IBM Applies a BigFix Solution to PC, Data Center Management

IBM this month announced that it has purchased BigFix, a PC power- and security management firm, to help companies keep track of wide-ranging and globally distributed computer fleets.

The acquisition of BigFix is intended to bring a new level of computer management capabilities to IBM’s portfolio of enterprise IT services. While we have previously reported on the power-management capabilities of BigFix, the software can also manage updates, security patches and other corporate IT policies quickly across hundreds of thousands of computers.

“BigFix automates some of the most time-intensive IT tasks across the most complex global networks, helping save organizations significant amounts of time, labor, and expense,” Al Zollar, general manager of IBM Tivoli software, said in a statement. “BigFix’s real-time visibility and control for globally distributed computing devices will complement IBM’s existing smarter data center offerings and strengthen our ability to build security into the fabric of the enterprise.”

In addition to bringing enterprise-scale PC management capabilities, IBM plans to integrate BigFix into data center management, including optimizing servers, storage, security and network systems.

The bundling of energy efficiency tools with other IT compliance and optimization tools has been in the news recently, including our coverage of Promisec’s security-plus-efficiency software.

U.S. urges Kygyzstan on crisis

June 19 – The U.S. envoy for Central Asia urges Kyrgyzstan to create conditions for a safe return of hundreds of thousands of refugees uprooted by last week’s outburst of ethnic violence.

‘Clickjacking’ epidemic spreads across Facebook

Washington, June 4 (ANI): Facebook seems to be facing an online epidemic – hundreds of thousands of Facebook users are falling in the “clickjacking” trap, according to web security labs.

Users are tricked into clicking links such as “World Cup 2010 in HD” or “Justin Bieber”s phone number” that their friends appear to have “liked”.

Once clicked, the site is recommended on Facebook too, and could pose danger of potential malware, even though currently there’s no such content on these sites. It also works across all computer operating systems.

The link generally takes the user through to a page containing an instruction, such as asking them to click a button to confirm that they are over 18.

However, wherever they click on the page it adds a link to their own Facebook profile saying they have also “liked” the site.

‘Clickjacking’ for now, is harmless, and does not actively result in any malware or phishing attacks, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

“At the moment the attacks which we”ve seen are more like old-school viruses – written for the heck of it to see how many fans they can get.

“But our feeling is that it would be fairly easy for the bad guys to introduce some revenue generation for themselves,” BBC News quoted him as saying.

A free plug-in called NoScript, built for the Firefox web browser, includes pop-up warnings about potential clickjacks, but will also query clicks on Flash videos, commonly used on many websites – and it is not easy to install, said Mr Cluley.

“You have to be a little bit nerdy to configure it.” (ANI)

Gryphon Unveils Enhanced Contact Compliance and Preference Tool for Salesforce CRM

Upgraded PrivacyAdvisor delivers 10x performance increase and improved bulk
contact certification
NORWOOD, Mass.–(Business Wire)–
Managing consumer preferences and contact compliance can be a serious challenge
for any company, but Gryphon Network`s newly updated PrivacyAdvisor delivers
guaranteed compliance and preference management directly integrated with
Salesforce CRM. Built using the Force.com platform, PrivacyAdvisor is available
for test drive and deployment on the AppExchange at
www.salesforce.com/appexchange.

PrivacyAdvisor integrates compliance and preference management directly into
lead, contact and account screens in Salesforce CRM. It was the first tool to
use an easily understood traffic light metaphor to simplify compliance, with
green signaling `Ok to Contact` and red warning `Not Ok to Contact.` Features
include exemption management to preserve leads and prevent over-suppression,
opt-outs that can be added or removed by customer preference, bulk certification
of hundreds of thousands of records, and installation via web link for
off-the-shelf simplicity. With the newest PrivacyAdvisor version, Gryphon:

1. Upgraded to the latest Visualforce controls

* 10x performance increase in status display
* asynchronous processing; perform other activities during certification
* certification for phone, email, mail and fax

2. Upgraded PrivacyAdvisor field mapping tool

* up to 19 salesforce.com custom or standard contact channel fields can be
certified per page layout, using any combination of phone, mobile phone, email,
postal mail and fax
* optional data storage for real-time visual force controls

3. Enabled bulk certification processing of hundreds of thousands of records in
a single transaction

* all data remains in Salesforce CRM; eliminates external list scrubbing
* ability to scrub contacts filtered by specific campaigns
* able to create and use unique views (salesforce.com best practice)for enhanced
flexibility

“I was amazed at the increase in the speed to load the pages after updating to
the newest release of PrivacyAdvisor,” said Bobbi Gordon, Sales Operations and
Closing Manager for JELD-WEN Communities. “Installing the upgrade and modifying
the page layouts was simple and very quick.”

