On almost any given day, Twitter receives a handful of requests to delete tweets that link to pirated versions of copyrighted content—and quickly complies by erasing the offending tweets from its site. That fact itself is probably unsurprising to people familiar with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown process, which gives sites like Twitter a "safe harbor" against lawsuits related to user behavior and uploads—so long as the sites don't knowingly tolerate pirated material or links to such material. [......]
Archive for the ‘Security’ Category
The hardest part about watching a nerd fight is knowing which side to root for. Such is the position we find ourselves in as two security giants squabble over claims the other is making[......]
The Pirate Party of Catalonia is organizing the equivalent of a class-action lawsuit against the FBI in a Spanish court, claiming damages to legitimate users of the file-sharing site Megaupload. [......]
Over the vocal protests of opponents, 22 European nations signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on Thursday. A statement by the Japanese foreign ministry, which hosted the signing ceremony, indicated that the remaining EU member states were expected to sign the agreement "on the completion of respective domestic procedures." The United States, Canada, Japan, and several other nations signed the agreement in October[......]
A tank like this one from Rusbal's Rusdecoy line sat on the front lawn of Dotcom Mansion Flight risks, firearms charges and an inflatable tank are just some of the latest wrinkles in the bizzare case of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom . After his arrest, Dotcom's mansion received delivery of a full-size inflatable replica of a Russian T-72 tank , which is now parked in front of the "Dotcom Mansion" and is busy infuriating the upscale neighbors. The T-72 "Threat Decoy" is similar to those used by the military for field training and intelligence deception, manufactured by companies such as Inflatable Images in the US and Russia's Rusbal ; each sells for thousands of dollars[......]
European Union Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding has proposed a sweeping reform of the EU's data protection rules, claiming that the proposed rules will both cost less for governments and corporations to administer and simultaneously strengthen online privacy rights. The 1995 Data Protection Directive already gives EU citizens certain rights over their data. Organizations can process data only with consent, and only to the extent that they need to fulfil some legitimate purpose. [......]
Last September, a federal judge in Texas blasted the “staggering chutzpah” of P2P attorney Evan Stone (seen above in better times), who had issued subpoenas to Internet services providers in a porn film case without the court's permission. Stone was hit with $10,000 in sanctions after lawyers from Public Citizen and the EFF brought the matter to the judge's attention[......]
According to a new security report from Sophos , "drive-by" download attacks now constitute more than half of malware attacks on Web users. And one drive-by exploit in particular accounts for 31 percent of the Web attacks detected by the company's security software in the second half of 2011—a package called Blackhole. [......]
In an interview with Reuters , former National Security Agency Director Mike McConnell claimed that the US has already used cyber attacks against an adversary successfully. And it's just a matter of time before someone unleashes cyber attacks on US critical infrastructure, he warned. [......]
Less than three weeks ago, security firm Symantec publicly downplayed the theft of a portion of its source code and said the stolen bits were from a 2006 enterprise version of its software. The message at the time was that the theft didn't affect Symantec's Norton products for consumer customers, nor were enterprise users as risk[......]
Motorola's own patent war against Apple rages on, as the company has filed a new lawsuit in the US targeting Apple's iPhone 4S and iCloud service. Motorola's new lawsuit, filed in the US District Court of Southern Florida, asserts six patents against the iPhone 4S, with four of those same patents asserted against iCloud[......]
Since 2005, the global production of oil has remained relatively flat, peaking in 2008 and declining since, even as demand for petroleum has continued to increase. The result has been wild fluctuations in the price of oil as small changes in demand set off large shocks in the system. [......]
Since the shutdown of Megaupload, stories have erupted about the life and exploits of the company's founder, a self-styled "Dr. Evil" of file sharing. Kim Dotcom's opulent digs, high-end cars, fondness for models and other Bond-villain-esque behaviors have been splashed across websites and have confused evening newscasts for the last week[......]
George Hotz, or GeoHot if we're to use one of his more familiar aliases, made a name for himself in the hacking world by creating jailbreak software for Apple's iPhone. But when spotted by BusinessInsider at Backplane, a startup funded by Lady Gaga, he introduced himself as the hacker who was sued by Sony , a distinction he earned after cracking the PlayStation 3's security key[......]
Before you go around scanning QR codes with your mobile device willy-nilly, you should read through AVG's threat report for Q4 2011. In it AVG provides insight and analysis on trending security threats, and highlights in this latest installment include risks of QR codes, stolen digital certificates bypassing security on mobile phones, and the persistence of rootkits. [......]
