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LONDON (Reuters) – A rare World War Two German bomber, shot down over the English Channel in 1940 and hidden for years by shifting sands at the bottom of the sea, is so well preserved a British museum wants to raise it.

 

The Dornier 17 -- thought to be world's last known example -- was hit as it took part in the Battle of Britain.

 

It ditched in the sea just off the Kent coast, southeast England, in an area known as the Goodwin Sands.

 

The plane came to rest upside-down in 50 feet of water and has become partially visible from time to time as the sands retreated before being buried again.

 

Now a high-tech sonar survey undertaken by the Port of London Authority (PLA) has revealed the aircraft to be in a startling state of preservation.

 

Ian Thirsk, from the RAF Museum at Hendon in London, told the BBC he was "incredulous" when he first heard of its existence and potential preservation.

 

"This aircraft is a unique aeroplane and it's linked to an iconic event in British history, so its importance cannot be over-emphasized, nationally and internationally," he said.

 

"It's one of the most significant aeronautical finds of the century."

 

Known as "the flying pencil," the Dornier 17 was designed as a passenger plane in 1934 and was later converted for military use as a fast bomber, difficult to hit and theoretically able to outpace enemy fighter aircraft.

 

 

 

 

In all, some 1,700 were produced but they struggled in the war with a limited range and bomb load capability and many were scrapped afterwards.

 

Striking high-resolution images appear to show that the Goodwin Sands plane suffered only minor damage, to its forward cockpit and observation windows, on impact.

 

"The bomb bay doors were open, suggesting the crew jettisoned their cargo," said PLA spokesman Martin Garside.

 

Two of the crew members died on impact, while two others, including the pilot, were taken prisoner and survived the war.

 

"The fact that it was almost entirely made of aluminum and produced in one piece may have contributed to its preservation," Garside told Reuters.

 

The plane is still vulnerable to the area's notorious shifting sands and has become the target of recreational divers hoping to salvage souvenirs.

 

The RAF museum has launched an appeal to raise funds for the lifting operation.

 

 

 

Origanal editing was (Steve Addison)

 

 

Stay tuned for the next News story

[DieWilhelm 0]

If I had the money I would take care of the plane myself.

[r_AdvocatusDiaboli0 861]

Epic, I wonder how much it costs to get a plane out of the ocean.

[lovermann 4]

Sounds a little bit strange: a super-mega sonar revealed the sank aircraft, but on the other hand the same airplane became the tourist diving place.

[chriswu 25]

lol

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Last World War I combat veteran dies in Australia

 

SYDNEY : Claude Choules, the last known World War I combat veteran, died in Australia on Thursday morning. He was at age 110

also the oldest man known living in Australia

 

 

A former Royal Navy World War I and Royal Australian Navy World War II veteran, Claude's life has spanned the existence of the Australian Navy, which came into being on 1 March 1901, only two days before his birth.

 

 

Born in Pershore, England on March 3, 1901, Choules joined the Royal Navy as a boy in 1916 and served in the Naval Training Ship HMS Impregnable situated at Devonport dockyard. The Impregnable had been a 140 gun square-rigged wooden battleship prior to becoming a training ship.

 

 

In 1917, Claude joined the battleship HMS Revenge, Flagship of the First Battle Squadron. While serving in Revenge, Claude witnessed the surrender of the German Fleet at Firth of Forth in 1918, ten days after the Armistice and later the scuttling of the German Fleet, by the Germans, at Scapa Flow.

 

 

A 'big ships man', Claude served in the battleship Valiant with the Mediterranean Fleet between 1920 and 1923. A subsequent posting saw him stand by the construction of the RN’s first purpose built aircraft carrier HMS Eagle, which was followed by a two year posting as a Petty Officer onboard Eagle, again in the Mediterranean Fleet.

 

 

In 1926 along with eleven other RN senior sailors, Claude came to Australia on loan as an Instructor at Flinders Naval Depot. Taking a liking to the Australian way of life, Claude decided to transfer permanently to the Royal Australian Navy.

