November 25th, 2008:

Knife crime is currently widespread in the United Kingdom. Surprisingly, people involved in such a crime are usually kids and teenagers. To help stop the cases of knife-related crimes among youngsters, Crimestoppers UK is urging all kids to tip-off the police on which of their classmates carry a knife to school by simply sending an email.

Send tip-off via Shadow CS

The website that kids need to visit when they want to tip-off their knife-carrying classmates is Shadow CS: an interactive website that encourages young people to get involved in discussions about crime. To start sending the email, kids only need to click on the “Give Information About Crime Anonymously by Clicking Here” flash ad on the Shadow CS homepage.

Clicking the “Give Information About Crime Anonymously by Clicking Here” flash ad on Shadow CS homepage will redirect the kids to the report page of Crimestoppers UK. The report page contains several fields where the kids can enter all the information they know about their knife-carrying classmates: the date (and if possible, the time) when the crime happened and the place where the crime took place. They also need to check the small box below the previously mentioned field to confirm that the form to be submitted is not being used to report something that needs urgent police attention. When they are satisfied with their answers, the kids just need to click the “SUMBIT” button to send their report.

Stay anonymous through encryption connection

The good thing about the Crimestoppers UK report page is that the identity of the kids who provided information about their knife-carrying classmates will remain anonymous. This is possible because the information they provided are all submitted over an encrypted connection.

When President-elect Barack Obama assumes his post in the White House, he needs to give up something that most people can’t even live without: email. Yes, as soon as he takes his oath as the President of the United States of America, Mr. Obama needs to surrender his precious Blackberry to the rightful authorities.

Open to public

As an early defense against potential “Watergate Scandals” in the future, the US Congress amended the Presidential Records Act (PRA): a decree that requires all presidential and vice-presidential records to be placed in public archives. These records include everything from state documents and personal letters.

According to the Congress, the PRA was amended “to underscore the fact that presidential records belong to the American people, not to the president.” These records, however, will only be open for public review twelve years after the conclusion of the president’s administration.

Vulnerable to hacking

The debate on whether or not Mr. Obama should refrain from sending or receiving emails heated even more when Verizon Wirless, a US telephone company, revealed that some of its employees (without authorization, of course) had accessed records from Mr. Obama’s inactive cell phone account.

Mr. Obama’s email account, as evidenced by the unauthorized access of his cell phone account, is still threatened by email hacking. Being the White House’s main man, after all, doesn’t make him invulnerable from being the victim of illegal activities.

Dependent on email

Despite the email security issues and the PRA, Mr. Obama is still trying to work his way into staying in-touch with the cyber world. After all, he needs an email service to continuously correspond to his colleagues and keep in touch with his family and friends. According to reports, Mr. Obama is determined to accomplish another “first” in US history. This time, he wants to be the first American President to have a laptop on his Oval Office desk.

Former news anchor Larry Mendte was sentenced to three years of probation for a very personal offense: snooping into his co-anchor’s email. Mendte and Alycia Lane were the evening news anchors of KYW-TV, the Philadelphia affiliate of CBS. Together, they helped improve KYW’s ratings – a feat that would eventually overtake WCAU, KYW’s rival station.

Threatened by her rising star

The success of both Lane and Mendte, according to reports, prompted Mendte to snoop into his co-anchor’s email accounts. Lane’s attorney, Paul Rosen believes that the reason behind the hacking is jealousy. And he was quite right. In his plea, Mendte himself admitted that he felt threatened by Lane’s promising career. He said that he only felt this way when Lane, during an earlier argument, told him that “I (Lane) am the rising star and you (Mendte) are 50 and on his way out.”

Snooped into her email accounts

Alarmed by the thought of his diminishing career, Mendte got into even more trouble when he started snooping into Lane’s email accounts. He got hold of his co-anchor’s personal information and began hacking into her email accounts (quite obsessively). Mendte was so keen on “saving” his career that he began leaking gossip about his co-anchor to the press. Straining Lane’s public image, according to Mendte, might be the key to stop her star from rising so high.

Sentenced to a three-year probation

To pay for his offense, Mendte was ordered to serve six months of home confinement. He also need to pay a US$5,000 fine for his offense. During his three-year probation period, Mendte also need to perform 250 hours of community service to straighten his wrongdoings.