Human rights activists are using a clever combination of Facebook and Google Earth to find wanted Darfur war criminals and bring them to justice.

A Facebook page has been created on the social networking website encouraging people to report the sightings of Ahmed Haroun and Ali Kushayb.

Both men were indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes a year ago.

Neither men have been captured and brought to justice.

Dr James Smith, chief executive of the Aegis Trust which set up the Wanted for War Crimes Watch List page on Facebook.com said “The men are suspected of hundreds of thousands of murders. Someone, somewhere, knows where they are.”

Google Earth and Google Maps are being used to map known movements of the two Sudanese men, each wanted on more than forty counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur.

The Watch List even lists Ahmed Haroun’s phone number and office address.

Mr Donovan stated “He isn’t a fugitive hiding in a cave somewhere, but a bland looking man in a suit, sitting behind a desk in Khartoum.”

Khartoum has refused to surrender Mr Kushayb and Mr Haroun to the Court.

Rather, Mr Haroun has been promoted to the position of Sudan’s Minister for Humanitarian Affairs. He is currently responsible for the welfare of the victims of his alleged crimes.

As well as having vast power over humanitarian operations, he is responsible for liaisons with the International UN/African Union peacekeeping force tasked with protecting civilians against such crimes.

The other suspect, Mr Kushayb, was in custody in Sudan on other charges at the time that the ICC warrants were issued, however, last October the Sudanese Government announced he had been released, reportedly due to ‘lack of evidence’.

Source:Telegraph.co.uk

In our last post, we wrote about a no-holds-barred, tell-all, get-even video that Tricia Walsh Smith posted on YouTube.com about her husband, Broadway executive Philip Smith. Tricia Walsh-Smith and her husband are in the middle of a nasty divorce battle and she posted the video to tell the world her version of the divorce dispute.

Her video illustrates the use of social networks and online, user-generated content as a weapon in personal as well as legal battles.

The video has now been viewed over 500,000 times. You can view the video below.

Source: YouTube.com

Now online videos and social networks are being used as weapons in bitter divorce battles.

Tricia Walsh-Smith, a New York woman in the middle of an ugly divorce, can be seen in a YouTube video criticizing her husband, Broadway executive Philip Smith, in a disturbing and angry video clip that has been watched over 150,000 times.

Attorneys are calling Walsh-Smith’s attempt to use a YouTube video to broadcast secrets about her husband and is family during a divorce battle a “scary new step” in user generated content.

Lawyers have told the Local 6 News that they can’t think of another divorce case like it.

Walsh-Smith flips throught the couple’s wedding album on in the video, accusing Philip Smith of trying to evict her from their apartment. She then goes on to make embarrassing statements about their personal and intimate life.

Her lawyer said that she acted out of passion and is a “victim who is holding her head up,” though he didn’t represent her at the time she made the video and posted it to YouTube.

Her husband’s lawyers stated that they were appalled by the video smear.

Divorce experts say the video clip will probably come back to haunt her and harm her legal case.

Source: Local6.com

Computer security software vendor Symantec released an analysis of cyber crime activity for the 2nd half of 2007. Their findings show that two social networking sites together were the target of over 90 percent of U.S. phishing web sites. The two favorite social networks used by cyber criminals and phishers are, not surprisingly, Myspace.com and Facebook.com.

Hijacked social networking pages are used to host malicious software ( known as “malware” ) or links to phishing web sites that are advertised in messages sent to all of the people in the victim’s social network.

Hackers like to steal user names and passwords for Myspace or Facebook accounts because spreading malware through stolen social network accounts is ideal since people are much more likely to click on a link recommended by someone from their circle of friends than they are a link that is sent in a message from an unknown person.

Online criminals are still mostly interested in stealing financial and personal information that can be resold to identity thieves or converted into cash. Data-stealing computer viruses are still one of the best ways to get that information from people.

