Day 94 of BP's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico there was a storm. Also someone found out that on top of all the failsafes that failed causing the initial explosion and spill, the emergency alarm didn't go off - citing that it wasn't working properly.

Two and a half years after Kosovo officially declared independence from Serbia, a U.N. court decided it was legal. At the time of writing 69 countries have recognized Kosovo as an independent state making it the kinkiest declaration of independence to date.

Tony Blair (retired Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) urged a Lebanese flotilla to use established channels for delivering aid to Gaza, instead of attempting to run through a blockade for no reason. Barak Obama and the Israeli Navy also thought it was a good idea they use established routes and not engage the Navy. The flotilla organizers are still scheduled to make the attempt on Friday or Saturday.

Hugo Chávez (President of Venezuela) cut ties with Columbia and warned them not to incite conflict. To further pacify Columbia Hugo claimed that they fabricated evidence of Columbian rebel camps inside Venezuela - including images, video, maps, and eye witnesses. As though this didn't concern the involved parties enough Hugo then hinted that the Columbian president - in an effort not to leave office, is attempting to provoke a war with the "false" evidence. He also claimed that the entire thing is being orchestrated by the United States to justify and invasion of Venezuela.

North Korea threatens to use nukes in response to joint U.S. - South Korean naval exercises in the region. Hillary Clinton told North Korea to grow up and regime change.

Still under U.N. sanctions for it's alleged nuclear program, Iran has moved its target date for manned space flight to 2019. In February they launched a rocket into space loaded with a rat, turtle, and some worms. They insist their space program is not related to any nuclear activity.

sources:
http://www.nytimes.com
http://www1.voanews.com
http://www.jpost.com/
http://www.bloomberg.com
http://www.bbc.co.uk

Feel free to skip to the How-To below to find out how to boycott Facebook.

Help get the word out to the millions of people who don't know about Facebook's gross misconduct
on Twitter using hashtag #BoycottFacebook
on Digg http://digg.com/d31QbvX
on Facebook using this short link http://bit.ly/bsmODu

One of the more horrifying of activities Facebook has begun engaging in recently is spying on everyone across the internet. If you're reading this you've likely seen the hundreds of bloggers, news outlets, consumer watchdog groups, or just talked to a techie in your family or social circle who's outraged - especially recently - at Facebook. If not here's a brief and simple overview that barely skims the surface of why Facebook is evil and why you should boycott the site: 15 Good Reasons to Ditch Facebook: For Dummies.

The problem we're facing here is that any site can connect to Facebook by embedding a small chunk of code on their site. The code can and does access your private data on Facebook, but it also let's Facebook see what you're doing on the random 3rd party site. No warnings, approvals, or notifications necessary; and regardless of what you set your privacy policies to. There are lots of reasons why a site might do this, and lots of reasons why they may not be upfront about doing this. Plenty of people have complained over the last few days of random sites they visit adding apps to their Facebook profile, and posting on their wall without consent and with total disregard for their privacy settings. Every day tons of new sites and desktop applications add this functionality tracking and making public more and more of your activity on the internet without your consent or knowledge.

Everyone's being watched. If you're a member of Facebook then they know who you are based on your Facebook activity and profile information. If you put fake information on Facebook, Facebook will easily figure out who you are when you visit your real bank, your real account at some other social network, or whatever sites decide to add this malicious Facebook code in the future. And if you don't have a Facebook account at all then they're still tracking you by ip address, which they can easily associate with your accounts on other 3rd party sites.

There's no telling how far Facebook will exploit this as more and more sites add it, but Facebook's Founder as publicly declared a war on privacy several times now, and claimed to be changing social norms. He believes he can tell us how much of our lives he can own, invade, and monitor; and that he doesn't have to tell us what or who he shares that information with. Nor does he believe your consent holds any value.

It's not just that your activity is being monitored, it's that it's being monitored by Facebook - a malicious evil company which cons ignorant people into handing over their very identity permanently with no way out.

How-To boycott Facebook:

note: These instructions are 100% reversible, but before you begin you should delete everything off your Facebook account, change any relationship descriptions to nonsense. Fill your account with dummy information or info about why you're boycotting Facebook. Message all your Facebook "friends" asking them to untag you from any pictures they have up, and then log out for the last time.

It's very simple if you connect to the internet through a router. I'll attempt to give as much detail as possible, if you get stuck or don't use a router feel free to comment and ask for help.

