Half a Million Mac Computers ‘Infected with Malware’
BBC: More than half a million Apple computers have been infected with the Flashback Trojan, according to a Russian anti-virus firm.

Its report claims that about 600,000 Macs have installed the malware - potentially allowing them to be hijacked and used as a "botnet".

The firm, Dr Web, says that more than half that number are based in the US.

Apple has released a security update, but users who have not installed the patch remain exposed.

Flashback was first detected last September when anti-virus researchers flagged up software masquerading itself as a Flash Player update. Once downloaded it deactivated some of the computer's security software.

Later versions of the malware exploited weaknesses in the Java programming language to allow the code to be installed from bogus sites without the user's permission. » | Thursday, April 05, 2012

Carla Bruni Sarkozy Has a Headache!

Carla Bruni Sarkozy romping on the beach with Raphaël Enthoven. Photo courtesy of Google Images
MAIL Online: Hundreds of 'highly intimate' images of the French president's wife and her former lover have been stolen during a burglary.

The photographs and videos of Carla Bruni, who is on an official trip to Spain with Nicolas Sarkozy, date from the 41-year- old's affair with philosopher Raphael Enthoven.

Thieves broke into the Paris flat of his brother, 27-year-old actor Julien Enthoven, where the prints and videos were being kept, and stole them.

Police believe the images could be posted on the web, serving to embarrass Nicolas Sarkozy or be sold for a sizeable sum, thanks to his third wife's status.

A source said: 'The thieves appeared to know exactly what they were looking for, taking highly intimate prints, a camera full of further images, videos, and numerous computer files.

'They broke into Mr Enthoven's flat in Rue Dauphine, in the sixth arrondissement, on Sunday night, smashing a window in the sitting room which looks out on to the courtyard. Nobody was at home at the time, and nothing else was taken.'

Raphael, who fathered Miss Bruni's son Aurelien, eight, is believed to have entrusted the pictures to his brother as he did not want them to embarrass his new partner, or Mr Sarkozy, a detective working on the case said. Carla's Agony as Intimate Photos of Her with Ex-lover Are Stolen in Raid on Paris Flat >>> By Peter Allen | Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Yet again, I have had a photo removed from this webite by Photobucket for contravention of their ‘terms and conditions’. This happens with alarming frequency!

Images such as these are not pornographic. I never post anything pornographic on this website; moreover, these images are freely available on Google Images. Were they to be pornographic, they should not, would not, appear on that Google source.

This image is one of Carla Bruni Sarkozy, the First Lady of France, no less than Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President’s wife! Are we therefore to conclude that Photobucket considers this photo of her to be improper or obscene? If so, this is an insult to the First Lady of France!

To me, it would appear that Photobucket is being overly sensitive. The dictionary definition of pornography is as follows:

Obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, esp. those having little or no artistic merit.

Origin:

1840–50; < Gk pornográph(os) writing about harlots (porno-, comb. form of pórnē harlot + -graphos -graph ) [Source: Dictionary.com]

This photo certainly has artistic merit; and it in no way meets the criteria laid down in the dictionary for pornography.

What this also shows me is that there is a cleft between attitudes to nudity in Europe and America. Americans are probably still labouring under their puritanical past. Europe has liberated itself – long ago!

This image is hosted by ImageShack. We will see if they take a broader view. – ©Mark