Archive for June, 2012

School bus monitor "fine" with bully punishment

(AP) NEW YORK – The upstate New York school bus monitor who was bullied by four seventh-graders says she’s satisfied that they’re being suspended for a year.

Speaking one day after the boys’ punishment was announced, Karen Klein told The Associated Press on Saturday that she wants to meet with the boys who tormented her to ask them why they did it.

Klein told the AP she feels “fine” about the school system in the Rochester suburb of Greece handing down a year suspension and keeping them from regular bus transportation.

The students were caught on video mercilessly taunting the 68-year-old Klein on the bus.

She says the best part of showing her ordeal to the public is that it has inspired parents to talk to their kids and teach them what they shouldn’t do.

Students suspended in NY bus monitor bullying

Computer Security News

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• Shishi
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• Caution urged after charity's phones hacked
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• Hackers want to help
  The recent hacking of the prime minister's website set off alarm bells among the government's security watchdogs, but there are hundreds of well-trained hackers lurking in cyberspace ready to strike ill-prepared local networks. […]
• Sophos Unified Threat Management Connected Makes Web Surfing Secure Everywhere
  Dubai, UAE - May 19, 2013 - Sophos today announced the availability of Sophos UTM Connected, the latest version of its award-winning UTM . […]
• Operators of Two Bogus Tech Support Schemes Settle FTC Charges
  Two operators of alleged tech support scams have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission complaints and give up their ill-gotten gains. […]
• Syrian group claims role in newspaper hacking
  The website and several Twitter accounts belonging to The Financial Times were hacked Friday by the Syrian Electronic Army in an ongoing campaign that has targeted an array of media outlets ranging from The Associated Press to the parody site The Onion, according to a claim by the so-called army. […]
• Financial Times, NYT Hit By Hackers
  Hacking attempts on media organizations have ramped up in recent months with attacks on the AP , The Guardian, CBS News accounts, The Onion, and E! Online . […]
• UK Court Jails 4 Lulzsec Hackers for Cyberattacks
  Four young computer hackers who masterminded cyberattacks on targets from the CIA to Sony Pictures and Rupert Murdoch's News International were sentenced to up to 32 months in prison on Thursday. […]

NY school bus monitor 'fine' with bully punishment; wants to meet boys

NEW YORK, N.Y. – The upstate New York school bus monitor who was bullied by four seventh-graders says she’s satisfied that they’re being suspended for a year.

Speaking one day after the boys’ punishment was announced, Karen Klein told The Associated Press on Saturday that she wants to meet with the boys who tormented her to ask them why they did it.

Klein told the AP she feels “fine” about the school system in the Rochester suburb of Greece handing down a year suspension and keeping them from regular bus transportation.

The students were caught on video mercilessly taunting the 68-year-old Klein on the bus.

She says the best part of showing her ordeal to the public is that it has inspired parents to talk to their kids and teach them what they shouldn’t do.

NY school bus monitor 'fine' with bully punishment

NEW YORK (AP) — The upstate New York school bus monitor who was bullied by four seventh-graders says she’s satisfied that they’re being suspended for a year.

Speaking one day after the boys’ punishment was announced, Karen Klein told The Associated Press on Saturday that she wants to meet with the boys who tormented her to ask them why they did it.

Klein told the AP she feels “fine” about the school system in the Rochester suburb of Greece handing down a year suspension and keeping them from regular bus transportation.

The students were caught on video mercilessly taunting the 68-year-old Klein on the bus.

She says the best part of showing her ordeal to the public is that it has inspired parents to talk to their kids and teach them what they shouldn’t do.

Critical Links Included in Gartner?s MarketScope Report on Unified Communications for the SMB Market, North America

Critical Links Integrated in Gartner’s MarketScope Report on Unified Communications for the SMB Market place, North America

Fairfield, NJ (PRWEB) June 6, 2010

Critical Links, a global provider of unified voice, information, security and IT options for SMBs, right now announced that best analyst firm Gartner, Inc has rated Critical Links as “Promising” in the “MarketScope for Unified Communications for the SMB Industry, North America” report by Joslyn Faust and Megan Marek Fernandez published on April 9, 2010. Other vendors rated in this report as “Promising” consist of Cisco, IBM, Siemens, Microsoft and NEC.

