What is Stuxnet? Excellent infographic animation on the world’s first open source weapon
Conspiracy theory or scary technology future. You decide whilst we sit back and watch some very clever animation.
Police hunt ‘psychic’ after false tip-off about mass grave of children
Police in Texas are investigating a woman who claimed to be a psychic after she sparked an ultimately fruitless hunt for a mass grave of dismembered bodies.
Local officers and FBI agents raided a rural farmhouse in Hardin, north-east of Houston, after receiving the report that it held up to 30 bodies, including children.
After finding nothing, police gave up the search – but not before ”a source” had told CBS news that “a lot” of dismembered children’s bodies had indeed been found at the scene, sparking a global news story.
Liberty county judge Craig McNair, the county’s top elected official, said the sheriff’s office had received two calls from the person. The first came on Monday, directing officers to an address in Hardin, but after officers found nothing the same caller told police on Tuesday that they had the wrong house.
Officers approached the scene of the second tip-off on Tuesday morning and said there was blood on a back door and a foul odour coming from the house, leading to the search warrant.
“We have to take tips like this very seriously,” McNair said.
However the Houston Chronicle has since reported that the calls had come from a woman who claimed to have psychic powers, prompting questions over why police responded so vigorously.
The FBI were summoned and officers scrambled to the home on Tuesday, but not before a source apparently told CBS the bodies had already been found. Local television station KPRC was given the same information and the story was promptly followed up by news agenciesAFP and Reuters.
Before long the news that 30 bodies had been uncovered in a mass grave was leading BBC and Sky News channels in the UK and across the world. The Guardian contributed its own version.
Liberty county sheriff’s captain Rex Evans said authorities took the tip seriously in part because the caller had details about the inside of the house that only someone who had seen it could have known.
He said authorities were working to track her down. They had a name and number.
Asked if he thought the tip was a hoax, Evans said only that police found no bodies or anything to indicate a murder. “We are going to continue our investigation and find out how this individual had this information in the first place,” Evans said, adding that the caller may face criminal proceedings.
Full story at The Guardian
Kumaré: A True Film About a False Prophet
American filmmaker Vikram Gandhi made up a guru character and a phony religion, then filmed a documentary as he developed a following. The result raises questions about belief and self.
Bank regrets attempted home repossession of couple with no mortgage
The Bank of America filed foreclosure papers on the home of a couple, who didn’t owe a dime on their home. They paid cash and never even had a mortgage. Not good enough for the bank, the case went to court and the bank lost.
A Collier County Judge agreed and after the hearing, Bank of America was ordered, by the court to pay the legal fees of the homeowners’, Maurenn Nyergers and her husband.
The Judge said the bank wrongfully tried to foreclose on the Nyergers’ house. After more than 5 months of the judge’s ruling, the bank still hadn’t paid the legal fees, and the homeowner’s attorney did exactly what the bank tried to do to the homeowners. He seized the bank’s assets.
Sony faces long term hacking campaign from LulzSec
CNet: A group that made headlines for hacking the PBS Web site earlier this week is apparently turning its attention to Sony.
The group known as LulzSec has been promising Sony attacks since this past weekend when it posted to its Twitter account that it is engaged in an operation it calls “Sownage,” shorthand for Sony Ownage. The group stated at the time that it was working on hatching a plan that would be the “beginning of the end” for Sony. It has yet to reveal what it has planned. But yesterday the group said that the attack was already under way, seemingly without Sony’s knowledge.
“Hey @Sony, you know we’re making off with a bunch of your internal stuff right now and you haven’t even noticed?” LulzSec tweeted. “Slow and steady, guys.”
Sony has been in the crosshairs of hackers for quite some time now. In April, the company’s PlayStation Network and Qriocity services were breached by hackers, forcing the company to take them offline. Sony Online Entertainment was also attacked and subsequently taken down. Following the breach, Sony announced that the personal information of over 100 million of its users was stolen. However, the company said credit card information was encrypted and, so far, no identity theft has been reported.
LulzSec has stopped short of revealing its plans for Sony. But even today, it continues to promise big things for operation Sownage.
“Keep on crying, Sony fanboys,” the group tweeted today. “Your tears create the sea and your whining creates the wind that we so gracefully use to traverse onward.”
Rapture: Harold Camping issues new apocalypse date
Harold Camping, the voice of Family Radio in Oregon, USA, today announced that the rapture had in fact started, but we couldn’t see it because it was “invisible”.
Camping predicted that on May 21st 2011, 200 Million Christians (all American of course) would be lifted up in to heaven, the rest of us would be left on earth so that God, in all his infinite love, could spend 5 months slowly killing everyone with fireballs, earthquakes and general nastiness.
Thousands of Family Radio listeners donated money, some gave away everything they owned and the estimated $100 Million raised helped plaster billboards across the US and Europe. It also funded a fleet of elaborately emblazoned rapture vans.
Reports of people raptured on May 21 turned out to be elaborately and carefully planned hoaxes (see top image) by non-believers. Also organised were a series of “Rapture After Parties” and similar low profile events across America.
