Botnets - How To Defeat The Zombie Army | AVG (AU/NZ) Blog

A botnet (or as it is often known in security circles, a zombie army), is a collection of personal or business computers or devices that have been compromised by malware or hackers. Unbeknownst to their gentle users, these computers (or ?bots?), are then amassed into vast techno-armies for the purposes of forwarding further viruses or spam to other users, or to conduct large-scale cyber-terrorist attacks such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) or industrial click-fraud.

Botnets use a mixture of convential malware attack vectors (drive-by-exploits, cracked or illegal software, ?free? pornography, etc) and social engineering?to gather fresh recruits. Botnet techniques are particularly insidious in that individual computers often continue to transmit data to its botnet commanders long after the user has detected and ?removed? the initial malware. Once established, they will use well known and trusted internet protocols such as HTTP (World Wide Web) and IRC (Internet Relay Chat) to keep in touch with their victims, and will employ a range of techniques to thwart conventional anti-virus software. AVG?s malware researchers have worked with the wider security population to uncover botnets numbering as few as a couple of hundred zombies to botnets of up to several million!

So, how do you know if you?ve been compromised, and how do you prevent it?

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How to spot a bot

Beware of sudden, unexpected changes to your online experience:

• If your computer begins to behave erratically or run particularly slowly
• If your friends and family begin to complain that you are sending them spam or malware, or if you have messages in your sent items that you didn?t send
• If your security software detects threats when you aren?t even online
• If your internet usage spikes unexpectedly or your ISP detects strange behaviour from your machine

All of these can be indicators that your computer has been compromised. If you think you are compromised, then we recommend that you run a fully featured?Internet Security scan through your machine, or seek professional assistance. In many cases it is easier and more cost-effective to reinstall your operating system than it is to continue using a computer that is being controlled by a shady third party.

Apart from this, the old adage holds true ? prevention is better than a cure:

?

Update your operating system

Botnets almost exclusively target the Microsoft Windows operating system, primarily because Windows has the lion?s share of the home and business computer market and represents the biggest financial return for the bad guys. Microsoft works as hard as anyone to prevent it?s customers from being infected, so it is absolutely critical that you download the latest updates, including security patches, when and as they are available. Don?t click the ?remind me later? button every four hours (that?s just lazy), and don?t refuse to update your system because you are ?happy with what you?ve got? (that?s just naive and foolish).

?

Use a full internet security suite with behavioural analysis

Conventional anti-virus, whilst it may or may not be successful in fighting off the initial malware attack, is not sufficient to detect or prevent botnet behaviour once the computer has been compromised. Rather than having a piece of software which just scans your hard-drive for known virus signatures, you need software which also scans active processes and launched software based on what it is trying to do.?So, if a harmless and trusted web browser (such as Internet Explorer or Google Chrome) is behaving in a way that is not congruent with normal web behaviour, a full security suite can flag and prevent the communication as malicious. AVG?s unique Identity Protection software, available in AVG Internet Security, is one such behavioural analysis solution.

?

Use both a hardware and software firewall

Firewalls are another critical level of protection in the fight against the zombie army. Open ports are a botnet?s best friend ? Trojans and other malware left on compromised machines will keep specific ports open for the purposes of command and control. Unfortunately, the Windows Firewall is often not sufficient protection ? you need a flexible, two-way firewall that can block both application based and system based communication on the way out as well as on the way in. If you?re a home user, you should also use a hardware firewall, which are included as a standard feature with most of today?s modems and routers. If you are directly connected to the internet, with no hardware or software firewall between you and the bad guys, you are effectively at their mercy regardless of any other security software you run.

?

Control your behaviour

Finally, it is critical that you don?t lose sight of the fact that the online world, with all its bright lights and apparent anonymity, is just as dangerous as any other (if not more so). It only takes one visit to a dodgy site or one piece of illegally downloaded software to become part of a botnet, and the consequences will usually far outweigh the advantages. Treat the internet with respect, don?t expect that it will be able to do the impossible for you, and you and it should get along fine.

?

Until next time, stay safe out there!

?

?

Filed under: Home, Malware, Security Risks Tags: Tags: botnets, identity theft, malware, security risks by Peter Kipp Date 29 June, 2012

Source: http://resources.avg.com.au/security_risks/botnets/

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Texas Tornados in concert this Saturday

The Texas Tornados will be performing at The State Theatre on Saturday, June 30 at 8 p.m. The Tex_mex band includes original members Flaco Jimenex, a Grammy-winning accordion player) and Augie Meyers on the organ. Shawn Sahm will also be joining the band on the guitar and vocals.

The band will be backed by the original Tornados rhythm section.

The doors to the event open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25, $28 and $35. The State Theatre is located at 1307 J Street in Modesto.

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Israel Matzav: Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Shavua tov v'chodesh tov, a good week and a good month to everyone.

Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Friday, June 22.

1) The anatomy of coverage of Israel

There were recently two articles in the New York Times. One was in an opinion section called "Latitudes." The other was in the news section. Despite the different editorial locations, comparing the two articles can serve as an exercise to see how a newspaper's reporting can distort perceptions.

The article appearing in the Latitudes section, Bangladesh?s Right of Refusal by Dan Morrison, tells of the plight of the Rohingyas, an ethnic group fleeing persecution in Myanmar. Morrison writes:

Bangladesh?s refusal to help these desperate families is, despite its claims to the contrary, a likely violation of its international obligations.
It?s also entirely reasonable.
...
Bangladeshi officials might serve their case better by condemning the violence while pointing out that Bangladesh is among the world?s poorest and most densely populated countries, that in 1978 and 1991 it sheltered Rohingyas fleeing ethnic cleansing in Myanmar and that as it struggles to meet the aspirations of its 160 million citizens, it cannot consider another ?temporary? influx of refugees.

