Coming up mostly on reclaimed land « Result #1 on Nov 30, 2011, 1:44am »
The process of conversion of land for non-agricultural use, led to the decline in the average land area owned by each household, leading to a decline in employment among the agricultural laborers located in the fringe areas of the prominent cities of Kerala. Only a comprehensive alternative employment policy using the funds raised through conversion tax will solve this problem. But it is easier said than done.
The spurt in building Homes Kerala is witnessing now are actually part of the massive real estate developments that are taking place mostly on lands that have been earlier used for agricultural purposes. No resistance to this large-scale reclamation of wetlands was seen mainly due to the continued outflow of agricultural labor to other sectors that offered consistent employment, better opportunities and higher wages.
If the present trend is to continue, in the near future, a major shortage in skilled labor may affect the real estate growth. Already a vast majority of the skilled workers are those from the North Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Orissa. Due to the low wages in those backward states, skilled construction workers are now flocking to the high wage destinations like Kochi.
While the large scale conversion of agricultural wetlands are likely to cause a severe food shortage in the event of an uncontrollable financial or economic crisis, the damage to the environment is likely to be irreversible. But few people are willing to listen to the concerns of the environmentalists and agricultural scientists.
The government is also unable to stop the trend in reclamation of agricultural lands since a vast majority of the common public is now averse to taking up employment opportunities in the agricultural sector. Fearing a public backlash, the government is also keeping mum on the developments in the real estate sector. Thus most of the laws enacted earlier remain largely on paper.
Part of the developments in the demand and supply « Result #2 on Aug 5, 2011, 2:36am »
The values of all goods and services are the result of the variations in demand and supply in the market. It is through the demand from the community that all values for a particular product are created and established. If demand increases relative to supply, the price of a commodity rises. This principle is generally applicable, but it is most noticeable only when supply tends to be fairly fixed, as is seen with vintage cars, stamps, antique furniture, landed properties and even with the luxury Apartments in Kerala .
Under a system of private property rights and market allocation of goods, the possessor of a commodity, wherever demand increases relative to supply will obtain a higher price and thus a windfall gain – known in economics as ‘economic rent’. But to label the windfall gain, which accrues to landowners through increased demand for land as ‘incentives gained through taxes’, and to appropriate it entirely, is to select a special form of ownership for punitive treatment.
The value of all goods which are not elastic in supply will increase as demand increases as a result of higher incomes, a change in tastes, a growth in the population, and so on. Land and buildings are no exception to this general rule. To call this gain ‘incentives from development of a property’ and to tax it at a higher rate rests solely on a political decision made possible because landowners are a comparatively smaller group in the community, with a correspondingly small voting strength.
When the global economy is witnessing a slowdown, the property market in Kerala is yet to feel the pinch, mainly due to the different pattern of development and the different approach to management followed by the government and the leading private property developers. Due to falling inflation, the investors are upbeat and thus Kerala is witnessing increasing inflow of investments into real estate like never before.
5 Films You Probably Didn't Know Were Written by J « Result #3 on Jun 12, 2011, 10:12pm »
5 Films You Probably Didn't Know Were Written by J.J. Abrams
Most people know 'Super 8' writer-director-producer J.J. Abrams for his television series 'Felicity' (1998-2002), 'Alias' (2001-2006), 'Lost' (2004-2010) and 'Fringe ' (2008-present) and for films like 'Mission: Impossible III' and 2009's 'Star Trek ', but few people know that before he made it big, he was mainly a screenwriter. Up until 1998, his scripts were written under the name Jeffrey Abrams.
The following is a list of fairly well known titles penned by Jeffrey "J.J." Abrams. Just as they did with me, some of these titles may surprise you.
'Regarding Henry' (1991) Academy Award winner Mike Nichols ('The Graduate') brought Abrams' drama to life with uber-talented actors Harrison Ford ('Indiana Jones') and Annette Bening ('The Kids Are All Right'). In it, Ford plays an arrogant lawyer who survives a bullet to the head during a random robbery.
Obviously suffering from severe brain trauma, he is left without a single pre-shooting memory. 'Regarding Henry' takes you through his humbling journey as he learns of the painful things he did in his past and as he embraces his new, innocent child-like life.
As a teenager, after being blown away by 'The Fugitive' I remember discovering 'Regarding Henry' while trying to catch up on old Harrison Ford films - mind you, this was back when Ford only made good films. Despite having not seen it in over 15 years, I always remember the film with fondness for its tender, intimate story.
