All posts by : Admin

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPad periodically send location information back to the company, according to new reports. The data is transmitted to a secure database that only it can access, Apple claims.

Bruce Sewell, an attorney for Apple, sent a letter to two US Representatives last year, discussing the company’s data collection techniques and policies. The thirteen-page letter states that location information is recorded and sent to Apple every twelve hours, but only if the user enables the device’s location settings.

Apple began building a location database of its own when it decided to stop using similar services offered by Google & SkyHook Wireless. Location data is used in social networking applications and call routing.

In a statement to the Associated Press, Democratic Massachusetts Representative Edward Markey said, “Apple needs to safeguard the personal location information of its users to ensure that an iPhone doesn’t become an iTrack.”

Such data collection is not unique to Apple. Google’s Android operating system uses similar technology to provide location-based services to its users. Google has said that it also uses the data collected to provide accurate traffic data through its “Maps” applications on both Apple and Android devices. However, the company declined to comment on the latest findings regarding its data collection.

Apple was also recently in the spotlight after it was discovered that the iPhone and iPad were retaining location data on the device itself. This information is collected in an unencrypted file and is not transmitted elsewhere. The data file reportedly contains a variety of information, including longitude and latitude, cell phone tower identification data, wireless hotspot identification, and timestamps.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Evangelist Kent Hovind and his wife, Jo, are trying to convince a federal jury that their money from video and amusement park admission sales belong to God and cannot be taxed. The trial began at United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida on Tuesday October 18, 2006 after twelve jury members and two alternates were selected to decide on the 58 federal courts against Hovind and his wife. The trial was expected to take at least two weeks to complete with the prosecution hoping to rest its case Tuesday, but a defense attorney became ill and the Judge delayed the trial until October 30th.

Hovind is a Young Earth creationist who does many speaking engagements and debates. He also sells videos giving a pro-creationism perspective, which he receives income for. Hovind, who calls himself “Dr. Dino”, received a Ph.D in “Christian education” from the unaccredited correspondence school Patriot Bible University in 1991.

Prosecutor Michelle Heldmeyer said from 1999 to March 2004, the Hovinds took in more than $5 million. Heldmeyer charged Hovind on 12 counts for failing to pay about $470,000 in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes for his ministry employees between March 31, 2001, and Jan. 31, 2004. Counts 13 through 57 include Hovind’s wife for making 45 transactions in a little more than a year, sometimes taking out as much as $9,500 at a time. Banks are required to report cash withdrawals that exceed $10,000.

In count 58 against Kent includes filing a frivolous lawsuit against the IRS, demanding damages for criminal trespass, filing an injunction against an IRS agent, making threats against investigators and those cooperating with the investigation, and filing false complaints against the IRS for false arrest, excessive use of force and theft.

In July with his attorney, Public Defender Kafahni Nkrumah, Hovind stated that he did not recognize the government’s right to try him on tax-fraud charges.

This is not the first time Hovind has found himself in legal trouble. In 2002 he refused to get a $50.00 building permit for his Dinosaur Adventure Land, and after three years of legal battles the court ruled that he get a permit or the building would be razed. The park, which depicts dinosaurs as coexisting with humans in the last 6-4,000 years with the more recent “dinosaurs” being the Loch Ness monster, is reportedly open after Hovind paid for the permit and fines totaling $10,402.64.

More directly, M.C. Powe, an IRS officer who investigates people who have unpaid tax returns or unpaid tax liabilities, testified at Hovind’s current trial on October, 19, 2006 that she first attempted to collect taxes from the Hovinds in 1996. She noted Hovind tried several “bullying tactics” that included suing her at least three times. These resulted in each case being thrown out.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Beard handled Hovind’s bankruptcy in 1996 testified on Wednesday that in 1996 after Hovind’s vehicles were seized by the IRS, he filed under the Chapter 13 “wage-earner plan,” available only to those who have a regular source of income. However, Hovind wrote that he had no form of income, that he rejected his Social Security number and that his employer was God, Beard testified.

In a 2005 affidavit, the Hovinds argue that Social Security is essentially a “Ponzi scheme.” The Hovinds referred to the United States Government as “the ‘bankrupt’ corporate government” and said they were renouncing their United States citizenship and Social Security numbers to become “a natural citizen of ‘America’ and a natural sojourner.”

On Thursday an employee of AmSouth Bank explained that the Currency Transaction Reports requires the bank to report any time a cash amount of $10,000 or more is withdrawn or deposited. This employee noted that various records demonstreated Jo Hovind had made transactions up to $15,000 at a time.

