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That's not quite true... Visa was affected, but in a different way. Verified By Visa (an SSL password you issue to visa, used for online payments to stores) was intermittent and started processing payments without going through the verification step. Had this issue when topping up my cell account while the DDoS was still underway.

But their backend systems were unaffected, so payments were still being made, they were just less secure.

Mastercard's problem was that their corporate site was on the same network as their SecureCode directory server, so naturally DDoS'ing one got the other as well. Source - 5th paragraph.

This is also good. The solar wind is moving sideways, not outwards.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00wgq0l/The_Joy_of_Stats/ In response to my own question as to whether there's a full program. Yes there is. Going to watch that now :)

Having seen this in at least a couple dozen news articles, you'd have to show me quite a bit of alternative stories saying the charge is RAPE, in order to convince me.

From the BBC:

"These alleged crimes comprise one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation, and one count of rape."

Sounds very specific from an organisation I find pretty reliable. That's not to say that he's guilty, plus maybe what counts as rape in Sweden doesn't elsewhere, and it is possible that the BBC are wrong even about the charges but do you have a similarly reputable source saying explicitly that he is not charged with rape?

This is old news,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11981666

Journalist John Pilger and socialite Jemima Khan are putting up $31,600 surety each, with bail set at $380,000. It looks like enough people like Michael Moore have guaranteed the bail money as he has been bailed pending appeal (the prosecutors have 2 hours to appeal). He should be released by the end of the day.

He has had his passport confiscated, been electronically tagged, is under curfew and house arrest during the evenings, and must report to the police station every day. This is fair enough, it is no different to any other offender afaik. Certainly not the Guantamo Bay scenario he has had the past week, with "absolutely no access to any electronic equipment, no access to the outside world, no access to outside media" and no correspondence allowed.

The fast tracking through political influence, and the imprisonment for an as yet unfounded allegation in a foreign country, is a blot on our country's record, but it's good to see our strong and mostly fair legal system reassert itself after a short delay.

Phillip.

He was granted bail on appeal today, just in the last few hours.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11989216

In unrelated news, most of Amazon in Europe suffered an outage tonight. BBC story

I subscribe to Roger Penrose's idea of cycles of time for big bang follows big bang and so on. Hear him speak in an interview on the Today program on radio 4 http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9032000/9032626.stm

Further to this last point, there is pretty much universal consensus that there is a limit to the lifespan of fossil fuels, hence the classification as "non-renewable".

Even if you choose to completely ignore the environmental concerns, it makes long term economic sense to start investing in long-term energy solutions. That way, the transition to a more sustainable economy can happen without a major disruption.

The whole idea that environmental stewardship is at odds with business is just bunk. In fact, it turns out that monitoring carbon is good for businesses. The choice isn't between having a good economy and having a clean environment. The choice is between two different economic systems - one that considers long-term environmental costs and one that ignores them until they are serious problems, both environmentally and economically.

In my mind, the biggest failure of the environmental movement is the fact that they rarely talk about the long term economic gains that can happen with good land stewardship.

Visa *is* doing the same thing.

Excuse me while I crawl out of the hole I've been living in.

Visa *is* doing the same thing.

Mastercard did it first, I'm sure Visa will be next... after Paypal.

Visa *is* doing the same thing.

"From the start, a ferocious controversy has raged about whether anyone really could achieve this superhuman feat. Critics particularly questioned one chapter in the book where the walkers apparently see a pair of yetis."

Now back to the point, of what should have been done to shut down Al Qaeda. Before the invasion they had pretty much free reign in Afghanistan, the government was happy for them to be there and they could run pretty openly. Shutting that down was necessary and a good thing. The problem was then that the focus was turned to the neocons wet dream of taking over Iraq, with the attempt to link Iraq to Al Qaeda and the whole WMD fiction. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2859431.stm ("Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term"). This meant that the reconstruction of Afghanistan was starved of resources, it also gave North Korea a couple of years of low international attention an pressure, which mean that as long as they kept their heads down they could carry on wiht their nuclear program, resulting in a functional bomb. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

I am really not sure what you are proposing the US does about Saudi Arabia, another invasion? The hey lets bomb mecca option, that will stop them! option (how well did the lets bomb the wtc, that will stop them! option work? ). The fact remains the Al-Sauds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saud) are the US best friends in Saudi Arabia. I am sure they are clamping down. It is rather hard to stop wealthy individuals (and there are rather a lot of those in SA) giving cash to "islamic charities" with terrorist connections. I really don't know what you think you can acheive appart from another HUGE mess in SA. So 1/ Afghanistan was a sensible target, it was a large military base and staging ground for Al Qaeda. 2/ Iraq was for sure a distraction 3/ I have have no idea what you want to try to do in Saudi Arabia, but you would most likely make the situation worse, the government there is about as pro america as anyone in the region, and a lot more pro america than the public opinion in the country is. So any change of government is likely to result in more problems for hte US not less.

