Portal:Internet/Selected article
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[edit] Selected articles list
Portal:Internet/Selected article/1
In computing, phishing is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. eBay, PayPal and online banks are common targets. Phishing is typically carried out by email or instant messaging, and often directs users to enter details at a website, although phone contact has also been used. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical measures. The first recorded mention of the term "phishing" is on the alt.online-service.America-online Usenet newsgroup on January 2, 1996, although the term may have appeared earlier in the print edition of the hacker magazine 2600. A phishing technique was described in detail as early as 1987, in a paper and presentation delivered to the International HP Users Group, Interex. The term phishing is a variant of fishing, probably influenced by phreaking, and alludes to the use of increasingly sophisticated baits used in the hope of a "catch" of financial information and passwords. The word may also be linked to leetspeak, in which ph is a common substitution for f.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/2
The history of the Internet dates back to the early development of communication networks. In the 1950s and early 1960s, prior to the widespread inter-networking that led to the Internet, most communication networks were limited by their nature to only allow communications between the stations on the network. Some networks had gateways or bridges between them, but these bridges were often limited or built specifically for a single use. One prevalent computer networking method was based on the central mainframe method, simply allowing its terminals to be connected via long leased lines. This method was used in the 1950s by Project RAND to support researchers such as Herbert Simon, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when collaborating across the continent with researchers in Santa Monica, California, on automated theorem proving and artificial intelligence.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/3
YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. YouTube was created in mid-February 2005 by three former PayPal employees. The San Bruno-based service uses Adobe Flash technology to display a wide variety of video content, including movie clips, TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as videoblogging and short original videos. In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65 billion in Google stock. The deal closed on November 13, 2006. Unregistered users can watch most videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Some videos are available only to users of age 18 or older (e.g. videos containing potentially offensive content). The uploading of pornography or videos containing nudity is prohibited. Related videos, determined by title and tags, appear onscreen to the right of a given video. In YouTube's second year, functions were added to enhance user ability to post video 'responses' and subscribe to content feeds. Few statistics are publicly available regarding the number of videos on YouTube. However, in July 2006 the company revealed that more than 100 million videos were being watched every day, and 2.5 billion videos were watched in June 2006.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/4
An HTTP cookie is a parcel of textual information sent by a server to a World Wide Web browser and then sent back by the browser each time it accesses that server. HTTP cookies are used for user authentication, user tracking, and maintaining user-specific information such as site preferences and electronic shopping carts. Cookies have been of concern for Internet privacy, since they can be used for tracking the browsing of a user. As a result, they have been subject to legislation in various countries such as the United States, as well as the European Union. Cookies have also been criticised because the identification of users they provide is not always accurate and because they can be used for network attacks. Some alternatives to cookies exist, but have their own drawbacks. On the other hand, cookies have been subject to a number of misconceptions, mostly based on the erroneous notion that they are computer programs. Most modern browsers allow users to decide whether to accept cookies, but rejection makes some Web sites unusable.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/5
Mozilla Firefox is a web browser project descended from the Mozilla application suite, managed by the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox had 16.01% of the recorded market share in Web browsers as of November 2007, making it the second-most-popular browser in current use worldwide. Firefox uses the open-source Gecko layout engine, which implements current Web standards plus a few features which are intended to anticipate likely additions to the standards. Firefox includes tabbed browsing, a spell checker, incremental find, live bookmarking, a download manager, and a search system that includes Google. Functions can be added through more than 2,000 add-ons created by third party developers; the most popular include FoxyTunes (controls music players), Adblock Plus (ad blocker), StumbleUpon (website discovery), DownThemAll! (download functions) and Web Developer (web tools). Firefox runs on various versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Its current stable release is version 2.0.0.11, released on 30 November 2007. Firefox's source code is under the terms of the Mozilla tri-license as free and open source software.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/6
