JohnTyra.com

Internet worm exploits Windows vulnerability | Security - CNET News. A new worm, exploit or vulnerability for Microsoft is not exactly news. But, I did think it was interesting that this particular worm will actually patch the system in question after infection to prevent other malware varients from taking over the system. Greedy, greedy worms I tell you…

Verizon fires workers who snooped on Obama cell records | ZDNet Government | ZDNet.com. A few days ago, news broke about Obama’s cell phone records being accessed (or maybe released?) was making headlines. Verizon has updated their statement to show that they have fired some (unknown) number of employees who were involved in this situation. Well, good — I think that employees for *ANY* company should be held responsible for the actions they perform on customer data. No matter who’s data it is, Obama or an average citizen, it should be treated with respect and confidentality.

Maybe there should be a password put on each account, at the discression of the customer, which is required for the employee/rep to access the account. Thus, only managers and employees higher up the food chain can openly access customers accounts. Entries should all be logged for auditing should anything come up, of course. =)

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Family shock at Florida web death. This is pretty sad, yet the facts are (as always) not being represented correctly by some media outlets. Short version: 19-year old Abraham Biggs overdosed on his meds to commit suicide online (via web-cam) after posting his intentions on his online via his blog and some forum posts. After he took the overdose of medications, he stayed online broadcasting his eventual death via his web-cam.

According to BBC, “His father said it was “unimaginable” that neither the website’s operators nor any viewers alerted the police.” It’s understandable that the family is devastated by this tragic event, but this statement shows how obviously unaware he is about these online communities. There are thousands, if not millions, of people on any given online webpage or service which makes it *impossible* to completely regulate these communities. Even if it was, the police would be literally swamped with calls due to people who are falsely claiming self-harm via some method or another. Not to mention those who would produce a fake picture/movie/etc for attention or some other reason. This happens ALL of the time currently, but very few if any are actually called into the authorities because it happens so often.

It is still very sad that this young man’s death occurred, regardless of the fact that it was broadcasted via his webcam. However, it’s not going to be a simple task to monitor and regulate reports of self-harm across the web due to the sheer volume of online members. Hopefully, this will be a reason to start some type of program (or law?) to keep this from happening in the future.

Will There Be Enough BlackBerry Storms Tomorrow? - The Channel Wire - IT Channel News And Views by CRN and VARBusiness. There were enough iPhones after a few days, so I don’t think this’ll be a problem, really…

Sun restructures, lays off up to 6,000 | Business Tech - CNET News. Another major hit this week in the technology sector with Sun Microsystems as they announce the layout of ~6k of their employees. Perhaps we should keep a running total of how many tech companies are joining the layout party and how many layoffs they account for.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Spam plummets as gang leaves net. Well there is some good news after all. After only 48 hours: “Anti-spam firm Ironport has seen junk mail levels drop by 70% since McColo was taken offline on 11 November.” WOW! These kids at McColo must have been hauling it out by the truckload. Don’t get too excited, though. “”It is an unprecedented drop but will be a temporary outage as the networks move from North America to places where there is less scrutiny,” said Jason Steer, a spokesman for Ironport. “

Of heartbeats and headphones | Editors’ Notes | Macworld. Yet another example of publishers/bloggers/etc NOT reading the entire article. Long story short: Magnets can mess with your pacemaker, regardless of if they are in headphones or a cup of coffee. Macworld’s article had a link to an article where the details were not included for their readers, thus forming a quick and incorrect conclusion.

AT&T Tethering Coming Soon; Really I’m not an iPhone owner, but I have hear the voice of others regarding the lack of this feature. Their answer? Jailbreak! A friend of mine was using his jailbroken iPhone just the other day to browse the web on his laptop, and it worked great…other than it drained the heck out of the battery. =)

Hopefully this won’t be another $20/$40/$xx nasty chunk of change added to the AT&T customer’s bill. We’ll see!

Microsoft warns of another update to Windows Update. What caught my eye on this one? “This update makes it possible for users to install more than 80 updates at the same time.”

Uh-huh, sure — if it’s true, though, I’ll be a happy nerd. My home broadband connection will finally get some use. =)

A quick news clip about eBay; it seems they are planning on laying off around 1,000 employees in the same instant that they are aquiring a few businesses. First is ‘Bill Me Later, Inc’, according to the ComputerWorld article, which brings around a billion dollars for the deal. ‘Bill Me Later, Inc’ is a US based online payment company. The other two deals, weighing in at $390 mil, are for Dba.dk and Bilbasen.dk which are both online Danish classified advertisment sites.

Is this yet another step in eBay’s goal to take over the world? =)