Teen hacker faces jail time
CLIPPINGS: A Southern California teen faces felony charges and could spend decades in prison over allegations that he repeatedly broke into an Orange County high school, hacked into computers to change his grades and stole tests – all in hopes of improving his college admissions prospects, authorities said.
Omar Khan, 18, was jailed and later released after posting $50,000 bail. Another student, Tanvir Singh, also 18, faces five felony charges, a story in the Los Angeles Times reported.
The flap occurred at Tesoro High School, the wealthy south Orange County school attended by the children in the reality television series “Real Housewives of Orange County.”
Khan has been charged with 69 felonies and faces more than 38 years in prison if convicted. Singh has been charged with five felony counts, and could face three years in prison.
•Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) called for better measures to protect government computers and cell phones from cyber-attacks after revealing that computers in his office and several others on Capitol Hill had been targeted in recent years by hackers thought to be based in China.
Wolf, a champion of human rights in China and elsewhere, said at a news conference that authorities investigated the attacks on four of his computers in August 2006 and traced them to a computer in China.
The hackers, he said, gained access to sensitive information about the identities and locations of many Chinese dissidents and refugees he has worked with during his years in Congress.
MIXED NUTS: We like the idea of a site that promotes walking. Walkscore.com is a mashup that identifies worthwhile walks near just about any address in the United States. Any address can be checked to find its “walkability score.” We plugged in 1200 W. Garland, Spokane, into the search bar. It said that neighborhood has moderate walkability, with a 63 score (out of 100 possible). It also lists nearby coffee shops, restaurants, bars, schools, bookstores and shopping choices.
TECH TOOLBOX: The Web site Twitturly.com has a nifty and simple goal: it tracks the busiest, most popular topics bouncing around on the micro-blog service called Twitter. It tracks activity on Twitter and summarizes the trends of which are rising in popularity, or falling. Late last week, the main topics that dominated Twitter involved the release of the latest version of the Firefox browser.