Most Famous Hackers & Crackers in the World

Whilst the media is keen to portray hackers as suave super-spy characters with a range of gadgets at their disposal, zipping through pleasing graphical dioramas of color, in reality this is not the case. Some herald them as heroes, whilst others revile them as nothing more than criminals with a bit of technical knowhow. This list is an introduction to some of the most famous real-life non-fiction hackers/crackers from recent history. But ultimately, the best ones out there are the ones we’ll never hear of, because they’ll never get caught.see poics accordings to numbers
1.
Jonathan James. AKA c0mrade. James was the first juvenile that was sentenced to prison for cybercrime, being only 15 years of age at the time of the crime and 16 when he was sentenced. After some minor incursions into telecommunications networks, what brought him to the attention of the authorities was that James had gotten into computers at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an agency responsible for analyzing threats to the US, either native or from abroad. He’d done this by installing backdoor programs on a computer server in Virginia, which in turn allowed him to collect sensitive data, including the emails of many DTRA employees, detailing usernames and passwords to whole range of things, including military computers. Upon detection, NASA had to shut down their computers for a number of weeks in order to make sure everything was ok and to fix any damage caused, costing $41,000 in the process. Unfortunately for him, the good times were not to last long, as James’ house was raided on a January morning in 2000 and he was arrested, being sentenced to six months in prison and probation until the age of 18. Sadly, James died in the middle of last year, with suicide suspected of being the cause.

2.
Adrian Lamo. Dubbed the “Homeless Hacker” due to the fact he usually did most of his “work” from internet cafes, abandoned buildings and libraries. What Lamo did was to do “penetration testing” on several major companies, including Yahoo!, Bank of America and Microsoft. He’d break into their computer systems via security flaws and the like and would then notify the companies that he’d just broken into about the flaws in their computer systems, with some of his targets even being thankful for the security advice that he provided. However, in February 2002, Lamo broke into the computer network of The New York Times, where he was able to view all kinds of sensitive information and was subsequently arrested. He was sentenced to 6 months of detention at his parents’ house, two years of probation and ordered to pay about $65,000 in restitution.

3.
Kevin Mitnick. AKA Condor. Whilst Mitnick’s feats are arguably not the most incredible, he is likely the most famous hacker in recent history and was – at the time of his arrest – the most wanted hacker in US history. Mitnick started on his life’s path at the tender age of 12, where he got around the LA bus punchcard system by buying his own punch, thus he was able to get free bus rides wherever he wanted. In later years he would then proceed to practice phreaking with cell phones, fast food speaker systems, amateur radios and drive-thru speakers. He would later be sentenced for hacking into the computer system for DEC, earning him some prison time and a period of supervised release. It was near the end of this release that Mitnick took it upon himself to hack into yet more computer systems and then fleeing before he could be caught. He went on an epic hacking spree that lasted for the next two and a half years, until his apprehension in February 1995. Ultimately, it was hacking into fellow (white hat) hacker Tsutomu Shimomura’s computer, after which Shimomura made it his personal mission to track down Mitnick. In total, Mitnick has served around 5 years in prison, with 8 months being in solitary confinement. The accompanying photo is Mitnick (middle) with Adrian Lamo (left) and Kevin Poulsen (right).

4.
Kevin Poulsen. AKA Dark Dante. Currently a senior editor at Wired News, Poulsen was made famous with perhaps his best known hack, which netted him a $50,000 Porsche. An LA radio station was offering the Porsche as a prize to the 102 nd caller to the station, so what Poulsen did was to take over the station’s telephone line, block out all the other callers but himself, thereby ensuring that he was the 102 nd caller and winning the Porsche. However, it was his hacking into various Federal computer systems that attracted the attention of the FBI, leading to his arrest at a supermarket in 1991. In 1994, he was found guilty of mail, wire and computer fraud, as well as obstruction of justice and sentenced to almost 5 years in prison and forced to pay $56,000 in restitution. At the time, Poulsen was on the receiving end of the longest prison sentence a cracker had ever been “awarded”.

5.
Robert Tappan Morris. AKA rtm. Creator of the Morris Worm, one of the very first worm viruses to be sent out over the internet, Morris inadvertently caused many thousands of dollars worth of damage and “loss of productivity” when he released the worm in the late 80s. According to Morris himself, it was an experiment to see how big the internet was by counting how many machines were connected to it. Unfortunately, the worm copied and replicated itself to a large extent; so much so that it caused the computers it infected to become unusable. Morris was ultimately discovered and although he was lucky enough to escape prison time, he was fined $10,500 and was sentenced to 36 months of probation with 400 hours of community service.

6.
John Draper. AKA Captain Crunch. Although technically a phone phreak, the Captain is seen by many as the father of modern “hackery” and phreaking, as well as being somewhat of a legend. Born in 1944, his legend began when he was informed by a friend that a toy whistle given away in boxes of the Cap’n Crunch cereal would emit a 2600 hertz tone when the 3 rd hole was glued up. This tone was a frequency that was used in the making of phone calls at the time and would eventually lead to Draper creating “blue boxes”, devices capable of replicating other dialing tones, effectively making calls for free. So here was a man that could circumvent phone charges all thanks to a small cereal box toy. Having given an interview with Esquire magazine in 1971, it exposed the world to the subject of phone phreaking and Draper was arrested in 1972 on toll fraud charges, being sentenced to five years’ probation. In the mid 70s, he taught some of his skills to Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, after Wozniak had read the Esquire article. Draper was even temporarily employed by Apple, even writing the code for EasyWriter, the first Apple II word processor.

