White House, Senators to Push for Cybersecurity Law

Senior Obama administration officials and a bipartisan group of U.S. senators agreed to push for cybersecurity legislation as quickly as possible, the White House said. White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the officials went to Capitol Hill "to discuss the growing cybersecurity threats to our nation and the need for prompt legislative action to ensure the U.S. government has the authorities it needs to keep the nation safe."

Judge Says Google E-mail Not Protected in Java Case

Google Inc. lost a bid to keep an engineer’s e-mail saying the company should negotiate a license for the Java programming language out of an Oracle Corp. lawsuit alleging Google software infringes Java patents. U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who had said at a July hearing that Google would be “on the losing end of this document” at trial, ruled in San Francisco that the electronic message isn’t subject to attorney-client confidentiality protection.

House Subcommittee to Discuss Internet Gambling

The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade has scheduled a hearing on Internet gambling. While the hearing is not specifically focused on online poker, the panel will likely discuss legislation introduced this summer by Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Barney Frank, D-Mass. The measure has been referred to the subcommittee.

Malware Linked to Creators of 'Stuxnet' Worm

The designers of Stuxnet, the computer worm that was used to vandalize an Iranian nuclear site, may have struck again, security researchers say. Stuxnet, which infected tens of thousands of computers in 155 countries last year, created an international sensation when experts reported that it was designed as an American-Israeli project to sabotage Siemens Corporation computers used in uranium enrichment at the Natanz site.

Lawyers Consider Lawsuit Over Blackberry Outage

Law firms in the United States and Canada are exploring possible consumer lawsuits against Research In Motion Ltd for last week's BlackBerry outages, which for three days crippled email and messaging for tens of millions of users around the world. Consumer lawyers say they are looking at whether customers have common claims against the BlackBerry manufacturer and might be able to band together in a single lawsuit.

General Says U.S. Working on Cyber-Military Plan

The United States is still crafting a legal framework to guide any offensive moves in cyberspace, months after the Pentagon unveiled a broad cyber strategy, the head of the military command responsible for such operations said. Deliberations on military doctrine and legal framework are "ongoing," Air Force General Robert Kehler, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, told a defense writers' group.

Viacom Wants Court to Overturn YouTube Decision

A judge's order dismissing an infringement lawsuit against Google Inc.'s YouTube last year should be overturned because it endangers the rights of owners of television shows and other copyrighted materials, a lawyer for Viacom Inc. said. Viacom is seeking to revive its lawsuit against YouTube over alleged unauthorized posting of Viacom content on the video-sharing site between 2005 and 2008.

Accused LulzSec Hacker Pleads Not Guilty in Sony Case

An accused member of the clandestine hacking group LulzSec pleaded not guilty to charges of taking part in an extensive computer breach of the Sony Pictures Entertainment film studio. Cody Kretsinger, 23, entered not guilty pleas to one count each of conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected computer during a brief hearing in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Ceglia Refuses to Obey Court Order in Facebook Suit

The New York man who is suing Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, for half ownership of the social-networking giant, instructed his lawyer not to comply with a court order to turn over evidence in the case, according to court filings. Facebook filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Buffalo, N.Y., to compel Paul Ceglia to comply with an August 18 order to turn over e-mail accounts and passwords.

White House Debated Cyberoffensive Against Libya

Just before the American-led strikes against Libya in March, the Obama administration intensely debated whether to open the mission with a new kind of warfare: a cyberoffensive to disrupt and even disable the Qaddafi government’s air-defense system, which threatened allied warplanes. While the exact techniques under consideration remain classified, the goal would have been to break through the firewalls of the Libyan government’s computer networks to sever military communications links and prevent the early-warning radars from gathering information and relaying it to missile batteries aiming at NATO warplanes.

Hackers Put Sexual Content on Sesame Street Website

Hackers appeared to have commandeered the YouTube page of the venerable "Sesame Street" children's show, reprogramming the page with content brought to you by the letter "X." The show page was taken offline, and visitors were greeted with a message from the video website informing them it had been shut down "due to repeated or severe violations of our community guidelines."

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Australian Judge Refuses to Broaden Samsung Order

An Australian court knocked back attempts by Apple Inc. to extend an injunction against a Samsung Electronics Co. tablet computer, which the Cupertino, Calif., company alleges infringes patents held for its rival iPad device. Justice Annabelle Bennett rejected applications from Apple's lawyers to modify the text of the judgment, such that Samsung would have to give the company advance notice of new product releases and be restricted in its launch of all new tablet computers.

German Public Condemns Web-Based Spying

A group that calls itself the Chaos Computer Club prompted a public outcry here recently when it discovered that German state investigators were using spying software capable of turning a computer’s webcam and microphone into a sophisticated surveillance device. The public condemnation was swift and strong, renewing a national debate into how far the government can intrude into digital privacy.