsel John Jeffrey said the .xxx domain is likely be approved today.

We revealed how a legal victory paved the way for the porn domain after ICANN was deemed to have broken its own rules when it denied would-be porn peddler ICM Registry the chance to sell .xxx domains.

Full Story: THINQ (UK)

A further 50 offences were taken into consideration, Sussex Police said.
Using sophisticated computer programmes, some of which he wrote himself, ”obsessive loner” Peckover remotely viewed files of other computer users without their knowledge or consent.

Systems by Google and BT were misused by Peckover who breached security barriers to target online betting sites and individual email
accounts.

Full Story: Telegraph (UK)