This MarketScope report focuses on the premise-based UC market for SMBs and evaluated 11 vendors that provide UC options and platforms for SMBs. Important Links’ edgeBOX resolution is described as a correct all-in-one supplying that is easy to implement and use. The report also highlights the ease of use and easy deployment elements of the Critical Links edgeBOX UC remedy. Gartner defines UC products (equipment, computer software and services) as those that facilitate the use of many enterprise communication techniques. The report notes, “UC merchandise integrate communication channels (that is, media) networks and systems, as effectively as IT company applications and, in some instances, customer applications and devices.”

“We are proud to be recognized in Gartner’s MarketScope report and we think it demonstrates the level of good results that edgeBOX UC solution has achieved in the SMB market.” mentioned Abdul Kasim, VP of Advertising and marketing and Global Business Development at Critical Links. “We feel this rating validates our growing stature in the UC market for SMBs and we thank our customers for their continued trust in edgeBOX. We continue to make considerable investments in regions such as business app integration for different vertical markets and also in new initiatives such as edgeBOX ‘UC as a Service’ offered from the cloud”.

Critical Links’ edgeBOX offers a complete solution for SMBs that incorporates a full-fledged IP telephony technique, smoothly integrated with e-mail, get in touch with database, calendars, security, VPN, file sharing, and more. The voice and data services integration improves employee productivity, simplifies installation, maintenance and upgrades, and substantially reduces equipment, communications, and maintenance fees for SMBs. It is obtainable on a range of scalable platforms for companies with 10 to 300 customers.

Critical Links’ target markets contain SMBs, bigger enterprises with many branch offices, Managed Service Providers who bring unified communications services to SMBs, the K-12 education market place (Critical Links’ Education Appliance), and hospitality (edgeHOTEL). The edgeBOX at the moment delivers complete-fledged desktop telephony integrated with VOIP/IP-PBX, unified messaging, presence, collaboration, remote management and security services to SMBs. Features such as failover, load-balancing and comprehensive remote configuration capabilities should make it an perfect platform for UC Managed Service Providers.

About the MarketScope:

The MarketScope is copyrighted 2010 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The MarketScope is an evaluation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how specific vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, item or service depicted in the MarketScope, and does not advise technology users to select only these vendors with the highest rating. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, like any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a distinct purpose.

About Important Links:

Vital Links is a international provider of converged voice, information and IT options for Modest and Medium Corporations (SMBs) that substantially simplify and price-minimize by consolidating over a single scalable and fault-tolerant platform.

Critical Links’ flagship item, the edgeBOX™, is an award winning multi-function gateway appliance that incorporates VOIP/IP-PBX, VPNs, security, NAC, QoS and a WiFi access point as properly as a fax-server, web server, e-mail server, print server and information storage. It is obtainable on a range of hardware platforms that assistance up to 300 users, with distinct form factors and a host of broadband interfaces such as BRI/PRI(T1/E1), FX0/FXS, Ethernet, and so forth. Important Links normally serves SMBs through a global network of VARs, Method Integrators, OEMs and Service Providers. For a lot more details: http://www.crucial-links.com/PR or information@important-links.com.

Editors Notes:

1. All brands and names might be trademarks of their respective companies.

For much more details, get in touch with:

Abdul Kasim

VP International Advertising &amp Bus Development

Important-Links

akasim(at)critical-links(dot)com

973.276.9006 x1004

http://www.important-links.com/PR

Carlos Taveira

Get Global, Marketing Communications Consultancy

+351 213502551

+351 918711884

carlos(dot)taveira(at)getglobal(dot)pt

###

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, Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.
Vocus, PRWeb, and Publicity Wire are trademarks or registered trademarks of Vocus, Inc. or Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.

Locate Far more Microsoft Network Load Balancing Cisco Press Releases

Dish Network to drop AMC Saturday night

Ben Leuner / AMC

Bryan Cranston as Walter White and Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman on AMC’s “Breaking Bad.”

