NFL lockout: Players use Twitter to vent frustration amid uncertainty

Titans cornerback Cortland Finnegan spent Thursday working out.
(Mark Humphrey / AP)
Now what happens after NFL owners approved an agreement that would end their four-month lockout of players — and players balked at approving it, saying they hadn’t seen what the so-called deal?

Players, at least initially after Commissioner Roger Goodell and owners made their announcement, were extremely displeased and vented on Twitter. Now, in what feels a little like the Day After in a apocalyptic disaster movies, they’ll regroup and decide where to go from here after an angry and odd Thursday night. How weird was it? “NFL lockout had twists, turns an unsatisfying ending,” Eric Stangel of “Late Show with David Letterman” tweeted. “Who’s running this, M. Night Shyamalan??”

Players may well vote as this thing continues to take twists and turns today. As David Cornwell, a lawyer who was worked for the league as well as players, put it on Twitter: “#nfllabor still like sausage? This is how it is made.”

Kinda coming off a little too defensive right now. League owners did the right thing by putting out a proposal. Let’s just go from there.less than a minute ago via TwitBird Favorite Retweet ReplyJeremy Jarmon
DoubleJJ90

See? It was growing calmer by the end of Thursday night. Earlier, though, Vonnie Holliday of the Washington Redskins wasn’t having any of that . Nor were other players, although Holliday used more colorful language, tweeting that players had been “hoodwinked,” among other things. (This morning on ESPN 980, Holliday stood by that comment, saying, “We were tricked.”)

Look guys I have no reason to lie! The truth of the matter is we got tricked, duped, led astray, hoodwinked, bamboozled!less than a minute ago via Echofon Favorite Retweet ReplyVonnie Holliday
therealholliday

Judging by Twitter, players spent most of the night responding to fans’ criticism. PhillyBlue93 tweeted to Holliday: .48 cents on the $ is a good deal for any employee. U are not the owners, u r workers! Get over ur selves!!

Holliday replied: Not so fast my friend! We are the game. Not the owners!

Players also tweeted their concern about future generations of NFLers; the agreement that NFL owners approved spans 10 years and includes no opt-out clause.

NFL players! Stay strong! We are still fighting for past, present and future players. We will vote when they give us something to vote on!less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone Favorite Retweet Replyryan clark
RealRClark25

Chris Long of the St. Louis Rams spent time responding to fans, too, and tweeted “We definitely owe you guys a season, but we need to make sure we all get this right. … Thanks for yall’s patience.”

i’m not sure why everyone is panicking… this deal will get done… when i say patience i am talking days. no one wants a bad dealless than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet ReplyChris Long
CL9ONE

Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/post/nfl-lockout-players-use-twitter-to-vent-frustration-amid-uncertainty/2011/07/22/gIQAp13TTI_blog.html

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Dear Twitter: Don’t Change the 140 Character Limit

Brevity is the soul of wit. It’s also the heart and soul of Twitter, a service I, along with millions of other users around the world, have adopted as my own. It doesn’t take a lot to convey an idea or message: “Just setting up my twttr,”, “Arrested,” “@usairforce find a way to let Doctors without Borders planes land in Haiti…” I actually shortened the last Tweet, yet you still get the point. Lately, some people who’ve become enamored of the free-flowing, verbose conversations happening in the dewy Google+ have decided Twitter is wanting and that it’s time to raise the character limit.

One such proponent, Slate’s Farhad Manjoo, makes an eloquent argument for raising Twitter’s character limit. He argues that you can’t say a whole lot in 140 characters. He’s right that Twitter’s character limit is tied to the service it was launched on, the SMS text messaging system, which, after message handlers and the sender’s name, left just 140 characters to speak your mind. But then Manjoo makes a leap. “The 140-character limit now feels less like a feature than a big, obvious bug.”

Perhaps Manjoo’s Google+ experience has clouded his mind. Twitter was never intended as a conversation hub. Yes, it’s for sharing, some engagement, but is, necessarily, a broadcast and share medium. Longer posts, even the 280 characters he suggests, would undercut that intention.

