Computers. They’re a part of our everyday lives. Most of us couldn’t imagine living a day without them. We use them for school, work, and fun and use them to stay connected to those we love and care about. Since the invention of the web cam, millions of us use webcams to communicate with loved-ones and business contacts far away.

Web camera use has leveled the playing field for business entrepreneurs and given teenagers a fun way to chat with friends. However, solid citizens aren’t the only ones who make use of this popular modern technology. Recently, there have been reports of criminals using a type of webcam spy hack to insert themselves unseen into the living rooms and bedrooms of millions of unsuspecting users.

The Webcam Spy Hack

The most popular way criminals gain access to your webcam is through innocent-looking emails. You may receive an e-card from someone in your contacts list. When you click on it, you’re directed to another website to view the e-card. While you’re listening to music and watching animated puppies scroll across the screen, a Trojan horse is silently installed into your computer’s hard drive.

HP is taking legal action against Oracle for allegedly breaching its 2010 partnership agreement of porting HP’s core software products with the latest versions of Itanium. In March, Oracle announced it would not be developing any new versions for products designed for the Itanium processor. Itanium has the ability to power the so-called Business Critical Systems hardware for extremely demanding enterprise applications. However, Oracle said the chip line is about to die.

The companies’ lawyer met in the Santa Clara County Superior Court with Judge James Kleinberg presiding to discuss their side of the event. Others in the courtroom included Ann Livermore, HP board member and former enterprise business chief, and Oracle’s co-President Safra Catz. Catz and Livermore were the two key negotiators for the agreement. Livermore was to testify later in the day. Kleinberg is set to rule if the companies had a legally binding contract.

Jeff Thomas, HP’s lawyer, focused on the so-called Hurd Agreement wording, where the companies reiterated their partnership after Oracle hired Mark Hurd, former CEO for HP. HP also sued Hurd for breaking the confidentiality agreement.

Thomas and the lead lawyer for Oracle focused on one paragraph of the agreement, which read Oracle would continue to provide its product suite on the HP platform in a way that’s consistent with the existing partnership before Hurd’s hiring.

Javascript has a lot of features which are often overlooked by web developers, and one such feature is the ability to have timed events. If you do not understand what that means do not worry because all will be explained in this tutorial.

Timing events allow you to write code which will execute within a set amount of time. As an example, say you wanted to display a clock on your web page. You could use javascripts' built in timing functions to make the time change every second or every minute.

Of course there are other uses for such functions, but we will stick with a simple timer which creates a dialog box with the words Hi There on it every 3 seconds, that way you can get a feel for how to work with timing.

To get started we are going to need a basic web page. Just create a blank page and add the following code in the script tags:

Like me, I believe most people go about their business never to give a serious thought about their assumed private correspondence when using Gmail to email friends, colleagues and business associates.  As it turns out, your daily banter may not be so private after all.  A recent article in Fortune Magazine, “Judge Rejects Google Deal Over Email Scanning” caught my attention and an immediate thought dominated my curiosity…Google email and scanning scam.  

In essence, the article describes Googles’ agreement to change the way it scans incoming messages so that it no longer reads emails while they are in transit, but only when they are in someone's inbox! So, what exactly does that mean? Judge Koh, a San Francisco federal judge, said she's not so sure about that. Her ruling claims the settlement does not provide an adequate technical explanation of Google's workaround, which involves scanning in-transit emails for security purposes, and then later parsing them for advertising data. The judge also proposed a legal settlement to pay $2.2 million to lawyers, but nothing to consumers.

My interest in this story is not so much about the proposed settlements or the specific details about how Google or any of the web giants settle claims based on vague legal language. It is however, more about the naiveté of myself and perhaps many others that never question how the email scanning process really works. I wonder, do most of us really care that Gmail uses contents of our mail to display targeted ads?