Sexy Jihad

Slashdot, GeekCoffee and InformatonWeek are all reporting on a new deal between the UAE & IBM to track drivers to monitor speeding. Excerpt:
IBM said it has signed a four-year, $125 million deal to build an automobile-monitoring system and install a device in cars to track drivers in the United Arab Emirates, making it the largest […]

It seems that with satellite pictures becoming more & more common these days, a lot of cool stuff that was once probably only seen by military satellites, is now picked up by all sorts of commercial satellites:

For many years, Mike Leeds has been road-tripping from his home in Portland, Oregon, to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert […]

AL AIN - People who use mobile phones, particularly with bluetooth technology, to send pornographic images or indecent SMS messages will henceforth have to face imprisonment, a police source has warned.

Technology experts have warned that bluetooth phones are vulnerable to hacking, allowing hackers to steal phone-book data and text messages and even turn the mobiles into bugs to listen to conversations secretly.

“Serious flaws discovered in bluetooth technology used in mobile phones indicate that a hacker could download contact information from victims’ address books, read their calendar appointments or read text SMSs on their phones to conduct business spying,” the source said.

A hacker can even place false text messages in a mobile phone’s memory, or turn the victim’s phone into a listening device to receive private conversation in the immediate vicinity of the mobile, and most of these transgressions can be done without leaving any trace. Another risk is that the worm arriving on the phone as a bluetooth message will have to be automatically accepted by the user.

“I received such a trapped message without realising that it is harmful,” Mohammed Ali, an expatriate living in Al Ain, said.

Another user, Nada Osman, warned against opening SMS messages coming from unknown sources.

Now those sons of bitches are just going too far:
The last few days, reports had come back to me at my workplace that someone, somewhere was downloading gigabytes of data onto their PCs. In fact, not just one person - lots of them. Somewhat bemused, I began to investigate and promptly turned up nothing - […]

Yup, Paris Hilton’s phone has been hAx0red once again. They managed to dig up dirty camphone shots (right alongside shots of her holding a baby and hanging out with kids—oh, Paris), her notebook, and her address book, which has had such high-brow, mover-and-shaker entries as: Christina Aguilera, Devo Aoki, Fred Durst, Jermaine Dupri, Vicki Gotti, […]

Just read this interesting account of FUD gone mad in a post 911 world:
American Airlines Customer Relations
P.O. Box 619612 MD 2400
DFW Airport, TX 75261-9612Ê
14 January, 2005
To whom it may concern,
On Sunday, January 9th, I flew AA51 from London Gatwick to
Dallas-Fort Worth. At Gatwick, I was confronted with a security
check that exceeded sense and decency and, […]

I just read a piece at Bits of Freedom that the dutch MoD wants to buy land next to Xantics (daughter company of KPN Telecom) satellite ground station to listen into satellite communications. The article:
Het ministerie van Defensie is in onderhandeling met KPN-dochter Xantic over de aankoop van een terrein grenzend aan het Xantic satellietgrondstation […]

The BBC reports that Philip Cummings, a 35 year old British national has been sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for identity fraud. This for information he got as a computer helpdesk employee. An excerpt:
A Briton involved in what is believed to be the largest identity theft case ever has been sentenced to 14 years in […]