Also on Thursday Hovind’s former neighbor testified regarding Hovind’s purchasing of her Palafox Street home. On the stand she said Hovind paid her $30,000 in cash as part of the $155,000 sale.

In this week’s trial two of Hovind’s workers testified in federal court that they didn’t consider where they worked to be a church. In court Hovind maintains he does not have to pay the taxes because his employees were “volunteers,” “missionaries” or “ministers” and his business was a ministry.

However, Brian Popp, Hovind’s employee for at least eight years, said he considered himself a minister at the time of his employment, but said Hovind’s ministry isn’t a church. Popp also testified that Hovind knew about the bank’s requirement to report transactions over $10,000 and said it was “not safe to carry large sums of cash.”

Further, Popp said Hovind told his workers not to accept mail addressed to “KENT HOVIND” because Hovind told the workers the government created a corporation in his “all-caps name” and if the mail was accepted, Hovind claimed, it would be accepting the responsibilities associated with that corporation.

Diane P. Cooksey, served as a sales representative for the ministry from January 2003 to June 2005, and said Hovind expected to pay her own taxes. Cooksey said, “He explained what his belief was, right up front in the interview, that I would pay my own taxes.” As told’s worker, she received $10 an hour in a weekly paycheck, punched a time clock, was given 10 paid vacation days a year, and considered herself an employee, not a missionary as a few others called themselves.

The IRS raided Hovind’s Dinosaur Adventure Land in April 2004, after which Hovind required his employees to sign nondisclosure agreements. “I was uncomfortable signing it, I guess, because of not having a full understanding,” Cooksey said.

Rebekah Horton, vice president of the unaccredited Pensacola Christian College, took the stand on the second day of the trial and testified that “We know the Scriptures do not promote (tax evasion)”. “It’s against Scripture teaching.”

Horton was given a videotape in the mid 1990s from a woman who worked for Hovind. The video contained “another evangelist advocating tax evasion,” Horton explained. The woman who gave the tape to Horton claimed Hovind’s philosophy as “You were giving a gift with your work, and they were giving a gift back to you.”

Pensacola Christian College decided to disallow its students from working with Hovind’s Creation Science Evangelism and reported Hovind’s scheme to the IRS.

On Friday, attorney David Charles Gibbs testified that Hovind claimed he had no obligation to pay employee income taxes and explained with “a great deal of bravado” how he had “beat the tax system.” Gibbs is an attorney with the Gibbs Law Firm, also is affiliated with the Christian Law Association, a nonprofit organization founded by his father that offers free legal help to churches nationwide in a suburb of St. Petersburg, Florida. Gibbs attended the Marcus Pointe Baptist Church when Hovind was a guest speaker at the church on October 17, 2004. Hovind invited Gibbs and others to Hovind’s home for pizza and soda.

Gibbs testified they talked for many hours, and Hovind “tried to stress to me that he was like the pope and this was like the Vatican.” Also Gibbs explained Hovind also told him he preferred to deal in cash because “dealing with cash there is no way to trace it, so it wasn’t taxable.”

Later on Friday, Special IRS Agent Scott Schneider took up the remainder of the day and is expected to resume Monday. Schneider told the jury his investigation revealed that Hovind “hadn’t filed tax returns ever, to my knowledge.”

Hovind tried suing the IRS and Schneider several times to avoid providing information required by the IRS. Each filing was thrown out by the judges.

Schneider’s discussed documents seized during the 2004 raid of Hovind’s property. These documents, Schneider explained, indicated Hovind ran his ministry as a business with “meticulous” payroll documents and a time clock employees had to punch in and out.

In the raid cash was found “all over the place.” Ultimately, $42,000 in cash was seized along with half-dozen guns (including a SKS semiautomatic) at the Hovinds’ home.

The Pensacola News Journal noted that “in one memo, Jo Hovind informed her daughter, who works at the park, that her pay would be docked $10 for talking too long on the telephone when she should have been working.”

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Dutch financial institution ING Group reported today in its quarterly results an impairment charge of €194 million euros (approximately US$285.6 million). However, as a result of selling an equity stake in rival ABN AMRO, the net profit of €2.48 billion, was 18% higher than last year.

The impairment charge is a result of risky investments, including RBMS (mortgage) investments backed by subprime loans and Alt-A loans, which are made to borrowers with a slightly better credit profile than those in the subprime category, as well as from collateral debt obligations (CDOs).