1. Open your Browser(Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Internet Explorer)
2. Go to the following website http://192.168.0.1, if that doesn't work try http://192.168.1.1
3. You should now be looking at the login page for your router(The thing in between your computer and modem).
4. Type in the administrative username and password - the default username is usually admin, and the default password is usually left blank.
5. If that doesn't work you'll need to find the user manual or use Google to search for the make and model of your router to find the default username and password.
6. Once you're logged into your router look through the menus for an area called website filter or website block list or something to that effect. On my router it's located in Advanced -> Website Filter
7. Add the following entry: facebook.com
8. That's it. Make sure you save your settings, and once saved try going to Facebook.com in a new tab or window.

You should notice that Facebook will never load. Your browser will just keep waiting for a response from Facebook until it times out, but your router won't send or receive anything from Facebook anymore. It's like if you tried to call Facebook on the phone but the operator has been told never to connect a call between you and Facebook.

If you go to Digg.com you'll notice that while the site loads all the content you'd expect, it never finishes loading. This is because it's trying to connect to Facebook without your permission. You can try clicking the blue "Login with Facebook" button at the top, and you'll notice a small login window pops up with a bunch of other things spinning indefinitely. These are all occasions when Digg.com would normally be exchanging information with and loading Facebook.com - effectively letting Facebook recognize you and snoop on your Digg activity, and letting Digg access all your private information on Facebook.

Congratulations, you've safely and effectively boycotted Facebook. You can be comfortable in knowledge that no device that connects to the internet through your router will be able to reach Facebook, and Facebook will not be able to reach you.

Now that you're free help spread the word using the links at the top of this post.

I wanted to try a series that simplifies the news - cuts through big articles with boring facts and interviews and shit and just tells you what the story is about. Simple.

The backlash against Facebook's rampant abuse of privacy is gaining ground. 15 consumer watchdog groups have filed complaints with the American FTC over their more recent abuses.

Lebanon holding up peace talks with Israel by stating that they won't tell Hezbollah(a militia turned political entity) to disarm until the country has decided on a defence strategy to integrate Hezbollah's weapons into the regular army.

Pakistan tests a couple of nuclear bombs saying they want recognition from the world for being a legitimate nuclear power.

Lithuanian court this week banned the gay pride parade in the name of Jesus. The ruling was later overturned by an appeals court in the name of justice and freedom.

The Pope fired a leading German bishop for allegedly physically and sexually abusing children, and financially misconducting.

In Afghanistan the now unanimously unwelcome violent extremist group, the Taliban, is upset that the Afghan president is visiting Washington. The group has announced that they will be launching a fresh violent campaign starting on Monday, planning to "Lay siege to the cities".

Protestors in Thailand becoming violent; using drive-by shootings, grenades, in an effort to encourage peace in the country and to keep busy while a rough peace draft is being written up. The draft is due by the 15th.

Researchers at the University of Toronto have found a way to better predict how genes will behave in different types of human tissue. The same gene does different things in different places in the body. This discovery decodes those different things for any given gene.

Scientists have created a material that mimics the physical properties of muscle tissue. No one's sure what to do with it yet.

Nokia (The world's biggest mobile phone company) is suing Apple, saying the iPhone infringes on 5 of Nokia's patents. It's not the first time. Apple is counter suing saying Nokia infringes on their patents.

A few days ago Greek protestors were upset with the government and economy, so they set fire to a bank killing 3 people.

Editorial Section:

Perhaps the most important news of the day, this dog smiled so much she almost fell over.

I wanted to try a series that simplifies the news - cuts through big articles with boring facts and interviews and shit and just tells you what the story is about. Simple.

Supreme court of Canada says journalists shouldn't be able to fully protect anonymous sources. Saying it's not in the constitution.

The United Kingdom (ie: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern ireland) had a general election. It resulted in a minority government. Now they're fiff-faffing.

iPad available in Canada starting May 28. During Google's IO event May 19-20 Adobe will demonstrate a Google phone running Flash 10.1 and Adobe AIR. This will spur the completion of the bevy of competing tablets and mobile devices. Notion Ink's Adam tablet, and Hp's speculated WebOS tablet will be fierce competitors. Notion Ink plans to start shipping by the end of July.

They dug up some neanderthal bones from 30,000 - 40,000 years ago, and sequenced their DNA. It was difficult. They're saying based on similarities between their DNA and ours'(humans) there was a lot of interspecies fucking going on. Which technically means neanderthals and humans were not separate species - if they were able to produce offspring together.

Beyond Petroleum(BP) - the petroleum company - lowered a heavy metal box over their pressurized leaking oil hole in the Gulf of Mexico today. They hope it will work to stop the torrential leakage and not destroy the entire eastern coastline of North America. They're saying that if they knew oil - the thing gasoline and propane comes from - could catch on fire, they would have had a backup plan to prevent such a catastrophic disaster.

