We’re going to buy Hackaday for you


The owner of Hackaday, [Jason Calacanis], wants to sell this site. The editors and contributors of Hackaday want to buy it and turn it into a nonprofit. Check out the details below. Here’s the skinny: if this campaign is funded, the writers and editors of Hackaday will keep doing what we’re doing. If we’re successful, we’re going to write up more hacks than we are right now, hosting an awesome community, and expanding our custom builds. You know how [Caleb] built Thor’s Hammer? If we’re funded, we’ll be doing more stuff like that, only with a bigger budget. It will be awesome.

hackaday.com

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Use Google as a Proxy Server to Bypass Paywalls, Download Files


If you have trouble accessing a web page either because the website is blocked at your workplace, or because that page happens to be behind a paywall, there are a couple of undocumented Google proxy servers that may help you read that page.

When you access any page via one of these Google proxies, the content of that page gets downloaded on Google servers and then served to you. The lesser-known gmodules.com proxy, discussed later, will even allow you to download documents, videos and other web files that are otherwise blocked.

labnol.org

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THE INTERNET OF THINGS


When Dan Tentler wants to find something on the internet, he doesn’t use Google or Bing. Tentler, a freelance security consultant, is a road-less-traveled kind of guy. He likes to check out the internet’s alleyways and backroads. And for people like him him, there’s only one search engine. It’s called Shodan.

Google has done a masterful job of indexing the human experience — the webpages, books, Word documents, and images and videos that make up our life. But Shodan looks for something simpler. It’s looking for all the stuff that’s connected to the internet, from routers and refrigerators to live webcams that give you a glimpse inside people’s homes to, well, who knows what.

wired.com shodanhq.com

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Twitter translates tweets from leading Egyptians


Tweets from leading Egyptians are being automatically translated as part of a new Twitter service for non-Arabic speakers.

As Egypt's military ousted President Mohammed Morsi on Wednesday, non-Egyptians were able to read his tweets in their local languages.

Other figures being translated included opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei and Arab Spring activist Wael Ghonim.

bbc.co.uk

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Jugendschützer verzeichnen Anstieg der rechtsextremen Inhalte im Netz


Jugendschützer sind alamiert. Immer häufiger agieren Rechtsextreme in Deutschland auf Plattformen wie Facebook, Twitter und Youtube um Kontakte zu Jugendlichen und Kindern zu knüpfen. Jugendschutz.net vermeldet um ein Drittel mehr Beschwerden über rechtsextreme Inhalte innerhalb eines Jahres.

Kurier

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Twitter Transparency Report


Wednesday marks Independence Day here in the United States. Beyond the fireworks and barbecue, July 4th serves as an important reminder of the need to hold governments accountable, especially on behalf of those who may not have a chance to do so themselves.

With that in mind, today we’re unveiling our first Twitter Transparency Report. Inspired by the great work done by our peers @Google, the primary goal of this report is to shed more light on:

government requests received for user information,
government requests received to withhold content, and
DMCA takedown notices received from copyright holders.

twitter.com twitter.com 2

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Tesco personalisiert Webseite nach Geldbeutel - Bisheriges Kaufverhalten entscheidet über Angebot


Die britische Einzelhandelskette Tesco will das Warenangebot auf ihrer Webseite personalisieren, indem das bisherige Kaufverhalten von Kundenkartenbesitzern analysiert wird. Wer immer viel Geld bei Tesco ausgegeben hat, wird Online mit Räucherlachs empfangen, wer auf günstige Einkäufe Wert legt, bekommt gebackene Bohnen serviert, wie dailymail.co.uk schreibt. So will Tesco loyalen Stammkunden das Leben erleichtern. Das Risiko, Kunden zu beleidigen, nimmt die in Bedrängnis geratene Kette in Kauf. Tesco hat im vergangenen Jahr Marktanteile verloren und erstmals seit 20 Jahren eine Gewinnwarnung ausgegeben.

pressetext.com

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"We Know What You're Doing" (WKWYD)


Facebook’s repeated privacy snafus always make the news and cause a stir among users, but a surprising number of Facebook members throw caution to the wind when it comes to online privacy. As noted by Digital Trends, a new website dubbed “We Know What You’re Doing” uses Facebook’s Graph API to collect public status updates that likely shouldn’t be made public, and then displays them for all the world to see. Under headings like “Who wants to get fired?” and “Who’s taking drugs?” the site shows us just how careless people can be on Facebook. A few gems: “Totally hungover don’t like it HELP.” -Claire D. “God is peace and love# God smoke cannabis!!! :o.” -Rahim L. ”Im getting so mad right now I hate my boss Jay I hope he dies better yet I feel like killin him if you in a bad mood don’t take it out on everyone at the job like wtf its way to hot to take your s**t-_-.”

weknowwhatyouredoing.com

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Deep Web and censorship


We clarified the use of anonymizing networks is not only related to criminal intents, they represent in fact a powerful instrument to elude censorship introduced by governments in critical areas of the planet. We have provided the examples of Syria and Iran, but the world is full of similar operations that introduce a detailed monitoring as part of a government cyber strategy.

Let’s take as example the Tor network and the censorship filtering made by governments to avoid that compromising news could be divulgated outside the country.

securityaffairs.co

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Track the trackers with Collusion


Even by using privacy add-ons and telling sites not to track you, tracking that builds behavior profiles is out of control. Collusion is an add-on that will help you visualize that tracking. It was introduced by Gary Kovacs, CEO of Mozilla, during a TED talk titled Tracking the Trackers. Here is an interview with Ryan Merkley, Chief Operating Officer for the Mozilla Foundation, about Collusion, being tracked online and privacy.

There are many flavors of privacy add-ons for different browsers, but to get the global tracking "big picture," if you haven't already then you really need to try out Collusion. The "interactive, real-time visualization of entities that track your behavior" when you are surfing says a lot. After the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) struck out at Microsoft for turning on Do Not Track (DNT) by default in IE10, I scoffed at DAA's statement about advertisers supporting and enforcing the "appropriate standards for collecting and using web viewing data" through "strong self-regulation." Try out Collusion and you'll see how laughable that statement seems to be. Here's the demo as well as the add-on for Firefox or for Chrome.

networkworld.com

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Nigerian scams are hyper-efficient idiot finders


The bigger the lie, the bigger the pile of cash scammers scoop, says MSFT boffin

A Microsoft researcher, Cormac Herley, has penned a paper titled “Why do Nigerian Scammers Say They are from Nigeria?” (PDF), and concludes the whoppers the scam includes are actually a very efficient way of finding likely targets.

theregister.co.uk

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.WTF? — 20 New Top-Level Domain Names That Should Exist, But Never Will


On Tuesday, the list of new proposed top-level domains, and the companies seeking to control them, was published by ICANN.

The new contenders to the throne of .com’s dominance include Amazon with .book, Google with .youtube, and three companies seeking .sucks. There are also applications for .lol, .bar, and .beer.

While the list is interesting to read, it’s lacking in entertainment value — perhaps because the $185,000 fee to apply for consideration, which you pay even if your application is rejected, is prohibitive of amusement.

wired.com

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