Apple Inc. was accused of invasion of privacy and computer fraud by two customers who claim in a lawsuit that the company is secretly recording movements of iPhone and iPad users. Vikram Ajjampur, an iPhone user in Florida, and William Devito, a New York iPad customer, filed a suit April 22 in federal court in Tampa, Florida, seeking a judge's order barring the alleged data collection.
Iran has been targeted by a second computer virus in a "cyber war" waged by its enemies, its commander of civil defense said. Gholamreza Jalali told the semi-official Mehr news agency that the new virus, called "Stars," was being investigated by experts.
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion said Russia could help development of new technologies by finding a balance between state security and innovation. Co-chief executive Jim Balsillie said the Canadian company had "ambitious plans" in Russia and offered President Dmitry Medvedev -- an avid user of Apple's iPad -- a new Blackberry tablet at a meeting on developing new technology.
Sony Corp. was trying to determine whether users' credit card numbers or other personal information had been compromised as the outage of its global PlayStation Network entered a sixth day, PC World reported. The company confirmed that an "external intrusion" by hackers disrupted the service, affecting more than 75 million users worldwide who use it to play video games against friends online, stream movies and shop online.
China's Ministry of Culture will "hand down punishments" to 14 websites, including one run by Internet search provider Baidu Inc., for providing downloads of songs not approved or registered with the country's content regulators, in what appeared to be part of a renewed effort to block explicit and politically sensitive online content. The websites have provided download services for the music despite warnings not to do so, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported, citing a ministry official.
It's unknown how often unsecured routers have brought legal trouble for subscribers. Besides the criminal investigations, the Internet is full of anecdotal accounts of people who've had to fight accusations of illegally downloading music or movies. Whether you're guilty or not, "you look like the suspect," said Orin Kerr, a professor at George Washington University Law School. Kerr said the issue is just one of many reasons to secure home routers.
Stopping trolls, which is the term used for those who abuse the privilege of the Web’s anonymous open mike, would mean choking off other critics, which obviously has undemocratic implications. After all, anonymity is a trusted tool of dissidents and whistle-blowers.
Samsung Electronics filed patent lawsuits against Apple over the U.S. firm's iPhone and iPad in a tit-for-tat case after Apple claimed Samsung's smartphones and tablets "slavishly" copied its products. Samsung's counter lawsuit, its first against its biggest client, comes days before it launches a new product and could jeopardize business ties between the two companies, as Apple relies on Samsung for component supplies such as chips and LCD displays.
Apple Inc.'s iPhone is collecting and storing location information even when location services are turned off, according to a test conducted by The Wall Street Journal. The location data appear to be collected using cellphone towers and Wi-Fi access points near a user's phone and don't appear to be transmitted back to Apple.
Akamai Technologies Inc. persuaded a U.S. appeals court to reconsider whether Limelight Networks Inc. infringed a patent over software that speeds delivery of Web videos. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in December Limelight didn't infringe the patent.
In a decision that could have consequences to many of Google's businesses, a jury has found the search giant responsible for infringing on the patents of a small Texas company, Bedrock Computer Technologies. Google has been ordered to pay penalties of $5 million for its use of a key piece of software code, and the decision could affect other companies as well.
A computer hacker from Georgia has pleaded guilty to fraud and identity theft after authorities found him with more than 675,000 stolen credit card accounts on his home computers. Credit card companies have traced more than $36 million in fraudulent transactions to the accounts that were breached by 26-year-old Rogelio Hackett Jr. of Lithonia, Ga.
Website domain collector Virtual City Vision lost its appeal against Newport News, a women's clothing chain, when the 4th Circuit affirmed a ruling that Virtual's www.NewportNews.com website dilutes Newport News' trademark. The ruling ends a legal battle between the clothing store and Virtual City Vision that has lasted for more than a decade.
The Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory is investigating a sophisticated phishing attack that forced it to shut down email and Internet access. The lab -- which houses some of the world's most powerful supercomputers and stores classified government data -- was hit with a phishing attack on April 7 that was designed specifically to remove information from the network.
U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp. settled a copyright infringement dispute with a Chinese department store, the industry group Business Software Alliance said. Fujian Dongbai Group Co. promised to actively use genuine Microsoft software and pay a total of 900,000 yuan (about $138,100) to Microsoft, as part of a legalization and compensation deal, BSA said in a statement.
Social media websites such as Foursquare, HootSuite and Reddit crashed temporarily because of problems at Amazon Web Services' data center. Officials at Amazon were unavailable for comment on the server problems, but a status update page on its Web Services site said the problems began early in the morning at a server bank in northern Virgina.
Sen. Al Franken (D.-Minn.), who chairs a new privacy panel set up in February, asked Apple to explain why its iPhones are tracking users' locations. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is also reportedly looking into the matter, while a Congressman from Washington State has followed Franken's lead, promising to ask questions of his own.
A hidden file on the Apple iPhone 4 and iPad 3G has been found to store location information. This privacy glitch was discovered by two programmers, Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, who presented their findings at the location-centric O'Reilly Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco.
The Department of Justice outlined steps that CPTN Holdings LLC has agreed to take in order to acquire some patents and patent applications from Novell Inc., which is in the process of being bought by a trio of private-equity firms operating as Attachmate Corp. The Justice Department said that in order to address antitrust concerns, CPTN -- a holding company owned by Microsoft Inc., Oracle Corp., Apple Inc. and EMC Corp. -- revised its agreements to buy the patents in several ways.
A U.S. appeals court agreed that Dish Network Corp. is violating a judge's order to shut down parts of a digital-video-recording service that infringe a TiVo patent. The ruling affects Dish's older DVRs and leaves open the question of whether software on newer models was changed enough to get around TiVo's patent for the "time warp" technology that simultaneously records and plays back television programs.
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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.