On Google+, where Manjoo posted a link to his column (with a 15-word, 94-character description: “Twitter should double its character limit! My Slate argument in favor of a 280-character limit.”), I immediately jumped on Google+, said it was a bad idea and offered him a link to my post on how to craft 140 character tweets like a pro. Some agreed with me, but quite a few people agreed with Manjoo: You just can’t hold a discussion with 140 character posts, they argued. I think they’re right, but again, why would you want to hold a discussion on Twitter? In my Twitter experience, discussions are the worst part of the service and the longer they go on, the less useful they become.

If you accept that Twitter is a broadcast medium, then people are consuming your 140 character (or less) post and acting on it in a variety of ways: They’re following the link your provided. They’re retweeting to spread the broadcast message to their followers (while there can be overlap between follower lists, they’re almost always useful differences that help the message reach a new audience). They can quote the tweet and add their own commentary. The last one is the most difficult because you do have to figure out how to say something meaningful when most of the 140 character allotment has been used up by the original Tweet.

In the case of conversations on Twitter, they work differently. Usually someone posts something interesting and someone responds. The response doesn’t have the original tweet, just a little notation that it was “in reply to…,” which links to the original tweet. These conversations can go on for a while and sometimes expand to a number of Twitter members. The person outside the conversation will see a random post from this Twitter conversation in their feed and have absolutely no idea what it’s about. Conversation tends to clutter up Twitter and make it far less useful. This is not to say that I do not use Twitter for crowd-sourcing. I ask concise questions and get concise answers.

People who want to have conversations online have numerous options, including old-school forums, Facebook, and threaded comments on various Web sites. Google+ is the newest and easily most exciting one. I’m using it to say more and collect richer thoughts from all Google+ conversation participants. Oddly, I sometimes have to remind myself that I can post and respond in more than 140 characters (I see other people with this problem, too).

Someone argued in the Google+ thread that most people aren’t writers and expecting them to craft awesome 140-character Tweets is simply too much. I make my living as a wordsmith, why wouldn’t I love creating an excellent Tweet? It’s a fair point, but am I the only one who bemoans the poor quality of writing in virtually all electronic discourse? Tweeting in 140 characters is great training for anyone who wants to communicate. Sure, it’s always nice to prattle on in a forum, article comment space or, now , on Google+, but why wouldn’t the average person want their prose to sing? Tight, concise sentences and thoughts make that so.

To further illustrate my point, I’ve taken a TweetDeck Feed page and replaced 140-character Tweets with 280-character ones (it’s rough, I know). Suddenly you halve the number of Tweets showing up in your feed at any given time. It saps the immediacy and readability right out of the social network.

So, please, Twitter, don’t listen to Mr. Manjoo. Google+ is for conversations. Twitter is for news and sharing. I can do it in 140 characters, and I think everyone else can, too. For those that can’t there’s always Google+ and Facebook.

Get on Lance Ulanoff’s RSS Feed.

Follow me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/LanceUlanoff

More Lance Ulanoff:
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For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.

Article source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388905,00.asp

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Early Google+ can’t touch Twitter for following breaking news

Having been in Norway just a couple of months ago, I have more than a passing interest in today’s tragic news of a “giant” bomb blast in Oslo. During my lunch break, naturally, I went online to get more details.

On Twitter, both “Oslo” and “Norway” were trending; and I quickly found a curated list from the Washington Post of useful sources to follow about the Norway blast.

Google Plus? Well, the current lack of search is crippling — there’s no way within Plus to find items mentioning the attacks. The search for people within Plus appears just looks through names, so “Oslo” finds people with the first name Oslo, not journalists or government officials based there. And, results from Sparks — a way to follow topics within Google+ — appear less useful than going straight to Google News.

Meanwhile, my stream of posts seems to have Google+ as the top news of the day most days, regardless of what’s going on in the rest of the world.

