http://gizmodo.com/5609354/shouting-match-at-google-over-stalkery-ads
Archive for 2010/08/10
Shouting Match at Google Over Stalkery Ads
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Education / Awareness, Google, Online advertisingYou’ve got plenty of choices when you want to listen to free music on the web. The question is, what’s the best option—especially if you’re interested in possibly even paying for an unlimited, mobile-friendly, offline-possible streaming experience?
http://lifehacker.com/5608715/battle-of-the-streaming-music-services
Skip the Ads on YouTube by Refreshing the Page
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Education / Awareness, Online advertisingPrivate BitTorrent Tracker Hit Again By Movie Studio
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Education / Awareness, Litigation, New Business Models“GT has an open policy of compliance with the industry, yet Lucas Entertainment has again decided to attack our Members directly by apparently proceeding with litigation rather than requesting we take-down any material on which they claim copyright.”
http://torrentfreak.com/private-bittorrent-tracker-hit-again-by-movie-studio-100810/
Giganews Celebrates 2 Years of High-Quality Binary Retention
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Education / Awareness, File Sharing, Illegal File SharingThe Giganews team is proud to be the first and only Usenet provider reaching 2 years of high-quality binary retention. Giganews members are the only Usenet readers who can still read posts from as far back as two years ago. In two years, the Usenet feed has grown from 400Mbps to over 550Mbps.
Over 6 TB of data in the form of 15 million articles is posted to Usenet from global members each day. For perspective, the largest consumer drive available today is 3TB. Usenet fills 2 of those drives every day. Giganews has stored every single article for 2 solid years. To date, Giganews has over 10 billion articles stored. To accommodate this capacity, Giganews stores multiple copies of all Usenet data, preventing incompletes and handle failures.
While increasing retention, Giganews focuses on increasing the power of its service:
- Maintains 4 worldwide server clusters in order to have the processing required for the amount of data stored
- Expanded global Usenet cluster into 5 additional worldwide sites to accommodate the increasing storage needs of Usenet
- Tested IPv6, a new platform for Usenet, at NANOG
Giganews is passionate about Usenet and works hard to create the very best Usenet experience available. Giganews is the only Usenet provider capable of this capacity and retention, and has no plans to stop its retention growth any time soon.
About Giganews
Giganews, the world’s largest and most trusted Usenet provider for more than a decade, offers unparalleled newsgroup access through a proprietary, scalable platform designed to maximize speed and reliability. Giganews serves individuals, as well as the largest Internet service providers, telecommunications companies, and multi-service providers in more than 200 countries, making it the top Usenet aggregation point in the world. More articles pass through Giganews on a daily basis than any other provider. In addition, the Giganews Newsgroups Archive hosts more than 7 billion articles requiring several petabytes (PB) of storage. Learn more about Giganews at http://www.giganews.com.
http://www.giganews.com/news/article/2-years-binary-retention.html
120 days of free use of the Rapidshare service
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Education / Awareness, File Sharing, Illegal File SharingUpload and download videos, photos, music and software. Can also be used anonymously
Hitwise Reveals Top 10 Most Viewed Websites by UK Internet Users
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Stats / reports
This Hard Drive Will Self-Destruct In Five Seconds
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Education / Awareness, Tech EvolutionAccording to Toshiba, the new wipe technology on their self-encrypting hard drives will destroy any data in them when you remove the device or power it off completely. Sounds a bit nuts, but it makes sense
http://gizmodo.com/5609068/this-hard-drive-will-self+destruct-in-five-seconds
The Google Report Card: C
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Education / Awareness, Google, Privacy / Data ProtectionWe took those ten founding principles—which Google itself professes to revisit to “see if it still holds true”—and used a 1-10 scale to grade the company on each aspect. Here’s how it stacks up
http://gizmodo.com/5609164/the-google-report-card
See also:
Leaked Google ‘Vision Statement’ Shows the Company Warming Up to Selling User Data
Faking Evidence Online Probably Isn’t A Good Idea
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, LitigationThere was just the story of the woman who tried to frame her ex-boyfriend with fake text messages she sent herself, and now there’s a story of a wife who set up a fake MySpace account for her husband’s ex-wife and used it to send messages that were used in a custody battle
Consumer Watchdog Asks FBI, DEA to Explain Use of Google Earth
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Google, Public Policy“The public needs to know how law enforcement is using Google’s technologies,” said John M. Simpson, consumer advocate with the nonpartisan, nonprofit group. “We call on the FBI and the DEA to expeditiously respond to our requests for information.”
