The suspected hacking and virus spread last April 10 alarmed me and my colleagues because it can really happen to any of us net users.  While browsing the net today, April 22, 2010, I read an article about hacking a big internet Company, Google, late last year.  If this well-known and successful company got hacked, what more us small contributors to the internet world today?  Just to share what it’s all about, the article reads…

NEW YORK – Computer hackers stole a program that controlled access to most of Google Inc.’s services when they attacked the Internet Company late last year, according to a report published late Monday.

The story in The New York Times provided more details about an intrusion that provoked a politically charged showdown between Google and China’s government over Internet censorship and computer security.

The Times said it obtained the information from an unnamed person with direct knowledge of the investigation into the break-in that Google has traced to China.

Google declined to comment specifically on the Times’ story. A spokeswoman reiterated Google’s previous assertions that the attacks on the company didn’t obtain any personal information from its users’ e-mail accounts.

The stolen password system was called Gaia, a reference to the Greek goddess of earth, according to the Times. Besides e-mail, Gaia also governed access to the online services that Google sells to businesses, government agencies and schools.

Without providing specifics, Google acknowledged some of its intellectual property had been stolen when it announced the hacking attacks in January. The heist prompted Google to tighten its computer security.

At least 20 other companies were targeted in similar attacks, according to Google.

The breach incensed Google so much that the company decided to protest the country’s laws dictating the censorship of Internet search results deemed to be subversive or pornographic by the government. Google started censoring in China four years ago when it set up a search engine inside of the country to gain better access to the world’s largest Web audience.

After unsuccessfully trying to negotiate a compromise with China’s ruling party, Google last month began to shift search requests from mainland China to Hong Kong, where online censorship isn’t required.—AP

Source:  Gmanews.tv / The Times

Filipino children’s choir donates P500,000 to Filipino students.

I just can’t help but share what I read from GMA news feeds.  If all of us have the thought of these children, we wouldn’t be facing difficulty of tomorrow.

The group of 65 called, Serenata Children’s Choir and String Chamber Orchestra, is an all Filipino children’s choir aged eight to sixteen.  The name Serenata came from an 18th-century cantata, often dramatic in form and another term for serenade.  These talented Pinoys are all children of Filipino Overseas Workers and students from different schools in Jeddah.

Yes, we heard it right, the said choir sponsored for the second time, students from the Philippines through the concert’s proceeds, which this year amounted to US$10,000, or over P460,000.  That’s a lot way to go!  Not to mention their last performance at the American International School stunned an audience of about a thousand, including diplomats and expatriates of different nationalities and diplomats.  The concert had a second part with more high-spirited songs from Disney and other memorable songs, such as Blue Suede Shoes, When I Fall in Love and Please Mr. Postman.

It was cited by the Filipino community leader Edgar Mendoza that these children are amazingly talented, commending them for their continuing efforts to extend assistance to their fellow Filipinos. Diplomats among the audience were also impressed with the Filipino performers. “It’s the third year that I’ve watched SERENATA and I’m really happy to be here, I really love them. I’m very happy that the American School is supporting this program for the third year,” said US Consul General Martin Quinn.

I can just imagine how proud their parents are. I hope I can see a lot of group of youngsters today in the same aspiration and principle like theirs. Aside from the two batches of college scholars, Serenata’s previous concerts have benefited the landslide victims in Southern Leyte, several Philippine primary schools and a Maguindanao-based cooperative of women.

The concert’s sponsors included Pinehill Arabia Food Ltd., Pharmaceutical Solutions Industry Ltd (PSI), Sky Freight Middle East, American International School and the International Philippine School, both in Jeddah

Source: GMANews.TV, 02/14/2010

On the day marking her 77th birthday, the monument built for the late President Corazon Aquino was inaugurated at the Rizal Park in Manila on Monday morning, 01/25/2010.  

 A GMA Flash Report said Mrs. Aquino’s son, presidential candidate Sen. Benigno Aquino III, led the inauguration with Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, a staunch ally of the late Philippine leader.

The monument was beside the statue of her husband, martyred hero Benigno Aquino Jr., the report said.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Aquino’s three daughters – Ballsy Cruz, Pinky Abellada, and Viel Dee – went to the her tomb at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque City to offer prayers.  Their youngest sibling, actress Kris Aquino-Yap, was not with her sisters.

 A Mass would be celebrated later in the day at the Church of the Gesu at the Ateneo de Manila University campus in Quezon City.

On Sunday, a Mass was held at the Edsa Shrine wherein Mrs. Aquino’s children said that while they still feel the sadness of losing their mother, they are grateful to the multitude of their mother’s supporters who joined them in the event.

“What gives me consolation, and courage to overcome the emptiness, is the realization that I am not alone in my grief. There are many others, like you, who felt the loss of a truly phenomenal woman,” Noynoy said in his speech. [See: Mass held for Cory on eve of 77th birthday]

Mrs. Aquino passed away last Aug. 1, 2009 after fighting colon cancer for over a year. Days after her death, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered that a statue be built in honor of the democracy icon.

Mrs. Aquino rose to power in February 1986 through a popular street uprising in Edsa that toppled then strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

Source:  GMANews.TV – Sophia Dedace/RSJ