China: 11.000 porn sites shut down in 2010

The Chinese government on Wednesday said it had closed down over 60,000 pornographic websites in the first 11 months of the year, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

During a press conference, China's director of the Information Office of the State Council Wang Chen said the country had eliminated around 350 million pornographic material, as well as indecent Internet content, such as texts, images and videos.

Since December 2009, China launched a nationwide campaign to increase Internet security and remove its pornographic and vulgar content. The campaign has led to the investigation of 2,197 criminal cases and the punishment of 4,965 criminals. As a result, some 58 offenders have been sentenced to prison terms of over five years.

U.S. revokes Venezuela amassador's visa

CARACAS, VENEZUELA (BNO NEWS) -- The Venezuelan government on Wednesday confirmed that its ambassador to the U.S. had his visa revoked by the U.S. State Department.

"I confirm. USA revoked the visa of ambassador Bernardo Alvarez," Temir Porras, Venezuela's Deputy Foreign Minister, said through his Twitter account.

Strong quake strikes off Vanuatu, no tsunami threat

A strong earthquake struck off the Vanuatu Islands on late Wednesday afternoon, seismologists said, but no tsunami warnings were issued.

The 6.6-magnitude earthquake at 5.54 p.m. local time (0654 GMT) was centered approximately 115 kilometers (70 miles) west of Isangel, a city on the Vanuatu island of Tanna. It struck about 31 kilometers (19.3 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

The agency estimated that approximately 9,000 people may have perceived 'moderate' shaking, which could result in light damage. Some 71,000 others were estimated to having perceived light shaking.

China completes main parts for first homegrown large passenger jet

by DearEdward

SHAANXI, CHINA (BNO NEWS) -- Xi'an Aircraft International Corporation on Tuesday announced that it has finished the production of the main components which will be used in the first large passenger jet to be manufactured in China, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

The C919 will be a single-aisle jet that will have a capacity of 168 passengers and will be China's first homegrown large passenger plane. The aircraft is being built by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC).

Mozilla says 'minimal risk' after leaving addons database on public server

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA (BNO NEWS) -- Mozilla on Tuesday admitted to have accidentally left a partial database of addons.mozilla.org user accounts on its public server earlier this month.


Mozilla was notified by a security researcher about the incident on December 17, reporting the issue via its web bounty program. However, the company said the incident has a "minimal risk."

"We were able to account for every download of the database," Chris Lyon, Director of Infrastructure Security, said. "This issue posed minimal risk to users, however as a precaution we felt we should disclose this issue to people affected and err on the side of disclosure."

The database included 44,000 inactive accounts using older, md5-based password hashes, Mozilla explained, saying that they erased all the md5-passwords, rendering the accounts disabled.

Lyon explained that all current addons.mozilla.org accounts use a more secure SHA-512 password hash with per-user salts. SHA-512 and per user salts has been the standard storage method of password hashes for all active users since April 9th, 2009.

"It is important to note that current addons.mozilla.org users and accounts are not at risk. Additionally, this incident did not impact any of Mozilla's infrastructure," Lyon added. "This information was also sent to impacted users by email on December 27th."