Cyber Beat: Daily Roundup of Social Media and Tech Stories 3/21

Today’s top stories in social media and technology include a dongle joke that prompted 2 firings and an ill-informed DDoS attack, Yoko Ono tweets anti-gun propaganda, law blogger Popehat’s Reddit debut, a comment on the BlazingCatFur blog brings a police visit, Syrian hacktivists hijack the BBC’s Weather feed and tweet about camel collisions, hacker Guccifer strikes again and reveals more of George W. Bush’s talents, several new hacking incidents, Anonymous allegedly tango downs the NSA, creepy stalking of FOX News’ Roger Ailes’ family, Michael Moore says more stupid things about gun laws, gamer news and more.

Read below for these stories and more. 

 

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Social Media Trends, Happenings and Faux Pas.
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C’mon,who doesn’t like a good dongle joke?  Apparently, according to the developer in question, the woman who complained actually misunderstood part of his comments.  The whole thing sounds like a bad game of telephone blown horribly out of proportion.

How “dongle” jokes got two people fired–and led to DDoS attacks: “Developer evangelist” offended by developer, tweets outrage, both are fired

 

That’s some powerful anti-gun propaganda, but legislating by emotion rarely produces a good outcome.

Yoko Ono tweets against guns showing Lennon’s bloody glasses

Excellent showing for two popular law bloggers, Ken White from Popehat and Prof. Richard Epstein, for Reddit’s Ask Me Anything sessions.

Two makes a trend: Reddit “Ask Me Anythings”

 

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Hoaxes, Harassment and Hacking.
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Blog comment at BlazingCatFur about Black Panthers prompts police visit after Toronto school board spokesperson complains.

Toronto School Board Spokesperson Sends Police Out To Hassle One Of Its Critics

Hijacked Twitter account blasted out tweets like, “Saudi weather station down due to head on-collision with camel.”

Syrian hacktivists hijack BBC Weather feed

Experts lift the lid on hacking crew.

‘TeamSpy’ snooped on governments, big biz undetected for 10 years
 

Update on the attacks against Spamhaus.

How whitehats stopped the DDoS attack that knocked Spamhaus offline

He exposed George W. Bush’s secret talents, then he hacked Colin Powell, then he leaked Sidney Blumenthal’s emails to expose allegedly sensitive Benghazi memos sent to Hillary Clinton.  Now he’s released a trove of more images of Bush’s oil paintings.  Guccifer seems like a strange bird.

Hacker ‘Guccifer’ goes after George W. Bush and billionaire mogul with latest breaches

 

I sort of think this was maybe the work of a few rogue Anon wannabes who noticed the NSA website was down and decided to turn it into a PR opportunity.  But hey, we just report what we see and watch for new developments.

Anonymous Claims to Take Down NSA Website

Sadly, this stalking behavior sounds all too familiar.

Anti-Fox Author Accused of Stalking Roger Ailes’ Family

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Law and Order.
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It’s a blessing that Michael Moore does not make the laws.  Albeit, he thinks he does, but thankfully we have a system that protects us from him, sort of.

Unethical Quote of the Week: Michael Moore

This one is a bit of a niche interest, but it’s a hilarious infamous case that all bloggers should be following.  Here’s the latest update.

Rakofsky Case – The Sanctions Motions (Updated)

One of these days, the courts will get it right.

Sorry Fair Use, Court Says News Clipping Service Infringes On AP Copyrights

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Gamer-land.
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I wrote about this myself, having taken the “limited government and individual responsibility” stance when it comes to video games.

EDITORIAL: Gaming bad taste – Individual responsibility lost by blaming media for evil

Because we’re really not losing enough productivity on Facebook…

Zynga relaunches gaming site, loosens Facebook ties

It’s a model that works really well for some niches…

Gamers Have Pledged Over $100 Million To Games On Kickstarter

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