Tips on how to make 'Enemies'

Billy Crudup gets asked the same two questions whenever he tells friends he's playing infamous FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover in Michael Mann's gangster thriller "Public Enemies."The first question is always an excited "Really?" says the 40-year-old Tony Award-winning actor. "The second question is, 'Did you put on a dress?'"There you have it," says Crudup, who was last seen as the towering blue Dr. Manhattan in "Watchmen." Crudup promises he keeps this Hoover strictly in the closet.Set in 1933, the action-thriller, which opens July 1, revolves around the legendary Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), whose crime spree in Chicago made him Public Enemy No. 1 to Hoover and the recently formed FBI and its top agent, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale).

Crudup spent just two weeks working on the role last year in Chicago and Wisconsin, and said his time playing opposite Bale was great. But he's still looking forward to working with Depp -- the two had no scenes together.Crudup says that the "Public Enemies" script, by Ronan Bennett and Mann and Ann Biderman, was rich with character development -- "filled with this mixture, which seemed always to be Hoover's problem, of ego and patriotism. That was more than enough for me to tackle him."Mann, says Crudup, always sort of characterized Hoover as a visionary to the actor. " 'Visionary' to me speaks of somebody who is attempting to change society or culture for the good," Crudup says. "It was interesting to think of him in a somewhat positive light."Crudup was in awe of Mann's skills as a filmmaker ("The Insider," "Heat")."He's incredibly ambitious and has a fierce intellect and is driven to create spectacular work," he says. "He is fastidious about everything and really likes to be the singular voice behind, not just the spirit of, but the minutiae of the story he's telling. It's impressive . . . I barely have the mind to juggle my lines!"

Case against pro-Israel lobbyists likely to be dropped

Dismissal of 2005 charges against former AIPAC officials Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman would end a politically sensitive prosecution.

The Justice Department asked a judge Friday to drop espionage-related charges against two pro-Israel lobbyists, a move expected to end a politically sensitive case that focused on whether U.S. secrets had been leaked.Prosecutors said recent court decisions would have made the case hard to win and forced disclosure of large amounts of classified information. But defense lawyers and some legal experts said the government was wrong in the first place for trying to criminalize the kind of information horse-trading that long has occurred in Washington.The intrigue surrounding the case against the two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee already was chock-full of references to top-secret intelligence matters and Middle East politics. But it intensified in recent weeks with reports that Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), a staunch supporter of AIPAC, had been caught on federal wiretaps in 2005 offering to aid the two lobbyists in exchange for help in obtaining a coveted House committee chairmanship.The dismissal, which is all but certain to be approved by a federal judge, probably will end the five-year legal battle between the government and the two lobbyists, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman.

It was the second major federal case dropped by Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. since he took over in January. Last month, the government dropped its prosecution of former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and voided his conviction, citing misconduct by federal attorneys.During the Bush administration, the Justice Department had accused Rosen and Weissman of obtaining classified information from the U.S. government and then disclosing it to reporters, think tank personnel and the Israeli government in a way that could either harm national security or aid a foreign country.The two men, who had left their jobs at AIPAC before being charged in 2005, were never accused of espionage and have maintained that they did nothing wrong.After several delays, their trial had been set for June 2 in Alexandria, Va., where the Justice Department filed the dismissal motions Friday.A third defendant in the case, former Pentagon official Lawrence A. Franklin, pleaded guilty to giving classified defense information to Rosen and Weissman and was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.According to the indictment, Rosen and Weissman conspired to obtain and then disseminate classified information on sensitive issues such as U.S. policy toward Iran, the status of U.S. counter-terrorism investigations in the Middle East and current intelligence on Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks.After the arrests, Harman was recorded by court-approved wiretaps being used to investigate suspected Israeli intelligence-gathering in the United States. According to some reports, Harman, who was not the object of the wiretap, was said to have promised an Israeli operative that she would lobby officials for leniency for Rosen and Weissman.Harman denied wrongdoing and demanded the release of transcripts of any wiretapped conversation in which she participated.Then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss wanted to inform Congress about Harman's wiretap in accordance with a long-standing policy governing sensitive intelligence investigations, but was asked by then-Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales not to, according to a former senior intelligence official who spoke of internal discussions on condition of anonymity.The prosecution of Rosen and Weissman continued without interference, several current and former federal law enforcement officials said.The government's case began to falter in recent months, however, when lawyers for Rosen and Weissman won several key procedural rulings. The lobbyists won the right to subpoena as defense witnesses a number of former top Bush administration officials, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.Defense lawyers Abbe Lowell and Baruch Weiss said their clients had met frequently with those officials. As witnesses, the officials would help prove that the Bush administration, like prior administrations, routinely discussed sensitive information with AIPAC as part of a sanctioned, back-channel relationship between the United States and Israel.U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III also issued legal rulings that set a high bar for the prosecutors, including a requirement to prove that Rosen and Weissman knowingly meant to harm the United States or aid another country.U.S. Atty. Dana J. Boente, the acting top federal prosecutor in the region, said the government was moving to dismiss the charges because of the additional legal burdens."When this indictment was brought, the government believed it could prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt based on the statute," Boente said, adding that there was a "diminished likelihood" the government could win now.Lowell and another defense lawyer, John Nassikas III, praised the Obama administration for reviewing the case and denounced the previous administration's actions dating to the first FBI search at AIPAC's offices in 2004.Rosen and Weissman may sue the government to recover legal costs, which are estimated at more than $10 million.Many current and former federal law enforcement officials said the prosecution's case was strong and that there was proof the two lobbyists knew their actions were wrong."The judge had made so many adverse rulings that this was inevitable, but it grates on me," one former senior Justice Department official said of the decision to drop the case.josh.

