David Gewirtz | BIO
AC360° Contributor
Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Publishing

Some stories refuse to go away. One such story is the case of the missing White House emails. Over the course of two years beginning in 2007, I documented this story in my book, "Where Have All The Emails Gone?" and followed it up with articles written both here on AC360° and elsewhere.

It was announced today that some of those missing emails have been recovered. At the core of the story were millions of email messages that the Bush Administration was unable to deliver to the National Archives in compliance with the Presidential Records Act. They weren't able to deliver the messages because of what seemed most likely to be almost incomprehensibly poor IT (information technology) management practices within the Executive Office of the President.

Two organizations, the National Security Archives of George Washington University and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington brought suit, demanding the White House turn over the missing records.

Commenting on the state of the current White House email system today, Meredith Fuchs of the National Security Archives stated: "We have been briefed on the system in use since the beginning of the Obama Administration and we believe that the system now in use fixes the significant problems with the prior system, including by capturing everything, properly categorizing the emails, and preventing unauthorized deletion."

According to the two plaintiff organizations, the Obama White House found and properly archived 22 million messages that the Bush White House was unable to find since 2005.

In addition, the White House has agreed to a set of general principles for email management, searching, archiving, and future record keeping.

Only part of the problem

While certainly a victory, the resolution of the White House email lawsuit leaves perhaps the larger part of the White House email problem completely unresolved.

In fact, it was never even explored as part of the lawsuit.

In 1939, a law was passed called The Hatch Act. This law still exists today and it now governs government communications, including email. In particular, it says that certain government employees can't conduct political activities using government resources.

From the perspective of email, this means that White House staffers sent most of their politically-related email outside the White House email system. In the book, I estimated the Bush administration sent some 80 million email messages outside of the White House email system, none of which are accounted for and none of which were explored by the lawsuit.

According to both Congressional testimony by Bush-era staffers as well as White House press briefings given by the Bush press office, it became clear that Karl Rove and other Bush-era senior staffers used private messaging systems for the bulk of their email.

None of these messages have been recovered, either.

It's exciting to see that the actual EOP systems are improving. But until the Hatch Act is reconsidered in light of modern technology, administrations will still be forced to use outside, often unsecured messaging systems for much of their email activity, and most of those messages will never be recorded in compliance with the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act.

Follow David on Twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/DavidGewirtz.

Editor’s note: David Gewirtz is Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Magazines, including OutlookPower Magazine. He is a leading Presidential scholar specializing in White House email. He is a member of FBI InfraGard, the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism & Security Professionals, a columnist for The Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, and has been a guest commentator for the Nieman Watchdog of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He is a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley extension, a recipient of the Sigma Xi Research Award in Engineering and was a candidate for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Letters.

Soleil Moon Frye and family.

Soleil Moon Frye
Entertainer and Entrepreneur

My love affair with Twitter started some months back. It was a gorgeous sunny afternoon and my incredible friend @mrskutcher (Demi Moore) came over for a visit with the kids. She was being brilliant and beautiful as always while she told me about an incredible world that she and her husband had discovered called “Twitter.” I had heard a little about it here and there but didn’t know much about its core essence. Together we sat in front of the computer and she taught me how to post my first micro blog. Within moments, I discovered the beauty of this incredible virtual world. One in which I began connecting with people in an amazing way.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have kept a journal. I have a love for writing, words and language. I also have a deep fascination with people and the human spirit. From the time I was 5, I asked people the most personal questions I could think of. I was truly moved by the inner connection between mind and heart. This led me on a journey to study psychology in New York but I never finished college. Instead I began directing and writing, I fell in love, got married, had babies, and began the next chapters of my life. My love, passion and curiosity for people never changed. As a new mom I had so many questions and did not know where to turn. I started writing blogs about issues I cared about and connecting through the social community. When I started tweeting one of the greatest parts about it was being able to ask questions that inspired me. Within minutes I had all of these people sharing their stories, advice, and ideas. I genuinely wanted to engage and people were truly open to it. I found a common bond that connected us through the brilliant world of cyber space. A thread of nostalgia that somehow reached us all. In 140 characters I could express my endless love for Jake from Sixteen Candles or talk about how Alzheimer’s has effected my life. I could share a photo of my family or a song that moves me. I could connect to people through this amazing realm and be an active part of this Wild West in technology.

I am reminded now more than ever of a time ten years ago when I had an idea for a web company. The concept was live videos for the web. Programmed shows... One was a celebrity coffee chat, another was a behind-the-scenes look into entertainment... I will never forget the excitement of flying out to Manhattan to sit down and pitch our vision to a massive investment company. We gave our big pitch and they stared at us with totally blank faces. They said in stern voices, “Why would anyone ever want to watch a video on their computer when they have a TV? We just don’t see that happening.” Our web company did not get much further. The idea of viral videos and live streaming content was something that people couldn’t quite wrap there heads around. Something came along soon after called YouTube and we all know how that story goes.

They say that a lot of things in life are about being in the right place at the right time. Right now between packing lunches, picking up the kids and running a business, @moonfrye is enjoying a little time on Twitter. I love it, and who knows maybe a mom network is just what us moms need now. Hmm. Moms. Could be a big idea.

Editor’s Note: Soleil Moon Frye is known to millions of television viewers as Punky Brewster. An actress, writer and director, she is the co-owner of The Little Seed, an eco-friendly children’s clothing boutique in Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter.

David Gewirtz | BIO
AC360° Contributor
Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Publishing

Sometimes it's tough to tell whether something's a sign of the Apocalypse or a sign that everything's really alright with the world.

Today, I got an email from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. In it, I was offered the official iReagan application for my phone. Seriously.

