It is conclusive proof of the existence of Santa Claus too, after all why wouldn’t we believe the government of a country that told us there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq!?  Don’t believe anyone who tells you that he’s not real as it’s all a smokescreen invented by parents to get their children to go to sleep on Christmas eve.  In the morning you can be certain the glass of milk will have been drunk by Prancer or Blitzen, and Santa himself would have eaten the mince pie you’ve left out for him.

But in a way to prove to boys and girls everywhere how real Santa is they make the live tracking information available each year on the NORAD website, so that you can see for yourself how fast he is at delivering presents around the globe.

In a statement on their website the US State Department detail the complicated technology used to track Santa Claus…

NORAD uses four high-tech systems to track Santa – radar, satellites, Santa cams and fighter jets.  Tracking Santa starts with the NORAD radar system called the North Warning System. This powerful radar system consists of 47 installations strung across the northern border of North America. On December 24th, NORAD monitors the radar systems continuously for indications that Santa Claus has left the North Pole.

The moment that radar indicates Santa has lifted off, we use our second detection system. Satellites positioned in geo-synchronous orbit at 22,300 miles from the Earth’s surface are equipped with infrared sensors, which enable them to detect heat. Amazingly, Rudolph’s bright red nose gives off an infrared signature, which allows our satellites to detect Rudolph and Santa.

The third tracking system is the Santa cam network. We began using it in 1998, which is the year we put our Santa Tracking program on the Internet. Santa cams are ultra-cool, high-tech, high-speed digital cameras that are pre-positioned at many locations around the world. NORAD only uses these cameras once a year. The cameras capture images and videos of Santa and his reindeer as they make their journey around the world.

The fourth system is made up of fighter jets. Canadian NORAD fighter pilots flying the CF-18 intercept and welcome Santa to North America. In the United States, American NORAD fighter pilots in either the F-15, F-16 or the F-22 get the thrill of flying alongside Santa and his famous reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and, of course, Rudolph.

With the Santa Tracker running live in your home you’ll be able to see when he’s getting close so that you’ll know you need to tucked up safely in bed, all asleep because he won’t visit if you’re wide awake and waiting because like all midnight visitors to your home that doesn’t have a legitimate key to the front door, he doesn’t want to be seen or caught.

So try the Santa Tracker for yourself and you’ll believe in the magic of Christmas  :)  Have a very happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year from everyone here at gHacks.

That’s where Tracker Watcher comes into play. The Firefox add-on will analyze the active website for trackers and display all that have been found on an external page. It provides information about anonymity, sharing of information, Sensitivity and deletion in an easy to understand manner.

• Anonymity: Is the data anonymized or tracked across websites?
• Sharing: Do they share the information with third parties?
• Sensitivity: Do they use the information in sensitive personal areas like health conditions or financial matters?
• Deletion: Do they promise to delete the information?

Links to privacy statements of trackers are provided if available. Some trackers are not included in the list but are listed below the table. This could mean that the service does not have enough information yet about those trackers so that they could not be added to the table.

The very same page links to opt-out pages for advertisers that support that option. Those links lead to the website of the developer of the tracker where the opt-out can be announced. The Tracker Watcher website contains another link to a global opt-out page to opt out of all 91 companies that have been analyzed by the service or only 71 of those companies that have raised concerns.

Tracker Watcher can be downloaded from the Mozilla Firefox website.

The two most important questions right now for the millions of users who use The Piratebay are these two: Who are Global Gaming Factory X and what are their intentions with the website. According to the company website “Global Gaming Factory X AB has the biggest network of internet cafés and gaming centers in the world and provides advertisers, software publishers and service providers with an unprecedented access to the large group of tourists and the large gamer community that visit these centers”.

Neither the new owners nor the Piratebay administrators revealed a lot about the changes that are about to happen to the website and business model. The only outlook can be found in the full press release:

“We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site.”

Paying the copyright owners for content that is downloaded via the site (which actually are only torrent files and not copyrighted content) can mean different things. They could share advertising revenue with copyright holders which would probably be the only revenue sharing model that would not have a huge impact on visitor numbers. It would surely be different if they would roll out a subscription based model.

We keep you updated on how things evolve from here. If you have any thoughts on the issue post a comment so that we can discuss the matter.

The IP address can be used to identify users and sue them in the process for instance, still the main reason is to destablizie the system and make users leave it. One way to find fake torrents is to use the newly introduced Fake Finder which is a script that displays and lets you search for the latest fake torrents that are known to them. There is no 100% guarantee that the site lists all fake torrents and trackers but it lists many and you should consult it before you begin to download a file.

The list of torrent trackers that spread the fake torrents is large and you should use a program like peerguardian to block them all. This prevents the connection at all and should protect your privacy.