One of Twenty-five Leaders of Tomorrow-Ben Barry

Oprah Winfrey discovered him years ago, and now it's your turn. Ben Barry, named "One of Twenty-five Leaders of Tomorrow" by Maclean's, has been challenging the status quo of beauty since he was a teenager.
At age fourteen, Ben helped a friend who was told she was "too big" to be a model by sending her pictures to a magazine editor. The editor called him back, hired his friend, and with that one phone call, Ben launched his modeling agency. Today, Ben serves as CEO of the Ben Barry Agency, a model consultancy headquartered in Toronto, Canada. His company scouts and sources models of all ages, sizes, colours, and abilities for fashion and beauty brands, including Sears, Macy's, and the groundbreaking Dove Campaign for Real Beauty.
Ben has been the subject of feature interviews on Oprah, CNN, and Fashion Television and in The Guardian, The Times of India, The Financial Times, and The National Post. He is a former business columnist for the Globe and Mail and author of the bestseller Fashioning Reality: A New Generation of Entrepreneurship, hailed by Profit Magazine as "a manifesto for young entrepreneurs and a call to arms to everyone." Ben has received the CIBC Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and is the first male winner of the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case for his leadership in advancing the equality of girls and women in Canada.
He holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Women's Studies from Trinity College at the University of Toronto and a Master's in Innovation and Strategy from Judge Business School at Cambridge University. He is currently completing his PhD on perceptions of beauty around the world at Cambridge University and is a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Business School. Ben also serves on the Board of the Canadian Foundation for Women's Health and as Chair of the Toronto Fashion Incubator, a non-profit small business incubator for Canadian fashion entrepreneurs.

speaking

Ben is a sought-after speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship, leadership, marketing, and beauty and body image. He has traveled around the world delivering workshops and keynote presentations to such organizations and associations as The International Council of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, The Government of Canada, Oxford University, Global Entrepreneurship Week, and the Alberta Women's Entrepreneurs Conference.

Reviews of Ben' Talk

"Ben Barry has the unique ability to get all types of audiences up and out of their seats when he speaks. He not only has an amazing success story as a young entrepreneur, but also exudes so much passion and enthusiasm for the causes he believes in that it is contagious."— Amy Harder, President, Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship
"Inspiration is an understated way of expressing the impact of Ben Barry on our audience. His passionate message about challenging the social norms and empowering each individual taking responsibility for contributing to social change in our society, is heartfelt and impactful. Not only does he have a story to tell, but he tells it in such a way that left our audience wanting more. All I can say is Bravo!"— Glen Padassery, Manager, New Professionals Secretariat, Ontario Public Service
"Ben is an inspirational speaker who reminds every audience that social justice is not just a dream, it is a real possibility. Whether speaking to high school students or a university academic gathering, Ben draws rave reviews for his story of passion, wit and perseverance in challenging the status quo in business and the fashion industry."— Dr. Peter Jaffe, Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario

N.Korea threatens new nuke, rocket tests

SEOUL, April 30 (UPI) -- North Korea has threatened to test a second nuclear bomb and an intercontinental ballistic missile unless the U.N. lifts new sanctions and apologizes.

The U.N. Security Council's imposition of sanctions in response to the recent launch of a long-range rocket were "wanton provocations," North Korea charged.

A South Korea official viewed the threat as "very drastic."

North Korea staged its first nuclear test in June, 2006.

Experts believe North Korea can do a second nuclear test at any time, considering its plutonium stockpile and possession of several nuclear warheads, Chosun Ilbo reports say.

It appeared the tests would be prepared in any case. The foreign ministry said in a statement that "the first step in that process" was under way, namely construction of a light-water reactor power plant.

The statement also said technological development to secure its own supply of nuclear fuel would start "without delay."

A South Korean official said the steps being taken were unexpected.

"We assumed that the North would offer some kind of resistance (to the sanctions)," the official said, "but simultaneous threats to conduct a second nuclear test, push for a uranium enrichment program and test-launch a missile all at once are very drastic."

North Korea said further, "We already declared in the 1990s that we will consider it a declaration of a war if the U.N., the legitimate signatory to the armistice treaty, imposes sanctions against us. Such sanctions will never work on a nation that has lived under various kinds of sanctions and blockades imposed by hostile forces for decades."

A Japanese government official was quoted in the Sankei Shimbun newspaper as saying that since North Korea has begun reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods to extract plutonium it could be ready for a nuclear test within three months.

Escape the Swine flu and help your fellow traveler with new website...we're talkintravel.

Here's a new website I came across that may help anyone wanting to escape the Swine Flu with a virus free vacation. It's called WHERE I’VE BEEN™ and can be found at www.whereivebeen.com. It's a lot like facebook and twitter...another social network; like we need more, but this one should help anyone who loves to travel. Read on for more information.

Leading travel application introduces the first full integration of a stand-alone travel site and the world’s leading social networking sites
Where I’ve Been™ (WIB) (www.whereivebeen.com) announced today the launch of its new Social Travel Platform, which features a powerful combination of social networking tools and location-based information services. Where I’ve Been currently has more than 8 million users, approximately 1/2 billion travel intents and over 2 million “User Reviews,” with integration spanning the world’s top social networks including Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, hi5, Friendster and its own homepage.

