New Zealand welfare agency uses Facebook to catch fraudsters

May 15th, 2009 LONDON - In the latest phishing scam to hit Facebook, almost 200 million users of the social networking site are at the risk of being robbed of their passwords. A Facebook spokesman has said that Internet fraudsters have stolen the passwords of a number of members in a successful attack on May 14.

October 9th, 2009 MELBOURNE - eBay Australia has revealed that a cereal that looked like ET is the weirdest item ever sold on its website - fetching more than a thousand dollars. The online auction website has hosted strange auctions, but a thousand-dollar piece of Nutri-Grain resembling ET was dubbed as a favourite after it sold for a whopping 1035 dollars in December 2004.

March 25th, 2009 WELLINGTON - A New Zealand teenage whiz-kid who admitted developing software that infected a million computers around the world has been hired by telecommunications company TelstraClear to advise companies how to avoid hackers. Owen Walker, 19, who was tracked down by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, is advising on 'botnets' - networks of computers infected by malicious software - TelstraClear spokesman Chris Mirams told Radio New Zealand Wednesday.

June 10th, 2009 Facebook, like MySpace, lets users show full nameNEW YORK — Facebook is further embracing the real name culture it touts as one of its founding principles — and catching up with rival MySpace in the process. Starting at 12:01 a.m.

May 19th, 2009 LONDON - Israel has asked its public to be careful while using Facebook because, it says, Arabs are trying to recruit spies on the popular social networking site. The Shin Bet security agency warned Israelis against replying to unknown messages, or divulging sensitive information the internet.

January 15th, 2009 WELLINGTON - Nearly 650 New Zealanders snapped up super cheap airfares as low as 50 New Zealand dollars (about $27) for flights to Europe in September after a data input error on the website of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, a report said Friday. The watchdog dog Commerce Commission rebuked the airline for taking more than four hours to correct the mistake and said it should have better systems in place.

July 28th, 2009 UN orders Iranian to give up Facebook Web addressGENEVA — Social networking site Facebook has won control of a Web address using its name and the country suffix .ir for Iran. The U.N.'s World Intellectual Property Organization says current owner Majid Karimian Ghannad of Yazd, Iran, has to transfer the domain name — facebook.ir — to the U.S.-based site.

May 24th, 2009 TEHRAN - Iran has blocked access to social networking site Facebook ahead of June's presidential elections, according to Iran's ILNA news agency. ILNA suggested the move was aimed at stopping supporters of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi from using the site for his campaign.

June 14th, 2009 WASHINGTON - With Facebook offering personalized URLs for its users, a media expert suggests that organizations, celebrities and politicians better claim theirs early, otherwise they may later have to battle cyber squatters. "Generally speaking the best defense against cybersquatting and/or potential malicious use of a famous name is to register accounts in your company's name on new social media sites as soon as they emerge," says Susan Jacobson, of Temple University's journalism department.

July 5th, 2009 UK spy chief's family details posted on FacebookLONDON — Photos and family details about the newly appointed head of Britain's international spy agency have been removed from a social networking Web site. The Mail on Sunday newspaper reports that the information was posted by the wife of John Sawers on her Facebook page.

October 1st, 2009 Secret Service: Facebook poll no threat to ObamaWASHINGTON — The Secret Service has determined that a juvenile was behind the online survey that asked whether people thought President Barack Obama should be assassinated, an agency spokesman said Thursday. No criminal charges will be filed against the juvenile or the juvenile's parents, spokesman Edwin Donovan said.

April 8th, 2009 Facebooking may be a great way to meet strangers but it could also give you the shock of your life. That's what happened with Michelle Westby, 21, when she looked at a stranger's photos on Facebook only to find her own boyfriend cheating.

September 20th, 2009 MELBOURNE - Advertising agencies in Australia are keeping a close eye on the pages of the six million Facebook users to update advertisements of products they deem fit as soon as there is some change in the social networking site user's account status. Business houses seem to target potential customers on the social network site according to sex, age, location, relationship status, job title, workplace or university.

August 15th, 2007 I glanced over the Facebook source code for both index and search pages. As an enterprise developer of some experience, source code is always interesting to me as it provides an insight into the health of a company.

April 27th, 2009 The most popular social networking site on a global scale, Facebook is trying to welcome developers by keeping some of the core floodgates open so that they get familiar with the system in a better way. If you remember well, most of the recent changes in Facebook has brought about agitation from the Facebook crowd.