Iranian Cyber Army Twitter hacked the Internet

 Twitter's Alex Payne had this photo as "current status" of Twitter 9 hours ago

While I was at a Christmas dinner party last night around 10 PM, a group called the Iranian Cyber Army, Twitter hacked in such a way that the Twitter home page was replaced with this:

Iranian Cyber Army

THIS SITE HAS BEEN HACKED BY IRANIAN CYBER ARMY

iRANiAN.CYBER.ARMY@GMAIL.COM

U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But THey Don’t, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To….

NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA?

WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST ;)

Take Care.

The above information was from Michael Arrington at TechCrunch,which reported a series of updates on the issue, and this blog post ftom Biz Stone, the founder of Twitter: 

Thursday, December 17, 2009
DNS Disruption
As we tweeted a bit ago, Twitter's DNS records were temporarily compromised tonight but have now been fixed. As some noticed, Twitter.com was redirected for a while but API and platform applications were working. We will update with more information and details once we've investigated more fully.


posted by @Biz at 11:43 PM

 But how did they do this?  TechCrunch' Arrington says they reported on Twitter's security problems before: a web server misconfiguration such that network information was shown, and the incident where a number of Twitter internal documents were sent to TechCrunch.   That's not to point to them in the least, but to show that in different ways, Twitter's security system and information is being shared with more than the usual range of people.  In other words, they still have a leak problem. 

Twitter's up and working; in fact that was the case for me at 1 AM.

The question is can they do it again, and who is the Iranian Cyber Army, really? 

Stay tuned.

Tom Hayes: What would the Founding Fathers make of politics on Facebook?

It's clear that collectively the political activists supporting Barack Obama's campaign got used to knowing - or thinking they knew - what was going on with the campaign. Reading David Plouffe's book might open a few eyes to the reality, which was anything but glamorous in his account.

Obama laid his cards on the table, as many documented during the campaign, and managed to make the election a referendum on his agenda despite the best efforts of his opponents to make it a vote on his "not like me-ness." Of course, the reasons for voting for him were diverse -- hence it was a coalition that put him into office based on a wide variety of individual beliefs and convictions about what it was possible to improve in D.C.

Some supporters (and many detractors,) for instance, failed to listen closely to his intentions for Afghanistan, choosing to assume his statements about being against "dumb wars" in general and Iraq in particular meant he'd back out of any situation overseas where bullets and bombs are flying.

It's disconcerting to others to realize that increasing the transparency of the government, which Obama also advocated, isn't exactly tantamount to inviting activists and reporters into the negotiating sessions necessitated by the arcane rules and strictures of the Congress. 

Most (not all) political activists on both sides of the major issues know that progress is fundamentally based on compromise(s) to achieve what is possible, no matter if it's making decisions in the local school PTA or the U.S. Senate.  Compromises acceptable to the majority by definition almost always fall short of the ideals of those with the strongest convictions.

Unlike the PTA, which is pretty much open to all comers, the U.S. Congress reaches compromise by a not-terribly-pretty process involving just over 500 powerful, influential, sometimes self-serving people expected to do right by the entire country while being inundated with conflicting suggestions. Expecting to see inside that process is a bit - well - idealistic for those sitting at home or working for the media, even if that is what they thought they had bargained for in electing the new President.

That's not how a Democratic Republic works. We don't hold referendums on every issue; we elect folks who seem to hold similar ideals to us and hope they manage to accomplish exactly what we want them to. That's why it's so easy to predict that polls almost always reflect the popularity of a President as in decline - at any given point in time politicians are working on decisions bound to challenge our "collective" opinion precisely because we charge them with handling the hardest and most important decisions.

Now, to balance out the curiously persistent tea baggers who apparently favor a system based on government as minimal and ineffectual as the one in Somalia, some of the hundreds of millions on Facebook are banding together on a "fan page" supporting President Obama, and not second-guessing him. The Founding Fathers must surely be smiling.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, journalist, and political analyst who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.

Dan O'Bannon - screenwriter of Alien and Dark Star passes at 63

A month that saw the passing of Chris Henry, Roy E. Disney, and Gene Barry just added another legendary name: Dan O'Bannon.