Bill McCarthy, Senior Enterprise Manager for Gryphon Networks, worked closely
with clients to help update PrivacyAdvisor for Salesforce CRM. “With it,
marketing and sales professionals can focus on what they do best, instead of
trying to tackle compliance on their own,” he said.

About Gryphon

Gryphon is the leading provider of on-demand contact governance solutions,
processing billions of transactions each month for hundreds of clients and
hundreds of thousands of users. Gryphon`s compliance, privacy, sales and
marketing tools help many of today`s leading organizations increase sales
efficiencies and marketing effectiveness, giving them a competitive advantage in
industries such as financial services, healthcare, consumer goods, automotive,
hospitality and retail. In addition, Gryphon provides guaranteed compliance with
consumer contact regulations and preferences, all with strong ROI validation.
Gryphon was established in 1999, and is headquartered in Norwood,
Massachusetts.

Gryphon
Bill McCarthy, Senior Enterprise Product Manager
781-278-1939
bmccarthy@gryphonnetworks.com

Copyright Business Wire 2010

Turkish coach crash kills 16 people – reports

A coach carrying Russian tourists crashed near Turkey’s southern resort of Antalya on Tuesday, killing 16 people and injuring dozens more, broadcasters and a news agency reported.

Television pictures showed the wrecked coach lying on its roof after leaving the road and falling into a ditch in the early hours of Tuesday. The dead included the Turkish driver and tour guide while the reamining fatalities were Russian tourists.

Antalya Deputy Governor Mehmet Seyman told the state-run Anatolian news agency 16 people were killed in the accident, and 25 tourists were injured. Rescue teams were trying to get the injured out of the coach, he added.

Antalya is one of Turkey’s most popular tourist destinations, and visited every year by hundreds of thousands of mainly German, Russian and British tourists.

Kate Moss robbed of £80K Banksy portrait

London, May 21 (ANI): Super model Kate Moss has been robbed of a Banksy portrait worth 80,000 pounds along with other valuable artworks.

Moss, her partner Jamie Hince and mother Linda, were asleep when the burglars broke into the house.

It is believed that the robbery occurred around 4am on Thursday and the robbers may have escaped following disturbances when Moss or Hince woke up.

The police have arrested a 24-year-old man and are questioning him.

“Camden Police are investigating a burglary at Greville Road, NW6, from approximately 4.20am on Thursday, May 20,” The Telegraph quoted a police spokesman as saying.

“A 24-year-old man was arrested in connection with it and inquiries are ongoing,” he added.

Moss recently spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on works by Banksy, the guerrilla artist, including a 12ft by 18ft mural of herself and several celebrity friends which she reportedly commissioned at a cost of 150,000 pounds. (ANI)

Sean Penn urges help for Haiti hospitals

London, May 21 (ANI): Sean Penn has called for more assistance at hospitals in Haiti to help the earthquake-ravaged nation deal with the upcoming hurricane season next month.

The ‘Milk’ star has been constantly on the lookout to ensure that the devastated people’s nation receives all the help they can get following the tremor, which killed hundreds of thousands of citizens in January this year.

Penn drew U.S. Senate committee’s attention towards the healthcare Haiti needs on an immediate basis, as several hospital have been closed down – and he fears the nation will be overrun with emergencies once hurricane season begins.

“In many cases, the bureaucracy of international aid is protecting people to death. I come here today in the hope that we will address with bold clarity the razor”s edge upon which Haiti lies,” The Daily Express quoted him as saying. (ANI)

Fire engulfs Ajmer battery factory

Ajmer (Rajasthan), May 8 (ANI): A massive fire gutted a battery factory in Rajasthan”s Ajmer city.

Around eight to nine fire tenders rushed to the spot and brought the fire under control.

“The factory had a large stock of batteries and raw materials. We don”t know the reason how the factory caught fire, but we reached here with all our fire tender vehicles and even called our staff from their homes. The intensity of the fire was very high but most importantly the fire did not spread to the adjacent areas,” said Fire Officer Habib.

“Our motive was to control the fire as there was a godown of Ajmer gas nearby, where oxygen and carbon dioxide gases are stored. The godown might have caught fire. So our primary job was to cordon off the area and then nearly 8-9 fire tenders helped in bringing the fire under control,” he added.