The new site launch offers the ability to research and plan travel, share videos, photos, stories, as well as post and receive reviews and travel advice, all within the context of each member’s preferred networks. New features include:

§ A shift from “countries and cities” to local points of interest
§ Ability to search, review and get information on more than 30 million global data points including destinations, hotels, restaurants and bars
§ Aggregated videos, reviews, and other content from members and leading travel sites such as Citysearch, Kayak and hotelvideoreviews.com
§ Third party integration tools such as the online travel itinerary and trip planning service Tripit (www.tripit.com)
§ Travel Bucks Virtual Currency. Earn Travel Bucks to save the rainforest or feed a child in Mali or other philanthropic projects. The more actions you perform on the site, the more Travel Bucks you earn
§ “News-feed style” updates from friends, other users and trusted resources that are weighted and filtered for relevancy to each member
§ “Ask an Expert” allows members to get intimate knowledge from the community and reputable travel professionals
§ A continuously growing community on Twitter with traveltuesday.org

“We believe that Where I’ve Been™ will now be the most efficient and robust single source for comprehensive travel-planning information,” Michael Dalesandro, Co-Founder and WIB CEO. By using relevancy metrics derived from user profile content and proprietary filtering engines, our newest offering can suggest everything from local bars and restaurants, to far-away countries you may enjoy. With our new technology, Where I’ve Been is poised to dramatically expand its user base and add to a powerful relevance model to become the world’s premier social travel platform and thus increasing conversions,” continued Dalesandro.

WHERE I’VE BEEN™
Where I’ve Been (www.whereivebeen.com) is the leading social travel application that spans the world’s social networks, blogs, and homepages. With comprehensive features and functionality, its social travel and local platform lets users and communities “Find, Travel and Share”™ relevant content that is contributed by members, partners, and aggregated from the Web. Founded in 2007, WIB’s team of talented programmers and designers is based inChicago. Where I've Been thrives on providing its community with 100% high quality products that are both user-friendly and social. Enjoy!

For more info: www.whereivebeen.com and if you're interested in some of the places we've visited, check out our www.examiner.com home page site at www.examiner.com/x-5821-SF-Travel-Insights-Examiner

Obama Says Swine Flu ‘Not a Cause for Alarm’

President Obama said on Monday that the growing number of cases of swine flu in the United States and abroad was “not a cause for alarm,” but he sought to assure Americans that the government was taking precautions to prepare for the prospect of a global health pandemic.

“We are closely monitoring the emerging cases of swine flu in the United States,” Mr. Obama said, speaking at the National Academy of Sciences. “This is obviously the cause for concern and requires a heightened state of alert, but it’s not a cause for alarm.”

The remarks by Mr. Obama, which came at the beginning of a previously-scheduled speech that he delivered to scientists in Washington, marked the first time the president has personally addressed the swine flu. He said his administration was monitoring the disease and taking precautions to ward off a wider spread of the swine flu, which emerged from Mexico last week.

Mr. Obama said the swine flu outbreak underscored the need for a larger investment in scientific research in the United States. He said science should not be seen as a luxury, but rather as a key element of the nation’s security.

“Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment and our quality of life than it has ever been before,” Mr. Obama said. “If there was ever a day that reminded us of our shared stake in science and research, it is today.”

Mr. Obama said federal funding for physical sciences, as a proportion of the gross domestic product, has fallen by nearly half over the last quarter century. He used the speech to bolster his argument for increasing funding to scientific research, which is a challenge given the budget shortfalls and economic condition of the country.

Google marks Samuel Morse's birthday with code logo

Visitors to the search engine's home page this morning were met with the code "–. --- --- –. .-.. ." instead of the usual Google logo.

The witty doodle is intended to honour Samuel Finley Breese Morse, the inventor of the single wire telegraph, who was born on April 27, 1791.

talented painter who was admitted into the Royal Academy, Morse only turned his hand to inventing in 1832, after meeting an expert in electromagnetism on a sea voyage.

He later patented his idea for a transmitting messages over electrical wires, which quickly became the standard method of swift long-distance communication. Every letter of the alphabet was translated into a combination of dots and dashes in the code to which he gave his name.

Google regularly releases versions of its logo to mark major world events and anniversaries. It is particularly keen to honour scientific discoveries, and has in the past produced doodles to herald the launch of the Large Hadron Collider and the birthdays of Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci.

On April 23 last week it marked St George's Day and William Shakespeare's birthday with a cartoon-style logo.

Shirtless Obama Makes Washingtonian Cover

The May cover of Washingtonian magazine features those paparazzi photos of a shirtless Barack Obama strolling the beach in Hawaii last year.

Some call him ‘President Beefcake’. Others just call the upcoming Washingtonian Magazine cover, showing a shirtless Barack Obama, embarrassing.

Forget Chavez, Ortega, and Ahmedinejad. And remember those two war zones? Iraq and, and, and…

Apparently, the American people are more interested in seeing Barack Obama shirtless. Because with the arrival of the Obamas in Washington, came a ‘celebrity aspect that has brought energy to the city and the attention of the paparazzi.’ This is all according to Garrett Graff, editor-at-large at The Washingtonian magazine, a monthly style/culture publication.

“The Obamas are the center of attention here and the whole world is looking to Washington now in a way we haven’t seen in years,” Graff said, calling it “a real golden age of Washington.”


Call me crazy but couldn’t ‘the golden age’ of Washington have been illustrated with the President of the United States fully clothed? And this certainly isn’t the normal cover the magazine usually does so is the ‘Buff Bam’ just an attempt to sell more magazines?

Of course it is.
“It’s a unique time in Washington and this photo helps capture all of the reasons why,” Graff said. “It’s not a normal way to look at a president of the United States but this is not a normal president.”

Ah. More Messiah worship with maybe a wee bit of a man crush? Graff has said the magazine used the papparazzi photo to illustrate two things: first, the president himself is hot – “you have a buff president and the paparazzi like taking shirtless photos of him,” Graff said – and second, the Obamas’ presence in Washington is “really hot.”