According to the offer, the application includes:

* Full-length speeches including his famous Berlin Wall and "Evil Empire" speeches
* Iconic photos of President Reagan
* Stunning images and descriptions of the Reagan Library's "Christmas Around the World" exhibit
* A message from former first lady Nancy Reagan
* Inspirational quotes from "The Great Communicator"

It's free, so it's kind of a no-brainer for all Republicans. Or is it?

It's been taken as almost sacred canon that if you're a Republican, you love Ronny. But what if you're a Conservative? Or a Tea Bagger? What then?

After all, Mrs. Reagan made an impassioned plea to the Democrats (of all people) in favor of stem-cell research. Is she conservative enough? If you're a Tea Bagger (the political leaning, not the lifestyle choice), can you even like someone whose widow supports stem-cell research?

And that brings us to the bigger issue. Is it honoring the 40th President of the United States by carrying him around in our pockets? Or is iReagan some sort of idolatry, carrying him around as almost a pocket saint and peon to a wistful and warped memory of the go-go 80s?

As the Republican party searches for meaning and identity, where does Ronny fit in? And if it's not clear where Ronny fits in the diaspora that's today's GOP, what is today's GOP?

Will it be able to form a real identity by next fall's elections and will it find one leader to rule them all by the 2012 elections? Or will there really be a Conservative Party, a Tea Bagger Party, and, perhaps, the broken shards of the once-proud Republican Party?

I don't know, but now that I've got Ronny-in-the-pocket, I'm definitely going to consult my own, personal iReagan.

Follow David on Twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/DavidGewirtz.

Editor’s note: David Gewirtz is Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Magazines, including OutlookPower Magazine. He is a leading Presidential scholar specializing in White House email. He is a member of FBI InfraGard, the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism & Security Professionals, a columnist for The Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, and has been a guest commentator for the Nieman Watchdog of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He is a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley extension, a recipient of the Sigma Xi Research Award in Engineering and was a candidate for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Letters.

Editor's Note: This article continues our series excerpted from AC360°'s contributor David Gewirtz's upcoming book, How To Save Jobs, which will be available in December. Over the next few months, we'll be excerpting the first section of the book, which answers the question, "How did we get here?".Last time, we looked at how India has been transforming itself into a world-class competitor This time, we start to look at the Internet and how some of the early irrational exuberance has led to some of today's job market problems. To learn more about the book, follow David on Twitter @DavidGewirtz.

David Gewirtz | BIO
AC360° Contributor
Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Publishing

While many of the tasks we perform here in the 21st century are pretty much the same as those we performed before the turn of the century, many factors have changed the flavor, pace, and experience of 21st century employment.

Chief among the factors changing the employment world has been the Internet. Of course, as we all know, the Internet existed for quite some time before we began the 21st century, but its almost overwhelming ubiquity has been a phenomenon of the last few years.

You may remember the boom (and subsequent bust) of the early World Wide Web. From about 1995 though about 2001, the excitement and irrational exuberance of the dot-com bubble seized the imaginations of financiers wanting to make billions from entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs wanting to make millions from their sweat and smarts.

This was a time before Google and YouTube, a time when Amazon was just starting up and we were all wondering if anyone would be willing to use their credit cards online. It was a time when us techies found ourselves explaining to the less computer-savvy what ".com" meant, what those "www" things were, and trying to help our family and friends understand the difference between email and the Web. Twitter and Facebook were still years in the future.

For those who were dot-com entrepreneurs (and that included me), the Internet seemed to hold virtually unlimited promise. We were all convinced that this Web thing had the potential to change business and the world - and make us all tons of cash in the process.

We were half right.

Without a doubt, the Internet has changed the world. How it changed the nature and flavor of jobs is much of what this piece is all about. But while Internet investors and entrepreneurs were measuring what they called "eyeballs" (the number of people looking at Web pages), many forgot some basic business fundamentals like value, return on investment, and that tiny little thing called profit.

And so the dot-com bubble burst.

Excite.com was sold for $6.7 billion dollars in 1999. What's left of it is now a teeny-weeny part of the Ask.com property. Lycos and AltaVista were the big search engines of the day. Little bits of both are still around, but they're certainly not big-value properties. The list of failed dreams is virtually endless.

But out of the dot-com bubble came a rebirth. A few properties became absolute game changers. These were the Google, Amazon, eBay, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Twitters of the world. These Web sites became more than just Web sites or Internet "properties" - they became essential resources for just about everyone.

Virtually no one calls a company to order a brochure anymore. Now we all just do a search and visit the Web site. Many people now make their entire living selling on eBay or Amazon. These two companies provide virtual shopping hubs so if you happen to want an old, out-of-print, original edition copy of The Flexible Enterprise (a book I wrote back in 1996), or a fender to a 1956 Buick Roadmaster, or, for that matter, an original 1954 Fender Stratocaster owned by Hank Williams, Jr., you can find one online.

So why did the dot-com bubble burst?

Today, there's one Amazon, one company that sells virtually anything you want online. During the dot-com bubble, there were thousands of companies that wanted to be Amazon.

Today, there's one Google, one company that provides deep search access to anything you want on the Internet. During the dot-com bubble, there were thousands of companies that wanted to be search providers and portals.

Today, there's one eBay, one company that provides online auction services for millions of people worldwide. During the dot-com bubble, virtually every Web site wanted to have an auctions section.

Of course, there are still other e-commerce sites, search engines, and auction sites. They just don't really matter much to anyone. These three sites built a level of critical mass and brand awareness that proved to be a barrier of entry to their competitors.

