Archive for 2012/07/26

The Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters announced it has signed a definitive agreement to purchase MarkMonitor, a global leader in online brand protection

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

The acquisition of MarkMonitor, headquartered in San Francisco, will strengthen the broad portfolio of intellectual property solutions from Thomson Reuters. The addition of MarkMonitor, with its innovative online brand protection technology, to Thomson Reuters best-in-class intellectual property solutions, will result in a suite of efficient and effective end-to-end brand protection solutions to assist customers in securing revenue and reputation. With over 400 employees in five countries, MarkMonitor is a market leader in online brand protection and currently safeguards more than half of the Fortune 100 brands.

“This acquisition marks the beginning of a transformational shift within the Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters,” said Chris Kibarian, president, IP & Science, Thomson Reuters. “It is emblematic of our strategy to accelerate innovation and growth within our business.”

“Thomson Reuters already helps thousands of companies create, manage and protect hundreds of billions of dollars worth of intellectual property assets,” said David Brown, president, Intellectual Property Solutions, Thomson Reuters. “With the addition of online brand protection solutions like those provided by MarkMonitor, we’ll be able to deliver advanced technologies to keep customers one step ahead of brandjackers and reduce the enormous risk posed to brands online.”

The MarkMonitor team, led by President and Chief Executive Officer Irfan Salim, will join Thomson Reuters.

“With the continued explosive growth of Internet, ecommerce and social network usage, the digital world provides an anonymous haven for criminals who harm brands’ revenue and reputation, often at the expense of consumers,” said Salim. “Brands that take action to protect themselves by managing their domain name portfolios see real return on investment, including lower online advertising costs and higher revenue, along with greater customer satisfaction. Together, MarkMonitor and Thomson Reuters will provide best-in-class solutions for online brand protection.”

Thomson Reuters employs approximately 60,000 people and operates in over 100 countries.

More:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/thomson-reuters-to-acquire-markmonitor-2012-07-26

Meet the Man Engineering Facebook’s Revenues

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

http://www.wired.com/business/2012/07/facebook-ads/

What’s Good for Verizon and AT&T is Terrible for American Consumers

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

http://www.wired.com/business/2012/07/whats-good-for-verizon-and-att-is-terrible-for-american-consumers/

Worst U.S. Drought in 50 Years to Raise Food Prices in 2013

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/drought-food-prices-2013/

Swizz Beatz on Megaupload: I Was Giving Artists 90% Of The Shit

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, Legislation, Litigation, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports

Grammy award-winning artist Swizz Beatz has publicly defended his role with Megaupload. The U.S. authorities hinted recently they might involve Beatz more in the case, but the rapper/producer seems unfazed. “I’m a fan of music, i’m a fan of people who work hard and I would never be a part of anything that’s taking from artists when I fight so hard to give so much to the artist,” he said in a new interview. “You know what I was doing, I was giving artists 90% of the shit.”

More:
http://torrentfreak.com/swizz-beatz-on-megaupload-i-was-giving-artists-90-of-the-shit-120726/

NBC and IOC Ready to Crackdown on Olympic Pirates

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, New Business Models, Online advertising, Public Policy, Stats / reports

http://torrentfreak.com/nbc-and-ioc-ready-to-crackdown-on-olympic-pirates-120725/

Foreign intelligence agencies are biggest online threat, ex-Fed warns

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy, Stats / reports

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/25/fed_foreign_intelligence_threat/

Anonymous hit Melbourne IT to find AAPT documents – Activist group claims hosting company as the source of its trove

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/25/anonymous_names_au_target/

Chinese police are celebrating the arrest of a nationwide cyber crime gang suspected of making over £30 million by selling fake professional qualifications, which they helped to produce by hacking into government web sites

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy, Stats / reports

The group made their money by selling fake qualifications certifying the recipient in fields such as medicine, financial services and architecture, with over 30,000 people suspected of having bought the dodgy certificates.

The gang’s USP, and the reason it could charge up to 10,000 yuan (£1,000) per certificate, was that it could hack the relevant government site and tamper with the back-end database to ensure that the fake cert’s name and registration number appeared legitimate.

