For instance, if you see an Amazon ad on Facebook for a book you were just checking out, then you’ll likely see the icon. Such ads are served up by Facebook Ad Exchange. The measure comes after Facebook’s agreement with the Council of Better Business Bureau on Monday.

The Digital Advertising Alliance launched the icon last January to raise consumer awareness about ads based on behavioral targeting. An advocacy group, the DAA reasons that more information about behavioral targeting (or “interest-based advertising,” as it prefers), will address fear and mistaken assumptions about the practice. In the video below, the organization explains the thinking behind the symbol:

Hackers accessed a Fed internal server and broke into the database of the St. Louis Fed Emergency Communications System, an emergency communications system that delivers important messages to banks during natural disasters.

“The Federal Reserve system is aware that information was obtained by exploiting a temporary vulnerability in a website vendor product,” a Fed spokeswoman told Reuters. “Exposure was fixed shortly after discovery and is no longer an issue. This incident did not affect critical operations of the Federal Reserve system.”

The Fed notified affected users with a letter later obtained by ZDNet and Reuters. In the letter the Fed acknowledges the attack and identifies the types of sensitive information obtained, but it claims passwords were not compromised — even though hashed passwords can potentially be decrypted. As a measure of precaution, every member’s password has been reset.

The first reports of a possible attack started circulating on Sunday after the hacktivist group Anonymous claimed they had hacked a website connected to the Fed. It later posted online names and private information of more than 4,000 U.S. bankers, as first reported by ZDnet.

The Fed did not confirm the identify of the hackers.

Anonymous’ claimed attack is the latest from the so-called Operation Last Resort, a campaign the group launched to avenge Aaron Swartz‘s death.

Anonymous posted the information it claimed to obtain from the Fed on a separate government website and on Pastebin. The spreadsheet contained usernames, IP addresses, names, emails, phone numbers and hashed passwords of bankers who had shared their contact information with the ECS.

According to a security and privacy expert contacted by Mashable, the risk now is that malicious hackers will use the private information dumped on the Internet to orchestrate social engineering attacks or targeted phishing emails, tricking the targets to submit even more personal and sensitive information.

“Having identity and contact information for bank executives allows an attacker to craft targeted phishing campaigns for these individuals,” explains Ashkan Soltani in an email. “Ultimately,the weakest link in security are humans. ’Social engineering’ is typically much easier than trying to attack a bank from the outside. A ‘forged’ email from a service you use that contains your home address or contact information would be slightly more credible than a generic one since it contains what you perceive as ‘private information’ that only a trusted party would have (exploiting your social ties).”

Image courtesy of Flickr, wwarby.

A number of online education sites say the goal is not to be a substitute for the classroom experience, but to offer an even more collaborative learning environment, while also making education convenient and accessible for everyone — whether you’re taking a couple college courses or learning for the fun of it. In light of recent news about a partnership between a California state school and an online education site, it’s possible that because of the high cost of education, online learning could become the norm for college students.

But can an online classroom teach you the social and collaborative skills that real-life, in-class experiences impart?

Mashable recently covered the big news that San Jose State University in California was implementing three new online courses for freshmen. Granted, it is a limited trial in partnership with online education platform Udacity, but it’s the state’s first partnership that could lead to an official online program in all California state schools. In a school system where four courses is a full course load (12 credits), freshmen could take three of their four (or more) courses online and, perhaps, lose out on the typical college experience.

Dr. Katherine Cohen, CEO and founder of IvyWise, spoke to Mashable for the article about SJSU’s online classes and said MOOC (massive open online courses) give students who may never have been able to consider college access to university classes. But, she allowed, “there’s certainly something to be said for the college experience. College is where students build their social and professional networks, ones they will rely upon throughout the rest of their lives. Students living on campus also tend to mature much more quickly, as they take on new responsibilities and maintain a new level of independence.”

On the other hand, students without the budget for a typical college education, or students who don’t want to go into copious amounts of debt, working students or students with children might benefit from taking college courses online.

Alison Johnston, CEO of InstaEDU, an online tutoring platform, tells Mashable the industry-wide dilemma for those in online education is getting people to complete the course.