And then, there was the rise of user-generated content. Instead of Web site operators hiring writers to do all their writing and creating all their content, so-called "Web 2.0" operators created sites as frameworks for their users to create content.

Facebook, for example, generates very little of its own content. Instead, you, me, and a few million of our "friends" create our own profiles. YouTube doesn't create its own videos. Instead, everyone uploads videos of their kittens, Metal versions of The Munsters theme song, and movies of firecrackers exploding out some kid's, well, you've seen it...admit it.

Although there were a few huge winners, the dot-com bubble burst because of unrealistic expectations and impractical business models. I was there. I remember showing an investor how I could build a nice, million dollar online magazine business. In response, he told me that he'd invest $5 million - if I promised he'd get back $5 billion within 18 months.

Many Internet entrepreneurs would promise anything they were asked, so long as they got their funding. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to promise some banker that I could make him billions. It wasn't that I was more high-minded than the other guys. It's just that after studying what makes companies work for more than two decades, I knew these valuations weren't sustainable.

I figured that if I took their money and knowingly made false promises, somehow it'd come back and bite me. It just seemed like a bad idea.

Instead of taking outside capital, my company continued to run along nicely, fueled solely by our own sales. We always made just a bit more than we spent, and managed our costs so that we were always funding ourselves. That's why my company, ZATZ Publishing, is still around and many of those dot-com companies aren't.

Many entrepreneurs of that era would sign "term sheets" with investors, venture capitalists mostly, and start their businesses. They'd get some money to operate, but they'd always spend far more money than they made until they got so many visitors to their site that they could sell the business for billions.

Some lucky founders managed to cash out, and it was the acquiring company that bit the big one. Excite.com is a good example. Excite.com was bought for $6.7 billion dollars on January 19, 1999 by @Home Networks, a company owned by cable giants TCI, Comcast, and Cox Communications. On October 31, 2001, @Home filed for bankruptcy and over the next year, 1,350 employees lost their jobs.

But other dot-coms simply died because their investors wouldn't give them any more money to lose. Pets.com was a classic example. This company began operations in February of 1999 and closed shop in November, 2000. After buying a $1.2 million Super Bowl ad and burning through $300 million dollars in investment capital, the company closed. Once the dot-com bubble started to deflate, no one was willing to invest good money after bad in a company that lost money on every order. About 320 people lost their jobs.

According to the Los Angeles Times, when the dot-com bubble burst, it wiped out $5 trillion dollars in market value for tech companies. More than half of the Internet companies created since 1995 were gone by 2004 - and hundreds of thousands of skilled technology workers were out of jobs.

But before all these people were fired, even more needed to be hired. And that, in a bizarre twist of fate, brings us to outsourcing...

Follow David on Twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/DavidGewirtz.

Editor's Note: This article continues our series excerpting AC360 contributor David Gewirtz's upcoming book, How To Save Jobs, which will be available in December. Over the next few months, we'll be excerpting the first section of the book, which answers the question, "How did we get here?". Last time, we looked at our changing relationship with work This time, we'll begin our look at how changes China and India will be impacting our workforce for years to come. To learn more about the book, you should follow David on Twitter @DavidGewirtz.

Mashable's Pete Cashmore says he thinks location-based mobile startup Foursquare will be the Twitter of 2010.

Pete Cashmore
Special to CNN

As 2009 draws to a close, with Twitter undoubtedly this year's media darling and Facebook continuing on its path to global domination, you may wonder which social-media service will become tech's poster boy in 2010.

Among the Web's early adopter set, the answer is nearly unanimous: Foursquare.

While the technology landscape is ever-changing, I'd argue that Foursquare already has aligned itself to become next year's mainstream hit.

Keep Reading...

Matthew Continetti
Special to CNN

Sarah Palin appears on Oprah on Monday to mark the launch of her book, "Going Rogue." She'll follow up with an extensive interview with Barbara Walters, a multicity book tour and appearances on the Fox News Channel and talk radio.

She'll grab plenty of headlines. As you read about Palin's old-media tour, it's important to remember that she's also a pioneer in the political use of new social media. Not that she gets any credit.

Sometimes the most important revolutions are the quiet ones. This is especially true in the case of technology, which has a way of sneaking up on us.

Take cell phones, for example. A decade ago, they were a luxury item. Suddenly, everyone seemed to have one. What had once been a sign of status became commonplace, all with hardly anybody noticing - and without any central direction.

Keep Reading...

Jack Gray
AC360° Producer/Writer

It was around the time that I explained why I was going to Los Angeles – "Soleil Moon Frye invited me to a Twitter conference at The Kodak Theatre"  – that my friends’ heads exploded. It was as if I had never before flown cross-country to discuss social media with a TV icon at a Hollywood landmark. They had completely forgotten about that night outside Whisky A Go Go and the woman I thought was Alan Alda.

Nevertheless, I’m thrilled to be in L.A., a city I visit far too seldom. I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed its palm trees and Kardashians.

Frankly, the reason I don’t come to Los Angeles more often is that I have a slight to moderate fear of flying. Luckily, on my flight out, I was distracted by the gentleman next to me; a man who – for reasons known only to his grocer and/or therapist – kept fiddling with a variety of deli meats.

Transcontinental salami aside; it has so far been a great trip. The only caveat is that I’m nervous about this afternoon. That’s when I’ll be joining Ms. Moon Frye (call her Punky Brewster and she’ll cut you) and businesswoman/writer Jane Buckingham (she’ll hold you down while Punky cuts you) for a panel discussion of Twitter. Hardly a seasoned public speaker, I have no idea what to expect of myself. I suppose I should just play it safe and stick to religion and politics.

