Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Lulzsec Hackers at it Again

http://brightbridgewealthmanagement-advice.com/2011/06/brightbridge-wealth-management-headlines-lulzsec-hackers-at-it-again/

A man crosses the Central Intelligence Agency logo in the lobby of CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Aug. 14, 2008

In today’s TechBytes: another high profile website has been hacked.
The group that claims it attacked the websites of Nintendo, Sony and the U.S. Senate claims it took the CIA’s public website offline. No sensitive data were tapped or stolen.
The agency said the site contains no classified data, and there was no impact on operations.

Washable Earphones
If your earbuds get sweaty during workouts, you may wish you could just throw them in the washing machine.
Pioneer is out with the first washable earphones. You can also use them in the shower.
They’re available in a variety of colors for $60.

GPS Gone Wrong
Finally, a story of technology gone bad. Three out of town visitors to Bellevue, Wash., said they were following directions from their GPS as they tried to get back to their hotel late and night, and instead, drove their rented SUV down a boat ramp and into a swamp.
They’re fine, but we’re not sure about the GPS.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Bitcoin ‘will recover’ from crash

http://brightbridgewealth-management.com/2011/06/brightbridge-wealth-management-headlines-bitcoin-will-recover-from-crash/

The virtual currency Bitcoin will “bounce back” after a hack attack caused its value to collapse, according to one of its senior developers.

Gavin Andresen said he hoped the crisis would lead to better security on sites where Bitcoins are bought and sold.
Prices on the main exchange, Mt.Gox, fell from $17.50 (£10.80) to almost zero when a large number of stolen Bitcoins were dumped on the market.
Trading was suspended and eventually rolled back to pre-crash rates.
Mt.Gox revealed details of the security breach on June 20 with an announcement on its website.
“It appears that someone who performs audits on our system and had read-only access to our database had their computer compromised. This allowed for someone to pull our database,” the statement read.
Around the same time, an unidentified person accessed one of the compromised accounts and sold all of its Bitcoins.
They then attempted to buy the coins again and withdraw them in US dollars.
The fraudster was partially foiled when they hit Mt.Gox’s $1000 daily limit.
The decision to reset the Bitcoin rate to a point just before the malicious trades were placed was criticised by some users who had taken the opportunity to buy low.
“Why should everyone who profited from the crash suffer your inability to secure the site?” wrote a user called Elments.
Questionable future
Although the problem was caused by security failings at Mt.Gox, it has raised wider questions about the viability of Bitcoin as a virtual currency.
Continue reading the main story

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Asia BoomChanging World economy says RBA

http://brightbridgewealth-management.com/2011/06/brightbridge-wealth-management-headlines-asia-boomchanging-world-economy-says-rba/

Asia’s booming middle class is “fundamentally changing the face of the world economy,” Australia’s central bank chief said on Wednesday, sending the local dollar soaring with hints of a rate hike.

Reserve Bank of Australia governor Glenn Stevens said the rapid growth of China, India and other emerging economies was driving Australia’s terms of trade to levels about 85 per cent above their 20th-century average.
“The amount of additional income accruing to production in Australia from that is 15 per cent or more of annual GDP,” the bank chief said in a speech.
Stevens said the boost reflected a “large and persistent change in global relative prices”, warning that the “China story” went beyond cyclical forces of supply and demand to a deeper structural shift.
“Hundreds of millions of people in the emerging world have seen growth in their incomes and associated changes in their living standards, and they want to live much more like we have been living for decades,” he said.
“This means they are moving towards a more energy- and steel-intensive way of life and a more protein-rich diet. That fact is fundamentally changing the shape of the world economy.”
In Australia, that meant a “very large boost to national income” which would require “some degree of restraint”, he said, raising the prospect of a rate hike – the first since November when it was lifted to 4.75 pe recent.
The Australian dollar spiked to $US1.0707 from $US1.0671 prior to Stevens’ remarks.
The Reserve Bank of Australia held official rates steady this month for the sixth time since November, saying floods and cyclones over the summer had thrown the economy into reverse, while Europe remained under a debt cloud.