She said there have been numerous reports about people not completing MOOCs in particular. Johnson says to overcome this hurdle, companies in this space will have to offer an online experience to make web-based education have all the features of a real-life college education. On a side note: others have countered that MOOC dropout rates are high because the bar is low to enter the programs and many people sign-up, some without a strong intent to even take the course. Also, the college-level coursework weeds out a lot of people.

“In the real world, you have the teacher, the TA and fellow classmates,” she says. “I think you’re going to see companies come in and fill this space.”

Sites like Coursera are the classroom and teacher; InstaEDU and other tutoring sites are the teacher’s aide (TA); and sites like Piazza and OpenStudy act as virtual study groups, she explains.

Andrew Ng, the cofounder of Coursera, says they recognize that online education is not a replacement for the real classroom experience, “which is extremely valuable beyond knowledge sharing for reasons of social interaction, one-on-one learning and more.”

He sees their service as an alternative to not having higher education at all, which is a reality for many people due to their location, budget or job. And also as an enhancement to on-campus learning that complements traditional classroom formats. Still, the site tries to offer as many personal interactions among its users as possible. Coursera has nearly 2,000 in-person meet-up groups; professors on the site are also known to host these groups from time to time.

“For the most part, online-based education is equivalent [to a traditional college education]. Students can learn in either setting,” Cathy Sandeen, vice president for education attainment and innovation at the American Council on Education (ACE), tells Mashable.

Online courses are not going to be exactly like real-life courses, Sandeen says. But most college students are not, in reality, how we picture the typical college student. Only 25% of university students are in their late teens to early twenties and entered college right after high school. The remander participate at other times in their lives, making online courses convenient.

And the online class model mirrors today’s work environment, she adds, with groups from around the country or world working together online.

MOOC classes can also provide an in-person experience. Sandeen said she recently took a MOOC course with 30,000 students from all over the world. There were enough students in the course that regional study groups were formed.

“It doesn’t have to be an either/or,” she adds. “What we’re seeing is a lot of traditional institutions incorporating online classes.”

It seems online classes, particularly MOOC classes, have a high drop-out rate, but for students who appreciate the convenience and cost, online courses could open doors to a college education.

How would you like to see online education woven into the traditional college education setting? Tell us in the comments.

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, tumpikuja

“Project Seal” was shelved in 1945, because experts concluded that it would take about 2 million kilograms of explosives aligned about 5 miles outside of the shore.

Waru’s new book, Secrets and Treasures, also reveals other juicy conspiracy tidbits, such as thousands of reported UFO sightings.

“If you put it in a James Bond movie it would be viewed as fantasy but it was a real thing,” he said.

The network attracted 105 million monthly users in October 2012 compared to 65.3 million in October 2011, a 60.9% increase. Comparatively, Facebook had 822.1 million unique visits, up 4.3% from 788.2 million for the same period. Twitter had 182.9 million visitors and Linkedin claimed 161.9 million.

Those stats refer to global usage. In the U.S., the breakdown looked like this:

Meanwhile, on mobile, Google+ had 7 million users vs. 91.3 million for Facebook. ComScore measures visits from both mobile apps and the mobile web:

ComScore did not measure time spent on Google+. The company released stats in early 2011 that showed users spent an average of 3.3 minutes a month on the network vs. 7.5 hours for Facebook. Last June, Google claimed that users spent an average of 12 minutes a month on the network.

In December, Google also claimed 500 million members and 135 million active monthly visitors.

Mashable has contacted Google reps for comment on these latest figures and will update this post with their response.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Oaltindag

Arizona rep. Michelle Ugenti, a Republican, proposed House Bill 2004, which would outlaw online impersonation without permission and with malicious intent. Critics say it could violate the First Amendment and bring an end to those beloved parody accounts.

The bill would make it a felony to create a website or profile in someone else’s name with the intention to “harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten.” Sending an email or text that appears to come from someone else with the intention to harm or defraud would be a misdemeanor.

“The Internet has gone from a novelty to having a position of credibility, and it’s appropriate to have statutes that address it specifically,” Ugenti told The Arizona Republic.

She said the bill followed a plea for help from a constituent who was impersonated on Facebook and had both her personal and professional reputations damaged.

