Launching today, Dasient, a San Jose Palo Alto start-up founded by a couple of ex-Googlers, hopes to change all that with its new Web anti-malware service. By monitoring Web sites for infected pages, providing instant diagnostics and giving site owners a two-click quarantining option within moments of a compromise, Dasient's subscription based security service (free and paid, from $50/month) aims to help businesses retain control of their Web site and remain clear of the dreaded blacklist.

Malware and the Social Web

There has never been a shortage of security problems on the Internet, but one of the most significant threats has come from the fundamental changes in the way malware is being distributed across the social Web. No longer are the majority of viruses spread by email attachments; cybercriminals are turning to the Web, planting malicious code on innocent Web sites, and then sitting back and waiting until the code silently infects visitors.

According to the 2009 Sophos Security Threat Report (PDF), this global criminal operation has reached such proportions that one new infected Web page is discovered every 4.5 seconds - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And according to Dasient, there are three underlying and converging trends that are behind these ridiculously high numbers.

1. The Web itself is becoming more complex and sophisticated, and Web sites now come with rich functionality ( Ajax, dynamic HTML, JavaScript), along with content and ads from various sources.
2. Non-expert developers with little or no computer science background and little or no security training are building user facing applications.
3. Attackers are automating and building attack scripts and launching them against thousands of Web sites in attack waves.

This expansion of the Web, while great for users, increases the attack surface and allows for an entirely new class of attacks that didn't exist even a few years ago. And a new class of attacks, according to Dasient, requires a new way of thinking, and a new class of solutions.

Dasient: Web Anti-Malware at Web Scale and at Web Speed

Founded by Neil Daswani, a former Google security engineer and product manager, Shariq Rizvi, a former member of Google's Webserver and App Engine teams, and Ameet Ranadive, a former McKinsey strategy consultant, Dasient hopes to confront today's Web malware problems by using automated mechanisms in an attempt to stay ahead of the bad guys and their automated and systematic attacks against Web sites.

The company, which raised its seed round of funding (just over $2 million) in December 2008 from investors Stratton Sclavos (former VeriSign CEO), Mike Maples (one of the key investors in Twitter) and Eric Benhamou, (former 3Com/Palm chairman), has been running its services in alpha and is advancing its monitoring and diagnostic service to public beta.

Launching today:

1. A free monitoring service which will alert webmasters when their site gets blacklisted (public beta).
2. A premium monitoring service ($50/month for a site with less than 1000 pages) that continuously scans a site for malware infections and alerts webmasters when their site has been compromised (public beta).
3. A quarantining service through a web server module (private beta).

How Dasient Works

When the service determines that a site has been compromised, it sends an e-mail to the webmaster that details the number of infected pages, their URLs, and the malicious code that caused the infection. From there, the webmaster, with only two clicks, can authorize Dasient to execute quarantine instructions on the infected site.

Although it may take up to a few minutes for the quarantining instructions to propagate across all of the Web servers on the site and/or all of the processes running on the server, once executed, the malicious code will be quarantined off the page and will not be served to visitors - including the Googlebot - resulting in less likelihood of the site being flagged and fewer headaches for the webmaster.

Is Your Site Blacklisted by Google?

Determining whether your site is blacklisted by Google is fairly simple; type this into your browser http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site= and add your URL at the end (e.g. this is the link to view Google's listing status for ReadWriteWeb http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://www.readwriteweb.com/), however, determining which part of your site has been compromised is a lot more difficult.

But, it shouldn't be that hard.

"Instead of expecting every business to have security engineers of their own, what we need to do is take security services and make them available as a utility to companies just like electricity is a utility these days, and no one needs to keep an electrical engineer on staff like they did back in the nineteen twenties," Daswani noted.

Good point. And that's exactly where Dasient comes in.

But love? Not so much. Google, intent on building its enterprise channel, has recognized that many Outlook users - particularly enterprise users - aren't ready to make the leap to the cloud and to Google Apps. But maybe, just maybe, Google Apps Sync is what it will take to woo them.

According to a press release, Google Apps Sync works on Outlook 2003 and 2007 and will synchronize email, calendar and contacts data with Google Apps. "It provides access to Global Address List data and enables users to schedule meetings by looking up when attendees are free or busy. It also includes a simple, two-click migration utility which enables users to easily copy their data from a previous Outlook data source, such as Microsoft Exchange servers.

Not Quite Gears

"Although we use the same protocol as gears, we don't use gears per se," explained Vander Mey. "It's all saved in outlook PST files. From a technical level [there] is a MAPI provider; when you connect to Exchange we have built our own MAPI provider - we just change what's going out on the wire - as opposed to licensing from Microsoft."

Key Features:

E-mail, calendar and contact sync
Synchronize all Outlook fields in both directions, keeping them up-to-date; Uses a Google native e-mail protocol.

Free/Busy and Global Address look up
The Global Address List feature lets you search for and access e-mail addresses of users and resources in your domain.

Simple, user-driven data migration
Letting users move data to Google instead of having to wait for IT admins.

Google Apps Sync will be launched this afternoon.

You'll need Outlook 2003 SP3 or 2007 SP2 (or SP1 with a hotfix), running on Windows XP SP2 (with selected hotfixes) or Vista SP1 (with a hotfix).

If you want to see how Google Apps for Microsoft Outlook works, watch this three minute video.

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off this morning in San Francisco and ReadWriteWeb is at Moscone West to cover the keynote scheduled to begin at 10am PDT; you can check the current time here.

9:30 am: The crowds are lining up outside and there's lots of speculation about what might be announced. Will Steve Jobs appear? Will they show an Apple tablet? Will the Snow Leopard OS be made available? Will there be a new iphone? Will the old iphone (3G) become the cheap iphone ($99) - or will a new cheap one put in an appearance? Read on for our coverage below.

Note: Original reporting from the keynote by Lidija Davis, editorial support provided by Frederic Lardinois.

MacBook Updates

10:00am: Here we go: starting out with a prerecorded PC guy Apple commercial introducing the keynote. "Hello I'm a Mac, and PC is trying to say have a great conference."

10:01am: Schiller on stage now. Starting out with OSX: active users now up to 75 million. 2002-2007, only 25 million.

10:05am: Brand new version of 15inch MacBook Pro. Has Built-in lithium polymer battery with two hours of extra battery live.

Seven hours of battery life - 40% more than last battery. Battery will accept more than 1000 recharges.

New display: more vivid colors. New SD card slot.

10:09am: new MacBook Pro will have up to 3.06 GHz dual core processor, up to 8GB of memory.

Price now lower at $1699 for 2.53 GHz model. 250GB hard drive, NVidia 9400M graphics. SSD options. High-end model will have 500GB hard drive, 9600M graphics.

