Digital Consequences
A group of hackers that has claimed attacks on websites run by the U.S. Senate and the Central Intelligence Agency posted a cache of documents from Arizona police, calling it a protest against a controversial state law. ... LulzSec, as the group commonly refers to itself, said the posting of the documents was a protest of Arizona's SB1070, controversial state legislation that critics say is anti-immigration. The key provision of the law has been frozen because of legal challenges. ...
Breitbart starts off the segment reminding everyone just how much false reporting about him drove the Weinergate story early on. Breitbart also hammers away at the liberals who write Salon and other online publications and blogs that tried turning the scandal into yet another excuse to attack Breitbart's credibility.
Just one day after the author behind a popular Syrian lesbian blog admitted to being a married, American man named Tom MacMaster, the editor of the lesbian news site Lez Get Real, with the tagline "A Gay Girl's View on the World," acknowledged that he is also a man. ... In the guise of Paula Brooks, Graber corresponded online with Tom MacMaster, thinking he was writing to Amina Arraf. Amina often flirted with Brooks, neither of the men realizing the other was pretending to be a lesbian....
The New York Times reports that U.S. government funding is helping to develop and deploy "shadow" Internet and mobile phone systems to undermine repressive regimes that seek to prevent dissidents from getting their stories out to the world. [Who will help us develop such systems when our own government comes after us?]
Senate Bill 978, a bipartisan measure introduced last month by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.), is backed by supporters who say it closes glaring loopholes in current copyright infringement law created by the realities of the digital age. ... But critics say a section of the bill provides for steep penalties -- up to five years in prison -- for "publicly performing" copyrighted material and embedding the video to sites like YouTube. "It seems like (the bill) is attacking the core of the Internet itself, which is to promote communication amongst people all over the world" ....
In a May 31 Facebook message, Voelkert, pictured at left, told "Studebaker" that he had secretly installed a GPS tracker in his wife's van and was using the device to monitor her movements. He "went on to discuss what kind of trouble that they could get in for doing this," and asked the teenager to "delete the message so there is no trace of talking about it," Dane reported. Along with disclosing that he planned to flee with his children in early-June, Voelkert wrote that he was "going to find someone to take care of her and now it will be easier because I know where she is at all times." He then added, "you should find someone at your school, there should be some gang bangers there that would put a cap in her ass for $10,000. I am just done with her crap!"
despite the web's green promise, this explosion of data has turned the Internet into one of the planet's fastest-growing sources of carbon emissions. The Internet now consumes two to three per cent of the world's electricity. [And what are the energy offsets for not using paper, vehicles, etc? IRRELEVANT if you want to propagandize about "carbon bigfoots"!]
The underground world of computer hackers has been so thoroughly infiltrated in the US by the FBI and secret service that it is now riddled with paranoia and mistrust, with an estimated one in four hackers secretly informing on their peers, a Guardian investigation has established.
Techdirt reports that Senate bill 978 — a bill to amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright, and for other purposes — may be used to prosecute people for embedding YouTube videos. ... It will also set the stage to criminalize linking to copyrighted information — like corporate media news sources — and shut down the alternative media....
Owners of Android smartphones are being warned to avoid public WiFi networks after researchers found a security flaw that could affect the vast majority of devices based on Google's software.
Monday's policy outlines the moves the United States must make in partnership with allies to promote compatible, secure, reliable and unfettered information exchange. "This is a strategy that goes beyond any singular partner or agency," John Brennan, President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, said during a formal unveiling of the framework at the White House. Academics have long warned that poor interagency collaboration and misaligned domestic and foreign cyberspace policies are hurting U.S. efforts to, among other things, cut off financial support for terrorist groups. Nabbing the groups backing, for example, suicide bombers requires balancing national security and individual online privacy. Government officials typically must trace credit card transactions, online payments, emails and other communications to understand the target's day-to-day activities.
San Francisco. It's poised to become the first U.S. city to restrict delivery of Yellow Pages business directories. The Board of Supervisors cast a 10-1 first vote on Tuesday to ban unrequested home and business delivery of the hefty telephone directories. There will be a second reading and final vote next week. The idea is to protect the environment, fight neighborhood blight and help the economy. And advocates say the Internet makes the directories unnecessary. [EVERYONE has Internet, riiight? Riiiight. Broadband, too, of course.]
Even as the House voted to repeal federal Internet access rules Friday, top Democratic policymakers called free and open communications a vital part of American democracy. Speaking at Free Press's National Conference for Media Reform, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she was pleased by Democratic opposition to the GOP-backed resolution, which cleared the House Friday afternoon. The resolution would nullify Federal Communications Commission net neutrality regulations that aim to prevent Internet service providers from blocking certain websites. "No one should be guarding the gate on the Internet," Pelosi said. [My doublespeak dictionary is wearing out] Critics of the regulations say they unnecessarily interfere in the private market. Republicans who sponsored the House legislation argued that the FCC overstepped its authority to enact rules that aren't needed.