 

After courses in the UK for Chief Torpedo and Anti Submarine Instructor, Claude stood by the building of the Royal Australian Navy's heavy cruisers Australia and Canberra. Claude was a commissioning crew member of the HMAS Canberra and served in her until 1931.

 

Claude took his discharge from the Royal Australian Navy in 1931, however he remained in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve and rejoined the Royal Australian Navy in 1932 as a Chief Petty Officer Torpedo and Anti Submarine Instructor.

 

During World War II, Claude was the Acting Torpedo Officer, Fremantle and also the Chief Demolition Officer on the western side of the Australian Continent. Early in the war, Claude was flown to Esperance, on Western Australia's southern coast, to identify a mine washed ashore nearby. Eventually the mine was identified as German and Claude then disposed of the first mine to wash up on Australian soil during WWII.

 

 

As the Chief Demolition Officer, Claude had the task of destroying facilities and oil storage tanks in Fremantle harbor rendering them useless in the advent of a Japanese invasion.

 

 

For a number of weeks during the dark days of 1942, explosive charges were in place to carry out this task. Claude had depth charges placed in ships that had been unable to sail from Fremantle for safe harbor in Albany during this period, with the intent of sinking them should the Japanese invade.

 

 

Claude remained in the Royal Australian Navy after WWII and transferred to the Naval Dockyard Police (NDP) to allow him to remain in the service until 1956, as retirement from the Royal Austrian Navy for ratings in those days was at 50 years, while personnel could serve until 55 years old in the Naval Dockyard Police.

 

 

After retirement from the Naval Dockyard Police, Claude purchased a Cray fishing boat and spent ten years fishing off the Western Australia coast.

 

 

After Claude's death on Thursday, his daughter spoke on behalf of the family. "Dad was always proud of his Navy service and considered it his other family," said Anne. "We are grateful for the Navy's continued association with the family and their recognition of our father's life."

 

 

Vice Admiral Russ Crane, Chief of the Royal Australian Navy, expressed his condolences to the Choules family on behalf of the entire Royal Australian Navy.

 

 

"Our thoughts are with Claude’s family at this sad time," said Captain Brett Wolski, Commanding Officer of the HMAS Stirling. "Claude served in the Royal Navy during WWI and then with the Royal Australian Navy in WWII. His career has spanned some of the most significant events in maritime history this century."

 

 

 

Original editor: BNO News

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Last WWI veteran Dies at age 110

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NASA's Next Mission: Send Astronauts To Asteroid

 

 

 

HOUSTON -- With the space shuttle now history, NASA's next great mission is so audacious, the agency's best minds are wrestling with how to pull it off: Send astronauts to an asteroid in less than 15 years.

 

The challenges are innumerable. Some old-timers are grousing about it, saying going back to the moon makes more sense. But many NASA brains are thrilled to have such an improbable assignment.

 

And NASA leaders say civilization may depend on it.

 

An asteroid is a giant space rock that orbits the sun, like Earth. And someday one might threaten the planet.

But sending people to one won't be easy. You can't land on an asteroid because you'd bounce off – it has virtually no gravity. Reaching it might require a NASA spacecraft to harpoon it. Heck, astronauts couldn't even walk on it because they'd float away.

 

NASA is thinking about jetpacks, tethers, bungees, nets and spiderwebs to allow explorers to float just above the surface of it while attached to a smaller mini-spaceship.

 

Such a ship – something like a "Star Trek" shuttlecraft melded with a deep sea explorer with pincer-like arms_ is needed just to get within working distance of the rock. That craft would have to be big enough for astronauts to live in for a week or two. They'd still need a larger habitat for the long term.

 

It would take half a year to reach an asteroid, based on current possible targets. The deep space propulsion system to fly such a distance isn't perfected yet. Football-field-sized solar panels would help, meaning the entire mothership complex would be fairly large. It would have to protect the space travelers from killer solar and cosmic ray bursts. And, they would need a crew capsule, maybe two, for traveling between the asteroid complex and Earth.