Congress should also investigate how the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities are using technologies that Google provides, Simpson added.
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/corporateering/articles/?storyId=35501
Police raided Google’s South Korean offices today as part of their probe into the firm’s Street View Wi-Fi data harvesting operation.
The country is one of many running criminal investigations into the practice, which was revealed in June.
“[We] have been investigating Google Korea on suspicion of unauthorised collection and storage of data on unspecified Internet users from wi-fi networks,” the Korean National Police Agency said.
Investigators seized hard drives and documents following a search lasting several hours and involving 16 officers, the Korean news agency Yonhap reported. They also plan to summon Google executives for questioning
McAfee, Inc. Q2 Threat Report Reveals Malware at All Time High with 6 Million Malicious Files Found This Quarter, While Spam Hits a Plateau
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reportsCybercriminals took advantage of anticipation on and hype of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, and used various methods to promote scams and search-engine “poisoning.”
For a full copy of the Q2 2010 Threats Report, please visit:
http://www.mcafee.com/us/local_content/reports/q22010_threats_report_en.pdf
By Eric Schmidt and Ivan Seidenberg, Tuesday, August 10, 2010
- we agree that transparency with users is key and that all broadband providers, including wireless providers, should be required to share with their customers in concise, plain language information that explains the kinds of Internet access services they are receiving and the provider’s traffic management practices
- we believe that wireless providers should be fully transparent about their practices, and Congress should regularly evaluate the state of the wireless market to protect consumers’ interests
- blocking and degrading Internet traffic is antithetical to the principle of openness and to consumers’ expectations
- as leaders in our respective fields, we have searched for workable public policies that serve consumer interests and create a climate for investment and innovation
- consumers should be able to choose any lawful content, services or applications they want; in other words, they can choose whatever Internet service they want, go to whatever legal Web sites they want, and use whatever software or applications they want
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/09/AR2010080905647.html
Innovators gather for ‘techonomic’ summit (roundup)
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Education / Awareness, Tech EvolutionGates, Kroes, Negroponte, Schmidt and companies Ford and HP
U.S. contracts fund next-gen satellite imagery
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Education / Awareness, Google, Tech EvolutionThere was a day when satellite imagery was the purview of military and intelligence analysts, but now it’s a consumer phenomenon as well. Google and Microsoft are customers of GeoEye and DigitalGlobe satellite imagery for their online mapping products
StarCraft 2 and Blizzard’s BitTorrent Paradox
Posted: 2010/08/10 in File Sharing, Illegal File SharingWith hundreds of thousands of unauthorized downloads, StarCraft 2 is the most pirated game of 2010 thus far. Although Blizzard Entertainment is probably not too excited by this honorary title, the company also benefits from BitTorrent. In fact, StarCraft 2 is probably the most legally downloaded game on BitTorrent too
http://torrentfreak.com/starcraft-2-and-blizzards-bittorrent-paradox-100809/
Funny That The AP Didn’t Report On A Judge Denying Sanctions Against Shepard Fairey
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Education / Awareness, Litigationongoing legal battle between artist Shepard Fairey and the Associated Press over whether or not Fairey’s famous Obama “Hope” poster infringed on the AP’s copyrights
Wait, Wasn’t A Paywall Supposed To Boost Ad Revenue?
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Education / Awareness, New Business ModelsCablevision, who put up a disastrously ill-conceived paywall for the newspaper Newsday, is now reporting that ad revenues continue to decline pretty substantially
Judge halts domain registration scam
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, JurisprudenceA federal judge has ordered members of a Canadian operation to stop posing as domain-name registrars in scams that collected more than $4.26m in bogus renewal fees from unsuspecting consumers, small businesses, and non-profits
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/09/domain_registration_scam/
Apple iPhone app patent claim ‘doesn’t feel right’
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Copyright, Education / AwarenessApple’s use of his app’s UI has put Gentz in an uncomfortable position he claims. “We’re faced with a situation where we’ve to fear that our primary business partner is trying to ‘steal’ our idea and design,” he alleged
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/06/apple_patent_plagerizes_third_party_ui/
Google-Verizon NN pact riddled with gaping loopholes
Posted: 2010/08/10 in Education / Awareness, Google, Net NeutralityThe Google/Verizon net neutrality plan will stop ISP discrimination and prioritization on the Internet, except when it won’t, which by our reading will be most of the time. The loopholes are so large a DPI-powered P2P blocker the size of an M1 Abrams tank could roll through it without disturbing a telco executive’s nap
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/guides/2010/08/googleverizon-we-do-loopholes-right.ars