Germany decided to help the Greeks with their economy melt down with 110 billion euros. Other larger members of the European Union(EU) have helped, and other Countries are thinking about it too.

The United States and United Nations trying to coax peace in the Middle East asked Israel - the only known country there to have them - to disarm and disable some of their nuclear weapons. Israel doesn't want to do that until there's peace in the area.

One of the volcanoes in Iceland responsible for the huge ash cloud over Europe emitted more ash yesterday.

6 days ago Maoists in Nepal went on strike because they're unhappy with the government, this made everyone else angry so thousands of protesters gathered to demand an end to the strike and compromise between the Maoists and the government. After the protesters became violent, the government injured some people firing bullets in the air and tear gas at the crowd.

Political parties in Burma are having differences and splitting up. This is all much more difficult under their strict election laws. Some say participating in the election at all is undemocratic in the military run country.

Turkey may revise their constitution from being secular to Islamic based. The bill to do so has been approved but may still be blocked before coming into affect.

Microsoft's security patches secretly attempt to fix more than they tell people, which can cause problems and complete system failures.

Google Goggles - an app that let's you photograph something with your phone and find out more about that thing - has added translation. So aside from taking a picture of the Eiffel Tower and getting Wikipedia or whatever, you can photograph a chalk menu outside a bistro in Milan and have it translated into the language of your choice.

There's a new update for Google's web browser Chrome which makes it the fastest browser for looking at web sites. It's half a second faster than the latest Firefox, four hundreds of a second faster than the latest Opera and Safari. Internet Explorer is still painfully slow, so much that it's not even benchmarked anymore.

The first non-latin domain names are live now. You can now register website names using Arabic, Japanese, and other non-latin characters.

Yahoo tries ad campaign to compete with Google as a search/home page, speculatively wastes $85 million proving how incompetent they are.

Feel free to skip down to The Good Stuff.

And when you're done here think about reading about the Boycott Facebook movement.

I left Facebook more than a year ago and it went like this. Unfortunately the final straw causing me to want to finally leave, was the same reason I couldn't. Deleting my Facebook account on that day under that TOS(Terms of Service) would mean Facebook had the right to use my identity, content, and likeness forever, in any context, for any reason. So I deleted all my content on Facebook instead, changed my profile to explain to all my friends what a giant scam and shady organization Facebook was. I hoped and waited for the day that Facebook changed their TOS to back to something less permanent, or at least forgot my old profile data/content.. which was unlikely to happen. The next day a few Facebook groups had already sprung up outraged at the new TOS and petitioning to reverse the horrific changes, they were all rapidly growing in support and I had a little hope.

A few days later Facebook responded, and temporarily reversed the changes to their TOS while they, to paraphrase, worked with users on a Facebook Bill of Rights. While the old TOS was still shady and demented the permanent ownership of YOU and right to sell/share YOU with any 3rd party(multi-teared) for any reason was lifted. Realizing Facebook's Bill of Rights Bologne was an obvious sham I deleted my account as fast as I could.

I've spent the last year trying to explain to people what a nightmare Facebook is, and what they're becoming - and not only was I right about the direction they were going in, but nobody listened or cared about (see: Understood) a word I was saying. It was a hard lesson in the profound stupidity of the end-user. You're all just chimps in human clothing.

The Good Stuff - 15 Good Reasons to Ditch Facebook

1. Ever Changing Terms

Every time Facebook updates their TOS - which is quite often, it becomes more frightening, harder to leave Facebook, Facebook's rights to your identity, and right to share your private personal messages, images, and everything you put on Facebook get's more invasive and pervasive.

2. Auto-Resetting Privacy Controls

With every TOS update they kindly reset all your "privacy" controls to public for you, and it remains as such until you manually set it back to your preferred level of privacy.

You're required to race to Facebook when this happens and change them back before your parents and boss see the photos from that crazy kegger you were at last weekend, and before Google indexes your now public life letting it show up in people's Google searches.

3. Confusingly Complex Privacy Controls

Facebook's privacy controls are far too complex and convoluted for anyone to understand, and require an afternoon just to configure all of them. There's absolutely no reason for this other than to coax people into not setting them.

4. Irrelevant Privacy Controls

Facebook's privacy controls are irrelevant because the Facebook TOS allows Facebook to share all your activity and content with anyone in the world, regardless of your privacy settings. It doesn't matter if your boss can't log into Facebook and see embarrassing photos of you, when your boss can just call Facebook and ask them to send over all the photos you've ever posted, even private ones, even ones your friends posted and tagged you in.

