Twitter Hacked: Twitter Says Site Suffered Security Attack - CNBC

Twitter Hacked: Twitter Says Site Suffered Security Attack - CNBC

Twitter, the popular social media website for broadcasting short messages, said on Tuesday it has suffered an XSS attack, a security flaw on its website, which it is fixing with a patch after users complained.


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Popular social media company Twitter said on Tuesday it had suffered a security attack on its site.
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The Twitter site was flooded with tweets by users complaining of a "mouseover security flaw" or "Twitter got hacked" as the top trending topics on the home page.

Twitter said on its status blog it expects the patch to be fully rolled out shortly and will update users when it is.

According to a blog by security firm Sophos, the website is being widely exploited by users who use a security flaw which allows messages to pop up and third-party websites to open in a browser just by moving a mouse over a link.

Sophos said the messages are spreading virally, exploiting the vulnerability without the consent of users.

Users of third-party Twitter applications like Tweet Deck and Twhirl appear not to have been affected by the flaw.

Four-year old Twitter has more than 145 million users and is now signing up 370,000 new users daily on average.

RPT-IPO VIEW-Skype may not light up IPO market-analysts - CNBC

RPT-IPO VIEW-Skype may not light up IPO market-analysts - CNBC

By Liana B. Baker NEW YORK, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Skype, the Internet calling company, could have trouble getting top dollar in its initial public offering due to Google Inc. Skype is high profile and some capital markets experts had hoped a successful offering would jump-start the IPO market for technology companies.

Companies such as Hulu and Yelp are seen as potential IPO candidates when the market improves. But hopes Skype would lead a wave of tech IPOs are fading after Google announced a new feature on Aug. 25 allowing users to make calls through their Gmail accounts, driving users to dial a million calls in 24 hours. With the added competition of Google, Josef Schuster, founder of IPO research house IPOX, said he would probably lower his bid for Skype shares for his Direxion Long/Short Global IPO fund. "Google is obviously going to cut into Skype's main business," Schuster said. Google is the biggest threat to Skype's position as the leader in Internet calling. While other companies have offered similar services before, none has had a subscriber base like Google's and the convenience of being built into a browser such as Gmail, said Stephan Beckert, a research analyst at TeleGeography.

Social Networking-Has It Changed How We Do SEO-Absolutely!

Social Networking-Has It Changed How We Do SEO-Absolutely! Do you understand the implications of how your company's image is displayed in more than 100 active social networking mediums on the net? We do, call us for more information. Twitter, Youtube, Blogger, Facebook, Digg and 80 more important places for your company to be listed.

Is Alcoholism a Disease? Non 12 Step Recovery Model

We are not convinced that alcoholism is a disease, however we are also aware that some people are more prone to addictive behavior than others. We at Prominence are not convinced that alcoholism is a disease, however we are also aware that some people are more prone to addictive behavior than others. Genetics, physiology and environment all have an influence of someone's propensity to abuse drugs, including alcohol.

The AMA - (American Medical Association) endorsed the dual classification of alcoholism by the International Classification of Diseases under both psychiatric and medical sections. Alcoholism is a chronic, life-long disease, such as diabetes. However, if managed properly, damage to the brain can be stopped and to some extent reversed. In addition to problem drinking, the disease is characterized by symptoms including an impaired control over alcohol, compulsive thoughts about alcohol, and distorted thinking.

Alcoholism can also lead indirectly, through excess consumption, to physical dependence on alcohol, and diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver. The risk of developing alcoholism depends on many factors, such as environment. Those with a family history of alcoholism are more likely to develop it themselves; however, many individuals have developed alcoholism without a family history of the disease.

Since the consumption of alcohol is necessary to develop alcoholism, the availability of and attitudes towards alcohol in an individual's environment affect their likelihood of developing the disease. Current evidence indicates that in both men and women, alcoholism is 50-60% genetically determined, leaving 40-50% for environmental influences

In a review in 2001, McLellan compared the diagnoses, heritability, etiology (genetic and environmental factors), pathophysiology, and response to treatments (adherence and relapse) of drug dependence vs type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and asthma. They found that genetic heritability, personal choice, and environmental factors are comparably involved in the etiology and course of all of these disorders, providing evidence that drug, (including alcohol) dependence is a chronic medical illness.

Genes play a large role in the development of alcoholism. Twin and adoption studies have shown that a person's genes can predispose them to developing alcoholism. However, genetic predisposition is not necessary to develop alcoholism. Similarly, not everyone with a genetic predisposition develops the disease.

Current evidence indicates that in both men and women, alcoholism is 50-60% genetically determined, leaving 40-50% for environmental and other influences. The diagnosis of alcoholism is often made using the DSM-IV criteria for alcohol dependence, which requires three or more of the following symptoms to occur within the same 12-month period...read more