"In order to comply with government search warrants on user data, Google created a backdoor access system into Gmail accounts. This feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access."

Found on http://www.reddit.com

Are you ready for a blog attack?
There's a company called Advantage Consultants that's offering up "professional blog warriors" to "flood the zone" with comments. In short, astro-turf trolls for the blogosphere.
http://humboldtherald.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/blog_attack.gif
 

"Whether it's defense or offense, Advantage Consultants has a dedicated team of experienced blog warriors ready to advance your candidate or campaign.
Why wait for the attack? Launch your attack with a battery of blog and forum comments aimed at all media and blog sites in your district.
Contact us today and let us show you the Advantage in professional blog warfare."
--
Since 2005, schools and political party organizations in the People's Republic of China are recruiting paid-per-comment bloggers countering unfavorable information on websites, bulletin boards, and other internet-accessible sources; they are collectively known as the 50 Cent Party.
http://www.feer.com/essays/2008/august/chinas-guerrilla-war-for-the-web
 

--
In August 2006, a science journalist for the Wall Street Journal revealed that a YouTube video, "Al Gore's Penguin Army", which was claimed to be an amateur work, in fact came from the computers of DCI Group, a Washington, D.C.-based PR firm whose client list includes ExxonMobil and General Motors.
--

Details of every email sent and website visited by people in Britain are to be stored for use by the state from tomorrow as part of what campaigners claim is a massive assault on privacy.

A mystery electronic spy network apparently based in China has infiltrated hundreds of computers around the world and stolen files and documents, Canadian researchers have revealed.

The network, dubbed GhostNet, appears to target embassies, media groups, NGOs, international organisations, government foreign ministries and the offices of the Dalai Lama, leader of the Tibetan exile movement. The researchers, based at Toronto University's Munk Centre for International Studies, said their discovery had profound implications.

"This report serves as a wake-up call... these are major disruptive capabilities that the professional information security community, as well as policymakers, need to come to terms with rapidly," said researchers Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski.

Here is the researchers' summary; a full report, 'Tracking "GhostNet": Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network' will be issued this weekend."

"...websites who link out to 'banned' hyperlinks are liable to fine of up to Aus $11,000 a day. ..."

http://wikileaks.org/

The bottom line is that Skype, which is owned by the American company Ebay, cannot be trusted since it is closed source.

25.0.7.2008 - Speculation over back door in Skype [Is a trojan needed? http://www.itexaminer.com/german-pirate-party-raided.aspx]

According to reports, there may be a back door built into Skype, which allows connections to be bugged. The company has declined to expressly deny the allegations. At a meeting with representatives of ISPs and the Austrian regulator on lawful interception of IP based services held on 25th June, high-ranking officials at the Austrian interior ministry revealed that it is not a problem for them to listen in on Skype conversations.

This has been confirmed to heise online by a number of the parties present at the meeting. Skype declined to give a detailed response to specific enquiries from heise online as to whether Skype contains a back door and whether specific clients allowing access to a system or a specific key for decrypting data streams exist. The response from the eBay subsidiary's press spokesman was brief, "Skype does not comment on media speculation. Skype has no further comment at this time." There have been rumours of the existence of a special listening device which Skype is reported to offer for sale to interested states.

There has long been speculation that Skype may contain a back door. Because the vendor has not revealed details of its proprietary Skype protocol or of how the client works, questions as to what else Skype is capable of and what risks are involved in deploying it in an enterprise environment remain open. [continued]

 

23.02.09 NSA Wants Help Eavesdropping on Skype

24.0.2.09 Anti-mafia cops want Skype tapping

12.02.09 NSA offering 'billions' for Skype eavesdrop solution - Is this FUD or inverse-FUD? (Fear Uncertainty Doubt)

An industry source disclosed that America's supersecret National Security Agency (NSA) is offering "billions" to any firm which can offer reliable eavesdropping on Skype IM and voice traffic.

The spybiz exec, who preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed that Skype continues to be a major problem for government listening agencies, spooks and police. This was already thought to be the case, following requests from German authorities for special intercept/bugging powers to help them deal with Skype-loving malefactors. Britain's GCHQ has also stated that it has severe problems intercepting VoIP and internet communication in general.

