Social networking, govt sites hacked in global attack...

Reuters

Thu Feb 18, 2010 (Reuters) - A new type of computer virus is known to have breached almost 75,000 computers in 2,500 organizations around the world, including user accounts of popular social network websites, according Internet security firm NetWitness.

The latest virus -- known as "Kneber botnet" -- gathers login credentials to online financial systems, social networking sites and email systems from infested computers and reports the information back to hackers, NetWitness said in a statement.

A botnet is an army of infected computers that hackers can control from a central machine."

The company said the attack was first discovered in January during a routine deployment of NetWitness software.

Further investigation by the Herndon, Virginia-based software security firm revealed that many commercial and government systems were compromised, including 68,000 corporate login credentials and access to email systems, online banking sites, Yahoo, Hotmail and social networks such as Facebook.

"Conventional malware protection and signature-based intrusion detection systems are, by definition, inadequate for addressing Kneber or most other advanced threats," Chief Executive Amit Yoran said in a statement.


(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Eric Auchard in Londo

Social networking, govt sites hacked in global attack | Reuters

Reuters

(Reuters)Thu Feb 18, 2010 - A new type of computer virus is known to have breached almost 75,000 computers in 2,500 organizations around the world, including user accounts of popular social network websites, according Internet security firm NetWitness.

The latest virus -- known as "Kneber botnet" -- gathers login credentials to online financial systems, social networking sites and email systems from infested computers and reports the information back to hackers, NetWitness said in a statement.

A botnet is an army of infected computers that hackers can control from a central machine."

The company said the attack was first discovered in January during a routine deployment of NetWitness software.

Further investigation by the Herndon, Virginia-based software security firm revealed that many commercial and government systems were compromised, including 68,000 corporate login credentials and access to email systems, online banking sites, Yahoo, Hotmail and social networks such as Facebook.

"Conventional malware protection and signature-based intrusion detection systems are, by definition, inadequate for addressing Kneber or most other advanced threats," Chief Executive Amit Yoran said in a statement.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Eric Auchard in London)

Men risk anticlimax with anatomy-boosting pants...

Reuters

LONDON (Reuters)Friday 12 Feb.2010 - Hundreds of British men are risking a Valentine's Day anticlimax for their partners by stocking up on anatomy-boosting underpants ahead of the most romantic weekend of the year.

British department store group Debenhams said Thursday it had seen a 76 percent surge in online sales of the 18 pounds-a-pair ($28) underwear in the past week.

The pants work by using a lift and hold feature at the front, like a male version of the cleavage-boosting Wonderbra.

"The briefs mean that no man ever needs to feel inadequate again on the most passionate day of the social calendar," said Rob Faucherand, head of men's accessories buying at Debenhams.

"However we can't be held responsible for what happens once the pants come off," he added.

(Reporting by Mark Potter)

Another water Hazard Question.

Another water Hazard Question. forums.iseekgolf.com

Was involved in a discussion today at the club about different rulings & this one came up;
Ball enters a lateral hazard. Player measures his allowed club lengths then drops the ball. The ball strikes the ground on slope that drops back into the hazard. The ball lands & stops on that spot.Does not roll back into the hazard. Player walks back up slope to his bag to get the club he needs for his next shot. walks back down the slope to where his ball had stopped to find that it had rolled back into the hazard. What is the ruling in this case?

Google debuts Buzz social networking - News - Software

ZDNet AustraliaBy Rupert Goodwins and Tom Krazit, CNET.co.uk

10 February 2010 Google announced on Tuesday that it was immediately rolling out Google Buzz, a location-aware social networking tool highly integrated with its Gmail client, Google Maps and a new Android app.

Available as a new tab in the standard Gmail interface, the service will share links, Gmail status updates, YouTube videos and Picasa photos. Other users can leave comments on each others shared data. Users to share Buzz can be automatically added from contacts, suggested by Google through frequency of correspondence, or selected individually. Buzz updates can be sent to Twitter, but as yet there is no automatic importation of tweets.

The service includes a recommendation engine that will try to suggest Buzz content users may find interesting, and will attempt to refine those recommendations over time by having users click "not interested" on recommended status updates if they don't want to see that sort of update again.

