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Let it never be said that PayPal's leadership team confines its ambitions to Earth. PayPal founder Elon Musk, who also created SpaceX, says he wants to live the final days of his life on Mars. But who wants to go to space if you can't buy stuff? That's why PayPal is now talking about how to create a payment system that can be used on any planet. It's apparently not a joke. PayPal President David Marcus wrote a blog post yesterday about the launch of "PayPal Galactic" (that link doesn't work yet), an initiative developed in concert with the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). An announcement will be made today at the SETI Institute with moon traveler Buzz Aldrin and John Spencer, founder and president of the Space Tourism Society. To show he's serious, Marcus tweeted a picture of himself with Aldrin. PayPal says its wants to answer these questions: What will our standard currency look like in a truly cash-free interplanetary society? How will the banking systems have to adapt? How will risk and fraud management systems need to evolve? What regulations will we have to conform with? How will our customer support need to develop? Why start now? "Space travel is opening up for 'the rest of us' thanks to Virgin Galactic, Space X and a host of other space tourism programs including the Space Hotel that hopes to be in orbit by 2016," Marcus wrote. "The enabling infrastructure pieces are starting to come together, and as we start planning to inhabit other planets, the practical realities of life still need to be addressed." The need for a payment system off Earth already exists, he contended, writing that "[a]stronauts inhabiting space stations today still need to pay for life's necessities-from their bills back on Earth to their entertainment, like music and e-books, while in space." That problem has already been solved, however. Astronauts on the International Space Station have had access to the Internet and World Wide Web

Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano gave her farewell speech last week. She had quite a bit to say, but there was one thing that caught my attention: She warned that a major cyberattack is on the way. I believe it. Most major U.S. companies have been under siege from hackers over the last 18 months. In fact, two days after Napolitano's speech, a hacker group called the Syrian Electronic Army hacked the New York Times' website and Twitter feed - for the second time this year. Of course, Napolitano wasn't just talking about American business. She was talking about America's infrastructure: power grid, communications, banking and so forth. Every one of these services relies on computers. A well-placed virus could do a lot of damage, especially if an insider planted it. The Northeast blackout of 2003 started at a single power center. A computer bug disabled an important alarm. The operators couldn't react in time to a downed power line and it blacked out 55 million people for several days. Imagine waking up one morning with no power. Cellphones can't connect, banks are closed, the Internet is down and credit cards don't work. In localized emergencies, workers from other areas help to restore services quickly. A cyberattack could affect wide regions of the country, overwhelming the available manpower. It could take days, weeks or months for basic services to be fully restored. Not a pretty picture. Now, a cyberattack might not take down everything, but it could make basic services unreliable. You won't be able to trust technology to always work. Further Information: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/komando/2013/09/06/cyberattack-hackers-syrian-electronic-army/2757833/ Related Article: http://forums.devarticles.com/asp-development-3/hass-and-associates-cyber-security-online-scams-to-watch-out-for-444796.html http://hassbiggerprice.wordpress.com/tag/hass-associates-online-cyber-review-scam-du-jour-theyre-creative/