Raw materials and batteries worth hundreds of thousands were reportedly damaged in the fire that took place on Friday evening. (ANI)

BJP President Gadkari faints during public rally in Delhi

New Delhi, April 21 (ANI): The scorching heat of Delhi proved too much for the Bharatiya Janata Party President, Nitin Gadkari, on Wednesday, as he fainted during a protest march organised against price rise in the country.

Gadkari was leading the BJP march, headed towards Jantar Mantar at Parliament Street from Ramlila Maidan, when he fainted.

However, Gadkari resumed his march after a short while.

“Gadkari ji’s health is now okay,” said Vijay Jolly, President of BJP’s Delhi Unit, to mediapersons.

Meanwhile, in the morning, life was thrown out of gear for office-goers, as huge crowds of BJP supporters were approaching the Ramlila Maidan, the venue for the public rally.

Long traffic snarls made it quite difficult for people to commute at many places across the capital, as hundreds of thousands of BJP supporters converged for the public rally.

The rally,which has been organized to showcase the public anger against the steeply rising prices of commodities, drew BJP supporters from across the country. (ANI)

Rape, sexual violence of women, girls common in Congo

London, Apr.16 (ANI): The rape and sexual violence against women and girls in the war-scarred east of the Democratic Republic of Congo is becoming “normal” according to a new report published yesterday.

According to The Times, rape has been a weapon of war in the overlapping conflicts that have rumbled on in Congo since 1996 causing millions to die of illness and disease.

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of women have been raped in attacks aimed at terrorising civilians, humiliating the enemy and ethnically cleansing regions.

But the new survey of rape cases at one of only two specialist clinics in the Kivu provinces of eastern Congo shows that although the majority of attacks are perpetrated by armed men there has been a disturbing 17-fold increase in rapes by civilians.

Susan Bartels, a researcher at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, analyzed 4,311 rapes committed between 2004 and 2008. (ANI)

Sudan starts historic vote, security tight

KHARTOUM/JUBA, April 11 (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese queued up to start voting on Sunday, in historic elections already marred by allegations of fraud that will test the fragile unity of a nation divided by decades of civil conflict.

There were chaotic scenes at some polling centres — south Sudan’s president Salva Kiir had to wait 20 minutes under a tree for his voting station to open in the southern capital Juba and ended up spoiling his first ballot by putting it in the wrong box.

Queues started forming in the morning in Khartoum, where the streets were unusually quiet amid a heavy police presence and there were reports of delays in other areas.

Sudan’s police said they would deploy 100,000 officers across northern Sudan to guard polling stations and ward off unrest during three days of voting to choose a national president, a leader for the semi-autonomous south, assemblies and governors. (Reporting by Opheera McDoom and Skye Wheeler)

Arrests over EFPTOS skimming scam

Seven members of what police describe is the most sophisticated card skimming syndicate ever seen in Western Australia have been arrested.

It is alleged they installed an EFTPOS machine fitted with a skimming device at a Perth supermarket and used the information to fraudulently obtain hundreds of thousands of dollars from customers bank accounts.

It is understood much of the money was laundered overseas.

Police also seized a significant amount of equipment used to tamper with ATM devices and EFTPOS devices.

Detective Sergeant Duncan Taylor says it is alleged the seven men played different roles in the fraud syndicate.

“There’s a range, we’ve certainly arrested mid to high-tier members of the syndicate on this occasion and some of the items involved in the seizure would indicate we’ve got some of the more technical members of the syndicate,” he said.

Fears aired over land clearing change

Changes to the Tweed Shire’s local environment plan have been slammed for stripping the shire of environmental protection.

Tweed Shire councillor Katie Milne says she is concerned that residents are unaware of the changes which will change the clearing rules for 8,000 hectares of land.

She says rural landowners will now be able to clear land without development consent.

Cr Milne says there are native vegetation laws but they are not relevant in the Tweed Shire.

“They were really designed for large landholdings out west of the divide where there are hundreds of thousands of hectares,” she said.

“They weren’t designed for the coastal areas where we have a lot more smaller clearing issues rather than the large hundred hectares [areas]. Our clearing issues are more the one hectare but we have a lot of them.”

The changes are part of the Tweed Shire’s new draft local environment plan which is on display until the end of the month.

Fuel theives ‘targeting roadworks’

Police in the Wheatbelt are investigating a spate of fuel thefts from road maintenance machinery in the past fortnight.

More than 3,000 litres of diesel has been stolen from machinery parked at Moora, Badgingarra and Watheroo.

