A Springfield man dropped $510,000 on an underground opportunity in Athcison, Kan. And, he’ll spend even more as he works to transform an enormous “cave” into an economic boom….

Jennifer Graves, 34, is facing a Class D felony charge of assault on
school grounds after she allegeldy pulled a phone from the wall and
threatened to have Chula school officials killed when she…

A handful of Atchison businesses are pitching in to raise money for a wheelchair-bound teen….

Deputy Brady Graham lost control of his patrol car on Highway 190 while responding to an emergency call in northwest Livingston County….

Time to get digging!  Humboldt kids are planting seeds and seedlings for their new vegetable garden….

A Chillicothe woman was arrested Thursday night for allegedly breaking
into a Livingston County home and attempting to kidnap children….

The transportation sales tax, one of the major priorities of this
legislative session, has died in the state senate after three of the 34
senators refused to let it come to a vote that would the…

Governor Jay Nixon has signed four bills passed by the General Assembly and vetoed another today….

No one matched Wednesday night’s numbers, making Saturday’s jackpot the third largest in U.S. history….

Blue Oyster Culture Club and Dolewite members say they’re very excited to play a show Friday night at the Civic Arena….

Nobody is safe in the digital world and even the smartest minds in the
cybersecurity world constantly struggle to fend off hackers in their
personal lives.

Be discerning, be suspicious, and be very paranoid,
advised top government and private-sector computer security experts at
the Reuters Cybersecurity Summit this week.

“There are two types
of people: those who’ve been hacked and those who don’t know they’ve
been hacked,” said former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff,
sharing an adage commonly repeated in cybersecurity circles.

In
their professional lives, cybersecurity experts use the latest
technological innovations to defend computer networks from attack. But
when it comes to personal protection, many employ surprisingly low-tech
tactics.

Chertoff, who formed The Chertoff Group security
consultancy after leaving government in 2009, says he did not use email
while in office to cut off one channel of access to his networks.
Current Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano does not use email
either.

Eugene Kaspersky, whose company makes one of the
top-selling anti-virus programs, uses a six-year-old Sony Ericsson
cellphone as it is more difficult to hack into than the latest
Internet-enabled smartphones.

“I’m a conservative man,” said
Kaspersky, whose Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab has conducted some of the
most in-depth research on the Stuxnet virus and other malicious
software. “I am paranoid. I suspect every link and every email.”

Other
cybersecurity wonks caution people to keep critical data off hard
drives, avoid putting sensitive information in writing and post little
personal data on social media.

But not everyone listens, sometimes not even family members.

“My
sister is a Petri dish for malware. When I go home to New Jersey, I
have to play tech support,” said George Kurtz, chief executive of
security firm CrowdStrike.

He added, “Yeah, I’m pretty paranoid at home and even firewall off my kids.”

FBI
Executive Assistant Director Richard McFeely said his daughter, who
recently returned home after graduating from college, asked him to look
at a link she was sent that urged her to download something in order to
watch a YouTube video.

“I made a call and sure enough, it’s
phishing,” McFeely said, referring to a common online scam in which
users are sent plausible-looking links, which when clicked will infect
computers with malicious software. “My daughter easily would have done
that if I was not sitting there.”

McFeely said his daughter’s
Facebook postings have in the past led to the hacker group Anonymous
publicizing her college house address to get at him and his family.

Phishing test

Phishing
is one of the most common tools used by hackers. It was through a
phishing campaign that hackers managed to break into the Twitter account
of the Associated Press and send a fake message last month about
explosions at the White House, briefly driving down financial markets.

To
avoid such attacks, the North American Electric Reliability Corp, which
oversees the security of the electric grid, tests its 200 employees
with a fake phishing email every quarter, according to CEO Gerry Cauley.

Anyone who clicks on the link has to undergo an hour of training with the IT department and the CEO himself.

“I
explain to them how really important it is. It’s the predominant path
into any network security,” Cauley said. He added that 20 employees had
clicked on the fake link when he first ran the test, and only eight did
in the latest test.

Several experts highlighted the importance of
being careful about putting personal information online, though there
was also a recognition that social media is here to stay.

“If
you’re living in the modern world if you’re not in the social media,
you don’t exist,” said Kaspersky. “But please, keep your mind switched
on, don’t post personal stuff.”