Of course, our panel discussion is just one of many over the course of the two-day 140 Conference. And while it and the fake Oscar acceptance speech I may or may not attempt to deliver before being ripped from the stage are stressing me out, it’s nothing compared to the anxiety I feel knowing that my boss, CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein, will be there. In. The. Same. Room. Watching. Me. Speak.

Mr. Klein (@JonKleinCNN) is participating in a separate panel discussion later today. I’d like to be the first to say he was amazing and way better than me.

Regardless of my contribution to the conference – whether it be refreshing insight or backstage dry heaves – it should be a fascinating event. Soleil (@MoonFrye) and Jane (@Jane_Buckingham) are incredible people and I’m humbled to be participating alongside them. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that my friend Mariel Hemingway (@MarielHemingway) is speaking at tomorrow’s session. Wise and beautiful, Mariel never loses her temper when I call in the middle of the night quoting For Whom the Bell Tolls.

As for my friends, for whom the idea of people wanting to read my tweets is second in insanity only to the idea of people wanting to hear me talk about them…well, I’m confident they’ll come around.

140 characters at a time.

Follow Jack Gray on Twitter @jackgrayCNN.

David Gewirtz | BIO
AC360° Contributor
Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Publishing

Every topic needs its own day or month, and I guess cybersecurity is no exception. This October is the sixth annual Cybersecurity Awareness Month sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security. And while it may seem silly for cybersecurity awareness to need its own month, there's nothing silly about keeping your computer secure.

Let me be very clear here: there are bad guys out there and they are trying to hurt you through your computer.

I know that seems melodramatic, but it's all too true. Cybercriminals, hackers, terrorists, and other malcontents (that sounds so "get off my lawn," doesn't it?) are constantly pushing the limits of Internet security. Most of the time, it's about making money. Sometimes, it's about breaking through security and gaining bragging rights. And, once in a while, it's about causing widespread chaos. No matter the motivation, it ain't good.

This is an arms race.

They'll find a way in, we'll create a new defense, they'll counter-program against the defense, and on and on and on. This is an arms race between security professionals and criminals. Fortunately, there's a lot you can do to defend yourself and your family, and once you've established the right mind-set, you'll be able to take some very basic precautions that'll go a long way to keeping you more secure.

So, let's talk about that mindset first. A lot of people I talk to tell me I'm worrying too much. They tell me they're not important enough to be attacked. They tell me that no one is going to go after them. They tell me that "just this once" there won't be a problem. They tell me that it's all a hoax.

It's not. Here's the thing: attacks are highly automated and easy to do. Every device on the Internet has a number, called an IP address, which consists of four sequences of up to three numbers, like 192.168.1.1. Each sequence ranges from 0 to 255, so the lowest number is 0.0.0.0 and the highest is 255.255.255.255.

All hackers have to do is dial through those sequences automatically, test each address, and see if there's any vulnerability. It's like having a telephone autodial all of the phone numbers in your exchange. It's a little time-consuming, but it's cheap and easy. That's what hackers do online. They also mine the Internet for published email addresses, Facebook names, Twitter names, and any other information they can find that'll help them get into your computer.

Once they get into your computer, there are a few things they can do.

The first is they can install some hidden software. This software can search your computer for credit card numbers, passwords, and bank accounts or hide, to someday be part of a mass of zombie computers performing a denial of service attack. See "Attack of the zombie computers" for more about what this is like.

Other bad things can happen to your computer as well, from other forms of malware, like viruses that can either steal your information or just cause your computer to break down. Spyware is often in place to send you to damaging Web pages or, once again, steal your information.

Sometimes, the software that runs on your computer is designed to hide, turning your computer into a storage resource for bad guys. Many home computers have been turned into unsuspecting servers, sharing everything from copyrighted materials to child porn amongst the scumbags of the world.

Instead of using your computer to host illegal data, a criminal might use a program running on your computer to send all your documents somewhere else. That's how the secret plans for the President's helicopter wound up on a computer in Iran. See "How the President's secret helicopter plans wound up in Iran".

Criminals can also sneak inside your computer's "routing table" and fool your computer into thinking it's going to one Web address, when instead it's going somewhere else. Imagine you're dialing a phone number (say 555-2222). If you thought, when dialing 555-2222 you were going to get your bank, but some hidden device instead dialed 555-9323, you'd think you were talking to your bank, but you might be talking to someone else.

This can happen on your computer as well. You might think you're going to your bank's Web site, say, but instead there's a program in your computer that intercepts those Web requests and channels you to a fake Web site that looks almost exactly like that of your bank. Obviously, what happens next is you type in your access information and the scammers get your banking information - and soon enough, your money.

The bottom line is this: cybersecurity is important and something you really should be paying attention to. If you don't, it'd be like giving your credit card to anyone you happen to meet, and telling them to just go ahead, run up a charge. On billing day, you're not going to be a happy camper.

Next time, I'll show you some easy ways you can protect yourself.

Follow David on Twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/DavidGewirtz.

Editor’s note: David Gewirtz is Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Magazines, including OutlookPower Magazine. He is a leading Presidential scholar specializing in White House email. He is a member of FBI InfraGard, the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism & Security Professionals, a columnist for The Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, and has been a guest commentator for the Nieman Watchdog of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He is a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley extension, a recipient of the Sigma Xi Research Award in Engineering and was a candidate for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Letters.

Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

Gold continues to push higher into record territory amid concerns about a weak U.S. dollar, inflation and technical-based buying by large investment funds.

The December contract for gold rose $4.70 to settle at a fresh all-time high of $1,044.40 an ounce today. Earlier in the session, it traded as high as $1,048.20, topping Tuesday's intraday mark by $3 an ounce.