 

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype#Issues

Since September 2007, users in China trying to download the Skype software have been redirected to the site of TOM, a joint venture between a Chinese wireless operator and Skype, from which a modified Chinese version can be downloaded.[36] The TOM client participates in China's system of internet censorship, monitoring text messages between Skype users in China as well as messages exchanged with users outside the country.[37][38] Niklas Zennström, then chief executive of Skype, told reporters that TOM "had implemented a text filter, which is what everyone else in that market is doing. Those are the regulations." He also stated: "One thing that’s certain is that those things are in no way jeopardising the privacy or the security of any of the users."[39] In October 2008, it was reported that TOM had been saving the full message contents of some Skype text conversations on its servers, apparently focusing on conversations containing political issues such as Tibet, Falun Gong, Taiwan independence, the Chinese Communist Party, milk powder, the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, and democracy. The saved messages contain personally identifiable information about the messages' senders and recipients, including IP addresses, usernames, land line phone numbers, and the entire content of the text messages, including the time and date of each message. This information was also saved for Skype users outside China who were communicating with a TOM-Skype user. Due to a server misconfiguration, these log files were for a time accessible to the public.[38][40][41]

25.03.09 Home Office defends plan to monitor social network conversations

Privacy campaigners expressed alarm today over government plans to monitor all conversations on social networking sites in an attempt to crackdown on terror.

A Home Office spokesman said that the internet eavesdropping plan, which would be set out in the next few weeks, would cover any social network that allows people to chat to one another, including Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Twitter as well as internet calls on Skype.

Skype Apparently Threatens Russian National Security
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/07/25/0015250/Skype-Apparently-Threaten...

“I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tools we’ve ever created. They’re tools of communication, they’re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user...The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.” -- Bill Gates

``We feel like we are serving prison sentences.” -- factory worker making Microsoft keyboards

Created 4th February 2008, updated 7th February 2008

I recently read some of Richard Dawkin's rants against religion and belief in God. He's a relatively well-known scientist, so-called, that is convinced of his own theories being fit enough to explain the existence of life, which is incredibly arrogant to begin with.

He refers to belief in God as being mind-shrinking.

The idea of any sophisticated machinery, which is what life on this planet is, as Dawkins also well knows, having studied it at the gene-level, combining out of nothing by itself, is such a mind-boggling concept that it cannot be categorised as anything else than an extreme religion, based on theories alone and requiring blind belief - the very same substance that he himself mistakingly tries to use as a critique against believing [in] God.

He criticizes people who are not ready to debate a matter without being able to base it on facts. Yet, the idea of the planets in our solar system being on their stable course, providing us with stable days and nights, with clockwork accuracy, and the existence of a balanced system of life with a perpetual life-cycle, disturbed only by man, being formed out of nothingness and just based on a story, a theory, without any facts, makes him the target of his own critique.

Furthermore the study of genetics and biological machines, which is what life here is, shows that they were obviously designed and it is complete lunacy to believe they have randomly formed by themselves, with there being absolutely no proof available to back up the idea, whereas there is ample documented proof of God and His revelations, which is blindly ignored by people like Dawkins, who admits that he hasn't even bothered to study it.

The article below is from

This was constructed almost entirely using government / military quotes, animations, videos, images and photos. The narrative is sourced from government quotes from start to finish. It is the “official version”, if you will, but in an unprecedented format. It unveils the governments numerous and ongoing programs related to A.I., “NBIC”, the “Global Information Grid”, nanotechnology, biotechnology, autonomous drones, “naval sea-bases”, space weapons, weather modification… or more directly: domestic and global totalitarian technological domination. American Imperialism meets Artificial Intelligence. The only debate is: what are we going to do to stop it? Time’s running out… It mostly centers around DARPA materials, as they’re the fountainhead of all of this, but this is all a broad multi-agency effort. Some of the video content, the “OS” of the video, was screen captured from the DARPA sites old iXo interactive flash presentation, from almost a yearago, but is now no longer available. See also: “They Want Your Soul” in my other videos section here on Google Video. Visit for the PROOF: www.ignoranceisntbliss.com (down, new site coming...) www.myspace.com/ignoranceisntbliss http://tinyurl.com/283nzm http://tinyurl.com/2xqwqm

by

Ignorance Is Futile:

The vision of Google’s future, according to Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, is “it would be like the mind of God”. And it’s a future that they’re working feverishly to make a reality today.

While that quote was in reference to “the ultimate search engine”, this analysis is going to make it more than clear that he was in fact referring to Google in particular. In doing so, we’ll see numerous other quotes demonstrating their intentions, what they mean by “all of the worlds information”, how they’re on precisely the right path to achieve their goal with the U.S. military in this vast project that is set to change humanity forever.

Finnish version:Google pyrkii luomaan koneellisen ”jumalan” maailmalle">