Note Morrison's judgment, that Bangladesh's decision to turn away refugees is "reasonable."

The article in the news section, Crackdown on Migrants Tugs at Soul of Israelis was reported by Isabel Kershner. In the middle of the article Kershner notes:

For now, most of the immigrants and asylum seekers ? about 50,000 ? cannot be deported, in line with international conventions. They come from Sudan and Eritrea, countries considered too dangerous for their repatriation, and so they are afforded temporary collective protection in Israel. That protection was recently lifted for immigrants from South Sudan. On June 7, a Jerusalem court ruled that it was safe enough to repatriate them to South Sudan, a newly independent nation that has diplomatic ties with Israel.

This is saying that, unlike Bangladesh, Israel does conform to its international obligations regarding refugees, yet here are the fourth and fifth paragraphs:

But the government clampdown is also ripping at Israel?s soul. For some, the connotations of roundups and the prospect of mass detentions cut too close to the bone.
?I feel I am in a movie in Germany, circa 1933 or 1936,? said Orly Feldheim, 46, a daughter of Holocaust survivors, as she doled out food last week to a long line of immigrants in the neighborhood?s Levinsky Park.

This is how Kershner sets the tone for the article. (The headline writer, no doubt, understood how compelling this could be and included "soul," making sure that no one would ignore these paragraphs.) She's not writing that Israel has higher standards and is, perhaps, not meeting those standards. She's writing that Israel's failure to meet her standards, makes it comparable to Nazi Germany. Of course, Kershner would say that it's not her view but the view of the woman she quoted.

The problem is that Ms.Feldheim isn't just a random resident, a Google search reveals that she runs a soup kitchen for African refugees. There is nothing wrong with that; in fact it's admirable. But it also means that she isn't exactly a detached observer. Activists often exaggerate crises. Kershner, I'm sure, knew more about Feldheim than she reported and probably knew what kind of quote she would get.

Kershner cites two more criticisms. First she writes:

People can apply for refugee status, but priority is given to those not covered by collective protection, said Sabine Haddad, a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry?s Population, Immigration and Border Authority. The approval rate is negligible. Since 2009, out of 7,000 applications, 16 people were granted refugee status or asylum.
Critics say that Israel, a nation largely founded by refugees, lacks a proper immigration policy.
?We say: ?Be fair, we are Jews. Decide who is or isn?t a refugee,? ? said Iftah Cohen, a lawyer working for We Are Refugees, an Israeli organization that provides free legal aid to asylum seekers threatened with deportation.

Towards the end she also mentions:

Some Israelis invoke the biblical injunction to ?love the stranger for we were strangers in the land of Egypt.? Others say they now feel like strangers in their own country.

Even if someone rejects the noxious comparison to Nazi Germany, the reference to Israel's being a haven for Jews escaping persecution and the Bible suggest that Israel's failure to deal with the refugees adequately is nothing less than a violation of its founding principles.

In fact refugees are a problem all over. Little in the article suggests that Israel's handling of them is unusuallly bad or inhumane, except that activists involved in helping refugees claim that it is. And that is the impression the reporter leaves us with. No doubt in the future she can write about the refugees again and refer to Israel's "highly criticized" or "controversial" policies now that she's laid the groundwork.

2) The Palace coup and the aftermath

Earlier this week, Daniel Pipes wrote (h/t Daled Amos)

Some of us, of course, have been saying precisely this for almost 1? years, from even before Husni Mubarak's resignation. Mubarak had displeased the generals, especially his efforts to found a dynasty, and they took advantage of the Tahrir Square demonstrations to bounce him. Simple, no?
...The starry-eyed quality of press reporting on the Middle East upheavals, symbolized by the silly term "Arab spring," meant that most Westerners have been clueless about developments in the region.

Now that Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court has disqualified a significant portion of the legislature, what's next.

Michael Rubin, in In Egypt, a rare second chance for US to support democracy, writes first of the electoral miscalculations made by the Muslim Brotherhood:

Egyptians had voted for Islamists initially not because they uniformly shared the groups' agenda, but rather because the Islamist parties?with financial support from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey?ran swank, well-organized campaigns which cashed in on decades of populism.
While in opposition, the Brotherhood could promise Egyptians the world: If empowered, the Brotherhood would end corruption and nepotism, implement effective government services, raise salaries, guarantee housing and provide jobs, and restore social justice. Putting a chicken in every pot, however, takes not only money but also chickens and pots. The Brotherhood not only could not deliver but, increasingly, it looked like it did not care even to try. It dispensed with the moderate, English-speaking interlocutors who had charmed Western journalists in Tahrir Square, and cast its lot with intolerant, backroom religious conservatives.

Later, Rubin concludes:

With the Muslim Brotherhood demonstrating disdain for democratic values, and Shafik little more than a throwback to a moribund dictatorship, President Obama has an opportunity to implement a true freedom agenda. Speaking in Cairo three years ago this month, Obama warned, "Elections alone do not make true democracy," and called on governments to maintain consent and eschew coercion, respect minorities, embrace tolerance and compromise, and put the public's interests first.
Egypt is at a crossroads. One path leads to civil chaos and another leads to dictatorship. As both sides delegitimize themselves, however, Obama has a rare opportunity to pick up where Bush left off, and support the growth of new movements which embrace the values of Tahrir Square's original protestors.

This is, of course, ideal. But is it possible? Do the "new movements" have the critical mass necessary to effect change in Egypt? Or might it be necessary embrace the less bad choice for now and bide time until the real reformers can compete? Barry Rubin has observed that Shafiq actually sounded rather moderate during the campaign.