CEO Michel Tilmant said that “solid risk management” shields ING from the worst effects of the financial crisis. “ING’s exposure to the riskiest assets is limited, and the RMBS investments we selected have a high level of structural credit protection to absorb significant losses as the U.S. housing crisis deepens,” added Tilmant.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Dell Inc. announced on Tuesday that it will partner up with the Microsoft-Nortel Innovative communications alliance (ICA) team to sell Unified Communications and VoIP products.

The announcement on Tuesday the 16th of October 2007 includes Dell selling VoIP, data and wireless networking products from Nortel and the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and other unified communications products.

The partnership with both manufacturers should allow Dell to provide a pre-integrated solution.

In March 2007, competitors IBM and Cisco announced they would join in the competition for developing unified communications applications and the development of open technologies around the unified communications and collaboration (UC2) client platform an application programming interfaces (APIs) offered by IBM as a subset of Lotus Sametime.

“We want to make it simple for our customers to deploy unified communications so their end users can get access to all their messages in one place – whether its e-mail, phone or mobile device. This will pave the way for more business-ready productivity tools,” said vice president of solutions, Dell Product Group, Rick Becker.

• Customers have four options:
  • Core Office Communication Server 2007 – provides instant messaging and on-premise Microsoft Live Meeting.
  • Office Communication Server: Telephony – enables call routing tracking and management, VoIP gateway and public branch exchange (PBX) integration.
  • Audio and Video Conferencing – allows point-to-point conference, video conference and VoIP audio conference.
  • Exchange Unified Messaging – provides voicemail, e-mail and fax in Microsoft Outlook, and anywhere access of Microsoft Outlook Inbox and Calendar.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

A dead body was left in a ward in Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow, Scotland for seven hours before it was removed.

Christine Martin, who saw the body, said that although there were curtains around the body, they “were open sufficiently for me to see this man, whom we had got to know over a period of 10 days, lying dead, face uncovered.”

Officials from the hospital have apologized for having allowed the incident to occur. The son of the dead man said that the hospital acted with “utter compassion” when permitting his request to see his father’s dead body in the ward.

National Health Service Greater Glasgow and Clyde said in a statement that, “we have acknowledged to the Martins that, beyond this, there was some delay in the transfer of the patient to the mortuary and steps have already been taken to ensure that this does not happen again.”

The Royal College of Nursing also released a statement on this incident. “The normal practice if someone has died in a four-bedded ward is to access a single room where the deceased could be viewed by the family and the family can have some time with the relative, and for that to be done in as dignified manner as possible,” said Lynn McDowall, a professional officer for the organization. “This case highlights the campaign we’re running and highlights the kind of problems nurses come across, because no nurse would want a deceased patient lying on a ward for seven hours.”

Wednesday, September 6, 2006

The President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf is in Kabul for a two-day visit during which he is scheduled to hold talks with his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai. The talks are expected to focus on the continuing militant activity on both sides of the border, with Taliban forces allegedly infiltrating into Afghanistan from across the border in Pakistan.

Economic cooperation and reconstruction in Afghanistan are also on the agenda. President Musharraf is scheduled to meet cabinet ministers and address parliamentarians tomorrow. His delegation includes ministers for foreign and religious affairs and the petroleum sector, and the head of Pakistan’s intelligence agency.

“Frank discussions on the war on terror and expanding bilateral cooperation on regional issues,” read a statement by President Karzai’s office.

Pakistan foreign office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP news agency that the Presidents “will exchange views on bilateral relations, economic cooperation, reconstruction activities in Afghanistan and cooperation in the fight against terrorism,”

“Afghanistan is expecting the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to take effective action against terrorism,” Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said.

Pakistan signed a peace agreement with pro-Taliban militants in the North Waziristan region on the eve of the visit. The deal aims to end years of unrest in the border province. Under its terms the Pakistan military forces and militants will stop attacks on each other and the militants have agreed to disarm or expel foreign Al-Qaeda-linked fighters in the area. Pakistan has rejected criticism that the deal will allow pro-Taliban forces to operate freely in the area.

“Pakistan is committed to its policy on war on terror, and Osama caught anywhere in Pakistan would be brought to justice,” army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told the Associated Press.

On Wednesday, President Karzai met the NATO General Secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Kabul and signed an accord aimed at boosting security and development in the country. The NATO chief warned that “some of the terrorists, the spoilers, think they can win in the south,”, adding “They are wrong. Because they cannot win, they will not win, […] That is why we are engaged in combat as well at this very moment.”

The visit comes amidst an upsurge in violence in Afghanistan, with US forces saying that 60 militants were killed by artillery and air-strikes on Tuesday. Some 700 more are believed to be surrounded by soldiers in an operation in Khandahar province.

