NSA Created Back Doors Into Huawei's Networks

American officials have long considered Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, a security threat, blocking it from business deals in the United States for fear that the company would create “back doors” in its equipment that could allow the Chinese military or Beijing-backed hackers to steal corporate and government secrets. But even as the United States made a public case about the dangers of buying from Huawei, classified documents show that the National Security Agency was creating its own back doors -- directly into Huawei’s networks.

In China, Michelle Obama Pushes for Internet Freedom

On a visit that was supposed to be nonpolitical, Michelle Obama delivered an unmistakable message to the Chinese, saying in a speech here that freedom of speech, particularly on the Internet and in the news media, provided the foundation for a vibrant society. On the second day of a weeklong trip to China with her two daughters and her mother, Mrs. Obama spoke to an audience of Americans and Chinese at Peking University, and in the midst of an appeal for more American students to study abroad, she also talked of the value for people of hearing “all sides of every argument."

Courts in Turkey Block Access to Twitter

Turkey's courts have blocked access to Twitter days before elections as Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan battles a corruption scandal that has seen social media platforms awash with alleged evidence of government wrongdoing. The ban came hours after a defiant Erdogan, on the campaign trail ahead of key March 30 local elections, vowed to "wipe out" Twitter and said he did not care what the international community had to say about it.

New Zealand Court Rules Against Dotcom Over Evidence

Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom suffered another blow to his fight against extradition to the United States to face online piracy charges after New Zealand's highest court rejected his appeal to access evidence to be presented at the hearing. The Supreme Court ruled that U.S. prosecutors were not required to disclose evidence at a hearing set for July to extradite Dotcom, the founder of online file sharing site Megaupload, and his three colleagues to the United States, where they are also charged with mass copyright infringement, money laundering and racketeering.

SEC Probes Gambling Site's Bitcoin Sale

The Securities and Exchange Commission is conducting a formal inquiry into an online gambling website’s Bitcoin-denominated stock sale after the agency signaled that such dealings may break U.S. laws. The SEC sent a letter asking MPEx, an online exchange for Bitcoin-based trading, to provide contracts and other documents relating to SatoshiDice.com, according to a copy of the request posted on the website trilema.com.

Ex-Chief of MP3tunes Liable for Copyright Infringement

The former chief executive of bankrupt online music storage firm MP3tunes was found liable for infringing copyrights for sound recordings, compositions and cover art owned by record companies and music publishers once part of EMI Group Ltd. A federal jury in Manhattan found Michael Robertson, the former MP3tunes chief executive, and the defunct San Diego-based company liable on various claims that they infringed on copyrights associated with artists including The Beatles, Coldplay and David Bowie.

NSA Lawyer Says Tech Firms Knew of Surveillance

The top lawyer for the National Security Agency and others from the Obama administration made it clear to the U.S. government's independent oversight board that tech titans knew about government surveillance while it was going on. NSA general counsel Rajesh De told the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that tech titans were aware that the NSA was collecting communications and related metadata both for the NSA's "PRISM" program and for "upstream" communications crossing the Internet.

Brazil to Drop Local Internet Storage Provision

Brazil will drop a controversial provision that would have forced global Internet companies to store data on Brazilian users inside the country to shield them from U.S. spying, a government minister said. The rule was added last year to proposed Internet governance legislation after revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency had spied on the digital communications of Brazilians, including those of their President Dilma Rousseff and the country's biggest company Petroleo Brasileiro SA.

Judge Calls Digital Search Warrant Applications Overbroad

A district court judge is sending government prosecutors back to the drawing board when it comes to how they request warrants to search through suspects' emails and other electronic communications. In an opinion and order rejecting a warrant request earlier this month, D.C. Magistrate Judge John Facciola said that the standard format of digital search warrant applications has been consistently leading to overbroad and unconstitutional requests.

Judge Refuses Class-Action Status for Gmail Lawsuit

Google Inc. won a major victory in its fight against claims it illegally scanned private e-mail messages to and from Gmail accounts, defeating a bid to unify lawsuits in a single group case on behalf of hundreds of millions of Internet users. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, refused to let the case proceed as a class action, which would have allowed plaintiffs to pool resources and put greater pressure on Google to settle.

25,000 Web Servers Infected by Linux Malware

As many as 25,000 web servers infected with Linux malware have been used in the past two years to hit website visitors with two variants of Windows malware. Security researchers in Europe are urging sysadmins — if they haven't already been notified by their ISP -- to check their web servers for the presence of several pieces of Linux malware, including a troublesome rootkit known as Ebury SSH for Linux and Unix.

  • Read the article: ZDNet

14 Men Arrested for Online Child Exploitation

Authorities have arrested 14 men in a secret, members-only child pornography website that involved 251 children, mostly boys, in the United States and five other countries, U.S. officials said. Some of the men assumed female online personas to connect with the children, who ranged in age from three to 17 years, on popular social networks, officials from the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

Google, Viacom Settle YouTube Copyright Litigation

Google Inc. has settled a landmark copyright lawsuit in which Viacom Inc. accused the Internet search company of posting its programs on the YouTube video service without permission. The settlement ends seven years of litigation that drew wide attention from Hollywood, the music industry and Internet companies, and which tested the reach of a federal law designed to thwart piracy while letting people find entertainment online.

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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.