'Forever Young' (1992) 'Forever Young' got a bad wrap for being released one year after a film with the same plot - 'Late for Dinner' starring Peter Berg ('Friday Night Lights' director). 'Forever Young' was easily the better of the two.
'Forever Young' stars Mel Gibson as a test pilot in 1939 who volunteers for a military cryogenic freezing experiment after his childhood love slips into a coma after being hit by a car. He signs on and tells them to wake him if she pulls out of her coma. Things don't go as planned and the secret program is closed. The sub-zero cylinder that holds Mel is stashed in a warehouse.
When Mel finally wakes up from decades of cryogenic dreaming in 1992, with the help of Elijah Wood ('Lord of the Rings') and his mother (Jamie Lee Curtis, 'True Lies') Mel tries to evade the FBI spooks and find out what happened to his love.
'Gone Fishin' (1997) I have to admit that I've never seen 'Gone Fishin'' in its entirety, just scenes here and there. It is one of those movies that you might catch for a moment while another show you're watching is on commercial break. When 'Gone Fishin'' was released, I was past that age where you would mistake terrible movies for good ones - and to me this one stunk!
When Joe Pesci (Home Alone') and Danny Glover ('Lethal Weapon') go fishin', wackiness ensues. Aside from the terrible gags, that's all I know about it.
Having not seen the whole thing, I cannot critique it entirely. Those of you who have seen it, what are your thoughts?
'Armageddon' (1998) Just as I mentioned in The Bonus View's comment section of the Michael Bay vs. Stephen Sommers poll, 'Armageddon' is one of those popcorn films that completely has me. I own the extended Criterion Collection DVD (why 'Armageddon' is a Criterion title is beyond me) and choke up every time Ben Affleck yells, "Harry, I love you!" For those who despise 'Armageddon', consider it a guilty pleasure of mine.
'Armageddon' follows an unlikely oil-drilling team sent into space to land on an asteroid, drill a hole into its core, shove a nuke down it, and blast it to pieces before it collides with Earth and kills our ecosystem.
Just like 'Forever Young', 'Armageddon' opened just two month after a film with a similar plot - 'Deep Impact'. 'Armageddon' proved to be the winner of the two, grossing over half a billion dollars worldwide while 'Deep Impact' only brought in $350 million. You may argue that star power caused 'Armageddon' to win the space battle, but I credit the win to its fresh, youthful cast, Michael Bay's crowd-pleasing direction of action, and Abrams' fun screenplay. That's right - I consider 'Armageddon' a "fun" film.
'Joy Ride' (2001) This title surprises me more than any other Abrams credit. I remember seeing 'Joy Ride' in 2002, expecting an awful horror movie and getting an intense thriller nostalgic of Steven Spielberg's 1971 TV movie 'Duel'. After reading about Abrams' passion for Spielberg's films and seeing him dedicate an entire film to paying homage to them ('Super 8'), 'Joy Ride' becomes even more fun.
Initially not recognizing 'Joy Ride' director John Dahl's name, after checking out his IMDB page, Dahl has some fine accomplishments under his belt. He also directed 'Rounders' and episodes of the series 'Battlestar Galactica', 'United States of Tara', 'Breaking Bad', 'True Blood', 'The Vampire Diaries', 'Caprica', 'Dexter', 'Shameless', 'Justified' and 'Californication'.
Yes, 'Joy Ride' received negative marks for starring Paul Walker ('Fast Five'), but if you pay attention to the story and script, 'Joy Ride' just might be worthy of becoming your new guilty pleasure.
And there we go. Did any of these titles catch YOU by surprise too? See what people are saying about this story in our forums area, or check out other recent discussions.
US urges peaceful end to South China Sea tensions « Result #4 on Jun 11, 2011, 1:50am »
WASHINGTON ¡ª The United States is "troubled" by tensions triggered by a maritime border dispute in the South China Sea, US officials said Friday, calling for a "peaceful" resolution to the crisis.
"We've been troubled by some of these reports about the South China Sea and believe they only serve to raise tensions and don't help with the peace and security of the region," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner.
"We support a collaborative diplomatic process... and call on all claimants to conform all of their claims, both land and maritime, to international law."
He said the United States and the international community at large share an interest in maintaining maritime security in the region, citing freedom of navigation, economic development and respect for international law. Beijing says it is committed to peace in the South China Sea, but its more assertive maritime posture has caused concern among regional nations.
Tensions between China and Vietnam are at their highest level in years after Hanoi accused Chinese marine surveillance vessels of cutting the exploration cables of an oil survey ship in May inside its exclusive economic zone in the maritime waters. On Thursday, Vietnam alleged a similar incident in the zone, saying a Chinese fishing boat rammed the cables of another oil survey ship in its waters.
