Facebook shares fell more than 13 percent, falling below its $38 price of itsinitial public offering, in the social network’s second day of trading as a public company.

Meanwhile, the NASDAQ exchange continued to defend itself regarding the IPO’s delay on Friday.

The company’s shares [FB  34.03    -4.2018  (-10.99%)   ] last traded down more than 13 percent. The stock had previously closed 0.6 percent higher on Friday.

Investors and technology industry watchers are closely tracking the Menlo Park, Calif., company’s shares. The world’s largest social network was one of the most anticipated initial public stock offerings ever, and now serves as a bellwether for other social media companies.

Facebook’s market debut Friday suffered some hiccups, with trading on the Nasdaq delayed for a half hour and issues with traders’ orders. The stock closed Friday just 23 cents above where it priced Thursday night, when many investors had hoped for a big first-day pop.

Facebook shares fell below the offer price Monday before the market’s open. It was unclear at that time whether underwriters such as Morgan Stanley [MS 13.25    -0.10  (-0.75%)   ] would step in to help stabilize the stock.

Facebook Inc. (FB) is set to start trading today after a record initial public offering that made the social network more costly than almost every company in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. (SPX)

Facebook sold 421.2 million shares at $38 each to raise $16 billion, a statement yesterday shows. That values the Menlo Park, California-based company at $104.2 billion, or 107 times trailing 12-month earnings, more than every S&P 500 member except Amazon.com Inc. and Equity Residential.

CONTINUED at Bloomberg.

As the association of Eastern European and Chinese IP addresses with cybercriminals has led to blacklisting of addresses from those countries, the crooks are moving their sites to North America — in droves.A new report from security firm Websense finds strong evidence of this alarming new trend.

“Things are getting worse, not better,” said Patrik Runald, director, security research, Websense Labs.In Canada, we found an 170% increase from last year in phishing sites being hosted on Canadian servers, making Canada number two in the world for hosted phishing sites.”But that pales in comparison to the U.S., which saw a 300% increase and is now the top country in the world for these sites, by far.

“A lot more malicious content is now based in western, first world countries today,” Runald said. “Typical suspects 2-5 years ago were in eastern Europe which is dropping off because they developed a shady reputation. So traffic to and from servers in say Ukraine, were simply blocked by some admins, and vendor security products took location into account, making traffic from these countries much more likely to be blocked. So the operators of these sites moved to countries where traffic goes commonly, like the U.S. and Canada, where it is much harder to block for security reasons.”

The same trend is also showing up with Bot networks, and with malicious URLs.Canada saw a 39% increase in Bot networks this year, which Runald said was pretty average, especially when compared to the U.S. jump of 450% in the same category.”This stat doesnt mention the scale of the Botnet being used, and we are finding that 8-12 servers is now about average,” Runald said.

Malicious website increase was also high this year — about 300% in the U.S. and 239% in Canada.

“This was an amazing jump across the board,” Runald said. “And its the most dangerous catagory because you dont have to click on anything to get infected. This is also a moving target, as are Bot networks, while phishing is more static in the way it works.”Runald said the security vendors are generally able to cope because they do have massive amounts of data to work with. Websense alone has 3.5 billion pieces of data they scan every day.

“But the fact the numbers are going up quite dramatically is a worrying trend because theres more to deal with,” he said. “This is new. In 2010 and 2011 we did not see this kind of jump.”

Runald suggested that increasing criminal penalties for these kinds of crimes could have a significant impact.

“I don’t know why we arent doing it, but to be fair, no one else is either. I don’t think we are sending the right message here. Very often, they just get a slap on the wrist and get to go home. The Feds are doing a good job in cracking down, but it’s a drop in the ocean compared to what’s going on.”

Source: eChannelLine.

When riot police broke up a recent protest over a forced eviction, Vietnam’s bloggers were ready — hidden in nearby trees, they documented the entire incident and quickly posted videos and photos online.

Their shaky images spread like wildfire on Facebook, in a sign of growing online defiance in Vietnam, in the face of efforts by authorities to rein in the country’s Internet community.

“They follow me, they keep track of what I am writing, they keep track of all dissident bloggers. Anything they can do to harass us, they do,” said blogger Nguyen Thi Dung, one of several bloggers who publicised the April 24 Hung Yen unrest on a variety of websites.

“They have many people browsing the net, reporting things they don’t like, getting them taken down. It is a perfect copy of what the Chinese are doing on the Internet,” she told AFP, asking that her name be changed for her safety.

CONTINUED at Yahoo News Canada.

Authorities in Mexico’s Gulf coast state of Campeche said Wednesday they are investigating how a porn video was made by sixth-graders inside their school.

State Education Department spokesman Omar Kantun said the video was apparently made in an empty classroom during recess in late April.

“It is real, the case is real, the video exists,” Kantun said. “The Education Department is very concerned.”