Then again, social media can aid
cyber investigators as well as crooks. CrowdStrike said it has managed
to build profiles of many hackers, including their photographs, thanks
to social media.

“We often bemoan, outside of cybersecurity, that we don’t have privacy anymore, that Google and Facebook know so much about us,” said CrowdStrike Chief Technology Officer Dmitri Alperovitch.

“That’s
true for the adversaries, too, right? They’re all on social networks,
they’re all on Twitter, accumulating a digital trail that often goes
back years.”

© Thomson Reuters 2013

High tide or low in Hawaii, you can always surf the web. We’ve been treading the waters from Blogger to WordPress, bookmarking our favorites along the way. Wax up your RSS feed with these Internet waves.

Hawaii Book Blog

Internet bookworms! This local blog is your go-to source for all the book releases, reviews, writing workshops, community events and more available in our own backyard.

By highlighting local lit, Hawaii Book Blog proves there’s more diversity to our literary landscape than just cookbooks and travel guides. “Imagine if no one were publishing local stories, if all our books came from the mainland, imported like some of our foods, fuel and other goods,” says editor Misty-Lynn Sanico. “It’s a scary thought. In the same way we encourage people to eat local, we should also ‘read local.’”

Keep your eyes peeled for a new chapter coming soon. The site will be re-launching as [HawaiiReads.com] in the fall.

Fading into Grain.

No one in Honolulu captures the island’s arts scene more effectively, elegantly and, well, artfully than one of its own. We’re talking about photographer Mark Kushimi, his 35-mm camera and his blog, Fading into Grain, quietly stepping in to document local artists in their everyday element.

“When I get an opportunity to visit an artist in their space, it’s always very casual,” Kushimi says.

Other than a preliminary knowledge of an artist’s body of work, he never has a clear idea of what to expect, making for unexpected photos. “They don’t have to be artists per se, but creatives often surround themselves with interesting things,” he says, “so their workspaces are usually both intriguing to look at and express a lot about their personality.”

His lens gets behind the desks, pencils, brushes, sound booths, kitchens (chefs are artists too) and more to shed light on our community’s creative processes and offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into making art in paradise that’s equally intimate and inspiring. Because sometimes it’s the artists themselves who are the real work of art.

The Cat Dish

What’s a Hawaii web roundup without a blog focusing on food? Writer Catherine Toth covers the island’s culinary scene with a thoughtful voice that makes her one of the 808-dot-com’s most popular foodies. Where Yelp reviews can feel like fast food, a post on The Cat Dish always reads like a well-balanced entrée.

Besides highlighting the latest restaurant openings (everyone does that), you’ll find personal musings on “Why I love to bake,” her misadventures in natto and inspiring potluck dish suggestions (candied bacon is a winner).

It’s the sense of community on her blog that keeps Toth coming back for seconds, thirds and more. “A couple years ago, my blog was hacked and I wasn’t able to post anything for months,” she recalls. “While it was a nice break for me, I had no idea people had made reading my blog part of their daily ritual. I heard from readers when the blog was back up that they had missed it. That was the best feeling ever.”

Pull up a chair at The Cat Dish’s table because you never know what its writer will cook up next.

nigahiga

YouTube celebrity Ryan Higa is based out of Las Vegas these days, but he doesn’t hold down the backspace key on where his local blog started: his bedroom in Hilo, Hawaii.

What began as innocuous lip-syncing videos while he was a student at Waiakea High School in 2006 has developed into an insanely popular YouTube channel with over 1.4 billion (yes, billion) online views.

The 22-year-old’s brand of online comedy and his online celebrity has since led him to help develop The YOMYOMF Network, a YouTube-funded channel of original programming with a focus on showcasing Asian American talent.

#platelunch

When you find yourself opening your refrigerator 100 times within two minutes without finding anything you want to eat–an über literal case of existential hunger–run a quick “#platelunch” search on Instagram. After all, a craving speaks (growls!) 1,000 pictures of someone else’s food.

#platelunch produces results specific to Hawaii on Instagram. At the time of this writing, the tag yielded mochiko chicken (nope), grilled ahi (next), rosemary roast pork with bacon gravy (YES THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I WANT GIMME NOW).

Word to the Weight-Watchers wise: You may want to step far away from this search term–the only hashtag that’s guaranteed to produce a plate of Hawaiian pork hash on command.