Beijing countered by warning Vietnam to halt all activities that it says violate its sovereignty in disputed South China Sea waters. The two countries have long-standing disputes over the potentially oil-rich Paracel and Spratly archipelagos and surrounding sea. Tensions have also risen this year between China and the Philippines, another claimant to the Spratly islands, where Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also say they have a stake. Vietnam's navy on Friday announced it will hold a live-fire drill in the South China Sea next week.
"We don't support anything that adds to raising the current level of tension; we don't think it's helpful," Toner said.
"What there needs to be is a collaborative diplomatic process, a peaceful process, to resolve various territorial disputes and otherwise," he added. "Shows of force, other gestures like that, just I think raise tensions."
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned last weekend that clashes may erupt in the South China Sea unless nations with conflicting territorial claims adopt a mechanism to settle disputes peacefully.
Wine 101: Embracing the Pink « Result #5 on Jun 9, 2011, 9:24pm »
Rose is often associated with bad wedding receptions and avoided by men for its color. But don¡¯t let those stigmas color your opinion of this wine¡ªrose can be a delightful staple during the summer, especially when served alongside the grill. There are, however, many variations. Here¡¯s the lowdown on what the French call ¡°pink¡±:
Several varietals, several regions: Rose comes from all over, in all sorts of varietals. In France, they make it from Grenache, Syrah or lesser-known varietals like Mourvedre and Carignan. In the French Loire valley, the best roses are made from a mix of Cabernet Franc and other grapes. Champagne often makes single-varietal rose wines from Pinot Noir grapes. As for the name, in Italy, it¡¯s called rosata and in Spain, it¡¯s called rosado, and in California, it¡¯s sometimes called ¡°pink wine¡±¡ª and all regions use different kinds of fruit.
Quick time: There are several methods to make rose but the most regarded technique is through ¡°abbreviated red wine vinification,¡± which is a fancy phrase to describe the following: Black-skinned grapes are crushed and the skins remain in contact for up to three days before the pale-colored juice is run off to continue fermenting. The short amount of contact with the skins is similar to a short steep in making tea. Usually the grapes used aren¡¯t fully ripened, so there isn¡¯t too much sugar in the wine. This keeps the drink light and refreshing.
The California way: A less-reputable method among Europeans, but popular among Californians, is called saignee, which means ¡°bleeding¡± in French. This is a way to intensify red wine, with rose being more of a by-product than the intended result of the process. The technique requires lightly crushing the grapes¡ªas opposed to pressing the fruit. Then the skin-and-juice mixture sits for 12-24 hours. A small portion of the juice¡ªpale in color¡ªis run off and fermented without the skins, while the the remainder of the juice will remain with the skins and eventually be turned into red wine. The knock on this technique is that sometimes it uses fully ripened grapes that are full of sugar. After fermentation, the high sugar content renders the wine with high levels of alcohol¡ªsometimes too much for a delicate wine like rose to handle. Not all roses made in this manner are that way, but chances are that the cloying, heavy or too-sweet rose that you drank at your nephew¡¯s nuptials last year was made using this technique.
Blending white and red: The third and least-regarded rose-making technique is the simple blending of red and white wines to get the desired color. In Europe, wine authorities forbid this technique, except in Champagne, and even there the top makers of sparkling rose won¡¯t blend the wines. The EU contemplated allowing blending but the French lobbied hard to prevent it from passing. France¡¯s agricultural minister said it was a victory ¡°to defend our culinary way of life.¡±
Think summer food: Roses are so varied it¡¯s difficult to generalize what food matches best. That said, it¡¯s a quintessential summer drink, so anything you¡¯d eat at a summer picnic¡ªgrilled seafood, salads, and olives just to name a few¡ªwould likely go well with a glass of pink. Just remember, keep rose chilled. It¡¯s supposed to be refreshing, after all.
Hands-On: With Wii U¡¯s Touchscreen Controller « Result #6 on Jun 8, 2011, 2:34am »
Hands-On: With Wii U¡¯s Touchscreen Controller, Nintendo Could Radically Change Games
LOS ANGELES ¡ª A massive 6.2-inch touchscreen that can display high-quality images will be the central feature of Nintendo¡¯s new videogame console when it debuts runescape power leveling next year, the company said Tuesday at the E3 Expo. Much like the revolutionary Wii motion controller before it, the new console ¡ª called ¡°Wii U¡± ¡ª is an attempt to radically change the way people play games in their living rooms.