Gold, which is up 17% so far this year, has been supported recently by concerns about the dollar and bets that inflation will rise over the long term as the economy recovers and stimulus measures will have to be reversed.

Analysts expect the rally to continue and say gold could push past $1,050 this week and top $1,100 in the near future.

Sources: Administration considering safety net measures

Amid nervousness about states' economies and a growing unemployment rate, the Obama Administration is considering a series of measures aimed at putting many Americans back to work before the 2010 midterm elections, sources close to the process told CNN.

The effort is largely being directed by the Treasury Dept, and Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council, one source said.

Ideas include enhancing tax credit flexibility for small businesses, extending unemployment and health benefits and offering states temporary "loan packages" to help governors get through the worst of the recession.

Unlike the stimulus package, the loans to states would be voluntary: "We would like to avoid the stimulus problem," the source said.

GM hits a big speed bump

For General Motors, the road out of bankruptcy isn't proving to be as smooth as its quick trip through it.

In the past week, the company's plans to sell its Saturn brand to auto retailer Penske Auto Group fell through, forcing GM to start winding down a network of about 350 dealerships.

But that's not the only post-bankruptcy problem for GM. Its plans to sell Hummer to a Chinese industrial company missed a target date of closing by Sept. 30.

GM is also trying to close a deal to sell two-thirds of GM's European Opel brand to a joint venture between a Canadian auto parts maker and a Russian automaker. Despite ongoing losses at Opel, the decision to sell that stake was a difficult one for GM. Many experts are concerned that the Opel sale will weaken GM by limiting its global reach.

The great tax drought of 2009

You don't need a Ph.D in economics to know that the government fiscal year that ended last week was ugly for the budget.

Much attention has been paid this year to the record-high spending and deficit accrued because of the financial and economic crisis.

But one of the driving factors that has gotten less notice: plummeting tax revenue. The crisis, after all, walloped company profits and savaged Americans' income stream.

Through the end of August, Uncle Sam collected 25% less in tax revenue for the year than he did during the same period a year earlier. The two biggest culprits - a 56% drop in corporate income tax revenue and a 20% drop in individual income tax revenue.

On balance, the Congressional Budget Office expects that tax receipts will be 14.9% of gross domestic product this year, well below the historical 18.3% average.

Amazon lowers ‘Kindle’ prices

Anyone who has visited Amazon.com recently knows the company has been relentlessly promoting its “Kindle” e-book reader.

Now, with Christmas less than 80 days away and amid predictions for a dismal holiday shopping season, Amazon is cutting the price of the Kindle in the U.S. and launching a version that can be used worldwide.

The company lowered the U.S. price of the Kindle by $40 to $259. It also launched a new Kindle that can be used globally. That device, which has wireless capabilities in more than 100 countries, sells for $279 and will begin shipping Oct. 19.

Target slashes toy prices 50% for the holidays

Discount retailer Target is offering up to half off of popular toys like Barbie and Fisher Price to lure bargain hunters this holiday season, the company said today.

Target says the price cuts went into effect Oct. 1 and will remain in place throughout the holiday season.

A selection of toys are discounted by as much as 50%, including the Barbie Fashion Doll, on sale for $5, and the GI Joe Tough Troopers Figure, marked down to $14.99. Most are available both online and in stores.

Whether these efforts will pay off in the form of stronger sales remains to be seen. Retailers are bracing for another potentially weak holiday shopping season amid an uncertain economic recovery.

Tiger says he’s no billionaire

Forbes magazine reported last week that golfer Tiger Woods was the first athlete to earn $1 billion.

One problem, though: Woods says he doesn't have that much money. At a news conference yesterday ahead of the start of The Presidents Cup, a reporter asked Woods directly about the Forbes report.

Reporter: "This last week, it was announced you hit the billionaire status. What's that like to learn?"

Tiger Woods: [Laughs] "Well, one, I haven't, so I don't know where that number came from."

Forbes cited estimates of Woods's earnings from endorsements, tournament winnings, appearance fees and his nascent golf-course design business. Other than tournament winnings, Forbes could only guess at the other income of the famously circumspect Woods, and the magazine admitted its figures could not be exact.

Follow the money… on Twitter: @AndrewTorganCNN

Michael Schulder
CNN Senior Executive Producer

I’m not going to mention any real names in this piece, even though I only got wind of one person’s first name. But I experienced something today in a CNN rest room which all of us have probably had to confront. Whether to answer a cell phone call when you’re in the bathroom.

I never have answered a cell phone in a bathroom, for a variety of reasons. Protecting my cell phone from potential water damage is the least of those reasons. I think there are certain boundaries we need to preserve to maintain a civil society. This is not the most pressing issue on the civility front today. But it did turn my stomach when someone in the men’s room picked up the cell phone and proceeded to have a conversation as if it talking on a cell phone while in the process of a natural act were the most natural act in the world.

“Jim?”

Zip

“Yeah, we still on for lunch?”

Flush

“OK, that time sounds good for me.”

Hand wash (thank goodness).

And the conversation went on as the offender exited the bathroom.

I have to imagine the person on the other side of the line heard the sound effects.

If I were that person on the other side of the line, I know what I would have said.

I’m passing on lunch today. Not as hungry as I thought I’d be. Let’s reschedule. Text me from the car.

I’d take a foot tapper in the next stall desperately sending me Morse code over a cell phone talker any day. At least, with a foot tapper, I can distract myself by getting a song in my head to the right beat. But there’s no blocking out a cell phone conversation two feet away.

