People affected by California wildfires get and send firsthand information using micro-blogging service Twitter. Usually during emergencies, all telecommunications networks get overloaded due to huge communication flow increase in all affected areas.

2004 Tsunami taught us that when telephone landlines do not work anymore, mobile network is overloaded, short-messages (SMS) were still going through, but often with up to a hour delivery delay (better than no communication).

One of the most critical problem to solve during emergencies is how to spread information on both directions (from affected people to emergency services and from helpers to victims). In addition, affected people and their relatives are in need to get in touch.

In California, the American Red Cross, among others, have open 2 Twitters threads. One is made to push information out (e.g evacuation routes) and the 2nd one is "Safe and Well" which provides a way for affected people to register as “safe and well.” using a list of standard messages.

Concerned relatives can search the list of those who have registered themselves as “safe and well.” directly on American Red Cross website.

Among many sources: Stephenson Strategies, Wired, KPBS and Occam Razr.

Tags: 2007, 24, american red cross, arc, blog, california, cellular, ces, communication, delay, emergency, how to, ia, ict, im, lan, list, live, micro-blogging, mobile, Mobile Communications, network, nomadcom.net, phone, red cross, safe, search, services, sms, sun, telecom, Telecommunications, touch, twit, Twitter, user, web, website, wildfire, wp, www

The attacks on Swiss financial institutes with the aim of unjustified enrichment and the threat of the targeted industrial espionage via the internet are the main topics of the fifth semi-annual report of the Reporting and Analysis Centre for Information Assurance.

The report assesses the situation of the first half of the year 2007 in Switzerland and is now available online and clearly shows that the human factor remains the weakest point of ICT security.

Focus areas of issue 2007/I

• Attacks on Swiss financial services
  "Classic" phishing attacks by e-mail with password requests have decreased substantially in Switzerland. Moreover, all such attacks have been unsuccessful. On the other hand, successful attacks with malware have increased. Two-factor authentication systems (e.g. transaction authentication numbers, SecurID, etc.) do not afford protection against such attacks and must be viewed as insecure once the computer of the customer has been infected with malware.

• Industrial espionage and data theft
  The threat posed by targeted state or private industrial espionage continues. Not only the operators of critical infrastructures, the armament industry, or public authorities are threatened. Medium-sized industrial companies as well as manufacturers of luxury articles and fashion are also being targeted. The attacks are carried out by sending targeted e-mails to individual employees which contain malware in their attachments or links to bogus websites.
• Attacks on web servers:
  malware distribution, phishing, data theft Compromising of web servers has increased. The purpose is to use web servers to distribute malware, such as by drive-by infection, to steal data (especially on commercially used servers), to carry out (interim) storage of data (e.g. in connection with phishing), or to distribute messages that are generally political in nature.
• Malware / attack vectors
  Malware is still usually distributed through e-mail attachments or e-mails with links to bogus websites. Using clever social engineering techniques, the victim is deceived into opening the attachment or clicking on the link. Websites installing malware on the computer without any action by the user (drive-by infections) have heavily increased as an infection vector. Vulnerabilities in the operating system, the browser, or other applications are exploited. For a long time now, this no longer only happens on dubious sites, but also on (compromised) serious and well-known sites. Rates of recognition of malware by anti-virus software remain low.

The complete report is available on Melani website in italian, german, french and english.

A complete and useful list of all Internet risks and related protection measures is also available.

Tags: 2007, 24, aim, analysis, Annual, art, ATT, attack, blog, ces, computer, connection, CTU, customer, engine, espionage, human, ia, ict, ICT Security, im, industry, install, internet, IT World, ITU, King, lan, list, malware, melani, nomadcom.net, online, password, phishing, public, risk, security, services, social, storage, swiss, switzerland, theme, threat, user, web, web server, website, wp, www, XP

I will start to compile some informations about tools that make Flickr even better. This first post is about scripts that add useful tools and improve rendering of Flickr pages.

Next posts related to Flickr will be about photo online editors, Flickr 3rd party applications, etc.. Greasemonkey is a Firefox add-on (works also on Flock) which allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript.

Hundreds of scripts, for a wide variety of popular sites, are already available at Userscripts.org.

Martin Gommel's listed the 10 most useful scripts for Flickr and published it on the Digital Photography School blog.

1. Flickr Auto Page This is definitely one of the most useful scripts for Flickr. It allows you to scroll though a stream without clicking the “next page” - button. Older images are loaded automatically.
2. Flickr New Contact More Links This script displays more useful information in you Flickr-inbox about the user when they add you as a new contact.
3. Flickr Multi Group Sender This one gives you the ability to post an image to multiple Flickr groups at the one time. Warning : If an image is posted in too many groups you reduce the probability of your image being explored ! I recommend adding images to a maximum of 5 groups.
4. Flickr Move Comment Form Up This makes commenting on images a lot easier. This script always displays the comment box underneath you selected image - regardless of how many other comments have already been written.
5. Flickr Photo Rank Photo Rank will show you a photo’s rank if it is in the top 1000 most interesting images of the day. After installation you can find it under “Additional Information” on the photo’s page.
6. FlickrPM FlickrPM allows you to get important information about another user in a short amount of time by blending in different buttons next to the username on their stream (like icons for mail, profile, favorites, Scout and interestingness). Useful: With FlickrPM you can send the user a Flickrmail without leaving the selected page.
7. Buddy Icon Reply This is another time saver scripts for Flickr. With it you will never have to copy&paste user names you want to reply to on your or other images. With one click you will get a little icon of the user you want to answer in your comment box. Nice !
8. Flickr Background Color This script is all about aesthetics and is an easy to use tool that changes the background color on a photo page. It displays several shades of gray through to black. So if an image has a “dark feeling” the white standard Flickr background won’t disturb it.
9. Flickr Follow Comments This useful script helps you to view images that you have commented on - but only those that interest you. If you are writing lots of comments every day you know how hard it is not to get distracted by the overload of images when you click “Comments You’ve made”. With this userscript you have 4 different options to see only certain types of comments.
10. FlickrMailManager This MailManager is the one of those scripts I will always value, because it makes handling your flickr-inbox much easier. For instance you can “mark all as read”, “delete group invites” and “nuke mailbox”. The processing time depends on the size of your inbox - so I use it very often

What are your preferred GM scripts ?

Source: Digital Photography School

Blogged with Flock

Tags: flickr, tools, script, greasemonkey, photo, sharing,

Tags: 2007, art, blog, ces, digital, editor, find, Flickr, fon, im, install, King, list, online, online editor, photo, photo online editor, Photography, post, processing, sco, sharing, top 10, uk, user, web, wp, www, XP