So there you go. Hot and really hot. Graff said they did not check with the White House before publishing and have not heard anything from them one way or another. The Washingtonian Magazine, featuring a shirtless Obama on the cover in ‘My Neighbor is Hot’, hits newsstands on Wednesday.

Longer Unemployment for Those 45 and Older

When Ben Sims, 57, showed up earlier this year for a job interview at a company in Richardson, Tex., he noticed the hiring manager — several decades his junior — falter upon spotting him in the lobby.

“Her face actually dropped,” said Mr. Sims, who was dressed in a business suit befitting his 25-year career in human resources at I.B.M.

Later, in her office, after several perfunctory questions, the woman told Mr. Sims she did not believe the job would be “suitable” for him. And barely 10 minutes later, she stood to signal that the interview was over.

“I knew very much then it was an age situation,” said Mr. Sims, who has been looking for work since November 2007, a month before the economic downturn began.

The recession’s onslaught has come as Mr. Sims and many others belonging to the baby boom generation remain years from retirement. But unemployed baby boomers, many of whom believed they were still in the prime of their careers, are confronting the grim reality that they face some of the steepest odds of any job seekers in this dismal market.

Workers ages 45 and over form a disproportionate share of the hard-luck recession category, the long-term unemployed — those who have been out of work for six months or longer, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

On average, laid-off workers in this age group were out of work 22.2 weeks in 2008, compared with 16.2 weeks for younger workers. Even when they finally land jobs, they typically experience a much steeper drop in earnings than their younger counterparts.

Older workers do hold some advantages, though. Many have avoided layoffs in this recession, and government statistics show that people 45 and older currently have a lower unemployment rate than younger workers.

Alicia H. Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said companies were often reluctant to lose the experience of older workers, many of whom also have protections that often come with age and seniority.

Recent data, however, have shown that the advantage is deteriorating. “If you are old and have a job, you are less likely — albeit less less likely than in the old days — to be fired,” Dr. Munnell said.

The unemployment rate in March for workers ages 45 and over was 6.4 percent, the highest since at least 1948, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking unemployment on a monthly basis.

But once older workers lose their jobs, Dr. Munnell said, “then it’s horrible.” They have a much harder time finding work again than younger job-seekers do, and statistics appear to show that it is harder for them in this recession than in previous ones. During downturns in 1982 and 2001, workers ages 45 and over were unemployed an average of 19 weeks and just under 17 weeks, respectively.

Many out-of-work baby boomers have despaired as they wonder whether to trim their résumés to avoid giving away their decades of work experience, or to dye their hair.

More of them are now choosing to fight back. Age discrimination complaints were up nearly 30 percent in the 2008 fiscal year over the year before, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and that period ended just before the worst of the recession began.

But the vast majority of those complaints involved layoffs. Discrimination in hiring is often almost impossible to prove.

“Especially in this day and age when you apply online, you’re not even told why you can’t get past the first screening,” said Laurie McCann, a senior lawyer with the AARP Litigation Foundation.

Mr. Sims, in Texas, was so incensed by how he was treated that he tried to call the company’s chief executive but was unable to get through. He never seriously considered filing a formal complaint.

“I know enough about H.R. procedures and H.R. situations,” he said. “It would have never gone anywhere.”

Assessing just how pervasive age discrimination is in the job market is difficult. Certainly, older workers believe that it is rampant — an AARP survey in 2007 of workers ages 45 to 74 found that 60 percent said they had seen or experienced age bias.

Joanna N. Lahey, an economics professor at Texas A&M University, conducted a study published in 2005 in which she sent out 4,000 résumés on behalf of hypothetical job-seeking women ranging in age from 35 to 62 for entry-level jobs at companies in Boston and St. Petersburg, Fla. She changed only the applicant’s high school graduation year, an age indicator. Dr. Lahey found that workers under 50 were more than 40 percent more likely to be called for an interview.

Older workers often accumulate knowledge specific to their companies that helps protect them from layoffs, Dr. Lahey said. But that background is often less useful to other employers.

Older workers must also battle stereotypes about their energy and adaptability, as well as the reality that their health care costs are higher.

The oldest baby boomers have already begun retiring. But with retirement accounts plunging in value, more older workers than ever are trying to stay in the work force. And some unemployed boomers, frustrated after months of fruitless searching, have concluded that their only option is to turn their backs on successful careers and start over at much lower pay.

Netanyahu Tells Palestinian Leader He Wants Peace Talks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he hopes to hold peace talks with the Palestinian leader in the near future.
A statement Sunday from the prime minister's office says Mr. Abbas had called Mr. Netanyahu to pass along his wishes on the Jewish Passover Holiday. The prime minister's office says Mr. Netanyahu spoke of past cooperation and discussions between the two leaders, and told Mr. Abbas he intends to pursue similar talks in the future.
The conversation was the first between the two since Mr. Netanyahu was elected prime minister earlier this year. The prime minister's office said the conversation was warm and amicable.

No date for future talks was discussed.

The conversation between the two leaders comes one day after foreign ministers from five Arab countries and the Palestinian Authority met in Jordan to discuss Arab unity on the Middle East peace process.

Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh says the meeting Saturday in Amman was aimed at stressing Arab commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Officials at the meeting also said they remain committed to a Saudi initiative on Arab-Israeli peace proposed in 2002. The plan calls for normalizing ties with Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from all land captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has yet to endorse the idea of Palestinian statehood since taking office.

American Al Qaeda holds rare news conference in Somalia

Two young Americans who left their homes to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia held a rare “press conference” in Southern Somalia on Monday, saying they want to be killed “for the sake of God.”