10:11am: New: 13inch MacBook Pro: will get the same new battery. "Just as thin, just as light." Will also get SD card slot, backlit keyboard. $1199. Available today.

Prices: 13inch: $1199; 15inch $1699; 17inch $2499.

10:16am: Schiller: "world's greenest lineup on notebooks." All meet epeat gold standard.

Snow Leopard

10:17am: Talking Leopard now: "most successful release."

Talking Vista: no user should have to worry about viruses, registry, dll, disk fragmentation.

Apple: "We come from such a different place."

10:19am:Talking about Snow Leopard: three things - refinements, powerful new technologies, exchange.

Expose is now build into the dock.

Installation a lot faster (over 45%) - after install, Snow Leopard also recovers more disk space (over 6GB).

Preview now 2x faster, too - "using a little bit of AI."

Mail: 2.3x faster.

10:24am: Safari 4: final version released today.

Safari 4: 7.8x faster JavaScript performance than IE8. Built-in "crash resistance."

10:28am: New interface for Quicktime player: chrome-less.

10:29am: Craig Federighi VP Mac OS engineering about to talk.

Snow Leopard Demo: new features: magnify thumbnails, work within a window without closing Expose.

Brings up NYTimes with a huge Bing ad on it.

10:32am: Showing off Safari 4: fast - Google Maps, ESPN render immediately (nothing new there is you have used the beta versions, by the way).

10:34am: Quicktime X: reengineered from ground up. Playback controls overlayed on video - move mouse out of the window, controls disappear. Upload clips directly to YouTube, MobileMe, or iTunes.

10:36am: Bertrand on stage again: talking about foundation technologies in Snow Leopard.

Applications running in 32bit mode have inherent limit of address space. 64bit mode allows appls to use large amounts of RAM and do some calculations 2x faster. How to make best use of this?

Multi-threaded programming is fairly inefficient - introduces a new methodology called Grand Central Dispatch/

10:39am: language extension, multi-core engine, object oriented framework, intergration with all system APIs and tools.

10:41: New: OpenCL - going beyond OpenGL. "GPUs now have 1 teraflop power." Apple wants to use this for powering more than just graphics. All top GPU manufacturers are participating.

10:43: Built-in Exchange support. Integration between exchange and personal email - drag and drop support with iCal.

Accept event invitations right through Mail.

Snow Leopard Upgrade: $29

10:45am: Price for Snow Leopard: $29. Family pack: $49. Audience going crazy!

Available in September. Final developer preview version today.

iPhone

10:48am: Scott Forstall takes the stage.

Stats: SDK downloaded 1 million times, 50k apps in App Store, 40 million iPhones and iPod touches (Apple calls them iPhone OS devices) sold. Crossed 1 billion app downloads on April 23rd.

10:49am: Thanking developers and customer. Playing video of developers talking about their experience with iPhone development.

10:55am: Video has ended - we'll post it later.

iPhone OS 3.0

10:56am: 100 new features: copy and past, landscape mode for more apps, MMS (one app to send text and multimedia), spotlight search for content of entire phone (contacts, email, etc.)

29 carriers will support launch.

Rent and purchase videos right from phone

10:59am: iTunes: Rent and purchase videos right from phone (also TV, music, audio books).

Better parental controls.

Tethering

Tethering (yay!): share connection with computer - will work over USB and Bluetooth. Requires carrier support (who will surely charge for this!)

Safari

11:02am: runs JavaScript 3x faster on iPhone OS 3.0; HTML5 support now with support for HTML5 audio and video tags.

Languages: switch to other languages in realtime. 30 more languages in iPhone OS 3.0 (including Greek, Thai, Hebrew, Arabic)

11:05am: Find My iPhone - available to MobileMe customers only - log in, and a map will tell you where your phone is. You can then also send a message to you phone - in demo, a waiter calls you back (thief is probably less likely to do that...).

You can also send a remote wipe command to your phone. Once you find the phone again, you can restore it from a backup (already available for enterprise customers).

11:09am: Support for peer to peer. Wirelessly over Bluetooth - finds partner playing a game, for example, and automatically connects them.

Better support for maps in apps (note: developers have been telling us that this is one of the features they have really been looking forward to).

Push Notifications

11:12am: Generic service for developers: Push things like sports scores, instant messages.

Notifications will come in the form of pop-up alerts, sounds, App icon badges.

A lot of Demos

11:14am: Demo time: Brings up number of developers to show off features of iPhone OS 3.

First up - Gameloft: Shows off ability to play your own music while playing game (Asphalt 5 - developer calls it "best racing game on the iPhone" - wouldn't expect them to call it anything less).

Next: Airstrip: lets doctors monitor patient medical data from their phones. Already cleared by the FDA. Supports push and sends out alerts when a parameter goes out of control. See patients vitals from anywhere.

11:19am: Next demo: ScrollMotion. Will bring 170 daily newspapers to the iPhone. Also: 1 million books and magazines. Uses new iPhone 3.0 features to do in-app purchases.

Shows ability to copy and paste part of book and email it or use it in other apps.

Also bringing lots of textbooks to the iPhone (you can find out thoughts about textbooks on the Kindle here).

11:24am: Next demo: TomTom - this is a big one: turn-by-turn directions, including text-to-speech. Delivers full GPS experience on the iPhone. Will also sell accessories. Availability: later this summer.

As always - these demos tend to go on for a bit too long.

11:26am: Next demo: ngmoco :)

Showing off in-game purchases of new levels in the game and head-to-head play (Star Defense - launching today - iPhone 3.0 features whenever it launches (no date for that yet, but we expect to hear more in the next few minutes...)).

11:30am: and another demo - this time, it's Pasco, showing a science app that can hook up to sensors (new ability of iPhone OS 3.0 to work better with third-party hardware devices.)

11:32am: You thought that was the last demo and they would move on to the iPhone hardware? Nope. Next up, Zipcar (car sharing). Uses iPhone OS 3.0 MapKit to embed Google maps. Unlock your car from the phone.

11:37am: Last demo! Line 6 and Planet Waves. Control your guitar amp from your iPhone. Demo not going so well... communication between phone and guitar isn't working.

11:41am: Line 6 demo canceled... "go to our site to hear what it looks like."

Release date for iPhone OS 3.0: June 17th

11:44am: Last developer seed out today - asking devs to retest all of their apps to be ready for the release.

Schiller coming back on stage.

iPhone Hardware

11:45am: Schiller: iPhone makes up 65% of mobile web usage.

Reviews stats again: 50k apps. Only 4.9k for Android, 1,088 for Nokia.

