A South Korean blogger charged with spreading false information has requested bail and said his arrest was unconstitutional, a lawyer said. The 30-year-old man -- identified in court documents as Park Dae-sung -- was charged with posting a blog in December that said the government had banned major financial institutions and trade businesses from buying U.S. dollars.
Company Acquires Trasmeta's Patent Portfolio
Intellectual Ventures has acquired the patent portfolio of Transmeta, an erstwhile supplier of low-power Intel-compatible x86 processors. Intellectual Venture Funding, an affiliate of Intellectual Ventures, has picked up 140 U.S. patents and additional pending patent applications owned by Transmeta, which was acquired by privately held Novafora in November of last year.
Google Plan Would Let Customers See Net Filtering
Google unveiled a plan aimed at eventually letting computer users determine whether providers like Comcast are inappropriately blocking or slowing their work online. The scheme is the latest bid in the debate over network neutrality, which pits content companies like Google against some Internet service providers.
AT&T, Comcast May Cooperate with Music Industry
AT&T and Comcast, two of the nation's largest Internet service providers, are expected to be among a group of ISPs that will cooperate with the music industry in battling illegal file sharing, three sources close to the companies told CNET News. The Recording Industry Association of America, the lobbying group representing the four largest recording companies, said last month that it had enlisted the help of ISPs as part of a new antipiracy campaign.
Heartland Payment Processor Sued Over Data Breach
Payment processor Heartland Payment Systems has been sued over a data breach it disclosed publicly on Inauguration Day. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., alleges that Heartland failed to adequately safeguard the compromised consumer data, did not notify consumers about the breach in a timely manner as required by law, and has not offered to compensate consumers for costs they may incur in protecting themselves from identity fraud.
Government Keeps Getting Microsoft Antitrust Complaints
Government antitrust attorneys said that they continue to receive complaints from hardware makers and other companies about Microsoft's business practices, even as the software giant has stepped up its efforts to cooperate with the state and federal authorities overseeing its antitrust consent decree. In the more than six years since the department has been enforcing the consent decree, it has received the largest number of complaints from third parties about a particular Windows Vista marketing program run by Microsoft, said Steven Houck, who represents the state of California.
E-mail System Working Again at White House
Crisis averted at the White House. The e-mail system is back up and running.
Click Fraud Reached All-Time High in 2008
Thanks in part to armies of compromised computers, click fraud reached an all-time high in the fourth quarter. Click fraud lets Web sites increase revenue from ads supplied by services such as Google's AdSense or the Yahoo Publisher Network, though those companies take measures to screen out bogus links so advertisers don't have to pay.
VA to Pay Military Personnel $20 Million for Data Breach
The Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to pay $20 million to current and former military personnel to settle a class action lawsuit on behalf of the men and women whose personal data was on a laptop computer stolen during a burglary. The names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of about 26.5 million active duty troops and veterans were on the laptop and external drive, which disappeared while in the custody of a Veterans Affairs data analyst in 2006.
White House E-mail Hit by "Server Outage"
Shortly after the workweek began, the tech-savvy Obama administration was hit with a mysterious "server outage" that shut down all incoming and outgoing e-mail for more than eight hours, forcing aides to resort to old-fashioned phone calls and face-to-face conversation. There was no indication that the outage caused any sort of national calamity.
Security Experts Watching Large-Scale Internet Worm
The world's top virus hunters are watching every move made by the attacker in control of a nasty new Internet worm. What worries them most is that the person, or group, controlling the worm could at any time direct the PCs to carry out criminal activities on an unprecedented scale.
U.S. Claims Victory at WTO in Chinese Piracy Case
The United States claimed victory in a groundbreaking World Trade Organization case against China for failing to protect and enforce copyrights and trademarks on a wide range of goods. "Today, a WTO panel found that a number of deficiencies in China's IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) regime are incompatible with its WTO obligations," acting U.S. Trade Representative Peter Allgeier said in a statement.
EU Court Rejects Delay in Intel Antitrust Case
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.