Now back to the point, of what should have been done to shut down Al Qaeda. Before the invasion they had pretty much free reign in Afghanistan, the government was happy for them to be there and they could run pretty openly. Shutting that down was necessary and a good thing. The problem was then that the focus was turned to the neocons wet dream of taking over Iraq, with the attempt to link Iraq to Al Qaeda and the whole WMD fiction. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2859431.stm ("Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term"). This meant that the reconstruction of Afghanistan was starved of resources, it also gave North Korea a couple of years of low international attention an pressure, which mean that as long as they kept their heads down they could carry on wiht their nuclear program, resulting in a functional bomb. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

I am really not sure what you are proposing the US does about Saudi Arabia, another invasion? The hey lets bomb mecca option, that will stop them! option (how well did the lets bomb the wtc, that will stop them! option work? ). The fact remains the Al-Sauds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saud) are the US best friends in Saudi Arabia. I am sure they are clamping down. It is rather hard to stop wealthy individuals (and there are rather a lot of those in SA) giving cash to "islamic charities" with terrorist connections. I really don't know what you think you can acheive appart from another HUGE mess in SA. So 1/ Afghanistan was a sensible target, it was a large military base and staging ground for Al Qaeda. 2/ Iraq was for sure a distraction 3/ I have have no idea what you want to try to do in Saudi Arabia, but you would most likely make the situation worse, the government there is about as pro america as anyone in the region, and a lot more pro america than the public opinion in the country is. So any change of government is likely to result in more problems for hte US not less.

the console makers have managed to successfully sue sources of jailbreak tools out of existence.

Grab a DS, a flash loader

Then please allow me to rephrase more specifically: Nintendo has been managing to sue makers and sellers of DS flash cards out of business. Please see, for example, this BBC news article: Game copiers for Nintendo DS ruled illegal in UK.

If Nintendo (and other console manufacturers) were more open with development, they might not be seeing their platforms cracked so fully.

Apparently being open doesn't have noticeable benefits to a console maker's bottom line, or Sony wouldn't have shut down Other OS in PLAYSTATION 3 system software starting with version 3.21.

He's location is "unknown"...

Well, according to the BBC article:

"Mr Assange is expected to appear before a district judge at City of Westminster Magistrates Court before 1230 GMT, unless special permission is given for a later hearing."

Not in the handling of Assange, but his own double standards. Apparently WikiLeaks is being controlled from "secret locations", yet he isn't disclosing them! (BBC News) How is it fair and consistent to disclose the US's "list of vital sites" (which no-one need know) but not WikiLeaks' "list of vital control sites"? ;)

Already happened.
He went to the British police voluntarily.

Swiss bank freezes Julian Assange's (personal) account

Julian Assange (new) arrest warrant arrives in UK

Twitter aside, I think my basic point remains

And how many of these other fronts are also paranoid over-reactions? You're invoking numbers here. You can't fall back on the point when the numbers are shown to be in question (granted, the numbers are implied but not stated - which is the kind of emotional slight-of-hand that gets us in to these messes to begin with).

Twitter aside, I think my basic point remains

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11921220
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/05/julian-assange-lawyers-being-watched
• http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/wikileaks-reveals-ugly-truth-about-iran-appeasers/story-fn59niix-1225966020409
• http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_16762752?source=rss&nclick_check=1
• http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/must-read-nyt-wikileaks-on-china-and-google/67499/
• http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Wikileaks+indictment+diplomacy/3927123/story.html

Yeah right. All the botnet operators that directed them to attack WikiLeaks servers instead of spamming are just being patriotic and there was no government pressure there. (My friend who's job it is to block spam for a cellular provider tells me that during the WikiLeaks DDoS attacks spam traffic dropped to less than 1% of normal)

As for the rape charges in Sweden which were already dropped because the 'victims' "partied with [Assange] after the consensual sex and even bragged about the intercourse on twitter and to their friends", the Swedish legal system is just being patriotic by completely subverting every principle they're sworn to uphold. No government pressure there either.