Source: Washingtonpost.com

Technology Review recently reported on a new social network that will allow people to compare their DNA with friends and family.

23andme.com is a new social networking site that allows users to submit a saliva sample for DNA testing and compare it with the DNA of friends, family and people around the world to see how similar their genotype is with others.

23andme.com hopes that the unique social network offering will encourage people to get their DNA mapped while, potentially, creating a valuable research resource in the process.

The site will allow users to network with and search for people that share common genetic traits, possibly locating lost family contacts in the process. If the site ever reaches critical mass, it could be a major resource for family tree and genealogy research.

To join 23andme people will need to pay for the $999 DNA testing kit, send in a sample of spit and then receive a personal analysis of nearly 600,000 genetic variations linked to diseases and physical characteristics like eye color, height, hair color and weight.

In addition, the site will emphasize some entertaining angles to personal genomics, including using visualization tools to look at a person’s ancestral lineage and compare it with that of famous celebrities and historical figures.

Advancing the use of social networking, 23andme.com will offer a genome-sharing tool that allows people to compare their DNA with those of family members, friends, and total strangers, who make their DNA information available on the site.

One of the site’s cofounders, Linda Avey, said “It seems like the first natural curiosity people have is, where do I come from? What are my roots? The next question is, how do I compare to other people?”

At this time, the DNA-sharing tool is mostly for personal entertainment. But the site’s ultimate goal is to create a DNA database large enough to reveal scientifically and medically relevant information about a large collection of people.

You can visit the 23andme social network @ 23andme.com .

Source:Technology Review

The ’six degrees of separation’ notion states that every person on the planet is only six contacts away from every other person on Earth.

A new study from Microsoft’s Research Redmond Lab studied the six degrees of separation using instant messaging information gathered from Microsoft Messenger users.

The information gathered from people who use Microsoft Messenger included 4.5 terabytes of compressed information from 1 billion conversations per day over a month period of time.

The data was collected in June 2006 and contains information on 30 billion conversations between 240 million people.

The researchers were surprised to learn that the average number of contacts to get from one random person to another was only 6.6.

This number is very close to the ’six degrees of separation’ idea.

The Microsoft study was led by Eric Horvitz and Jure Leskovec. Horvitz stated that he was surprised that their results so closely matched the 1967 study.

He wondered whether the number six is a basic constant for human social interactions: ‘Do we have a natural harmonic for social communication?’ he asks. ‘This is my conjecture — more work needs to be done on that.’”

Source: ZDNet.com

ComputerWorld.com has published an interesting test of two popular social networking sites Facebook.com and LinkedIn.com to find out how they rank against each other for business-related purposes.

They compared the two social networks on 6 different measurements.

Here is a summary of the areas tested and results:

1. The ability to look for a job without your boss knowing –

Winner: TIE

Computer World Opinion:

LinkedIn seems to offer better job search services, especially if you’re a professional, because of its more businesslike atmosphere, its emphasis on business networking and the resume-like profiles that each user provides. However, if you’re nervous about your boss finding out about your job search, Facebook offers much more anonymity, since you can create an alternative personality just for that purpose. LinkedIn’s format actively discourages anonymity; you can create a false ID, but then you’d lose all your connections.

2. Research information about a job you’re interviewing for –

Winner: LinkedIn.com

Computer World Opinion:

Both LinkedIn and Facebook are great for networking, and if your “friends” at Facebook are employed at a variety of companies, they can offer as good a chance of finding contacts at a company you’re interested in as LinkedIn.

However, LinkedIn does provide more chances of contacts via its InMail service, which lets you contact friends of friends — very handy when you’re looking for contacts in a specific organization. It does cost an extra $20 a month, but if you’re interested in a well-paying position, the ability to network at that company is more than worth the cost.

3. Locate a contract worker for a three-month Web project –

Winner: Facebook.com

Computer World Opinion:

While LinkedIn does offer a job board, it’s not inexpensive to use, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll get any better results than through some other job board. (You are able to get some feedback on applicants from contacts who have worked with them, but that’s chancy.) Facebook’s networking abilities — sans added fees — gives it the win here.

