More On Sony: Hacker Group Anonymous Denies Affiliation With Most Recent Attack

According to Sony, a file named "Anonymous" with the sentence "We Are Legion" contained within was discovered on Sony servers Sunday during a deep investigation of the most recent hack that brought PSN crashing down.

Sony wants to blame hacker group Anonymous for the attack but the group claims no affiliation with the attack. While the group organized and conducted a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) on Sony's Playstation Network servers days before the high profile break in was discovered, the group still claims that the had nothing to do with the attack and intrustion that compromised over 70 million users personal data.

The group posted a letter stating that "While we are a distributed and decentralized group, our 'leadership' does not condone credit card theft" and "If a legitimate and honest investigation is conducted, Anonymous will not be found liable."

It is possible that the DDoS attack that was conducted by Anonymous provided cover for the true hackers, who performed a well-thought out and organized attack leading to the theft of millions of users credit card information.

In my opinion, I think that Anonymous had nothing to do with it. The true hackers saw a window, pulled off the unthinkable very swiftly and smoothly then planted a file pointing back at Anonymous during their get away.

FOLLOWERS:
1. Are you getting antsy about the still down PSN?
2. Who do you think it was? Anonymous or another group?
3. Isn't Anonymous too unorganized to do something like this?

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Posted in: News,Technology,World News

Alleged PSN Hackers Claim To Have Stolen Over 2 Million Credit Cards

So we all know that the PlayStation Network has been hacked and PlayStation loyalists have been unable to play their beloved games for over a week now.

We also know that these hackers had access to pretty much all of our information should we have provided to Sony at any time. However, Sony claimed that credit card information was encrypted and it was highly unlikely that it was stolen as well.

We all know that was probably a lie. If the hackers managed to do enough damage to keep the network down for over a week, then something big has happened.

Reported by NY Times, some security researchers have uncovered some chatter on underground websites and message boards that state that the hackers made away with just over 2 million credit card numbers, security codes and all.

The researchers also uncovered a few hints suggesting that the hackers intended on selling the database for 100k and allegedly even tried to sell it back to Sony. (which would be a poor choice on their behalf)

At any rate, this could all be a few internet pranksters making up stories about the hackers true intentions and accomplishments. But I'm willing to bet they made off with data more valuable than your name and address.

On the bright side, Sony has stated that they are looking into ways to pay back their users for their cooperation and patients.

FOLLOWERS:
1. Do you use PSN?
2. Are you worried about this?
3. Xbox or PS3 (no flamewarzzzz)

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Posted in: Knowledge,News,Technology,World News

Super Lazer In Production - Creates More Power Than All Of Civilization

 Firstly, I would like to apologize for lacking in the post section for the last week. My whole world became engulfed by my University finals weeks. It's nearly over though!

At any rate, here's the story:

The European Commission has given the go ahead on funding from the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania for three "ultrafast" laser laboratories in each respective country providing funding.

The project between the three countries is called the Extreme Light Infrastructure Project(click the name for their website, pretty interesting). Each of the three countries will contribute about $400 million to the project.

The Extreme Light Infrastructure Project plans to create many new powerful lasers, the first of which will fire at 10 petawatts, thats 8.9 petawatts more than the worlds current most powerful laser.

If you aren't sure what a petawatt is or how powerful it is lets put it in perspective. The power that the Earth receives from the Sun totals around 174 petawatts.

So what about the super laser they plan to create? Well...they are projected to have a firing rate of 200 petawatts. That's more powerful than the Sun.

I don't know what they plan on doing with a laser this powerful but apparently will could advance science and medicine quite a bit.

On a side note, the project coordinator Gerard Mourou says that he hopes it will be enough to "trigger the breakdown of the vacuum, the fabric of space-time itself."

Insanity.

Followers:
1. What do you think of this?
2. Space travel? Black holes? Worm holes? What could be the outcome?
3. Iced Tea or Lemonade?

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Posted in: News,Technology,World News

NASA's Shuttles Could Fly Again!

I know I wasn't the only one devastated when I learned that NASA's space program would be discontinued with their last mission later this year.

I was heart broken. As a kid I visited the NASA visitor center countless times, I even wanted to become an astronaut. I still am heart broken that NASA's shuttles are scheduled for discontinuation.

However, the shuttles do have a slight chance to see the outside of our atmosphere again.

According to SPACE.com, United Space Alliance (USA) wants to fly two shuttles (Atlantis and Endeavour) commercially after building new fuel tanks for them.

Apparently NASA is working on some new orbital spacecraft, but those won't be seen for some time. USA's vice president Dan Brandenstein (who is a former NASA astronaut) told SPACE.com that they wanted to keep the space program running while NASA worked on those new spacecraft and came up with the idea for two commercial flights a year.

Wait, what? Commercial?
Yes, commercial. Apparently USA wants to fund their two flights a year with money they will receive from investors and customers who want to fly into space.

Another motive for this would be to alleviate NASA's reliance on Russia for trips to and from the International Space Station.

Hmmm, I wonder if they took the idea of commercial space flight from Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic campaign. He's set to start training astronauts for that here shortly. (be sure to check out the Virgin Galactic site, there are some pictures up of their new space shuttles and they look...insane!)

I wonder how much a trip into orbit would cost.