5. Facebook Applications Can See Everything

Before I left Facebook I had made a small Facebook application. While I never used it for this purpose it shocked me to find out that even back then I, a 3rd party developer who had to provide no ID of any kind to Facebook, could access ALL OF THE PRIVATE INFORMATION AND CONTENT of anyone that added my application to their profile and ALL OF THEIR FRIENDS', AND FRIENDS OF FRIENDS' PRIVATE INFORMATION AND CONTENT. I could access everything, and I could do whatever I wanted with that information. I could visit your mother's house and hand her a printed out copy of an embarrassing photo of you. I could start a website where I just published all your personal information.

6. The new Facebook API - Social Graph

An API is when a website let's 3rd party programmers access their content from their 3rd party website or app. So the Twitter API let's TweetDeck login to Twitter for you and fetch your friends/updates/etc. so that you can see and interact with Twitter in TweetDeck.

At their recent developer conference, Facebook unveiled their new API which is currently available for use. It let's any website log into your Facebook and is Opt-Out. Which means you have to deliberately decide not to use it.

Every porn site, joke site, self-help site will soon have a small chunk of code added which automatically logs you into your Facebook account and gives the random site near total control of your Facebook profile.

Which means not only does ilikedonkeyshahahowdoistop.com know exactly who you are, who your friends are, and who their friends are, can post to your wall which videos you're watching, questions you're asking, pictures you're looking at. They can also create a Facebook group and make you a member of it, they can email your mother and tell her what you did on their site, they can Facebook message all your Friends and tell them how much you love their unique brand of porn, and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Aside from ilikedonkeyshahahowdoistop.com being able to know and do all that and more without any real consent(that's now, soon you won't have to give any consent), Facebook also has all this data. Facebook knows your browsing habits, they know the content of every page you visit. EVEN if there's a mild warning that says "Would you like to let this site use your Facebook?" which there are many ways for the shady site to hide and obfuscate, even if you see that warning and click "No", that Alert/question comes from Facebook who knows exactly where you are on the web, exactly what the content of the page you're on is and can watch what you're doing there. So even if you stay on top of every setting Facebook gives you and opt out of everything, Facebook still knows everything you do on the internet and can and will share that information to ANYONE THEY WANT, ANY TIME IN THE FUTURE, and the 3rd parties they share it with are also allowed to share the data with anyone they want forever.

7. Beacon

Beacon was an ad program a while back, that sort of came back on and off, where Facebook would advertise to your friends - without your consent - in your name. For example, Facebook could show your friend Jenny a message saying that "you really like Bacon Slather -a revolutionary new product where you bath in grease, and that last Tuesday when you used it, you had an orgasm and called out her name." They would be able to do this, and did, regardless of whether you had even heard of Bacon Slather.

They would also turn things you did actually post into an ad. So if you posted an status update saying "Fred is a total douche" Facebook would not only be able to re-word your update, but they would turn the word douche into a link that took any of your friends who clicked on it to a porn site specializing in videos of women douching. The new Facebook API is the latest evolution of Beacon.

8. Facebook's Revenue

Facebook makes money, and is setting up greater infrastructure to make money, by selling your private(regardless of privacy settings) information and content to anyone who'll buy it (advertisers, scammers, spammers, the government, the media, a thief, a murderer, your mother, your boss, anyone). Putting anything on Facebook gives Facebook the right to do that forever, so don't think about changing your mind 5, 10, or 5000 years down the line. They keep everything you've ever posted.

9. Facebook Intends to be a Publicly Traded Company (as in the stock market)

Aside from the manipulative, convoluted and outright morally wrong behaviour Facebook has and continues to exhibit in the name of exploiting its users for profit. When they go public they will have a legal obligation to its shareholders to maximize profit. Everything bad about Facebook has increased in severity by a factor of 10 since I left a year ago, and will drastically increase as they move towards and begin offering their first stocks.

10. Facebook Continues to Exploit You After You Die

Usually when a person dies, their bereaved family sends proof of your death to the various websites you belonged to so that they delete your account, and/or let your family save some of the pictures and memories you stored in the cloud.

When Facebook get's someone's death certificate the first thing they do is lock the deceased person's account. So even if your husband/girlfiend/whatever knows your password and wants to delete your Facebook profile, they're blocked from logging in. Then the account is given special dead person status, so every one of the dead person's Facebook Friends now knows they're dead. In addition and perhaps most shocking, Facebook then lets any of the dead person's Facebook friends - regardless of privacy settings - comment on the dead person's wall and photos. Often your Facebook friends are not people you really know, friends of friends and complete strangers. There is no way for the grieving family to remove, edit, or otherwise hide obsene, disgusting, and offensive comments, photos, and links posted to the dead person's wall. They just have to watch as the memory of their loved one is tainted and destroyed - and public.

