After months of hype and hysteria that have driven up its price at a dizzying pace, Bitcoin recently encountered several hurdles that are likely to determine whether it makes it out of its early speculative phase to become a currency that people actually use, is supplanted by a rival or falls apart altogether. The most fundamental threat was a bug in some basic software that determines how Bitcoins are moved between digital accounts.
A Pennsylvania woman charged in the November slaying of a man she and her husband met through Craigslist has told a newspaper that she killed many more victims, and authorities told CNN they are investigating the woman's shocking claims. A law enforcement source close to the investigation said Miranda Barbour's new claims could be "the real deal."
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has embraced proposals to create European data networks that would keep emails and other communications on the European side of the Atlantic, farther from prying American eyes, and said she would raise the matter with President François Hollande of France. “We will, above all, discuss which European providers we have who offer security for our citizens,” Ms. Merkel said in her weekly podcast.
Syria's civil war has led to a new, greater threat of Islamist radicalism in Saudi Arabia that requires a more aggressive "war of ideology" on the Internet, says the man responsible for online monitoring in the kingdom. Remarks by the head of the Saudi Ideological Security Directorate suggest that the unit, known for keeping tabs on liberal activists and women drivers as well as Islamist extremists, is turning its focus increasingly towards those using the Internet to recruit fighters for jihad abroad.
China criticized U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for his "naive" call for more Internet freedom in the country, and wondered why his discussion with Chinese bloggers had not touched upon Edward Snowden. During an approximately 40-minute chat with bloggers in Beijing on Saturday, Kerry expressed his support for online freedom in China, as well as for human rights in general.
Hackers hit crowd-funding site Kickstarter and made off with user information, the site said. Though no credit card info was taken, the site said, attackers made off with usernames, e-mail addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and encrypted passwords.
A group of Chinese bloggers asked the United States to take up the cause of Internet freedom in an unusual meeting on Saturday with Secretary of State John Kerry. One by one, the bloggers voiced concerns to Mr. Kerry, who arrived to discuss regional issues with China’s leaders, that the ability of Chinese citizens to gain access to information was under siege and that the country’s prospects for becoming a democracy were uncertain at best.
Apple, maker of the iPhone, won dismissal of a consumer lawsuit claiming the device’s Siri voice-recognition feature doesn’t work as advertised. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland, California, turned aside claims by four iPhone customers that Apple’s advertising was false and misleading. Contrary to Apple’s ads, the four said Siri doesn’t understand their questions or locate places they ask about.
The Syrian Electronic Army has broken into the website of business magazine Forbes and claims to have made off with a million user account names and passwords, according to statements and screen shots posted on the group’s Twitter feed. The group, which claims to support the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, initially offered to sell the database, but now says it will publish it on the Web.
A French aerospace industry group targeted by a cyber attack using a flaw in recent versions of Internet Explorer said its website had not been directly attacked but that hackers had created a fake address similar to its own. U.S. researchers said a defect in Microsoft Corp's IE 10 Web browser, used to attack visitors to U.S. military veterans website, appeared to have been used earlier against French aerospace industry group GIFAS.
Benjamin Edelman, now on the faculty of Harvard Business School, epitomizes a new breed of sleuths for hire, enforcing norms of online behavior. Edelman is “an astonishing scholar of the Internet,” said Alvin Roth, a Nobel-prize winning economist, who was a mentor and colleague at Harvard Business School.
The anonymous online marketplace Silk Road 2 says it has been hacked resulting in the loss of all its customers' bitcoins. An administrator for the site said hackers had manipulated computer code enabling them to withdraw $2.7m (£1.6m) worth of the virtual currency.
Tesco has been forced to deactivate online customer accounts after thousands of login details, including passwords, were posted online. A list of over 2,000 Tesco.com internet shopping accounts was posted online by hackers on Thursday, allowing access to online shopping accounts, personal details and Tesco Clubcard vouchers.
The owner of a website does not require authorization of the copyright holder to link to freely accessible copyright works on another site, even if Internet users get the impression that the work is appearing on the site that contains the link, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) said. The CJEU provided advice to the Court of Appeal in Svea, Sweden, in a case pitting Swedish journalists against Retriever Sverige, a media monitor and aggregation company that provides access to information from newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, Internet and social media.
Despite a class-action settlement in August that was supposed to ensure that Facebook users clearly consent to their comments, images and “likes” being used in ads, it has been business as usual on the service. But the nonprofit advocacy group Public Citizen contends that the settlement violates the laws of seven states, including California and New York, by failing to require Facebook to receive explicit permission from parents before using the personal information of teenage users in advertising.
A Wisconsin man has been banned from the Internet and will serve 30 months of probation for using his neighbor’s likeness in Craigslist personal ads without her knowledge or consent. Racine County Circuit Court Judge Allan Torhorst handed down the sentence after Jason Willis, 31, pleaded guilty to posting ads soliciting people to have sex with his neighbor, “Dawn.”
A third of the members of the European Commission opposed the EU's decision to strike a deal with Google and end a three-year antitrust investigation, officials said, underlining the political sensitivity of the decision. While the opposition of nine commissioners is not enough to block the agreement struck by Joaquin Almunia, the competition commissioner, it is rare for such strong opposition to be voiced and it will fuel the frustration of Google competitors such as Microsoft.
Google Inc. says its Android mobile operating system is "open." but newly discovered documents reveal the strings attached. European antitrust authorities are examining those conditions, among others, as they consider whether Google has abused Android's position as the leading smartphone operating system.
European Union technology chief Neelie Kroes staked out territory for the bloc at the center of reforming the Internet’s infrastructure, saying control shouldn’t be handed to the United Nations. The EU wants to preserve the so-called multistakeholder model, where responsibility is shared by governments, companies, civil society and others.
Police departments throughout the U.S. are considering whether to equip their officers with Google Glass. New York City Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton confirmed the department is already using the smart glasses.
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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.