New iPhone: iPhone 3GS

11:46am: S stands for Speed: much faster. 2.1x faster to lead messages, SimCity loads 2.4x faster, large websites 2.9x faster.

Supports OpenGL, 7.2Mbps HSPDA

New Camera - Video

New camera: 3MP with auto-focus (tap to focus); better in low-light situations. Auto-macro up to 10cm.

Video! 30 frames per second, VGA with auto-focus, automatic white balance, auto-exposure.

Videos can be shared immediately on YouTube, MobileMe, MMS, and by email.

Dev's will get an API to play with video in their apps as well.

Voice Control

Next: voice control - say: "Call Scott Forstall" - the phone will make the call. Also: control iTunes ("think" what's playing now" or "play more songs like this").

More new features

11:55am: Compass (integrated with maps), support for Nike+, new accessibility features (VoiceOver for content, controls, etc.). (note: wonder if this needs the extra speed of the 3GS to work, or if this will be available for all iPhones with OS 3.0).

For businesses: data encryption, instant remote wipe, encrypted backups.

Battery life

11:58am: 9 hrs of Internet surfing, 10 hrs of video, 30 hrs of audio, 5hrs 3G talk-time, 12 hrs 2G (as always, we take these numbers with a grain of salt.

Prices/Release Date

Price: $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB in black and white (prices are for new customers).

Old iPhone 3G now for $99.

Release date: June 19 in US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, Switzerland, UK. 6 more countries a week later.

12:02pm: Showing new ad.

12:04pm: Schiller sums up today's announcements, thanks employees.

And... that's it. No "one more thing," no Steve.

Thanks for reading everybody!

According to an e-mail from Digg tonight, it will likely happen Thursday. "We've elected to remove shouts in favor of more popular sharing options, based on user feedback and broader market research," a Digg spokesperson told us. The new share feature will also include an e-mail option.

"Right now Digg is really focused on these product updates, you saw some of the things we've released recently [Facebook Connect, Diggbar, search], we really want to move Digg into more of a real-time environment." Adelson said during the Townhall. Dupe detection, which has been promised to Digg users at about six previous Townhalls, is also on the way, according to Adelson "in just a few days."

The shout feature on Digg has been the bane of many a Digg user for some time. While originally created to encourage user interaction, it quickly became a hot tool for spammers. Additionally, many folk, including Mariana Peyton, who put the question "When will you resolve/shut down the shout feature and finally solve the power user issue?" to Adelson and Rose tonight, felt it was a tool used by power users to stake their claim on the site and get their submissions to the front page quicker.

While Digg has yet to activate the new share feature, Muhammad Saleem, social media strategist and an active community member on Digg, tonight told ReadWriteWeb he can understand why Digg would want to remove the shout feature. "It's become a way of spamming stories to hundreds of people to amass votes and promote junk," he explained, "so I am definitely in favor of the removal as long as a new, better feature takes its place."

Unfortunately, he doesn't think that a Twitter-share or Facebook-share option would be a better alternative - or even a good replacement for shouts.

The Problem with Shouts

Saleem explained that Digg instituted shouts as a way for people to share stories with each other, assuming (or hoping) that people would share a story or two now and again with 10-12 of their close friends "like Kevin would send stuff to the Digg team, I would shout something to The Drill Down team, etc."

The problem, of course, was that the feature opened the door to a huge spam fest. People started amassing friends by the hundreds, and then shouting their stories to them in an effort to get the Diggs necessary to get to the front page. Most Diggers would tell you that once Digg realized how the system was being abused, they started limiting the feature, or minimizing the impact of the feature by requiring more Diggs (diversity) for stories that were getting votes as a result of shouts.

"Now," according to Saleem, "they need a better mechanism that still enables people to share things without being penalized, and at the same time they need a system that doesn't get abused."

Because the system can still be abused.

According to Reg Saddler, a.k.a Zaibatsu, power users don't use shout. "Shout is superfluous on Digg. You use it to help out others, but you don't really need it to get the word out about your stories."

Saddler, once a power user on Digg, is now making a name for himself on Twitter. According to Twitalyzer, Saddler's 'clout' value stands at 100%. "On Twitter, I can send a tweet out every single hour to my 83K followers and drive traffic to Digg," Saddler pointed out, "If you are a power user and you have a fan base on Twitter, you don't need the shout feature on Digg."

This is not to say he spams his audience with worthless content; quite the opposite, Saddler has a keen eye for breaking news and is happy to share interesting stories with his online friends; Twitter just allows him to do it in real time.

So what's the answer?

Whether Digg offers its users shouts, Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail, they'll likely be faced with many of the same issues.

According to Saleem, the only option that could work is for Digg to come up with more ground rules, but even that is a tall order. "They are leaders in the space, meaning they face issues many others don't face because they're not at the same level; the solutions they need are to problems that haven't existed before for other companies."

So what do you think? Good move on Digg's part or do you have a better solution in mind? We'd love your thoughts.

Disclaimer: The author of this post co-hosts The Drill Down with Reg Saddler and Muhammad Saleem.

The event, which we live blogged earlier this morning, is the second Searchology event; the first one that was held two years ago introduced Universal Search. Today, Google announced Search Options, Google Squared, Rich Snippets and a whimsical but brilliant new Android application named Sky Map.

We've embedded Mayer's video below, it runs about three minutes. Please enjoy.

Google is providing a live webcast of the event, named Searchology, which is scheduled to begin at 10 PDT and conclude at 11.30 PDT after product demos.

Update: We had a chance to speak with Marissa Mayer about the new search features and have posted a three minute video of her describing the products.

Update: Google announced no less than three (!) new products at Searchology today: Search Options, Google Squared, Rich Snippets and a 'fun' product: a new Android application called Sky Map. Get all the details below, where we've live blogged the event.

Update: See our analysis, Google Search Evolves - But Has Google Finally Lost its Core Focus?

Live blogging starts here

Speaker line up today:

• Udi Manber, VB Engineering
• Patrick Riley, Software Engineer
• Scott Huffman Engineering Director
• Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products and User Experience
• Nundu Janakiram, Associate Product Manager
• Alex Komoroske, Associate Product Manager
• Kavi Goel, Product Manager
• John Taylor, Software Engineer

Udi Manber kicks the event off saying "our job is to do rocket science that will be taken for granted." But, he adds, "there is still a lot of work to do."

He continues talking about growth throughout the centuries. "In the 20th century," he explains, the dream was to conquer nature; I think the 21st centure will be about understanding people."

"We have made a lot of progress, and you'll see some more today. But, the most promising advance is that we are starting to 'understand.'"

"We have very high confidence that this is what you're looking for. It's actually hard to do, but it looks easy to you."