Lest we forget the issue covered right here on /. about the US State Department bullying graduate students and threatening their employability should they post anything encouraging about WikiLeaks online, but despite the fact that it is openly declared that the US State Department is responsible, they're in fact just patriots acting on their own time using company letterhead to save a trip to Kinko's.

And for the grand finale, while Assange's completely bullshit charges have Interpol looking under rocks to arrest him, Nigeria has requested Interpol issue an arrest warrant for Dick Cheney for well-supported bribery charges. But of course the fact that Assange's warrant has been issued and Cheney's hasn't has nothing to do with US government pressure either way, Interpol is just having a half-price sale on Australians.

Wake up and smell the military dictatorship. Your ignorance is inexcusable.

Not to be too pedantic, but according to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11913196, it's back up to 9.8%

Apologies for stereotyping... but you must be American...

Civilized countries arrest someone, then try him. People are not guilty until proven guilty... and you certainly won't get shot until proven guilty.

I would say " ... and you certainly won't get shot deliberately until proven guilty. People certainly have been shot before being proven guilty.

How much does it cost to set-up my own Web Hosting Engine?

Uh, really? You've never hosted a website, even if just for tests?
It costs the price of a decent internet connection (upload bandwidth is the most important) that doesn't block port 80 (some ISPs do, others don't) and a PC connected 24/7.

I switched my default search engine to Yahoo.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4221538.stm

Why, I was accused of rape *and* murder. As a result, I can never got to Thailand for fear of winding up in a Southeast Asian prison based on mistaken identity.

Guess it's gonna be harder for Wikileaks to find a host for politically relevant, shocking revelations such as Nicolas Sarkozy chasing a rabbit around the office.

You don't understand. This revelation PUTS LIVES AT RISK.

I'm pretty sure this was discovered some months ago...however, these articles don't mention anything about the bacteria's DNA. Perhaps that's the new discovery NASA made. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14537-arseniceating-bacteria-rewrite-evolutionary-history.html http://water.usgs.gov/nrp/highlights/arsenic.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7558448.stm

Guess it's gonna be harder for Wikileaks to find a host for politically relevant, shocking revelations such as Nicolas Sarkozy chasing a rabbit around the office.

Mr Correa told reporters that the offer had "not been approved by Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino - or the president". Mr Patino said it would "have to be studied from the legal and diplomatic perspective".

Good question. The whole situation is very unusual. Even if you assume that Assange did suddenly decide, during consensual sex, to carry out a non-consensual act, the issue of prosecution is on shaky ground. The vast majority of rape accusations never make it to court, and the vast majority of those are found "not guilty" (the figure is something like 95% of accused either do not get to court, or walk away free). For a successful prosecution there has to be more evidence than "she says she didn't consent, he says she did". The whole legal issue of being able to predicate consent and retroactively withdraw consent (e.g. consent based on unstated predicate of shared ethnicity) is fraught with difficulties for a successful prosecution. For a prosecutor to pursue a case, based only on the allegation, is unusual enough. For a prosecutor to issue a request for Interpol intervention, with a view to extraditing a foreigner from a 3rd party country, is highly unusual. For a prosecutor to do this, after the Chief Prosecutor has already stated that the alleged suspect is "no longer wanted" and "is not suspected of rape" and is free to leave the country, is very odd indeed.

Note also that the Interpol notice is apparently not an international arrest warrant - it is just a request for information: "The Interpol notice is not an international arrest warrant but the public is asked to contact police with any information about Mr Assange's whereabouts.". Putting out such a notice is bizarre, given that the Prosecutor is in contact with Assange's legal counsel in London, and that Assange has agreed to meet at either the Swedish Embassy or Scotland Yard. The prosecutor wants "more information" about him, but is already in contact, and can arrange a meeting in person or via video conference at the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police in London, but instead chooses the Interpol route? This is not normal for a sex crimes case with only alleged victim testimony and no other evidence. If you or I had unprotected sex with a girl, and she subsequently said her consent had been predicated on use of a condom, the case would never go to court. Certainly it would never become an international police issue. There is the issue of there maybe being two alleged victims, but apparently only one actually complained to the police? I guess we will find out what really happened - if the case ever makes it to court.

Yeah like this one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11860928

But in this particular case, it's not plausible -at least right now- because he's too public. Hence, they are trying to defame him.