The Wii successor¡¯s touchscreen controller can display anything: exactly what¡¯s on the TV screen, the same action but with a different camera view, or something else entirely. Since the controller also employs motion sensors, you can change the viewing angle or your aim on the touchscreen rs power leveling by moving your hands or your whole body. You can use the touchscreen as a controller, but since the device also boasts the same full range of buttons and joysticks as a standard gamepad, you don¡¯t have to.
Nintendo has unveiled some pretty crazy controller designs that have left gamers scratching their heads before, but this one ¡ª previewed by Wired.com in advance of Nintendo¡¯s Tuesday press conference here ¡ª runs away with the cake. It¡¯s huge: If not for the contoured grips runescape gold and all the buttons, it would feel something like playing a game with an iPad. It¡¯s also imposing: While the Wii controller was designed to resemble the simple, harmless TV remote in a bid to lure casual gamers, the new touchscreen device looks like something off the bridge of the Enterprise.
But if Nintendo can develop some killer apps and communicate effectively to consumers, the addition of touch controls to home games could prove just as appealing to casual players as the Wii was. The best games for Wii U might be played with one finger.
Whether or not this turns out to be a good idea, the Kyoto gamemaker needs to shake things up. While Nintendo achieved unprecedented success with its 2006 game machine rs gold and its slate of hit games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit, the sales of the console and its software have dropped off. Sony and Microsoft both delivered motion-control games for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in Wii¡¯s wake, so Nintendo needed to come up with another totally new way to play games at home to further differentiate itself from its competitors.
Nintendo also needed more oomph. Wii¡¯s lack of high-definition output was a non-issue in 2006, but as of late it has become a real sore spot with gamers ¡ª and game developers, who want the most powerful machines possible. While Nintendo did not reveal much in the way of technical specifications runescape money or its targeted price for the upcoming console, it did say the Wii successor would deliver graphics in 1080p and feature HDMI output.
Hands-On Tech Demos
Nintendo got things off to a good start at its Tuesday press conference, unveiling a demo reel of some major concepts that will use the controller. A golf game could let you put the controller on the floor to see where your ball lies. A new Mario game, titled New Super Mario Bros. Mii, will let you play it entirely on the controller, no need for a television.
Giving Wired.com a sneak preview of Wii U, Nintendo didn¡¯t show either of these concepts, but ran through a variety of tech demos that showed how other new types of games might work. The one most likely to garner gamers¡¯ attention offered a glimpse of what classic adventure game series The Legend of Zelda might look like on the high-def new console, which Nintendo said it will release sometime between April and December 2012.
As Link duked it out with a giant hairy spider on the TV screen, we could see all sorts of secondary info on the controller screen: the dungeon map, Link¡¯s health bar, the items he was carrying. These icons no longer cluttered up the TV screen and got in the way of the high-definition visuals. The cool part was this: With one tap of an icon on the touchscreen, the images flipped. Suddenly, seamlessly, the game was running on the touchscreen and the map, etc., was on the television.
Two other barely interactive demos showed how the system provides what one of the Nintendo representatives called ¡°a window into a game world that wraps around you.¡± On the television screen, we saw a hummingbird flying between blossoming cherry trees, swooping down into a lake beneath a massive Japanese temple. The same real-time demo was shown on the controller screen, but by moving the controller around we could get any view we liked of the hot hummingbird action.
Another demo, called Panorama View, showed footage from a panoramic camera driving down the streets of Tokyo. The television displayed a standard view from inside the car facing front, but by pointing the controller around the room we could watch the buildings and people go by from any angle we liked.
The other three demos that Nintendo showed were fully playable mini-games. These, the company cautioned, were not necessarily parts of retail products. But they were fleshed out enough that I would be surprised if they were not released as part of a mini-game compilation close to the launch of the new machine next year.
The first, Chase Mii, plays almost identically to a game that Nintendo released for the GameCube in 2003 called Pac-Man Vs. In that game, one player took the role of Pac-Man and had a complete view of the maze full of dots while looking at a Game Boy Advance screen. The other three players runescape accounts played ghosts and tried to catch Pac-Man, but they could only see a small area around them. Catch Mii was quite similar, except it used Nintendo¡¯s Mii avatars and took place in a colorful circular maze. I had two views of the action on my touchscreen ¡ª on the right, I could see the full maze and attempt to avoid the other three players. On the left, I could see a smaller area around me ¡ª perfect for doing some quick moves to get out of the way if someone was about to grab me.