I know that some of this has to do with the limited number of Google+ users — not to mention the small number of people I’ve found to follow so far. Another issue has to do with Google+ still being in such early beta — I find it hard to believe that at some point Google wouldn’t add a more robust search capability.

Even if Plus had more users and better search, though, there’s still the issue of how the posts display. When each item can include multiple paragraphs, several comments and sometimes fairly large images, I rarely see more than two items per screen. And that makes scanning rather tough. Without a more streamlined viewing option, Google+ simply isn’t designed for making quick sense out of large amounts of data.

It’s still unclear how Google+ will grow and evolve. As of today, though, it’s hard for me to agree with those who argue that Google+ could take the place Twitter holds in the social networking arena.

Sharon Machlis is online managing editor at Computerworld. Her e-mail address is smachlis@computerworld.com. You can follow her on Twitter @sharon000, on Facebook, on Google+ or by subscribing to her RSS feeds:
articles | blogs .

Article source: http://blogs.computerworld.com/18674/early_google_cant_touch_twitter_for_following_major_news

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Calif. man gets 4 years for stalking on Facebook

(07-22) 10:33 PDT SACRAMENTO, California (AP) –

A Northern California man who trolled women’s Facebook pages searching for clues that allowed him to take over their email accounts has been sentenced to more than four years in prison.

Superior Court Judge Lawrence Brown on Friday said George Bronk’s actions were equivalent to a peeping Tom who peered into people’s homes.

Prosecutors say once he took over women’s email accounts, Bronk searched their folders for nude or semi-nude photographs or videos they had sent to their husbands or boyfriends and distributed the images to their contact list.

The emails went to their family, friends and coworkers. Women in 17 states, the District of Columbia and England were victimized.

Bronk pleaded guilty in January. Brown sentenced the man from the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights to four years in state prison for the charges related to the Facebook and email offenses, and added eight more months for charges related to child pornography.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

A 23-year-old Northern California man who trolled women’s Facebook pages searching for clues that allowed him to take over their email accounts and then made nude pictures of them public is expected to be sentenced Friday.

George Bronk pleaded guilty in January to charges of computer intrusion, false impersonation and possession of child pornography. Prosecutors said he violated the online privacy of women in 17 states, Washington, D.C., and England.

The state attorney general’s office wants him to serve six years in prison, while a probation officer is recommending four.

His defense attorney, Monica Lynch, has said Bronk should get probation. She says her client was simply acting out and didn’t realize the damage he had done.

Bronk was living in the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights with his parents, who said he had a drinking problem while he was stalking the women.

A judge is expected to hear the state’s recommendation on whether he should be sentenced to a prison term or receive some alternative punishment. He underwent an evaluation by the state corrections department.

Between December 2009 and last September, prosecutors said Bronk changed women’s email passwords to take control of their accounts, taunted some of the women in online exchanges, and coerced at least one woman into sending him more explicit photographs by threatening to distribute the pictures he already had.

Investigators say Bronk made a hobby of trolling women’s Facebook pages, looking for their e-mails and gleaning enough personal information to answer basic Internet security questions, such as the name of their elementary school or favorite color.

Once he had taken over their email accounts, he would search their folders for nude or seminude photos and videos the women had sent to their husbands or boyfriends, then distribute the images to the women’s contact list. The women said they were embarrassed and felt violated as their photos were distributed to co-workers, family members and friends.

One victim told The Associated Press earlier this year that she was able to contact the person who had hacked into her email account and asked him why he was doing this. Bronk’s reply: “Because it’s funny.”

Investigators said they found 172 email files with explicit photographs on Bronk’s computer. Lynch said her client was immature, unemployed and bored while he cared for his ailing parents.

After a hearing earlier this year, his mother, Joyce Bronk, said her son told them he needed help for a drinking problem, then began attending Alcoholics Anonymous and taking classes to be trained as an emergency medical technician.

