A New Hampshire man has been sentenced to 82 months in federal prison for his role in an international computer hacking conspiracy and failing to file income tax returns while living in Boston. Asu Pala, 37, was ordered to forfeit $7.9 million and pay $2.2 million in back income taxes.
Efforts to legalize online gambling in the U.S. are moving to the states as lawmakers roll the dice on bills that aim to steer around federal laws effectively prohibiting Internet wagering. The first real test of the state efforts comes in New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie is expected to decide the fate of a bill that would let Atlantic City casino companies run gambling websites for state residents.
Former Senator Christopher Dodd, who chose not to run for reelection last year after controversies including an ethics probe and the taking of preferential mortgages from Countrywide's CEO, will be the new head of the Motion Picture Association of America. The MPAA said that Dodd, who had served in the Senate since 1981, would become its new chairman and chief executive officer as of March 17.
The U.S. government has labeled China's top search engine, Baidu, and a popular e-commerce platform "notorious markets" linked to sales of pirated and fake goods. The two companies were among 33 websites or public markets in China, Russia, India and other countries that the U.S. Trade Representative's office said facilitate trade in music, clothing and other goods that are fake or unauthorized copies.
The second of two men charged with stealing more than 100,000 e-mail addresses of Apple iPad users has been released on bail in New Jersey. Andrew Auernheimer and San Francisco resident Daniel Spitler face one count each of fraud and conspiracy to access a computer without authorization.
The California nonprofit organization that operates the Internet's levers has always been a target for global heavies like Russia and China that prefer the United Nations in charge of the Web. But these days, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is fending off attacks from a seemingly unlikely opposition: the Obama administration.
As the surreptitious tracking of Internet users becomes more aggressive and widespread, tiny start-ups and technology giants alike are pushing a new product: privacy. Companies including Microsoft Corp., McAfee Inc. -- and even some online-tracking companies themselves -- are rolling out new ways to protect users from having their movements monitored online.
A rogue Android app that's been tweaked by hackers can hijack a smartphone and run up big texting bills before the owner knows it, Symantec said. The newest in a line of compromised Android apps, said Vikram Thakur, a principle security response manager at Symantec, is Steamy Window, a free program that Chinese hackers have modified, then re-released into the wild.
Despite congressional criticism, Facebook is planning to resume the aborted rollout of a feature that allowed the optional sharing of addresses and mobile phone numbers. Facebook said in a letter that it is evaluating different ways to "enhance user control" over information sharing that would go into effect "once the feature is re-enabled."
Sen. Charles Schumer called on major U.S. web site operators such as Amazon and Twitter to switch to a more secure protocol to prevent identify theft and other security breaches in places like coffee shops. The New York Democrat told a news conference held at a Manhattan coffee shop that growing WiFi access at such shops, restaurants and other businesses was helping hackers gain user information like credit card numbers and account passwords.
The Obama administration has failed in its bid to allow it and other governments to veto future top-level domain names, a proposal before ICANN that raised questions about balancing national sovereignty with the venerable Internet tradition of free expression. A group of nations rejected that part of the U.S. proposal, concluding instead that governments can offer nonbinding "advice" about controversial suffixes such as .gay but will not receive actual veto power.
In a hit job, Craigslist rivak Oodle.com circulated a study linking Craigslist activity to 330 crimes, including 12 murders and 105 robberies or assaults during a 12-month period. However, the report in many ways backfired on Oodle, with blogs and online commenters criticizing the company for its tactics.
In an effort to take some of the legalese out of a legal document, Facebook Inc. unveiled a new draft of its closely watched privacy policy. The new policy doesn't change the social network's data-handling practices, said Edward Palmieri, a privacy and product counsel at Facebook.
Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. filed a lawsuit challenging TiVo Inc.'s "time warp" patents and claiming it owns the rights to digital-video recording technology that was invented first. The complaint in federal court in Texarkana, Texas, contends TiVo infringes patents and seeks a ruling that Motorola Mobility customer Verizon Communications Inc.'s set-top boxes don't use TiVo inventions.
Internet crime has become increasingly pervasive and 2010 had the second-highest number of complaints of any year in the past decade, according to a new government report. Last year the Justice Department's Internet Crime Complaint Center, known as IC3, received 303,809 reports of Internet Crime.
Access to the networking site LinkedIn has been restored in China, a day after it was blocked following calls for Middle East-inspired protests in the country. A spokesman for LinkedIn based in the United States said: "We are seeing indications that access to the LinkedIn service is being restored in China."
A secondary story has come out of the events in Libya, affecting users in a way few people have ever thought about. The top-level domain .ly, used by the popular URL-shortening site bit.ly and others, is the TLD of Libya. As Libya has intermittently shut down its Internet access in a curfew-like fashion, it raised questions about the security of Web sites that use foreign TLDs for their sites.
Microsoft's "do not track" browser proposal got a boost when the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a Web standards body, gave Microsoft's plan its stamp of approval. The W3C has accepted and published Microsoft's submission, which W3C called "timely and well-aligned with the consortium's objectives and priorities."
The Anonymous hacking collective defaced the Web site of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church in the middle of a live radio show that included a church spokeswoman and a member of Anonymous. The defacement came just days after Anonymous issued a statement saying that it had no plans to attack the Church's Web site.
Switzerland's top administrative court said it will rule on whether Google Inc.'s Street View service is legal in Switzerland in coming weeks, following a public hearing in court. Switzerland's Federal Data Protection Commissioner Hanspeter Thuer and Google have been locked in a battle over the Internet search giant's popular Street View application ever since the mapping service went live here in 2009.
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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.