Sergeant Harry Arnott says police suspect the offenders are targeting the machinery at night.

“It appears it’s being pumped out into large tanks or possibly 44-gallon drums,” he said.

Sergeant Arnott is appealing for information from the public.

“Fuel theft in Western Australia costs the community hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, so we’re pretty keen to crack down on these offenders,” he said.

“We’re looking for large vehicles – utes, four-wheel drives or trailers – with tanks, 44-gallon drums or possibly fuel pumping equipment.”

Failed builder has history of insolvency

New details have emerged that show a bankrupt Alice Springs builder has a record of owing money to creditors interstate.

Randall Carey’s company Carey Builders is in liquidation.

Creditors from Alice Springs and Adelaide are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars and at least a dozen new home-buyers have been left with unfinished houses.

The ABC has seen documents that show Mr Carey was deregistered as a builder in Queensland in 1997.

His previous company, also called Carey Builders, owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to creditors in Western Queensland.

Mr Carey came to the Territory and went bankrupt as a sole trader but was working in Alice Springs under a new company of which his wife was the director.

Complaints were made to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission about Mr Carey last year but ASIC will not confirm if it is taking court action against him.

A Northern Territory accountant says Mr Carey should never have been allowed to trade.

David Pemberton was one of the people who complained to ASIC.

Mr Pemberton says ASIC should have investigated Mr Carey earlier.

“I think it’s very, very unfortunate for all of the people affected in Alice Springs that a lot of this misfortune would not have happened if ASIC, who claim to be the corporate regulator, got off their arses and did their job,” Mr Pemberton said.

An ASIC spokesman says the commission will not be commenting on the issue.

Toyota hit with US consumer lawsuit

US prosecutors in southern California have filed the first consumer protection lawsuit against Japanese carmaker Toyota, alleging it knowingly sold hundreds of thousands of defective vehicles.

Toyota officials in Orange County claim the company knew of defects with the acceleration system in several models but did not tell customers.

They say that violates of the state’s unfair business practices law.

The company has been forced to recall six million vehicles in the US. Regulators have linked five deaths to crashes allegedly caused by accelerator problems and they are investigating dozens more.

This is the latest of several dozen cases against Toyota that could cost it billions.

The company had no immediate comment on the lawsuit, which joins a growing list of legal claims against the automaker over it’s recent string of recalls.

- BBC

Red shirts fill streets as protests begin

For weeks now Bangkok has been bracing for massive political protests that have just got underway.

Thousands of the red shirt supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra protested at six points across the city in the curtain raiser to what they claim will be a million-strong march on Sunday.

So far the protests have remained largely peaceful, but all sides of Thai politics have a reputation for violence and it is not known what the next few days will bring.

In central Bangkok on the first day of this protest, some streets have already been effectively shut down by the red shirt protesters.

Crowds of pickup trucks are driving along the street. On the back are dozens of red shirt supporters crowded together, waving flags, chanting and cheering.

The streets are lined with people. Some are supporting them; others occasionally show their displeasure.

At least on this first day, the protest has more of a festival or carnival feel. People are shouting and clapping; some are even drinking beer.

Using megaphones, the red shirts are sitting on the back of the trucks yelling loudly that they demand elections.

One woman, who did not want to give her name, says she came to see the government fall.

“We’ve come here to demand the government to dissolve the house and to have a new election,” she says.

A man who wants only to be known as Mr Dung is on foot helping to steer the rally past.

He says he also came to see the downfall of the current government led by prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

“I’m here to chase the Government,” he said.

“They should either dissolve the house or resign, that’s the whole purpose.”

Mr Dung says Sunday will be a crucial day in Thai history.

“Hundreds of thousands of people will come out, or even a million,” he said.

“They will wear red and ask the government to decide whether to dissolve the house or resign. We come out in peace.”

He is worried, though, that it may come at a personal cost to him and his red shirt comrades if the army loses patience.

“There’s no problem with police, only a problem with soldiers,” he sad.

“They did this many times already. If they use real weapons I’ll be afraid. If they do not use weapons then no problem.”

If the first day of these protests is anything to go by, there will not be anyone in Bangkok who does not know the red shirt rally is happening by Sunday.

Govt to help build new rental homes

The State Government will help fund the construction of 4,500 new private rental homes to ease Victoria’s tightening rental market.

The Government says vacancy rates in inner-Melbourne are at their lowest level in recent memory.

The new homes will be rented to low and moderate income families at a discounted price.