"Search has to be lightening fast, relevant comprehensive fresh, but the main point is that even that is not enough."

With Google focused on doing the magic so we get instant, relevant and useful results, does this mean we are at the beginning of the real-time Web?

He ends by juggling three eggs. Then saying "I wanted to highlight that things are not always what they seem," he throws the eggs, and they bounce off the stage.

Semantic search?

Patrick Riley begins by saying "it's all about user intent." By tweaking the algorithm, and operating at scale, Google can update the search results page so that it offers results for not only the query, but for what Google thinks the query could be should what you typed into the search box be incorrect.

"We know that everything we do on the search results page, and we really care about every pixel on that page," Riley says.

"We liked the 'did you mean' link so did not want to take it off." Instead they expanded it.

Mobile search

Scott Huffman talks about mobile search: "There are a few things that make mobile search interesting," he begins. "Mobile search is growing fast -- faster than search for the PC."

"Another thing that makes mobile search interesting is the challenge of devices," he adds. "There are hundreds of them, with widely varying capabilities. Search is generally difficult to use... The third thing inherently interesting about mobile search is location."

"Our dream," he said, "is that people use mobile search every day because it is":

• Complete: all of Google is on my device; easy access; "one click" ability to dig deeper;
• Easy: effortless to search and get answers.
• Local: knows where I am and acts accordingly

One thing that isn't out yet but should be in the next few weeks is the ability to share your desktop environment with your mobile environment.

Universal Search and a Brand New Search Feature

Marissa Mayer begins with an anecdotal story about a friend of hers who needed to tie a bow tie and was convinced that by searching on Google he would be greeted with incomprehensible information. As it turned out, he told Mayer, the results were brilliant; he got videos, diagrams, and a lot of explanations.

"This is Universal Search," Mayer said, "which we introduced a couple of years ago."

Universal search began with images, maps, books, news, and video. Mayer explained that over the past two years, Google has added products and blog search.

"Universal Search now runs in 174 countries," said Mayer, and it's getting better.

"The Universal Search experience is displayed in a 'bento box' environment," Mayer said.

Google also now has "location-less" Universal Search. That is, you don't need to include your location; Google works that out by either your profile or your cookie information.

In November, Google introduced SearchWiki: the ability to add, annotate, and remove results to "really make the page your own."

But with Search Wiki and Universal Search, there is more media and more interaction. Google wants to help you find more and do more with it.

The hard, unsolved problems in search are:

• Finding the most recent info
• Expressing what you want just one type of result
• Accessing which results are best
• Knowing what you want
• Being tied to keywords can be limiting

"We need a slice-and-dice mechanism," Mayer explained, something that will help you find a particular type of result.

Search Options

As a result, Google today is launching "Search Options," which, according to Mayer, is going live as she speaks. With Search Options, the results page gives you more options and allows you to show and hide options. It ultimately provides more useful results and a better search experience.

Google Squared

Another product Google is launching and will be available in Google Labs later this month is called "Google Squared," which offers data extraction (using sentiment analysis) for values and facts and that includes rich information. Could this be similar to what we can expect from Wolfram Alpha?

Rich Snippets

A third product announced today is "Rich Snippets," which will show extra metadata in results -- things like user reviews and the cost of products. According to Mayer, "It's a way for us to enrich our results page and help users make a more informed decision about what is relevant to them."

New Android App

The last announcement was of a new Android application that looks at stars. Known as "Sky Map," it was built by John Taylor in his 20% time and will be available on the Android Market later today.

Much like other apps, it allows you to pan, zoom in, and zoom out. What is special about this, asks Mayer? The G1 phone has built-in GPS, so it knows where in the world you are and can produce maps specific to you. Using the accelerometer technology, you can point the device to the stars and see the night sky beyond. Of course (having been announced at Searchology), the app also allows you to search for a star -- say, Orion -- and then it shows you where to point your device to see that star in your night sky.

Questions and Answers

Question: Will Google start selling semantic keywords?

Marissa Mayer: No plans yet to sell keywords differently. It's about the data analysis, as opposed to building in the notion of semantics.

Question: Are products launched in all languages?

Udi Manber: Products are extremely internationalized. Everything we do applies all over the world. We have active projects in probably more than 70 languages, and we try to launch at the same time.

More About Google Squared

Mayer: The technology behind it is "totally amazing." "Google Squared blew me away even though I get jaded over time." "We are looking for structures on the Web that seem to apply facts and then corroborate the evidence by looking at other pointers. It's an incredible amount of work."

Wolfram vs. Google

Manber: "I think I proved that things are not always what they seem, and you need to look at corroborating evidence. It's not enough to find info; you have to corroborate in many places."

Regarding Wolfram, "Sergey and I had a demo early on but have been asked to be quiet."

Mayer: "We at Google are optimistic about the Web. When you see the power of search and the Internet, hopefully we'll get some signals about which information we can trust. This will help improve the data."

Q&A (cont'd)

Question: When will Google squared be available?

Mayer: Later this month.

"The question is," he continued, "will you have the passion and the tenacity and the interest to really start something that's important?"

In an auditorium filled with 1,700 students, Ballmer began by discussing the economy "not because it's the cheeriest or warmest subject to start with," he said, "but if you're thinking about entrepreneurship, it's probably the right place to start."

He also discussed Microsoft, where it's been and where it's going, the future of technology and why 'now' is important to entrepreneurs. The video, embedded below, is well worth watching, particularly given Ballmer's 29 years of first-hand experience with one of the world's most innovative technology companies.

Steve Ballmer's Tips to Entrepreneurs

Look around you

Look around you at the people you know, find good people, those are the people to trust when you start something.

Be patient and work hard

Some things that wind up being really important take more than ten years to become really popular. Ballmer points to Windows, SQL Databases (Oracle), Google. While he admits there are a "few exceptions," for the most part it's about hard work

Don't let others dissuade you

"My parents thought I'd lost my mind to drop out of Stanford Business School to go to a company that makes software," Ballmer said. "My dad said 'what the heck is software' and my mother said 'why the heck would a person need a computer?'"

We've embedded the video of the lecture below; it runs about 58 minutes, the first 25 consist of his talk, the rest is made up of Q&A and it is well worth your time if you're considering inventing something new.

This new position requires Southall live, swim, and play every day, then record his adventures for the world via blogs, photos, video updates and media interviews. Not bad for AUD $150,000 and six months worth of work.

Earlier this month, 16 finalists arrived on Hamilton Island, where the caretaker will be based, for a four day extended interview. After a swimming test and a tour of the island, the candidates explored the Blue Pearl Villa - a.k.a. the caretaker's residence - a private, three bedroom cottage with views of the Whitsunday islands.

