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Over the past week, social media feeds and Internet sites were filled with tales of fighting the winter blues.

With temperatures dropping below zero, meteorologists posted constant updates, parents shared school closing announcements and commuters took dashboard photos listing temperatures as low as minus 17 degrees. When snow and ice accumulated over the weekend, self-proclaimed traffic reporters posted Facebook warnings to stay off the roads.

Others admitted to checking warm-weather vacation websites. Friends living on the West Coast mocked those in the East. I live in Los Angeles, I am coping just fine! former Pittsburgher Michael McNeirney said.

North Huntington resident Randy Persi admitted to booking a vacation to Florida online.

California University of Pennsylvania graduate Mark Gregris posted scuba diving pictures from his trip to Belize.

Some people preferred creativity to vacation planning. Finleyville resident Phil Obidzinski uploaded recent photographs. Winter weather sometimes helps create great pictures, he said.

Pittsburgher Kahmeela Adams produced and edited podcasts for her website ruggedangel.com. Kim Coyle Bevan of Eighty Four finished constructing minion lawn ornaments. Her pictures proved she made one for every holiday.

Meanwhile, the Sauer family hosted a poetry event called Word Circus last Friday night at their establishment: Most Wanted Fine Art, a gallery, music and performance space on Penn Avenue in Garfield. Jason also painted a portrait of his friends dog, said Nina Sauer.

April May Ohms of Greenfield performed in Lend Me a Tenor at the Theatre Factory in Trafford. Only about 25 percent of the reservations showed up Friday and Saturday night. On Sunday, we played to a full house! she said.

Amy Barker Meyers enjoyed listening to her son Adams band, Man and the Arena, at a local pub.

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Social networking turns to tales of cold and snow

New Delhi, Feb 26:

Social networking giant Facebook has paid over $3 million since 2011 to security researchers who report bugs on its website, with India topping the tally with the largest number of valid threats reported.

India, which has over 112 million Facebook users, cornered an average reward of $1,343 (about Rs 84,000) in the US-based firms Bug Bounty programme.

India contributed the largest number of valid bugs again this year at 196, with an average reward of $1,343, Facebook said in a post.

Egypt and the US followed at the second and third spots by volume, with 81 bugs and 61 bugs, respectively, and an average reward size of $1,220 and $2,470, it added.

The UK, which took the fourth spot in reporting bugs, earned the highest amount per report in 2014, receiving an average of $2,768 for 28 bugs.

The Philippines was at fifth, earning a total of $29,500 for 27 bugs, it said.

A bug is an error or defect in software or hardware that causes a programme to malfunction. It often occurs due to conflicts in software when applications try to run in tandem.

While bugs can cause software to crash or produce unexpected results, certain defects can be used to gain unauthorised access to systems.

Weve paid out more than $3 million since we got started in 2011, and in 2014 we paid $1.3 million to 321 researchers across the globe. The average reward in 2014 was $1,788, Facebook Security Engineer Collin Greene said in the post.

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Facebook pays bug hunters $3mn; India reports largest number of threats

In January 2014, a man was arrested as part of a major investigation into online child sexual exploitation. The individual had more than 80 social networking profiles, email addresses, and video chat accounts to sexually abuse children via webcams on compute

Once victims had sent him an indecent image or video of themselves, he started threatening them and involving them in far more serious abuse.

The youngest child was an eight-year-old girl she was forced to involve other children in the abuse. The suspect pretended to be a 13-year-old boy.

His case was one of a number highlighted in a report on sexual exploitation of children online, published by Europol, the EU police agency.

The suspect also coerced adult men into performing a sexual act via webcam which was recorded and used against them unless they paid money.

The report said it was not known if the indecent materials provided by the children were commercially distributed online, but added: Bearing in mind the profile of the suspect, this possibility cannot be excluded.

In a second case, a 17-year-old girl was a victim of extortion which started when her boyfriend took a photo of her breasts with his mobile phone, and shared it with his 17-year-old friend.

The latter sent the photo via a social media platform to the victim to inform her he had it, demanding money and threatening her with publishing her photo elsewhere if she refused to pay.

Verbal blackmailing also took place at school. The girl gradually began to give him 10 or 20 over the course of a few months, totalling about 600.

In a third case, a 17-year-old boy in Edinburgh took his own life in July 2013. He had been targeted online by an offender who posed as a teenage girl and with whom he had shared indecent images of himself. The victim was then blackmailed by the offender, demanding money. He was told that if he failed to pay he would post the victims naked images on social networking sites.

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EU report on online child sex abuse a wake up call

Forced Blood Draws, DNA Collection and Biometric Scans: What Country Is This?

By John W. Whitehead

February 24, 2015

The Fourth Amendment was designed to stand between us and arbitrary governmental authority. For all practical purposes, that shield has been shattered, leaving our liberty and personal integrity subject to the whim of every cop on the beat, trooper on the highway and jail official. The framers would be appalled.Herman Schwartz,The Nation

Our freedomsespecially the Fourth Amendmentare being choked out by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats that they have the right to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrestanyindividual atanytime and for theslightestprovocation.

Forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databasesthese are just a few ways in which Americans are being forced to accept that we have no control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials.

Worse, on a daily basis, Americans are being made to relinquish the most intimate details of who we areour biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)in order to clear the nearly insurmountable hurdle that increasingly defines life in the United States: we are all guilty until proven innocent.

Thus far, the courts have done little to preserve our Fourth Amendment rights, let alone what shreds of bodily integrity remain to us.

For example, David Eckert was forced to undergoan anal cavity search, three enemas, and a colonoscopyafter allegedly failing to yield to a stop sign at a Wal-Mart parking lot. Cops justified the searches on the grounds that they suspected Eckert was carrying drugs because his posture [was] erect and he kept his legs together. No drugs were found. During a routine traffic stop, Leila Tarantino was subjected to two roadside strip searches in plain view of passing traffic, during which afemale officer forcibly removed a tampon from Tarantino. Nothing illegal was found. Nevertheless, such searches have been sanctioned by the courts, especially if accompanied by a search warrant (which is easily procured), as justified in the governments pursuit of drugs and weapons.

Close to 600 motorists leaving Penn State University one Friday night were stopped by police and, without their knowledge or consent, subjected to a breathalyzer test usingflashlights that can detect the presence of alcohol on a persons breath. These passive alcohol sensors are being hailed as a new weapon in the fight against DUIs. However, because they cannot be used as the basis for arrest, breathalyzer tests are still required. And for those who refuse to submit to a breathalyzer, there are forced blood draws. One such person is Michael Chorosky, who was surrounded by police, strapped to a gurney and thenhad his blood forcibly drawn after refusing to submit to a breathalyzer test. What country is this? What country is this? cried Chorosky during the forced blood draw.Thirty states presently allow police to do forced blood draws on driversas part of a nationwide No Refusal initiative funded by the federal government.

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Forced Blood Draws, DNA Collection and Biometric Scans: What Country Is This?

NSA, British spies hack Gemalto to tap mobile calls - Intercept
17 - AMERICAN AND BRITISH spies hacked into the internal computer. allow U.S. or U.K. spy agencies access to the mobile communications of .US, UK Spies Hacked Gemalto to Intercept Mobile...

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NSA, British spies hack Gemalto to tap mobile calls - Intercept - Video