“This was an Internet persona he created when he was a drunk,” she said at the time as a way to explain his actions.

Authorities caught up with him two months later. Their investigation began after one of Bronk’s victims called Connecticut State Police, which referred the complaint to the California Highway Patrol.

Victims turned up in Alabama, Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and Washington.

George Bronk has been jailed on $500,000 bond since his arrest in October and will have to register as a sex offender.

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/07/22/national/a103326D50.DTL

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Facebook wins dismissal of Winklevoss case

A federal judge has dismissed Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss’ latest attempt to pursue claims that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea for the world’s most popular social networking site.

U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock in Boston dismissed the case on Friday. The Winklevosses abandoned an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court last month. Instead the Winklevoss twins and their business partner Divya Narendra asked Woodlock for permission to investigate whether Facebook had suppressed instant messages and other evidence during settlement talks.

The Winklevosses’ attorney Tyler Meade said Friday that he expected the ruling and would be submitting a post-judgment motion relying on a federal rule that allows judges to reopen a case if vital information was not produced. So this may not yet end the seven-year legal feud that was featured in the hit movie “The Social Network.”

The Winklevosses could not be reached for comment. Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes declined to comment.

In June, the Winklevosses abandoned an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. They had wanted the nation’s highest court to review the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that upheld the $65-million cash-and-stock settlement they reached in 2008 with Facebook.

Instead they said they would focus on claims in federal court in Boston that Facebook and its lawyers hid instant messages from them during litigation.

The Winklevosses have been trying for years to undo the settlement, alleging that Facebook duped them about the value of the shares they received. They persisted in their efforts even as the value of the settlement soared to more than $200 million along with the valuation of Facebook, one of Silicon Valley’s hottest companies.

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– Jessica Guynn

Photo: Cameron, left, and Tyler Winklevoss Photo credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Article source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/07/facebook-wins-dismissal-of-winklevoss-case.html

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More hints of Google+ gaming crop up

One of the knocks against Google+ when putting it toe to toe with Facebook is social gaming, a feature that’s turned into a monster business for both Facebook and the developers that have built Web games that run inside it.

Today one more sign that Google plans to bring something similar to Google+ has cropped up, suggesting the search giant is getting closer to adding games to the social network that is now 20 million users strong.

Slashgear today has dug up a help page from within Google+’s settings making mention of a “Games Stream” that Google says will contain “updates shared from games.” Venturing to the same help page on several CNET staffers’ Google+ accounts yielded no such link or mention of the feature, though Slashgear has posted a screenshot that depicts it being there.

This is the latest in a series of signs that gaming is on its way to Google+. The day after the social network launched, Engadget pulled out a snippet of code from the site making mention of game invites and “Google+ Games.” Last week, TechCrunch followed up, pulling out a Google Games logo and code meant to link up features to an API. And a report from All Things D yesterday claimed that Google planned to undercut Facebook and others by taking less than 30 percent of revenue on any paid game elements, as well as hosting the titles on its own servers. (Note: Google currently gets a 5 percent take in Chrome Web Store apps.)

On top of it all, a Google job posting late last month sought a product manager for a “brand-new business” called “Games at Google.”

Potentially the framework of it all is Google’s Chrome Web Store. That service, which the company launched at last year’s I/O event, lets users browse and install numerous Web apps, including games. Considering Google+’s multi-browser aim, the company could be going for something that limits those games to HTML5 or Adobe’s Flash to keep things working across the board.

Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20082013-93/more-hints-of-google-gaming-crop-up/

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Africans pour anger, sadness onto Twitter over famine

By Barry Malone

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Thousands of Africans are taking to Twitter to vent grief and anger over another famine in Somalia, raising money and comforting each other — a stark illustration of a continent embracing a digital future but lamenting timeworn failings.

When news began to break that what many referred to as “the F-word” was now official in parts of the war-wracked Horn of Africa country, the social networking site Twitter lit up.