 

And all those parts – mini-spaceship, habitat/living area, crew capsule, solar arrays and propulsion system – would have to be linked together in the middle of space, assembled in a way like the International Space Station but on a smaller scale.

Beyond all those obstacles, NASA doesn't even know which asteroid would be the best place to visit.

 

All this has to be ready to launch by 2025 by presidential order.

 

"This is the big step," said Kent Joosten, chief architect of the human exploration team at Johnson Space Center. "This is out into the universe, away from Earth's gravity completely... This is really where you are doing the `Star Trek' kind of thing."

 

It has the dreamers of NASA both excited and anxious.

 

"This is a risky mission. It's a challenging mission," said NASA chief technology officer Bobby Braun. "It's the kind of mission that engineers will eat up."

 

This is a matter of sending "humans farther than ever before," said NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver. It is all a stepping stone to the dream of flying astronauts to Mars in the mid 2030s.

 

"I think it is THE mission NASA should embrace," said University of Tennessee aerospace professor John Muratore. "To be successful at this mission, you've got to embrace all of the technologies that you need for Mars."

 

Critics, including former Apollo astronauts and flight directors, have blasted President Barack Obama for canceling George W. Bush's plan to return astronauts to the moon. They dismiss talk of asteroid visits.

 

But that's because NASA has not done a good job of outlining the fascinating details and explaining why it is important, said astronomer and former astronaut John Grunsfeld.

 

"NASA doesn't have a story right now," said Grunsfeld, deputy director at the Space Telescope Science Institute. "Exploration is nothing if not the articulation of a great story."

 

The story begins with why NASA would want to go to an asteroid. The agency has sent small spacecraft off to study asteroids over the years and even landed on one in 2001. Just last week, a space probe began orbiting a huge asteroid called Vesta, which lies beyond Mars.

 

Scientifically, an asteroid is a remnant from the birth of the solar system, offering clues about how our planetary system began. Logistically, NASA wants to go to Mars, but that is distant and more difficult. So the argument is that going to an asteroid is a better testing ground than returning to the moon.

 

The reason NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and others give is that this mission could save civilization. Every 100 million years or so an asteroid 6 miles wide – the type that killed off the dinosaurs_ smacks Earth, said NASA Near Earth Object program manager Donald Yeomans.

 

If NASA can get astronauts to an asteroid, they can figure out a way of changing a potential killer's orbit. They'll experiment with the safe one they land on, Braun said.

 

One joke going around is that dinosaurs couldn't stop catastrophe because they didn't have a space program.

 

"One of the statements going to an asteroid will make is that humans are smarter than dinosaurs," Grunsfeld said.

 

If you are going to reroute a killer asteroid, first you have to know one is coming and where it is now. And that's also a problem for NASA's mission. Astronomers figure there are about 50,000 asteroids and comets larger than 300 feet in diameter and they only know where fewer than 1 percent of them are, Yeomans said. NASA is focusing on rocks that size or larger that would come relatively close to Earth in the 2025 time frame.

 

At the moment, there are only a handful of asteroid options and they all have names like 1999AO10 or 2009OS5. NASA deputy exploration chief Laurie Leshin figures NASA will have to come up with, not just more targets, but better names.

 

Getting to one will be even tougher.

 

Huge powerful rockets are needed to launch spacecraft and parts out of Earth orbit. NASA promises to announce its design idea for these rockets by the end of the summer and Congress has ordered that they be built by 2016. It will take two or three or maybe even more launches of these unnamed rockets to get all the needed parts into space.

 

The crew capsule is the farthest along because NASA is using the Orion crew ship it was already designing for the now dead moon mission and repurposing it for deep space. NASA has already spent $5 billion on Orion.

 

Once in space, the ship needs a propulsion system to get it to the asteroid. One way is to use traditional chemical propulsion, but that would require carrying lots of hard-to-store fuel and creation of a new storage system, Joosten said.