Housing Minister Richard Wynne says it will take the total number of new low-income rental homes to 7,500.

“That’s going to have a great impact in terms of supply of housing, release pressure on the private rental market, and will ensure that they are available right across metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria as well,” he said.

The chief executive of the Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS), Cath Smith says the new homes will not be enough to ease the housing crisis, but it is a start.

“We’ve got hundreds of thousands of people in the rental market in Victoria in severe rental stress or housing stress at the moment,” she said.

“So every single unit that gets built, that’s going to be rented out below the current ridiculous market rates is a fine thing.”

The homes will be built across Victoria, at a cost of almost $180 million.

No easy fix

Michael Lennon, the chief executive officer of Housing Choices Australia says it is clear what has been happening is not enough, but there is no easy fix.

“The vacancy rates in the private rental market, the difficulties for young people getting into home ownership and the shortage of supply of affordable social and public housing are all problems that can’t be solved with one answer,” he said.

“What we have seen in Victoria in recent times, is a substantial change in both levels of funding a clarity in how the problem will be addressed in the longer term.”

Human brain could be replicated in a decade

Washington, Sept 5 (ANI): If scientists get their way, it would be possible to replicate human brain in 10 years.

According to neuroscientist Professor Henry Markram of the Brain Mind Institute in Switzerland, a model that replicates the functions of the human brain is feasible in 10 years.

“I absolutely believe it is technically and biologically possible. The only uncertainty is financial. It is an extremely expensive project and not all is yet secured,” Science Daily quoted Markram as saying.

He says that the apparent complexity of the human mind is not a barrier to building a ‘replica’ brain.

“The brain is of course extremely complex because it has trillions of synapses, billions of neurons, millions of proteins, and thousands of genes. But they are still finite in number. Today’s technology is already highly sophisticated and it allows us to reverse engineer the brain rapidly,” he added.

Today’s robots can do screenings and mappings tens of thousands of times faster than human scientists and technicians.

However, a hurdle on the path to a model human brain is that 100 years of neuroscience discovery has led to millions of fragments of data and knowledge that have never been brought together and exploited fully.

“Actually no one even knows what we already understand about the brain,” said Markram.

“The biggest challenge is to understand how electrical-magnetic-chemical patterns in the brain convert into our perception of reality. We think we see with our eyes, but in fact most of what we ‘see’ is generated as a projection by your brain. So what are we actually looking at when we look at something ‘outside’ of us?” the expert added.

The most exciting part of his research is putting together the hundreds of thousands of small pieces of data that his lab has collected over the past 15 years, and seeing what a microcircuit of the brain looks like.

“When we first switched it on it already started to display some interesting emergent properties. But this is just the beginning because we know now that it is possible to build it. As we progress we are learning about design secrets of our brains, which were unimaginable before.

“In fact the brain uses some simple rules to solve highly complex problems and extracting each of these rules one by one is very exciting. For example we have been surprised at finding simple design principles that allow billions of neurons to connect to each other.

“I think we will understand how the brain is designed and works before we have finished building it.

“A brain model will sit on a massive supercomputer and serve as a kind of educational and diagnostic service to society,” he added. (ANI)

Floods ravage Majuli islands in Assam

Majuli (Assam), Aug 25 (ANI): Around 60 villages have been devastated by floods in Majuli islands of Assam.

The world’s largest river island is facing the nature’s fury for the second time this year as the Brahmaputra River breached an embankment in Matmora region.

The floods were caused by incessant heavy rains for five days when it breached an embankment in Matmora, which channels the entire water of the Brahmaputra into the Luit River.

Heavy rainfall, upstream caused the second wave of flooding on the whole Upper Majuli area and displaced around 30 thousand people, and destroyed thousands of hectares of crop.

“All of a sudden water started pouring inside our house, then only I realized that flood has occurred. Immediately, we moved to safer place. Now, we have no proper shelter, food and water. Every year in this season, we are hit by the flood and we face lot of difficulties,” said Chandon Hazarika, a resident.

The frequent floods have displaced thousand of villagers.

“Once again Majuli is hit by flash flood due to breach of embankment in Matmora in Lakhimpur and Dhemaji districts. Thousands of people have been displaced in upper Majuli area for the second time and more than 60 of villages has been severely affected. Majuli is frequently devastated by flood water every year because it is totally surrounded by water,” said Nokul Kolita, another resident.

Every year, torrential monsoon rains wreak havoc in Assam, causing the mighty Brahmaputra river and its tributaries to breach embankments, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. (ANI)