Alaska Governor Sarah Palin must save any e-mails she sent from private accounts regarding state business, an Anchorage judge ordered. The e-mails must be preserved until a lawsuit requesting the e-mails be made public is resolved, said Anchorage Superior Court Judge Craig Stowers.
Judge Refuses to Let 9/11 Mastermind Access Internet
A U.S. military judge has denied a request from professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for Internet access inside his Guantanamo cell, ruling he does not need it to prepare for his death penalty trial. Judge Ralph Kohlmann, a Marine colonel, said Mohammed knew he would face prison restrictions when he chose to act as his own lawyer.
Bush to Sign Law Restricting Online Pharmacies
President Bush is set to sign legislation that will help the federal government crack down on hundreds of rogue Internet pharmacies that peddle controlled substances like the painkiller Vicodin or the stimulant Ritalin. The bill reflects growing concern among parents and public-health experts that certain online pharmacies enable almost anyone to purchase drugs with a few mouse clicks and without seeing a doctor or getting a valid prescription.
RealDVD Suit About "Controlling Innovation," EFF Says
The group that advocates for the rights of Internet users said in a blog post that the the primary reason the Motion Picture Association of America filed a copyright suit against RealNetworks and is trying to halt the sale of the RealDVD software is to make sure the company, and anyone else wishing to build movie players, gets Hollywood's permission first. "It has nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with controlling innovation," said Fred von Lohmann, EFF's senior attorney.
Sophisticated Virus Attack Targets YouTube Users
Even some sophisticated surfers could get taken in by a sneaky new attack in which criminals create fake YouTube pages -- dead-on replicas of the real site -- to push their malicious software and make it look like it's safe stuff coming from a trusted source. A program circulating online helps hackers build those fake pages.
Spam Attack Blocks E-mail Access for Virgin Customers
Tens of thousands of Virgin customers have spent four days cut off from, or with little access to, their e-mail accounts after a suspected spam attack. The problem affected a company which processes messages delivered through the Virgin.net platform.
Company Drops Plan to Sell ISP Data to Advertisers
Another company is giving up on the idea that American Internet providers should be able to watch where their customers surf and sell that information to advertisers. This time it is Adzilla, a start-up in Brisbane, Calif., that is closing its North American operations. Its chief executive, Toby Gabriner, has resigned.
TiVo Gets $104.6 Million from Echostar in Patent Case
TiVo said it has received the $104.6 million in damages from EchoStar that it won when the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal of a patent infringement case. TiVo said in a statement that it received the damages following the Supreme Court's decision not to review an appellate court's ruling.
Kazakhstan Internet Users Say Blog Service Blocked
Internet users in Kazakhstan complained of censorship after being unable to access the popular blogging service Livejournal, but the state-owned telecoms company denied it was blocking it. Associates of Rakhat Aliyev, the former son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbayev who fell out with the veteran leader last year, started their own blog on Livejournal in June which often contains critical comments about the government.
Lawmaker's Son Indicted in Palin E-mail Hacking
The son of Democratic state Rep. Mike Kernell of Memphis faces a December trial in Knoxville on a charge that he hacked into a personal e-mail account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. David C. Kernell, 20, a 2006 Germantown High School graduate and now an economics major at the University of Tennessee, pleaded not guilty during an arraignment in Knoxville.
Couple Ordered to Pay $236 Million for Sending Spam
A federal judge has ordered an Arizona couple to pay more than $236 million for sending millions of spam messages to a small Iowa ISP. Henry Perez and his wife Suzanne Bartok were ordered to pay the damages -- amounting to $10 per bulk e-mail -- following a four-year court case in which the judge found that they had bombarded CIS Internet Services of Clinton, Iowa, over a four-month period in 2003.
Adobe Fixes "Clickjacking" Security Flaw in Flash
Adobe issued a workaround for a serious issue that could allow attackers to change the security settings within Flash. Termed "clickjacking," the process gives "an attacker the ability to trick a user into clicking on something only barely or momentarily noticeable," wrote WhiteHat Security CTO Jeremiah Grossman in a blog posting last month.
Judge Keeps RealDVD Off Market for Now
RealNetworks failed to convince a district judge to lift a restraining order and allow the company to start selling RealDVD again until she learns from experts, including the court's, how the DVD-copying software functions. That means RealDVD, a software that enables users to copy a DVD and store it on their hard drive, is unlikely to reappear in the marketplace for at least another month and perhaps longer.
American Airlines to Filter Porn Sites In-Flight
American Airlines says it will filter an in-flight Internet service to block pornography sites, reversing course after complaints from flight attendants and passengers. American said it was working with technology provider Aircell to allow filtering of its nascent Internet service.
Data Mining to Find Terrorists Called Not Feasible
The most extensive government report to date on whether terrorists can be identified through data mining has yielded an important conclusion: It doesn't really work. A National Research Council report, years in the making, concludes that automated identification of terrorists through data mining or any other mechanism "is neither feasible as an objective nor desirable as a goal of technology development efforts."
Report Finds Record Number of Data Breaches
U.S. corporations, governments and universities reported a record 516 consumer data breaches in the first nine months of this year, incidents prompted chiefly by hackers and employee theft, according to a report by a nonprofit group that works to prevent fraud.
Jury Rules for Cox in Patent Case Against Verizon
Cox Communications did not infringe patents owned by Verizon Communications, a jury in Virginia decided. Verizon had accused Cox of infringing six patents related to Internet telephony, but a jury at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia decided against Verizon on all six patents.
Internet Drug Videos Called Threat to Teens
The director of the White House war on drugs said that Internet videos that show people getting high pose a dangerous threat to teenagers by encouraging them to use drugs and alcohol. John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, spoke as his office released a study about drug-related videos on popular sites such as MySpace.
RealNetworks Suspends Sales of DVD-Copying Software
RealNetworks suspended selling its RealDVD software in response to the request of a judge who needed time to review the legal issues involving the software, the company confirmed. In U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Tuesday, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel will take up two lawsuits involving the software, which allows users to copy DVDs to their computer hard drives.
Laptop Stolen from McCain's Field Office
Republican campaigners in Missouri are beefing up security after a laptop containing "strategic information" was stolen from a campaign field office of presidential contender Sen. John McCain. The theft occurred at a campaign office in Independence, Missouri, according to Tina Hervey, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Republican Party.