The successful candidate, Tourism Queensland CEO Anthony Hayes said, would be "someone who can capture and hold world attention."

While Southall's application video (embedded below) shows that he certainly can grab attention, and the publicity stunt dreamed up by Tourism Queensland has certainly been successful in giving Australian tourism a global profile, one question remains: Can the social Web interest translate into future tourism dollars for Australia - and more specifically Queensland? According to Hayes, "that's the million dollar question."

We took this year's image from Google Australia, but you should see it on all of Google's sites now.

Google 2009 Mothers Day Logo

Google 2008 Mothers Day Logo

Google 2007 Mothers Day Logo

Google 2006 Mothers Day Logo

Google 2005 Mothers Day Logo

Google 2004 Mothers Day Logo

Google 2003 Mothers Day Logo

Google 2002 Mothers Day Logo

Google 2001 Mothers Day Logo

Google 2000 Mothers Day Logo

Wishing all of our readers and all of our moms (and mums) a happy Mother's Day!

The solution, built by Fujitsu and wireless provider Willcom is based on a communications module that is built into laptop PCs, and enables owners to not only completely lock down the data, but also to issue and execute the command even when the PC is turned off, or the battery has been depleted.

Average Cost of a Stolen or Lost Laptop is $49,246

Lost and stolen machines are one of the most common ways that corporate data is compromised. A recent report by the Ponemon Institute claims it costs companies an average of $49,246 when a laptop is lost or stolen. (PDF)Although this value is based on various components, the study found that the faster the company learns that the laptop is lost, the lower the average cost. If the discovery is made on the same day, the average cost is $8,950; if it takes more than a week to discover the loss, the average cost rises to approximately $115,849.

Average cost for each component from the Ponemon report

How the Kill Switch Works

The Fujitsu/Willcom technology plans to protect data in two ways; deletion and lockdown. In the first instance, and although the data itself will not be deleted, Fujitsu plans to allow remote deletion of the encryption key that allows access to the hard drive; rendering the data unreadable and recoverable. For further protection the laptops will have a "PC Lock" function that prevents them from being used at all by stopping the laptop from booting up.

Fujitsu plans to begin offering this technology in Japan first, beginning third quarter 2009.

During tests this weekend, we discovered the company who claims to "keep you safe from identity theft, credit card fraud, spyware, spam, viruses and online scams," has several cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities and provides the bad guys with a brilliant - albeit ironic - launching pad from which to unleash their attacks.

Why a Vulnerability on a McAfee Site is of Consequence

It can't get much worse than this. This is not "yet another embarrassing incident on the Web;" not by a long shot.

Lance James, co-founder of Secure Science Corporation and author of Phishing Exposed, noted that when a criminal locates an XSS vulnerability within a well-known Anti-Virus site, it only makes the attack more effective. "It generates misplaced trust (being that computer users trust AV companies) and is paradise for miscreants involved in Scareware (Rogue Anti-Virus) distribution, as they can infect a legit copy of MacAfee's product and distribute it under their name." James said. "A win for the bad guys through the power of branding; a major loss of trust for McAfee," he added.

Not only do security vulnerabilities harm a company's brand, they can also ultimately harm its bottom line, particularly when the company in point has made millions from the software it produces to protect you online; this will surely injure the McAfee brand.

It all began when we came across a post that described some of the issues facing McAfee. Very quickly, we realized the potential for phishing on one of McAfee's sites, the McAfee Rebate Center, which allows you to inject HTML code into one of the fields it provides on its site.

If you've never seen an HTML injection in action, try this out, it's an interesting experiment.

How To: HTML Injection

1. Go to the McAfee Rebate Center
2. Click on Get Rebate
3. Include this line of code into the 'Date Purchased' field:
   
4. Click on continue

This is a very basic redirect that will take you to ReadWriteWeb.

And voila - you've just effected your first HTML injection.

Although our example is extremely simple; a no-brainer for clever coders, it illustrates a significant and more sinister point: McAfee is clearly vulnerable to XSS attacks. Much like the recent Mikeey worm on Twitter, this XSS issue is a result of poor output filtering. And while Twitter can be forgiven for not laying down the correct foundation in the beginning, the same cannot be said of McAfee, which has built its entire business around its knowledge and expertise in the field of information security.

McAfee Secure May be Providing Incorrect Information to Users

And it gets worse. McAfee has a product called McAfee Secure which helps corporations determine whether their sites are open to malicious attack. The way it works is that sites participating in the McAfee Secure program are checked daily, and if they pass muster, they receive a McAfee Secure badge which is branded with the day of testing.

Unfortunately, it appears McAfee either doesn't run McAfee Secure across all of its sites, or if it does, the product is missing the bleeding obvious.

From the https, to the McAfee domain, this phish site that James created even includes a valid and dated McAfee Secure certificate.

To demonstrate how easily the exploit can be used, James created a phishing site to give ReadWriteWeb readers a real-time example. Go ahead, follow this link, and click on the "add to cart" button (we promise it won't hurt you).

What you are seeing is a cross-site scripting exploit in action. "Imagine," James said, "just how easy it would be to exploit home computers with Trojans that cause harm or steal information." A phishing site, like the one he created, could easily ask you to click a link for more information. "Or," he said, "imagine the e-mail: 'you're eligible for a McAfee rebate on your products, just click here!'" "Basically, the main use I see it for is to spread malware as McAfee."

What he's describing is ominous. The bad guys can create a modified version of a McAfee product or a bogus McAfee update that installs a Trojan, or whatever they like, and it arrives on your home machine, special delivery. You'd never know.

In creating the fake site, James points out that he didn't need to spoof the McAfee Secure logo. "We're using their certificate to validate our attack," he said.

Go ahead. Look up at the URL on the phishing site. See that https://?

Secure right?

Note: We've created a screencast (embedded below) of the redirection exploit for when McAfee fixes this; we hope it's soon.

Update May 5, 2009

It appears the vulnerability on McAfee's rebate site has been fixed; however, the test phishing site is still going strong. James gave us an update: My assumption is that remote referrers are blocking it based on firewall rules but a refresh locally shows it's still vulnerable. An attacker can simply do a meta refresh to redirect to it since that scrubs referrers.

This is the story of Stack Overflow, a free question and answer site built by developers for developers that has fostered a strong and committed online community in under one year. How? Easy, according to founder Joel Spolsky; all it takes is an understanding of anthropology and a lot of determination.

"As we move from the era of computing into the era of the Internet, we no longer need to worry about computer-human interaction." Joel Spolsky told a group of programmers at Google last month. "What we do have to think about [in the era of social networking] is human to human interaction," he said. And according to Spolsky, to do that, you have to think as an anthropologist does.

