Free For All?

Infringing Sites Can Be Reached through UK Public Wi-Fi

More than half of public Wi-Fi networks in the country fail to filter porn content, while hotels don’t even ask for user’s age. 1/3 of the cafes and restaurants lack safety filters to prevent kids from viewing adult content, with 20% failing to restrict customer access to virtual sex dating websites.
The recent research examined about 200 locations in major UK cities, including cafes, restaurants, shops, hotels and public spaces. The results of the study showed that over 50% of free Wi-Fi hotspots allowed unfiltered access to pornographic material. Apparently, British parents were not happy with the results of the study. For example, over 50% of cafes and restaurants don’t filter access to Internet stores selling knives and swords. 4/5 of them also provide free access to drug-related content.

In the meantime, recently there’ve been two convergent trends: a big increase in public Wi-Fi on the one side, and greater access to smartphones and other devices with a Wi-Fi capability on the other side. This is how children can get access to all that harming content.

The researchers point out that whilst hotels are predominantly private places, where filtering may be inappropriate, such places as hotel lobbies, cafés and restaurants are definitely public, so the content policy should reflect that. According to the results of the study, hotels scored the worst for filtering of pornographic material compared to cafes, restaurants, retailers and public spaces. Indeed, only 20% of hotels blocked access to adult content, and 10% filtered access to online weapons shops.

Filtering should cover not only pornography, but also content related to drugs and violence which is just as harmful but often overlooked. It turned out that publicly owned spaces had better filters in place. The researchers explain that having filters in public spaces is just as important as other restrictions – for example, the smoking ban and modesty covers on adult magazines. But simply having a filter is not enough to protect everything.

Of all the public Wi-Fi hotspots investigated throughout the country, government-owned property and public places like train stations appeared the best in filtering out adult content. 90% of government sites restricted access to porn, though 1/3 of them still allowed full access to Internet weapons stores.

How To Extend Office 2013

How to stretch Microsoft's Office 2013 free trial offer

Perhaps you're a student who only needs Microsoft Office for a limited time. Maybe you want to kick the tires on Microsoft's office suite for more than 30 days or just don't want to plunk down the money for it yet.
Here's a way to extend the free trial period for Microsoft Office so you can get the full features without paying for it (for at least 180 days).
How-To Geek posted this handy hack, which renews the 30-day trial period Microsoft offers—for up to five more times. This gives you about six months of full usage of Microsoft Office.
To do this, you'll need to find the Microsoft Shared folder under C:\Program Files\Common Files, then open a command window and run the Microsoft-provided utility, OSPREARM.EXE. Easy peasy.
The downside is you have to do this every 30 days (maybe set a calendar reminder?), but it's worth it if you want to get as much use out of your trial period as possible.
Don't forget, though, if your company participates in Microsoft's volume licensing program, you can get Office 2013 Professional Plus for just $10. That applies to many university students, major corporation employees, and even government employees (who aren't getting a lot of breaks lately).

Intelligent??

Woman calls 911 because she’s too drunk to get out of her car

A drunk driver was caught after calling police because she was too inebriated to get out of her car.
When Carole Frances Omeara ended up stuck outside her house for four hours, she decided to call 911 for some roadside assistance.
The 55-year-old was asked by an operator if she was stuck because of mechanical or medical problems. She bluntly replied by saying: ‘No, I’m just too damn drunk.’
When police arrived, she allegedly told them that she drank a pint of vodka during a five-hour binge at a bar before driving home.
A breathalyser test showed she was four times over the legal limit for driving, and so she was charged with a felony DUI. It was her fourth drink-driving offence.
The woman, from Montana in the US, appeared in court on Wednesday, but she remains in prison on a $3,000 (£1,880) bond.

A Bum Deal??

Bye bye to builders’ bums? Health minister in bare cheeks crackdown

Britain’s construction workers should banish their builders’ bums and get in shape, a minister has warned.
Public health minister Jane Ellison has made the crackdown on bare cheeks her top priority, just days after starting her new role at the Department of Health (DoH).
A department spokesman said: ‘The image of the bottom baring, overweight builder is being replaced by workers who are hands-on well-oiled machines who operate building sites up and down the country.
‘To build on this, today’s new pledge outlines how the construction industry will further help its workforce to lead healthier lives.’
The DoH has enlisted the help of celebrity builder Tommy Walsh, of Ground Force fame, to front the new campaign to help construction workers get fit.
‘The construction industry is a vital part of the UK economy and it is important we do all that we can to sustain a healthy workforce,’ explained Ms Ellison.
‘Builders often work in difficult and demanding environments and we must support them to ensure their health is not put at risk.’
However Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said the ‘condescending’ campaign was an example of ‘the nanny state gone mad’.