"Buzz also weeds out uninteresting posts from the people you follow — collapsing inactive posts and short status messages like "brb". These early versions of ranking and recommendations are just a start; we're working on improvements that will help you automatically sort through all the social data being produced to find the most relevant conversations that matter to you," the company said in a blog post.

"It has become a core belief of ours that organising the social information on the web is a Google-scale problem," said Todd Jackson, Gmail product manager, demonstrating Google Buzz at the company's headquarters a day before Tuesday's event. An astounding amount of social-media content is produced every day, across Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and personal blogs, and Google's faith that it could one day index and organise the entire internet has been shaken by this explosion in web content.

Google Buzz' location-based features will use GPS and various algorithms to identify where users are by place name; once users agree with its choice, they can leave Buzz updates that will appear on a new layer of Google Maps to friends, as well as being part of a general Buzz stream.

"A lot of the world's information is what's happening with my friends," said Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product management at the company. "We can't achieve [Google's] mission unless we solve these parts of that problem."

Google executives said that they intended Buzz to be open, that it will respect users' privacy decisions, will not lock up data and will have an open application programming interface. An Enterprise Buzz, linked to Google Apps, will be made available later: meanwhile, Google Buzz is being rolled out to its first users now and will become available to all Gmail users over the next week.

Via CNET News.com and ZDNet.co.uk

RNW24

RNW24

Dog washed out to sea has lucky escape...

Reuters

Wed Jan 27, 2010 WARSAW (Reuters) - A dog had a lucky escape when a Polish boat rescued him from an ice floe that had carried him more than 100 miles up a river and out onto the icy waters of the Baltic Sea.

"My crew saw... a shape moving on the water and we immediately decided to get closer to check if it was a dog or maybe a seal relaxing on the ice," Jan Joachim, senior officer aboard the Baltica, told Reuters Television.

"As we got closer to the ice floe we saw that it was a dog struggling not to fall into the water."

Ship engineer Adam Buczynski managed to scoop the dog off the floe onto an inflatable dinghy and wrapped him in a blanket.

"He didn't even squeal. There was just fear in his big eyes," said Buczynski.

The dog was first seen on the ice floe some 100 km (70 miles) inland to the south on the Vistula river but firemen were unable to rescue him. When the Baltica crew found him, he had already drifted some 24 km (18 miles) out to sea.

"We were in the right place at the right time," said Joachim, noting that they rescued him shortly before night fall.

The crew are now trying to locate the dog's owner.

Poland is in the grip of bitterly cold weather, with night temperatures in some areas falling as low as -34 Celsius (-31 Fahrenheit).

Pork better for sex than Viagra?

Reuters

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina's president recommended pork as an alternative to Viagra Wednesday, saying she spent a satisfying weekend with her husband after eating barbecued pork.

"I've just been told something I didn't know; that eating pork improves your sex life ... I'd say it's a lot nicer to eat a bit of grilled pork than take Viagra," President Cristina Fernandez said to leaders of the pig farming industry.

She said she recently ate pork and "things went very well that weekend, so it could well be true."

Argentines are the world's biggest per capita consumers of beef, but the government has sought to promote pork as an alternative in recent years due to rising steak prices and as a way to diversify the meat industry.

"Trying it doesn't cost anything, so let's give it a go," Fernandez said in the televised speech.

(Reporting by Karina Grazina; Writing by Helen Popper)

Teen pregnancy rate up after 10-year decline...

Reuters - Health By Jo-Anne Allen

WASHINGTON Tue Jan 26, 2010. Pot smoking during pregnancy may stunt fetal growth. The U.S. teen pregnancy rate rose in 2006 for the first time in more than a decade, reversing a long slide, a U.S. think tank reported on Tuesday.

The overall teen pregnancy rate was up 3 percent in 2006, with a 4 percent rise in the rate of births and a 1 percent rise in the rate of abortions, according to the report by the Guttmacher Institute.

The United States has higher rates of teen pregnancy, birth and abortion than in other Western industrialized countries.

There were 71 pregnancies per 1,000 U.S. girls aged 15-19. In 2006, 7 percent of all teenage girls got pregnant, according to the report.

Fewer black teenage girls got pregnant, closing a gap with Hispanic teens. But rates among both groups were still significantly higher than for white teens, the report said, and rates went up for all ethnic groups.

