Hackers Add Smut to Govt. Sites

Departed users can leave wills, photos, passwords to family

(NEWSER) - Think of it as a safe deposit box for the dearly departed: A website in California allows subscribers to store digital versions of important stuff—wills, photos, credit card numbers, bicycle lock combinations, you name it—so beneficiaries don't have to scramble after the funeral, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Sounds farfetched, but AssetLock.net soon expects to have 1 million American and international clients. More»

Firm is responsible for delivering people to more than half of all websites

(NEWSER) - Hackers managed to break into the servers of a crucial web company responsible for delivering users to more than half the websites in the world. VeriSign doesn't believe the attackers infiltrated its Domain Name System network—which is responsible for directing traffic to .com, .net, and .gov addresses on the Internet—but it can't rule it out. The attacks occurred in 2010, but only came to light today, when Reuters spotted them in an October SEC filing. More»

Natalie Portman steals top spot from Johnny Depp this year

(NEWSER) - When you want to ogle an actor, the Internet Movie Database is a reasonable destination. So which 10 celebs racked up the most IMDb profile page views in 2011? The top spot now belongs to Natalie Portman , who snagged the crown from Johnny Depp (now No. 3, he's been No. 1 for six out of the last seven years). IMDb's managing editor certainly isn't shocked at the new queen bee: Natalie "won a Best Actress Oscar for Black Swan, was in the news welcoming a son into the world in June, and appeared in three films." Mashable reports on the rest of the top 10:

2. Mila Kunis : another Black Swan star

'Red Social' launches a year after Cuban Wikipedia clone

(NEWSER) - Cuba has introduced its very own Facebook-style social network called Red Social. The website appears to be sponsored by the communist nation's Ministry of Education, reports USA Today . Red Social imitates both the look and feel of Facebook, and its homepage features the slogan "A virtual meeting point for Cuban universities." The new social network arrives a year after Cuba launched its own Wikipedia, EcuRed, but it is only available from within the country. The domain name is facebook.ismm.edu.cu. More»

Pushes against distribution of war material

(AP) - The Defense Department is asking media organizations not to publish or post on websites classified US war files released by WikiLeaks. The department has been bracing for a possible leak of as many as many as 400,000 documents from a military database on the Iraq war. The documents are mostly field reports, summarizing actions taken by troops and intelligence gathered. Click here for more what might be in the files. More»