Whoops!!

Groom forgets his bride at motorway petrol station

A newlywed couple’s honeymoon period didn’t last very long after the groom forgot his bride at a petrol station.
The German couple were on their way home from their post-marriage holiday in France when they stopped near the town of Bad Hersfeld.
After filling up their tank on the journey home to Berlin, the hapless groom then drove off, only noticing his wife was missing hours later.
His new bride had been sleeping in the back but got up to use the toilets and he drove off before she returned.
He finally noticed she was missing after two and a half hours on the road and called police who said she was patiently waiting back at the petrol station.
‘My first reaction was: is he stupid?’ the 33-year-old told radio station FFH. ‘I had no money and no telephone with me.’
She added: ‘I’m not angry with my husband. He didn’t mean it.’

Cash Or Coin?

BitCoin ATMs to Launch in Canada

BitCoin, the alternative online currency, is a great idea, but the experts point out that actually using the platform as cash can appear difficult, because at the moment finding the right Internet exchange and retailers to spend digital money isn’t really user friendly. This is why it is good news that an enterprise in Vancouver, Canada, is going to open 5 BitCoin ATMs.
Vancouver is planning to buy up 5 RoboCoin BitCoin ATMs. Each of the machines costs $20,000. Something that represents a digital wallet (for example, a QR code) will identify the user. The customer will then be able to cash in, a small cut will be taken, and the user will get their BitCoin cash sent digitally to their wallet.

At the moment, BitCoiniacs offers transfers to BitCoin, but only after the appointments. The ATMs are supposed to make the process easier. As you know, BitCoin is a decentralized digital currency with a thriving, enthusiastic community. The supporters of the idea claim that it’s a way to democratize cash flow outside of major banks, while the critics admit that there are pros and cons – like artificial inflation and market crashes. Indeed, Internet users themselves can “mine” the digital currency by dedicating compute power to solving complex algorithms as part of an online network. The industry experts confirm that the network recently passed the 1 exaFLOPS point, and made it faster than top supercomputers combined.

Like any other innovation, BitCoin has received its fair share of criticism – the observers marked it as unstable, and after this year’s flash crash, BitCoin has been sensationalized as an easy method to buy drugs or other illegal wares on the TOR network. On the other hand, there are many supporters of the currency worldwide, who point out that the system also offers possibilities and alternatives to the way markets operate in the future.

The latest move of BitCoiniacs proves that the currency is going to become real soon. However, they weren’t the first who wanted to embrace the new and promising technology – for example, a pub in Hackney, London, was among the first bricks-and-mortar establishment to support BitCoin in the United Kingdom. The Pembury Tavern has been accepting BitCoin as currency since earlier in 2013.

Rescue Me!!

Guide dog saved baby by pushing pram away from car

A guide dog saved the life of a baby after it broke free from its owner and pushed a pram out of the path of a car that had careered out of control.

The dog managed to wrench herself free from the grip of her owner Jessica Cowley, who is registered blind, after she spotted the car heading for the pram, which had one-year-old Jacob in.
Jet, a black Labrador who has been a guide dog for five years, pushed the pram out of the way of the car, which then hit Mrs Cowley, knocking her to the ground.
Mrs Cowley, who is registered blind and has tunnel vision, said Jet had not been specifically trained for this type of rescue but was very protective of her young son.
Mrs Cowley, 28, said: "Just after we stepped off the kerb to cross the entrance of the car park, I heard a screeching of a car and it banged into me sending me flying.
"Just before it hit me I felt Jet let go. She a strong dog and she pulled out of my hand and actually pushed the pram out of the way.
"The pram toppled over but Jacob was out of safety and even while I was lying face down on the ground, I was happy to know he was safe.
"She reacted really quickly, and she's just amazing."
The car is thought to have been shunted behind from another vehicle and forced off the road to head for Mrs Cowley and her son as they crossed the entrance to a car park in Leigh in Lancashire, near their home.
Mrs Cowley was knocked to the floor face down, and had her leg trapped on one side of a bollard.
The pram was knocked on its side, but Jacob only suffered a cut to his lip.
Mrs Cowley added: "Jet is trained to help me but she's not trained to do that sort of thing.
"It doesn't bear thinking about what might have happened if she hadn't have done what she did.
“She was worried about me but once she had licked my face and checked I was conscious she was fine.
“She loves Jacob and thinks of him as her own. What she did was extremely brave and I am very proud of her.”
Vet Caroline Purnell, who saw the incident, said: "We feel that she really demonstrated exactly how important these dogs are. She showed no concern for her own safety and went to protect her handler's child before helping her handler."
Jet has lived with Mrs Cowley and her husband James for five years.