Meanwhile, the other four people in the room each had a Wii remote and were using it to control their characters on the TV. The new console will be compatible with all Wii games and devices, Nintendo said; the gamemaker will continue to sell Wii remotes as accessories for this new system for use in games like this one.
Another mini-game was called Battle Mii. Here, two players played a first-person shooter game on the TV, running around an arena and attempting to shoot down a third player, who flew above them in a UFO. Holding the new controller, Player 3 could see a wide view of the whole arena, zooming overhead in a UFO, trying to stay hidden and taking potshots at the other two players, who scurried about on the ground.
The final demo, and the one that really got me hooked, was called Shield Pose. Nintendo did not explicitly say the game was created by the same developers that created the clever, addictive Rhythm Heaven for Nintendo DS, but the demo clearly had their stamp on it. In the mini-game, you stand on a pirate ship while another ship fires plunger-tipped arrows at your craft. The pirate captain yells where the arrows will come from ¡ª left, center, right or overhead ¡ª in rhythm, and you hold the controller in those positions to ¡°catch¡± the arrows on the lower screen, then toss them off by flicking the controller down. All this is done to the specific rhythm of a song, so it is quite a challenge.
Nintendo kept our preview session entirely focused on the play experience, and revealed very little about the specifications of the upcoming machine. The company said the games would come on ¡°proprietary high-density optical discs¡± and that the new console would use internal flash storage for downloaded content, which would be upgradable with SD cards or USB sticks.
While the manufacturer said other playable game demos from Nintendo and third-party software makers would be on the E3 show floor, Nintendo seems to be leaving a lot to the imagination for now. We don¡¯t know how third parties will approach developing for the new system, or whether they will encounter the same problems selling software as they did with Wii. We don¡¯t know whether Nintendo will have such a killer app as it had in Wii Sports, which can make all the difference in the world.
But what¡¯s certain is that Kyoto is rolling the dice in a big way with its new game machine, hoping that lightning can strike twice.
MobileMe is dead. Long live iCloud « Result #7 on Jun 7, 2011, 2:01am »
Like a Hollywood movie studio trying to bring back an ailing superhero franchise, Apple today killed off one of its products by resurrecting it with something else that promises to fix many of the original's shortcomings. At the same time the company runescape power leveling acknowledged that MobileMe has been a dud. Can iCloud put the bad memories of MobileMe in the past? Apple sure hopes so.
iCloud, in case you missed it, is Apple's new cloud sync service. It succeeds MobileMe, the $99-a-year service Apple introduced three years ago, which will close down on June 30, 2012. iCloud syncs files, apps, app data, and media across iOS rs power leveling devices, Macs, and PCs. It also syncs your music across devices, though it won't do that for video content.
The service systematically goes after the criticisms people had with MobileMe. Is $99 a year too hard to swallow? Now it's free. Only works with some apps? Now it works with many more, and iOS and Mac developers can tap into it too.
When introducing iCloud earlier today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the idea behind the service came out of necessity. The PC's long been the hub for digital media, yet over the years people were capturing and viewing that media on portable devices, Jobs said. That meant getting data from computers to devices, and vice versa required ferrying it over. With different device runescape gold makers using their own systems for making this happen, chaos ensued. More importantly it was placing all the responsibility on hardware that would be changing every few years, forcing users to move things once again.
Apple's solution is to put data, and the ferrying process, in the cloud, providing a system where devices effectively become vessels. You buy a device from a store, plug in your Apple ID, and it syncs up with iCloud to tweak every setting, add every song, and every app just as it was on your other devices.
But this big solution still centers on a walled garden approach that critics have taken aim at with the company's other products. You're fine as long as you're in Apple's ecosystem, but step out and your data does not come along for the ride. In other words, Apple's replaced one set of data behaviors with another.
To some degree, Apple appears to have at least acknowledged the importance of building this system into PCs, something MobileMe rs gold was decidedly light on. For instance, you can now have photos you've captured on your iPhone or iPad show up in the pictures folder of your PC. That's a big step up from MobileMe's PC sync of contact information, calendars, and Web bookmarks; all things that lacked a certain sexiness or selling power for a PC user with an iOS device to buy into Apple's MobileMe ecosystem.
The big question then is whether Apple intends to extend those same privileges to PC software makers to take that one step beyond the bare-bones implementation runescape money it's put forth in its plans. Today the company said it would be offering APIs for its own app makers to plug into iCloud and ferry data, including things like documents and key-value data. Offering the same thing to developers on other platforms could extend the reach of iCloud. If not, this not so secretly encourages developers to build on Apple's platforms so as to tap into iCloud, and get that data flowing, making apps on iOS the conduit to make that happen.