According to a U.S. law enforcement official and a video posted on a Somali news Web site, at least 20 Somali-American men from the Minneapolis area and elsewhere in the United States have joined the terrorist group al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006.

“We came from the U.S. with a good life and a good education, but we came to fight alongside our brothers of al-Shabaab … to be killed for the sake of God,” one man said in the video, as translated by Omar Jamal, the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn.

In the video, two men, identifying themselves as Abu-Muslim and Abu Yaxye, say they are “Somali youth” from the United States who are now stationed near the city of Kismayo, more than 300 miles southwest of Mogadishu, according to Jamal.

The men say they are talking to media for the first time so others can learn why they joined al-Shabaab, he said.

A spokesman from the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis, E.K. Wilson, said he is “aware of the video,” which was posted on the Web site dowladnimo.com. He said the video was first brought to his office’s attention early Sunday.

Wilson would not say whether the FBI has identified the men in the video.

It was a “clear appeal to foreign youth, especially in English-speaking countries, to join the jihad in Somalia,” according to the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which first provided the video to Fox News.

In the 30-minute video, featuring an anti-American hip-hop score and images of Usama bin Laden, a man dubbed “The American” purportedly leads a group of al-Shabaab militants in an ambush of Ethiopian forces, which oppose an Islamic state and have backed the new Somali government.

A law enforcement official confirmed to FOX News that the man, identified in the video as Abu Mansur al-Amriki, is originally from the United States, but said he has been in Somalia “for some time.”

The official said the man is in his late 20s or early 30s, and left the United States “many” years ago.

Teens locked up for life without a second chance

It began as horseplay, with two teenage stepbrothers chasing each other with blow guns and darts. But it soon escalated when one of the boys grabbed a knife.


Lotts, now 23, spends his days at a prison in Bonne Terre, Missouri, ineligible for parole.
3 of 3 The older teen, Michael Barton, 17, was dead by the time he reached the hospital, stabbed twice.The younger boy, Quantel Lotts, 14, would eventually become one of Missouri's youngest lifers.

Lotts was sentenced in Missouri's St. Francois County Circuit Court in 2002 to life in prison without parole for first-degree murder in his stepbrother's stabbing death.

It made no difference that at the time of the deadly scuffle, Lotts was barely old enough to watch PG-13 movie and too young to drive, vote or buy beer.

"They locked me up and threw away the keys," Lotts, now 23, said from prison. "They took away all hope for the future."

His stepmother, the victim's mother, has forgiven Lotts and is working with lawyers to gain his release.

Lotts is one of at least 73 U.S. inmates -- most of them minorities -- who were sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison for crimes committed when they were 13 or 14, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization in Alabama that defends indigent defendants and prisoners.

The 73 are just a fraction of the more than 2,000 offenders serving life sentences for crimes they committed as minors under the age of 18.

Across the country, most juvenile offenders and many adults are given a second chance. Charles Manson, convicted in seven notorious murders committed when he was 27, will be eligible for his 12th parole hearing in 2012. He's been denied parole 11 times. Even "Son of Sam" killer David Berkowitz, who confessed to killing six people in the 1970s when he was in his 20s, has had four parole hearings, though he has said he doesn't deserve parole and doesn't want it.

But Quantel Lotts has no hope for a parole hearing. At least not yet. See which states have sentenced minors to life without parole »

Lotts is part of a trend that has developed over the past two decades. Numerous studies have shown that In the 1970s and 1980s, minors were rarely given life sentences, let alone life without parole, experts said. By the early 1990s, according to the Department of Justice, an alarming spike in juvenile homicides spawned a nationwide crackdown, including a movement to try kids in adult courts.

S-21 prison - Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a museum in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The site is a former high school which was used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979. Tuol Sleng in Khmer; [tuəl slaeŋ] means "Hill of the Poisonous Trees" or "Strychnine Hill".

HISTORY

Formerly the Tuol Svay Prey High School, named after a Royal ancestor of King Norodom Sihanouk, the five buildings of the complex were converted in August 1975, four months after the Khmer Rouge won the civil war, into a prison and interrogation center. The Khmer Rouge renamed the complex "Security Prison 21" (S-21) and construction began to adapt the prison to the inmates: the buildings were enclosed in electrified barbed wire, the classrooms converted into tiny prison and torture chambers, and all windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent escapes.
From 1975 to 1979, an estimated 17,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng (some estimates suggest a number as high as 20,000, though the real number is unknown). At any one time, the prison held between 1,000-1,500 prisoners. They were repeatedly tortured and coerced into naming family members and close associates, who were in turn arrested, tortured and killed. In the early months of S-21's existence, most of the victims were from the previous Lon Nol regime and included soldiers, government officials, as well as academics, doctors, teachers, students, factory workers, monks, engineers, etc. Later, the party leadership's paranoia turned on its own ranks and purges throughout the country saw thousands of party activists and their families brought to Tuol Sleng and liquidated. Those arrested included some of the highest ranking communist politicians such as Khoy Thoun, Vorn Vet and Hu Nim. Although the official reason for their arrest was "espionage," these men may have been viewed by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot as potential leaders of a coup against him. Prisoners' families were often brought en masse to be interrogated and later murdered at the Choeung Ek extermination center.
Even though the vast majority of the victims were Cambodian, foreigners were also imprisoned, including Vietnamese, Laotians, Indians, Pakistanis, Britons, Americans, New Zealanders and Australians.
Most non-Cambodians had been evacuated or expelled from the country and those who remained were seen as a security risk. A number of Western prisoners passed through S-21 between April 1976 and December 1978. Mostly these were picked up at sea by Khmer Rouge patrol boats. They included four Americans, three French, two Australians, a Briton and a New Zealander. One of the last prisoners to die was American Michael Scott Deeds, who was captured with his friend Chris De Lance while sailing from Singapore to Hawaii.
In 1979, the prison was uncovered by the invading Vietnamese army. In 1980, the prison was reopened as a historical museum memorializing the actions of the Khmer Rouge regime. The museum is open to the public, and receives an average of 500 visitors every day.

