More Marines may be needed in terror war

The Marine Corps may need to increase in size to sustain deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan without sacrificing needed training or putting undue stress on the corps, the new Marine commandant said Wednesday.

At a breakfast meeting with reporters, Gen. James Conway also warned that it could take years to adequately train and equip the Iraqi security forces — longer, perhaps, "than the timeline that we probably feel ... our country will support."

"This is tough work, it doesn't happen overnight," and patience by the American people will be needed, he said. On the plus side, he said Marines he's talked to in recent days are encouraged by the progress they are seeing among Iraqi forces.

Conway said the current pace of Marine rotations to Iraq — seven months there and seven-to-nine months at home — is limiting other types of training that units can receive and could eventually prompt Marines to leave the service.

"There is stress on the individual Marines that is increasing, and there is stress on the institution to do what we are required to do, pretty much by law, for the nation," said Conway.

The goal, he said, is for units to spend twice the amount of time at home as is spent on deployment — for example seven months deployed and 14 months at home.

At the same time, Conway would not rule out extending the Iraq tours for some Marine units if needed for a short period of time. Several Army units have been extended for several months, but the Marines have done that only rarely and for weeks rather than months.

Conway, who took on the Marines' top job just eight days ago, said there are two ways to deal with the ongoing stress on the Marines: "One is reducing the requirement, the other is potentially growing the force for what we call the long war." Read More

Concerns to air over anti-sub range

MOREHEAD CITY - In 2004, Joe Shute noticed something funny happened with the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament in Morehead City.

The weeklong fishing tournament coincided with an offshore Navy training exercise, said Shute, who owns a bait and tackle shop in Atlantic Beach and runs inshore and offshore charters.

Blue marlin were plentiful on the first day of fishing, Shute said.

"The second day they turned on their maneuvers, and we didn't catch any more fish until the end of the week until they quit," Shute said. Read More

Microsoft takes phisers to court

Microsoft is helping law enforcers hunt down criminals who try to steal bank account details on the internet and has initiated 129 lawsuits in Europe and the Middle East, the US software company said.

One court case in Turkey has already led to a two and a half year prison sentence for a so-called "phisher" in Turkey, and another four cases against teenagers have been settled out of court, Microsoft said on Wednesday, eight months after it announced the launch of a Global Phishing Enforcement Initiative in March. Read More

Man charged after Internet chats with 'girl'

An Oshawa man faces luring and prostitution charges following online conversations with a police officer posing as a 12-year-old girl.

The investigation began Oct. 17 when an undercover York police officer became engaged in sexually explicit conversations with a man online.

During the conversations, which continued over a period of four days, police say the man expressed a desire to meet with the "girl" for sex.

The man also suggested that he would pay the girl money when they met, investigators said.

A suspect was arrested on Nov. 21 after a meeting was set up in Mississauga.

Jeffrey Totman, 28, has been charged with two counts of luring and one count of juvenile prostitution.

Anyone with information is asked to contact York police at 905-453-2121 ext. 3490 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS. Read More

Pentagon stays the course with laser weapon

The threat of cancellation no longer looms over the Pentagon's Airborne Laser effort, but senior program officials say they are taking nothing for granted as they prepare for a missile-intercept demonstration in 2008.

Several clear test milestones have been laid out for the Airborne Laser in 2006 so that senior Missile Defense Agency officials will be able to measure its progress, according to Air Force Col. John Daniels, the effort's program director.

The Airborne Laser, or ABL, is a Boeing 747 aircraft being equipped with a high-powered chemical laser to destroy ballistic missiles in their boost phase. Chicago-based Boeing Co. is the prime contactor on the effort.

Read More

Firefox has a password flaw

The Internet browser Firefox 2 has a problem with its "password manager" that could allow a hacker to obtain usernames and passwords from Firefox users, Newsfactor.com reports.

The Mozilla Foundation, which maintains Firefox's code, has acknowledged the problem. It has an extensive discussion going on here about what it calls "bug #360 493."

According to Newsfactor, the same problem could affect Internet Explorer as well.

Newsfactor also reports that "neither Mozilla nor Microsoft has released a patch for the problem, but users can avoid (the) attacks simply by disabling their browsers' autosave features for usernames and passwords. In Firefox, the feature is found in the 'Options' window under the 'Tools' menu. read more

Gabriel's Homecoming

  

Gabe's Homecoming