Are there problems with this approach? For one, if you decide to go with a non-Apple device in the future, data you have in these apps does not leave that ecosystem without a third-party service if it doesn't have a Web or desktop software counterpart of its own. Apple's got a business to run, so it's not going to become a big data dump for companies, though it's offering it free to developers who buy into the system.
There's also the question of what happens when Apple's system goes down or experiences hiccups, as was a problem when MobileMe launched. Jobs noted that the company is serious about making iCloud as rock solid as possible, due in part to its new data center in Maiden, N.C. But as we've seen with Amazon's cloud services, downtime can happen to even the biggest companies.
One thing is clear: iCloud seems a whole lot more like a step into cloud infrastructure than MobileMe was. Even though Apple is effectively ditching its try to compete with some slick-looking Web apps, it's come back with something that plays to the company's strong suit, which is hardware and software integration. With iCloud behind the scenes, Apple's not only trying to make its portable devices easier to set up once you buy them, but easier to own several of them at once too. Like a big movie opening, we'll know how well it all works when it hits screens.
Gmail Hack Targeted White House « Result #8 on Jun 3, 2011, 1:58am »
People who work at the White House were among those targeted by the China-based hackers who broke into Google Inc.'s Gmail runescape gold accounts, according to one U.S. official. The hackers likely were hoping the officials were conducting administration business on their private emails, according to lawmakers and security experts.
The government has acknowledged senior administration officials were targeted in the "phishing" attacks on hundreds of users of the email service. White House officials declined to discuss who was targeted. The Obama administration reiterated Thursday that no official messages were compromised. But lawmakers and outside computer-security experts said recent White House history suggests administration officials sometimes use personal email to talk business, despite rules against doing so.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security are working with Google to investigate. "These allegations are very serious," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday. U.S. officials briefed on the incident said the Obama administration runescape money isn't going to raise the matter directly with the Chinese government until the facts become more clear. "Law enforcement needs to dig into this over the very short term so we have all the facts and procedures set out¡ªthen diplomacy," a U.S. official said.
White House officials in both the current and previous administrations have been accused of using personal emails to conduct business. No matter runescape accounts which party is in power, critics have argued, officials use personal accounts as a way to avoid having those messages turned over to congressional investigators, released under the Freedom of Information Act or retained for historic archives.
"If all White House officials were following rules prohibiting the use of personal email for official business, there would simply be no sensitive information to find," said Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and a frequent thorn in the Obama runescape power leveling administration's side. "Unfortunately, we know that not everyone at the White House follows those rules and that creates an unnecessary risk."
Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, said the hacking "suggests China believes government officials are using their personal accounts for official business, because I doubt they were looking for their weekend plans or a babysitter's schedule. Presumably, the Chinese wouldn't have done this if they weren't getting something."
The Chinese government has denied any involvement in hacking of U.S. officials' emails. Google disclosed the hacking attempts on Wednesday, saying senior U.S. officials, Chinese activists and others were targeted in an attack that tricked users into sharing their Gmail passwords with "bad actors" based in China, apparently with the goal of reading the victims' email.
Stewart Baker, a former homeland security official in the Bush administration, said he suspects the ultimate goal of the hacking may have been to use the email accounts as a stepping stone to penetrate the officials' home computers.
"If you can compromise that machine, you may well be able to access the communications they are having with the office," said Mr. Baker. Marcus Asner, a former cybersecurity prosecutor buy runescape gold in New York now at the firm of Arnold & Porter, said it is increasingly difficult for investigators to trace international hacking attacks to specific perpetrators.
"It used to be we'd send the FBI agents to find the 16-year-old boy in a basement responsible, but now you have national-security and State Department issues," he said. "Now, you're pitting countries against corporations."
U.S. officials have increasingly had their work and personal email accounts targeted by these types of booby-trapped email schemes in the past year or so, officials said. Government computer-security experts have tried to educate senior officials who would most likely be targeted by these attacks. For example, they've warned officials to be suspicious of emails that appear to be work-related but are sent to their personal email accounts. Employees are also told not to conduct official business on their personal email accounts.
The federal government fended off another targeted phishing attack in April, according to the Department of Homeland Security. One of these attacks "seriously impacted" a U.S. government facility. "Several employees at the facility were lured into clicking a link in the bogus e-mail that contained malware, which spread rapidly and extensively across the business IT network," according to a department report.