Dan O'Bannon

Sci-Fi and horror fans will remember O'Bannon as the screenwriter of Alien. It was O'Bannon's realistic dialog that carried Alien as much as the special effects, H.R.Giger's designs and Ridley Scott's direction of Sigourney Weaver.  Alien is simply one of the best movies ever made. 

The amazingly creative O'Bannon was also writer and producer, making the critically acclaimed Dark Star even before Aliens.

Harry Knowles of Aint It Cool News, a major media force in science fiction who know O'Bannon and broke the news his passing, had this to say:

Dan O'Bannon was a great geek creator. He provided the screenplay and served as the Special Effects Supervisor on John Carpenter's first masterpiece, DARK STAR. And it is a science fiction masterpiece. I love DARK STAR and its sentient bomb and bean bag monster like very few things in this world. Dan worked on the computer animation and displays on a tiny film called STAR WARS after that. Remember that animation blueprint on how to blow up the Death Star... ie, the rebel plans? O'Bannon had a hand in that!


Then... he was the lead screenwriter on Ridley Scott's little film called ALIEN. Before Dan, there was a blank page. Afterwards we had Ellen Ripley, the Nostromo and the entire legend of the ALIEN. He was responsible for the B-17 sequence of HEAVY METAL, the awesome Helicopter film BLUE THUNDER, the wonderful satire of Romero's Zombie series called THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, my third fave film from Tobe Hooper - LIFE FORCE, the pretty damn fine remake of INVADERS FROM MARS, he got our ass to Mars with TOTAL RECALL... And the number of unmade solid scripts this guy was a part of is legendary.

Dan O'Bannon. Rest in peace.

Al Franken shuts up Joe Lieberman on Heath Care

Today's Al Franken / Joe Lieberman exchange has everyone in politics, especially liberals, buzzing. Minnesota's newly-minted Senator Al Franken, has been flexing his political muscles of late regarding the Health Care Bill.

Senator Al Franken

On Monday, he had a testy exchange with South Dakota Senator John Thune after Franken introduced a motion to change a tax in the bill from an excise tax to a surtax and such that it only applied to those who were truly wealthy, or "making millions" as he put it.

Franken said he missed Thune's discussion on the Heath Care Bill, but asked Thune if he talked about any of the benefits that would kick in immediately upon passage. Thune said that he had not. Upon hearing this, Franken chastised Thune for only presenting some facts and not the whole set of facts: "Benefits do kick in on day one," he said. "We're not entitled to our own facts."

The chart Senator Thune presented was basically a mis-truth: a presentation of part of the Health Care Bill. It did not show when tax benefits "kicked in", and that is upon the day of passage of the bill.

Here's the video:



Al Franken's a very smart man. He's growing impatient with the Republican attempts to misrepresent what the Health Care Bill is, and so Franken's exacting his own brand of justice: legal punishment of the political enemy.

Today, the ememy was Senator Joe Lieberman. It happened to be Senator Franken's turn to preside over the Senate when Lieberman was speaking. But Liberman had so upset Democrats and Liberals with his heavy-handed blocking of any version of the Health Care Bill with a "Public Option" earlier in the week, that he made himself ripe for a political smack-down.

He got one.

Lieberman had ran out of his 10 minutes of speaking time and asked Franken for an extension of time. "In my capacity as the Senator from Minnesota, I object", Franken calmly responded. Lieberman gave a small chuckle and said "Ok".

But while Lieberman was claim and almost jovial, Arizona Senator John McCain was one thing: pissed-off. He came to the podium and first asked for 10 minutes speaking time each for the "Senator from Rhode Island" and the "Senator from Michigan the distinguished chair of the Armed Services Committee", and finally himself to speak on the bill - 30 minutes total.

McCain was asking for so much time for others to make a point.

"I've been in this Senate 20-something years and it's the first time I've seen a member denied an extra minute or two to, uh, finish his remarks. I don't know what's happening here, but I think it's wrong." Michigan Senator Carl Levin then stood to explain that the same action was taken earlier in the day to move the bill process along. But McCain was so upset, he interrupted Levin and asked against for his speaking time request to be granted.

