A 21-year-old Australian claims to be the first hacker in the world to infect the iPhone with a virus. It spreads between phones with each call but the damage extends to changing the device's wallpaper -- to a photo of Eighties pop star Rick Astley famous for his hit Never Gonna Give You Up.
Group Takes Over Facebook Pages to Show Security Threat
An anonymous group calling itself "Control Your Info" has taken over hundreds of Facebook groups to highlight what it claims is a major security weakness on the social networking site. Facebook downplayed the incident and said no hacking or confidential information was involved.
Indictment Says $9 Million Stolen from Credit Card Processor
Several eastern Europeans and an unidentified accomplice were indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly hacking into a computer network operated by the Atlanta-based credit card processing company RBS WorldPay and stealing $9 million. The indictment alleges that the group used sophisticated hacking techniques to compromise the data encryption that was used by RBS WorldPay to protect customer data on payroll debit cards.
RealNetworks Appeals Ruling Against DVD Software
RealNetworks has filed an appeal of a federal judge's decision to halt the sales of its DVD-copying software, RealDVD. Real said in documents that San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel erred when she placed a preliminary injunction on the sales of RealDVD in August.
EU Regulators Move Toward Blocking Oracle-Sun Deal
Now Oracle may be about to get a taste of its own medicine, after EU regulators took a big step toward blocking its $7.4 billion deal to buy an ailing computer giant, Sun Microsystems. Oracle has spent much of the past decade lobbying to get European Union regulators to force one of its biggest competitors, Microsoft, to loosen its iron-like grip on software code and other intellectual property.
Social Security Numbers Exposed on University's Website
Human error is to blame for the accidental exposure of more than 4,500 Chaminade University student's Social Security numbers on the private Catholic college's official Web site. University officials discovered the snafu Wednesday and quickly removed the obscure but accessible links from the Web site.
Celebrity Home Website Raises Privacy Debate
A website boasts that users "will be able to see behind the tall hedges, big gates and security systems" and "get unprecedented access to the sort of lifestyle your favorite celebrity can afford." To a lot of stars and their lawyers, that's a big problem.
Judge Says Spectators Can't Tweet from Court
Twittering from court is prohibited, according to a federal judge in Georgia who banned spectators from sending live updates from a criminal trial. U.S. District Judge Clay Land in Georgia wrote that Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure should be interpreted to ban Twitter.
Cyberwarfare Remains Top Priority for Obama
Ten years ago, we were told that before too long it might be possible for a hacker with a computer to disable critical infrastructure in a major city and disrupt essential services, to steal millions of dollars from banks all over the world, infiltrate defense systems, extort millions from public companies, and even sabotage our weapons systems. Today it's not only possible, all of that has actually happened, plus a lot more we don't even know about.
Tagged.com Settles Suits Over E-mail Messages
Tagged.com, the San Francisco-based social network that was criticized earlier this year for deceiving people into signing up for the service, has settled two separate lawsuits with the attorneys general of New York and Texas. From April to June of this year, the site sent 60 million messages to Internet users with personal entreaties to join the social network (e.g., "Brad has posted a private photo on tagged.com").
Murdoch Vows to Pull News Articles from Google
Rupert Murdoch says he will remove stories from Google's search index as a way to encourage people to pay for content online. In an interview with Sky News Australia, the mogul said that newspapers in his media empire -- including the Sun, the Times and the Wall Street Journal -- would consider blocking Google entirely once they had enacted plans to charge people for reading their stories on the web.
Pharmaceutical Group Wants FDA to Adopt Online Safety Symbol
A drug industry group urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to adopt a universal safety symbol for Internet content containing FDA-approved information about a medicine or medical device. The proposal from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents some of the biggest drug makers in the world, came ahead of an FDA public meeting on how FDA-regulated prescription drugs and medical devices are promoted in social media and on the Internet.
Class-Action Suit Filed Against SnapNames
A class-action lawsuit was filed in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court by an attorney who also seems to be the plaintiff. The suit was filed on behalf of lead Plaintiff Carlos A. Cueto who says he participated in online auctions for domain names at SnapNames.Com, Inc.
Parties Seek Extension in Google Books Settlement
The parties to the Google book settlement, which would legalize the creation of a vast library of digital books, have asked the judge overseeing a revision of the agreement for an extension to this Friday, Nov. 13. At a hearing in October, Google and its partners at the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers outlined an aggressive timeline for modifying the agreement to satisfy the objections of the Justice Department and other critics.
EBay Settles Litigation with Founders of Skype
EBay has formally settled the litigation around its sale of the Skype online calling service. The founders of Skype, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, will drop their lawsuits against the company and a consortium of buyers whose bid to purchase 65 percent of Skype was announced last month, according to an announcement released by eBay.
Internet Censorship Open to Challenge at WTO
Censorship of the Internet is open to challenge at the World Trade Organization as it can restrict trade in services delivered online, a forthcoming study says. A censorship case at the WTO could raise sovereignty issues, given the clear right of member states to restrict trade on moral grounds -- for example, by blocking access to child pornography websites.
Glenn Beck Loses Ruling Over Domain Name
An intellectual property organization has denied a request by Glenn Beck to take down a Web site with a domain name that the talk show host claimed improperly used his name and defamed his name. An arbitration panel for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an agency within the United Nations, found that Isaac Eiland-Hall registered the URL glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com as a political statement and not as a bad faith effort to profit from Beck's name.
Chinese Agency Orders Video Game Site Shut Down
The Chinese General Administration of Press and Publication ordered the Shanghai-based operator of World of Warcraft, NetEase, to shut down its servers for World of Warcraft. The agency said that it had rejected the company's application to become the new host of the game's four million Chinese players.
China Moves to Ban Physical Punishment for Net Addicts
China's ministry of health has moved to ban the use of physical punishment to treat teenagers addicted to the web, according to draft guidelines. There are dozens of treatment centres offering to wean youths, mostly boys, from spending hours on the web.
European Lawmakers Approve Internet User Protections
European lawmakers agreed on new protections for Internet users, striking a compromise between national governments seeking to impose tough anti-piracy laws and consumer organizations that wanted to enshrine Internet access as an unassailable right. The agreement removes the last hurdle to passage of sweeping changes to European telecommunications law, which had been held hostage for six months by the standoff over Internet access.