"We're not quite sure yet whether this is just a blip or whether it's the beginning of a longer upward trend," Larry Finer, Guttmacher's director for domestic research, said in a telephone interview.

"It's interesting to note that this flattening out of the rate and the increase in the rate is happening at the same time that we've seen substantial increases in funding for abstinence-only programs," Finer said.

"We do know that when we saw the big decline in the '90s, that a lot of that decline was due to improved contraceptive use among teens."

The abstinence-only programs, backed by many social conservatives who oppose the teaching of contraception methods to teenagers in U.S. schools, received about $1.3 billion in federal funds since the late 1990s.

The Obama administration's 2010 budget eliminated spending for abstinence-only, shifting funds to pregnancy prevention education that include abstinence along with "medically accurate and age-appropriate" information.

New Mexico led the states with the highest teenage pregnancy rate with nine percent, followed by Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Mississippi.

New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Minnesota and North Dakota had the lowest rates of teen pregnancies.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)

Haiti cruises cause controversy...

Telstra BigPond News

Saturday, January 23, 2010. Tourists holidaying near quake hit Port-au-Prince have caused controversy among online critics. Tourists stretched out on beach chairs in the sun, sipped pina coladas with pineapple slices and listened to Haitian folk music.

The beach resort of Labadee is just 100 kilometres from Port-au-Prince, but it's a world away from the devastation of the Haitian capital, where as many as 200,000 people are believed dead.

The cruise ships that stop here have become the centre of a controversy: Should vacationers relax and have fun with so much suffering elsewhere on the island? Or would it be worse to halt the port calls and deprive locals of what they earn from tourism?

James Charitable, 20, stood near the pier with a sign offering tours.

'Without this we don't eat,' he said, motioning toward the Celebrity Solstice cruise ship anchored just offshore of a beautiful expanse of white sand on Friday.

Charitable says he makes US$15 (AUS$16.60) every time a ship comes in. About 200 people work here, and a few hundred more vendors and service providers are allowed in whenever ships arrive.

The resort enclave, which has a beach, a zipline in the mountains and other activities, is leased by the Haitian government to Royal Caribbean International, which also owns the Celebrity cruise line.

Royal Caribbean allowed a team of journalists from The Associated Press to visit Labadee on Friday, but the cruise company's spokeswoman, Tracy Quan, would not allow them to interview or photograph cruise passengers.

Carol Myers, 53, a nurse from New Jersey, was not on the cruise ship but was enjoying the beach. She had spent an intense week tending to earthquake victims in a hospital in the nearby town of Milo, and was decompressing for a few hours before her scheduled return to the US on Saturday.

'I almost feel guilty for being here after what happened,' Myers said, sitting in a beach chair in blue scrubs. 'But the people need a job, the people need to eat.'

Royal Caribbean president and chief executive Adam Goldstein said the decision to continue with scheduled stops in Labadee was an easy one. The site sustained no damage, and he said the Haitian government welcomed the ship.

The country reaps a fixed cost per passenger, plus annual fees and the cash tourists spend on local goods at a marketplace where artisans and artists sell trinkets and crafts.

Royal Caribbean is also donating US$1 million (AUS$1.11 million), delivering food and water on every call and pledging net revenue from Labadee to the relief effort.

Maryse Kedar, president of Royal Caribbean's Haitian subsidiary, SOLANO, said the cruise visits are 'the only substantial commerce taking place in northern Haiti'.

But the cruise line found itself on the defensive after criticism spread online. Melissa Bacchus, a Brooklyn, New York, teacher, was among several veteran cruisers to dominate message boards on sites like Cruisecritic.com with the debate.

'I do think morally it is wrong to go (to Labadee), where less than 60 miles away people are suffering,' Bacchus said in an interview. 'And because we have the resources, we have the wealth, we can frolic using the beauty of their island?'

Bacchus suggested Royal Caribbean pay Haiti its regular port fees, but not actually stop there. She said they could also give local artisans money to go back home and assist in the relief effort.

Public relations experts quoted by AdAge.com said Royal Caribbean had made a mistake by mixing leisure business with humanitarian efforts.

'The brand will take a hit,' Paul Gallagher, managing director of WPP's Burson Marsteller's issues and advocacy practice, was quoted as saying.

Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic suffered no damage from the earthquake, but the government is clearly worried that vacationers may cancel trips there because of the disaster on the other side of the border.

The Dominican Ministry of Tourism has issued repeated statements that it was unaffected by the quake, including pointing out that Port-au-Prince is hundreds of kilometres and several mountain ranges away.

That message was lost on travellers like Debbie Ulin, a 39-year-old mother of two in Hillsdale, New Jersey, whose family and two others cancelled a group trip planned to the Dominican beach resort of Punta Cana for February.

'With everything happening as it did, we sort of all came to the realisation that it's probably not the best time to be travelling to the Dominican right now,' Ulin said.

'As selfish as I feel when I say that, it's not so important, my vacation. We didn't feel like it would be the safe place to go with the families this soon after the devastation has occurred.'

Arthur Applbaum, a Harvard University professor of ethics and public policy, said that while it shows 'moral sensitivity to be disturbed by the thought that one is vacationing on the beach when others are suffering nearby, it also shows insufficient moral reflection to think that proximity makes a moral difference.

'The people of Haiti are suffering whether you take your beach vacation in the Dominican Republic or in Hawaii, and it is a failure of the moral imagination not to be equally troubled in Waikiki,' he said.

Expert finds vulnerabilities in Microsoft browser...

Reuters

BOSTON (Reuters)Fri Jan 22,2010 - A security research firm said it discovered another set of vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer, a day after Microsoft Corp patched the Web browser following a high-profile cyber attack on Google in China.

The software maker issued a patch on Thursday to fight malicious software that was used in the attack on Google Inc and dozens of other companies which operate in China.

Research firm Core Security Technologies said on Friday that it discovered another set of vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer that hackers can link together and exploit, to remotely access all of the data on a personal computer.

"There are three or four ways to conduct this type of attack," said Jorge Luis Alvarez Medina, a security consultant with Boston-based Core, who will demonstrate the vulnerability at the Black Hat security conference in Washington, which begins February 2.

A spokeswoman for Microsoft said she could not immediately comment on the matter.

Alvarez Medina said hackers can exploit a string of four or five minor vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer, which is used on hundreds of millions of PCs around the world.

Although none of the vulnerabilities are serious enough to compromise a machine, a hacker could take control of a PC by exploiting all of them at once, he said.

The combination would overwhelm the browser, giving a hacker access to all data on the PC after a user clicks on a malicious link, he said.

Alvarez Medina added that he was uncertain whether any hackers had already exploited the weaknesses, which Microsoft has yet to patch.

He said that Core was working with Microsoft to find a way to mitigate the risk, but added that he believed other vulnerabilities would crop up even after a solution to these.

"It is likely that people will come up with new ones over time," he said.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle, editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

'Noisy sex' woman spared prison...

BBC News

<--The Cartwrights' noisy love-making went on for 'hours at a time' !!!!!!

Friday, 22 January 2010 A woman who breached an Asbo banning her from having noisy sex has been given a suspended prison sentence.

Caroline and Steve Cartwright's "unnatural" love-making prompted complaints from neighbours, a postman and a woman taking her child to school.

The 48-year-old, from Washington on Wearside, had earlier pleaded guilty to three counts of breaching the Asbo.

At Newcastle Crown Court, she was given eight weeks suspended for 12 months and a 12-month supervision order.

During a previous hearing, next door neighbour Rachel O'Connor told the court she was frequently late for work because she overslept having been kept awake most of the night.

She said: "The noise sounds like they are both in considerable pain. I cannot describe the noise. I have never ever heard anything like it."

I've heard a very short extract of the noise you make and can well see that your neighbours would be upset and distressed

In December, Cartwright, of Hall Road, lost an appeal against the Asbo and an earlier noise abatement order.

Passing sentence, Judge Beatrice Bolton said: "I've heard a very short extract of the noise you make and can well see that your neighbours would be upset and distressed by this.

"The difficulty here is that the first occurrence was the day following the order. Then three days later you breached it again.

"In addition it's quite clear from the small extract I heard that you made no attempt to silence yourself."

Ms Bolton warned Cartwright that if she committed further offences of the same nature, she would be sent to prison.