These phishing attacks have evolved significantly over the years, said James Mulvenon, a cybersecurity specialist who focuses on China. Initially they were tucked into emails fashioned in poor English, he said. But as attackers have gotten more sophisticated, it has become harder to identify these trick emails.
Now, such attacks target individuals with emails in perfect English on topics they are known to have worked on or mentioning meetings attended. One such scheme targeted attendees of a Defense Department-sponsored conference in 2008 with an email that purported to be from one of the presenters. The message contained malware that provided unfettered access to the victims' computers, said a person familiar with the incident.
Soon after, the attendees, mostly defense contractors, received emails that purported to be from one of the presenters at the conference. The notes included an attachment identified as his presentation materials, according to a person familiar with the incident. A majority of the conference attendees opened the attachment, which downloaded malware that provided "unfettered access" to their computer, this person said. "There was widespread success by the bad guys." A subsequent investigation tracked the perpetrator back to a Chinese hacking group.
"They're still doing the exact same thing" today, the person familiar with the incident said of the hacking group. ~By DEVLIN BARRETT and SIOBHAN GORMAN
All accounted for after Joplin, Mo. « Result #9 on Jun 2, 2011, 2:28am »
All accounted for after Joplin, Mo., tornado identities confirmed for 134 killed
JOPLIN, Mo. ¡ª Everyone reported missing since last week¡¯s massive tornado in Joplin has been accounted for, and at least 134 people have been confirmed killed, state officials said Wednesday.
The Missouri Department of Public Safety said the confirmed death toll of 134 includes 124 people who had been on the unaccounted-for list, seven people who were taken immediately to funeral homes after the storm, and three people who have since died in the hospital runescape power leveling from their injuries. More than 8,000 homes and apartments, and more than 500 commercial properties, were damaged or destroyed in the tornado.
Officials said the final 10 people on the list were tracked down by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, which has led the effort to find the 268 people listed as unaccounted for after the May 22 tornado.
¡°Our troopers worked 24/7 to locate these individuals and to bring relief to the families of the living and closure runescape gold to the families of those who died,¡± Gov. Jay Nixon said. ¡°This was a critical mission that our Missouri State Highway Patrol performed exceptionally well.¡±
The state said the Jasper County coroner has authorized the release of bodies that had been at a temporary morgue to their families so they may be laid to rest. By Wednesday afternoon, 119 victims had been released from the morgue, the state said in a news release. The state rs gold now believes the 134 deaths is the up-to-date death toll but cautioned there could be more from people currently hospitalized with severe injuries.
¡°It is our belief that, pending further deaths from those injured, the count is 134,¡± said Seth Bundy, a spokesman for the state. ¡°We do have some folks critically injured in hospitals, and we¡¯re hoping and praying that they will pull through.¡±
Bundy said he did not know how many people are critically injured. The announcement came as crews began the long task of removing millions of cubic yards of debris from the damage zone. City and federal officials warned Wednesday that people should take precautions to avoid dust and other airborne particulates that could contain hazardous material.
The Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Missouri National Guard and other agencies are working together on debris removal that will raise potentially hazardous dust as bulldozers move piles of rubble and streets are swept. The Environmental Protection runescape money Agency has provided masks and safety instructions to search and rescue crews, contractors, volunteers and residents.
¡°If it¡¯s dusty enough that you can visibly see dust coming at you, you should wear the masks that have been provided as a precaution,¡± said Eric Nold, an on-scene coordinator for the EPA.
The EPA has been monitoring air quality in Joplin at six ground-level sites in the debris field since Saturday, checking for asbestos runescape items and other potentially harmful particulates that could be floating in the air from the devastating tornado that ripped through more than six miles of town. So far, tests show particulate levels are normal, city officials said. No asbestos has been found in testing.
The city said temporary, roving testing stations will be installed where debris collection is occurring. While dust and particulate testing shows immediate results, testing for asbestos takes about two days to process.
¡°We have no reason to believe that dust or particulates are a health hazard at this point, but we simply want people to be aware and take precautions as they go about their work,¡± said Sam Anselm, Joplin¡¯s assistant city manager.
FEMA said more than 7,000 Joplin-area residents have registered for assistance since the EF-5 tornado that packed winds of more than 200 mph. Also Wednesday, Nixon announced creation of the Missouri Disaster Recovery Jobs program, which will use $5.8 million from the federal Workforce Investment Act to create 400 temporary jobs for Joplin workers who lost their jobs because of the tornado.
