A federal judge has rejected a petition by the Spanish company Puerto 80 for the return of the domain names Rojadirecta.com and Rojadirecta.org. The U.S. federal government seized the domains earlier this year, arguing that they were primarily used to provide links to infringing sporting content.
A hacking group said it has retaliated for the arrests of its members by attacking the websites of more than 70 U.S. law enforcement institutions and releasing 10 gigabytes of information. The cyberterrorist collaboration AntiSec, affiliated with Anonymous and LulzSec, said it accessed and leaked hundreds of private e-mails, passwords, Social Security numbers and credit card numbers for officers, along with "snitch information."
Facebook Inc. said its inspection of computers turned over by Paul Ceglia, the western New York man who claims he’s entitled to half of Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s holdings in the social-networking company, shows “smoking gun” evidence of fraud. Ceglia sued Facebook and Zuckerberg last year, claiming that a two-page contract Zuckerberg signed in 2003 gave Ceglia half of the company when the service was started the following year. Palo Alto, California-based Facebook has grown to become the world’s biggest social-networking site.
A Chinese state newspaper rejected suggestions Beijing might be behind global cyberattacks over the past five years targeting more than 70 government entities, nonprofit groups and corporations. The ruling Communist Party flagship People's Daily said it was "irresponsible" to link China with Internet hacking attacks reported by computer security firm McAfee Inc.
Smartphone maker HTC Corp. agreed to acquire all of the shares of U.S. mobile Internet applications company Dashwire Inc. for as much as US$18.5 million, in a move that could give it more tools in possible future patent litigation against competitors, including Apple Inc. In a statement, HTC said it would purchase Seattle-based Dashwire to strengthen its mobile cloud-based services offering.
Sanford Wallace, also known as the Spam King, Spamford, and David Frederix, turned himself in to the FBI after being indicted by a federal grand jury in San Jose for spamming Facebook. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed that the 43-year-old had been indicted by a federal grand jury on multiple counts of fraud, intentional damage to a protected computer, and criminal contempt.
A verbal battle between Microsoft and Google over patents entered its second day, with hostile blogs and tweets flying between the rivals over maneuvers in some high-profile intellectual property auctions. At issue, in part, was whether a patent sale by Novell should be regarded as an example of companies ganging up against Google -- or a case where Microsoft opened a rare olive branch to the Web search giant that Google snubbed.
A hacker-turned-defense official, decrying the government's slowness to change, rolled out a new program that would enable the Pentagon to more quickly fund hackers to tackle its tough cybersecurity challenges. Peiter Zatko, a hacker known as Mudge who is now at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, said he joined the Pentagon's research arm to try and build bridges between the government's cybersecurity needs and hackers working on innovative projects.
Britain plans to legalize something that many of its citizens have been doing already, perhaps unaware that they were breaking the law: copying music or movies from compact discs or DVDs onto other storage devices, like iPods. The government said that it planned to legalize so-called format-shifting as part of a broad overhaul of the country’s copyright laws aimed at bringing them up to speed with digital technology and the fight against piracy.
A Clayton County, Ga., man said a SWAT team swarmed his house because of something his 17-year-old son posted on Facebook. Police told Channel 2 Action News that Jonathan Oliver posted pictures of himself waving a gun along with comments that he wanted to kill police.
A White House terrorism strategy released says Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks aid in "advancing violent extremist narratives" and should be monitored by the government. The 12-page strategy, which outlines ways to respond to violent extremism, promises that: "We will continue to closely monitor the important role the Internet and social-networking sites play in advancing violent extremist narratives."
Plans to block websites that host copyright infringing material are to be dumped by the British government. Business secretary Vince Cable announced the change following a review of the policy by telecoms regulator Ofcom.
Not only are more cyber crimes happening, but they are also costing companies more money, a recent study found. The median cost of cyber crimes rose to $5.9 million, up from $3.8 million in 2010, while the number of attacks rose by 44% with at one successful attack on each of the companies in the study each week, according to a study released by the Ponemon Institute, a research group that studies Internet security.
France has joined South Korea and the United States in investigating the Apple iPhone's unauthorized collection of its users' location information. The Commission Nationale de L'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), the French government's technology watchdog, has been looking into the use of location data being collected by Apple iPhones, AFP reported.
More than ever, Android and iPhone smartphone users need to be vigilant over their digital appendages, with as much as three out of 10 people likely to encounter an unsafe link this year, according to a recently released report. Lookout, a smartphone security company that monitors apps on Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile, issued the "Lookout Mobile Threat Report" and found Android users are two and a half times as likely to encounter malware today than 6 months ago, with half a million to one million people affected by some kind of malicious code in the first half of 2011.
Authorities said they have dismantled an online bulletin board allegedly used by 600 people around the world to trade graphic images and videos of child sex abuse. More than 70 people have been charged in connection with the private site, which was called "Dreamboard" and gave members varying access to the material.
A German regulator said that he had asked Facebook, the social networking leader, to disable its new photo-tagging feature, which he warned could violate European privacy laws. Johannes Caspar, the data protection supervisor in Hamburg, who has been aggressive in investigating the online practices of companies like Google and Apple, said he was concerned that Facebook’s facial recognition feature amounted to the unauthorized collection of data on individuals.
Security experts announced the discovery of an unprecedented series of cyber attacks spanning five years that affected the networks of 72 organizations globally, including the United Nations, governments and corporations. Security company McAfee, which uncovered the intrusions, said it believed there was one "state actor" behind the attacks but declined to name it, though one security expert who has been briefed on the hacking said the evidence points to China.
South Korea's telecom regulator will impose a 3 million won (US$2,829) fine on Apple Inc. for allegedly collecting the location data of iPhone users in the country, in a development that comes amid growing concerns over the privacy of mobile users world-wide. The Korea Communications Commission said that after a four-month investigation it found that even if iPhone users disabled location systems on their handsets, Apple collected users' whereabouts from June 22 last year through May 4 this year.
Amazon.com Inc., the world's largest online retailer, hasn't charged sales tax in most states since its founding in 1994. And it has taken some extreme measures to keep it that way. A close examination of Amazon's corporate practices, based on interviews with more than a dozen former employees and people who have done business with the Seattle company, as well as a review of corporate documents, indicates that the company believes its sales-tax policy is critical to its performance.
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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.