XIAM007

Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Thursday 14 June 2012

Ethiopia criminalises Skype - use of Internet voice services punishable by hefty fines and up to 15 years in prison -

Ethiopia criminalises Skype - use of Internet voice services punishable by hefty fines and up to 15 years in prison - 




Ethiopia’s state-owned Internet service provider, the Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (Ethio-Telcom), has begun performing deep-packet inspection of all Internet traffic in the country. The country’s government recently ushered in new legislation that criminalises the use of services such as Skype, Google Talk and other forms of Internet phone calling.


The new law, which came into effect on 24 May, makes use of Internet voice services punishable by hefty fines and up to 15 years in prison.


The official line from the government is that the move is intended to protect national security and protect the national, state-owned telecoms carrier from losing revenue to Skype and similar services; this, despite the fact that Ethiopia’s fixed-line penetration rate is the second worst in Africa (after Sierra Leone) at an estimated 1% of its 85m strong population.


Ethiopia has instituted numerous restrictions on its digital community in recent years. The government has previously closed down Internet cafes offering voice-over-Internet protocol services and, in December 2006, made it obligatory for Internet cafes to keep records of the names and addresses of their customers in an effort to clamp down on bloggers and other users critical of the regime.


Read more -
http://www.techcentral.co.za/ethiopia-criminalises-skype/32723/

Huge asteroid to fly by Earth Thursday - just discovered on the night of June 10-11- how to watch online -

Huge asteroid to fly by Earth Thursday - just discovered on the night of June 10-11- how to watch online - 


An asteroid the size of a city block is set to fly by Earth Thursday (June 14), and you may be able to watch it happen live.
The near-Earth asteroid 2012 LZ1, which astronomers think is about 1,650 feet (500 meters) wide, will come within 14 lunar distances of Earth Thursday evening. While there's no danger of an impact on this pass, the huge space rock may come close enough to be caught on camera.
That's what the team running the Slooh Space Camera thinks, anyway. The online skywatching service will train a telescope on the Canary Islands on 2012 LZ1 and stream the footage live, beginning at 8:00 p.m. EDT Thursday (0000 GMT Friday).
You can watch the asteroid flyby on Slooh's website, at events.slooh.com


2012 LZ1 just popped onto astronomers' radar this week. It was discovered on the night of June 10-11 by Rob McNaught and his colleagues, who were peering through the Uppsala Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia.
Researchers estimate that the space rock is between 1,000 and 2,300 feet wide (300-700 m). On Thursday evening, it will come within about 3.35 million miles (5.4 million kilometers) of our planet, or roughly 14 times the distance between Earth and the moon.
Because of its size and proximity to Earth, 2012 LZ1 qualifies as a potentially hazardous asteroid. Near-Earth asteroids generally have to be at least 500 feet (150 m) wide and come within 4.65 million miles (7.5 million km) of our planet to be classified as potentially hazardous.
2012 LZ1 is roughly the same size as asteroid 2005 YU55, which made a much-anticipated flyby of Earth last November. But 2005 YU55 gave our planet a much closer shave, coming within 202,000 miles (325,000 km) of us on the evening of Nov. 8. A space rock as big as 2005 YU55 hadn't come so close to Earth since 1976, researchers said.
Astronomers have identified nearly 9,000 near-Earth asteroids, but they think many more are out there, waiting to be discovered.




Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/06/14/huge-asteroid-to-fly-by-earth-thursday-how-to-watch-online/?intcmp=features

Military drone mistaken for ‘UFO’ along DC highways - craft being hauled on a flatbed truck on I-270 -

Military drone mistaken for ‘UFO’ along DC highways - craft being hauled on a flatbed truck on I-270 - 






People in the D.C. area are buzzing after pictures began popping up online showing what many believed to be a 'UFO' in transport along the Capitol Beltway.


The spotting took place around 11:00 p.m. Wednesday when drivers first saw the craft being hauled on a flatbed truck on I-270, then on I-495.


Maryland State Police confirmed that the strange craft was actually a drone aircraft made by Northrup Grumman that was being transported from West Virginia to Patuxent Naval Air Station in Maryland.


It wasn't the first time aircraft being transported had been mistaken for 'UFOs'. Last year, residents of Cowley County, Kansas mistook a similar flying machine.


DefenseTech.org reported last year that engineers practice aircraft carrier take-offs and landings with the drone on a strip of runway at Patuxent that's painted to resemble a carrier's flight deck.






Read more: http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/18785637/beltway-ufo-said-to-be-military-drone-aircraft?clienttype=printable