Archive for 2010/09/29

French authorities have dismantled a cybercrime network and arrested nine people suspected of being involved in the illegal sale of codes used to unlock mobile phones, police said on Monday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100927/wr_nm/us_france_phone_crime_2

Participants include representatives from seven Cabinet-level departments, the White House, law enforcement and intelligence communities, 11 states, 12 international partners and 60 private sector companies.

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1285708070281.shtm

Today, we’re happy to announce Google Safe Browsing Alerts for Network Administrators — an experimental tool which allows Autonomous System (AS) owners to receive early notifications for malicious content found on their networks.

A single network or ISP can host hundreds or thousands of different websites. Although network administrators may not be responsible for running the websites themselves, they have an interest in the quality of the content being hosted on their networks. We’re hoping that with this additional level of information, administrators can help make the Internet safer by working with webmasters to remove malicious content and fix security vulnerabilities.

http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2010/09/safe-browsing-alerts-for-network.html

We have to understand how much privacy we are willing to give up to help the policy to combat child porn, hacking, and other illegal activities on the Internet

http://tinyurl.com/24t9ht7

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gadgetreviews/gateway-unveils-nv59c66u-notebook-with-integrated-wimax-card/18475

http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-appeal-day-2-lost-sales-100929/

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100923/01464111127/more-stories-of-people-arrested-for-making-joke-threats-on-social-networks.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100928/11271611198/appeals-court-tells-ascap-a-download-is-not-a-performance.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100926/22193311175/surveillance-nation-austin-library-won-t-let-you-wear-baseball-caps-because-cameras-can-t-id-you.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100927/23411111191/upcoming-comic-book-by-law-professors-compares-acta-to-1984.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100928/22435711204/supreme-court-agrees-to-see-whether-or-not-at-t-has-personal-privacy-rights.shtml

The Las Vegas Sun has a good overview of the counterclaims and defenses. Helping out the EFF is Andrew Bridges, who is known for challenging questionable copyright lawsuits with creative, but solid, defenses — so some of the defenses here shouldn’t be all that surprising.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100928/16212911200/eff-comes-out-guns-blazing-in-countersuit-against-righthaven-stepens-media.shtml

The UK Federation Against Software Theft (FAST), a not-for-profit group that campaigns for the legitimate use of software, has called on opponents of the controversial Digital Economy Act 2010 (DEA) to give the new laws time to “bed in and demonstrate it can work“.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2010/09/28/uk-software-federation-asks-people-to-give-new-internet-piracy-laws-a-chance.html

Market regulator Ofcom UK, which recently completed its Net Neutrality (the principal of treating all internet traffic as equal) consultation (here), is expected to tell broadband ISPs that they are free to trample all over the principal, just so long as customers are told about it in a “transparent” way. To most ISPs, transparent = small print, which of course nobody ever reads.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2010/09/29/ofcom-uk-to-support-broadband-isps-in-killing-net-neutrality.html

The most recent European Email Deliverability Benchmark Report (2H 2010) from Return Path has revealed that 17.8% of supposedly “legitimate marketing emails” sent to European consumers are not being delivered (up from 11.1% six months ago), with most going missing or finding their way into SPAM (junk folders).

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2010/09/29/return-path-slams-uk-isps-for-blocking-legitimate-marketing-email.html

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/44309

“This is really boring”, Sunde is quoted as saying. “It’s a waste of time. It’s going to be appealed no matter what happens.”

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/44311

All six Star Wars films will get the 3D treatment

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/29/star_wars_3d/

Eric Schmidt likes to say that Google is a fundamentally “open” company, and according to the man himself, this means that Google is the anti-Apple.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/28/schmidt_calls_google_the_inverse_of_apple/

Google boss Eric Schmidt has said that antitrust investigations targeting the company in the EU and Texas are “stimulated” by interested competitors and that — contrary to one of the complaints filed in the EU — the company’s “Universal Search” setup does not unfairly drive traffic to Google services at the expense of rivals.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/28/eric_schmidt_chat/

Computer scientists have developed proof-of-concept malware that evades traditional security defenses by running on a PC’s graphics processor.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/28/gpu_assisted_malware/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/28/stuxnet_resurrection_ability/

Gang blamed for £6m losses in three months

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/29/zeus_cybercrime_arrests/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/29/allot_mobile_data/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/29/us_ipv6_upgrade_deadline/

There is a Minecraft video making its way around the Internet. In it, you see the side of a wall, and hear a man’s voice explaining your position at the bottom of a huge well. Then the camera turns and you see the immense body of the starship Enterprise, created using blocks in Minecraft.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/09/the-true-story-behind-the-amazing-minecraft-enterprise-d.ars

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2010/09/hulu-plus-coming-to-roku-set-top-boxes-later-this-fall.ars

ACS Law specializes in file-sharing “settlement letters,” requesting cash for online infringement but never quite getting around to filing lawsuits. What’s it like on the inside? A huge leak of private e-mails lights up a dark corner of the legal world. Our 6,000 word investigation inside.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/amounts-to-blackmail-inside-a-p2p-settlement-letter-factory.ars