Cyberattacks were recently used to intimidate opponents of a mining project in Vietnam with ties to China, according to Google and McAfee. Malware that was disguised as a popular Vietnamese-language keyboard driver for Windows users was used to create a botnet, according to blog posts from Google's Neel Mehta and McAfee Chief Technical Officer George Kurtz.
In what appears to be a coordinated assault, the e-mail accounts of at least a dozen rights activists, academics and journalists who cover China have been compromised by unknown intruders. A Chinese human rights organization also said that hackers disabled its Web site for a fifth straight day.
Google Inc.'s search sites in China suddenly stopped working, and the U.S. Internet giant, after initially taking the blame for a technical glitch, reversed itself and said that it had concluded China was blocking users' searches with its "Great Firewall." The episode demonstrated how fraught with confusion the relationship between China and Google remains, and it could represent a sharp escalation of the country's battle with Google a week after the U.S. Internet giant stopped obeying Chinese censorship rules.
A jury has decided in favor of Novell Inc. in an ownership battle over Unix computer server operating systems. Following a three-week trial in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, the jury ruled that Waltham, Mass.-based Novell owns copyrights to Unix, even though it sold licensing rights for the technology in 1995 to The SCO Group of Lindon, Utah.
In a Wall Street Journal column, the CEOs of Google and Verizon wrote that the Federal Communication Commission's recently released National Broadband Plan deserves attention. "Connecting Americans in all parts of the country and in all walks of life can help lift society by connecting minds, stimulating ideas, and unleashing the creative potential of millions of Americans," they wrote.
The EU Commission wants member states to agree to block access to child pornography websites and impose tougher punishments on child abusers and human trafficking gangs, it said. The Commission, the EU's executive, is proposing a package of measures to strengthen the bloc's fight against child pornography, including harmonizing the prosecution of child abuse and human trafficking, and more severe punishments for both first-time and repeat offenders.
JC Penney was one of the victims of notorious computer hacker Albert Gonzalez, according to unsealed documents made available on by a federal judge in Boston. Penney, which during Gonzalez' trial had asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to bar the government from disclosing its identity, was revealed in the documents to be the company that had been known throughout the trial as "Company A."
Google said many users in China were blocked from using its search service by a technical glitch that made their search queries appear to be associated with Radio Free Asia, which is blocked by Chinese authorities. Google said the problem was triggered by changes it made to its own search code, and it is looking at how to resolve the problem.
A Taiwanese chipmaker is suing Apple over the use of multitouch technology in several products, including the iPhone, iPod Touch, and forthcoming iPad. Elan Microelectronics filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission Tuesday, accusing Apple of violating an Elan-owned patent that covers "touch-sensitive input devices with the ability to detect the simultaneous presence of two or more fingers."
Facebook users are expressing strong disapproval of proposed privacy changes that will let the site share some user information with third-party Web sites and applications. Under Facebook's current rules you're asked first if you want to share information (your name, photos and friends list) with third-party sites.
A broad coalition of companies including Google, Microsoft, and AT&T, joined by liberal and conservative advocacy groups, will announce a major push to update federal privacy laws to protect mobile and cloud computing users, CNET has learned. They hope to convince the U.S. Congress to update a 1986 law -- written in the pre-Internet era of telephone modems and the black-and-white Macintosh Plus -- to sweep in location privacy and documents stored on the Web through services like Google Docs, Flickr, and Picasa.
Company and federal officials said they believed the theft of identity data on 3.3 million people with student loans was the largest-ever breach of such information and could affect as many as 5% of all federal student-loan borrowers. Names, addresses, Social Security numbers and other personal data on borrowers were stolen from the St. Paul, Minn., headquarters of Educational Credit Management Corp., a nonprofit guarantor of federal student loans, during the weekend of March 20-21, according to the company.
A group of House Energy and Commerce members are urging the FTC to investigate complaints that Google's Buzz social networking service and some of its other services may harm consumer privacy. In a letter sent to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, the lawmakers urged the agency to investigate whether Google disclosed personal information about its customers without their consent as part of the launch of Buzz in February.
The United States has raised concerns with Australia about the impact of a proposed Internet filter that would place restrictions on Web content, an official said. The concerns of Australia's most important security ally further undermine plans that would make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among the world's democracies.
Like so many parts of the Web, cloud computing doesn’t fit neatly under regulatory oversight of any one agency. Check out Verizon and AT&T’s call for Congress to rethink the way federal regulators oversee Internet service providers, applications, cloud computing and device makers.
A community reeling from the suicide of a popular high school senior turned its sorrow to outrage over a practice known as "trolling," in which derogatory, hurtful comments are posted online against a person. In this instance, a tribute site created for Alexis Pilkington, 17, of West Islip High School was the target of insulting messages after her death.
As Microsoft struggles to fight off several high-visibility patent lawsuits, an ophthalmologist in Wisconsin has filed another patent infringement suit that potentially could cost the software giant an eye-popping amount. The suit, filed in U.S. District for the Western District of Wisconsin, alleges that Microsoft's Zune music player's "Buy from FM" feature infringes a pair of patents that were granted in 2002.
Google is using Internet freedom as a rallying cry in its confrontation with China. But the deafening silence from U.S. corporations underscores how increasingly isolated Google looks in its hope to rewrite the rules in the country with the biggest number of Internet users.
A U.S. Patent and Trademark Office document shows Fujitsu turned the iPad trademark over to Apple officially on March 17. Though it's not disclosed, we can assume that Fujitsu was compensated in some way for assigning that trademark, which it has owned since 2003, to Apple.
More malware is now coming out of China than from any other country, according to a new report from Symantec. The United States still leads the world in the number of malware attacks sent from mail servers.
About : Legal Services | Doug Isenberg | Cases & Clients | Firm News
Resources : YouTube Channel | Daily News | Blog | Masterclass | Domain Dispute Digest
The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.