Anthropology and the Social Web

"In anthropology it's very clear that the environment that you create influences people and how they behave", Spolsky explained. "People will come into the environment and behave according to what you built in certain subtle ways; ways that you probably didn't think about."

He points to the Scalinata della Trinita dei Monti, or the Spanish Steps to further his point. "They were built to be stairs," he said, "from the Spanish Embassy at the base, up to the Trinita dei Monti at the top." Instead, they've become the "living room" for backpackers in Rome. "Partially it has to do with the steps being the perfect comfortable height to sit on," he said, but also, they provide a fantastic view of the Piazza di Spagna at the bottom.

"This was completely non intentional," he explained. "Similarly, the user interface you create for your applications will influence how people behave."

So what is Stack Overflow and why Does it Matter?

Founded by Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood, Stack Overflow is a free question and answer site designed to help developers get the most relevant answers from peers - and fast. Collaboratively built and maintained by a legion of committed developers, it is OS and language agnostic.

Stack Overflow came about because search engines are failing in a particular realm said Spolsky: "Expert Q&A; where you can ask an expert and the expert can give you a true and correct answer." And while he points out that a lot of the companies organized around search have tried to make question and answer type portals; no one site provides value.

And according to Spolsky, there are a variety of reasons why these sites are ineffective: Yahoo! Answers attracts too many adolescents seeking answers to questions about "reproductive sciences;" Mahalo Answers, the brainchild of Jason Calacanis, creates an environment where questions appear to be "scams;" AskVille, Amazon's creation emphasizes the question rather than the answer with its oversize version of a search box. Of course, there is one more; the one that must not be named, and perhaps the unofficial Raison d'etre for Stack Overflow, is basically just a big sneaky tricky mess.

Why Search Engines are Failing when it Comes to Collaborative Sites

According to Spolsky, there are certain reasons why search engines are failing when it comes to Q&A sites, and they are the same issues Stack Overflow is trying to solve.

1. Sign-up scams: Sites that a search engine may send you to where you must first sign up and pay, if you want an answer.
2. Register: A "road bump" that many sites have, and one Spolsky thinks reduces participation dramatically
3. Wrong answers: When searching for highly technical questions, a search engine may send you to a forum that has multiple answers. If you are unsure which answer is the correct one, you waste too much time working through the wrong ones.
4. Obsolete results: Google, for instance, will oftentimes give an older page priority. In turn, the page you are served is often outdated and no longer relevant.

The Nine Building Blocks of Social Engineering

To work around these problems, Stack Overflow was built on what Spolsky calls the nine "building blocks" in an effort to create a site that was anthropologically correct and would encourage people to behave in a way that would work. He also pointed out that every single one is copied from somewhere else.

1. Voting: Copied from Reddit, via Digg, voting allows people to vote up answers they think are good. Stack Overflow tweaked its voting algorithm, giving the person who asked the question special power to select one answer as the official answer that will rise to the top regardless of what the community voted. The second answer, of course is always the highest ranked community answer.
2. Tags: Tags allow users to specify perspective. For instance, Spolsky explained, "you can add that I'm asking this from a VB perspective, not a C# perspective." Stack Overflow is also customizable with tags, allowing users to specify which technology they are interested in, and typical of most social sites. What is not typical however, is the ability to ignore tags that Stack Overflow has built in.
3. Editing: Taking a page out of Wikipedia, Stack Overflow allows users to edit both questions and answers; so answers could get better, rather than becoming "this frozen artifact on the Internet until the end of time," which is typical of most forum threads.
4. Badges: "A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon," said Napoleon once upon a time, and so Stack Overflow made the decision to reward its users with badges. Over time, the badges show credibility.
5. Karma: People are willing to do for free what they're not willing to do for small amounts of money according to Spolsky and by offering karma, Stack Overflow encourages its users to do more. More Karma equals more privileges on the site.
6. Pre-search: Once you begin typing your question, Stack Overflow's pre-search will do a quick search to see whether the question has been asked before and display the result for easy access and to prevent duplication issues.
7. Google is UI: Stack Overflow was built around the assumption that people will go to Google which will send them to the right page. Each URL has the name of the question; each URL is permanent and clean, Metatags, sitemaps; anything and everything was done to ensure Stack Overflow's pages looked "reasonable to search engines."
8. Performance: Ensuring answers are provided super fast was imperative. As a result, Stack Overflow is built on a Microsoft stack. "This entire site is serving 16 million pages a month and we're doing it off of two servers which are almost completely unloaded," said Spolsky. One server is a Web server, the other is running Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and both are 8 core Xeon's. While many may assume using an open source stack would be more efficient, Spolsky explained that while SQL Server licenses cost $5000 per box, the Microsoft stack is paying for itself in terms of reduced hardware.
9. Critical Mass: It's imperative to have critical mass on day one; to ensure people are available to answer questions. "That was one of the reasons I asked Jeff Attwood to be involved in the site," Spolsky explained. Between Joel on Software (Spolsky's blog) and Coding Horror (Attwood's blog), the two had a combined visitor count of 1.3 million visitors per month. Combined with the weekly podcast the two began, they were certain to get at least 20-30 thousand programmers interested.

We've embedded Spolsky's talk below and it is well worth an hour of your time; particularly if you're interested in building, or have already created a social site; Stack Overflow's numbers speak for themselves.

According to Microsoft, the process is simple. You'll need a Live ID and $99 to sign up; to get paid, you'll need to provide bank account and tax identification details.

The Marketplace is designed for Windows phones running Windows Mobile 6.5, which are expected to go on sale sometime in September 2009, and as pointed out by Microsoft last month, developers will receive 70 percent of the revenue from the sales of each application. Developers will also have the ability to set the pricing for their apps.

Important to note, however, is the annual registration fee of $99 only allows you to put forward up to five submissions per registered year; additional submissions will cost $99. If you're a student developer, the registration fee will be waived if you enroll in Microsoft's DreamSpark program.

Although Windows Mobile only has a 5.98 per cent market share, Microsoft claims that more than 20 million smartphones were sold in 2008 that had its software on board. Given the Marketplace will be placed on every Windows phone, this is not an insignificant number, and one that may provide developers with the opportunity to earn a considerable amount of money.

More information can be found here.

Speaking to the Ad:Tech audience in San Francisco today, Rose talked about Digg's future saying ads need to be more interactive, print can't be saved, online publishers are in an incredible position and the importance of power users may be underestimated.