He said an investigation is being conducted by his department and the teachers union to determine whether any adults were involved.

Kantun said the teacher who uses the classroom did not appear to have been present when the video was made. He said no disciplinary action has been taken against any students or teachers as of yet. He said the students involved are being given psychological counseling.

The incident occurred in late April at a grade school in the town of Calkini, which is in a relatively conservative and heavily Indian area. Three boys are seen on the video engaging in oral and anal sex recorded on a cellphone by a fourth person, apparently another student.

The mother of one of the boys saw the video on the Internet and notified authorities, Kantun said. He said the video had since been taken down.

Authorities didn’t announce the students’ ages, but sixth-graders in Mexico are generally 12 or younger.

Source: AP.

Refuses to buy stock over privacy concerns.

In an interview with CNN, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian said he would refuse to buy Facebook stock because of the company’s appalling attitude to privacy and its support for the CISPA bill.

“I’m not planning on it…I understand the business value to what Facebook is doing. We’ve never seen a company like this before–ever. And it knows things about our private lives that no one else does. And one of the big issues that a lot of us in the tech community have had of late has been their support for bills like CISPA that make it really easy for companies like Facebook to hand over private data about us without any due process. So that’s why I’ll be holding off,” said Ohanian.

Reddit joins Mozilla as the only other major tech company to decry CISPA, with firms like Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Symantec, AT&T and Verizon all backing the bill. Last week, Mozilla released a statement calling the legislation an “alarming” threat to privacy, adding, “The bill infringes on our privacy, includes vague definitions of cybersecurity, and grants immunities to companies and government that are too broad around information misuse.”

CISPA has been identified by many as a greater threat to privacy than SOPA, which was opposed by a deluge of major tech firms after a viral online opposition campaign, but because CISPA has received less attention, corporate giants have found it easier to stay mute.

Not only would CISPA mandate ISPs to share Internet data of users with government “notwithstanding any other provision of law,” it also empowers the Department of Homeland Securityto monitor the communications of the federal courts and Congress, and intercept tax returns sent to the IRS.

The bill “gives companies a free pass to monitor and collect communications and share that data with the government and other companies, so long as they do so for ‘cybersecurity purposes,’” the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has noted. “Just invoking ‘cybersecurity threats’ is enough to grant companies immunity from nearly all civil and criminal liability, effectively creating an exemption from all existing law.”

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson. Video at link.

Mozilla is first Silicon Valley entity to denounce bill.

Tech giant Mozilla has publicly slammed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) which passed the House last week, labeling the legislation an “alarming” threat to privacy.

“While we wholeheartedly support a more secure Internet, CISPA has a broad and alarming reach that goes far beyond Internet security. The bill infringes on our privacy, includes vague definitions of cybersecurity, and grants immunities to companies and government that are too broad around information misuse. We hope the Senate takes the time to fully and openly consider these issues with stakeholder input before moving forward with this legislation,” Mozilla, which is best known for its Firefox browser, said in a statement.

The statement is important because it marks the first time any Silicon Valley entity has denounced CISPA, with an array of powerful companies lining up in support of the legislation which passed the US House of Representatives 248 to 168 and now heads to the Senate.

Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Symantec, AT&T and Verizon have all backed the bill, with Microsoft re-affirming its support yesterday after rumors the company was getting cold feet, while Google has refused to take either side.

CISPA has been identified by many as a greater threat to privacy than SOPA, which was opposed by a deluge of major tech firms after a viral online opposition campaign, but because CISPA has received less attention, corporate giants have found it easier to stay mute.

Not only would CISPA mandate ISPs to share Internet data of users with government “notwithstanding any other provision of law,” it also empowers the Department of Homeland Securityto monitor the communications of the federal courts and Congress, and intercept tax returns sent to the IRS.

The bill “gives companies a free pass to monitor and collect communications and share that data with the government and other companies, so long as they do so for ‘cybersecurity purposes,’” the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has noted. “Just invoking ‘cybersecurity threats’ is enough to grant companies immunity from nearly all civil and criminal liability, effectively creating an exemption from all existing law.”

“The government would be able to search information it collects under CISPA for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as they can claim someone committed a “cybersecurity crime”. Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all. Moreover, the government could do whatever it wants with the data as long as it can claim that someone was in danger of bodily harm, or that children were somehow threatened—again, notwithstanding absolutely any other law that would normally limit the government’s power,” writes TechDirt’s Leigh Beadon.

As we have documented, the Obama administration’s threat to veto the bill is little more than a crude stunt and carries no more weight than Obama’s promise to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, which he signed on New Year’s Eve after the White House itself lobbied for the NDAA’s most egregious provisions to be included.

Indeed, the White House’s primary beef with the legislation appears to be the fact that it doesn’t handenough power to the Department of Homeland Security.

CISPA now moves to the Senate where it will be amalgamated with one of two other bills before heading to Obama’s desk. Don’t hold your breath on that veto.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

Source: Infowars.

