It’s been a story that’s been going on for years. Whether or not the guys who run the Pirate Bay website are actually committing a crime or not. Well it seems that a court in Sweden have decided that they are.

The court in Sweden have handed out a 1 years prison sentence for Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde. The court also ordered the 4 to pay damages of £2.4 million. Peter Sunde is quoted as saying, "Nothing will happen to TPB [The Pirate Bay], this is just theatre for the media."

It’s interesting in that the people who run the website are technically doing nothing wrong, although you could argue they are facilitating and condoning the committing of a crime, they aren’t downloading the music or films themselves – just giving others the ability to search on available illegal downloads. Does it warrant a prison sentence? In my mind, it doesn’t. What sort of society do we live in when this sort of corporate bullying can be tolerated, and where even a court of law, it appears, follows their lead?

It’s a subject on everybody’s lips, but HAS Steve Jobs got cancer?? I know, it’s stupid, but there are hundreds of thousands of people asking themselves this question all the time.

Just recently Steve has announced that he had a hormone imbalance that was causing him to loose weight. Well, apparently things have got a little more complicated, and Steve is taking a break from work up until the end of June.

Now you could argue that it’s something really serious with the Apple boss, but more than likely it’s because he has the medical insurance to cover the leave and hospital time, and at the same time will probably be living in a health farm, pounding the exercise machines every day. But then, if it is something serious, he’s probably one of the few on the planet that has the resources to make sure he gets the best care possible.

For the uninitiated, Flock is an open-source social network browser based on the same codebase as Firefox (Mozilla/Gecko). Because of this it has the same speed and security of it’s better known cousin. I had used Flock for a short period about six months ago so I thought it was time I revisited the project, and do a mini review of the current features.

After visiting flock.com and downloading the latest version, you find during the setup (not surprisingly) that if you’re used to Firefox, there are going to be no great surprises here. After the install has finished you are given the option of importing bookmarks from the other browsers on your system (and has support for the current front runners – IE, Firefox and Opera). Once finished you’ll be surprised at the clean and interesting look to the browser which does set it apart from Firefox – that, and of course, all of the extra goodies.

Read all of this article…

People turned out in their thousands to protest against Australia’s equivalent to the Great Firewall of China.

It seems as though Australian MPs had decided a nanny state is the way forward, instead of educating the (mis)users of the internet. All but one of the ISPs in Australia refused recently to conduct trials with the new system, so it should have been plain enough to expect a reaction.

The Digital Liberty Coalition organised the rallies in every capital city on the 13th of December to bring home the message that the average Australian isn’t going to take the censorship sitting down. 15,000 were expected plus speeches from Amnesty International and the Electronic Frontiers of Australia (EFA). Read the nocensorhip.info article for details.

I found this really interesting interactive Google timeline created to celebrate their 10th birthday. Just click and drag through the years to find out facts and stats about our favourite search engine.

I don’t know if you’ve ever owned any EA games, and I don’t know if you’ve ever needed their support with them – but trust me, don’t bother because you are going to get nowhere fast with the support team.

I have been a long time owner of EA Sports and Electronic Arts games generally for many years. I have the Battlefield series (apart from 2142) and I’ve enjoyed the Need for Speed games (the older ones more, I must admit.) I have had problems with games in the past, but never had to use EA’s support – and I’m counting my blessings now.

Read all of this article…

Training with a computer simulator is nothing new – pilots have been doing it for years. And to be honest, the Americans have had systems in place long before anyone else. However, what makes this system unique, is the attention to detail.

“Virtual Battle Space 2″ (or VBS2) as it’s called, is an interactive area of Iraq, where the road systems and buildings have been replicated to create an environment that is as realistic as possible. The soldiers, when using the simulation, will face similar situations that they would likely face out in the field. From children throwing stones, to an IED planted somewhere en-route.

The system doesn’t replace traditional training – instead it is used to familiarise soldiers with the environment before they arrive. Over 2,000 troops have been put through the training so far, with most finding benefits when they have arrived in theatre. The company behind VBS2, Bohemia Interactive in Australia, also have aircrew simulators with helicopter and aircraft training, as well as ambush simulators to prepare foot soldiers for urban combat.

If you visit this BBC article you will notice a video which shows how detailed the area looks. Also you will notice a few funny moments, such as when a child throws a stone at the commander, and also when the reporter runs somebody over – who although are lying flat on the ground in pain, continue to throw stones at a Bradley! Glitches aside, I’m sure any extra bit of training our boys can get before heading out will hopefully save a few more lives in the field.

The Hacker from Blighty, Garry McKinnon, has recently lost his most recent battle to prevent his expedition to the US on counts of hacking.

Gary, who is being charged in excess of $700,000 in damages, is taking his case to the European court, which is expected to take at least a couple of years before it’s looked upon again. Originally charged with hacking into the NASA computer systems, the damages really amount to the cost of upgrading their systems (and user’s education you would imagine) to counter future attacks. Surely NASA should be shaking his hand, giving him a paycheck and patting his back for showing them how to improve their systems, after accounts were hacked using the most obvious methods possible: Administrator accounts without passwords, or default passwords, all available over the net via a terminal services connection. That’s like making a guy who punched you in the face to not only pay for the surgery to your teeth, but also pay for a couple of bodyguards, and karate lessons for you, to ensure you were more prepared in case somebody else tried their luck. I’m sure we would all want it, but is it really justified??

China has just overtaken the US, as the country with the largest online population in the world. China, according to sources, has a massive 253 million people surfing the net.

They may be online, but as we know, they aren’t exactly experiencing the net to it’s “fullest” shall we say, with censorship and government restrictions in place. But on the plus side, at least they’re enjoying their Great Firewall of China filtered content quickly – 95% of connections are on broadband or better. The world’s faster growing economy is starting to become the world’s most tech-savvy community too.

Photo source: Flickr

That’s right, it’s that time of year again. That time when all the System Administrators around the world will be showered with gifts, praised upon and otherwise treated like binary Gods amongst their peers. Tomorrow, on Friday, it will be Sys Admin Appreciation Day!

To find out how you can treat that special geek in your life, visit the official site to get some suggestions. All I can say is that I just can’t wait for the cake tomorrow!.. What do you mean the cake is a lie?