FOLLOWERS:
1. What do you think of commercial space flight?
2. Do you think a market war between NASA and Virgin Galactic will erupt?
3. Do you think USA took the idea from Virgin Galactic? (it is a great concept)
4. Would you like to step foot on the moon?

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Posted in: Knowledge,News,Technology,World News

GoDaddy.com CEO Shoots Elephant; NameCheap Takes Advantage

Alright, so I'm sure many of you have seen GoDaddy.com CEO Bob Parsons in the news lately, but for those of you who haven't, here's some backstory:

Parsons recently took a nice little vacation to Zimbabwe and filmed himself shooting a bull elephant. Afterwards, he proceeded to take photos with the elephants corpse, spread GoDaddy.com hats and clothing to the local villagers, and uploaded the whole package to the internet for the world to see.

Upon being questioned, Parsons claimed he shot the elephant because they cause crop damage.

Needless to say, the internet masses didn't take lightly and the story raged across the web like a wildfire.

GoDaddy competitor, NameCheap saw an opportunity and took it. They turned the mass anger and sadness into a promotional campaigne and offered a registrar switch from GoDaddy.com to NameCheap for just $4.99 for the first year using promo code BYEBYEGD. (That promotion ends soon, get it now! Click me)

Good job Bob Parsons, I'm sure making elephant shooting videos will be a great marketing strategy.

.....oh wait.

Input from my lovely followers:
1. How do you guys feel about Bob Parsons?
2. Would you switch domains because of something like this?
3. Is NameCheap in the wrong too for taking advantage?
4. Is Bob Parsons a smug elephant killing douche bag?

I'll answer the last one for you.
Yes, yes he is. See?

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Posted in: Knowledge,News,Technology,World News

2022 Qatar World Cup, 122 Degree Summers, and Robotic Clouds

While I do watch some football from time to time, I've never really been a HUGE fan of the sport. However, fan or not everyone should know by now that the 2022 World Cup will take place in Qatar.

For those of you who don't know, Qatar is pretty much smack dab in the center of the Middle East and has summer temperatures that can climb up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. With nearly 90,000 people crammed into a stadium open to direct sunlight, temperatures like that are sure to melt the skin off of bones.

Good decision FIFA,  great way to kill off your fans. You don't need them anyway.

BUT WAIT, we have science and scientists at Qatar University are currently developing a solution to the sweltering heat dilemma. That solution is...wait for it....

...

ROBOTIC CLOUDS. WHAT?!

These bad boys are made from a crazy carbon fiber material, injected with helium gas to make it float, and are remotely controlled. Those round spots you see in the image are large propellers that allow the robotic cloud to hover like a helicopter. They are also programmed to automatically follow the sun's path in the sky to optimize it's shielding capabilities.

They are estimated to cost around $500,000 US.
But, pfft. That's no biggie. It's the World Cup. Spend a billion!

Take that mother nature.

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Posted in: News,Technology,World News

Move Over Einstein, This Kid's Got You Beat

Einstein died 56 years ago, yet the theory of relativity lives on and is one of the most well know equations in history.



However, that could all change very soon.

Jacob Barnett is a 12-year-old from Indiana. He was born with Asperger's syndrome, which is a mild form of autism, but instead of impacting his learning ability in a negative way, the syndrome accelerated Jacob's learning ability 10 fold. He thought himself calculus, algebra and geometry in a matter of two weeks and graduated high school at 8 years of age. He is currently studying college level astrophysics and is also being recruited by Purdue University for a paid research position.

I don't know about you, but hearing about a kid like this makes me feel like my life is something to rofl over.

But that's not the best part. Jacob has been expanding Einsteins theory of relativity and may very well be a few equations away from disproving it. Professors at the Institute for Advance study, an institution Einstein himself was apart of, believe that Jacob holds the key to debunking the theory.

If I were Einstein, I'd feel like a douche for being disproved by a 12-year-old.

What does this mean for the world of science?
Click here to watch him explain calculus on Youtube. You won't understand.

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Posted in: Knowledge,News,World News

Earth Hour: How Did We Do?

A little background:
Earth Hour is an annual event introduced by the World Wildlife Fund and is held on the last Saturday of March every year. During the worldwide event, participants are asked to cut off their lights and any other unnecessary appliances for one whole hour to drive home the idea of conservation, literally. The organization aims to reduce the amount carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere.

This year, hundreds of countries and an estimated 1 billion people participated. Landmarks all around the world like the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, and the Las Vegas Strip also cut off their power for Earth Hour.

Unfortunately, there is no actual report that collects how much each city or each country saved (stupid right? That information seems valuable.) However, last year in Chicago alone 124,000 pounds of carbon dioxide were prevented from entering the atmosphere; that's the equivalent of 15 acres of trees being planted. So one could only imagine how much that adds up to worldwide, and because the event was more talked about this year, the impact is sure to be higher.

So I ask you this,
1. Do you think this makes any sort of impact on climate change?
2. What do you think about required or forced hours of reduced electricity throughout the year to make more of an impact?
3. Do you even think climate change is an issue?
4. Are polar bears awesome?
5. Don't you hate it when you burn your mouth on something and can't taste food properly for days?

 

Before Earth Hour/During Earth Hour

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Posted in: Knowledge,News,World News