By mid-Friday, some Twitter statistics websites said that twenty tweets a minute were about the famine and a growing number were from Africans who previously had not engaged in such widespread pan-continental debates using what is still relatively new technology.

Debates that had raged through weeks of drought gained momentum when the famine was declared Wednesday and many were angry things had deteriorated so much.

“The emergency in the Horn of Africa should be attributed to respective governments and al Shabaab (Somalia’s Islamist rebels) not the lack of rain,” wrote a Twitter account called Conflict Media.

Somalis, Ethiopians and Kenyans did not hold back from attacking their governments for failing to prepare for a predictable drought and for reacting slowly when it became clear some 10 million people were going hungry in the three countries.

“It’s just depressing that it’s a pattern and EVERY time we’re *surprised* the drought is here!” wrote Leyou from Ethiopia.

Though Twitter penetration in Africa is still much lower than other parts of the world, it is growing fast as technology improves, mobile networks spread and thousands are now accessing the Internet on their phones.

  Continued…

Article source: http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE76L2ES20110722

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Chavez Governs Venezuela Via Twitter from Cuba

AP2011

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez is seen on a TV screen as he delivers a televised speech aired from Cuba, Thursday, June 30, 2011. Chavez said he underwent a second surgery in Cuba that removed a cancerous tumor. It was unclear when and where the message was recorded. At right, a painting depicting Venezuela’s Independence hero Simon Bolivar, at left, a Venezuelan flag. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

CARACAS, Venezuela –  Call him Tweeter-in-Chief.

Hugo Chávez is using Twitter as a tool to govern Venezuela while he undergoes cancer treatment in Cuba.

In more than 40 messages this week on his “Chávezcandanga” account, he has approved money for a Caracas trash collection project, praised plans for a new park and cheered on the national soccer team.

Chávez hasn’t mentioned anything about his chemotherapy but has alluded to his personal battle time and again, as he did in one tweet to a supporter on Tuesday: “We’re moving along here, brother! With God and the Virgin!”

Chávez boasts more than 1.8 million followers, and his messages also regularly pop up on the screen on state television in Venezuela.

A leader who knows well how to choose his sound bites, Chávez has used Twitter to remain in the news at home even as he is out-of-pocket and not making his usual appearances on television.

He did just that Thursday morning in a flurry of messages when he complained about a referee’s call during Venezuela’s soccer match against Paraguay at the Copa America tournament in Argentina. Chávez said he had been watching alongside Fidel Castro, and they both agreed it was a bad call.

“In my modest opinion… THEY ROBBED US OF THE VICTORY GOAL! And I hope that with this I’m not offending anybody!” one of the messages said.

In messages earlier in the week, Chávez greeted Cabinet ministers and touted a public housing construction program. He said he had approved the equivalent of more than $25 million for a new trash-collection company in Caracas, $51 million for a state government and $37 million for the organization Frente Francisco de Miranda, which promotes efforts to transform Venezuela into a socialist state.

Turning to international affairs, Chávez directed a message to Mexican leader Felipe Calderón, saying: “Hey President Calderón, my friend, I thank you for your good wishes.”

The 56-year-old Chávez underwent surgery in Cuba on June 20 to remove a cancerous tumor. He hasn’t said what type of cancer has been diagnosed or specified where exactly it was located, saying only that it was in his pelvic region. He says chemotherapy is necessary to ensure cancer cells don’t reappear.

On Twitter, his only references to his treatment have been vague and filled with optimistic slogans.

As he signed off one night, the message read: “From here, closing another day of this Battle for Life.”

This story is based on Associated Press reporting. 

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Article source: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/07/22/chavez-governs-venezuela-via-twitter-from-cuba/

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Google+ hits 20 million users in less than a month

Trevor MoggJuly 21, 2011

• Social Media

Google+ continues to go from strength to strength, with 20 million people visiting the site in less than a month – and all this despite it currently being an invite-only service.