Say goodbye to popular AMC shows “Mad Men,” “The Walking Dead,” “Breaking Bad” and more, Dish subscribers.  The Dish Network announced on Friday that it would replace three AMC Networks channels — AMC, IFC and WE — starting at 11:59 p.m. ET on Saturday.

In their place will be HDNet Movies, Style and HDNet. 

“HDNet Movies and HDNet are exciting offerings for our customers,” said Dave Shull, senior vice president of programming for Dish, in a statement. ”AMC Networks requires us to carry low-rated channels like IFC and WE to access a few popular AMC shows. The math is simple: It’s not a good value for our customers.”

The move comes after a dispute between the two parties, with Dish indicating that fees are also an issue. AMC has not yet commented on the news that its channels will be dropped by Dish on Saturday night.

But a source with ties to the situation told TODAY.com that there have been no discussions between the two parties about fees. The source told us they believe Dish is dropping AMC Networks “in retaliation to a $2.5 billion lawsuit” filed by parent company Cablevision against Dish Network for breach of contract a few years ago.

Some of Dish’s 14 million subscribers have voiced their displeasure about the programming swapout on Dish’s Facebook page, with some threatening to cancel their subscriptions if AMC is indeed dropped.

Dish’s move to replace AMC comes at a bad time for Dish subscribers who are fans of the critically acclaimed “Breaking Bad.” The series is set to return for its fifth season on July 15.

Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.

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The Lede Blog: Students Are Suspended for Verbally Abusing School Bus Monitor

YouTubeKaren Klein in a YouTube video.

The four boys who taunted a 68-year-old school bus monitor from Rochester, N.Y., prompting outcry over bullying when a video of their insults went viral, have been suspended from their middle school for one year, school officials said on Friday.

The video of the boys’ heaping insults onto the bus monitor, Karen Klein, also generated more than $650,000 in online donations for her to take “a vacation.”

The conduct was filmed by one of the boys on a cellphone and uploaded to Facebook. The video found itself onto YouTube, where it surpassed 7.9 million views.

It inspired a Toronto man, Max Sidorov, 26, to set up an online “vacation” fund for Ms. Klein on the online fund-raising platform Indiegogo.com, with a goal of raising $5,000. In four days, the fund grew to $500,000.

A data analysis of the donations showed that 30,000 people contributed to the fund from all 50 states and 82 countries. The most frequent contribution was $10, and $3,000 was the single largest contribution amount. More than three-quarters of the donations have been less than $100, according to the analysis provided by Indiegogo.com.

To Mr. Sidorov’s surprise, a thank-you fund was created online for him that has so far raised $6,800.

Greece Central School District officials said the four boys, ages 12 and 13, will be suspended from Athena Middle School for one year, prohibited from using regular school transportation and required to volunteer 50 hours of community service with senior citizens, as well as complete a program in “bullying prevention, respect and responsibility.”

Since the school district is legally required to provide the boys with a formal education, they will be able to attend an alternative education program in what is called the district’s “re-engagement center,” in a nonschool facility.

In making the announcement, Barbara Deane-Williams, the district superintendent, said it was unusual to publicly announce school disciplinary measures brought against students. But, in this case, she said the boys and families admitted to the wrongdoing, agreed to the suspensions without a hearing and also agreed for the findings to be made public.

Ms. Deane-Williams also said that the district staff members, including some on the transportation staff, would be participating this summer in a previously scheduled bullying prevention training program.

According to Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle, Ms. Klein used some of the money to finance a vacation trip to Boston on Thursday, arriving in the city in a mint-green stretch limousine.

Asked what she was thinking about doing with the money, she told the newspaper that she wanted to contribute to groups that support those with Down syndrome and autism.

NY bus monitor bullies suspended

29 June 2012
Last updated at 21:27 ET

A radio station in Boston held an event in Karen Klein’s honour on Thursday

Four US students who gained infamy after a video of their verbal abuse towards a bus monitor went viral have been suspended from school for a year.

