Day: October 2, 2012

The future is almost here! You too, can become a real asteroid miner!

Planetary Resources Now Hiring ‘Asteroid Miner’ Interns

“Planetary Resources, the would-be asteroid mining company backed by notable billionaires including James Cameron and Google’s co-founders, has posted its first official internship opening for ‘asteroid miners’ the company wrote in an email to its supporters and subscribers on Monday.

As Chris Lewicki, the company’s “president and chief asteroid miner,” wrote in the email:

Do you want to be an Asteroid Miner?

Well, here’s your chance!

We’re looking for passionate college students for
paid coop positions to help us mine asteroids
this spring and summer…

If you love space and want to contribute directly to
the development of the next generation of space
exploration technologies, we want to hear from you
(or from anyone you know that you think would be
interested).

The actual internship listing, posted on the Planetary Resources website is for positions that would be located in Bellevue, WA and would extend from January 2013 through August. The description calls for ‘qualified and enthusiastic candidates for paid cooperative education positions to assist in the development of new systems and technologies for the commercial robotic exploration of near Earth asteroids.’ Planetary Resources has also signed a launch deal with Virgin Galactic and contemplated launching a Kickstarter campaign to back its first fleet of asteroid-observing orbital space telescopes, due to launch by 2014. Actual asteroid mining is still years away, but Planetary Resources is aiming to commence operations by the end of the decade.”

There’s a nasty virus on the loose, in the wild, and YOU need to be on the alert! If you get infected, it will hit you with a screen like the one shown below:

From Sophos: “Ransomware is malicious software that locks you out of your computer or your data, and demands money to let you back in.

One “brand” of ransomware, widely known as Reveton, has been very widely circulated in recent months.

Reveton pretends to be a warning from your country’s national police service, locks you out of your PC, and threatens criminal proceedings within 48 hours – usually for unspecified copyright offences.

Of course, you can bypass the prosecution if you pay a ‘fine’ to the cybercriminals. The amount they extort is typically about $200.

If you run across this sort of malware, it’s tempting just to wear the cost and hope that the crooks live up to their promise of giving your PC back.

We recommend that you don’t do that, so here’s a short video to advise you, and your friends and family, on what to do instead:”

“Remember: an up-to-date and active anti-virus, combined with prompt software patching to close known holes, makes things much harder for the Bad Guys.

So give yourself the best chance of safety by taking security seriously!”

The FREE Sophos Bootable Anti-Virus bootable CD mentioned in the video is available at the link below:

Sophos Bootable Anti-Virus (SBAV)

Full instructions are available at the link above as well. As they say: “Don’t Panic!” (Good advice from Hitchhiker’s as well!)

Another great tool, that I use regularly, is Malwarebyte’s Anti-Malware, also available FREE from the link below:

Malwarebyte’s Anti-Malware