Dore Gold cites another reason to be wary of the Muslim Brotherhood (h/t Elder of Ziyon)

Without relating to the Muslim Brotherhood, spokesmen for the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon decided to press the Egyptian Army to relinquish the governing role it is seeking to carve out for itself. But what if Morsi is declared the victor? Wouldn't it make more sense to allow the balance of powers between these institutions to evolve by themselves, with no external involvement? For decades, the Turkish Armed Forces were the guardians of Ataturk's legacy in Turkey, until the rise of Erdogan.
Nevertheless, according to the Los Angeles Times, U.S. officials said on Monday that they were "deeply concerned by an Egyptian military decree giving the generals sweeping powers to pass laws and decide whether to go to war." This was a stunning statement, considering that the Muslim Brotherhood might still emerge as the winner. Right now, given the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and its ties to its Palestinian branch, Hamas, leaving Egypt's war-making powers with the Egyptian military is far safer for the world than transferring them to a Muslim Brotherhood government.

For now Egypt's military establishment has flexed its muscle twice. First they forced Mubarak out. Now they are limiting the political change that has occurred since Mubarak's downfall. Though this may not be the best result of the foment, it's possible that this isn't the worst possible outcome either.

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Justin Bieber Unplugs, Opens Up During 'Bieber Live'

'I work hard, and music is really important to me,' JB tells 100 lucky fans during MTV News special celebrating the release of Believe.
By Kara Warner, with reporting by Sway Calloway

Justin Bieber performs during "Bieber Live"
Photo:

Justin Bieber's presence in our Times Square studio for the 30-minute special "Bieber Live" was cause for celebration, expertly timed with the release of his new album, Believe, which arrived in stores today.

Bieber kicked off the MTV News special with a stripped-down performance of "Die in Your Arms," which, in addition, to inducing frenzied screams from the 100 lucky fans in the audience, set the tone for an insightful and lighthearted look into how much of himself Bieber put into the new album.

Speaking to his inspiration for the dance track "All Around the World," featuring Ludacris, Bieber said he was introduced to more and more dance music throughout his world travels and wanted to be able to showcase it in some way on Believe.

"I wanted to incorporate it somewhat into my music and not overly use it," he said. "But I felt like 'All Around the World' has that melodic feel to it, but also that dance feel, so I felt that was the perfect song for me."

Bieber said he is grateful Ludacris was able to contribute to another one of his songs.

"To reunite with him was awesome," Bieber said of Ludacris. "All my fans now love Luda because of 'Baby,' so having him back on this song was great. I'm taller than him now," he added with a smile.

The 18-year-old was also happy to surprise the audience with two special gifts: a copy of Believe and a bottle of his new fragrance, Girlfriend, which he described as being "not too fruity, nice and flowery."

"I told them they have to smell like all of my fans," Bieber said of what he wanted the perfume manufacturers to incorporate in the fragrance. "Not too fruity, nice and flowery. There's a cherry scent in there. In each bottle of Girlfriend, there's a little bit of my sweat, it's a secret ingredient," he joked.

In closing, Bieber thanked his devoted fans, but also offered up a message to those who aren't yet fans or haven't given him a chance.

"I was very involved in the process [of making this album] — I played instruments, produced, wrote — so I want people to know it's not all hype," he said. "I want people to know I've been working hard on my music. Focus on the music. Don't think I'm just this product pushed out there. I work hard, and music is really important to me. I see a lot of hate online, which is inevitable, but at the end of the day, I'm just trying to prove them wrong by making good music."

Stick with MTV News all week as we roll out more from our exclusive "Bieber Live" interview!

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Lima's unlikely superhero

In this photo taken June 13, 2012, Avelino Chavez, wearing his signature Superman costume, waves and greets riot police walking in formation toward a plaza where a protest is expected to take place in downtown Lima, Peru. Chavez, 52, took on the Superman persona 15 years ago, when he lost his job as a security guard, and says he has had work ever since. Chavez also says he only earns about $160 US dollars per month, but that he has the strength of a superhero. Chavez currently works to promote a travel agency. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

In this photo taken June 13, 2012, Avelino Chavez, wearing his signature Superman costume, waves and greets riot police walking in formation toward a plaza where a protest is expected to take place in downtown Lima, Peru. Chavez, 52, took on the Superman persona 15 years ago, when he lost his job as a security guard, and says he has had work ever since. Chavez also says he only earns about $160 US dollars per month, but that he has the strength of a superhero. Chavez currently works to promote a travel agency. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

In this photo taken June 14, 2012, Avelino Chavez, wearing his signature Superman costume, combs his hair at his home in Lima, Peru. Chavez, 52, took on the Superman persona 15 years ago, when he lost his job as a security guard, and says he has had work ever since. Chavez also says he only earns about $160 US dollars per month, but that he has the strength of a superhero. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

In this photo taken June 14, 2012, Avelino Chavez, wearing his signature Superman costume, poses for pictures with tourists in downtown Lima, Peru. Chavez, 52, took on the Superman persona 15 years ago, when he lost his job as a security guard, and says he has had work ever since. Chavez also says he only earns about $160 US dollars per month, but that he has the strength of a superhero. Chavez currently works to promote a travel agency. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

In this photo taken June 14, 2012, Avelino Chavez, wearing his signature Superman costume, combs his hair at his home in Lima, Peru. Chavez, 52, took on the Superman persona 15 years ago, when he lost his job as a security guard, and says he has had work ever since. Chavez also says he only earns about $160 US dollars per month, but that he has the strength of a superhero. Chavez currently works to promote a travel agency. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

Avelino Chavez, wearing his signature Superman costume, talks with tourist police in the main square in downtown Lima, Peru, Friday, June 15, 2012. Chavez, 52, took on the Superman persona 15 years ago, when he lost his job as a security guard, and says he has had work ever since. Chavez also says he only earns about $160 US dollars per month, but that he has the strength of a superhero. Chavez currently works to promote a travel agency. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

LIMA, Peru (AP) ? It's not easy being Superman.