Footage of the 12- and 13-year-olds taunting Karen Klein has been viewed some 8 million times.

The school system in the New York state town of Greece says the students must also complete 50 hours of community service with senior citizens.

Mrs Klein, 68, said she did not want the boys to face criminal charges.

She told the Associated Press last week that others should not harass or threaten the students.

“That’s not the way to go about things,” she said. “They’re just kids.”

Suicide jibe

An internet campaign to send her on holiday has now raised nearly $670,000 (£427,000).

In the video, Karen Klein tries to ignore the abuse but eventually begins to cry

The online fund was set up by a Toronto man on the crowdfunding website Indiegogo after he saw the video on YouTube.

The clip, Making The Bus Monitor Cry, shows Mrs Klein appearing to break down in tears as she is subjected to a litany of insults.

The barbs include profanities, physical ridicule, taunts and her being told to shut up.

Some ask what her address is, telling her they want to steal from her and perform sexual acts.

One boy tells her she does not have a family as “they all killed themselves because they didn’t want to be near you”.

Mrs Klein’s son killed himself 10 years ago.

In addition to the suspension, the students will not be allowed on a district school bus for a year.

They will be transferred to an alternative education programme, as the school district is required to educate them, and will be able to reapply to their original school at the end of the year.

The boys and their families have admitted wrongdoing and agreed to the suspensions without a hearing.

Boys punished for bullying bus monitor

Klein’s eldest son took his own life 10 years ago, according to CNN affiliate WHAM.

The bullying continued unabated for about 10 minutes in the video, as a giggling student jabbed Klein’s arm with a book and made fun of her weight.

Klein is a bus monitor for the Greece Central School District, and the harassers attended a district school, Athena Middle School. Each of the students admitted to wrongdoing, the school district said.

In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper this month, Klein said children misbehaved occasionally, but the recorded incident was unlike any other she had experienced.

Family of bullied bus monitor: Stop threats against students

Despite the torment, she said she does not believe her harassers are bad kids.

“Not deep down. But when they get together, things happen,” she said.

Educators: Kids aren’t the only ones bullied

Microsoft's Yammer Buy Raises Questions About NewsGator's Future

When NewsGator Technologies decided to play in the nascent enterprise social collaboration market a few years ago with a product that worked only with Microsoft’s SharePoint, it was making a big bet.

It was gambling that by making a deeply integrated SharePoint add-on, it would carve a profitable niche that was different from the broader opportunity pursued by competitors with vendor-agnostic products.

Until last week, the gamble seemed to have paid off. NewsGator’s Social Sites, launched in 2007, has 4 million paid seats and hundreds of Fortune 2000 customers. The client roster includes JP Morgan Chase, Kraft Foods and Barclays.

However, Microsoft’s announcement this week that it is acquiring Yammer for US$1.2 billion has raised questions about NewsGator’s future. If Microsoft fuses Yammer’s product with SharePoint, will there still be a need for Social Sites?

Until now, Social Sites has been able to remain relevant because Microsoft never boosted its internal development of enterprise social capabilities in SharePoint to the point of replicating the functionality of the NewsGator product.

But with Yammer that could change.

NewsGator CEO J.B. Holston downplayed the concerns, saying Social Sites is better integrated with SharePoint and appeals to a different type of customer.

While Yammer is a multi-tenant, cloud-based software, Social Sites is designed for on-premise and dedicated hosted environments, offering IT more controls, he said.

“The fact that Microsoft now owns Yammer doesn’t change the reasons why our clients came to us originally,” he said, adding that most NewsGator customers aren’t comfortable using this type of software in a multi-tenant cloud. “Our customers are hyper-focused on security, governance, scalability and privacy.”

Nucleus Research’s analyst Rebecca Wettemann said that NewsGator provides a level of integration with SharePoint and capabilities “beyond what Yammer does today.”

“NewsGator has let enterprises have an enterprise-class social collaboration environment with broad governance and IT capabilities, as well as the social collaboration features customers are looking for,” she said. “Social Sites is for large organizations that want to be able to manage their social collaboration applications like any other enterprise application.”

