Saudi blogger under arrest

In the latest web related news, the Saudi Arabia government, more specifically the Interior Ministry, have said what everyone else already knew: they are holding a blogger for interrogation purposes.

According to the blogger, named Mr. Farhan, the reason for the being under interrogation is the following:

The issue that caused all of this is because I wrote about the political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia, and they think I’m running an online campaign promoting their issue.

Thankfully, I live in a country in which this kind of stuff doesn’t happen.

At this day, 4 of January, Mr. Farhan has been in jail for 25 days. Hopefully, this post will help him somehow.

Check his blog at – http://www.alfarhan.org/.

Google China results – sex and stocks

Thanks to a list provided by Google China, we got to know the most searched keywords on the Chinese empire of Google, and surprisingly (not) it includes “stocks” over “sex” on the top 10.

Another interesting result is the number 1 keyword – “QQ” – which is a popular Chinese version of AIM/MSN, and also a car. At second and third place, come different Chinese banks.

Spam + stock market = bad

After 3 years of investigation, the good guys finally got a hold of the bad guys. Alan Ralsky, from Michigan, is the main person behind the project, and he was indicted a few days ago.

Basically, the system consisted on a stock fraud scheme, that worked along with e-mail spam, also known as “illegal bulk e-mailing”.

Small explanation:

The group sent spam touting thinly traded Chinese penny stocks, drove up their stock price, and reaped profits by selling the stock at artificially inflated prices.

Besides Alan, there are other 10 personas on the project, and 3 of them have already been arrested by the cops, but not the main guy. How much did you think they earned with this kind of scheme? Only in the summer of 2005, the estimate is close to $3 million. Not having to work much, and earn a lot – the dream of everyone, right?

Guest post by Tiago of Gadgetizer

Sources: Reuters and NYTimes