Update: Digg starts rolliing out its own ads

Rose on Digg and Advertising

Digg's advertising needs have changed. At the beginning, "we had lots of servers falling over," Rose explained. The deal with Microsoft saved the day, allowing Digg to outsource ad sales while continuing to work on the product. However, Digg is now four years old, and banner ads are no longer enough. It's ready to build its own sales team, which currently stands at 2-3 and Rose estimates it could grow to 10-15 over the next year.

The site will focus on larger ad campaigns, and according to Rose, turn to its users. "If anything, Digg has users that like voting,' Rose explained, "and I would love to see a world that if something is really crappy, it gets destroyed or thrown off the site." Either that, he said, "or we charge people more for crappy ads," he added with a grin.

While he says he can't "guarantee" this type of social advertising will make it to Digg, it's certainly an attractive ideal. Rose explains that Digg is looking at ways that people can engage with ads, "so the second [an ad] goes up, it's not just about click-throughs; it's more about watching and seeing what [people] think."

Social Advertising?

Rose pointed to the Chevy SUV campaign that invited visitors to create and share their own ad copy on video clips. "It's going to happen," Rose said, and "I'm happy to push it and make it happen sooner."

The caveat, of course, is that Rose doesn't want Digg to be a platform where the only discussion involves comments like "that ad sucks." "I'd hope [conversation] would be deeper," he added.

Although he likes the idea of user involvement when it comes to advertising, Rose noted that there are two problems with these forms of social ads; people are generally conservative and scared to expose their brand in that way, also, the tools aren't there to foster discussion.

But, tools could be coming, and they could be coming to Digg. Last week, in an interview with Mike Arrington, Rose explained that Digg is completely revamping its site and expects it will be seen as a "ballsy move" when unveiled.

Rose on Cool Hunters

Rose, who removed the Top Users list from Digg two years ago, today said that they may soon make a reappearance, but in a different form. "We have these amazing users who have an eye for what the masses will enjoy," Rose said, and "it's important to highlight those people because they are valuable."

"In reality, he said, "they take on what is cool - they're very good at finding high quality content that other people will enjoy - and I don't mind [emphasizing] that"

"I think you'll see us expose that data in the future," Rose added, saying you'll likely get to see who the "tastemakers" turn up to be under specific categories.

Note: If you're interested in seeing Digg top users, Social Blade, which is not affiliated with Digg, maintains a list.

Rose on Dead Tree Media

"Dead tree media is...dead," said Rose, who believes we are entering a world of the personal brand, much like Gary Vaynerchuck described [video link].

The landscape has changed. "It's not necessarily about destination site," Rose continued, like the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, "it's about the person writing the article." Walt Mossberg, for instance, will continue to grow his audience, regardless of where he is published, and Rose sees that as power. "He can move his fans and readers in any direction."

And with the transformation taking place in the world of media, it's an important distinction.

Asked whether Digg can help save the newspaper industry, Rose gave a quick, but succinct "no." Although Digg can't help save print, Rose believes it can absolutely empower the sites. "We can help them understand where their traffic is coming from and let them know more about their users and what they like." "And if you know what people like, you can serve better quality ads."

Whether you're a blogger working in your basement or a journalist at the New York Times, it makes no difference. If your content is good, it will get noticed by Digg's cool hunters. Yet not every social site can do this. While many have tried, (Reddit, Mixx, Yahoo Buzz etc.), Digg has always been the leader in consistently leveling the media playing field.

Why Digg? Well, we can't quite put our finger on it, but as Rose told Arrington last week, "I just feel that we're heading in a different direction than them." And at ReadWriteWeb, we agree. What do you think?

Update: It appears Digg is already rolling out is own ads, with the ad below appearing tonight, after the site was taken offline for a couple of hours. This comes not 12 hours after Rose gave his keynote at Ad:Tech earlier today.

Photo Credit: Flickr Affiliate

According to Hathaway's 60 second trailer, the key to a cyber secure future lies in cooperation between the public and private sector and a united effort on both a hyperlocal front as well as globally.

A Manhattan Project to Defend Cyber Networks

Melissa Hathaway came across our radar recently when President Obama tasked the former Bush administration aide with leading a 60-day review of Bush's Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative; a largely classified, purported $30 billion, multi phase plan to address cybersecurity issues that Hathaway was involved in developing. The initiative was promptly dubbed 'a Manhattan Project to defend cyber networks' by the then Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff.

The CNCI, which began as a directive from President Bush in January 2008, received much criticism and, in part, led to Obama attacking the Bush administration during his campaign for not efficiently addressing cyber threats. "As president, I'll make cyber security the top priority that it should be in the 21st century," Obama said during a speech in July.

Unfortunately, as pointed out by Siobhan Gorman in the Wall Street Journal, the decision to hold a 60-day review suggests that any big move in the field of national cybersecurity was once again put off. Or was it?

Who is to Blame for Internet Security Problems?

"Despite all of our efforts," Hathaway began, "our global digital infrastructure, based largely on the Internet is not secure enough or resilient enough for what we need today and what we need for the future."

She explained that the original design of the Internet was driven more by considerations of interoperability rather than security, and as a result we are now faced with almost insurmountable issues. Some examples include online criminals who steal our information, mass bandits who have the ability to damage portions of our internal infrastructure, and the recent ATM scam that law enforcement sources claim is one of the most frightening and well coordinated heists they'd ever seen. "In a single 30 minute period," Hathaway said, "138 ATMs in 49 cities around the world were illicitly emptied of their cash." This can't continue she explained, "Our goals depend on trust and that cannot be achieved if people believe they are vulnerable to these types of threats."

The Trailer for the Path to National CyberSecurity

We need an agreed way to move forward which involves shared responsibility, Hathaway noted, if we are to have "trustworthy, resilient, reliable" cyberspace.

Describing cyberspace and its security as "a fundamental responsibility of our government that transcends the jurisdiction of individual departments and agencies," Hathaway explained that although each government agency has a unique contribution to make, no single agency can see the overall picture and they'll need to work together.

Additionally, the private and the public sectors need to join forces as they are "intertwined" when it comes to cybersecurity. "While it is the role of the government to protect its citizens, it is the private sector that in the main designs and owns the majority of the digital infrastructure," she said.

Finally, Hathaway sees this as a unique opportunity for the United States to work with countries around the world, and with organizations on an extremely local level. "We cannot succeed if our government works in isolation," she added. It requires "leading from the top" from the White House, to government departments, to the private sector, the C-Suite, and even deeper, to the local classroom and library.

Hathaway said that her report, the culmination of a 60-day comprehensive review to assess U.S. cyberspace policies and structures, will be made public in the next few days after the administration has had a chance to review the data.

