See also:
EA: We Have Never Taken A Position, Either Way, On SOPA Or PIPA
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120103/11314417262/ea-we-have-never-taken-position-either-way-sopa-pipa.shtml
Daily Archives: 2012/01/03
No Warrant Needed for GPS Monitoring, Judge Rules
Hollywood Union Members Sign Petition Asking MPAA & Hollywood Unions To Stop Supporting PIPA/SOPA
Saudi hackers leak personal information of thousands of Israelis
Google predicts: Harsher data protection sanctions are coming
The European Commission has proposed instituting new fines for data protection breaches ranging up to 5% of global turnover! To a global company, that’s probably scarier than killer snakes.
http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2012/01/harsher-data-protection-sanctions-are.html
India in talks with Interpol to help intercept electronic communication
2012 resolution: Full disk encryption on all computers
It turns out, the key to intimacy is just knowledge. Path pulls that off by allowing you to see who looks at your posts
Facebook and Google Plus and others have spent so much energy on privacy. They’ve spent so much effort developing controls that let you limit who can see your updates. And yet Path seems have nailed good privacy controls by going the other way. Instead of focusing on limiting who within your network can see what, it just shows you who looked. Combined with its small size, that’s really powerful.
http://gizmodo.com/5872488/the-social-network-that-stole-christmas
The Trailer for the First Netflix Original Series Is Really Good
Military’s Craziest ‘Non-Lethal’ Weapon Idea-Book Leaked
Library computers can block porn—but Wicca? ACLU says no
Asus to unlock Transformer Prime’s bootloader, issue Android 4 update
Asus responded in a statement, saying that the bootloader is locked “due to content providers’ requirement for DRM client devices to be as secure as possible.” Despite that requirement, Asus stated it will release an unlocking tool for the development community, but it noted that using the tool will make renting videos via Google impossible and will void the warranty for the product. Asus did not specify a release date for the unlocking tool, but said that it is in development.
Asus is the second company this week to support the unlocking of bootloaders. HTC faced a consumer backlash in May over the locked bootloaders in its devices, but on December 29 the company released a tool to unlock the bootloaders in some phones and tablets.
Free newspapers with new iPad application
Up to 20% of e-book downloads are derived from illegal websites
Holiday 2011: Breaking the One Billion App Download Barrier
The last week of the year, from December 25 through December 31, sees more iOS and Android device activations compared to any other week of the year. Starting with Christmas Day, the largest single device activation day of the year, the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is filled with significantly elevated device activations and app downloads. For application makers, this holiday “power week” is far more important than the run-up to Christmas itself. This report reveals that the last week of 2011 was the largest week for device activations and app downloads in iOS and Android history.
Much more:
http://blog.flurry.com/bid/79928/Holiday-2011-Breaking-the-One-Billion-App-Download-Barrier
Dutch National Police To Double Number Of Cyber Cops And Quadruple Number Of Child Abuse Investigators
Deputy Chief Patricia Zorko to hire more specialists in an effort to also quadruple the number of high tech investigations the Dutch National Police is conducting. Zorko will make an effort to hunt down those responsible for the production of the child abuse images distributed online.
Dutch language news article:
http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/2706422/politie-maakt-meer-werk-van-kinderporno.html
Google Bases Their Own Ad Campaigns On Emotions, Not Terms
Google ads took five of the top 10 spots on Ace Metrix’s list of the most effective TV ads for Web sites last year.
“Google has been so dominant in its usefulness,” he said. “Now they want to make you feel something about search, as opposed to just relying on it as a useful tool.”
A new plugin for WordPress allows anyone to set up a fully functioning BitTorrent site in just a few minutes
Whether it’s a totally public torrent index or a private torrent tracker with strict ratio enforcement, WP-Trader supports it. The project was born when the developers recognized a huge demand for a simple script that even relative tech novices can set up.
http://torrentfreak.com/turn-any-wordpress-site-into-a-bittorrent-tracker-120102/
Facebook is cited in 33 percent of divorces in the United Kingdom. This is for the year 2011: the statistic increased from 20 percent for the year 2009
Man tries to Facebook friend defendant, removed from jury
The first rule of not being evil is: don’t do things you think are evil. So it’s a shame that Google has violated its own policy by giving bloggers cash in exchanges for writing about its browser, Chrome
All companies and individuals who are registered as entrepreneurs in Belarus can use only domestic Internet domains for providing online services, conducting sales, or exchanging email messages
It appears that business requests from Belarus cannot be served over the Internet if the service provider is using online services located outside of the country. The tax authorities, together with the police and secret police, are authorized to initiate, investigate, and prosecute such violations.
Additionally, the Law states that the owners and administrators of Internet cafés or other places that offer access to the Internet might be found guilty of violating this Law and fined and their businesses might be closed if users of Internet services provided by these places are found visiting websites located outside of Belarus and if such behavior of the clients was not properly identified, recorded, and reported to the authorities. The Law states that this provision may apply to private individuals if they allow other persons to use their home computers for browsing the Internet.
http://gizmodo.com/5872499/belarus-is-now-home-to-the-internets-most-insane-law
Some 157 billion euros ($203 billion) in debt will mature in the 17-member euro area in the first three months of 2012
The key to the euro’s survival may lie with Italy, the group’s third-largest economy and the second most-indebted after Greece. The government in Rome must repay 53 billion euros in debt in the first quarter, about a third of the euro area’s total amount for the period.
“If the Italian yields start to rise, you could quickly turn a manageable situation into an insolvent one,” Michael Spence, a professor of economics at New York University and a Nobel laureate, said on Bloomberg Television Dec. 28. “Italy needs time and Europe needs to help buy them some of the time.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/01/02/bloomberg_articlesLX609I07SXKX.DTL
