In Craigslist slaying, Internet was also suspect’s undoing

They were crimes born of the Internet age — romantic solicitations on popular Web site Craigslist that police say led to the fatal shooting of one woman and the robbery of another in Boston hotels this past spring. And it was high-tech, 21st-century sleuthing, along with some old-fashioned gumshoe detective work, that put police on the trail toward a suspect and eventually an arrest.

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Social networks provide new lessons in learning

As millions of students across the world go back to school this month, 178 students from 49 countries will turn on their computers and step onto the virtual campus of the world’s first global, tuition-free online university. Called University of the People, the non-profit, California-based endeavor comes from Israeli entrepreneur Shai Reshef who says he founded the school to provide higher education to those who might otherwise never have access to it.

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Think you deleted your cookies? Think again

More than half of the Internet’s top websites use a little known capability of Adobe’s Flash plugin to track users and store information about them, but only four of them mention the so-called Flash Cookies in their privacy policies, UC Berkeley researchers found. Unlike traditional browser cookies, Flash cookies are relatively unknown to web users, and they are not controlled through the cookie privacy controls in a browser.

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Gym shooter posted video monologues online

The man who shot three women dead in a Pennsylvania gym before killing himself this week posted at least two videos on YouTube last year, apparently referring to a desire for a girlfriend in both. George Sodini, 48, gave a tour of his house in one clip, his camera briefly panning across a book called “Date Young Women” in his living room. “The couch and chairs, they match.

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