Facebook will keep a dead person's profile in this locked down public state for about 60 days after the last person visits the page. Because every visit is a chance for you to click on one of the diet ads on the side. So 60 days after everyone forget's about your dead loved one Facebook will take the page down because it no longer generates profit for them.

11. Facebook is You

When you use Facebook, you agree to give them equal rights to your identity and likeness. One of the sick things they do with those rights is take control of your Profile.

Recently they began perpetuating people's profiles after they delete their Facebook account. So you decide you want to leave Facebook today, you delete your account, but your friends can still invite you to events, send you friend requests and pokes, and tag you in photos. Searching for your Facebook account still turns it up - like you never left.

So deleting your profile and canceling your Facebook account doesn't actually do that, instead what you're doing is going from joint ownership and control of your Facebook account and profile, to giving Facebook complete control.

It's only a matter of time before Facebook uses your "deleted" account to carry on conversations with your friends in your name, and resurrects random historical profile data, or simply generates new information based on what you've typed in before to make it look like you're still on Facebook.

If you delete your Facebook account today, you may get a phone call next week from your friend Jenny wondering why you told her you hate her and why you posted a photoshopped image of her profile picture were you replaced her head with a cow's. You'll try explain to her that Facebook is now controlling your profile and it was them and not you, but she won't believe you and you'll have to join Facebook again just so that you can jointly control your profile with Facebook and be dragged back into the site again.

This also means that some of the people you're interacting with on Facebook - or stalking - aren't really them. It's just Facebook pretending to be them, not that such a thing makes your Facebook relationships any more hollow.

12. Facebook is Inherently Insecure

As I explained here aside from the myriad of reasons Facebook is insecure, it contains a very public (regardless of "privacy" settings) list of all your social connections, where you go, and what you do. This information is now being used by spammers and hackers to manipulate you into opening virus laden emails you normally wouldn't by posing as your friends and sending you links to viruses that can't be detected by anti-virus software that's in a social context which you trust. They're scamming people out of money, pretending to be a friend stuck in another country who just needs $900 to get home where they'll pay you back. And also as a resource for answering your secret questions. A lot of sites, including some banks and email providers, let you pick a secret question and answer in the event you forget and/or need to reset your password. One look at your Facebook data and anyone can reset your accounts locking you out and letting them in.

13. Tech People in the Media are Leaving Facebook

The people that stand to lose the most from leaving a social network are finally pulling the plug. These are people that live in the public eye, so they're a lot more comfortable with Facebook's loose privacy, and their leaving Facebook affects their fan base who friended them on the network. About a week ago Leo Laporte deleted his Facebook account citing impossible to understand privacy settings, and the lack of ethics of the company. Leo Laporte for those who don't know is a tech god and hugely trusting, when he has a beef with something or someone it's so justified you'd have to be a turnip not to follow suit.

14. South Park

South Park and other comedy shows are starting to point out the hilarity of Facebook's TOS and "privacy" settings.

15. None of This is a Surprise

Facebook's founder and creator Mark Zuckerberg stole much of the code, and concept for Facebook from his school friends before he dropped out. They sued him and because Facebook was taking off he was able to settle out of court. He has a history of unethical behaviour, so it's no surprise his creation operates in a completely unethical malicious way.

What Do We Do Now?

First of all stop using Facebook immediately. Don't post another real status update, picture, comment, nothing.

Quite frankly unless you live in a country that enforces your rights and freedoms on the internet, of privacy, and prevents you from being obligated to unreasonable contracts you're totally and royally fucked, and next time maybe listen to me when I tell you bad things are coming.

If you're lucky enough to live in such a country first remove all your Facebook content and data, set all your privacy settings to the maximum privacy (to show intent in case you have to prove in court one day you wanted private) then completely delete and remove your Facebook account and profile. This is an intentionally long, confusing, misleading process and one more way Facebook has decided to abuse you. Document the process with screenshots, and email yourself the evidence so it's timestamped.

If you live in a country that doesn't care that you foolishly sold your soul to the devil, or the above doesn't work and you find your profile is still active and interacting with its Facebook friends without you, you'll need to opt for plan B.

