Police Issue Online Viral Madeleine Message

An image presenting Madeleine McCann as a six-year-old with dark skin and dark hair was released by British police last night in a “viral” internet video aimed at coaxing fresh information from the friends, family and associates of her abductors. The Home Office’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) hope that it will be so widely posted on Internet blogs and social networking sites that it becomes the top item if anyone searches for “Madeleine”.

Detectives believe people who know Madeleine’s location regularly search her name online to trace developments in the investigation and police tactics. Madeleine went missing in May 2007 while on holiday with her family in Praia da Luz, Portugal.

In the spirit of assisting the police in this enterprise we are posting the link to the Madeleine video here. We are also posting on our supported sites, blogs and via Twitter.

The CEOP Centre has issued the online viral message aimed at anyone close to the person who was involved in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. That person could be a relative, friend, work colleague or neighbour. Whoever they are, they have a secret that could reveal what happened to Madeleine and protect other children. 

In order to increase the possibility of reaching that person, CEOP supported by global law enforcement agencies and specialist charities, is asking the public to help spread the message via the Internet.

Click here to see the latest Madeleine appeal

New York Court Orders Google to Reveal Blogger’s Identity

A New York state supreme court judge has ordered Google to reveal the name of an anonymous blogger who maligned Liskula Cohen, a New York fashion model. The case could restrict Americans’ ability to slag off enemies from behind a veil of Internet secrecy.

The Vogue cover girl has now confronted and forgiven the anonymous blogger who trashed her on a special Web site. Steven Wagner, the attorney for Cohen said the decision would send a message to bloggers about the limits of permissible Internet speech.

Anne Salisbury, a lawyer for the blogger, argued that the raunchy digs at the model were nothing more than “youthful, jocular, slangy” terms – like “sleazebag,” “slime” and “pimp” – that are protected by the courts.

You can read more about this at the following links:
Google ordered to reveal blogger’s identity
Google reveals blogger’s identity to model

Join the Perseids tweetup on Twitter

Continuing our current series of posts on Twitter, Newbury Astronomical Society is organising a Perseids tweetup to mark the annual meteor display as the Earth passes through debris from the Swift-Tuttle comet. The visual display occurs every August, as the Earth passes through debris from the Swift-Tuttle comet, creating a spectacular meteor shower known as the Perseids.

The peak viewing time is Tuesday 11th August, but you should be able to watch over several nights if conditions permit. If you want to participate, add the hashtag #meteorwatch to your tweets, to share your observations and ask questions of other stargazers.

Hashtags are a Twitter community convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets, which you add in your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.

For more info on the event click here to see Guardian: Tweet a falling star

Whitehall Publishes A Guide To Twitter

The government has published a 20-page guide to explain how Whitehall departments should use Twitter as part of their communications strategy. The Power of Information taskforce set up by the Cabinet Office has recommended greater use of social networking tools to help broaden government communications beyond traditional routes. Now Whitehall can Twitter away even when they are on holiday!

However, even its author admits that a 20-page strategy paper for government departments on how to use Twitter might be regarded as “a bit of over the top” for a microblogging tool with a limit of 140 characters a message.

If you want to check out a guest post on the subject by Neil Williams, head of corporate digital channels at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, on Cabinet Office blog, Click here to read the Template Twitter strategy for Government Departments

Twitter Hit by Denial-Of-Service Attack

The popular social networking site Twitter has been hit by a denial of service attack, according to Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. In an e-mail to CNN.com, Stone said this morning’s attack is not related to a recent incident in which a hacker stole internal documents from the site.

“There’s no indication that this attack is related to any previous activities. We are currently the target of a denial of service attack,” Stone said in the e-mail. Approximately 45 million people worldwide now rely on Twitter as a communication platform, and a number of them will be greatly inconvenienced.

Denial-of-service attacks are a common weapon employed by cyber criminals to disrupt the working of Web sites. Perpetrators enlist millions of computers to attempt to access a particular site. The site cannot handle the massive increase in traffic, and is rendered inaccessible.

While disruptive and hard to trace, this type of cyber attack is considered by experts to be a relatively unsophisticated technique. The attack itself doesn’t attempt to infiltrate the internal operations of a company’s computer infrastructure. It simply renders its Web site inactive.

Twitter’s status update said: “We are defending against a denial-of-service attack, and will update status again shortly.” The millions of Twitter fans who have been disrupted by this attack will no doubt give vent over the next few days. I confidently expect to see Twitter and Denial-Of-Service at the top of the Google hit chart shortly!

For more on the CNN story Click Here to visit CNN Money

To follow me on Twitter when it is back up, Click on BGT666

Twitter May face lawsuit in US Court

The popular Social Networking site Twitter is being sued by TechRadium, a Texas-based firm that developed a mass notification and emergency response service that delivers messages to multiple contacts simultaneously. TechRadium has filed a lawsuit in a US district court against Twitter for infringing three of its patents, alleging that the patent it holds for its IRIS (Immediate Response Information System) emergency notification system is being infringed upon by Twitter.

The IRIS system seems to be capable of notifying large numbers of people simultaneously, via different media in a way similar to microblogging sites. Micro blogging is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio or the web. Twitter are not the only site capable of doing this, so perhaps the defence lawyers will be able to cite common practice or public domain.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, seeks among other things unspecified damages, recovery of attorneys’ fees and a permanent injunction against Twitter. Is it me, or does it seem that when ever something really obvious gets to be successful, and have mass market appeal, then the lawyers start lining up for a piece of the action. I confidently predict that someone who has patented a content management system will be filing against WordPress shortly.