I’m no Miss Manners. And I’m not an activist. But I think a well-mannered society should have certain common understandings. Turning off your cell phone ringers in theaters is now standard. Not talking on cell phones at the cash register is becoming widely accepted. Now I want to know this.

Who out there among you agrees with me? Cell phones have provided us with a certain level of freedom. But in the bathroom, I say, let freedom ring.

Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

Sales of previously-owned homes fell in August, snapping a four-month streak of increases.

Existing home sales fell 2.7% last month from July to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.1 million units, but were up 3.4% from a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Sales had jumped 15.2% in the previous four months.

Lawrence Yun, the NAR's chief economist, said the drop may reflect delays in completing sales due to tough lending standards and new rules for appraisals.

Nationwide sales are up nearly 14% from their bottom in January, but are still down nearly 30% from their peak about four years ago. For the housing market to stabilize, Yun says sales would need to rise to a pace of around 5.5 million to 6 million.

Additionally, the median sales price was $177,700, down 12.5% from $203,200 in the same month last year.

One bright spot in the report: Despite the decrease in sales, the supply of homes on the market fell significantly in August. Total housing inventory fell by 10.8% to 3.62 million existing homes for sale. That's an 8.5-month supply, down from a 9.3-month supply in July.

Unemployment claims keep sliding

The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance fell last week – the third straight week of declines.

There were 530,000 initial claims filed in the week ended Sept. 19, down a better-than-expected 21,000 from a revised 551,000 in the previous week.

And the number of people who continue to receive benefits for one week or more fell by 123,000 to 6,138,000 in the week ended Sept. 12, the most recent data available.

Banks win first round in consumer fight

This summer, when Obama administration officials talked about overhauling financial regulation, they threw around a catchy phrase sure to appeal to consumers: "Plain vanilla" mortgages and credit cards.

"Plain vanilla" was used to illustrate the powers of a proposed new consumer agency. The agency could set basic standards - like one-page, easy-to-understand applications for 30-year-fixed mortgages.

Now, the so-called Consumer Financial Protection Agency won't get that power, according to a memo on the agency released by House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank.

The memo also says that some key providers of financial services, such as consumer reporting agencies, real estate brokers and auto dealers, would not be subject to the new agency's oversight.

Although the final bill language has yet to be released, experts on both sides of the fight agree the memo signals that top Democrats have made concessions to smooth passage of the most controversial yet symbolic part of regulatory reform.

Recession puts children on hold

The recession is apparently prompting more women to try to delay having children, according to the first survey aimed at documenting the effects of the economic downturn on childbearing.

Nearly half of working-class women want to put off getting pregnant or to have fewer children, according to the survey, which was commissioned by the Guttmacher Institute, a private, nonprofit reproductive-health research organization.

The study, conducted by Knowledge Networks, involved a nationally representative sample of 947 women ages 18 to 34 with household incomes of less than $75,000, and it was conducted in July and August.

Nintendo slashes Wii price by 20%

Nintendo said it is cutting the price of its popular Wii video-game console by $50 to $199.99.

The 20% price drop will take effect Sept. 27th. The new price is the first reduction since the console launched in November 2006.

The interactive Wii immediately proved wildly popular across demographics – including at nursing homes and rehabilitation centers to aid patients' recovery - and demand for the console outstripped supply more than a year after its initial release.

Nintendo's price cut mirrors recent moves by rivals Microsoft and Sony.

Follow the money… on Twitter: @AndrewTorganCNN

Program Note: Tune in tonight to learn more from Randi Kaye about the investigation into the alleged Craigslist murder. Tonight AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

U.S. Department of Justice

The Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) in the Department of Justice is responsible for implementing the Department's national strategies in combating computer and intellectual property crimes worldwide.

According to the DOJ's website, the Computer Crime Initiative is a comprehensive program designed to combat electronic penetrations, data thefts, and cyberattacks on critical information systems.

CCIPS prevents, investigates, and prosecutes computer crimes by working with other government agencies, the private sector, academic institutions, and foreign counterparts. Section attorneys work to improve the domestic and international infrastructure-legal, technological, and operational-to pursue network criminals most effectively.

To view a list of other cybercrime investigations and to learn how to report cybercrime go here.

Octavia Nasr | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Editor, Mideast Affairs

A Muslim call to prayer can now be accessed any time and anywhere thanks to social media networks such as Facebook and You Tube.

Across the world, Muslims are creating online communities to discuss and promote their religion. At the same time, this open discussion is exposing and highlighting issues and concerns considered taboo within Islam and the cultures in which they live.

Syrian blogger Ammar Abdel Hamid sees Facebook as a niche for the otherwise voiceless. “The internet came and gave an opportunity for activists for new voices for young people, for democracy promoters, for human rights activists' he says.

In the Arab world, gays and lesbians are taking to the internet to mingle with like-minded people and promote tolerance and understanding. This is especially significant because in their culture they are mainly rejected and still referred to in derogatory terms.

In Jordan, the first lady, Queen Rania al-Abdullah, is promoting the use of social media for opening dialogue and building bridges.

In Saudi Arabia and Egypt, bloggers face tough censorship and even jail for expressing views ranging from social equality to political reform.

Syrians are starting to find ways around heavy censorship and joining some conversations on Facebook.

For now, however, those Syrian conversations revolve around how much they like their first lady and their President Bashar al-Assad.

It is only a matter of time before Syrians will join their Arab and Muslim counterparts and bring to the table the more serious issues on their minds.

Follow Octavia on Twitter @OctaviaNasrCNN

David Gewirtz | BIO
AC360° Contributor
Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Publishing

President Roosevelt may have had to contend with Hitler and Stalin, not to mention an occasionally naked Churchill (look it up), but at least he didn't have to deal with the blogosphere.