However skeptics may be in for a surprise, according to Camping they haven’t yet escaped judgement. It turns out the rapture was “invisible” and we can’t see it happening.
Camping, now 89 years old, first predicted the rapture in 1994, but changed his mind when it didn’t happen. His third attempt is now 5 months after the 21st of May (October 21) and he is still asking for funds to help spread the word.
According to the New York Times, when asked if his organisation would return any of the money raised, Camping stated “We’re not at the end. Why would we return it?”.
Self-proclaimed witch says human laws don’t apply to her
A SELF-proclaimed witch who says she is not subject to earthly laws is appealing against convictions for dangerous driving and recklessly causing injury after dragging a policeman by the arm for 190m.
Highton marriage celebrant Eilish De’Avalon told Sen-Constable Andrew Logan in February last year she was not subject to earthly laws because she was from another world.
“Your laws and penalties don’t apply to me. I’m not accepting them, I’m sorry, I must go, thank you,” De’Avalon said.
De’Avalon, 41, was jailed for two months, fined $1250 and her licence was disqualified.
Sony hacked, details from millions of users stolen – AGAIN!
REUTERS: Sony disclosed on Monday hackers had stolen the names, addresses and passwords of nearly 25 million more users than previously known less than a day after the Japanese company apologized for one of the worst break-ins in Internet history.
Sony’s latest revelation comes after Sony No. 2 Kazuo Hirai announced measures had been put in place to avert another Playstation-type cyberattack, hoping to repair its tarnished image and reassure customers who might be pondering a shift to Microsoft’s Xbox.
The Japanese electronics company said it discovered the break-in of its Sony Online Entertainment PC games network also led to the theft of 10,700 direct debit records from customers in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain and 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers.
Full Story at REUTERS
Fake: Seventy metal books found in cave in Jordan labeled most important find in Christian history
BBC news reported recently: They could be the earliest Christian writing in existence, surviving almost 2,000 years in a Jordanian cave. They could, just possibly, change our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born. A group of 70 or so “books”, each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007. A flash flood had exposed two niches inside the cave, one of them marked with a menorah or candlestick, the ancient Jewish religious symbol.
A Jordanian Bedouin opened these plugs, and what he found inside might constitute extremely rare relics of early Christianity. The director of the Jordan’s Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, says the books might have been made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately following his crucifixion. “They will really match, and perhaps be more significant than, the Dead Sea Scrolls,” says Mr Saad. ”Maybe it will lead to further interpretation and authenticity checks of the material, but the initial information is very encouraging, and it seems that we are looking at a very important and significant discovery, maybe the most important discovery in the history of archaeology.”
However it turns out they are FAKE.
Peter Thonemann at Oxford has staked his career on the conclusion that the lead codices being discussed recently are forgeries executed within the last 50 years. The following is what he wrote to Elkington in an email after he was asked late last year to comment on the authenticity of the plates based on some photos:
A surprisingly easy task, as it turns out! The Greek text at the top of your photo no. 0556 reads: ΛΛΥΠΕΧΛΙΡΕΛΒΓΛΡΟΚΛΙΕΙΣΙΩΝ, followed by ΛΛΥΠΕ in mirror-writing.
This text corresponds to ΛΛΥΠΕ ΧΛΙΡΕ ΛΒΓΛΡ Ο ΚΛΙ ΕΙΣΙΩΝ, i.e. ἄλυπε χαῖρε, Ἀβγαρ ὁ καὶ Εἰσίων, followed by the word ἄλυπε again, in mirror writing. The text at the bottom of your photo no. 0532 is the first part of the same text again: ΛΥΠΕΧΛΙΡΕΛΒΓ, i.e. [ἄ]λυπε χαῖρε, Ἀβγ…
The text was incised by someone who did not know the Greek language, since he does not distinguish between the letters lambda and alpha: both are simply represented, in each of the texts, by the shape Λ. The text literally means ‘without grief, farewell! Abgar also known as Eision’. This text, in isolation, is meaningless.
The original News article at the BBC here.
Peter Thonemann on the Lead Codices refutation here.
Huge payout over US priests sex-scandals
ALJAZEERA: The Pacific Northwest chapter of the Roman Catholic Church’s Jesuit order has agreed to pay $166 million to settle more than 500 child sexual abuse claims against priests in five states, attorneys have said.
The decision on Friday compels a payout by the Society of Jesus in the Oregon Province, and is part of an agreement to resolve its two-year-old bankruptcy case. Lawyers for the victims said it is also the largest ever payout by a Catholic religious order such as the Jesuits.
The Oregon Province is the Northwest chapter of the Rome-based Jesuit order and covers Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana.
The victims, most of them Native Americans from remote Alaska Native villages or Indian reservations in the Pacific Northwest, were sexually or psychologically abused as children by Jesuit missionaries in those states in the 1940s through the 1990s, the plaintiffs’ attorneys said.
Full story at AlJazeera
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