However, on 18 November, Stockholm District Court approved a request to detain Assange for questioning on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation, and unlawful coercion. Director of Public Prosecutions Marianne Ny, who had reopened the investigation in September, said she had requested the warrant because, "so far, we have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogation."

If he really was innocent why wouldn't he talk to the authorities? His lawyer claims he'd talk to the authorities via skype, the Swedish Embassy in London or Scotland Yard, well in the world I've you really don't get to dictate the terms of your questioning with the police. If I was charged with rape and told the police I'd Skype with them they'd hunt me down and handcuff my ass.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11831519

If it ends up that the new leaks target all kinds of banks and companies, then no. If they are all conveniently US banks and companies, then I'd say that lends some credence to the anti-US idea.

Wikileaks already released information about foreign banks that was politically explosive: the Julius Baer tax evasion and money laundering docs, and the Northern Rock memo. The Julius Baer documents led to wikileaks.org being censored by the U.S. judicial system. Details of the Northern Rock memo were completely censored in the British press by the British judicial system.

So, if Wikieaks really is just an anti-U.S. operation, then why would they release documents on Swiss and British banks? And why do people who complain that Wikileaks is only releasing U.S. info ignore the cases where they released information from non-U.S. entities?

That's proving a bit difficult, because there's just so much violence. It wasn't this attack I was thinking of. (It also definitely wasn't this one, or this, though both did involve the IDF standing by and doing nothing. This act of sabotage under the supervision of IDF troops is interesting but irrelevant.)

Note that Palestinians don't get off so lightly if they attack settlers; sometimes the whole messy business of trial and evidence is skipped and they're just shot in their beds.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll find the right link eventually, but it's a lot like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Kwispelbier has been around since 2007.

This is just Assange using wikileaks to attack a country he hates.

Clearly this is why the headline story on BBC news today is about China's thinking on North Korea, and the headline story in The Independent is about missiles in Iran, both of which are sourced from the Wikileaks cables and neither of which is remotely 'anti-US'. I'm sure there are numerous other examples. It seems that you are being deceived by the US government propaganda machine, which attempts to bias (US) public opinion against things it doesn't like by claiming that they are attacking the democratic beacon of justice and humanity, the great and powerful USA, land of the free etc etc.

Suspected rapist? I thought they dropped that charge? Jeeze this article seems a little biased.

Um. Last I checked, he has an ACTIVE ARREST WARRANT over that charge. That doesn't sound like 'dropped' to me...

I wonder what's next.

Just like any other terrorist organization, it's more like what's now...

I really hope Google wins this one. Google search results are spammed with enough useless "price comparison" and "vertical search" sites as it is, their results really don't need any more - especially not forced upon them by Google. It's reached the point where it's very difficult to find actual reviews for certain products or sites selling them via Googling already, because the "vertical search" sites don't care about actually providing good information. (If you read Google's response, the reason the company complaining got automatically downranked is because nearly all their content was duplicated - like many such sites, they offered absolutely nothing useful and were just sponging off their ability to draw people in by getting as high in the Google results as possible.)

You guys have it better than we do at the moment. Ed Vaizley (Communications Minister) has supported the idea of paying extra for access to certain content on the internet. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11773574 As you can imagine I'm not too pleased about this, you guys are still looking to your government to help you, ours has already said they'll do the opposite.

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_61719.shtml

As for their shelter....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3689104.stm

BBC mainstream enough for you?

http://www.countercurrents.org/pappe280108.htm

The idea of playing music to plants is pretty far out there for me. But I can begin to go with it. After all, there have been a few studies that suggest plants might have more perception and intelligence than most would give them credit for. Who is to say for sure that a plant couldn't somehow perceive a sound vibration and respond to it in some manner? Very far fetched, but I wouldn't put it outside the realm of possibility.

But playing music to fruit? That doesn't make sense to me in anyway. Ripening is a well understood chemical process. One that I don't believe the fruit itself has any control over once it has been plucked from the tree. This is just a publicity stunt/marketing gimmick that worked well enough to land it a news article. Beyond that, it's just a waste of time and energy.

He was tortured.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7036051.stm

Yep, you can get it at Tesco. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-11419498

To determine the most boring day, you either need every fact or one fact: That on Good Friday, 1930, the B.B.C. evening news announcer led the bulletin with "There is no news tonight" and gave a piano recital in place of the normal bulletin.
Mentioned on the BBC website
or according to the software used, does the fact that the day was recognised as one on which nothing happened make the day itself interesting.