Megatokyo is an English-language webcomic created by Fred Gallagher and Rodney Caston, debuting on August 14, 2000, and then written and illustrated solely by Gallagher as of July 17, 2002. The style of its writing and illustrations is heavily influenced by Japanese manga. Megatokyo is freely available on its official website, with updates on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It is among the most popular webcomics, and is published in print by CMX. Sales of the comic's print editions rank it as the best selling original English-language manga. Set in a fictional version of Tokyo, Megatokyo portrays the adventures of Piro, a young fan of anime and manga, and his friend Largo, a video game enthusiast. The comic often parodies and comments on the archetypes and clichés of anime, manga, dating simulations and video games, occasionally making direct references to real-world works. Megatokyo was originally presented in the gag-a-day format, with continuity of the story a subsidiary concern. Over time, it focused more on developing a complex plot and the personalities of its characters. This transition was due primarily to Gallagher's increasing control over the comic, which led to Caston's controversial removal from the project. Megatokyo has received praise from such sources as The New York Times, while negative criticism of Gallagher's changes to the comic has been given by sources including Websnark.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/7
GameFAQs is a website that hosts FAQs and walkthroughs for video games. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff "CJayC" Veasey and has been owned by CNET Networks since May 2003. The site has a large database of video game information and has been called a place where readers "can get almost any information" regarding game strategies. The systems covered range from the 8-bit Atari platform to the consoles of today, including computer games. The FAQs, cheat codes, reviews, game saves, and credits are submitted by volunteer gamers, and contributions are reviewed by the site's two editors, Jeff Veasey and Allen Tyner. The site hosts a large and active message board community. Every game listed on the site has a board for discussion or gameplay help. Many of the boards are shared between GameFAQs and GameSpot, another CNET website. The site also features a daily opinion poll and related tournament contests. GameFAQs is consistently cited by The Guardian as one of the top gaming sites on the Web, and the site has been positively reviewed by Entertainment Weekly. Additionally, GameFAQs.com is one of the 200 highest-trafficked websites according to Alexa.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/8
"The Bus Uncle" is a Cantonese video clip of an argument between two men aboard a bus in Hong Kong on April 27, 2006. While the older man, nicknamed the Bus Uncle, scolded the person behind him, a nearby passenger used his camera phone to record the entire incident to provide evidence for the police in the event of a fight. However, the resulting six-minute video was uploaded to the HK Golden Forum, YouTube, and Google Video. The clip became YouTube's most viewed video in May 2006, attracting viewers with its rhetorical outbursts and copious use of profanity by the older man, receiving 1.7 million hits in the first 3 weeks of that month. The video became a cultural sensation in Hong Kong, inspiring vigorous debate and discussion on lifestyle, etiquette, civic awareness and media ethics within the city, eventually attracting the attention of the media around the world.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/9
Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by the Opera Software company. Opera handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, IRC online chatting, downloading files via BitTorrent, and reading web feeds. Opera is offered free of charge for personal computers and mobile phones, but for other devices it must be paid for. Features of Opera include high performance, tabbed browsing, page zooming, mouse gestures, and an integrated download manager. Its security features include built-in phishing protection, strong encryption when browsing secure web sites, and the ability to delete private data such as cookies and browsing history by clicking a button. Opera runs on a variety of personal computer operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris. Although evaluations of Opera have been largely positive, Opera has had limited success on personal computers. It is currently the fourth most widely used web browser for personal computers, behind Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari. Opera has a stronger market share, however, on mobile devices such as mobile phones, smartphones, and personal digital assistants.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/10
Windows Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer abbreviated MSIE), commonly abbreviated to IE, is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems starting in 1995. It has been the most widely used web browser since 1999, attaining a peak of about 95% usage share during 2002 and 2003 and steadily declining since. After the first release for Windows 95, additional versions of Internet Explorer were developed for other operating systems: Internet Explorer for Mac and Internet Explorer for UNIX (the latter for use through the X Window System on Solaris and HP-UX), and versions for older versions of Windows. Only the Windows version remains in active development; the Mac OS X and UNIX version are no longer supported. Internet Explorer was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95. Later versions are available as free downloads and are also included in the OEM service releases of Windows 95 and in later versions of Windows. The most recent release is version 7.0, which is available as a free update for Windows XP with Service Pack 2, and Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 or later, and is included with Windows Vista. An embedded OEM version called Internet Explorer for Windows CE (IE CE) is also available for WinCE based platforms and is currently based on IE6.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/11
