An EU court rejected Intel's bid to delay a deadline for the chipmaker to address antitrust concerns. In October, Intel filed a petition with the Court of First Instance, Europe's second-highest court, asking for a delay in the investigation by the European Commission so the company could gain access to additional documents to bolster its defense.
Cybercriminals Take Down Malware Sites Quickly
In their never-ending war with antivirus vendors and other malware fighters, cybercriminals have come up with a new twist to evade detection -- putting up malicious sites for one day or less on average. Antivirus vendor AVG Research found that in the last quarter of 2008, about 60 percent of new sites linked to malware were up for less than one day.
Newspapers Settle Lawsuit Over Online News Excerpts
GateHouse Media Inc. will set up technical barriers preventing Boston.com, the Boston Globe's website, from automated "scraping" of GateHouse content, and Boston.com has agreed to honor those barriers under a settlement in a widely watched lawsuit filed by GateHouse against The New York Times Co. At issue was the practice of posting headlines and short excerpts of text along with links to stories on other sites.
Apple Gets Patent on iPhone's Multitouch Interface
Apple has been awarded a patent that appears to cover much of the iPhone's multitouch user interface. The patent covers many of the methods used by the iPhone to display data, such as pinch-to-zoom Web browsing and swipe-to-scroll.
Monster.com Reports Illegal Access of Its Database
Monster.com is advising its users to change their passwords after data including e-mail addresses, names and phone numbers were stolen from its database. The break-in comes just as the swelling ranks of the unemployed are turning to sites like Monster.com to look for work.
Isle of Man Proposes Blanket License for Music Online
Under a proposal, the 80,000 people who live on the Isle of Man would be able to download unlimited amounts of music -- perhaps even from notorious peer-to-peer pirate sites. To make this possible, broadband subscribers would pay a nominal fee of as little as $1.38 a month to their Internet service providers.
British ISPs Won't Be Forced to Drop File-Sharers
Internet service providers will not be forced to disconnect users who repeatedly flout the law by illegally sharing music and video files, The Times has learned. Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, said last year that the Government had "serious legislative intent" to compel internet companies to cut off customers who ignore warnings not to pirate material.
Copyright Suit Against News Sites Going to Trial
A copyright and trademark infringement lawsuit filed against The New York Times Co., owner of The Boston Globe and its Boston.com website, is being watched closely by news organizations, Internet researchers, independent bloggers, and companies that aggregate news online by linking to a variety of news sites. The case has been scheduled for trial in U.S. District Court in Boston.
White House Exempts YouTube from Cookie Policy
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.