NATO and Afghan forces launched an operation in Khandahar’s Panjwayi district last weekend, and NATO reports 250 militants as killed in the operations, though a Taliban commander has disputed the figure and there is no independent confirmation of the toll. Hundreds have been killed in continuing fighting between government and international security forces and insurgents in the last four months.

An estimated 1500 families have been displaced by the fighting in Khandahar.

Suspected Taliban militants shot dead two muslim clerics in Lashkar Gah, capital of the Helmand province in the last two days and raided a district headquarters in the town of Arghandad in Zabul province.

Musharraf last visited Afghanistan in 2002. Afghanistan has previously complained that Pakistan is not doing enough to combat Taliban insurgency in its side of the 2,250km (1,400-mile) mountainous border between the two countries. Earlier in the year, allegations by Afghanistan that Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders were living in Pakistan were dismissed by Musharraf as “nonsense”. In February, Afghanistan issued a list of 150 Taliban suspects it said were living in Pakistan. President Musharraf dismissed the information as “old and outdated”, but President Karzai reiterated that the list was up-to-date.

Some Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders have been arrested in Pakistan, which has also stationed close to 80,000 troops along the Afghan borders. There is international pressure on Musharraf to deal with Islamist groups in Pakistan who are believed to assist Taliban forces.

“Pakistan has the potential to be the solution to the problems of Afghanistan,” Afghan foreign ministry advisor Ali Muradian said.”We hope that President Musharraf will open a new chapter in relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Pakistan was closely associated with the Taliban’s rise to power in the 90s one of only three nations that recognised the then Taliban government.

While state run dailies Kabul Times and Hewad expressed hope that two leaders will work together to improve security, The daily Cheragh said that while statements about restoring security can be expected from the meeting, “as experience has shown”, previous pledges by Pakistan “have not been fulfilled”.

Kabul Times also said Afghanistan was grateful for Pakistan’s help to thousands of Afghan refugees.

“The key concern is whether the agreement is going to lead to more insurgents going to and fro across the border or less,” A diplomat told AFP, while another questioned Pakistan’s peace deal with the militants.

Friday, March 30, 2007

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced at a press conference today that a chemical used in the manufacture of plastics was found in recalled pet food from Menu Foods.

The FDA found melamine in samples of Menu Foods pet food and in samples of wheat gluten, imported from China, which was used as an ingredient. The FDA analysis, however, does not confirm the presence of the rodenticide aminopterin, which was reported March 23 by the New York State Food Laboratory.

According to Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, melamine is used primarily to make plastic kitchenware, although it has been used as a fertilizer in Asia.

Sundlof also indicated that the presence of melamine in the urine of cats that died from kidney failure was revealed through testing. He stressed that melamine was not determined to be the source of illness or deaths in the affected animals.

Sundlof suggested that melamine would not be found normally in pet food.

At a news conference Friday, Paul Henderson, President and CEO of Menu Foods, indicated that Menu Foods is satisfied that the contamination problem was related to melamine and not aminopterin. “One week ago, some of the dedicated researchers who had been investigating this matter reported the discovery of a single, toxic compound in our pet food,” said Henderson in his opening statement. “That, seemingly, cleared the way for us to address the problem, deal fairly with the pet-owners who had been injured, put our business back together, and move on,” he continued.

“In the intervening week, other top scientists have been unable to validate the findings. That is, they were unable to find the toxin – called aminopterin – in our pet food, or in any of the component ingredients. It was also brought to our attention that some veterinary experts held the view that aminopterin was inconsistent with what was being observed in dogs and cats,” Henderson said.

Menu Foods has determined that melamine in wheat gluten from a new US supplier was the likely source of contamination, and that they are confident that the issue has been resolved. “Melamine has been found in the wheat gluten from a new supplier in the United States, who sourced this wheat gluten in China,” said Henderson. “This is the same ingredient that Menu Foods made reference to in its recall press release of March 16. Melamine has not been found in the wheat gluten that we obtain from our other suppliers.”

Henderson refused to name the supplier of the wheat gluten, leaving that up to the FDA. “We have had correspondence with the FDA and we know that they are diligently following-up on the supply of the suspect wheat gluten. It is not our place to name the supplier as we do not want to interfere in any way with the important investigation they are conducting.”

Menu Foods is maintaining the warning on the previously recalled product. “The recalled product is unfit for consumption by pets. It contains melamine. The pet food that we have manufactured after March 6 is safe and healthy,” stated Henderson.

Menu Foods is the manufacturer of several brands of cat and dog food subject to a March 16, 2007 recall.