The new Web site for Obama's White House is already drawing attention from privacy activists and tech bloggers. While the initial focus has been on the site's policies relating to search engine robots, a far more interesting tidbit has so far escaped the public eye: the White House has quietly exempted YouTube from strict rules relating to the use of cookies on federal agency Web sites.
Connecticut Wants MySpace to Identify Ousted Offenders
The Connecticut attorney general's office oserved MySpace a subpoena demanding that MySpace hand over the identities of registered sex offenders it claims the social-networking site discovered and subsequently removed from its roster of members. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal also told CNET News that his office is reviewing independent research about registered sex offenders said to still populate the site.
FBI Hit by Backlog in Fighting Child Porn Online
The FBI's stepped-up effort to fight Internet child pornography has led to an evidence backlog in the bureau's computer labs, auditors said. The Justice Department's inspector general said the number of such cases handled by the FBI rose more than 20-fold between the 1996 and 2007 budget years.
Apple Settles Nano Scratch Suit for $22.5 Million
Apple has reached a $22.5 million settlement agreement in the class action iPod Nano scratch lawsuit and potential claimants began receiving settlement notices, according to the plaintiffs attorney. The lawsuit, filed in October 2005 in a California Superior Court in Los Angeles County, alleges Apple's iPod Nano is prone to scratches and its alleged defects were not disclosed by the company.
Alleged Hacker McKinnon Wins Judicial Review
Judges have granted a review of the Home Secretary's decision to continue with extradition proceedings against Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon. The decision -- by Lord Justice Maurice Key and Mr. Justice Simon -- places a judicial block on attempts to haul McKinnon over to the U.S. on hacking offences, irrespective of whether UK prosecutors decide to press charges in Britain.
Obama to Keep BlackBerry for Limited Use
President Barack Obama won an important personal victory: He gets to keep his BlackBerry. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president will limit its use, and security has been enhanced to ensure that Obama can communicate in a way that's protected. Only a small number of senior staff members and personal friends would be given his e-mail address.
White House Staff Struggles with Technology
Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software, and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.
Critics Question Response to Facebook Phishing Attack
The latest phishing scam on Facebook has raised the question yet again as to whether the social networking site is dropping the ball on security measures and properly responding to privacy complaints. In a recent string of phishing attacks in which hackers have broken into a user's Facebook account and hit up his or her friends for money with the online chat tool, pretending to be stranded or robbed, a complaint has emerged that the privacy team at Facebook hasn't responded to users in a timely manner.
House Committee OKs $3 Billion for Net Service
The House Energy and Commerce Committee backed including about $3 billion in grants to expand Internet service as part of a larger economic stimulus bill, including a provision requiring "open access" in wireless service and on the Internet. The Democratically controlled committee cleared the provisions aimed at expanding high-speed Internet and wireless service in rural and hard-to-serve areas over objections from several Republican members.
Spammers Using Google's Adwords Program
Security experts say spammers are gaming Google's Adwords program again in order to get malicious sites placed at the top of paid search results. Some search results, listed to the right of organic search results in Google, contain links purporting to take searchers to the subject they are looking for, but redirect them to sites that infect their PCs instead.
Hoax on Wired.com Says Jobs Had Heart Attack
It is a hoax, Wired reported -- an article that looks like a story on Wired.com and that claims Apple CEO Steve Jobs has had a heart attack. "A widely-circulated URL which points to an image that purports to be a wired.com story about Steve Jobs health is a hack job," Wired.com said.
Widespread Worm Infects Millions of Computers
A new digital plague has hit the Internet, infecting millions of personal and business computers in what seems to be the first step of a multistage attack. The world's leading computer security experts do not yet know who programmed the infection, or what the next stage will be.
Pirated Copies of Apple Software Have Trojan Horse
A company that makes security software for Mac computers is warning that copies of Apple's iWork productivity software that are available for download from peer-to-peer file-sharing networks may be infected with a Trojan horse program. The malicious software appears to be designed to enlist infected systems in a bot army that is targeting Web sites with so much junk traffic they can no longer accommodate legitimate visitors.
Credit Card Processor Admits Intrusion by Hackers
Heartland Payment Systems disclosed that intruders hacked into the computers it uses to process 100 million payment card transactions per month for 175,000 merchants. Robert Baldwin, Heartland's president and CFO, said that the intruders had access to Heartland's system for "longer than weeks" in late 2008.
Supreme Court Won't Revisit Child Online Protection Act
The Supreme Court refused to consider attempts to revive a 1998 law intended to protect children from Internet pornography, ending a legal conflict dating to the administration of President Bill Clinton. The Child Online Protection Act has been the subject of court battles since Congress enacted it in 1998, and it has never taken effect.
New White House Website Not Without Bugs
Barack Obama's new White House site has its bugs. The site administrators posted an entry saying Obama "was sworn in" before that happened; another post titled "Read the Inaugural Address" was blank an hour after Obama finished giving it; some photo captions were incorrect; and the search option didn't work reliably.
IBM Faces Antitrust Accusations in Europe
International Business Machines Corp. will face accusations for a second time that it's abusing its market dominance in mainframe computers to shut out rival products in violation of European Union antitrust rules. T3 Technologies Inc. said in a statement that it will file a complaint today with the European Commission, the EU's antitrust authority in Brussels, over claims IBM prevents the sale of competing mainframe hardware products by tying the sale of its operating system to its mainframe hardware.
Court Blocks Kentucky's Attempt to Seize Domain Names
Kentucky may not seize 141 online casinos' Internet domain names in an attempt to block them from operating within the state's borders, an appeals panel ruled. In a 2-1 opinion, a three-judge panel of the Kentucky Court of Appeals said an Internet domain name is not a gambling device.
Security Experts Warn of Obama-Themed Phishing Scam
Security experts are warning about a new "phishing" scam that aims to inflict dangerous malware on unsuspecting computer users by enticing them with an e-mail link that promises surprising news about Barack Obama. The unsolicited e-mails contain the unlikely suggestion that Obama has decided not to go through with the inauguration.
White House Website Revised with Obama, Blog
To the keys to the nuclear arsenal, we now add one more technological weapon that is handed over to the incoming president at exactly noon every Inauguration Day: the root password to WhiteHouse.gov. Before Barack Obama even finished taking the oath of office, the White House site switched over to the Obama administration’s version.