 

Another way is to use ion propulsion, which is efficient and requires less fuel, but it is enormously slow to rev up and gain speed. It would also require an electrical ignition source, thus the giant solar power wings.

 

If NASA goes to ion propulsion, the best bet would be to start the bulk of the ship on a trip to and around the moon without astronauts. That would take a while, but if no one is on it, it doesn't matter, Joosten said. Then when that ship is far from Earth, astronauts aboard Orion would dock and join the rest of the trip. By this time, the ship would have picked up sufficient speed and keep on accelerating.

 

Orion isn't big enough for four astronauts to live on for a year. They would need a larger space habitat, a place where they can exercise to keep from losing bone strength in zero gravity. They would need a place to store food, sleep and most importantly a storm shelter to protect them from potentially deadly and radiation-loaded solar flares.

 

Much of the habitat could be inflatable, launched in a lightweight form, and inflated in space. On Friday, NASA announced a competition among four universities to design potential exploration habitats.

 

Meanwhile NASA is pursuing its concept for a mini-spaceship exploration vehicle, about the size of a minivan. And it's planning an underwater lab for training, an effort to mimic an asteroid mission's challenges, Joosten said.

 

Leshin notes 2025 is not that many years away: "There's a lot of things we need to invent and build between now and then."

 

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Следующая миссия НАСА: Отправить астронавтов на астероид

 

 

Хьюстон - С шаттла теперь история, рядом великой миссии НАСА настолько смелый, лучшие умы агентства борются с тем, как осуществить это: Отправить астронавтов на астероид менее чем за 15 лет.

 

Проблемы просто не перечесть. Некоторые старожилы являются ворчать об этом, сказав, возвращаясь к Луне имеет больше смысла. Но многие мозги NASA очень рады иметь такие невероятные задания.

 

И НАСА лидеры говорят, что цивилизация может зависеть от этого.

 

Астероид гигантская скала пространстве, вращается вокруг Солнца, подобно Земле. И когда-нибудь можно было бы угрожать нашей планете.

Но отправка людей никто не будет легким. Вы не можете приземлиться на астероид, потому что вы бы отскочить - он практически не имеет силы тяжести. Достижение этого может потребоваться космический аппарат НАСА, чтобы гарпун его. Черт возьми, астронавты не могли даже ходить по нему, потому что они уплывают.

 

НАСА думает о реактивные ранцы, тросов, bungees, сети и паутина, чтобы исследователи плыть прямо над поверхностью, пока придается меньшее мини-корабля.

 

Такой корабль - что-то вроде "Star Trek" шатл размытое с глубоким исследователем моря с пинцета, как arms_ необходимо только, чтобы получить в рабочее расстояние рок. Это судно должно быть достаточно большим для астронавтов, чтобы жить в течение недели или двух. Они все еще нужно больше обитания на длительный срок.

 

Это займет полгода, чтобы достичь астероида, основанные на текущих возможных целей. Глубокие двигательной пространства лететь такое расстояние не усовершенствовал еще. Футбол поля размера панелей солнечных батарей поможет, то есть весь комплекс Mothership будет довольно большим. Это было бы для защиты космических путешественников от убийцы солнечных и космических всплесков луча. И они должны экипажа капсулы, может быть, два, для путешествия между комплекса астероидом и Землей.

 

И все эти части - мини-корабль, среда обитания / жилая площадь, экипаж капсулы, солнечных батарей и двигательные системы - должны быть связаны друг с другом в середине пространства, собрались в путь, как Международная космическая станция, но в меньшем масштабе.

За все эти препятствия, NASA даже не знаете, какой астероид был бы лучшим местом для посещения.

 

Все это должно быть готово к запуску в 2025 году указом Президента.

 

"Это большой шаг вперед", сказал Кент Joosten, главный архитектор человеческой команда разведки на Johnson Space Center. "Это во Вселенную, вдали от земной гравитации полностью ... Это действительно, где вы делаете вид` Звездный путь "вещи".

 

Он мечтателей НАСА как возбужденных, так и беспокойство.