An elderly Georgian woman was scavenging for copper to sell as scrap when she accidentally sliced through an underground cable and cut off internet services to all of neighbouring Armenia... Web users in the nation of 3.2 million people were left twiddling their thumbs for up to five hours... Television pictures showed reporters at a news agency in the capital Yerevan staring glumly at blank screens. [What a hilarious sentence!]
Hundreds of thousands -- and possibly millions -- of websites have been hit with a cyberattack that some are calling "one of the biggest mass-injection attacks we've ever seen."
Viral hoax in waiting or brilliant marketing display of the iPhone's hidden capabilities?... claims to have added a transmitter to his iPhone that allows him to take over any video screen....
...[Survey] discovered that two-thirds are losing sleep to devices like computers, televisions and cell phones... poll shows that the most sleep deprived age group are those ages 13 to 18, who stay up late at night texting before falling asleep....
In a speech to religious broadcasters that received a sustained ovation at his conclusion, he said free expression is under attack by a power structure in Washington populated with regulators who have never set foot inside a radio station or a television studio. "We see this threat in how the FCC is creeping further into the free market by trying to regulate the Internet," Mr. Boehner said. "The last thing we need, in my view, is the FCC serving as Internet traffic controller, and potentially running roughshod over local broadcasters who have been serving their communities with free content for decades...."
Apple on Friday confirmed that it has issued an update to fix a security glitch on the iPhone that could have allowed hackers to disable or take over the smartphones.
China has indefinitely delayed enforcement of a requirement that PC makers preinstall Green Dam-Youth Escort software that experts believe would have screened not just Internet pornography but also some online political content.
Beijing postpones a requirement that PC makers preinstall Green Dam software for filtering Internet content. But it may be just a temporary reprieve. Read this blog post by Stephen Shankland on Politics and Law.
Two major computer makers indicate that each will comply with a Chinese law requiring all computers shipped to the country include a particular type of web-filtering software. The recent moves by Acer Inc. (2353.TW) and Sony Corp. (SNE) to comply suggest some PC makers aren't willing to miss out on one of the world's biggest PC markets, despite concerns about abiding by an unpopular government policy, and the potential damage the software itself can do to their computers. [BOYCOTT ACER! BOYCOTT SONY!]
The New York Times reported on Monday that it had collaborated with online encyclopedia Wikipedia to keep news of its kidnapped reporter in Afghanistan from going public for more than seven months.... Times reporter David Rohde... and his translator, Tahir Ludin, were able to make a clean escape from their captors at a facility in Pakistan this month. Prior to their escape, Bill Keller, editor of the Times, asked Wikipedia to keep news of his kidnapping from going public.... Times believed that publicity over his kidnapping would worsen negotiations to ensure Mr. Rohde’s safe return....
for the Chinese government there really is no difference. Political dissent and pornography are two sides of the same coin — negative forces that disrupt "wholesome society." That's why the same ministry deals with pornography and political speech.
Google Inc. said it's investigating reports that its Google.com Web site is inaccessible in China, a week after the company was criticized by the government for spreading pornography in the biggest Internet market by users.
poorly developed and puts users at risk of having their computers compromised, a security expert who examined the code said on Thursday.
The Chinese Health Ministry on Thursday ordered sharp restrictions on Internet access to medical research papers on sexual subjects. It is the latest move in what the ministry calls an antipornography campaign that many China experts see as a harbinger of a broader crackdown on freedom of expression and dissent.
There's not really any doubt that Green Dam is ripping off CyberSitter.... Last night, for the first time ever, Solid Oak suffered "server problems" so severe the machines had to be rebooted. While DiPasquale shied away from claiming a Chinese attack on the company, she said, "we suspect there's something being done. We've never had a problem until last night...."
"We have found that the English version of google.com has spread lots of pornographic, lewd and vulgar content, which is in serious violation of Chinese laws and regulations," said foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang at a news briefing. He said authorities summoned Google representatives and told them to "remove the material immediately." [HAHAHAHAHAHA]
Hackers broke into the computers of the Oregon University System and posted a message telling President Barack Obama to mind his own business and stop talking about the disputed Iranian election. The message, which asserted there was no cheating in the election, was up for 90 minutes before technicians took it down Wednesday morning. The hackers apparently took advantage of third-party software that had not been properly updated... The text, in red on a black background... [YUCK! Why not make it FLASHING as well!]
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