You Think??

Piracy Laws Have No Success Worldwide

According to the recent report from Monash University, “three-strikes” laws introduced to stop digital piracy don’t work. The results of the research showed that graduated response laws designed to reduce online copyright infringement were useless and failed to make people pay for legitimate content.
The researchers from the Monash University’s Faculty of Law were trying to find connection between the “three-strikes” legislation and reduced piracy, but failed. Their report was published by Australian Policy Online, and it says that if “effectiveness” means reducing infringement, then the law is definitely not effective.

The research was built on case studies from a range of countries where “graduated response” system is in place and working – France, New Zealand, Taiwan, South Korea and the United Kingdom. All of the mentioned countries have enacted legislation which penalized subscribers in some form, including fines and disconnections, for repeated infringements. However, all of them had significant drawbacks.

For example, France’s HADOPI failed to identify and process the worst repeat offenders, while Internet users in New Zealand simply changed their behavior – there was a fall in P2P traffic, but encrypted HTTPS data volumes rocketed. This meant that pirates were simply encrypting their antics so nobody could tell what they were doing. The matter is that the legislation in New Zealand applies only to file-sharing through peer-to-peer networks. It can be simply bypassed by switching to other networks, including Usenet, cyberlockers, VPNs, and remote access protocols. Seedboxes became the most popular method for Kiwis to circumvent the law. Seedboxes are basically remote servers hosted on high-speed networks in other jurisdictions, to which people are able to download content through BitTorrent and then directly access over an encrypted connection.

Talking about South Korea and Taiwan, the anti-piracy laws appeared to have had very little if any impact on illegal file-sharing. Despite the fact that the Taiwanese legislation has been in effect for several years, there’s no evidence in the English language materials that any user has had their access to the Internet suspended. Perhaps, the ultimate goal of the law was to get the country removed from the US Trade Representative’s special watch list.

Pirates Ahoy!!

There Are 430 Million Active Pirates Out There

A recent survey has discovered that online piracy is growing rapidly (well, this wasn’t a news). According to the estimations, 432 million people per month used the worldwide web to access copyright infringing material. Within a month, all these pirates consumed 9,567 petabytes of illegal content, mostly via BitTorrent. To put it simply, about 25% of all Internet traffic is attributed to piracy.
The conclusion of the report was also nothing new – despite anti-piracy policies and enforcement actions, piracy cannot be stopped. The researchers admit that the practice of infringement is “tenacious and persistent”. Sometimes the industry succeeds in limiting infringement, but not for long. At the moment, the piracy universe not just persists in attracting more users, but also hungrily consumes increasing amounts of bandwidth.

Among the most visible trends the observers point at direct download “cyberlockers” losing plenty of visitors within the last couple years, while other platforms, on the contrary, expanded their user bases. So, within 2012, the number of pirates using cyberlockers decreased by 8%, and the most obvious reason for this is MegaUpload shutdown. In the meantime, the number of file-sharers using BitTorrent and video streaming platforms grew by 27% and 22% accordingly.

Today most illegal file-sharers use direct download and torrent services, both accounting for 200 million unique users per month. This figures excluded users who never download any infringing content, and their share is only 4% for BitTorrent and 8% for direct download services.

The total bandwidth generated by illegal file-sharers in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific is estimated at over 9,500 petabytes of data – so, you can guess that global traffic far exceeded 10,000 petabytes. Here BitTorrent is the absolute leader, and this makes sense – people both download and upload content, thus generating twice as much traffic. At the same time, cyberlocker users downloaded relatively little data – about 338 petabytes per month.

Talking about regional trends, direct download services are preferred in the Asia-Pacific region, and BitTorrent is popular in Europe and North America. Although there is no clear way these numbers could be translated into losses for the entertainment industry, the latter will undoubtedly leave no opportunity unused to turn the results of the survey to its advantage.