Huge China based computer ring broke into computers worldwide

For the past several years, there has been an active discussion among researches about the impact that a sustained attack on the computer infrastructure of developed countries could achieve. With modern infrastructures such as electricity, water, transport, finance, etc all being controlled through computational technologies, there is a persisting fear that all of this infrastructure is under threat from any clever band of cyber attackers. Modern military games incorporate threats by hackers who are affiliated to sovereign countries, and in many cases, it is claimed that developing the ability to bring down the computer networks of other countries is part of the game plan for offensive action. In the past, it has been feared that countries such as China and Russia have developed capabilities for offensive cyber-warfare.
Consider this case where a computer network, based in China, and dubbed as the 'GhostNet' by a team of Canadian researches turned up a huge network based on computers located in China; these computers were the initiators of hacking attempts that broke into computers all over the world; this probe was based on a need by the Dalai Lama office in India to ensure that its own computers were not infected (link to article):

In "Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network," issued over the weekend, the Canadian researchers say that the GhostNet comprises 1,295 infected computers in 103 countries, almost one third of them being "high-value targets, including ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, international organizations, news media, and NGOs."
The breaches tended to stem from a so-called social-engineering exploit, in which targets in the Tibetan community were sent an e-mail that appeared to be from the address campaigns@freetibet.org and that carried an attached Word document titled "Translation of Freedom Movement ID Book for Tibetans in Exile"--and that Word document was infected with the malicious code. The University of Cambridge report, "The snooping dragon: social-malware surveillance of the Tibetan movement," doesn't refrain from charging that the Chinese government was directing malware attacks: "(I)t was a targeted surveillance attack designed to collect actionable intelligence for use by the police and security services of a repressive state, with potentially fatal consequences for those exposed."

These incidents are also warnings to Governments about how their infrastructural systems are only as strong as their weakest links. One node in the system getting hacked can lead into other nodes also falling, and lead to a risk that the entire system is being compromised. In the current system, it was also found that the exploit had the powers to turn on the voice recording and the camera systems of the infected computer, leading to a spying of the proceedings happening in front of the computer.

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Satellites crashing in space - Russian and US satellites

One always thinks of space as a large open area, with plenty of space in all directions. You combine this space with the concept of satellites being well regulated and following controlled orbits, and then it is difficult to believe that satellites under the control of such countries such as the United States and Russia could actually collide, and yet that is exactly what seems to have happened:

The collision between a U.S. and a Russian satellite over Siberia may have been accidental and the first of its kind, but experts say more crashes will inevitably occur and could have geopolitical consequences. "This is an event that really makes us realize that things are not so straightforward as we originally thought," said Francisco Diego, a senior research fellow in physics and astronomy at University College London.
The collision, between a spacecraft operated by U.S. communications group Iridium Satellite LLC and a Russian Cosmos-2251 military satellite, happened 485 miles above the Russian Arctic on Tuesday afternoon. The crash sent at least 600 pieces of debris off into space, officials said, increasing the risk that other satellites, including the vast International Space Station, which orbits 220 miles up, could be struck and damaged.

This crash may have been accidental, but what is to prevent countries from investing in such technologies. For example, a couple of such crashes have the effect of impacting the GPS and communication technologies that are used by the US military to great affect.

Internet users reach 1 billion

This was a landmark that people have been waiting for some time. It has always be portrayed that internet usage is something that does not affect poor people in developing countries (and this may still be true), but the fact that the overall number of internet users the world over is now past 1 billion (as reported in December) is a big landmark by itself (link):

The key metric in the number of users is that most of them are from Asia, predominantly so: 41 percent, compared to 28 percent in North America and 18 percent in Europe. Although a sizeable percentage of Europe speaks English in some capacity (as does Asia), the numbers indicate that most of the world's Internet traffic will most likely be communicated using some non-English language. China, for example, had 179 million users, topping the list of wired countries; the U.S. was second, at 163 million. Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom rounded out the top five.

The growth areas are also significant. Slowly, the world is moving to incorporate more languages; however this is counter-balanced by the growing prevalence of English as a global language.