It only earns about $160 a month for Avelino Chavez, who dresses up daily as the caped hero.

But oh, the adventures!

The 52-year-old Chavez can't fly but does seem to be everywhere in Lima: at political rallies and speeches, at a wedding shoot for Peru's famed opera tenor Juan Diego Florez, hawking tours and flights on behalf of a travel agency in the central Plaza de Armas.

"Hola Superman!" people shout to him.

"Hola, Superamigo!" he'll shout back.

Chavez became a superhero 15 years ago after a failed go at bullfighting and jobs as a craftsman, laboratory worker and brothel security guard.

"I lost my job but realized that I could be Superman. I went to the store and bought a blue shirt and a cousin of mine who is a seamstress sewed the cape, the boots, the belt and the red tights," he told The Associated Press.

He hasn't lacked for work since.

One political party even asked him to run for Congress a decade ago. He agreed, but didn't win the seat.

Chavez says he tries to "maintain order in the city." In 2002, he says, he recovered a purse stolen from a woman by a thief..

"My Kryptonite is my security," he says, referring to the fictional element that is a weakness of the comic book character whose identity he's fused with his own.

As a younger man, Chavez said he sometimes dressed as Carlos Gardel, the Argentine crooner whose tangos "cut to the soul" or wore a beret that made him feel like the revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

But Superman proved the ticket to steady work.

Single and childless, Chavez lives in a rented apartment in a poor neighborhood in Lima's center.

He says he doesn't have a girlfriend.

"But when I get a girlfriend I would like to make love on the moon."

__

Associated Press photographer Martin Mejia contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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DarwinTunes software 'evolves' music without composers

Composers, look to your laurels: A mere computer program can transform a racket of clangs, hums and beeps into a pleasing melody, and all humans have to do is offer feedback with the click of a mouse.

The program, by a British bioinformatics expert whose day job involves tackling biomedical problems, employs the same principles of natural selection that guide the evolution of living beings over many generations. The software ? dubbed DarwinTunes, of course ? creates 8-second collections of notes and puts them through the evolutionary wringer.

All the tunes have certain fixed traits: the same four-beats-per-measure tempo and tones from the Western 12-tone musical scale.

But other traits vary. Any note or instrument can be played at any given point at any volume and with any special effect. The result is a huge number of possible sound experiences, from the intolerable to the sublime.

Robert MacCallum of Imperial College London and his colleagues asked 120 undergraduates to listen to continuous loops of the computer-generated tunes and rate them on a 5-point scale that ranged from "I can't stand it" to "I love it." The tunes were also posted on the Web (at darwintunes.org/evolve-music), where anonymous critics added their feedback.

Each time tunes were rated, the half that came out on top were selected to contribute to the next generation of music. Each successful melody would mate with another successful melody, spawning similar-but-not-identical daughters before expiring from the collection.

Tunes that didn't make the cut were relegated to the evolutionary trash heap without leaving behind any musical legacy.

"All that matters is that some loops are better than others ? that some are slightly less of a racket," said MacCallum, who has a long-standing interest in both music and computers. "I'm pretty sure that the painful screechy loops were eliminated first."

The process is slow, "a bit like listening to paint dry," he added.

But as the undergraduate experiment went through its 400 generations and the online experiment 2,500 generations, pleasing melodies began to emerge, MacCallum's team reported Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. MacCallum noticed two main traits that the raters had apparently selected: more chords and more complex rhythms.

Past a certain point, though, the tunes in both experiments stopped evolving ? the daughter tunes are less well liked than their parents, leaving the music stranded on an evolutionary plateau, the scientists wrote.

The approach, known as evolutionary computation, has been used to tackle a broad array of problems in such fields as theoretical biology, engineering and medicine ? be it the compact design of a satellite antenna or development of a drug that will precisely lock onto its target.

In the realm of music, MacCallum said he didn't think human composers should feel threatened by DarwinTunes.

"It took 10 1/2 days of human time to create a four-bar Steve Reichian jingle," he said.

Still, the study offers interesting insights into how music has evolved through time, he said. Scientists know that there are rules for what constitutes a pleasing sound, some of which are culturally driven and some of which may be hard-wired in our brains. The results of this experiment suggest that listeners aren't just passive consumers but play a highly influential role in music's evolution.

This is not exactly a surprise, said composer David Cope, a professor emeritus of music at UC Santa Cruz who wasn't involved in MacCallum's study. Cope has created computer algorithms to analyze patterns of phrase and note choice in works by Bach, Beethoven and Chopin and used the rules to spawn "new" works by these long-dead masters. Others have written programs to compose jazz solos or predict hit tunes.

"Composers, like everyone else in the world, no matter how individualistic or unique they think they are, are influenced by everything around them," Cope said. "There's no way a composer can attend a premier of their work and not be affected by a standing ovation or very spotty applause."

Sometimes the influence can be negative, Cope added: Claude Debussy, for example, disliked Richard Wagner's music and produced "a radically new style" through a deliberate attempt to compose along different lines.

The study shows that people "can discern the little things they like about music even in the context of a lot of extraneous sounds," said MIT computational musicologist Michael Scott Cuthbert, who wasn't involved in the research. "But what they don't prove is why music today has changed from the popular music of the past. It doesn't show how changing tastes result in changing music and it doesn't give us a hint of what the future holds for music."

rosie.mestel@latimes.com

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Lyme Disease Outfoxes Deer

60-Second Science | More Science

In some locations, the incidence of Lyme disease tracks less with the abundance of deer than it does with the disappearance of foxes. Karen Hopkin reports.

