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

Here is part II of the 60 Minutes profile on Facebook.com and Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg.

[ Part I of the Facebook.com profile on 60 Minutes is available here. ]

Part II discusses how Facebook.com has changed the way people find each other and communicate with each other as well as how Facebook has changed the way politicians campaign for higher office.

Part II also discusses some of the privacy issues and problems that Facebook.com has faced and the public backlash to their advertising and marketing system Beacon.

In addition, part II deals with some of the business aspects of Facebook.com – one of the web’s largest social networks and free people search sites.

Facebook.com has over 60 million registered users and is expected to have over 200 million registered users by the end of the year – making Facebook a great resource for social networking; professional networking and people searches.

This YouTube.com video clip is part I of a 60 Minutes TV profile on Facebook and the site’s found Mark Zuckerberg.

MySpace announced today that it has detected and deleted 29,000 convicted sex offenders from the social networking site. The number is over four times numbers previously reported.

From today’s Reuter’s news article –

Popular Internet social network MySpace said on Tuesday it detected and deleted 29,000 convicted sex offenders on its service, more than four times the figure it had initially reported.

The company, owned by media conglomerate News Corp, said in May it had deleted about 7,000 user profiles that belonged to convicted offenders. MySpace attracts about 60 million unique visitors monthly in the United States.

The new information was first revealed by U.S. state authorities after MySpace turned over information on convicted sex offenders it had removed from the service.

Source: MySpace deletes 29,000 sex offenders