4. Solicit ideas and discussion from team members –

Winner: Facebook.com

Computer World Opinion:

No question here: Facebook is the winner. Its setup was created for communication within groups of people, while LinkedIn is more about the individual.

5. Get feedback on a IT problems from peers outside your company –

Winner: LinkedIn.com

Computer World Opinion:

Again, no contest. Facebook isn’t really a place where you can jump in to easily find professional IT staffers (or tech enthusiasts) unless you know where to look. Assuming you don’t care who knows that you can’t solve a particular problem, LinkedIn is the better place to find an answer.

6. Stay in contact with former coworkers and associates –

Winner: TIE

Computer World Opinion:

This one ends in a dead heat. Networking is what both these services do, whether it’s the informal “friending” of Facebook or the more formal search for colleagues at LinkedIn. Either way, you can find old associates by searching through school and organization networks, contacting your existing friends/colleagues, and using social networking the way it’s supposed to be used.

Source: ComputerWorld.com

In a story that shows the widespread use of social networks around the globe, the Thailand Prime Minister’s Office has requested that the government ministry of Information, Communications and Technology monitor the use of the Hi5 social networking site by Buddhist monks.

The request came after allegations that a monk used the internet to lure a young girl to his temple and raped her.

Thai government officials are considering blocking access to the site to resolve future problems, but current law requires permission from a judge to block the site.

A Thai minister has requested that Hi5 site operators monitor the Web site for use by monks and kick them off.

The Hi5 social network claims to be the third largest social network in the world, with 70 million registered users around the globe, including over 800,000 in Thailand.

The Hi5’s online safety section warns users to beware of personal postings that could embarrass them or be viewed by friends, family or employers.

Source: Information Week

According to a recent BBC article, the infamous whistle-blower website known as WikiLeaks.org has been ordered by a California court to be removed in the US.

WikiLeaks.org allowed whistle-blowers to post private and classified government and corporate documents online for public view.

The case that brought about the court-ordered removal of the WikiLeaks.org website was brought by Swiss bank Julius Baer, after hundreds of documents about its offshore activities were posted to the site, alleging tax evasion and money laundering by bank officials.

The sensitive bank documents and records were allegedly posted to the WikiLeaks site by former vice president for the bank’s Cayman Island operation, Rudolf Elmer.

Dynadot, which controls the WikiLeaks.org domain name, was ordered to remove all records of the website from its servers. In addition, the site was ordered to produce “all prior or previous administrative and account records and data for the wikileaks.org domain name and account”.

The court order further requires that website admin details of the site’s registrant, contacts, payment records and “IP addresses and associated data used by any person…who accessed the account for the domain name” to be handed over.

Wikileaks.org had allowed site visitors to post documents anonymously.

The website was founded in 2006 by dissident journalists, techies and academics from around the world.

According to CNet News the site can still be accessed on another server at WikiLeaks Mirror Website.

Sources: BBC, CNet News.

The US intelligence arm Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is warning that terrorist groups may be using the online social networks of virtual worlds like SecondLife.com to recruit, meet, plan and exchange strategic information.

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity is a division of the US Intelligence Community that studies developing technologies.

The IARPA warned that virtual worlds like Second Life are creating opportunities for terrorist cells to “recruit, rehearse, transfer money and ultimately engage in information warfare or worse with impunity.”

IARPA recommendations include the setting up of teams of intelligence experts who would investigate virtual worlds and monitor potential terrorist threats.

The US Central Intelligence Agency currently has a virtual presence in Second Life, which is used for training and meetings.

However, some privacy experts warn that the IARPA warnings are an excuse for the ever expanding online government surveillance plans. Privacy campaigner Jim Dempsey, policy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, noted that the government had made similar warnings about the internet and mobile phones.

Source: vnunet.com