Buzz Out Loud 1527: London's burning thanks to BBM (Podcast)

On today's show, RIM's BlackBerry blog is hacked after it cooperates with police over BlackBerry Messenger's role in coordinating the ongoing London riots. Also, lightning strikes an Amazon Web server and half the Internet goes down (or was it solar flares?). Plus, coolest use of a zip line ever, as China retains its status as Honey Badger of the world.

Watch this: Ep. 1527: London's burning thanks to BBM

38:36

Podcast

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NEWS

RIM's BlackBerry blog hacked after it cooperates with police over London riots
http://thenextweb.com/uk/2011/08/09/rims-blackberry-blog-hacked-after-it-cooperates-with-police-over-london-riots/

London riots: BlackBerry to help police probe Messenger looting 'role'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/08/london-riots-blackberry-messenger-looting
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/08/london-riots-facebook-twitter-blackberry

Google Group Members to Use Facial Recognition to Identify London Rioters
http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/09/google-group-members-to-use-facial-recognition-to-identify-london-rioter/

Amazon Web Services suffers another outage: Company says issue now resolved
http://www.geekwire.com/2011/amazon-ec2-suffers-outage-company-issues-resolved

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 blocked in Europe
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/samsung/8691707/Samsung-Galaxy-Tab-10.1-blocked-in-Europe.html

Windows Phone GM leaving Microsoft, with a rallying cry
http://www.geekwire.com/2011/windows-phone-gm-leaving-microsoft-rallying-cry-team

Windows Phone 7 Challenge: Week 1
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-20089864-256/windows-phone-7-challenge-week-1/

10-Year-Old Girl Finds Android, iOS Zero Day Exploit
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2390671,00.asp

“Syrian hackers retaliate, deface Anonymous’ social network
Counters Anonymous’ earlier sabotage of nation’s Ministry of Defense site”
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9218981/Syrian_hackers_retaliate_deface_Anonymous_social_network

Chinese smugglers use epic zip-line to transport iPads, iPhones
http://www.pcworld.com/article/237510/chinese_smugglers_use_zip_line_to_get_apple_goods_into_their_country_zippity_do_dah.html

Quick Hits

Spotify's U.S. Score So Far: 1.4 Million Users, 175,000 Paying Customers
http://allthingsd.com/20110808/spotifys-u-s-score-so-far-1-4-million-users-175000-paying-customers/

Apple Releases Utility to Create Lion Recovery USB Key
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/08/apple-releases-utility-to-create-lion-recovery-usb-key/

200,000 BitTorrent Users Sued In The United States
http://torrentfreak.com/200000-bittorrent-users-sued-in-the-united-states-110808/

Sony and others looking to standardize active 3D glasses
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/08/sony-and-others-looking-to-standardize-active-3d-glasses/

Google+ now available for iPad, iPod touch
http://www.bgr.com/2011/08/09/google-now-available-for-ipad-ipod-touch/

VOICEMAIL

Josh from PA talks about trying on clothes virtually

Jim has some insight into Verizon and FIOS

EMAILS

Dear buzz crew:

Recently there has been a pick up of stories dealing with cyber-attacks on your show. Also recently you have been “”voicing your opinion”" on all the annoying things that you find with facebook. Well it seems that you may get your wish to see fb crash and burn (j/k).

I have read and heard reports that Anonymous has sent out a communication that it will destroy (not attack, not shut down) facebook on the 5th of November (reference to V for Vendetta) for allegedly selling user info to third parties. Is this true? If so, I would think that a lot of people would close their accounts on November 4th bracing themselves for the attack. Is that a good idea? I mean, how exposed would fb users like myself be to the collateral fire of an attack from Anonymous to fb???!?!?

Lov seeing you guys everyday from the beautiful Puerto Rico!!

Ahernan1

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Dearest Molly Hood,

I thought I’d share this interesting tech culture nugget:

http://gizmodo.com/5829033/how-did-jay+z-and-kanye-keep-the-biggest-album-of-the-year-from-leaking

It’s funny, because I heard about the album for the first time this morning (the radio folks were talking about Kanye’s most recent antics in England, sigh), and I thought to myself, “”How have I not heard about this before!? How has nothing leaked on the net already?!”"

Well, apparently there was a reason for that. At first blush, it may seem to contrary to common sense, but when you think about it, it’s actually quite ingenious. Album leaks are usually due to stolen and then ripped CD’s. SOO: if you don’t press any CD’s (aka digital release only) –> and you are the only people with the files –> no album to leak! Clever, gentlemen. Clever.

Perhaps an emerging trend in the industry?

I guess you give up being able to promote your album BEFORE it comes out on radio stations/viral video sites, but I think the opposite approach can work too: hype can build by holding you cards close to your chest as well, keep your fans wondering, guessing a la some Fruit-monikered companies out there ;)

Holla,
$$$$ Bling Rx $$$$

http://gizmodo.com/5829033/how-did-jay+z-and-kanye-keep-the-biggest-album-of-the-year-from-leaking

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Hi Brian and Molly,

I have a “”well in addition to…”" comment about the Solar EXPLOSIONS happening on the Sun in episode 1526.

I’ve recently attended a conference focused in the preservation of Media including folks from the public (Library of Congress, PBS, Universities) and private (FOX, Sony, NBC etc…) sectors. The moderator brought up the Carrington event in 1895 and how when (not if) another one occurs, every piece of magnetic storage not protected by a Faraday cage will become paperweights. After making every archivist in the room shat their pants, he pimped his start-up tech company that is creating a optical tape medium that would be impervious to the effects of the coronal mass ejection(I’ll pause so Brian has time to stop giggling….). Needless to say, there is both truth and a profit motive in his DOOMS-DAY scenario.

If we do lose the solar lottery, and if there aren’t occurrences of re-animated corpses, Godzilla, heating of the earth’s core or a rapture and we’d just be without electronic devices, let me be the first to pledge my allegiance to the Neo-Amish King, Donald Bell.

-Pom the Digital Asset Manager

Listening since summer 2005

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Hey buzzcrew,

I think what Blink-182 did with their Youtube video remix thing is perfectly warranted. Regardless of what you think of it, copyright law is in fact, just that: a law. Whenever you upload a video to Youtube, Google warns you not to include music that you don’t have the rights to, but these people decided to go ahead and do that anyway. Thus, if Blink-182 wanted to, they could have sued these home movie makers into oblivion and gotten away with it. Instead, they’re giving them fifteen minutes of fame, while also pointing out that they made a small mistake. If anything, Blink-182 let these copyright violators get off a bit easier than they could have, though partnering with AT&T does look pretty bad.

-Jack W

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http://bol.cnet.com, 800-616-2638 (CNET), buzz@cnet.com

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