 

"Это очень рискованная миссия. Это сложные миссии", сказал глава НАСА технологиям Бобби Браун. "Это вроде миссии, что инженеры съест".

 

Это вопрос отправки "людей дальше, чем когда-либо прежде", сказал заместитель администратора NASA Лори Гарвер. Это все ступенькой на пути к мечте полета астронавтов на Марс в середине 2030-х годов.

 

"Я думаю, что НАСА должно охватывать", сказал Университета Теннесси аэрокосмической профессор Джон Мураторе. "Чтобы добиться успеха в этой миссии, вы должны охватить все технологии, необходимые для Марса".

 

Критики, в том числе бывших астронавтов Аполлона и летных директоров, имеют взорвали президента США Барака Обаму за отмену Джорджа Буша планирует вернуться астронавтов на Луну. Они говорят о уволить астероид визитов.

 

Но это потому, что НАСА не сделал хорошую работу по изложением увлекательных подробностей и объяснения, почему это важно, говорит астроном и бывший астронавт Джон Grunsfeld.

 

"NASA не имеет историю прямо сейчас", сказал Grunsfeld, заместитель директора Научный институт космического телескопа. «Разведка ничего, если не артикуляции большую историю".

 

История начинается с того, почему НАСА хотели бы пойти в астероид. Агентство направило малых космических аппаратов от изучения астероидов на протяжении многих лет и даже приземлился на одном в 2001 году. Только на прошлой неделе космический зонд начал орбитальный огромный астероид называется Веста, которая лежит за Марсом.

 

С научной точки зрения астероид является остатком от рождения Солнечной системы, предлагая подсказки о том, как нашей планетной системы началось. С точки зрения логистики НАСА хочет пойти на Марс, но это далекая и сложнее. Таким аргументом является то, что собирается астероид лучше полигон, чем возвращение на Луну.

 

Причина НАСА Чарльз Болден и другие дают в том, что эта миссия может спасти цивилизацию. Каждые 100 миллионов лет или около того астероид 6 миль в ширину - тип, который убит Земли dinosaurs_ отдает, говорит НАСА околоземных объектов менеджер программы Дональд Йоманс.

 

Если НАСА может получить астронавтов на астероид, они могут выяснить способ изменения орбит потенциальные убийцы. Они будут экспериментировать с безопасным они приземляются на, Браун сказал.

 

Один анекдот ходит в том, что динозавры не могли остановить катастрофу, поскольку у них не было космической программы.

 

"Один из заявления собирается астероид сделает то, что люди умнее, чем динозавры", Grunsfeld сказал.

 

Если вы собираетесь изменить маршрут убийцы астероид, сначала вы должны узнать друг идет, и где он сейчас. И это также является проблемой для НАСА. Астрономы фигура Есть около 50 тысяч астероидов и комет, больших, чем 300 футов в диаметре, и они только знали, где меньше чем 1 процент из них, Йоманс сказал. NASA делает упор на скалы, или большего размера, что придет относительно близко к Земле в 2025 срок.

 

На данный момент, Есть только горстка астероидов вариантов и все они имеют имена, как 1999AO10 или 2009OS5. НАСА заместитель главного разведку Лори Leshin цифры НАСА придется придумать, а не только больше целей, но лучше имена.

 

Как добраться до из них будет еще жестче.

 

Огромные мощные ракеты, необходимые для запуска космических аппаратов и их частей с орбиты Земли. НАСА обещает объявить о своей дизайнерской мысли для этих ракет к концу лета и Конгресс распорядился, чтобы они были построены к 2016 году. Это займет два-три или даже больше запусков этих ракет неназванным, чтобы получить все необходимые детали в космос.

 

Экипаж капсула дальний вместе, потому НАСА использует корабль Orion экипажа было уже проектирования для ныне мертвых Луну миссию и повторное использование его для глубокого космоса. НАСА уже потратила $ 5 миллиардов на Орион.