Greg Norman still leader of earnings pack...

The Australian - News From: The Courier-Mail January 20, 2010

Golfer Greg Norman again tops the rich for top Australian sports earners.

January 20, 2010.THE prize money has slowed to a trickle, but golfer Greg Norman is still Australia's top sports earner, with an annual income of about $15 million.

Twice-divorced Norman emerged as the top earner on the BRW Top 50 Sports Earners list thanks mainly to sponsorships, endorsements and his golf course-design company.

Basketballer Andrew Bogut has closed the gap on Norman, making $14 million last year.

In his second year, Bogut makes $US60.5 million ($66 million)in contract extension with US NBA outfit the Milwaukee Bucks.

Soccer star Harry Kewell is third on the BRW list, with a $9.5 million pay packet, mostly from his Turkish club Galatasaray.

Most of Australia's top sports earners make their money overseas, although Test cricket captain Ricky Ponting ($4.26 million) makes the list at number 12. Other cricketers on the list are Brett Lee (15th, $3.52 million), Michael Clarke (21st, $2.54 million), Michael Hussey (41st, $1.39 million) and Andrew Symonds (50th, $1.22 million).

Former V8 Supercars champion Marcos Ambrose rocketed on to the list for the first time, at number seven.

Ambrose collected $5.44 million in earnings from his first full year of driving for the JTG Daugherty Racing team in the US NASCAR series.

Motorsport provided four of the top 10, led by F1 ace Mark Webber in fourth spot with $9 million in earnings, followed by motocross star Chad Reed (fifth, $8.8 million), Ambrose and MotoGP rider Casey Stoner (eighth, $5 million).

Australia's top tennis players, Lleyton Hewitt and Samantha Stosur, made the list at 18th and 35th place respectively, with earnings of $2.88 million and $1.53 million.

China: We are biggest victim of cyberattacks...

PC World By Owen Fletcher

(IDG News Service) 20/01/2010. China on Tuesday denied any role in alleged cyberattacks on Indian government offices, calling China itself the biggest victim of hackers.

When asked about Google's allegation that cyberattacks launched from China hit the U.S. search giant, foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said Chinese companies were also often hit by cyberattacks.

"China is the biggest victim of hacking attacks," Ma said, citing the example of top Chinese search engine Baidu.com being hacked last week.

Google last week said it might exit China after being hit by recent hacking attempts largely aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. It also said it planned to hold talks with Chinese authorities about whether it could offer an uncensored version of its local search engine.

Ma said he did not know if Chinese authorities had started talks with Google. A Google spokeswoman did not confirm a Bloomberg news report that Google and China had already started the talks. "That's not what we've been saying," she said in an e-mail.

An Indian official has reportedly said local government offices including that of India's National Security Advisor were also targeted last month by hackers believed to be from China.

Ma said the allegation was baseless.

BBC Sport - Golf - Roger Federer backs Tiger Woods to return to golf soon

BBC Sport - Golf

Saturday, 16 January 2010 Tennis star Roger Federer has revealed he has been in touch with Tiger Woods and hopes the world's number one golfer will be back competing soon.

Woods has announced he is taking an indefinite break from professional golf after admitting to "infidelities".

Federer is one of the few to speak to Woods since the media furore over the American's private life erupted.

"I wish him all the best getting back, hopefully on the golf course, resolving his problems," said the 28-year-old.

The 15-time Grand Slam winner, who has appeared with his friend Woods in TV commercials, refused to be drawn further on the scandal surrounding the American, saying he had only followed events "from afar".

Woods's personal life hit the headlines last November when he crashed a car into a tree outside his Florida home.

After weeks of press speculation, the 14-times golf major winner then released a statement on his website admitting to "infidelity" and has not been seen in public since the car accident.

Federer said he did not feel any added pressure to lead an unblemished life, revealing it was important for him to uphold the principles of fair play, respect for the game and his rivals.

"I just try to be myself, not change for the press or the public or the fans," he added.

"If they like me, that's great. If they don't, that's too bad.

"Sure, I'm doing a lot of press conferences, and not being able to hide on the tennis court is not an easy thing sometimes. But I think I've done well over the years."

Woods has lost a number of endorsements since the infamous car crash, with Gillette announcing on 12 December that it would limit Woods's role in its marketing while the champion took time off to deal with his personal life.