Google+ may still have some way to go to equal Facebook’s 700 million users and Twitter’s 200 million, but 20 million unique visitors to the new social networking site in the space of just three weeks isn’t a bad way to start. Of the 20 million, five million were inside the US. The Google+ iPhone app released on Tuesday is sure to boost numbers further.

The new service allows members to create a variety of groups, called “circles,” enabling them to share information and content with only the people they choose. One circle could be made up of co-workers, while another might consist entirely of family members.

The statistics, reported by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, come from web analytics company comScore, who based its results on a “global measurement panel” of two million Internet users.

Speaking about the findings, vice president of industry analysis at comScore, Andrew Lipsman, commented: “I’ve never seen anything grow this quickly. The only other site that has accumulated as many new visitors in a short period of time is Twitter in 2009, but that happened over several months.”

What makes the figures all the more remarkable is that the new social networking service is currently open only to those who receive invites. “Right now, we’re testing with a small number of people,” the Google+ homepage says, “but it won’t be long before the Google+ project is ready for everyone.” We can safely assume that the line on the graph will go through the roof when the doors open to all.

The long-term plan for Google+ is to integrate it with other Google services such as YouTube and Gmail. When that happens, it’ll become a service to be reckoned with and will likely begin to make big gains on competitors such as Facebook and Twitter.

More About: Facebook, Google, Google Plus, Twitter

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Article source: http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/google-hits-20-million-users-in-less-than-a-month/

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Hacker arrests: Some were on Facebook, some blogged

A 20-year-old university student from Las Vegas says on her Facebook page she likes volleyball and bowling; on his Facebook page, a 27-year-old Colorado man describes his main interests as cars, games, movies and racing on his profile; and a 21-year-old Florida man writes on his personal blog how he hates the state because of “old people,” tourists and “illegal immigrants.”

They’re a disparate group, tied together by their arrests around the nation this week by the FBI in connection with the hacking group Anonymous.

Fourteen of the arrests were tied to Anonymous’ attacks last December on PayPal as retribution for dropping WikiLeaks’ donation account; another two people were arrested on other charges, one related to intrusion and theft from computer systems at InfraGard, which has an IT contract with the FBI; and another on similar charges involving ATT. The ages of those charged range from 20 to 42 and included two women; one defendant’s age and gender was not released by the feds, and is thought to be 16-year-old girl.

In an era of just about everything and anything is online, some of those charged previously posted personal details on various social networking websites, from Facebook to MySpace to Twitter. The veracity of those details aren’t known, but they provide a snapshot of some of those charged.

Mercedes Renee Haefer’s Facebook profile shows photos of a happy, playful young woman who graduated from high school in Arkansas in 2009, and says she is married. She lists herself as part of the “Class of 2014″ at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with an emphasis in social sciences.

Her Facebook list of activities, aside from volleyball and bowling, also include playing video games on Xbox Live and the Sony PlayStation; her gamer tag is “Melloman92.” On one Electronic Arts forum, she shared frustrations with another player about the soccer game “Fifa 11″ freezing on “Career Mode”:

“Every time I try to begin my next game on manager mode it freezes,” she wrote. “I’ve tried to change my line-up and various other settings but nothing. I can’t sim the game either because it goes through the same ‘warming up…’ process. Even if they do patch this I can’t get internet on my PS3 so looks Im gonna have to start a new manager. Anyone overcome this problem or have any ideas of how to get around this?”

Another one of those charged, Drew Alan Phillips, 26, liked to help other gamers, it seemed, and was described by TPMIdeaLab as “an avid online gamer and frequent coding message board commenter.”

Vincent Charles Kershaw

Vincent Charles Kershaw, 27, also charged, is from Fort Collins, Colo. His Facebook and MySpace pages show Kershaw’s devotion to a primary interest: cars and his work, as a foreman for a landscaping company for the past three years.

Under “Books,” he lists simply “service manuals.” His preferred music includes rock, pop and country, with Taylor Swift and Nickelback among his favorites. If he is a hacker, or even interested in computers — other than playing the game “Halo” — it’s not shared on Facebook. His MySpace page, last updated in May, still holds his personal writings about a past relationship and the pain he went through some years ago.