The good news however, is that communities offer the best bang for your buck in this miserable economy and Wales sees return on investment (ROI) as an "incredible steal right now," when it comes to consumer generated media.

The Benefits of Community During a Recession

Wales, who led the user generated content movement three years before the term Web 2.0 was coined, today told a standing room only audience that people fail to get their corporations off the ground because they don't focus on community. And in a recession, your community could be your saving grace.

"Wikipedia was really born in the depths of the dot com crash," Wales said. "With no investment money available, we had to figure out our own solutions as a community." "If there had been [funds], when problems arose I would likely have hired people to try and solve them," he explained. And according to Wales, this led to innovations in social rules and social institutions.

Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedia in the world with over 2 billion+ words, is the fourth most popular Web site in the world, with 301 million unique visitors monthly according to comScore. Its success is largely due to its passionate community and the content it produces.

Wales pointed to the Marvel community as another great example of a growing consumer generated content phenomenon, with the Marvel Database Project consisting of 49,864 articles and 50,427 images (as of today). Much like Wikipedia, this community of volunteers is passionate and focused on building very high quality content.

Contrary to Popular Belief, Consumer Media is a Great Place for Brand Advertising

Although most brands have been afraid to get involved with user generated content in the past, Wales sees this as a thing of the past because sites like Wikia, Flickr, YouTube etc. are becoming more dominant.

"The modern Web 2.0 space is not about funny cat videos any more or about angry ranting blogs," Wales explained. "If you look at what is happening, you'll see quality content - equal to magazines and television."

But with the plethora of advice being dispensed on the Web it is no wonder brand marketers are confused. "'You need to interact, to blog, to Twitter' is the general advice given today," said Wales. "And for some brands this is absolutely the right thing to do."

The caveat of course, is having a brand that is information dense.

Using Doritos as an example of a brand that won't make it in the consumer generated world (due to the nature of its brand), Wales explained "I don't believe there is ever going to be 50,000 [user generated] articles [written about Doritos]."

Another brand Wales points to is Skittles and its recent campaign, and explains that while it's a good gimmick, it's certainly not the future of Skittles marketing. "Interacting with customers [for brands which are not information dense] is not helpful," Wales explained. "But, if you have a brand that's being talked about online, you need to understand that although you cannot control what is being said, you do need to be there."

A semi transparent notification bar (see screenshot below), slides down from the top of the screen when you update your status via the Web. While in itself, the feature may not appear earth shattering, the fact that updating now feels extremely fluid and is almost instantaneous makes us wonder whether Twitter will begin caching tweets for delivery to its servers.

In the past, when you hit the update button, it would take several seconds for Twitter to 'confirm' that the tweet has been created before updating your page. With the notification bar, the process is immediate and will definitely be seen as a plus by users.

Is it possible that Twitter is employing some mechanism between the browser and the back end? For instance batching tweets (or any request) before they hit the server, to decrease load?

Twitter hasn't made a formal announcement yet, and clearly they're still testing the new bar as it is not yet available to all users. But if you are one of the fortunate few, as always, we'd love your opinion.

According to Newsweek, both the iPod Touch and to a lesser degree the iPhone are increasingly being used by the U.S. military because of their versatility, ease of use and comparative low cost.

The report notes that the iPod fulfils the military's need to give soldiers one device that can perform many different functions, and this device has the added advantage that it can often be controlled with one hand.

Software developers and the U.S. Department of Defense are busy developing military software for iPods in an attempt to gives soldiers even more functionality. A new program called Vcommunicator produces spoken and written translations of Arabic, Kurdish and two Afghan languages.

"Snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan now use a "ballistics calculator" called BulletFlight, made by the Florida firm Knight's Armament for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Army researchers are developing applications to turn an iPod into a remote control for a bomb-disposal robot (tilting the iPod steers the robot). In Sudan, American military observers are using iPods to learn the appropriate etiquette for interacting with tribal leaders," the report says.

According to an Army official in Baghdad, the devices have yet to be successfully hacked and at $230 a pop, the iPod may fit right into President Obama's 663.7 billion dollar defense budget.

Late last week, Global privacy watchdog, Privacy International added its take; claiming that Facebook's Site Governance Vote is nothing more than a "publicity stunt and a massive confidence trick on its 200 million users."

In February, after revoking the changes Facebook made to its Terms of Use, Zuckerberg announced that the company was looking for user feedback on the two new documents it had published regarding site governance: the new Facebook Principles and the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR).

A month and a half later, on April 12, Zuckerberg declared voting open and gave users the option to vote for either the current Terms of Use or the new Facebook Principles and SRR, which Facebook claimed had incorporated feedback from users and experts during the commenting period.

Although Zuckerberg proclaimed that Facebook "encourage you to participate and make your voice heard," there is a caveat.

"For this vote and any future one, the results will be binding if at least 30 percent of active Facebook users at the time that the vote was announced participate. An active user is someone who has logged in to the site in the past 30 days," Zuckerberg noted on his post.

And according to Privacy International, this is where the problem lies.

"While we support the concept of user participation, the idea of establishing a thirty percent participation threshold is a complete joke. It will never be reached, and Facebook knows it. Earlier this year the figure had been set at 25 percent, and it was edged up because of concerns that users might actually succeed in changing the terms and conditions," Privacy International's Director, Simon Davies claimed in a statement Friday.

In a comment left on AllFacebook, Facebook's Barry Schnitt claims that 80 percent of Facebook users return weekly. If true, it means 30 percent of those 160 million users need to participate in order for the result to be binding. 30 percent of 160 million is 48 million. As of yesterday, there were only 280,863 votes according to Nick O'Neill. Although voting is open until April 23, it seems unlikely that user votes will have any effect.

And according to Privacy International, this voting process will do little more than aggravate Facebook users who he believes will feel cheated if the threshold is not reached. "If this is a genuine attempt to give users control then give them a genuine vote, not a symbolic one; otherwise, stop wasting everyone's time," Davies said.

Privacy International's senior staff members have promised to eat their shorts if the threshold is ever reached on any vote.

Think the scientific genius behind Q, the fictional gadgetmeister that keeps James Bond ahead of the bad guys, combined with the technological expertise our own recently named CTO Aneesh Chopra has, and you might just see the perfect applicant.

According to the Government's chief scientific adviser, Professor John Beddington, the new MI5 advisor will have to keep on top of the latest trends in science and technology to protect Britain against threats to national security.

"It will involve a sort of future-gazing to see where technology will be taking us in a year or so," Prof Beddington said.

Beddington adds that the successful applicant will not need to develop a weapons system for the latest Aston Martin.

Candidates will need to have "world-class scientific expertise and credibility in relevant scientific and technology disciplines." If you want to apply, you've got until April 24.