Two days later the giant management consultancy firm Accenture ended its sponsorship with Woods, saying the golfer was "no longer the right representative".

Telecoms giant AT&T and the watchmaker Tag Heuer have scaled down its use of the star, while drinks manufacturer Gatorade discontinued a line of Tiger Woods-branded energy drinks.

A recent University of California study suggested the total economic damage of the Woods incident to all involved parties could amount to as much as $12bn.

Tiger Woods has not been seen in public since his car accident
In an interview published on Friday by French sports daily L'Equipe, Federer said Woods "needs calm".

"The tabloids are going crazy, sponsor contracts are falling apart ... I've always been aware that the image you patiently construct for an entire career can be ruined in a minute," stated Federer. "It scares you a bit, but that's the way things are.

SAYS ROGER FEDERER: "Tiger needs calm. And soon he'll become the wonderful golfer that we know again."

Golf - Jack Nicklaus says Tiger Woods needs to return in 2010.

BBC Sport - Golf

Nicklaus (left) currently leads Woods by four majors
Jack Nicklaus believes world number one Tiger Woods will find it harder to break his record of 18 majors if he does not compete this year.

Woods, who has 14 majors, has not played since admitting infidelity.

"If Tiger is going to pass my record I think this is a big year - if he doesn't play obviously the chore will be a little tougher", said Nicklaus.

But Woods's former coach Butch Harmon believes he will return to action in March, before the Masters in April.

He expects Woods, 34, to return at one of four tournaments scheduled for March - the Honda Classic, the World Golf Championships-CA Championship, the Transitions Championship or the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

All four tournaments are in Florida, Woods's home state, and the American has regularly competed in the last two in previous years.

But Harmon told the Observer newspaper that the world number one must face a humiliation and embarrassing news conference over his infidelities before he can get on with his life.

"The golfing public would like to see Tiger Woods do a press conference," he said.

"To stand there in front of everybody, take his medicine, be humble, be embarrassed, be humiliated and answer the questions.

"If he wants to rekindle the image of who he is, this would be the best way to do it, to do the press conference because then he looks human.

Tiger is a big influence and probably the largest we have ever had and I certainly hope he comes back and plays but the tour is not all about one person

Golf legend Jack Nicklaus
"He is going to look ridiculous really, with the questions that are going to be asked. But the average person would appreciate that side of him because they've never seen that.

"The difficult part, in my opinion, is going to be the heckling from the galleries. He is going to get it.

"If he plays in the Ryder Cup (in Wales in October) which I happen to think he will, that is going to be very interesting.

"But he is the strongest person mentally that's ever played our game. If there is anyone who can block out this extra stuff that is going on around him, he is probably the guy."

Nicklaus said only Woods knew when he would be ready to return but added that the locations of three of this year's majors - the Masters, US Open and The Open - are among Woods's favourite courses.

"Certainly this year where (three of the four) majors are, he loves Augusta, Pebble Beach and St Andrews... he 'owns' all three of those places," said Nicklaus.

Woods has won the Masters at Augusta four times, the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach and The Open at St Andrews in 2000 and 2005.

Nicklaus, who celebrates his 70th birthday on 21 January, said the game would prosper regardless of Woods's future.

"There was golf after Bobby Jones, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, the game has always survived us and the game will continue to go forward," he said.

"Tiger is a big influence and probably the largest we have ever had and I certainly hope he comes back and plays. But the tour is not all about one person."

Users spurn traditional calls for Skype...

Reuters

FRANKFURT (Reuters) Tue 19 Jan 2009.- Users wanting to call home form abroad are increasingly turning to Skype's Internet telephony service to the detriment of international carriers, new data showed.

"Skype is now the largest provider of cross border communications in the world, by far," said Stephan Beckert, analyst at research firm TeleGeography on Tuesday.

Skype's technology allows consumers to make practically free long-distance calls over the Internet on fixed lines. It is mostly used on desktops but Skype has made the move into mobile too and it now comes pre-installed on some cellphones.

According to the firm's data, over the past 25 years, international call volume from telephones have grown at a compounded annual rate of 15 percent.