Plan B involves keeping, or reactivating your Facebook account, making sure the only content associated with your account is about what an evil entity Facebook is, and have your "privacy" settings set to public. The best thing you can do in that situation is help create awareness and spread the word. Friend people on Facebook, and friend them with a message about why you're not able to delete your account. Start and join groups about it. Get the word out.

If enough people do this they may temporarily change their TOS to reflect a non-permanent contract which will allow you to actually delete your profile instead of just giving Facebook full control over it.

I've talked a lot about their unpleasantly ghostly Privacy Policy and Myspace-esk TOS, you know the ones that sign away equal rights and entitlement to your identity indefinitely just by using their site. But I haven't talked about the intrinsic insecurity of a social network like Facebook.

Fact: A significant amount of computer users exhibit insecure behaviour online. They don't use strong passwords, they don't opt for https://, they don't work on virus/keylogger free computers, and they answer spam emails(shocking I know).

Fact: Facebook contains not just a list of all your friends, but all your friends' friends, and a record of your interactions with them. Your social network and scene.

Think about it like this: If someone gains access to your email account, they can see your contact list, and they can see how you talk to your contacts. If they have a lot of time on their hands they can read huge volumes of emails and piece together your relationships.

On Facebook, they can see your list of friends, family, your communication with them, but more importantly their communication with each other. A schematic of your social life heavy with descriptions of how you know each person. Assuming you've toggled your privacy settings back so only your friends can see your stuff, and did so before google indexed your profile and friends list. Every one of your Facebook friends is an attack vector for all the personal info you've posted and that your friends and family have posted that doesn't even relate to you. More clearly A is an attack vector for B, A<->B, C, and B<->C.

In addition 3rd party Facebook app developers also have access to your social circle and information. Your Buddy wants to try an app from some developer he doesn't know? Well they just grabbed your entire social network and know a LOT about you and all your friends.

On Facebook, you are not the only one responsible for keeping your information safe. Anyone you friend is. Would you trust your Facebook friends with your Facebook username and password?

It's given birth to a new breed of highly personalized spam. Imagine getting an email from someone you don't know offering you cheap Viagra and even using your first name. Sounds like a scam right? Sounds like if you clicked on the link you'd probably get a virus or some kind of malware installed on your system right? Right.

Now imagine getting an email from Sarah your old girlfriend, where she talks about something you did the other night at a party (which you posted a photo of on Facebook being careful to only let your friends see) and then telling you she wants you to see a funny youtube video. You click on the link and guess what? It wasn't Sarah at all! "What?!", you say? How's that possible?

The Spammer, we'll call him Spammer, gains access to Jim(your buddy)'s Facebook account because a) he accidentally typed in FaceBack.com without realizing it and tried to login. His credentials were phished and the Spammer was in his account within 30 seconds, or b) Jim(same Jim) adds an application where the 3rd party developer wrote a bunch of code that scrapes all of Jim's and your information and emails it to him(the Spammer) as a .zip file when it's done. The Spammer goes ahead and looks through Jim's friends list, then through yours. Looks through your photos and descriptions of each of your contacts. Looks at Sarah's profile and write's down her email address, attaches the photo to an email, the email spoofs Sarah's email address(this is astoundingly easy without her login credentials from any computer connected to the internet) and adds an html link that looks like this in code:

<a href="http://sitewithavirus/silentkeylogger"> http://youtube.com/v=harmlessvideo</a>

and to you looks like this:

http://youtube.com/v=harmlessvideo

Clicking on the link will obviously take you to the virus and not to youtube and if you use Internet Explorer, or the Spammer is using a zero-day exploit for one of the other browsers, you're fucked due to arbitrary code execution.

A site that gives anyone other than you access to a super detailed schematic of your social circle is inherently insecure. Facebook should not expose your real life social circle to anyone even other people in that circle. But they do and will because a large part of their user retention plays on social needs for acceptance/approval/jealousy/etc. which requires exposing that information to people you normally wouldn't and in a permanent public manner that you normally wouldn't.

I just got this in my inbox from Google.

Before I quote the email I'd just like to add my own heart felt sentiments: Please die Internet Explorer 6. Please die now. You're very old, insecure, and stupid. Please die fast but painfully for putting the world through extended support and allowing yourself to exist for what? almost 10 years now?!

Dear Google Apps admin,​

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 ​as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

The Google Apps team

I kept reading on Giz about how HTML 5 takeover is imminent and each time lost a little respect for my favourite gadget blog. It's good to know that when it comes down to it some of them do actually know what they're talking about.