 

Как только в пространстве, кораблю двигательной установки, чтобы заставить это астероид. Один из способов заключается в использовании традиционного двигателя химическая, но это потребует проведения многих труднодоступных хранения топлива и создание новой системы хранения, Joosten сказал.

 

Другой способ заключается в использовании ионных двигателей, что является эффективной и требует меньше топлива, но она чрезвычайно медленно увеличивать скорость и набирать скорость. Это также потребует электрического источника зажигания, таким образом, гигантские солнечные крылья власти.

 

Если НАСА идет на движение ионов, Лучше было бы начать основную часть корабля на поездку в и вокруг Луны без космонавтов. Это займет время, но если никто не находится на этом, это не имеет значения, Joosten сказал. Потом, когда этот корабль далеко от Земли, астронавты на борту Orion будет док-станции и присоединиться к остальной части поездки. К этому времени, корабль подобрал достаточной скоростью и продолжают ускоряться.

 

Orion не является достаточно большим для четырех астронавтов жить в течение года. Они должны больше пространства обитания, место, где они могут воспользоваться, чтобы удержаться от потери прочности кости в невесомости. Они нуждаются в месте для хранения продуктов питания, сна и, самое главное бурю приют, чтобы защитить их от потенциально смертельной и радиационно-загружалась солнечных вспышек.

 

Большая часть среды обитания может быть надувным, запущенный в легкие формы, а завышенным в космосе. В пятницу, NASA объявило конкурс среди четырех университетов для разработки потенциальных мест обитания разведки.

 

Между тем NASA проводит свою концепцию мини-корабль разведки транспортного средства, о размерах минивэна. И это планирование подводной лаборатории для обучения, усилий, чтобы имитировать проблемы астероид миссии, Joosten сказал.

 

Leshin отмечает 2025 не так уж много лет: "Там очень много вещей, которые мы обязательно изобретать и строить между сейчас и потом."

 

Origanal Editing By Huffpost Aol news.

 

 

Stay tuned for the next News story.

[Delta_88 17]

LONDON (Reuters) – A rare World War Two German bomber, shot down over the English Channel in 1940 and hidden for years by shifting sands at the bottom of the sea, is so well preserved a British museum wants to raise it.

 

The Dornier 17 -- thought to be world's last known example -- was hit as it took part in the Battle of Britain.

 

It ditched in the sea just off the Kent coast, southeast England, in an area known as the Goodwin Sands.

 

The plane came to rest upside-down in 50 feet of water and has become partially visible from time to time as the sands retreated before being buried again.

 

Now a high-tech sonar survey undertaken by the Port of London Authority (PLA) has revealed the aircraft to be in a startling state of preservation.

 

Ian Thirsk, from the RAF Museum at Hendon in London, told the BBC he was "incredulous" when he first heard of its existence and potential preservation.

 

"This aircraft is a unique aeroplane and it's linked to an iconic event in British history, so its importance cannot be over-emphasized, nationally and internationally," he said.

 

"It's one of the most significant aeronautical finds of the century."

 

Known as "the flying pencil," the Dornier 17 was designed as a passenger plane in 1934 and was later converted for military use as a fast bomber, difficult to hit and theoretically able to outpace enemy fighter aircraft.

 

 

 

 

In all, some 1,700 were produced but they struggled in the war with a limited range and bomb load capability and many were scrapped afterwards.

 

Striking high-resolution images appear to show that the Goodwin Sands plane suffered only minor damage, to its forward cockpit and observation windows, on impact.

 

"The bomb bay doors were open, suggesting the crew jettisoned their cargo," said PLA spokesman Martin Garside.

 

Two of the crew members died on impact, while two others, including the pilot, were taken prisoner and survived the war.

 

"The fact that it was almost entirely made of aluminum and produced in one piece may have contributed to its preservation," Garside told Reuters.

 

The plane is still vulnerable to the area's notorious shifting sands and has become the target of recreational divers hoping to salvage souvenirs.

 

The RAF museum has launched an appeal to raise funds for the lifting operation.

