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The world’s largest Internet search company and the world’s most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity.

Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google — and its users — from future attack.

Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information without violating Google’s policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans’ online communications. The sources said the deal does not mean the NSA will be viewing users’ searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data.

The partnership strikes at the core of one of the most sensitive issues for the government and private industry in the evolving world of cybersecurity: how to balance privacy and national security interests. On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair called the Google attacks, which the company acknowledged in January, a “wake-up call.” Cyberspace cannot be protected, he said, without a “collaborative effort that incorporates both the U.S. private sector and our international partners.”

But achieving collaboration is not easy, in part because private companies do not trust the government to keep their secrets and in part because of concerns that collaboration can lead to continuous government monitoring of private communications. Privacy advocates, concerned about a repeat of the NSA’s warrantless interception of Americans’ phone calls and e-mails after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, say information-sharing must be limited and closely overseen.

“The critical question is: At what level will the American public be comfortable with Google sharing information with NSA?” said Ellen McCarthy, president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, an organization of current and former intelligence and national security officials that seeks ways to foster greater sharing of information between government and industry.

On Jan. 12, Google took the rare step of announcing publicly that its systems had been hacked in a series of intrusions beginning in December.

The intrusions, industry experts said, targeted Google source code — the programming language underlying Google applications — and extended to more than 30 other large tech, defense, energy, financial and media companies. The Gmail accounts of human rights activists in Europe, China and the United States were also compromised. So significant was the attack that Google threatened to shutter its business operation in China if the government did not agree to let the firm operate an uncensored search engine there. That issue is still unresolved.

Google approached the NSA shortly after the attacks, sources said, but the deal is taking weeks to hammer out, reflecting the sensitivity of the partnership. Any agreement would mark the first time that Google has entered a formal information-sharing relationship with the NSA, sources said. In 2008, the firm stated that it had not cooperated with the NSA in its Terrorist Surveillance Program. Hard money training.

Patrick Swayze will forever be remembered as the snake-hipped Johnny Castle in 1987’s Dirty Dancing, a role which cemented his status as the romantic lead of the 90s. He was 57.

Surprisingly, the trained dancer was not the first choice for the role but his performance earned him award nominations and a place on bedroom walls of lovelorn teenage girls around the world.

Privately, the 57-year-old shied away from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, preferring the quiet life on his Californian ranch with Lisa, his wife of 34 years.

The attitude extended to his professional work. The actor always rejected the notion of himself as the sexy lead. He once said: “It’s the cult movies that have given me a career for 30 years.

“It wouldn’t have been worth it if I had been stuck as the leading man or the dance guy.”

Swayze’s doctor, Dr. George Fisher, revealed in early March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from the disease.

“Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months,” Wolf said in a statement Monday.

The state of Virginia has backed away from its attempts to force Facebook to divulge the complete contents of a user’s account to settle a dispute over workers’ compensation, narrowly avoiding what promised to be a high-profile privacy battle in federal court.

On Monday, the Virginia’s Workers Compensation Commission said it was no longer going to levy a $200-a-day fine on the social-networking site for refusing to comply with a subpoena from an airline that previously employed a flight attendant named Shana Hensley.

Facebook had objected to the June 4 subpoena from Colgan Air–the Manassas, Va.-based company that operates under the names United Express, US Airways Express, and Continental Connection–on privacy grounds. It said federal law prohibits divulging user data in response to a subpoena, and promised to “further litigate this issue by seeking, among other things, an injunction from the federal courts.”

In principle, this isn’t a novel concept: employers and insurance companies have long used private investigators to ferret out fraud and show that someone who claims to be a virtual cripple actually participates in waterskiing competitions.

Because social-networking sites offer such information-rich glimpses into a person’s private life, insurers and employers have begun eyeing them. A personal injury lawyer in Elmira, N.Y., noted in July that an accident victim claiming to be severely injured was, thanks to Facebook, revealed to be playing in soccer games. An article last week in Business Insurance said that social-networking sites revealed exaggerated claims of injuries from a judo instructor, a bowler, and a rodeo bronco rider.

In the Colgan Air case, Facebook says it’s happy that privacy rights prevailed. “We’re pleased with the outcome and that our users’ information will be protected,” said Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt.

Colgan Air, which is owned by the publicly traded Pinnacle Airlines, initially paid Hensley’s disability benefits that were related to a back injury while on the job (she was diagnosed with a herniated disc that did not want surgery). After about 18 months, however, Colgan Air claimed that Hensley was not cooperating with its efforts to find her a desk job and appears to have concluded that Hensley’s holiday vacation photos posted on her Facebook account would demonstrate that any back problems were not severe.

Twenty milligrams; that’s the average amount of carbon emissions generated from the time it took you to read the first two words of this article.

Now, depending on how quickly you read, around 80, perhaps even 100 milligrams of C02 have been released. And in the several minutes it will take you to get to the end of this story, the number of milligrams of greenhouse gas emitted could be several thousand, if not more.

This may not seem like a lot: “But in aggregate, if you consider all the people visiting a web site and then all the seconds that each of them spends on it, it turns out to be a large number,” says Dr. Alexander Wissner-Gross, an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University who studies the environmental impact of computing.

Wissner-Gross estimates every second someone spends browsing a simple web site generates roughly 20 milligrams of C02. Whether downloading a song, sending an email or streaming a video, almost every single activity that takes place in the virtual environment has an impact on the real one.

As millions more go online each year some researchers say the need to create a green Internet ecosystem is not only imperative but also urgent.

“It is part of the whole sustainability picture,” Chris Large, head of research and development at UK-based Climate Action Group, told CNN.

Facebook is yet to make a profit despite being the world’s biggest social network.

The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones speaks to the Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, about revenue, privacy, and the future. National Hard Money Association Conference

After a string of real celebrity deaths last week, the Internet and online social networks killed a few more stars.

Despite what you may have read, Jeff Goldblum, Natalie Portman, George Clooney, Britney Spears, Harrison Ford and Rick Astley are alive.

Fake news of their deaths flew across the Internet — particularly on online social networks like Twitter and Facebook — after Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon were reported dead.

The situation is calling attention to the changing state of the news media: As information online moves faster and comes from more sources, it’s more difficult to verify what’s true and what may be shockingly false.

Some have downplayed the situation, saying the rumors are not harmful. Others find the situation offensive in light of the actual deaths last week.

Internet-savvy readers can tell the difference between fake news and real information that has been verified by a trusted blogger or mainstream news reporter, said Gabriel Snyder, managing editor at Gawker, a celebrity news and gossip blog not associated with the rumors.

Pop star Britney Spears was among those falsely claimed to be dead recently.