[NOTD] News Of The Day - 21/06/2007

Wal-Mart Associates Pledge to Keep Harry Potter Ending Secret
By Arkansas Business Staff
6/21/2007 11:18:51 AM

J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, has asked that people not disclose the ending to her latest and final book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," to keep the final tale a special discovery for all readers.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it will celebrate the release of the book with midnight sales events and a special pledge by its more than 1 million associates to keep mum about the book's ending after its July 21, 12:01 a.m. release.

Beginning July 10, Wal-Mart associates across the world will take, sign and post the pledge in stores. As early as today, customers can join the crusade and emphasize the importance of not spoiling the end for others, by going to www.makethepledge.net and making their personal pledges.

Stores open around the clock are hosting activities the evening of July 20 leading up to the book's midnight release:

Want To Star In Harry Potter?

Producers of the next Harry Potter film are going to hold two open auditions.

They're looking for a teenage boy and girl to play the parts of Lavender Brown and Tom Riddle in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

The auditions'll be at Earl's Court in London on the 1st and 8th of July.

Quidditch League Started In SF

A new fantasy sport is sweeping into Sioux Falls. And anyone can play - the only requirement is a broomstick.
About 50 teenagers have started up a new sport in town. Eric Larsen is the founder of the Sioux Falls Quidditch League. "Try to protect your chasers when you're going for a goal and get other people out of the way so they can make a goal and help your seeker. If you see the snitch, try to let him know where it is if your seeker runs across the field. "

If any of this makes sense to you, you are probably a fan of the Harry Potter books. These kids have brought the sport that Harry plays at Hogswart to real life.

In Quidditch, There's really only one requirement to play says Daniel Parrott. "If you don't have a broom between your legs, then you cannot fly and obviously cannot participate in the flying game of quidditch."

There are two teams of eight people.

The yellow ball, called the quaffel, is worth ten points if it goes through the hula hoop that's duct taped to a folding chair.

Defenders try to stop that from happneing by hitting people with white balls, called bludgers.

In the books, the game ends when players catch the snitch, a little gold ball that flies all over.
Patrick says he can do the same thing in real life. "We don't have flying gold balls, so we get a track runner and we get a ball and hang it from him with a tube sock on their back and the seekers try to catch him. "

Larsen says the game can lead to bruises. "It's a full contact game, you're encouraged to run into people. Unfortunately we don't have magic like in the books, they just heal them up. "

People wanting to join up with the league can find the club on facebook under name Sioux Falls Quidditch League.

Experts doubt authenticity of 'Harry Potter hack'
Frank Washkuch Jr. Jun 21 2007 20:30

Was the final book in the Harry Potter series really breached by hackers? Security experts today said they doubt it.

A hacker named "Gabriel" posted this week on insecure.org that he or she cracked the networks of (United Kingdom publisher) Bloomsbury Publishing to find out the ending of the best-selling series.

(Warning: This link contains potential spoilers.)

The series, which has sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, is set to end with its seventh book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Harrows," due in bookstores on July 21.

Kyle Good, vice president of corporate communications at Scholastic, the series' U.S. distributor, told SCMagazine.com today that she had no comment on the reports, other than to say, "Anyone can post almost anything they want on the internet, and you can't believe everything you see."

Gabriel claimed that hacking into the networks wasn't difficult.

"The attack strategy was the easiest one. The usual milw0rm downloaded exploit delivered by email/click-on-the-link/open-browser/click-on-this-animated- icon/back-connect to some employee of Bloomsbury Publishing, the company that's behind the Harry crap," the hacker said. "It's amazing to see how much people inside the company have copies and drafts of this book."

The hacker said that he had religious motivations for revealing the end of the acclaimed series.

"We did it by following the previous words of the great Pope Benedict XVI when he still was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger," he said. "He explained why Harry Potter brings the youngs (sic) of our earth to (the) neo-paganism faith."

Mark Loveless, a former hacker and now a security architect at Vernier Networks, told SCMagazine.com today that the report is almost certainly a hoax.

"I think it's completely a hoax. I would rarely trust some odd claim like that from someone on Full Disclosure," he said. "If the person was smart, and they actually got that, they would've published a few paragraphs or a chapter."

John Thielens, vice president of technology at Tumbleweed Communications, told SCMagazine.com today that Scholastic's "no comment" means fans of the series aren't likely to find out soon whether the hack was authentic.

"You just can't know. It's sort of an unauthenticatable premise. It reminds me of what other media producers have done when they will record two or three possible endings and one of them airs," he said. "So did it really happen? Personally I don't want to know because I want to read the book."

Harry Potter book sold for 7,200

Only around 500 copies were printed

A student's novel plan to sell a rare first edition of the original Harry Potter book has netted 7,200

Toby Rundle, 19, from Somerset, auctioned the hardback copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in order to fund his university degree.

Mr Rundle was sent the book by his mother while he was at boarding school.

The book - one of only around 500 printed - was auctioned in Cirencester but reached less than half of its expected sale price of 15,000.

The teenager will be studying Classical English at Oxford University from September.

'Less than 100'

The book was bought by collector David Beswick from Hull, who was reported to be happy with the price.

Chris Albury, from Dominic Winter auctioneers, added: "Most of these first editions went into libraries.

"The amount that went into book shops is probably less than 100."

The book was printed in 1997 and has a cover price of 10.99.