Gizmodo, who were some of the idiots I referred to in my post yesterday redeemed themselves by publishing a very comprehensive breakdown of why HTML 5 isn't saving anyone anytime soon 40 minutes ago, and (although they only briefly touched on it, being that the post is primarily about HTML 5) why Flash is better at doing the kind of things HTML 5 is supposed to usurp in imagination land.

HTML isn't platform ubiquitous and never will be because whoever has the monopoly is also directly motivated to keep web standards to shit. Companies are companies and the monopoly will always be a company.

Flash on the other hand is already platform ubiquitous. Write once, deploy everywhere. The only problem with flash is resource use, which 10.1 - already in 2nd beta will address.

Flash also now has the ability to run native c/c++ code, so decoding video with flash will be as fast as doing it natively in the browser. Well as doing it natively in the browser will eventually maybe possibly in 5-10 years if the web can come together in happy fairy land on HTML 5 implementation.

Goodbye Flash?? I say goodbye web browsers and hello Adobe AIR branded front ends to web services and content.

Here's a small excerpt from John Herrman of Gizmodo's comprehensive HTML 5 breakdown, although I strongly recommend you read the whole thing as it makes things clear for the tech - and not so tech, savvy:

...

The Basics

Before we get into what HTML5 means, we have to talk about what it is, and to talk about what it is, we need to talk about what it's built upon.

Hypertext markup language, or HTML, is the language underneath every web page you've ever been to. The language, along with its various complementary technologies (see: CSS, Javascript), has become immensely complex over the years, but the concept is simple. HTML is what turns this:

<u><em><strong><a href="http://gizmodo.com">Hello!</a></strong></em></u>

Into this:

Hello!

It's basically a set of instructions that a website hands to a browser, which the browser then reads and converts into a formatted page, full of text, images, links and whatever else.

Here, try this: Right-click anywhere on this webpage, and click "View Page Source," or "View Source," or something to that effect. Your eyes will be assaulted with a wall of inscrutable text. You'll see evidence of syntax, but your brain won't be able to parse it. Your eyes will glaze over, and you will close the window. This, my friends, is HTML. But you probably already knew that, because it's 2010, basic web languages are basically in our drinking water. So what's this "5" business?

Somewhere in the central command center basement of the internet, there's a group of guys who maintain the standard, or the rules, of HTML. In the case of HTML5, the buck stops with the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), and to a lesser extent, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It is through these independent standards organizations that new features are codified and presented to the public, and later—in theory—supported by various browsers, no matter what company is behind them.

In the early nineties, the W3C and a few influential torchbearers would collect various new web features thought up by different browser makers, publishing these standards with the hope that we didn't end up with different internets for different browsers. By the mid to late nineties, the standards had grown in both size and stature, then serving as the de facto guide for browser makers and developers alike. (If this sounds a bit rosy, the reality was far grimmer—just ask any seasoned web developer about Internet Explorer, version 6 or earlier.)

Despite an occasionally rocky road, HTML standards went beyond being just a record of changes in web technology; eventually they became the blueprint to push them forward. Still, standards are guides, not laws, and no browser maker has to adopt each and every revision.

The last major revision of the HTML standard, version 4.01, was published in 1999. HTML5 hasn't yet been formally codified, but it was born in 2004 and has been undergoing steady work and maintenance since. In the '90s, HTML discussion centered around topics like font coloration, or tables, or buttons, or something more esoteric. Today, a new HTML version means deep-down support for the modern web, namely web apps and video.

John Herrman - Read the rest on Gizmodo

The internet is a buzz with talk of the downfall of Flash. Flash, the only web platform with 99%+ penetration rate cross platform, and 90%+ penetration rate for their latest version only 3 months after release. The platform that powers the web's content, games, and more than 75% of all interactive online media. That's now able to power desktop and mobile applications, and with the imminent release of Flash 10.1 will bring far more efficient and lower memory/ram usage. So much lighter on cpu in fact that it's able to play HD Youtube videos on mobile phones and netbooks without a problem. Yes, Flash, the downfall of Flash.