 

I think it's a Dornier Do 215, or a captured B-25 (capture by the Nazis). 8)

[russia102010 14]

russia is going to send people to mars!

[Delta_88 17]

NASA isn't is American not Russian, Russia :roll: :roll: :roll:

[russia102010 14]

what? i just said Russia is sending people to mars

[Moraine 5,877]

Mars is sending Martians to... what??? No people will go to Mars in 100 years if all people do is arm themselves and use the industry to produce quantities of useless crap they can sell for a profit.

 

The Asteroid story sounds like a joke, and whole space program will not go beyond low Earth orbit (where ISS is) if there is not a long term goal. Land on an asteroid? Then what? We tie it with rope and ride it? Why would we do that???

 

42 years ago first people landed on the Moon, but they could not answer "why" they did it and what makes sense to do next. That is why man's presence in space has taken a step back.

[G_AHMED 12]

nice

[russia102010 14]

Mars is sending Martians to... what??? No people will go to Mars in 100 years if all people do is arm themselves and use the industry to produce quantities of useless crap they can sell for a profit.

 

The Asteroid story sounds like a joke, and whole space program will not go beyond low Earth orbit (where ISS is) if there is not a long term goal. Land on an asteroid? Then what? We tie it with rope and ride it? Why would we do that???

 

42 years ago first people landed on the Moon, but they could not answer "why" they did it and what makes sense to do next. That is why man's presence in space has taken a step back.

and putin is going with em i think

[XxSdarknessSxX 2]

Can anything you do online remain truly private in this day and age? One out of every eight people in the world has a Facebook account that they fill with personal information. People tweet details about their daily lives. And it seems that every site we visit online wants to install a cookie to track our online progress.

But just because we live in a culture where privacy is often willingly surrendered, you shouldn't give up and give away your information to just anyone. Past problems with these five corporate giants should definitely make you think twice.

 

1. Facebook

Facebook is already using the plethora of information it has gathered about you to deliver ads tailored to your specific tastes. If you use applications within Facebook, those third

parties have access to all your personal information, as well. And of course, should your account ever be hacked, you risk a complete stranger's learning and being able to exploit every intimate detail about you, including your address and phone number.

 

The good news is that Facebook has a number of tools to manage privacy settings, offering you control over who sees what information you post. But even this may not keep you safe. Remember that embarrassing picture of yourself that you deleted off Facebook three years ago? A recent study shows that it likely still exists — Facebook never deleted it. This example is far from the first privacy misstep Facebook made, and it surely won't be the last.

And here's another scary anti-privacy trend related to Facebook: More and more job applicants are being asked to surrender their Facebook passwords by prospective employers. It's not just job searchers who need to fear for their privacy, either — if your children play in college athletics, they may have already been forced to give a school official total access to their Facebook account as a prerequisite to playing.

 

2. Sony

Things began to go south for Sony when its PlayStation Network (PSN) was hacked in April 2011. That breach exposed millions of names, addresses, usernames, and passwords, exposing PSN users to the threat of identity theft. It took Sony a full month to assess the damage and bring the PSN back online.

But the first attack was merely the tip of Sony's privacy iceberg. The PSN was brought down almost immediately after it went back online in May 2011 by a new security exploit. A few days after that, Sony websites in Thailand and Japan were hacked, with the bad guys stealing about $1,200 in customer funds. And in October 2011, an estimated 93,000 PSN accounts were breached — a third black eye for a company that had yet to heal from its previous two.

 

3. Apple

Few companies have impacted the way we view and use technology over the last decade quite the way Apple has. And perhaps it's precisely because so many of us rely on iPads and iPhones that this next revelation is so devastating. Until last month, Apple readily allowed third-party app developers access to your phone's address book without your knowledge. Some apps even gave hackers a back door into your phone, albeit unintentionally.

 

News of these privacy violations broke when it was revealed that the increasingly popular social networking app Path was not only accessing users' contacts but uploading the contacts to a private server. The revelation was enough to draw congressional attention, with Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) demanding Apple reveal which apps have access to this info and why it allows app makers to grab address book data without telling us.

