5:32 PM
http://www.uu.se/news/news_item.php?typ=pm&id=867
The US relies on UAVs in Iraq and Afghanistan...but it turns out that insurgents can watch what the UAVs see! US military personnel have seen UAV video feeds on militant laptops and the US military was aware of the insecure nature of the UAV information for over 10 years! The problem is that they *assumed* that the militants in Iran and Afghanistan would be technologically advanced enough to watch the feeds, but it sure doesn't sound that hard for anyone to do. The other problem is that the Predator UAV that the US relies on was designed without encryption, so the entire network has to be changed to encrypt the feeds:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/12/insurgents-intercept-drone-video-in-king-sized-security-breach/
It turns out that militants can breach the security of US warplanes also!
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/12/not-just-drones-militants-can-snoop-on-most-us-warplanes/
The Department of Homeland Security has been improperly collecting information about Americans who do not pose any threat to Homeland Security:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/us/17disclose.html
DHS is investigating a counterfeiting clothing operation in Fresno because counterfeit clothing sales are often linked to drug trafficking and terrorist activities:
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/local&id=7175108
I think that it is shameful that some retailers gouge US military personnel who are deployed overseas! Walmart charges *5x* more to ship to an APO address while Amazon did not charge any extra to ship to an APO address and Target charged *less* to ship to an APO address. All shipping to APO addresses goes to New York and then the US military pays for the rest of the shipping, so why is WalMart charging 5x more to our troops than they charge their non-military customers?
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66700
It is amazing to me that Astronomers discovered a "super-Earth" by using amateur, off-the-shelf telescopes, when none of the huge telescopes discovered it before. This planet is warm as an oven, but still cooler than any other known orbiting planet found before, and it is one of the 2 smallest transiting worlds discovered. It is made up of 3/4 water and other ices and 1/4 rock, with hints that it has a gaseous atmosphere:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2009/pr200924.html
Philadelphia will buy Earthlink's muni-WiFi network for $2 million and will turn the entire city into a wireless hot spot:
http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2009/12/14/daily31.html?ana=from_rss
Rumor is that Motorola is making the first Android-based phone for AT&T. It is running the old 1.5 Android OS and has several changes to satisfy AT&T--no free GPS Navigation since AT&T wants users to pay for its Navigation service, Yahoo search engine instead of Google, all Google Apps removed except for Maps, etc.:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/rumor-mill-motorola-making-ts-first-android-phone/2009-12-17?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal
Article about how Windows 7 might be the last major upgrade of Windows:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/windows/windows-7-last-major-chapter-in-windows-story-619?source=IFWNLE_nlt_daily_2009-12-17
North Carolina boy scout found and returned a purse that had about $2000 inside. The owner gave him a $100 reward, and he gave $40 of the reward to his mother:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/16/ap/strange/main5988246.shtml
Long story about a man who found a $1 million bill and his journey to find out whether or not it was worth anything:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/8CA33A4D9B3F31C08625768A001A23E1?OpenDocument
Florida man won the lottery, hid the news from his wife, left his wife without giving her any of the money, and now she lost the house to foreclosure:
http://www.justnews.com/news/21975721/detail.html
For Lori: Fox might not even try to replace Simon Cowell on American Idol, instead it could cancel Idol after this season and replace it with the X Factor:
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/the_end_of_idol_n8oVAtw5nD9N5qumfsrSmL#ixzz0ZzD4aXD4