President Obama has no such luck. He's the second President who not only has a fourth estate, but a completely unruly and often full-goose-bozo body of bloggers, just looking for any excuse to increase their "hits" and drive up the pennies they're given for their thoughts from Google's ad revenue service.

This time, trumpets the blogs, the White House has a "secret plan" to "harvest personal data from social networking sites."

First, it's not a plan, and, second, it's not exactly a secret.

It's a publicly available government procurement document, and just for you, I've read all 51 excruciatingly boring pages of the thing.

The White House isn't trying to get at your secrets. Instead, the White House is proactively attempting to comply with the Presidential Records Act (PRA) by interpreting postings to social networking sites - if posted by members of the Executive Office of the President - as possible Presidential records.

This is a good thing.

The document is asking vendors to propose how they'd record (for eventual delivery to the National Archives) all the postings the Executive Office of the President (EOP) makes (in the words of the RFP: "published by EOP") to to seven specifically named "whitehouse" accounts on seven social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, SlideShare, Flickr, YouTube, and Vimeo.

So far, so good. The document then goes on to request that the vendor propose how to record all comments made and messages sent to those "whitehouse" accounts. This, honestly, is a little dicey. It is relatively clear to those of us who are students of the PRA that outside comments by you and me aren't Presidential records.

In the old days, though, if you'd sent a real, paper, snail mail letter to the White House, you could reasonably expect it'd be examined by security personnel, and possibly filed - because one of the things all governments have done well since the time of the Romans is file stuff.

Today, we're far less likely to write something with a pen and stick a stamp (remember those?) on it. Instead, we're much more likely to @whitehouse a Twitter posting. Although most of the @whitehouse replies and comments are likely to be more noise than signal, some of them might generate a reply from the EOP account holders - and that dialog could be considered a Presidential record.

Seriously, this isn't a secret plan where the government archives and catalogs everything you publicly post, ever, on your favorite social networking site.

It's not like the White House is trying to be Big Brother. After all, that's Google's job.

Follow David on Twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/DavidGewirtz.

Author's Note: Let's get archived together. Post a "tweet" with both @DavidGewirtz and @whitehouse in the message. This way, you and I and the White House will be linked together in the National Archives for ever and ever. Isn't that romantic?

Editor’s note: David Gewirtz is Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Magazines, including OutlookPower Magazine. He is a leading Presidential scholar specializing in White House email. He is a member of FBI InfraGard, the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism & Security Professionals, a columnist for The Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, and has been a guest commentator for the Nieman Watchdog of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He is a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley extension, a recipient of the Sigma Xi Research Award in Engineering and was a candidate for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Letters.

Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

In these tough times, we’re all cutting back on everything from eating out to taking a vacation. But there’s one thing that millions of us seem to be able to afford: an iPhone.

We spent $1.7 billion dollars on iPhones in just the last three months.

Apple sold 5.2 million iPhones last quarter, including the new 3GS model. That’s more than seven times the number the company sold a year ago.

Sales are so strong that Apple’s having a hard time keeping up with iPhone demand. And even though iPod sales slipped from a year ago, they still topped 10 million players.

Heath care in the spotlight

President Obama holds a prime time press conference at the White House tonight amid his continued push for health care reform legislation.

So what does health care reform mean for you? More than 160 million Americans get their health insurance through work. 14 million Americans buy health insurance on their own. And 49 million Americans have no coverage at all.

How will the health care bills moving through Congress affect these groups? Will it lower premiums? CNNMoney.com has the breakdown.

Stocks churn on Wall Street

Stocks bounced in and out of positive territory this morning as investors took a breather from the recent run-up to sort through earnings reports from the likes of Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Apple.

Stocks rallied Tuesday, with the Dow ending at its highest close in six months as better-than-expected quarterly results overshadowed Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony on the economy. Bernanke is back on the Hill today, testifying before the Senate Banking Committee.

Gas prices reverse course

After 30 consecutive days of declines, gas prices climbed 3- tenths of a cent overnight to $2.461.

Still, the average price of a gallon of gas is down $1.65 or 40.2 percent from the record high price of $4.114 that AAA reported on July 17, 2008.

The highest gas prices are in Hawaii ($3.169). The cheapest are in Missouri and South Carolina ($2.226 in both states).

Pay hikes on the way

Pay raises are expected to rebound next year after being severely stunted by the recession, according to a new survey.

Companies are planning median merit increases of 3% for 2010, according to human resources consulting firm Watson Wyatt, which polled 235 large U.S. employers in May.

While that's below the 3.5% raise workers received in both 2008 and 2007, it would be an improvement over the 2% salary increase employers plan to give out this year.

Follow the money… on Twitter: @AndrewTorganCNN

Government and private Web sites were recently hit in a cyberattack

Suvro Banerji
AC360° Intern

The United States government faces an increasingly formidable threat: a cyber attack.

The term ‘cyber attack’ is used to define the use of computers and the internet to conduct “warfare,” or attacks, in cyberspace. Cyber-attacks use the global computer network to cross international boundaries with ease. Critical infrastructures such as gas, water and propane lines, power grids and chemical manufacturing systems can be easily accessed from a remote location via cyber space. An enemy could potentially infiltrate these systems and manipulate them without even getting caught. In some cases, they may even cause physical damage.

In the past few weeks, The White House, the Pentagon and State Department joined a roster of large corporations such as the New York Stock Exchange and Yahoo Finance that have been threatened with cyber-attacks since the 4th of July. The Department of Treasury and Federal Trade Commission websites were shut down because of these attacks. The Pentagon and the White House, however, faced little disruption.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security and at the Pentagon do not know who is behind these attacks. Obviously, this is not the first time the government has encountered this type of threat. The United States has seen a growing number of successful cyber attacks over the past few years. Even the top U.S. military officer, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged this problem last week during a press conference at the Pentagon.