Google Inc. is an American public corporation, specializing in Internet search and online advertising. The company is based in Mountain View, California, and has 15,916 full-time employees (as of September 30, 2007). Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 7, 1998. Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising US$1.67 billion, making it worth US$23 billion. Through a series of new product developments, acquisitions and partnerships, the company has expanded its initial search and advertising business into other areas, including web-based email, online mapping, office productivity, and video sharing, among others. In 2006, "google" came in second on Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/12
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it "ranks," the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's relevancy, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site's coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Other, more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site, and making sure that the content is easily indexed by search engines and also appeals to human visitors. The acronym "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/13
"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" is an adage which began as the caption of a famous cartoon published by The New Yorker on 5 July 1993, and authored by Peter Steiner. The cartoon shows two dogs: One sitting on a chair in front of a computer, speaking the caption to a second dog sitting on the floor. As of 2000, the panel was the most reproduced cartoon from The New Yorker, and Steiner had earned over $50,000 (USD) from the reprinting of the cartoon.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/14
Red vs Blue is a science fiction comedy series created by Rooster Teeth Productions. The series is produced primarily by using the machinima technique of synchronizing video footage from computer and video games to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio. Footage is taken mostly from the multiplayer modes of the first-person shooter (FPS) video games Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 on the Xbox video game console. Chronicling the story of two opposing teams of soldiers fighting a civil war in the middle of a desolate box canyon, the series is an absurdist parody of FPS games, military life, and other science fiction films. Begun in 2003 and having concluded its fourth season, Red vs Blue has won four awards from the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. The series is generally praised for its originality, and has been credited with bringing new popularity to machinima, helping it to gain more mainstream exposure, and attracting more people to the art form.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/15
Exploding whales have been documented on two notable occasions, as well as several lesser-known ones. The most famous explosion occurred in the United States at Florence, Oregon, in 1970, when a dead sperm whale (originally reported as a gray whale) was blown up by the Oregon Highway Division in an attempt to dispose of its rotting carcass. This incident became famous in the U.S. when American humorist Dave Barry wrote about it in his newspaper column after viewing a videotape of television footage of the explosion. It later became well-known internationally when the same footage circulated on the Internet. There have also been spontaneous explosions. The other best-reported case of an exploding whale was in Taiwan in 2004, when a buildup of gas inside a decomposing sperm whale caused it to explode while it was being transported for a post-mortem examination. As exploding whales are an interesting and absurd topic, they have been written about by several authors.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/16
The AACS encryption key controversy, also known as the AACS cryptographic key controversy, arose in April 2007 when the Motion Picture Association of America and the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC (AACS LA) began issuing demand letters to websites publishing a 128-bit number, represented in hexadecimal as 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 (commonly referred to as 09 F9), which is one of the cryptographic keys for HD DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. The letters demanded the immediate removal of the key and any links to it, citing the anti-circumvention provisions of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In response to widespread internet postings of the key, the AACS LA issued various press statements, praising those websites that complied with their requests as acting in a "responsible manner", warning that "legal and technical tools" were adapting to the situation. The controversy was further escalated in early May 2007, when aggregate news site Digg received a DMCA cease and desist notice and then removed numerous articles on the matter and banned users reposting the information. This sparked what some describe as a digital revolt, or "cyber-riot", in which users posted and spread the key throughout the internet en masse. The AACS LA described this situation as an "interesting new twist".
