The Times Online is reporting on a unique FaceBook group that is being used to contact blood donors to let them know what blood types are needed and the locations that are in need of the blood.

A New York charity called Takes All Types collects information about the blood types that are needed in which areas, and sends out alerts to registered Facebook users who may be suitable blood donors.

Ben Bergman is a New-York-based recruiter set up the blood donor group and said that it has immediately attracted the interest of hospitals and blood banks.

Facebook.com now has over 38 million registered people that can be potential contacts for blood drive efforts.

Source: Times Online

In this short YouTube video, CNN interviews Chinese hackers, who claim to have broken into high-level private and government websites, including a Pentagon website. The hackers claim that they have been paid by the Chinese Government to conduct these security breeches.

In our wired world of Big Brother, Little Brothers, socially networked smart mobs, tagged images and RFID implanted humans, George Orwell is more timely than ever before, even when he didn’t get everything quite right. Below are some of my favorite Orwell quotes for our networked age.

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Orwell foresaw Big Brother, but not all the networked Little Brothers –

“Big Brother is watching you.”

Orwell on freedom in general and freedom of speech in particular –

“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

Orwell on the ironic mixture of technology and human nature ( No, social networks will not make people more civilized. ) –

“As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.”

George on the dangerous power of thoughts and words –

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

On the limitations of journalists and the press –

“Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper. ”

In times of stress, turmoil and disfunction, Orwell observed that some things still work –

“The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun.”

Orwell on the control of the means of communication —

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

Source of quotes: BrainyQuote.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

Daniel Solove is a George Washington University Law Professor, who specializes in information privacy law, and the author of “The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor & Privacy on the Internet”.

In this interesting 30 minute interview with C-SPAN, Daniel Solove discusses a range of legal issues relating to the conflicts between freedom and privacy in the “wild, wild west” world of web 2.0, blogs, social networks and wired mass communication.

Throughout the interview Solove relates a number of fascinating anecdotes that highlight the problems with current internet and privacy laws, involving social networks, blogs, online access to public records, personal information providers, cyber cops, wired mobs, electronic lynchings, personal privacy.

Solove deals with these topics in an interesting, informed manner and without the alarmism that typically goes with discussions on freedom and privacy issues.

If you are interested in internet law, web 2.0 topics, privacy issues or public records access, this is one of the best YouTube videos you can view. Take 30 minutes out of your wired schedule to watch it below.

Wired.com’s Threat Level blog has posted news on a white hat phone hacker that goes by Lucky225, who got into Paris Hilton’s voice mail and then called to inform her of his intrusion as well as give her helpful advice for securing her voice mail and cellphone account.

Although we are not interested in giving Paris Hilton another 15 minutes of fame, the audio and transcript of the conversation between Lucky225 and Paris is instructive about the security holes in major cellphone service providers.

You can listen to the audio of the phone call as well as read a transcript of the conversation @ Threat Level Blog.

China is close to completing a $6 billion project that involves the issuing of identity cards to its adult population by 2008.

The identity cards come with RFID chips for identifying and tracking people.

By the end of 2008 China will have issued between 900 million and a billion of these tracking cards to its citizens.

Source: vnunet.com

The Wired Blog Network publishes a great blog called “Threat Level”. Threat Level is an interesting blog that mixes the topics of privacy, security, political and crime news.

The blog publishes timely news on security breaches, censorship, cover-ups, crime, crypto news, cyber security, forensics, computer hacks, telecommunications news, politics, privacy issues, court news etc.

You can visit the Threat Level blog @ Wired Blogs

On May 5th, Yahoo announced that it has increased the functionality of Yahoo Maps by adding a lot of new local information.

Some of the improvements to the Yahoo Map search engine include:

• Specific local information added to 12,000 new neighborhoods in over 300 cities.

• Increased worldwide city information, especially in the Eastern European region.

• An increase in city label and tag information to help users find local services and locations more easily.

Source: Yahoo.com

Now you can get live help with your people searches on PeopleFinderChat.com.

People Finder Chat has launched a live free people search and help service online.

Users can chat online with a live person, who will provide tips, advice and search options to help them find a person from their past, like: friends, family, coworkers, classmates, military buddies etc.

The People Finder Chat is free for anyone to use, as long as the service is online and not busy helping other individuals.

Users can discuss who they are looking for as well as get strategies and search suggestions for finding that person.

The service is available during scheduled time slots as well as unscheduled times. As the site becomes more popular, available times are likely to be extended to help more people.

Whereas most other free people search sites offer a list of directory-style links, People Finder Chat aims to be different by providing live person-to-person search help.

If you are trying to find a person, give it a try.