There are two main arguments to this. The first is the emergence of HTML 5. HTML 5 finally allows video and audio playback without any plugins, and canvas - a tag which allows for complex drawing, embedding fonts, etc. etc. Things Flash has been able to do for years, has a huge head start on, and does really well. Flash has supplied us with everything from video streaming to blackjack, and even website design as a whole, and yet HTML 5 is supposed to just oust the holder of the crown and sceptre when it's finalized? I don't think so. The problem nobody seems to get is that Internet Explorer still has a majority market share, by a lot depending on who you ask - and Microsoft will likely NEVER support standards because it directly counters their business model. Aside from that, and the fact that every browser that will support HTML 5(ie: everyone else), will implement it differently from each other, with different aesthetics, features, code, BUGS, etc. But even more crucial the HTML 5 spec itself is not even complete yet. It's not even finished, and it's unfinished in a deadlock between the web giants who not only can't decide or agree on which video and audio formats are the best performance wise, but also who owns the rights to implement those formats in their browser and who'll have to pay massive royalties should the true patent holders (still somewhat unknown for sure) decide to cash in. No one wants to properly look this up for a variety of reasons and so HTML 5 - supposed to bring the web together and herald a new dawn of the internet can only work if EVERYONE does in fact come together and implement it in exactly the same way; disregarding that ubiquitous HTML 5 means EVERYONE loses something, some everything.

The other main argument is the Apple iPad - just announced. Which like the iPhone doesn't support Flash. Apple uses the old "Flash is too resource intensive" argument to convince you that limiting you from the full web is a good thing. This simply isn't true. It's false. Both iPhone 3Gs and iPad could happily run the current version of Flash or Adobe AIR just like your laptop/desktop. And it's also entirely up to the developer and how they program and how resource intensive they make their flash app/widget/game/etc. The only reason, listen up, the ONLY reason Apple does not support Flash, is because the Flash platform already powers so many games and useful tools and full blown applications on the internet it threatens Apple's very business model of the Itunes/App Store. Apple wants companies to develop all their apps again specifically for the iPlatform and invest in it. If you could make a Flash app that ran on the iPhone it would also run on Android and every other smart phone. But if you invest in the iPlatform your app will only run on the iPlatform. If Apple was a monopoly the FTC would be pushing them down for their anti-competitive vindictive behaviour.

Apple doesn't block Flash support in their mobile products because they want to push innovation in HTML 5. If HTML 5 was advanced enough, or popular enough to be worth creating the caliber of applications possible on Flash, Apple would immediately configure mobile Safari to block, impede, and hinder the advancement of standards just like Microsoft with IE. In a heart beat. Apple promotes HTML 5 because they know it'll be years before it's anywhere close to where Flash is today, if ever. In fact Apple is one of the "powers that be" preventing the HTML 5 spec from being finalized in the codec wars. Apple wants you locked into their platform. Apple doesn't care about advancing the web, or a better user experience, they care about the big media companies bringing their content online through Apple's platform. Apple wants the iPad to replace your tv, radio, and other media consumption devices. They do not care about the open web.

Adobe on the other hand continues to open up the Flash platform and benefits from creating a ubiquitous platform across desktop and mobile. There are fully open source versions of their Streaming and Application servers, and free and open source ways to develop for their platform. Anyone can build a Flash application, for the browser, desktop, Windows, Mac, Linux, Safari, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etc. etc. Build one application and deploy everywhere using an incredibly powerful, scalable, and mature toolset. Apple on the other hand - should you decide to invest in it, puts you in a position where you may or may not after months of development time and costs even get your application onto a device, regardless you'll have payed Apple to be a developer and to submit it in the first place or even get access to their development tools, and should you get through the random and gauntlet of barriers they can still remove your software from their platform and devices at a moments whim. They can and do literally remove your application from people's phones after being downloaded and used without warning to backup the data put into or created by your app. Anytime for any reason. AND if you're lucky enough to get your application through all these extra months of hurdles and costs and lost revenue you're only gaining access to one small subset of mobile devices.

It is absolutely ridiculous to think the HTML 5 is going anywhere anytime soon, let alone even coming close to eclipsing Flash in any way. Not from Apple, they don't want anything to compete with their platform for getting applications on their devices - Flash or otherwise(HTML, Java, Silverlight), and not from anywhere else because it's just not mature, complete, or will over the next 12-24 months be implemented uniformly or consistently across browsers or operating systems. Even in the event that somehow all these competitors come together to reduce their own profit margins and upset shareholders in the name of benefiting the user and happy popcorn rainbows, it will still only have the capabilities of Flash 8-ish. By then Flash Player 11 will be out and all the best web apps will have an Adobe AIR application front end and you'll use an Adobe AIR application to browse through a market place of Adobe AIR apps. Yes we're moving towards the cloud, and yes the cloud and desktop are becoming indistinguishable, but moving into the browser is only a temporary measure for some companies before they build a desktop front end for their service.

The iPad, iPhone, and iPod are toasters. Every person with an iMobile device also has a desktop or laptop for work and actually managing their digital life. Every single person I've seen raving for HTML 5 and the downfall of Flash depends heavily on Flash and its phenomenal capabilities. They're all idiots.