"I grow increasingly concerned about the cyber world and the attacks, whether they're from individual hackers or state entities, and that's something we all need to be concerned about," said Mullen last Wednesday.

Here’s a look at some of the major cyber attacks that have affected the United States since 1964:

• 1964: AT&T monitored millions of phone calls to catch "phone freaks". They used "blue boxes" to hack a telephone operator's dialing console and made free phone calls.

• 1971: The ‘Creeper’ virus was detected on a U.S. military computer network. Infected systems showed the message, 'I'M THE CREEPER : CATCH ME IF YOU CAN.'

• 1979: Xerox researchers developed the first computer worm to look for a network for idle processors. They wanted to improve system efficiency, but it led to several destructive viruses.

• 1983: The FBI caught the "414s," a group of young hackers who broke into several United States government networks using only an Apple II computer and a modem in certain cases. Also that same year, a University of Southern California engineering student invented the term "computer virus."

• 1986: Programmers in Pakistan released what is considered to be the world’s first MSDOS virus- "The Brain." BusinessWeek magazine at the time called the virus the Pakistani flu.

• 1998: Federal officials detected intrusions in computer systems at the Pentagon and NASA. Investigations held Soviet Union responsible for the intrusion. The Russian government denied all accusations.

• 1999: The "Melissa" virus infected thousands of computers, causing $80 million in damage. The virus was propagating in the form of an email message containing an infected Word document as an attachment.

• 2000: The "I Love You" virus infected millions of computers and stole passwords and usernames. Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, Datek and other high-profile websites went offline for several hours because of so-called "distributed denial-of-service attacks."

• 2001: The Code Red Worm takes over more than 350,000 servers and uses them to attack against the White House's website. Federal officials teamed up with several tech companies to deceive the attack. It was the same year when the ‘Nimda’ worm attacked the U.S. financial sector, affecting millions of computers and slowing the entire Internet.

• 2003: The ‘Slammer’ worm affected thousands of computers in the United States delaying airline flights and disrupting financial networks.

• 2007: Pentagon officials reported as many as 1500 computers were taken off-line because of a cyber attack. However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that it had no impact whatsoever on department operations.

• 2008: Republican congressmen, Reps. Frank Wolf and Christopher Smith revealed that their office computers were hacked in late 2006 and early 2007. A few Congressmen held Chinese hackers responsible for these attacks. However, security experts knocked down their claims saying they were not ‘well substantiated’.

• 2009: Computers at the White House, the Pentagon, State Department and financial institutions like Yahoo Finance and the New York Stock Exchange were attacked. Suspect is still unknown.

U.S. Military leaders consider this a matter of national security. This year, they have called for additional funding to improve the Pentagon’s cyber attack prevention program.

"It would be nice to spend that money protectively ... rather than fixing things after the fact," said John Davis, deputy head of the U.S. Strategic Command at a cyber-space conference in Omaha, Nebraska earlier this year.

On a May 29 press conference, President Obama announced the creation of a ‘cyber czar’ position to oversee "a new comprehensive approach to securing America's digital infrastructure." The president said he will personally select the person who takes on that post. So far, no one has been chosen.

This is a rendering of XCOR Aerospace's Lynx, which would be used to send people on suborbital spaceflights.

Buzz Aldrin
For The Washington Post

On the spring morning in 1927 when Charles Lindbergh set off alone across the Atlantic Ocean, only a handful of explorer-adventurers were capable of even attempting the feat. Many had tried before Lindbergh's successful flight, but all had failed and many lost their lives in the process. Most people then thought transatlantic travel was an impossible dream. But 40 years later, 20,000 people a day were safely flying the same route that the "Lone Eagle" had voyaged. Transatlantic flight had become routine.

Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins and I began our quarter-million-mile journey through the blackness of space to reach the moon.

Read more...

Chris Anderson
Special to CNN

When Christine Varney was confirmed in May as the Obama administration's top antitrust cop, some of her words from last year sent a chill through the Googleplex, the search engine's headquarters in Silicon Valley.

During the waning days of the Bush administration, Varney worried that the government would not do enough about Google: "I think we're going to continually see a problem, potentially, with Google, who I think so far has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising lawfully."

Now she's in a position to do something about it.

Having a legally obtained monopoly is not a crime, but abusing it to gain unfair advantages in other markets can be.

Keep reading...

Without a converter box, satellite service or cable hook-up, analog TVs only deliver static now.

Mary Tuma
For the Houston Chronicle

Without power for 12 days during Hurricane Ike, Houston secretary Donna Clanton relied on her battery-powered TV for news updates, road closings and notices of flooded intersections.

“Actually seeing what was happening made me feel more connected and a little less isolated,” Clanton said.

But portable sets, which played an instrumental role in connecting Houstonians to the outside world during Ike’s lengthy power outages, are now useless, thanks to the digital conversion.

Though Americans were given four extra months to prepare for the nationwide switch from analog to digital signals, the conversion date last week coincided with the advent of this year’s hurricane season, creating challenges for those like Clanton, who depend on battery-operated sets during emergencies

Because digital converter boxes are plugged into the wall, on-the-go analog TV sets won’t function during a blackout. The audio from analog TV broadcasts received on radios are now tuned out, as well.

In September, former Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin warned of a possible shortage of battery-operated digital TV equipment and called on groups such as the Consumer Electronic Association to encourage their availability.

Read more...