In the past two years this growth has however slowed to only 8 percent, rising from 376 billion minutes in 2008 to an estimated 406 billion minutes last year.

By comparison, Skype's on-net international traffic between two Skype users grew 51 percent in 2008, and is projected to grow 63 percent in 2009, to 54 billion minutes.

"The volume of traffic routed via Skype is tremendous," said Beckert.

In general, TeleGeography said, "demand for international voice has been remarkably robust, but it's clearly not recession-proof."

Traffic to Mexico, the world's largest calling destination, declined 4 percent in 2008 for example, and aggregate traffic to Central America declined 5 percent, data showed.

Established in 2003 and based in Luxembourg, privately owned Skype has more than 520 million registered customers who use the free Web service for voice, video or text communication.

But despite its size, its revenue is relatively modest -- at about $551 million in 2008 -- as the company has had a difficult time getting users to pay for its largely free services.

Skype aims to nearly double its annual revenue to $1 billion in two years.

(Reporting by Nicola Leske)

Impromptu billboard porn film stops traffic...

Reuters

Fri Jan 15, 2010.MOSCOW (Reuters) - An enormous television screen showing a pornographic film caused a midnight traffic jam in central Moscow Thursday as stunned motorists slammed on the brakes to gawk at the writhing naked bodies.

The owner of the advertising screen, which sits atop a main road about two km (1.2 miles) south of the Kremlin, told the state-run RIA news agency that hackers had broken into the screen's computer system and turned on the porn.

"They were either acting out of hooliganism or were from a rival company," Viktor Laptev, commercial director of advertising firm Panno.ru, told RIA.

A short clip showing cars slowing to a halt to look at the screen sprung up on youtube.com and internet sites Friday across Russia, a country which banned nudity on television before the Soviet Union fell in 1991.

Authorities said they are investigating, RIA added.

(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman and Denis Dyomkin, editing by Paul Casciato)

Prostitute fined $820,000 for unpaid tax...

Reuters

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's tax office has levied a fine of 2.3 million zlotys ($820,000) on an unemployed woman for failing to pay tax on income worth at least 13.7 million zlotys she said she had earned as a prostitute.

The woman told the tax office in the southern city of Katowice that she had very "generous" customers, the website gazeta.pl, which is linked to leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, reported Tuesday.

One of her clients paid the woman 5 million zlotys during the 1997-2002 period, she was quoted as saying.

The website gave no further details.

(Reporting by Kuba Jaworowski)

Culemborg geteisterd door groep Marokkanen....

Elsevier.nl - Nederland

Zaterdag 9 januari 2010 09:53. Een groep van zo’n 21 jonge Marokkanen veroorzaakt een groot deel van de problemen in Culemborg. Niet alleen de rellen in probleemwijk Terweijde, maar ook een aanzienlijk deel van de criminaliteit in de stad kan aan deze groep toegeschreven worden.

Intimiderend
De groep, met een harde kern van zo’n 21 Marokkaanse jongens van tussen de 15 en 31 jaar oud is zo intimiderend dat maar weinig Culemborgers aangifte durven doen. Ook zouden zij hun criminele activiteiten zo goed aanpakken dat zij voor de politie bijna ongrijpbaar zijn. Er zwermt nog een groep van 29 potentiële criminelen rond de groep, jongeren die net beginnen met criminele handelingen.Volgens het rapport houdt de politie de groep 'scherp in de gaten'.

In de probleemwijk Terweijde hadden op oudejaarsavond rellen plaats. Een groep jonge Marokkanen reed opzettelijk op een groep Molukse feestvierders in. Naar verluidt zou een van die feestvierders een 15-jarig meisje zijn dat aangifte had gedaan tegen een stel Marokaanse jongeren die een auto in brand hadden gestoken. Bij de ongeregeldheden van een paar dagen later werd een steen door de ruit van haar huis gegooid.

Familieruzie
Een vertegenwoordiger van de Marokkaanse gemeenschap in Culemborg verklaarde aan de Volkskrant dat de ruzies in Terweijde door een uit de hand gelopen familievete veroorzaakt zouden zijn. Ook in september liep het al eens uit de hand in Terweijde, ook destijds moest de ME er aan te pas komen om beide bevolkingsgroepen uit elkaar te houden.

Door Marlou Visser