First Amendment advocates have criticized similar laws in other states (such as Texas, New York, and California), and suggest that these laws could damage people who create parody Twitter accounts, for instance.

“The problem with this, and other online impersonation bills, is the potential that they could be used to go after parody or social commentary activities,” Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl told The Arizona Republic. “While this bill is written to limit ‘intent to harm,’ if that is construed broadly, there could be First Amendment problems.”

However, Ugenti said she didn’t intend to impact parodies, and claimed the bill “has a high standard. It’s the impersonation without the individual’s consent and with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate and threaten.”

Last year, Arizona passed a bill that outlawed online harassment and threats, essentiallybanning trolling in the state.

Image courtesy of Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

In 2012, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called attention to a “Cyber Pearl Harbor.” The catchphrase summarizes what government and defense officials have been saying for some time now: Foreign computer hackers are growing increasingly powerful in their ability to disrupt the nation’s vital systems.

Pearl Harbor conjures up images of planes streaking across the morning sky, sinking ships and scrambling soldiers and airmen, all framed by those incongruous palm trees. But a massive attack on a centralized fleet sitting in the Hawaiian harbor isn’t the best comparison. Instead, another World War II event provides a better metaphor understand the cyber-threats — and how to prevent it.

A Different Metaphor

Some experts take issue with the Pearl Harbor metaphor when it comes to cyber-warfare. “Nothing like this exists in cyberspace,” writes John Arquilla, a defense analysis professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. Rather than Pearl Harbor, Arquilla says there is a better metaphor – the menacing attacks of the German U-boats, which bombed points up and down the United States’ Eastern coast, easily targeted by their blazing harbor lights.

The harbor lights dotted the Eastern seaboard cities, targeted by German U-boats shortly after Germany declared war on the U.S. Early on, these underwater vessels were successful in part because President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s decision not to order a blackout. As a result, the brightly illuminated city and harbor lights created a helpful backdrop for the Germans to see their targets and aim with precision.

Even after continued attacks, local businesses shied away from instituting blackouts, fearing the move would hurt their recovery from the Great Depression. As a consequence, the Germans would sink over a million tons of cargo, hurting businesses directly. Eventually, the strategy to keep the harbor lights on proved unsuccessful and by mid-1942, the U.S. moved to black them out, finally curbing the German U-boat threat.

Today’s e-threats are similar to the “harbor lights” situation, and in analyzing the vulnerabilities of the German strategy, we can find solutions to a cyber-war threat in 2013.

The Threats

Think of cyberspace in terms of blinking lights that need protecting. What are the threats? In short, everything. In the movies, hackers can trigger exploding oil refineries, knock out power grids and crash planes without air-traffic control guidance. The reality is not as spectacular, but the threats are still very disruptive. And while most hacks from outlaw groups like Anonymous are criminal, the serious threats are often backed by nation-states.

Those threats are everywhere. The Internet, frankly, has too many targets to protect. Cyber-criminals target financial institutions like Citigroup and the IMF, infiltrate Sony and Gmail and hack into the Pentagon, FBI and Congress. Breaches already cost hundreds of billions of dollars in stolen R&D. And according to the NSA, hackers are planning to attack national utilities and infrastructure next.

The Pearl Harbor metaphor, where only a few big bases are targets, isn’t a good comparison today. Everything on the Internet is well-lit and vulnerable to all types of attacks. In this way, an offensive plan, like the one the U.S. military outlined in its cyber-warfare responses, is the wrong way to approach the problem.

The Failed Response

Like WW2, the harbor lights of cyberspace remain blazing because legislators and military experts fear security measures are too costly and difficult to implement. Why can’t they just protect everyone without blacking out the lights? For that, coordinating utilities, businesses, privacy security experts and privacy advocates are needed to fortify a universal defense. But that’s akin to working with every citizen to build an interlocking shield — it’s not happening.

U.S. political leaders haven’t been able to build consensus on a strategy. For instance, in August, President Barack Obama published an op-ed imploring Congress to pass the Cyber-Security Act of 2012. “Ultimately, this is about security gaps that have to be filled,” he said, highlighting the need for increased vigilance to protect national security.