The workers will assist with clean-up and humanitarian efforts in Jasper and Newton counties.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
AT&T ramps up lobby for proposed T-Mobile merger « Result #10 on Jun 1, 2011, 1:50am »
Opponents of AT&T¡¯s proposed merger with T-Mobile filed last-minute petitions to federal regulators on Tuesday in hopes of blocking the $39 billion mega-deal. But they are going up against a formidable and deep-pocketed telecom giant that¡¯s just getting started on its own campaign to influence the decision.
Sprint Nextel, Leap Wireless, rural carriers and consumer advocacy groups told the Federal Communications Commission that the proposed merger runescape power leveling would hurt the companies¡¯ chances of survival and remove T-Mobile as a low-cost alternative to Verizon and AT&T, the nation¡¯s biggest carriers.
AT&T argues that the merger would allow U.S. homes to get access to wireless high-speed Internet service sooner than without the deal. ¡°Strong support for the AT&T-T-Mobile merger has been voiced by dozens of community, civic and minority organizations, 14 governors, multiple labor runescape gold unions and elected officials,¡± AT&T spokesman Michael Balmoris said.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, AT&T spent $6.8 million in the first three months of 2011 to hire lobbying shops rs gold and lawyers, who in large part are making the case to federal officials to approve the proposed merger. AT&T is on track to spend more than the $15 million it paid lobbyists in 2010 to argue against policies such as Internet access rules and cellphone billing regulation.
Aside from money spent directly on lobbying government officials, industry observers say AT&T is receiving support from several political leaders, trade groups and organizations such as the NAACP and at least one affiliate of the National Urban League ¡ª all of whom have direct financial ties to the telecom giant.
Among the 14 governors listed by AT&T as supporters of the proposed merger is Bobby Jindal (R) of Lousiana. AT&T is a key sponsor of the Supriya Jindal Foundation, a charity of the governor¡¯s wife.
Among the FCC comments, several letters of support for AT&T stand out:
AT&T-sponsored Virginia Asian Chamber of Commerce urged the FCC to quickly approve the deal, saying that as a group ¡°striving to create bridges between cultures, we look forward to the foundation that this merger will create and the opportunities runescape money that it will give the public.¡±
The Urban League of Portland sent a similar letter to the FCC, saying the merger could help minorities gain faster access to broadband through a more robust, combined company. AT&T donated between $125,ooo and $249,999 last year to the National Urban League¡¯s annual convention, the group said on its Web site.
¡°When you are as big as AT&T, you try to make as many friends as you can get,¡± said Nick Nyhart, president of Public Campaign, a lobbying and political finance reform group. ¡°It¡¯s strength is its size, and this is the approach by other big companies, not just in telecom.¡±
Nyhart and others say it¡¯s hard to separate AT&T¡¯s financial contributions to organizations that also advocate in favor of positions that benefit the telecom firm. Many groups that have come out in favor of the deal in recent weeks also receive support.
¡°They have curried favor with organizations who, whether through direct or indirect expectations, will go to bat for them,¡± said Ellen Miller, co-founder and executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, a campaign finance watchdog group. ¡°That¡¯s what a sophisticated lobby runescape items does, and AT&T is among the top of this in Washington.¡±
AT&T¡¯s political action committee gave $616,500 to lawmakers and political parties in the first three months of 2011, according to an analysis by the Sunlight Foundation. The phone giant has 31 lobbying firms registered with it; those firms include former senators Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and John Breaux (D-La.).
Opponents of the deal are also ramping up their lobbying efforts. Sprint Nextel, the third largest wireless provider, is hiring additional support, but its spending so far ¡ª $583,000 ¡ª is less than one-tenth of AT&T¡¯s budget.
![[Home]](http://images.proboards.com/menu/home.gif "[Home]")
![[New Topics]](http://images.proboards.com/menu/topics.png "[New Topics]")
![[Help]](http://images.proboards.com/menu/help.gif "[Help]")
![[Search]](http://images.proboards.com/menu/search.gif "[Search]")
![[Login]](http://images.proboards.com/menu/login.gif "[Login]")
![[Register]](http://images.proboards.com/menu/register.gif "[Register]")
![[Search This Thread]](http://images.proboards.com/search2.gif "[Search This Thread]")
![[Reply]](http://images.proboards.com/buttons/reply.gif "[Reply]")
![[Share Topic]](http://images.proboards.com/new/buttons/share.png "[Share Topic]")
![[Print]](http://images.proboards.com/buttons/print.gif "[Print]")
Author
![[Quote]](http://images.proboards.com/buttons/quote.gif "[Quote]")
Logged