28 August 2015

Who's in the news? Ashley Madison

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Fallout from the Ashley Madison hack continued with some not so happy cheats taking their grievances to court.

The Hack


It all began when hackers calling themselves the Impact Team gained access to the sites data and demanded payment and that the site be shut down along with others owned by the parent company or they would release the data. After refusing to give into the demands the data was released with the company confirming the authenticity of the data. A second data dump released days later with more details and emails about Ashley Madison itself.

The Data


With the data freely available many have searched it with interesting discoveries being made revealing users in government along with reality TV celebrity profiles. While looking at the data, statistics show men vastly outnumbered women on the site, it's believed many of the female accounts were faked or never used. Others have gone further cracking passwords showing the most commonly used but it was the data from the company itself that was most shocking showing CEO Noel Biderman hacked another dating site before being hacked.

The Response


Since the release of the data Ashley Madison has responded with a bounty for the hackers to the value of $377,000. However, this amount pales in comparison to the $578 million lawsuit filed against Ashley Madison parent company Avoid Life Media along with others for court cases for emotional distress. Outside of the financial consequences it was reported that there have apparently been two suicides associated with the breach.


21 August 2015

Falling From Grace

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This week saw high profile individuals make headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Subway's Jared Fogle


This week we saw former Subway spokesperson Jared Fogle admit to having sex with underage children along with possession of child pornography and could face 5 - 12 years in prison and have to pay $1.4 million to his victims. The downfall began when Jared began discussing what he had done with co-workers who informed the FBI and worked with them to record his admission.

Oscar Pistorious


Oscar made headlines this week after serving 10 months or 1/6th of his sentence making him eligible for parole release, However, during the week the release was postponed when the Justice Minister called for a board review.

14 August 2015

Business Across the Globe

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This weeks business blog looks to the East where we saw a decision made in China impacting the rest of the world and other big moves impacting global finances.

The East


China decided this week to devalue their currency, the Yuan, by nearly 2% against the U.S. dollar on Tuesday hammering international markets. China's move came after an 8.3% fall in export in July in an attempt to boost exports and compete with regional rivals with lower currencies like South Korea and Japan.

The West


This week we also learned that tech giant Google had a new parent company called Alphabet to house their various companies. We also saw a crack down on an insider trading scam where hackers accessed company press releases ahead of time giving them an unfair advantage and proving that knowledge is power. (www.15minutenews.com) Lastly this week Uber's Hong Kong offices were raided creating another speed bump for the fast growing company.




7 August 2015

Celebrities Overexposed

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This week in the world of celebrities we got an eyeful, felt awful and said good bye.

Stage Spectaculars


We hit the stage this week where Taylor Swift had the fright of her life after a grabby fan lunged at her while she was on stage during a performance only to Shake It Off and carry on like a Pro. One thing that no one could forget was Lenny Kravitz who had an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction when his leather pants split on stage revealing lil' Lenny to his fans.

Love and the Lack Thereof


When it comes to love life's this week we heard that Jennifer Aniston had married long time boyfriend Justin Theroux and new girl Zooey Deschanel gave birth to her very own new girl. However, it wasn't all penis exposing and marriages this week when news broke that Gwen Stefani was getting a divorce from husband of 13 years Gavin Rossdale along with Reba McEntire divorcing her husband of 26 years, Narvel Blackstock.

Legally Speaking


While performances and private lives garnered there own fair share of attention it was the legal disputes that put a real dampener on things with Taylor Swift ordered to give a deposition on a trademark infringement lawsuit and Bill Cosby forced to give a deposition for allegedly drugging and molesting an underage girl at the Playboy Mansion.

Saying Good Bye


Finally we end the week with a sad farewell to Jon Stewart who left the Daily Show after 16 hilarious years at the helm.