The FBI wrote a letter in July to the Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organization of Wikipedia, demanding that it take down an image of the FBI seal accompanying an article on the bureau, and threatened litigation. The problem, those at Wikipedia say, is that the law cited in the FBI's letter is largely about keeping people from flashing fake badges or profiting from the use of the seal, and not about posting images on noncommercial Web sites.
A judge's ruling in a pre-trial motion involving a Gaston County murder case affirms that First Amendment protection extends to those who make anonymous comments about stories on news websites. Attorneys for Michael Mead had sought to force The Gaston Gazette to reveal information that could have been used to help reveal the identity of an anonymous commenter on the news organization's website.
Blockbuster Inc., the money-losing movie-rental chain, won a judge's ruling that it doesn't infringe a patent owned by American Patent Development Corp. LLC for video-on-demand technology. The Dallas-based company and its Movielink unit, of Santa Monica, California, were sued in 2007 over the 1995 patent.
Hackers have begun adapting tried-and-true computer infections to work on Internet-enabled smartphones that are all the rage with consumers.
Research In Motion Ltd. issued a statement to its BlackBerry customers assuring them that their data was secure, a day after regulators in the United Arab Emirates said they'd tussled with RIM over access to that data.
In the e-book price wars, Apple and Amazon might be enjoying an unfair advantage, Connecticut's Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said as he announced an investigation of their contracts with book publishers. Blumenthal fired off letters to each company requesting that their attorneys schedule a meeting with his office to discuss their deals with five of the largest e-book publishers in the U.S.: Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins and Penguin.
Apple sued companies it said are selling unauthorized electronic accessories such as chargers, speakers and cables for the iPod music player, iPhone and iPad tablet computer. "Many are of inferior quality and reliability, raising significant concerns over compatibility with and damage to Apple's products," Apple said in the complaint, citing a user comment that a charger from one of the companies drained his iPod rather than replenishing the battery.
The banking industry wants consumers to monitor their online accounts for unauthorized transactions on a "continuous, almost daily, basis," says Doug Johnson, the American Bankers Association's vice president of risk-management policy. That's because PCs and smartphones have become "the online bank branch for a lot of individuals," he says.
Two security experts said they released a tool for attacking smartphones that use Google Android operating system to persuade manufacturers to fix a bug that lets hackers read a victim's e-mail and text messages.
The largest U.S. websites are installing new and intrusive consumer-tracking technologies on the computers of people visiting their sites -- in some cases, more than 100 tracking tools at a time -- a Wall Street Journal investigation has found. The tracking files represent the leading edge of a lightly regulated, emerging industry of data-gatherers who are in effect establishing a new business model for the Internet: one based on intensive surveillance of people to sell data about, and predictions of, their interests and activities, in real time.
The UAE said it will block key features on BlackBerry smart phones, citing national security concerns because the devices operate beyond the government's ability to monitor their use. Officials in neighboring Saudi Arabia indicated it planned to follow suit.
According to Lookout, a U.S.-based security firm, more than 80 Google Android wallpaper apps were collecting mobile phone numbers and personal details, including unique subscriber numbers. Many of the apps also "dialed home" to their developers, transmitting unencrypted sensitive data back to remote servers.
Google did not grab "significant" personal details when collecting data from wi-fi networks, according to the UK's Information Commissioner Office. The finding came after the body reviewed some of the data Google scooped up from unsecured networks.
The U.S. needs to consider working with other leading nations to develop rules of engagement in cyberspace, retired general and former director of the CIA Michael Hayden said during a keynote address at the Black Hat conference. As the country with the largest stakes on the Internet, the U.S. has been somewhat reluctant to engage in such discourse because of concerns that any international negotiations will force it to reveal or limit its cyber capabilities, Hayden said.
Google said that its search engine was "fully blocked" in China, along with Google ads and mobile search. This is the first time that Google has been blocked since March, when it closed its search service in China and began automatically redirecting users to an uncensored search engine in Hong Kong after a standoff over censorship.
The nonprofit group that manages the Internet's address system said that it was working with the Commerce Department and security provider VeriSign to deploy a new tool aimed at curbing Internet crime. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers announced it was deploying the Deployment of Domain Name System Security Extensions, or DNSSEC, at the Internet's root, the huge database of Internet addresses, or domain names.
A High Court has ruled that devices that allow gamers to play pirated video games are illegal in the UK. The ruling specifically targets a range of popular devices which can be used to store and play copied games on the Nintedo DS handheld console.
A security expert showed off techniques for breaking into ATMs, causing machines to spit out cash to a cheering crowd at an annual gathering of hackers. At the annual Black Hat conference, Barnaby Jack showed how he could upload his home-brewed piece of software dubbed Dillinger -- named after the infamous bank robber -- to an ATM made by privately held Tranax Technologies.
With pressure mounting on the federal government to find new revenues, Congress is considering legalizing, and taxing, an activity it banned just four years ago: Internet gambling. The House Financial Services Committee approved a bill that would effectively legalize online poker and other nonsports betting, overturning a 2006 federal ban that critics say merely drove Web-based casinos offshore.
A security researcher released a file containing the names, profile addresses and unique identification numbers of more than 100 million Facebook users. The information was corralled via a public directory Facebook makes available that lists users who are sharing at least some of their profile information with everyone on the Internet.
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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.