Still, Yammer, which was founded in 2008 and has about 300 employees, also boasts adoption of its product by big enterprises. Its software is used by more than 5 million corporate users and in more than 85 percent of the Fortune 500 companies. It offers a basic free version of its software and three fee-based tiers. About 200,000 businesses use Yammer in more than 150 countries, including Deloitte, which rolled out Yammer to 190,000 employees. Yammer adds about 250,000 corporate end users every month. Other big customers include Tyco, Ford and Nationwide Insurance.

Microsoft was in close communication with NewsGator as soon as the Yammer acquisition rumors erupted in mid-June, and again this week after the deal became official, Holston said.

“Microsoft has told us: ‘You guys are our premier social partner for the enterprise and we want you to be that for the long term,’” he said.

However, when asked for comment about NewsGator, Microsoft provided a statement that sounds less enthusiastic and supportive.

Asked whether it considers Social Sites the most tightly integrated enterprise social module for SharePoint, or at least one of the most integrated, Microsoft said: “We have a number of partners that use SharePoint as a platform to build high-value social solutions. NewsGator is one of these partners.”

Asked to comment specifically on how the Yammer acquisition impacts Microsoft’s relationship with NewsGator and the future of Social Sites, Microsoft said: “We have a number of partners offering strong connects to SharePoint for enterprise social. We have a great partner ecosystem and NewsGator is an important part of that.”

Holston also believes that Microsoft’s main interest in Yammer isn’t its intellectual property but rather its successfully viral freemium business model.

In any case, NewsGator is focused on developing applications for specific industries, because the core set of horizontal enterprise social features — such as microblogging, employee profiles, activity streams, sharing and joint editing of documents and content rating, tagging and reviewing — are becoming commodities, he said.

Not only do pure-play enterprise social networking vendors all provide those horizontal features, but they are being added natively by broader collaboration and enterprise application vendors to their software stacks, he said.

“Our road map was always focused on taking advantage of higher value-added social business applications anyhow because of the assumption that horizontal capabilities would be provided by other means,” he said.

This is the right approach for NewsGator, because there is no doubt that Microsoft will eventually meld Yammer with SharePoint, said IDC analyst Michael Fauscette.

“NewsGator needs to continue to figure out ways to differentiate itself,” he said. “They’re good software developers, have a good company and good products. Maybe they’ll broaden their business and not depend mostly on SharePoint.”

But even if Microsoft were to replicate Social Sites with the Yammer functionality in SharePoint, that process would likely take at least two years, Holston said.

And NewsGator has been working closely with Microsoft as the next major upgrade of SharePoint is developed, to make sure Social Sites is properly integrated and aligned with it, he said.

Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.

Days After Microsoft Unveils Surface, Exec Managing Relations With HP, Dell Changes Roles

Managing Microsoft’s relationship with the personal computer companies who build products around its software sounds hard. And it’s probably harder than it sounds.

And it sure couldn’t have gotten any easier when Microsoft introduced Microsoft Surface, a tablet computer of its own, ten days ago.

In a statement sent to the Seattle Times, Microsoft said Steven Guggenheimer will no longer be leading Microsoft’s Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) business, effective July 1.

As a result of long term planning, Steven Guggenheimer will move on from his current role as CVP of the OEM Division effective July 1, to coincide with the start of Microsoft’s fiscal year. He is taking on a new senior leadership role at the company, and further details will be provided when finalized. Nick Parker, former VP of WW [worldwide] marketing will be assuming the role of CVP starting July 1st.

Patrick Moorhead, president of tech tracker Moor Insights Strategy, says these dots are definitely connected.

“This change is undoubtedly related to Window 8 and Surface,” Moorhead says. “The job would be very difficult now that Microsoft is competing with its customers, the relationship he manages.

HP and Dell offered little public comment after Microsoft unveiled surface, reiterating their commitment to introduce new products that will use Microsoft’s new software.

An executive with Acer, however, told Reuters that Microsoft’s tablet computer effort will ‘fail.’