MI6 intel ops disfigures Al Qaeda site with cupcake recipes

Thanks to a hack by British intelligence operatives, would-be bombers downloading a recipe for making bombs from a suspected Al Qaeda online magazine may end up making cupcakes instead.

British intelligence MI6 operatives who hacked into the site also removed articles by slain leader Osama bin Laden, UK-based The Daily Telegraph reported.

"When followers tried to download the 67-page colour magazine, instead of instructions about how to 'Make a bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom' by 'The AQ Chef' they were greeted with garbled computer code," the report said.

The "code" was actually a web page of recipes for “The Best Cupcakes in America", published by the Ellen DeGeneres chat show.

It even included a recipe for Mojito and Rocky Road Cupcakes, the report said.

"The little cupcake is big again. Self-contained and satisfying, it summons memories of childhood even as it's updated for today's sweet-toothed hipsters," read the cupcake recipe page.

Both recipes replaced the original magazine's recipe for a pipe bomb, which The Telegraph reported as using "sugar, match heads and a miniature lightbulb attached to a timer."

Also removed by the cyber attack were articles by bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and a piece called “What to expect in Jihad."

The report said British and US intelligence planned separate attacks after learning that the magazine was about to be issued in June last year.

According to the Daily Telegraph story, British intelligence continued to target online outlets publishing the magazine because it is "viewed as such a powerful propaganda tool."

It said the magazine is produced by radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and his associate Samir Khan.

Al-Awlaki and Khan are thought to be in Yemen, and associated with radicals connected to Rajib Karim, a British resident jailed for 30 years in March for plotting to smuggle a bomb onto a trans-Atlantic aircraft. 

— with reports from  TJD, GMA News

Economy Watch: Uneven growth in world services sector this May

LONDON — Service sector growth in major European and emerging Asian economies was uneven in May, surveys showed on Friday, with slowdowns in the euro zone and India but a strong upturn in Russia.

Purchasing managers indexes (PMIs), which measure the activities of thousands of companies around the world, showed growth in the euro zone's vast services sector sagged for the second month in a row.

While the surveys indicated a welcome easing of inflationary pressure in Europe, input prices surged in Russia and also in India, where the service sector expanded at its weakest pace in 20 months.

A confusing picture emerged from Friday's Chinese services PMIs. The private HSBC survey showed growth accelerating and input price growth hitting a six-month high, but a government survey showed slowing growth and price pressures abating.

On Wednesday, manufacturing PMIs had showed a broad-based cooling of growth in world factories, feeding fears that the world's main economic engines are cooling fast as richer countries cut orders.

"Putting the services and manufacturing readings together... I think the PMIs as a whole are sending a pretty clear signal that there's a slowing in growth taking place," said Malcolm Barr, economist at JPMorgan.

Overall, the PMIs suggested businesses are still feeling the disruption to supply lines caused by March's earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and the costs of the commodities boom earlier this year which are still filtering through emerging markets. US PMIs due later on Friday are expected to show a modest uptick in growth for the non-manufacturing sector, although the spotlight will be on non-farm payrolls that are expected to show a steep loss of momentum in the labor market.

Friday's Markit Eurozone Services PMI showed a fall in May to 56.0 from 56.7 in April, holding above the 50 mark that signifies growth for the 21st month.

It showed growing disparities between the euro zone's strong Franco-German economic core and debt-burdened strugglers like Spain, Ireland and Italy, whose service sectors edged closer to stagnation.

The euro zone economy's 0.8 percent quarter-on-quarter expansion estimated for the first three months could be as good as it gets for this year, said survey compiler Markit.

British service sector growth also slipped in May, although like the neighboring euro zone, there was an easing in the upturn of both input and output prices that will come as welcome news for central bankers.

Price pressures

No such easing was seen in the slowing Indian service sector, as input costs increased markedly despite a series of interest rate hikes aimed at stemming rampant price growth.

The HSBC Indian services PMI slipped sharply to 55.0 in May from 59.2 in April — a 20-month low.

"The easing momentum for business activity and new business is evidence that policy tightening and high inflation is filtering through to growth," said Leif Eskesen, chief economist for India & ASEAN at HSBC.

Russian service companies fared much better, with the PMI there hitting a 13-month high thanks to a faster increase in new contracts.

While input price inflation also rose, approaching recent highs seen at the start of the year, the Russian service sector looked in rude health.

"As opposed to manufacturing, the service sector surprised positively in May demonstrating broad-based growth in all sub-sectors and accelerating its expansion rate to above the long-term average," said Alexander Morozov, chief economist for Russia and CIS at HSBC.

In China, HSBC's services PMI showed a big jump to 54.3 last month from April's near record-low of 51.6, contrasting with muted gains seen in the manufacturing PMIs which have suffered from power shortages and thinning profit margins.

By contrast, the official government survey from the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing showed a slight slowdown in May — to 61.9 from April's 62.5 — as well as easing inflation pressure.

"Both indices measuring input prices and service charge prices dropped last month. That is a good sign and may help reduce inflation pressures," said Cai Jin, a vice-president at the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

-with reports from Reuters and GMANews.tv

Spotlight falls on Sony’s troubled cyber security

LONDON – Another massive data breach at Sony has left hackers exulting, customers steaming and security experts questioning why basic fixes haven’t been made to the company’s stricken cyber security program.

Hackers say they managed to steal a massive trove of personal information from Sony Pictures’ website using a basic technique which they claim shows how poorly the company guards its users’ secrets. Security experts agreed Friday, saying the company’s security was bypassed by a well-known attack method by which rogue commands are used to extract sensitive data from poorly constructed websites.