Torture and extermination

Most prisoners at S-21 were held there for two to three months. However, several high-ranking Khmer Rouge cadres were held longer. Within two or three days after they were brought to S-21, all prisoners were taken for interrogation[1]. The torture system at Tuol Sleng was designed to make prisoners confess to whatever crimes they were charged with by their captors. Prisoners were routinely beaten and tortured with electric shocks, searing hot metal instruments and hanging, as well as through the use of various other devices. Some prisoners were cut with knives or suffocated with plastic bags. Other methods for generating confessions included pulling out fingernails while pouring alcohol on the wounds, holding prisoners’ heads under water, and the use of the waterboarding technique . Females were sometimes raped by the interrogators, even though sexual abuse was against DK policy. The perpetrators who were found out were executed.Although many prisoners died from this kind of abuse, killing them outright was discouraged, since the Khmer Rouge needed their confessions.
In their confessions, the prisoners were asked to describe their personal background. If they were party members, they had to say when they joined the revolution and describe their work assignments in DK. Then the prisoners would relate their supposed treasonous activities in chronological order. The third section of the confession text described prisoners’ thwarted conspiracies and supposed treasonous conversations. At the end, the confessions would list a string of traitors who were the prisoners’ friends, colleagues, or acquaintances. Some lists contained over a hundred names. People whose names were in the confession list were often called in for interrogation.
Typical confessions ran into thousands of words in which the prisoner would interweave true events in their lives with imaginary accounts of their espionage activities for the CIA, the KGB, or Vietnam. The confession of Hu Nim ended with the words "I am not a human being, I'm an animal". A young Englishman named John Dawson Dewhirst who was arrested in August 1978 claimed to have joined the CIA at age 12 upon his father receiving a substantial bribe from a work colleague, also an agent. Physical torture was combined with sleep deprivation and deliberate neglect of the prisoners. The torture implements are on display in the museum. The vast majority of prisoners were innocent of the charges against them and their confessions produced by torture.
For the first year of S-21’s existence, corpses were buried near the prison. However, by the end of 1979, cadres ran out of burial spaces, the prisoner and their family were taken to the Choeung Ek extermination centre, fifteen kilometers from Phnom Penh. There, they were killed by being battered with iron bars, pickaxes, machetes and many other makeshift weapons. After the prisoners were executed, the soldiers who had accompanied them from S-21 buried them in graves that held as few as 6 and as many as 100 bodies.

Survivors of Tuol Sleng
Out of an estimated 17,000 people imprisoned at Tuol Sleng, there were only twelve known survivors. Only four of them are thought to be still alive[when?]: Vann Nath, Chum Mey, Bou Meng and Chim Math, the only woman among the survivors. All three of the men were kept alive because they had skills their captors judged to be useful. Vann Nath had trained as an artist and was put to work painting pictures of Pol Pot. Many of his paintings depicting events he witnessed in Tuol Sleng are on display in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum today. Bou Meng, whose wife was killed in the prison, is also an artist. Chum Mey was kept alive because of his skills in repairing machinery. Chim Math was held in S-21 for 2 weeks and transferred to the nearby Prey Sar prison. She may have been spared because she was from Stoeung district in Kampong Thom where Comrade Duch was born. She was also distinguished by her provincial accent during her interrogations.

DISCOVERY OF TUOL SLENG

In 1979 Ho Van Tay, a Vietnamese combat photographer, was the first media person to document Tuol Sleng to the world. Van Tay and his colleagues followed the stench of rotting corpses to the gates of Tuol Sleng. The photos of Van Tay documenting what he saw when he entered the site are exhibited in Tuol Sleng today.
The Khmer Rouge required that the prison staff made a detailed dossier for each prisoner. Included in the documentation was a photograph. Since the original negatives and photographs were separated from the dossiers in the 1979-1980 period, most of the photographs remain anonymous today.
The photographs are currently being exhibited at the Tuol Sleng Museum and at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

FBI INTERNET CRIME

Complaints and Losses on the Rise

Reports of Internet scams and their financial toll continued to grow in 2008, according to the latest data by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which operates a website, http://www.ic3.gov/, to collect and refer public complaints about Internet fraud.
In 2008, more than $264 million was lost in 275,284 complaints—an average of $931 for every complaint—according to the 2008 Internet Crime Report, released March 30. Almost one-third of the complaints were for non-delivery of merchandise purchased online; auction fraud accounted for one in four complaints.

In one case cited in the 2008 figures, a Virginia woman—Rachel Trent, who was the subject of multiple complaints in three states—advertised rare baseball and football cards on the eBay auction site. Once a buyer paid, the woman sent a worthless card or sometimes nothing at all. She was arrested by a cyber task force and is serving fours years in prison.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Charles Pavelites describes the role of the Internet Crime Complaint Center. Play VideoThe Internet Crime Complaint Center is a partnership between the FBI and the nonprofit National White Collar Crime Center. IC3 collects the data, analyzes it, and then refers complaints to law enforcement agencies to follow up. The report, issued annually since 2003, offers a snapshot of the most frequent Internet crimes, where they are occurring, and who is being victimized.
In the U.S. last year, California, New York, Florida, Texas, and the District of Columbia were home to half the perpetrators identified in complaints. Worldwide, perpetrators were most commonly from the U.S. (66.1%), followed by the United Kingdom (10.5%), Nigeria (7.5%), and Canada (3.1%).