“We need to make it easier for the government to share threat information so critical-infrastructure companies are better prepared,” he added, emphasizing the need for collaboration. Unsurprisingly, the bill fell victim to partisan in-fighting, even after undergoing several major changes since. The problem? Finding a strategy all organizations can agree on, which assures civilian privacy rights, too.

Lawmakers, meanwhile, are looking at separate proposals like the Cyber-Intelligence Security Protection Act, or CISPA, to beef up critical infrastructure. But again, using the Pearl Harbor analogy, it only protects a few critical bases. Hackers need only to hit the countless other less-critical targets.

What about striking first? Maybe, but a wide-ranging strategy is needed, including the ability to ferret out the origin of the attack and the power to retaliate to deter future cyber-attacks. The fact is, digital terrorists dwell in a virtual ocean too deep to proactively attack. Simply trying to find them, or detect an enemy’s fingerprints, is alone problematic. And hackers use increasingly sophisticated tools to cover tracks and stay anonymous.

A Way Forward

According to the Economist, cyber-threats can be lumped into one of five categories: strategic cyber-war, or direct attacks on an enemy’s civilian infrastructure; cyber-espionage, which gives a digital facelift to age-old intelligence technique; cyber-disruption, such as the distributed denial-of-service attacks that briefly overwhelmed Estonian state, banking and media websites in 2007; and cyber-terrorism.

Instead of going on the attack, a defensive stance — to turn off the lights, so to speak, and “black out” sensitive cyber-targets — is needed. There are evasive routes, strong encryption and other tools to keep them secure that might work better than threats of retaliation. Basically, hunting down U-boats on the bottom of the Atlantic is a lot harder than turning off some lights. Or said another way, playing defense is sometimes easier than offense. But it starts by changing the approach to the problem.

Playing defense makes strategic and economic sense too. By beefing up the offensive cyber-weapon arsenal, every time the U.S. creates a virus for cyber-sabotage, hostile countries or rogue agents can create copycat programs, heightening the risk. In that climate, having a robust defense system is as crucial as boosting cutting-edge digital weapons.

In the year ahead, governments may not forget Pearl Harbor, but remembering the harbor lights is just as important. Taking a page from history won’t eliminate every breach, but changing the approach to cyber-warfare may help turn the tide in a digital war with hidden enemies.

Photo courtesy of Flickr, ercwttmn

Since most job seekers have excessive information on their resume and don’t know what to eliminate, let’s start with four things you can always leave off of it. These tips will help you better organize your information, and present it in a format that is easy-to-read and quickly understandable for recruiters.

1. An “objective.” This is the statement at the top of a resume that tells an employer what you’re looking for — but it’s got to go. They already know you’re interested in their job, so it’s unnecessary. Instead, use a “summary of qualifications” to introduce employers to your most relevant skills and experience, and to show them exactly how your experience can fit their needs.

2. Unrelated awards, hobbies and interests. Our CEO once had a job seeker who claimed to be a “pig-wrestling champion” on his resume, which is a great accomplishment, I’m sure. But it had nothing to do with the job he applied for, and it distracted from the rest of his qualifications. Unless it directly adds to your qualifications for the job or helps the employer see how you fit with their company culture (for example, if you’re applying to an outdoor apparel company and you are an avid hiker, that’s a hobby that matches their culture), leave it off your resume.

3. Too much formatting. Keep your resume simple, so recruiters can read it quickly and easily. Don’t use bold, italics and underlines all at once. Don’t use more than one font, and be consistent in the way you present information. Bulleted lists are much easier to read than paragraphs. Keep your resume single-spaced, and shrink your margins to a half inch. You’ll be surprised at how much space poor formatting can take up on your resume, pushing it far longer than it needs to be.

4. Lists of tasks for each job. Instead of telling recruiters what you did at your past jobs, tell them what you accomplished — what were the overarching results of your day-to-day tasks? Rather than rewriting your job description, tell recruiters how you did what you did and why it made a difference to your employer and customers.

What you leave off of your resume can be just as important as what you include, so make sure that precious real estate is taken up with relevant, well-stated, interesting information. Recruiters should be able to check off their list of qualifications easily by reading your resume, and come away with a sense of who you are and the value you can bring to their company.