Valuing Twitter at $250 million

Remember those old style internet valuations, as when Google bought Youtube for 1.6 billion dollars. A lot of those valuations never made it much, such as the huge amount of money paid for AOL by CNN, something that killed the long term strength of the company. A offshoot of these kind of valuations was that other companies also started expecting the same sort of valuations, way out of their earning potentials (even if you were very optimisitic).
The standard model is simple, setup a site with something new or a better way of doing something that brings in the millions of users, and then poof!, the valuations start screaming upwards. In the midst of this, revenue and short-to-mid term potential cannot meet these valuations. And there are a number of companies who have done very well in terms of attracting users, especially social networking sites. So, a site like Facebook has a lot of heavy-usage users, including a lot who hunt for people to add to the network. However, very few people have been able to generate long term revenue generation plans. Twitter is one such network that has become extremely popular over the relatively short period of time of 2 years, although it has the same problems in trying to show an effective business model. Consider that this micro-blogging network gets a valuation of $250 million:

Rumor is Twitter hit up more than a few venture firms to pitch the $250 million valuation, and got more than one 'no,'" TechCrunch wrote Saturday. "But someone's bit, perhaps encouraged by Twitter's breakneck growth and the interest from Facebook. That means Twitter gets a new cash injection and time to figure out its business model at an even more leisurely pace."
That certainly would be a boon for Twitter, which until now has not shown signs of a viable business model. Though it is growing rapidly and has millions of users, no one knows how the company could support itself. Some have worried that while it is increasingly useful to the many people who rely on it, it might not be financially viable over time.

One can only hope that the world is saner now in terms of valuations, especially the considersation of revenue generation.

Twitter hacked

Twitter is a service that has become tremendously popular, that too, within a very short period of time. The ability to post micro-blogging type messages (restricted to 140 characters) and for others being able to read them through a variety of means (SMS, RSS, via the Twitter site, email, or through specialist applications) made the usage of Twitter even more popular. With such a popular site, one can only imagine the number of attempts that would be made to hack into such a service, and it happened - the Twitter sites of many celebrities where hacked through the compromising of some internal Twitter administration tools:

Members of the online forum Digital Gangster may have been behind yesterday's Twitter hack. On Monday, hackers gained access to, and posted messages from, 33 Twitter accounts including those of Bill O'Reilly, Britney Spear and CNN's Rick Sanchez. According to this thread, a hacker named GMZ gained access to Twitter login information and then posted a different thread--that has since been removed--calling on other DG members to email him for credentials to individual accounts. At least another four members then claim to have been part of yesterday's Twitter hack.
The hack included several prank posts from Twitter users such as Fox News, Facebook and president-elect Barack Obama. The strange thing about some of these messages is that they included affiliate links--a common marketing program that pays the creator of the link for driving traffic to another Web site such as Amazon--according to reports. That may make finding the culprits easier as the affiliate programs in question should have a virtual paper trail leading back to the payee

No matter who did this, the hacking of Twitter (and not much apparent concern from users about this) is a reminder that security on the internet can be compromised; revealing personal details on the internet comes with a certain amount of risk.

What happened to the Sony PS3

As a lot of people who follow the gaming console industry know, a couple of years ago, there was a duet between 2 of the major contenders - the Sony PS3 and Microsoft's XboX 360 (during their development, the entire discussion was about which of these would be the winner). And then there was a sudden winner, Nintendo was the surprise leader, with its Wii gaming platform selling much higher than the other platforms. Both the PS3 and the XboX are much more powerful in terms of processing speed and raw power, but the incredible user-interactivity built into the Wii made it much more attractive to people, and it started out-selling the others within a short time. And no matter what Sony and Microsoft are trying, they are not able to compete with Nintendo, even with price cuts and a lot more marketing.
The latest selling season further amplifies this trend, with the Wii pulling ahead of its competitors, way ahead:

Sony's PS3 is dying on the shelves. Alone among the three major videogame consoles, sales of the PS3 are down about 19% from November 2007, according to the latest stats from the NPD Group. Sony was only able to sell 378,000 PS3s this November, compared to 466,000 last year.
And the problem for Sony isn't the recession, it's the PS3. Microsoft (MSFT) put up respectable numbers with its Xbox 360, selling 836,000 units vs 777,000 in November 2007. And Nintendo's (NTDOY) Wii continues to dominate the market, more than doubling sales from 981,000 to 2.04 million.

Sony is stuck with its initial plan to build a powerhouse, since that (along with a Blu-Ray drive) makes the PS3 much more expensive; in addition, since the Wii is much ahead, there aren't enough developers making quality games for the PS3 - causing further problems.