Apple quickly responded to Congress that apps such as Path were in violation of its guidelines and that it would be implementing a software patch to prevent apps from accessing address books without our knowledge in the future. Still, it's chilling that Apple let the practice go on long enough for one iOS app developer to brag that he had access to Bill Gates's and Mark Zuckerberg's cell phone numbers.

 

4. Your phone carrier

Given the strict federal rules against wiretapping, communications privacy, and computer fraud, you might find it downright shocking to learn that your wireless carrier might have full access to every single keystroke you make on your mobile device. But that might be exactly the case, all thanks to a little-known company in Mountain View, California, named Carrier IQ.

 

Carrier IQ's software, which bills itself as a tool for mobile providers to help assist customers during support calls, was preinstalled on many smartphones currently in use without customers' knowledge. The company insisted for the longest time that its software did not have the ability to log browser data and text message contents, but an intrepid Android blogger posted a YouTube video showing the software doing exactly that.

Is your phone saddled with Carrier IQ spyware? It's possible — at least if you're using an AT&T, a Sprint, or a T-Mobile phone. Thankfully, Carrier IQ's days of spying may be over. Apple, one of the largest suppliers of smartphones, stopped supporting the Carrier IQ service when iOS 5 was released last year. Further, Congress is moving aggressively to stop the practice from ever happening again, and a number of states have filed civil and criminal suits against the company.

 

5. Google

We want to love Google, we really do. The company does a lot of social good, from helping save the Great Barrier Reef to trying to engineer the future of driverless cars. But even though it pains us to do so, we have to include Google on our list because of the most recent changes to the company's privacy policy.

 

On March 1, all sites within the Google network began sharing your personal information with each other. If you watch a video for a political candidate on YouTube, Google might start serving you ads asking you to make a donation to candidates with similar political views. Every single search you make on Google adds to its level of knowledge about you — the company knows if you're pregnant, if you suffer from heartburn, and even if you're a smoker.

 

Sure, we trust that no summer intern at Google HQ rifles through filing cabinets filled to the brim with your most embarrassing web searches. But the simple fact that this massive treasure trove of information exists somewhere means that the potential for this information to fall into the wrong hands exists. Given how influential Google is to the web experience and given the fact that you can't actually opt out from Google's new policy, it's hard to protect your privacy from the company. Still, you're not entirely helpless — you can easily erase your Google history and stop the company from collecting information about you in the future.

 

Play it smart

As technology becomes a bigger and bigger part of our social lives, it's likely the trend of voluntarily surrendering our privacy will continue. But that doesn't mean you can't be smart about whom you give information to and how much you share. Familiarize yourself with the privacy policies for your favorite sites and businesses, and opt out of having your data collected. If you have kids, be sure to educate them about the dangers of sharing highly personal information with strangers online.

 

[image credit: Robert Scoble]

 

This article was written by Fox Van Allen and originally appeared on Tecca.

[russia102010 14]

*claps* Very well done!

[r_nuclearbom0 62]

*claps* Very well done!

 

You say well done to someone who just copies it from the New York times?

[russia102010 14]

*claps* Very well done!

 

You say well done to someone who just copies it from the New York times?

Really?!?

[XxSdarknessSxX 2]

News Flash: It's called Yahoo for a reason. Some people who play Tankionline Don't have a Yahoo Account so I'm Bringing it to them so they know whats happening around the world.

[russia102010 14]

News Flash: It's called Yahoo for a reason. Some people who play Tankionline Don't have a Yahoo Account so I'm Bringing it to them so they know whats happening around the world.

Oh I am a Yahoo E-mail. Gotta think more!

[RockerGuitarist 11]

nasa is awsome

[icerugby 1,886]

This is really informative... keep it up :)

[Latvian_troller 63]

nasa is awsome

Do you mind?

[Amagi 1,728]

This deserves to be bumped..for knowledge!