“Any website worth its salt these days should be built to withstand such attacks,” said Graham Cluley, of Web security firm Sophos. Coming on the heels of a massive security breach that compromised more than 100 million user accounts associated with Sony’s PlayStation and online entertainment networks, Cluley said the latest attack suggested that hackers were lining up to give the company a kicking.

“They are becoming the whipping boy of the computer underground,” he said.

In a joint statement from Michael Lynton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Amy Pascal, Co-Chairman, Sony Pictures Entertainment on Friday night acknowledged the breach and said the company had taken action “to protect against further intrusion.”

“We have also retained a respected team of experts to conduct the forensic analysis of the attack,” the statement said. It did not go into details about specific actions that will be taken to prevent future security breaches.

It wasn’t clear how many people were affected. The hackers, who call themselves Lulz Security – a reference to the Internetspeak for “laugh out loud” – boasted of compromising more than 1 million users’ personal information – although it said that a lack of resources meant it could only leak a selection on the Web. Their claim could not be independently verified, but several people whose details were posted online confirmed their identities to The Associated Press.

Lulz Security ridiculed California-based Sony for the ease with which it stole the data, saying that the company stored peoples’ passwords in a simple text file – something it called “disgraceful and insecure.”

Several emails sent to accounts associated with the hackers as well as messages posted to the microblogging site Twitter were not returned, but in one of its tweets Lulz Security expressed no remorse.

“Hey innocent people whose data we leaked: blame Sony,” it said.

Sony’s customers – many of whom had given the company their information for sweepstakes draws – appeared to agree.

Tim Rillahan, a 39-year-old computer instructor in Ohio, said he was extremely upset to find his email address and password posted online for “the whole world to see.”

“I have since been changing my passwords on every site that uses a login,” he said in an email Friday. “Sony stored our passwords in plain text instead of encrypting the information. It shows little respect to us, their customers.”

He and others complained that they had yet to hear from the company about the breach, news of which is nearly a day old.

John Bumgarner, the chief technology officer for the US Cyber Consequences Unit – a research group devoted to monitoring Internet threats – was emphatic when asked whether users’ passwords could be left unencrypted.

“Never, never, never,” he said. “Passwords should always be hashed. Some kind of encryption should be used.”

Bumgarner, who’s been critical of Sony’s security in the past, said the company needed to take a hard look at how it safeguards its data.

“It’s time for Sony to press the reset button on their cybersecurity program before another incident occurs,” he said.

-with reports from Inquirer.net and The Associated Press

PHL to China: 'serious violations' in Spratlys

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has accused China of “serious violations” in the Spratly Islands following at least six aggressive acts in the disputed territory in the South China sea, raising worries that Beijing may be fortifying its claims in the potentially oil-rich region.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said it had filed a protest before the Chinese Embassy “over the increasing presence and activities of Chinese vessels including naval assets in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).”

“This protest follows a series of protests already filed by the DFA since the Reed Bank incident in March,” the DFA said in a statement.

The Philippine military has reported that a Chinese surveillance vessel and navy ships were seen unloading building materials and erecting posts in the vicinity of Iroquois Reef and Amy Douglas Bank – an uninhabited undersea hill claimed by the Philippines about 230 kilometers from southwestern Palawan province.

It is part of the Spratlys but well within the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone, the DFA said.

Last month, Chinese jet fighters had reportedly intruded into Philippine airspace in the vicinity of Reed Bank, part of the Kalayaan group of islands in the Spratlys that the Philippines claims. In March, two Chinese vessels harassed a Philippine exploration ship at Reed Bank, prompting the Philippine military to send war planes and Coast Guard ships to the area.

“The actions of the Chinese vessels in Philippine waters are serious violations of Philippine sovereignty and maritime jurisdiction and also violate the Asean-China Declaration of Conduct on the South China Sea,” the DFA said.

At the same time, the DFA said China’s actions “hamper the normal and legitimate fishing activities of the Filipino fishermen in the area and undermines the peace and stability of the region.”

President Benigno Aquino III on Thursday said that the Philippines was planning to file a protest at the UN for the series of incursions.

“There are six or seven [incursions] happening after February 25. We are completing all the necessary data and then we will present it to them [China] and then file it with the appropriate body, which is the UN,” he said.

Those acts included the reported firing last February by a suspected Chinese naval vessel to scare away Filipino fishermen from Quirino, or the Jackson Atoll, in a Spratlys area claimed by Manila, said the officials, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The Chinese Embassy in Manila said the “the reported ‘incursion of Chinese ships’ is not true.” But, it acknowledged the presence there of a Chinese marine research ship “conducting normal maritime research activities in the South China Sea.”

The DFA said both Manila and Beijing agreed to “keep the channels of communication open and continue dialogue on the South China Sea issue.”

-with reports from The Associated Press and Inquirer.net

PEPSI Pinas: Sa Akin ang Pinas! Full Trailer

How creative is this new advertisement by Pepsi! The setting's ridiculous. 

The new PEPSI PINAS will surely be a hit!

http://www.facebook.com/pepsisarapmagbago
Click mo 'to kung gusto mo pang sikatan ng araw!

Synopsis:
Patola Forces SPOG1 (Alvarez) goes head to head with Berdugo ng Barangay Sanggano (Boy Balbon) in an explosive battle for Pinas.
2 men, 1 bottle and an unquenchable thirst for glory. Who will prevail?

Main Cast: Boy Balbon, SPOG1 Alvarez, Pepsi Pinas
Supporting Cast: Ampalaya Goons, Upo Goons, Upo Sniper, Patola Forces
Director: Dhenzel Weta
Writer: Annkor Tis
Film Producer: In The Name of Love Productions
Music Director: Tirso Cruz Diether
Genre: Pinoy Action
Release Year: 2011

For a limited time only, Pepsi Pinas now showing at convenience stores, groceries and Manang's Tindahan.