Portal:Internet/Selected article/17
The Harry Potter fandom is a large international and informal community drawn together by J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The fandom works through the use of many different forms of media, including web sites, fan fiction, podcasts, fan art and songvids, and a distinct genre of music. Harry Potter fan fiction, stories based on the series but written by fans and distributed online, is the most searched-for subject of all fan fiction on the web, surpassing even those in the Star Trek fandom, or Trekdom. However, the fandom not only interacts online in Internet forums, but also gathers at scholarly fan conventions, tours of iconic landmarks relevant to the books and production of the films, and parties held for the midnight release of each book and film. By the fourth Harry Potter book, the legions of Harry Potter fans had grown so large that J.K. Rowling was able to dictate to her publishers a whim of hers: take the considerable security measures necessary to ensure that no bookshop would put up for sale any of the last four books before an official release date so that all fans would have the unique communal experience of reading the newly released book at the same time for the first time. Studies on the fandom have shown that both children and adults are fans, despite Rowling's original marketing of the books towards children aged nine to twelve.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/18
Homestar Runner is a Flash animated Internet cartoon. It mixes surreal humor with references to 1980s and 1990s pop culture, notably video games, classic television and popular music. Originally conceived as a parody of what the authors considered to be the surplus of low-quality picture books written for children, the site mostly caters towards young adults. Most of the site's traffic comes from the United States; events in the cartoon itself usually take place in Free Country, USA. The cartoons are nominally centered on Homestar Runner. However, the series entitled Strong Bad Email, in which another main character, Strong Bad, answers emails from viewers, is the most popular and prominent feature of the site. While Homestar and Strong Bad are the main characters, the site has grown to encompass dozens of other characters over the years. The site is one of the most popular Flash cartoons on the Internet and is notable for its refusal to sell advertising space (the creators pay for everything through merchandise sales, which includes a line of T-shirts). It grew in popularity largely through word of mouth.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/19
ScienTOMogy was a parody web site lampooning Tom Cruise's involvement with Scientology, initially hosted at the domain name scientomogy.info. The site was created in 2005 after increased media publicity surrounding Cruise's appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Today Show. ScienTOMogy gained press attention after it was contacted by the Church of Scientology with a cease and desist letter, alleging copyright infringement over use of the word "Scientomogy", claiming that it was too close to the word "Scientology". The proprietor of the site initially agreed to relent to the Church's demands, but after consulting attorneys, instead decided to keep the site. Internet traffic to the site later increased dramatically as a result of the media and press attention surrounding the Church of Scientology's alleged copyright infringement claims.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/20
Wikipedia is a multilingual, open content, free encyclopedia project operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a type of collaborative website) and encyclopedia. Launched in 2001, it is the largest, fastest growing and most popular general reference work currently available on the Internet. As of December 2007, Wikipedia had approximately 9 ¼ million articles in 253 languages, comprising a combined total of over 1.41 billion words for all Wikipedias. The English Wikipedia edition passed the 2,000,000 article mark on September 9, 2007. Wikipedia's articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world and the vast majority of them can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet. Critics have questioned Wikipedia's reliability and accuracy, citing its open nature. The criticism is centered on its susceptibility to vandalism, such as the insertion of profanities or random letters into articles, and the addition of spurious or unverified information; uneven quality, systemic bias and inconsistencies; and for favoring consensus over credentials in its editorial process. Scholarly work suggests that vandalism is generally short-lived. When Time Magazine recognized "You" as their Person of the Year 2006, Wikipedia was the first particular "Web 2.0" service mentioned, followed by YouTube and MySpace.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/21
Delrina was a Canadian software company based in Toronto, that existed between 1988 and 1995, prior to being bought by the American software firm Symantec. Delrina started out by producing a set of electronic form products known as PerForm and later, FormFlow. However, the company was best known for its WinFax software package of the early- to mid-1990s, which enabled computers equipped with fax-modems to communicate faxes to stand-alone fax machines or other similarly-equipped computers. Delrina also produced a set of popular screensavers, including one that resulted in the well-publicized "flying toasters" lawsuit for copyright and trademark infringement (Berkeley Systems Inc. v. Delrina); the case set a precedent in American law that satiric commercial software products were not subject to the same First Amendment exemptions as parodic cartoons or literature. After the buyout by Symantec in 1995, parts of the firm were sold off, while Symantec continues to sell the WinFax product to this day. In its wake, several of Delrina's former executives founded venture capital firms that continue to have a lasting impact on the Canadian software industry.
Portal:Internet/Selected article/22
Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that focuses on computers or information technology, usually coupled with some degree of breakdown in social order. The plot of cyberpunk writing often centers on a conflict among hackers, artificial intelligences, and mega corporations, tending to be set within a near-future dystopian Earth, rather than the "outer space" locales prevalent at the time of cyberpunk's inception. Much of the genre's "atmosphere" echoes film noir, and written works in the genre often use techniques from detective fiction. While this gritty, hard-hitting style was hailed as revolutionary during cyberpunk's early days, later observers concluded that in terms of literature, most cyberpunk narrative techniques were less innovative than those of the New Wave, twenty years earlier. Primary exponents of the cyberpunk field include William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, John Shirley and Rudy Rucker. The term became widespread in the 1980s and remains current today.
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