According to an Associated Press report, when Kershaw was charged this week in Denver on the hacking charges, Judge Craig Shaffer ordered him released on $10,000 unsecured bond, and as with other suspects in the case, banned him from Internet access, at least until a Sept. 1 hearing in federal court in San Jose, California.

Kershaw was also ordered to allow pretrial supervisors to check his home for Internet access, abstain from drugs and alcohol and submit to urinalysis tests.

Kershaw wore a brown jail jumpsuit and his wrists were cuffed to a chain around his waist. His brown hair was cropped short and he had a bushy beard the width of his mouth jutting from his chin.

He appeared amiable and relaxed, answering “yes, sir” to Shaffer’s questions. When Shaffer finished reading the conditions of Kershaw’s release, Kershaw said, “Sounds good.”

Scott Matthew Arciszewski, 21, of Orlando, is not among the 14; he is one of the two other defendants charged with intentional damage to a protected computer, in his case, for allegedly accessing the Tampa Bay InfraGard website without authorization and uploading three files.

“The complaint alleges that Arciszewski then tweeted about the intrusion and directed visitors to a separate website containing links with instructions on how to exploit the Tampa InfraGard website,” the Department of Justice said. “InfraGard is a public-private partnership for critical infrastructure protection sponsored by the FBI with chapters in all 50 states.”

The InfraGard hack made headlines because of its high-profile connection to the FBI. And Arciszewski — known as “voodooKobra” on Twitter and whose “Kobra’s Corner” website — now taken down, but cached — featured not only information about InfraGard’s computer security vulnerability, but an abundance of the Florida native’s disdain for the state.

In a blog posting called “Florida sucks!” he listed “old people,” tourists and “illegal immigrants” as the top reasons:

…the idea of waiting in traffic because some old guy doesn’t remember where he is or which pedal accelerates doesn’t appeal to me. … Second only to the elderly in both aggravation and road congestion is tourism. Tourists all drive down to Florida at top speed just so they can drive around at 10 mph and gawk at the surroundings because nobody has ever seen a palm tree outside of the state of Florida before … Don’t listen to the tourism boards — Florida isn’t beautiful. Florida is just a dried up old swamp that the old people flock to so they can die en masse. … California through Texas and up have a problem with the number of illegal Mexicans in the population. In Florida, we get … a growing population of both illegal Mexicans and Cubans. Throw in illegal Jamaicans turned drug-dealers and you have a recipe for disaster.

Arciszewski was released from custody, and has taken some steps to try to minimize his online life. In addition to taking down his website, his Twitter feed with some of his last entries has been shielded from public view as “protected.”

But some of those tweets were still visible earlier in the week, including one with an Anonymous leader known on Twitter as AnonymouSabu and another Anonymous member on July 18, a day before Arciszewski’s arrest.

“Is this the ‘fun’ mission you guys were talking about, or is that something even better?” Arciszewski tweeted, although the context of that message is not known.

In the previous day, he also tweeted about his financial worries.

“I don’t own a car and the only bicycle I own has no brakes and the handlebars are loose. I have less than $60 to my name until August.”

“My cell phone is also currently out of service due to being broke. I tried to reactivate it today and (Metro PCS) went ‘hahaha no.’ “

Arciszewski’s Facebook page, until this week, not only mentioned he is attending the University of Central Florida, but also his major, computer engineering. On Thursday, two days after his world turned upside down when he was arrested, the Facebook page reflected only that he was a student there, and not his area of study.

Related stories:

• Hackers to FBI: ‘We are not scared anymore’
• Hackers claim to breach NATO security
• U.S. sees cyber arrests leading to more hackers
• U.S. arrests 16 in probe of Anonymous hackers

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

Article source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/21/7137688-hacker-arrests-some-were-on-facebook-some-blogged

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