Shoe thrown at Chidambaram during a press conference

April 7, 2009
A shoe was thrown at Home Minister P Chidambaram during a press conference in New Delhi on Tuesday.
The shoe was thrown by a journalist from the Dainak Jagran daily , Jarnail Singh, who was asking a question on the 1984 Sikh riots.
The man was immediately taken off the conference room and has been detained. While speaking to reporters, Jarnail Singh said that it is his way of protesting against the clean chit given to Congress leader and riots accused Jagdish Tytler.

Jarnail singh threw shoe not to hurt chidambaram , it was his way of his protesting and i think this is totallt right ......sikhs didn't get justice even after 25 years and the main guilty jagdish tytler has got the clean chit from CBI and again he stood in elections....this is not fair ...and what is Government expecting from sikhs.all the sikhs in the world protesting against the clean chit given to Jagdish tytler.

5 Reasons Why U.S. Cannot Attack North Korea

Reason 1--DPRK is a military power
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a country which has a disproportionably strong military power given its size and population--more than a million-men regular armed forces, tens of thousands of special combat units, a huge amount of weaponry of various types including missiles, millions of reserves and citizens who are well trained and all set to join a war at any moment, a completely fortified land with bomb-proof rocky mountains, and the close unity of the military and the people behind the Supreme Commander. Moreover, the U.S. speculates that North Korea has already one or two nuclear weapons. More important is the fact that Washington finds no excuse to urge Pyongyang to disarm itself, unlike the case of Iraq.

Reason 2--DPRK has retaliation capability
North Korea, unlike Iraq, not only has explicitly stated that it would promptly retaliate on the U.S. once the latter should dare to make a preemptive attack on the former but it has enough power to do so. Pyongyang says that a preemptive attack is not a monopolistic privilege given the U.S. At the time of the "nuclear crisis" in 1993-94, the U.S. government under Bill Clinton attempted to preemptively attack North Korea. But it had to withdraw the plan because its consequences would be devastating and horrible for the U.S. as a result of a Pentagon's war simulation. This structure remains unchanged basically even today. Currently, targets of North Korea's retaliation include U.S. bases in Japan and even a part of the U.S. mainland, let alone U.S. forces in South Korea. In the case of Iraq, Baghdad has no such a retaliatory capability as North Korea has. The United States would intensively launch an attack on Iraqi soil in the initial stage of a war by using thousands of more sophisticated missiles than those used in the first Gulf War, to be followed by merciless bombings to devastate the country, and then by a landing of armed forces to occupy Baghdad to put an end to a second Gulf War. It will result in a "complete victory" over Iraq. This is obvious. On the other hand, however, Washington can never overlook the potential retaliatory capability of North Korea. This has played its role as a major deterrence to a second Korean War.

Reason 3--U.S. alliance in Northeast Asia strains
During the days of the first nuclear crisis in Korea, the then president of South Korea, Kim Young Sam, opposed a U.S. bombing on North Korea, and Japan was totally unprepared to help the U.S. in such a military action because of the war-renouncing constitution of Japan and of the lack of a relevant law enabling the economic giant to mobilize and procure public and private facilities and resources for the U.S. armed forces in a "contingency." Still now, neither Seoul nor Tokyo wants war on the Korean Peninsula because they know that they will be the direct victims of such a war, not the U.S. Though Japan, the major ally of the U.S., expresses support for the U.S. going to war against Iraq if only an additional UN resolution authorizing it has been adopted. However, it stresses a peaceful and negotiated solution to the current nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula rather than an imposition of UN "sanctions" on North Korea.







Reason 4--Seoul-Washington ties worsen
President Roh Moo Hyon, former human rights lawyer representing the post-war generations of South Korea, has pledged to succeed, and develop, his predecessor's "sunshine policy" or reconciliation policy toward fraternal North Korea. He is an explicit advocate of revising the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and of more matured South Korea-U.S. relations based on an equal footing. He also declares that Seoul should be a main player in addressing the aggravated situation on the Korean peninsula including the nuclear issue by acting as arbitrator between Pyongyang and Washington. Roh's election pledges won the ardent support of voters. In his inaugural speech on February 25, the new South Korean leader stressed peace, stability, dialogue, reconciliation and common prosperity of Northeast Asia. His emergence as a new type leader came true against the background of unprecedentedly strong anti-American sentiments in South Korea in the wake of the USFK military court's acquittal of two GIs who killed two Korean teenage school girls by an armored vehicle in June last year, in particular. The South Korean public was angered by Bush's calling North Korea a member of an "axis of evil." Such unfavorable developments in South Korea have aroused serious concerns in Washington over its relations with Seoul, baffling George W. Bush's unilateralist hard-line policy on North Korea.







Reason 9--International relations change
A paradigm of international relations as regards the Korean Peninsula has drastically changed over the past years. Among the changes are: the DPRK's normalization of relations with the EU and other Western nations, its admission into the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) as a full member, a historic inter-Korean summit of 2000, DPRK leader Kim Jong Il's brisk diplomatic activities with the EU, Beijing, Moscow, Tokyo, and Washington. These moves have contributed toward breaking the Cold War regime in Northeast Asia, a significant factor making harder for Washington, now under the unilateralist government of Bush, to apply its old-fashioned power politics to stifle North Korea in the same way as it is doing on Iraq.