Earlier this week, photographs from Hulk Hogan‘s sex tape were released on the Internet. It took a few days to hear anything from the Hogan camp, but it turns out he really does not like being made a fool of, as TMZ reported that Hogan’s attorney is threatening legal action.

Question on Everybody’s Mind: Is Hogan going to get what he wants?

Our Take: It is not impossible for Hogan’s legal team to threaten action to get the photos taken down, but more often than not, when something is on the Internet it is incredibly hard to get it off.

Hype Meter: 4 out of 5 Reasons To Hulk Up

As mentioned earlier this week, it is amazing to think that this whole thing happened to Hogan given how in control of every possible situation he has to be. I don’t know what else to say about it, but I think things are far from over.

Deeper Dive

Hogan Says To Get His Pictures Off The ‘Net (TMZ)

Source: Bleacher Report.

A new proposal by Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee threatens to give the Department of Homeland Security the power to spy on Congress and the Judicial Branch.

Under Jackson Lee’s amendment, the already controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) — a bill that would enable the sharing of information  about cyber threats between intelligence agencies and private corporations — would also empower the secretary of DHS to “intercept” and “use” information collected on federally-affiliated networks.

The amendment would also authorize the secretary of DHS to enact “countermeasures” against perceived network threats.

In particular, the amendment reads, ”the content of communications will be collected and retained only when communication is associated with known or reasonably suspected cybersecurity threat, and communications and system traffic will not be associated with such threats.”

A broad range of civil and digital liberties groups across the ideological spectrum have repeatedly expressed their concerns over the bill.

“Ryan Radia, associate director of technology studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank that has criticized CISPA, suggested that it could also allow DHS to monitor the communications of the federal courts and Congress, and intercept tax returns sent to the IRS,” CNET reported on Tuesday evening.

CISPA — first introduced in November 2011 — currently enjoys the support of 112 cosponsors and a broad range of business groups. Facebook has also come out in support of the bill, much to the displeasure of many Internet users. As of Monday, 18 Democratic congressmen and Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul had voiced their opposition to the bill.

CONTINUED at The Daily Caller.

There’s a story circulating that if you don’t ensure your computer is malware-free by July 9, 2012, the FBI will shut off your access to the Internet. Like most such alarmist claims, it’s only partly true, though if you’re a Windows or Mac user, you’ll want to pay attention.

The original story dates back to 2007, when a group of cyber-ne’er-do-wells launched malware dubbed “DNSChanger,” infecting millions of computers in hundreds of countries with code that allowed them to manipulate the way Internet ads appear in browsers, ultimately racking up millions in illicit fees.

How did the malware work? DNSChanger targets Windows or Mac systems (Linux, iOS and Android users are in the clear) by manipulating Domain Name Servers (DNS), which translate syntax-based URLs into IP addresses. When you type something like “www.yahoo.com” into your browser, for instance, your request hits your Internet service provider’s DNS server, which translates it into a numeric IP address. If you plug that IP address into your browser’s URL bar in lieu of the web address, barring any IP tricks, you’ll land on the exact same web page. The Internet’s underlying architecture is based on TCP/IP, in other words, not the more easily remembered words we type into our browsers.

DNSChanger fiddles with that DNS routing: Once a computer was infected, the malware redirected DNS-related requests to servers controlled by the fraud ring, which then piped web ads to users, ultimately putting millions of dollars in the cybercriminals’ pockets.

Working with Estonian officials, the FBI was able to track down the perps — six Estonian nationals were arrested for the crime last November — and seize their servers. But given the number of computers estimated infected, the FBI opted to leave the servers running, ad-neutralized, to avoid disrupting Internet functionality for those unaware their computers were compromised. And to give users more time to purge, the FBI secured a court order on March 12, 2012 that authorized the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) — a nonprofit corporation that supports the Internet’s infrastructure — to roll out and maintain temporary “clean” DNS servers. But since these servers cost money to operate, the plan has been to shut them off on July 9, 2012. When that happens, DNS-related Internet activity on infected computers, e.g. web and email, will cease to function.

To be clear, your Internet service itself will be unaffected by the change: If your computer is infected with the DNSChanger malware, your Internet router will keep routing and any commands sent by your computer that aren’t DNS-related will still pass. The FBI isn’t shutting off Internet service to impacted machines, it’s just pulling the plug on a stopgap measure designed to bandaid the broken process currently facilitating DNS communication on infected machines.

How do you tell if you’re infected? Simple: The FBI runs a DNS checker page, where you can type your DNS info into a box to check its validity. Easier still, you can click on a link that’ll automatically check and return either a green or red background, indicating “clean” or “infected” states, respectively. Alternately, the DNS Changer Working Group (DCWG), created to help remedy the malware, maintains a page with detailed information on the malware, how to detect it and how to remove it, including a table of links to popular antivirus company remedies.

Source: TIME.