Franken did so "without objection."



According to Joel Achenbach at the Washington Post, Lieberman later said "No hard feelings" and seemed to take the whole matter in stride. But it was a tentpole moment signaling rising Democratic anger at Lieberman. Firedoglake called it "a glorious moment".  Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin proves she wasn't watching the whole exchange, applying the term "snit fit" to Franken, when it really fits John McCain.   I'm not surprised.

Senator Franken gave a great example of how to combine Senate rules and television to punish your political opponent.  Brilliant! 

T-Mobile outage in USA and Puerto Rico, but not SF Bay Area

Various online news sources report a T-Mobile service outage. According to TechFlash.com, the problem is centered in the Southeastern United States and Puerto Rico. For those of you direction-challenged, that's everywhere between Georgia and Florida in the United States.

The reason for the problem is not stated on the T-Mobile website public forum, but a corporate moderator named "Dan" wrote this:

Some T-Mobile customers in the Southeastern United States and Puerto Rico may be experiencing intermittent service degradation for voice and data services. T-Mobile engineers and rapid response teams are working urgently to restore full service in impacted areas as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing our customers.


Dan
Moderator, T-Mobile Forums

Prior to Dan's post, one T-Mobile user reported:

So just about 20 minutes ago I was unable to send text messages or place calls so I restarted my phone. When I restarted my phone it automatically put me on the AT&T network. I called T-Mobile and it looks like we're about to go through another outage. They have informed me it's spreading and could be similar to the one we experienced just a month ago... great.
FloridaResident - phoned home

And...

A few weeks back, t-mobile lost service for "5%" of its customers. Please tell me it's not happening again. Our phones are down. I was able to get out via bb messenger via wi-fi with someone else who also can not call out. I think it's about time this calls for getting out of these LOUSY contracts!
clark799 - searching for signal

Yikes. The same thing happened a month ago. Regardless, a non-working cell phone system can catch you at a time when you need it the most. Here's one example from the T-Mobile forum:

Of all days for you to have an outage it had to be the day where my sister goes into the hospital and living a full state away, I have no way of contacting my mom to know what is going on.


TYVM T-Mobile.... you can count me as a customer for a few more hours before I head to the Verizon Wireless store next to my apartment.
Whatss - pocket dials

What does TYVM means?

Well, I'm a T-Mobile user - chased to their more sane service billing plan by AT&T's fraudulent iPhone automatic billing system. I switched to a Blackberry from an iPhone just because of AT&T and I'm happy to report I've not experienced an outage with T-Mobile in the San Francisco Bay Area as of this writing.

I just wish Apple would allow T-Mobile to feature the iPhone.

NFL Chris Henry update: NFL Commissioner Goodell's statement

Roger Goodell 

I just received an email from the NFL which contains this statement by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on the passing of Cincinnati Bengals Wide Receiver Chris Henry:

"We are greatly saddened by today's tragic news about the loss of Chris Henry. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Chris's family, including his Bengals family. We have been in contact with the Bengals to offer our support through this difficult time."

NFL Chris Henry update - Bengals talk about Henry

A Chris Henry update.

The Cincinnati Bengals just held a press conference on the death of Wide Receiver Chris Henry. According to WTLT Cincinnati, Bengals Owner Mike Brown said that the receiver was well-liked by most in the organization:

"We knew him in a different way than his public persona... We liked him, he had worked through troubles in his life and had finally, seemingly reached a point in his life where he was blossoming. And then this tragedy cut him down."

Both Brown and Head Coach Marvin Lewis said that many spent a lot of time working to help Chris Henry. "I think everybody here, a lot of people here have spent a lot of time helping Chris develop as a person," said Lewis.

Bengals Quarterback Carson Palmer said this: "It's a very sad day for our team, for our organization, for Bengals fan. Chris was a guy who I believe, and our team believes, was heavily misunderstood."

Wide Receiver Chad Ochocinco echoed the thoughts I expressed in my last post when he said "He's been doing everything right. He's been doing everything right. My grandma always says you never really question the man upstairs on decisions because he never makes mistakes. I don't see how Chris was pulled to go already, especially when you're on the right path."

Amen.