June 18, 2012

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Deer ticks and Lyme disease go hand-in-hand in some places. But you can?t always put the blame on Bambi. Because new research shows that the incidence of Lyme disease tracks less with the abundance of deer than it does with the disappearance of foxes. The study is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Taal Levi et al, Deer, predators, and the emergence of Lyme disease]

To see where foxes come in, you have to look at the tick life cycle.

When deer ticks are young, they feed on small mammals like the white-footed mouse. It?s from infected rodents that the ticks pick up the bacteria that cause Lyme disease.

Foxes, of course, prey on mice and other small mammals. So fewer foxes means more mice, and potentially more disease.

To come up with that connection, researchers modeled the relative contributions of various animal populations in areas where Lyme disease is rife. And they found that, in New York State, for one, the incidence of Lyme could be directly predicted by the dearth of foxes.

The foxes were pushed out by coyotes, which have been on the rise since New York lost its wolves. Which were driven away by humans. Who now get bit by ticks.

?Karen Hopkin

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast]??????

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Greek parties seek coalition deal, bailout revision

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek political parties meeting on Tuesday said they expected to form a coalition government soon and then seek concessions to the painful austerity measures tied to the international bailout deal keeping the country from bankruptcy.

Conservative New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras, the winner of Sunday's election, has promised to negotiate easier terms for Greece, backed by likely coalition partner Evangelos Venizelos, head of the Socialist PASOK party.

"Greece must and will have a government as soon as possible," Venizelos said after a meeting with Fotis Kouvelis, head of the small Democratic Left party as part of talks to form a cross-party government with New Democracy.

"There is a need to form a national negotiating team that will deal with revision of harsh terms of the bailout deal."

However, hopes that the government may be in place by the end of the day appeared to fade after Kouvelis, whose party opposed the bailout deal in the election campaign, said several points still needed to be negotiated and agreement might take longer.

"There will be a government, but I don't know if it will be formed by tonight. I believe we will have reached an agreement by the end of the week," he told reporters.

Earlier, a senior New Democracy official said he expected that a deal with PASOK would be reached by Tuesday. Samaras, who has three days to form a coalition before his mandate runs out, is due to hold further meetings during the day.

New Democracy and PASOK alternated in power from the fall of military rule in 1974 until last year, when Greece's economic crisis forced the arch rivals to share power in a pro-bailout national unity government.

But PASOK support has plunged this year, leaving it a distant third behind New Democracy and the leftist SYRIZA party, which wants to cancel the austerity measures in the bailout package and negotiate a new "national recovery plan".

There has been a marked shift of tone since the election as leaders of the parties that had previously broadly supported the bailout have talked openly about easing the tough conditions demanded by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

European partners, notably from the bloc's biggest economy Germany, have held out the prospect of extending some payment deadlines but they have repeatedly insisted that the basic conditions of the deal cannot be renegotiated.

"The new government must stick to its commitments, which the country has agreed on," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a meeting of leaders from the Group of 20 major economic powers.

A senior euro zone official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the terms of the deal were "changeable" and could be "adapted", but there were different opinions in the euro area and in Greece on the scope of such changes.

In a sign that Greeks themselves have taken some confidence from the election, banks reported that some deposits withdrawn in the run-up to the vote appeared to be trickling back.

"We didn't have any deposit outflows yesterday, and we are expecting a similar picture today," said one banker, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The election result helped. On the contrary, we had small inflows of up to 10,000 euros from people who kept cash at home."

MORE CUTS

New Democracy took a 50-seat bonus under Greek electoral law for coming first, and a New Democracy-PASOK alliance would have 162 seats, a majority in the 300-seat parliament. Adding the Democratic Left would give it 179 seats.

Its victory averted the immediate risk of a Greek exit from the euro zone but a new government still faces the daunting prospect of imposing further austerity cuts on a nation deeply divided over the price for bailout funds.

PASOK has yet to commit formally to supporting Samaras and wants to include SYRIZA in a broad-based unity government of all the parties. Venizelos had said talks must be wrapped up by Tuesday.

With Greece just weeks away from running out of cash and a new government needed to negotiate the next instalment of funds from lenders, Greek political leaders are under heavy pressure to avoid a repeat of the deadlock seen after a first and inconclusive election on May 6.

"Political leaders should be aware of the fact that this government is Greece's last chance to remain in the eurozone," the centre-left daily Ta Nea said in an editorial.

"The Greek people are ready to reward the parties that manage to ease austerity and punish those that raise voices of dissent," it said.

A difficult road lies ahead for Samaras, a U.S.-educated economist who went to college with former Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou.

He inherits a nation in deep social and economic crisis, with an economy in its fifth year of a recession that has left one in five workers out of a job. A rising number of businesses are closing down, the number of homeless on the streets is growing, and anger at austerity cuts is at boiling point.

Samaras, who broadly accepted the bailout during the campaign, promises to cut taxes as well as raise unemployment benefits and pensions.

The New Democracy official said the new government would aim to accelerate and broaden a privatization program to top up state coffers, but also ask its creditors to spread 11.7 billion euros ($14.7 billion) of further austerity cuts over four years instead of two.

With an emboldened SYRIZA bloc led by former communist student leader Tsipras at the head of a powerful opposition, the new government could face protests soon after taking office. SYRIZA almost doubled its share of the vote since the May election.

($1 = 0.7949 euros)

(Writing by Deepa Babington and James Mackenzie; Editing by Will Waterman)

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For Queen Elizabeth, a Google doodle of diamonds and doggies

In a crowning achievement, Queen Elizabeth gets a Diamond Jubilee Google doodle that honors key symbols of her reign ? and offers just a glimpse of the vast amount of jubilee kitsch on tap.

By Ben Arnoldy,?Staff writer / June 2, 2012

A Google doodle Saturday in the UK celebrates the Queen's diamond jubilee.

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Queen Elizabeth graces the front page of Google today in the UK in a doodle marking her diamond jubilee, offering the rest of the world but a glimpse of the playful pop art and consumer kitsch on display here in Britain.