Police in Jieyang, Guangdong province cracked the case when city officials raised the alarm after spotting that an illegal link had been added to one of the local government web sites.

The gang was found to be a highly organised and extensive network of individuals, each with different responsibilities – some would hack the government sites, some would manufacture the certificates and seals, others would advertise their services, and so on.

More:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/26/fake_qualifications_scam_busted/

Nationwide DOUBLES card payments in fresh banking gaffe

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/26/nationwide_card_issues/

Tech heavyweights have clubbed together to fight Washington policies they don’t like with the launch of a new lobbying group called the Internet Association

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports

The group’s website is sparse and the only announcement it’s made so far is that Michael Beckerman, a former advisor to the chairman of the US House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee, will act as its first president and CEO.

More:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/26/internet_association_lobbying_group/

Court blocks 12 websites for ‘misleading’ Olympic ticket sales

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Filtering, Public Policy, Stats / reports

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/26/oft_olympic_tickets/

A computer science student was convicted of illegally installing “spyware” on six women’s computers without their knowledge or consent

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Jurisprudence, Public Policy, Stats / reports

http://orangecountyda.com/home/index.asp?page=8&recordid=3102&returnurl=index.asp%3Fpage%3D8

Russia’s Top Cyber Sleuth Foils US Spies, Helps Kremlin Pals (And Response)

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Public Policy, Stats / reports

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/ff_kaspersky/all/

What Wired Is Not Telling You – a Response to Noah Shachtman’s Article in Wired Magazine
http://eugene.kaspersky.com/2012/07/25/what-wired-is-not-telling-you-a-response-to-noah-shachtmans-article-in-wired-magazine/

We will demonstrate that memory corruption vulnerabilities in payment terminals and applications are a reality and that they can be used to gain code execution on the terminals

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports

http://blackhat.com/html/bh-us-12/bh-us-12-briefings.html#Nils

Symantec has fired its CEO, Enrique Salem. Salem had been with the company for 19 years

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models

Symantec says Salem’s departure was not because of a particular event or any impropriety, but that the company had healthy assets yet is “underperforming against the opportunity.”

More:
http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/security-it/symantec-fires-ceo-chairman-is-replacing-him-20120726-22st5.html

UK ISPs Give Conflicted Response to New Open Internet Code of Practice

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy, Stats / reports

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2012/07/uk-isps-give-conflicted-response-to-new-open-internet-code-of-practice.html

Justin Knapp, who is the first person to make more than one million edits on Wikipedia

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

http://gizmodo.com/5928894/ask-wikipedias-mvp-about-his-one-million-edits

How Twitter Can Predict When Individuals Will Get Sick

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

http://gizmodo.com/5929196/how-twitter-can-predict-when-individuals-will-get-sick

You Never Have to Email Photos Again Because This App Magically Shares iPhone Pictures with Your Friends

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

http://gizmodo.com/5929227/you-never-have-to-email-photos-again-because-this-app-magically-shares-iphone-pictures-with-your-friends

Skype handing over more chat data to law enforcement

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy, Stats / reports

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/skype-handing-over-more-chat-data-to-law-enforcement/

FCC to Comcast: carry Tennis Channel, and pay up!

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ruled 3-2 in favor of the Tennis Channel in its legal dispute with Comcast, paving the way for the channel to be made available to many more American homes than it is at present.

More:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/fcc-to-comcast-carry-tennis-channel-and-pay-up/

Immunity Inc. has released a security tool that can scan an astounding 1 million IP addresses per hour

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/07/security-scanner-probes-1-million-ips-per-hour/

Google opens code for building interactive experiences in physical spaces

Posted: 2012/07/26 in Education / Awareness, Google, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

Google has released a new software framework that aims to give programmers the ability to create interactive experiences in physical spaces. It could potentially be used to build interactive art installations or games that involve physical interaction.

The framework, which is called Interactive Spaces, is distributed under the permissive Apache license and is available for download from a Mercurial repository hosted on Google Code. The search giant announced the new framework in a post on its official open source software blog.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/google-opens-code-for-building-interactive-experiences-in-physical-spaces/