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Scots guardsmen cupcake toppers, union jacks on toothpicks, ice queen scoops. Bunting: enough to string together the old empire. Royal photos on thimbles, spoons, tea cups, shot glasses, egg cups, tea towels ? the usual tat, as the Brits say. Jubilee thongs? Yes.

Then there?s the cleverness contest surrounding the WWII-era slogan, ?Keep Calm and Carry On.? Written on a women's compact: ?Keep Calm and Powder On.?
Comparatively, Google?s doodle is an understated affair. The letter O?s are diamonds, symbolic of the 60th (diamond) anniversary on the throne. The E sits as a jewel in the queen?s crown. The queen appears in two-dimensional contour; her beloved corgis, however, look ready to leap off the page.

The playful riffs on royal themes reflect the generally favorable mood toward the royals of late.

A YouGov poll last month found 67 percent agreeing the monarchy is good for Britain, and 86 percent approve of Queen Elizabeth. This is up from the days when her children's divorces dominated the headlines and her slowness to show emotion over the death of Princess Diana frustrated many.

Still, the public mood is not really one of royal reverence. Britons are in party mode at the start of a long weekend ? Monday and Tuesday being holidays as part of the four-day official jubilee celebration. Many Londoners took the chance to flee on summer vacations, as foreign and British tourists crowd into the city for events that include Sunday?s royal family flotilla on the Thames and Tuesday?s carriage procession.

Among the street art for the crowds will be the construction Sunday of a 94-sq.-ft. portrait of Queen Elizabeth made from 3,120 squares of cake ? one for each week of her reign.

German-born baker Gerhard Jenne came up with the idea. Mr. Jenne dipped each piece of lemon cake into one of 24 frosting colors, turning each into a pixel of this icing illustration.

Jenne?s a fan of the queen, but not so much so that he feels the need to become her subject even 30 years after moving to London. He doesn?t expect to meet her on Sunday, when he publicly arranges the cake squares into the portrait.

?It?s very interesting how the queen has changed. Even from 30 years ago, [the royals] are much closer to the people now,? he says. ?You almost feel like she might come see you?. There could just be a 1 in 40 million chance.?

After spending hundreds of hours on the cake, he expects it to be gobbled up within 20 minutes when it?s opened up to the crowds.

Some customers in his Konditor & Cook bakeries have asked him if it?s proper for an image of Her Highness to be eaten.

?I just said yes, it?s fine by me. At the end of the day, it?s a cake, it?s a bit of fun. And she seems like a humorous person.?

An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed the phrase "Keep calm and carry on" to the British royal family.

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U.N. observers in Syria suspend patrols

BEIRUT (AP) ? U.N. observers suspended their patrols in Syria on Saturday due to a recent spike in violence, the strongest sign yet that an international peace plan was unraveling despite months of diplomatic efforts to prevent the country from plunging into civil war.

The U.N. observers have been the only working part of a peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan, which the international community sees as its only hope to stop the bloodshed.

The plan called for the foreign monitors to check compliance with a cease-fire that was supposed to go into effect on April 12, but they have become the most independent witnesses to the carnage on both sides as government and rebel forces have largely ignored the truce.

Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the U.N. mission chief, said intensifying clashes over the past 10 days were "posing significant risks" to the 300 unarmed observers spread out across the country, and impeding their ability to carry out their mandate.

The observers will not leave the country but will remain in place and cease patrols, Mood said in a taped statement, adding the suspension would be reviewed on a daily basis. Teams have been stationed in some of Syria's most dangerous cities, including Homs and Hama.

"The lack of willingness by the parties to seek a peaceful transition, and the push towards advancing military positions is increasing the losses on both sides," Mood said.

The decision came after weeks of escalating attacks, including reports of several mass killings that have left dozens dead.

The U.S. reiterated its call for the Assad regime to comply with the plan, "including the full implementation of a cease-fire."

Underscoring the dangers, activists reported at least 50 people killed in clashes and shelling in several Syrian cities.

The peace plan's near-collapse has increased pressure on the international community, including President Bashar Assad's staunch allies Russia and China, to find another solution. But there has been little appetite for the type of military intervention that helped oust Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, and several rounds of sanctions have failed to stop the bloodshed.

Najib Ghadbian of the main Syrian opposition group, the Syrian National Council, said the concerns expressed by the U.N. mission could pressure Russia to allow more censure of Assad's regime.

"They are really under pressure to say 'OK, what's next?'" he said. Are they going to continue to sabotage other ideas to protect civilians in Syria?"

Despite fears that violence could significantly worsen without U.N. monitors on the ground, activist Rami Abdul-Rahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said their numbers were too small, and the conflict too large, for them to have any use.

"A lot of crimes happened in Syria, and they couldn't do anything," he said. "The situation can't get worse than this: are we afraid that it's a civil war? Well it is a civil war."

The Syrian government, meanwhile, said it had informed Mood it understood the U.N. observers' decision and blamed rebels for the escalation in fighting.

"Armed terrorist groups have conducted, since the signing of the Annan plan, an increase in criminal operations that have targeted, many times, the observers, and threatened their lives," the Syrian foreign ministry said in a statement. Damascus frequently refers to rebels as "terrorists" instead of Syrians seeking reforms.

The opposition, for its part, has blamed the regime for the attacks near the observers.

Last week, a U.N. convoy was blocked and attacked with stones, metal rods and gunfire by an angry crowd as it was trying to head to the town of Haffa in the coastal Latakia region, where troops had been battling rebels for a week.

The observers only managed to enter once government troops had seized the area back from the rebels.

On May 15, a roadside bomb damaged the observers' vehicles shortly after they met with Syrian rebels in the northern town of Khan Sheikoun. A week earlier, a roadside bomb struck a Syrian military truck in the south of the country just seconds after Mood drove by in a convoy.

National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said the Obama administration was now consulting with allies about "next steps toward a Syrian-led political transition" in compliance with the U.N. resolutions setting up the peace plan. He didn't give further details.

Opposition groups say more than 14,000 civilians and rebels have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011. The initially peaceful protests seeking Assad's ouster have morphed into an armed insurgency as his opponents take up weapons.

Abdul-Rahman, of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, has said more than 3,400 Syrian soldiers and pro-government militiamen have been killed.

The Syrian government has been waging a fierce offensive through towns and villages nationwide for the past week, trying to pound out rebels by shelling urban areas with tanks and attack helicopters. Rebels also have attacked Syrian forces, mostly trying to burn out their tanks.

The Observatory said more than 50 people were killed in clashes and shelling in towns close to Damascus, in the central provinces of Homs and Hama, in the seaside province of Latakia, the northern provinces of Idlib and Deir al-Zour and the southern province of Daraa.

Those included 12 people, including a man, his wife and child, who died during overnight government shelling in the Damascus suburb of Douma and seven killed by a mortar shell that ripped apart a bakery in Homs, according to Abdul-Rahman.

The Observatory said that the bodies of 11 people including one woman had been discovered in the capital's suburb of Saqba. It said some of them were "butchered." A video posted online showed a group of lifeless men crammed into a room with stab wounds, blood still spilling from one of them. The LCC reported 13 victims and provided the names of nine, saying some were "slaughtered with knives."

Rebels appeared to kill an accused regime collaborator in an amateur video that was uploaded Saturday, repeatedly shooting his lifeless body.

There was no way of verifying government or activist claims because Syria does not allow reporters work independently. With U.N. observers now grounded, not even partial, independent confirmation of the deaths was available.

Syria's state news agency also said their forces killed a top al-Qaeda fighter on Saturday. They accused Walid Ahmed al-Ayish of organizing suicide car bombings in Damascus over the past few months.

___

Associated Press writer Albert Aji in Damascus contributed to this report.

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Surviving Bankruptcy And Getting A Good Deal On An Auto Loan

Surviving Bankruptcy And Getting A Good Deal On An Auto Loan

Author : Arlene Case

Submitted : 2012-06-17????Word Count : 433????Popularity: ??Not Rated

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It can be quite easy for one to get a car loan following a bankruptcy. Negotiate the best deal by taking control of your financial situation. With so many lending options available, you can choose your lender. Before anything else, build up your credit again. Then, look for car financing before you start shopping. Not only do you stand the chance of improving on your interest rate, you would be paying less overall for your automobile.

Check The Options For Yourself

Be wary of lenders who specifically target customers with lousy credit. Not only would they burden you with high interest rates, they'd give you car options out of your price range. Take the initiative to look for the best financing options instead of going this route.

If you do your own homework and shopping around, you could have a lot of choices. And since you would have cash to pay, you could get a better price and a more reasonable list of car choices. They won't suspect you once had filed for bankruptcy some time ago in the past.

Straighten Up Your Credit Report

Settling any existing bankruptcy needs to be done before even thinking of an auto loan. You can get a free copy of your report online to check that all qualifying accounts have been closed. Check your credit report to make sure you have an accurate payment history.

The FICO score, as you may know, is your credit score and can also be found on your reports. Most people who have filed for bankruptcy recently would have FICO scores below 550. After two years though, you can have a score over 650, qualifying for market rates.

Increase Qualification Factors

Filing for bankruptcy doesn't mean you're all out of options right then and there. A down payment of 20% or more is a good start, so is having little debt and cash reserves in the bank.

You can get lower rates or reduce them by being particular regarding the loan's terms and conditions. Compared to fixed rate loans, adjustable rate loans offer lower rates. A three year loan will also have lower rates than a five year loan.

Research As Much As You Could

The last way and possibly one of the best ways to save on your loan would be by researching. Compare rates and fees based on loan quotes. If you're at a loss, go online and visit any one of several auto loan broker sites.

Author's Resource Box

When you notice a squeak as you brake it may be time for Apex brake line repair.

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ClickTale Brings Its Visitor Tracking Tools To The Mobile Web

Israeli company ClickTale promises customers a better understanding of what visitors are actually doing on their websites, through tools like visitor recordings and heatmaps showing mouse movements and clicks. Today, it's launching a mobile product in private beta. ClickTale's senior technology evangelist Shmuli Goldberg says that on a conceptual level, the company is trying to bring the same capabilities that it offers for desktop websites to mobile. But in order to make that happen, it had to start tracking a whole new set of behaviors ? not just clicks, but also every swipe, scroll, tilt, and pinch.

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Does Auto Layout In iOS 6 Mean A Larger iPhone Screen Is Coming?

The WWDC keynote came and went with nary a mention of a new iPhone, but that didn't stop people from ruminating about Apple's newest mobile juggernaut. Apple's brass spent much of their time on-stage pulling back the curtains on the latest version of iOS, and now some are claiming that a fairly innocuous (albeit useful) new feature for developers means that an iPhone with a larger screen is barreling down the pipeline. That feature -- Auto Layout -- appeared briefly in a iOS SDK slide during the keynote, but most of us got too caught up with Siri updates and the swanky new Maps app to pay it much attention. Is it the sort of dead giveaway that iPhone fanatics have been breathlessly waiting for?

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Rodney King, key figure in LA riots, dies at 47

FILE - This April 13, 2012 file photo shows Rodney King posing for a portrait in Los Angeles. King, the black motorist whose 1991 videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers was the touchstone for one of the most destructive race riots in the nation's history, has died, his publicist said Sunday, June 17, 2012. He was 47. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, file)

FILE - This April 13, 2012 file photo shows Rodney King posing for a portrait in Los Angeles. King, the black motorist whose 1991 videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers was the touchstone for one of the most destructive race riots in the nation's history, has died, his publicist said Sunday, June 17, 2012. He was 47. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, file)

FILE - This March 31, 1991 image made from video shot by George Holliday shows police officers beating a man, later identified as Rodney King. King, the black motorist whose 1991 videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers was the touchstone for one of the most destructive race riots in the nation's history, has died, his publicist said Sunday, June 17, 2012. He was 47. (AP Photo/Courtesy of KTLA Los Angeles, George Holliday)

FILE - This file photo of Rodney King was taken three days after his videotaped beating in Los Angeles on March 6, 1991. King, the black motorist whose 1991 videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers was the touchstone for one of the most destructive race riots in the nation's history, has died, his publicist said Sunday, June 17, 2012. He was 47. (AP Photo/Pool, File)

FILE - This July 20, 1993 file photo shows Rodney King speaking during an appearance on KFI-AM radio's "Bill Handel and Mark Whitlock" show in Los Angeles. King, the black motorist whose 1991 videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers was the touchstone for one of the most destructive race riots in the nation's history, has died, his publicist said Sunday, June 17, 2012. He was 47. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, file)

FILE - This July 16, 1992 file photo shows Rodney King being escorted from jail in Santa Ana, Calif. after he was arrested for investigation of drunken driving. King, whose videotaped beating by police in 1991 led to LA race riots, has died at 47. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, file)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Rodney King, the black motorist whose 1991 videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers was the touchstone for one of the most destructive race riots in the nation's history, was found at the bottom of his swimming pool early Sunday and later pronounced dead. He was 47.

King's fianc?e called 911 at 5:25 a.m. to report that she found him in the pool at their home in Rialto, Calif., police Lt. Dean Hardin said.

Officers arrived to find King in the deep end of the pool and unresponsive, with no signs of foul play. He was transported to Arrowhead Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:11 a.m., Hardin said.

Police Capt. Randy De Anda said King had been by the pool throughout the early morning and had been talking to his fiancee, who was inside the home at the time.

Investigators will await autopsy results to determine whether drugs or alcohol were involved, but De Anda said there were no alcoholic beverages or paraphernalia found near the pool.

Authorities didn't identify the fianc?e. King earlier said he was engaged to Cynthia Kelley, one of the jurors in the civil rights case that gave King $3.8 million in damages.

The 1992 riots, which were set off by the acquittals of the officers who beat King, lasted three days and left 55 people dead, more than 2,000 injured and swaths of Los Angeles on fire. At the height of the violence, King pleaded on television: "Can we all get along?"

King, a 25-year-old on parole from a robbery conviction, was stopped for speeding on a darkened street on March 3, 1991. He was on parole and had been drinking ? he later said that led him to try to evade police.

Four Los Angeles police officers hit him more than 50 times with their batons, kicked him and shot him with stun guns.

A man who had quietly stepped outside his home to observe the commotion videotaped most of it and turned a copy over to a TV station. It was played over and over for the following year, inflaming racial tensions across the country.

It seemed that the videotape would be the key evidence to a guilty verdict against the officers, whose trial was moved to the predominantly white suburb of Simi Valley, Calif. Instead, on April 29, 1992, a jury with no black members acquitted three of the officers on state charges in the beating; a mistrial was declared for a fourth.

Violence erupted immediately, starting in South Los Angeles.

Police, seemingly caught off-guard, were quickly outnumbered by rioters and retreated. As the uprising spread to the city's Koreatown area, shop owners armed themselves and engaged in running gun battles with looters.

During the riots, a white truck driver named Reginald Denny was pulled by several black men from his cab and beaten almost to death. He required surgery to repair his shattered skull, reset his jaw and put one eye back into its socket.

King himself, in his recently published memoir, "The Riot Within: My Journey from Rebellion to Redemption," said FBI agents warned him a riot was expected if the officers were acquitted, and urged him to keep a low profile so as not to inflame passions.

The four officers who beat King ? Stacey Koon, Theodore Briseno, Timothy Wind and Laurence Powell ? were indicted in the summer of 1992 on federal civil rights charges. Koon and Powell were convicted and sentenced to two years in prison, and King was awarded $3.8 million in damages.

The police chief, Daryl Gates, who had been hailed as an innovator in the national law enforcement community, came under intense criticism from city officials who said officers were slow to respond to the riots, and resigned under pressure soon after. Gates died of cancer in 2010.

In the two decades after he became the central figure in the riots, King was arrested several times, mostly for alcohol-related crimes, the last in Riverside Calif., last July. He later became a record company executive and a reality TV star, appearing on shows such as "Celebrity Rehab."

In an interview earlier this year with The Associated Press, King said he was a happy man.

"America's been good to me after I paid the price and stayed alive through it all," he says. "This part of my life is the easy part now."

Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement that King was a symbol of the civil and anti-police brutality movement.

"Through all that he had gone through with his beating and his personal demons he was never one to not call for reconciliation and for people to overcome and forgive," Sharpton wrote. "History will record that it was Rodney King's beating and his actions that made America deal with the excessive misconduct of law enforcement."

Attorney Harland Braun, who represented one of the police officers, Ted Briseno, in the federal trial, said King's name would always be a part of Los Angeles history.

"I always saw him as a sad figure swept up into something bigger than he was," Braun said. "He wasn't a hero or a villain. He was probably just a nice person."

King's case never would have become such a symbol without the video, he said.

"If there hadn't been a video there would have never been a case. In those days, you might have claimed excessive force but there would have been no way to prove it."

The San Bernardino County coroner will perform an autopsy on King within 48 hours.

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Associated Press writers Raquel Maria Dillon in Rialto and Anthony McCartney in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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