The European Commission (EC) has finally confirmed what we've all known for years: if you shut down one online piracy site, another will simply take its place. A report published by the EC's Joint Research Center found that the closure of Kino.to, a popular unlicensed streaming site in Germany, had little impact on national online piracy.
Belgium's privacy watchdog accused Facebook of trampling on European privacy laws by tracking people online without their consent and dodging questions from national regulators. The Privacy Protection Commission, which is working with German, Dutch, French and Spanish counterparts, launched the blistering attack after trying to find out more about the U.S. social media giant's practices.
Thieves are stealing money from people's credit cards, bank and PayPal accounts -- by first tapping into their Starbucks mobile app. Starbucks acknowledged that criminals have been breaking into individual customer rewards accounts.
Reddit announced that it was updating its site-wide policies to explicitly prohibit harassment against users, a move that the company said would promote free expression on Reddit without fear of retribution from a vocal minority. “We’ve heard a lot of complaints and found that even our existing users were unhappy with the content on the site,” said Ellen Pao, chief executive of Reddit, noting a study the company conducted this year with more than 15,000 users, or so-called redditors.
Microsoft has taken steps to stop a China-based hacking group from using its TechNet website as part of its attack infrastructure, according to security vendor FireEye. The group, which FireEye calls APT (advanced persistent threat) 17, is well-known for attacks against defense contractors, law firms, U.S. government agencies and technology and mining companies.
Privacy advocates are nervous about Verizon's efforts to gather more detailed personal information about its users for advertising, following Verizon's $4.4 billion purchase of AOL. "Whether or not the combination of a major online advertiser with the largest mobile-services provider raises substantial antitrust concerns, it raises extremely substantial and urgent privacy concerns," said Harold Feld, the senior vice president of Public Knowledge, a consumer-advocacy group.
At a U.S. congressional hearing, lawmakers criticized Vox Populi Registry Ltd., operator of the new ".sucks" top-level domain. Trademark owners are “being shaken down,” said the Judiciary Committee chairman, Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican.
Facebook announced it hired Kevin Martin, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, as vice president for mobile and global access policy, as the social network continues to build its executive ranks with former government officials. Martin, a Republican who led the FCC between 2005 and 2009, will oversee the company's initiatives on wireless and other broadband Internet policies.
One year after the European Union’s top court ruled that people could ask Google and other search engines to remove links in search results for their name, the Calif.-based search giant has set up a detailed process to comply, removing hundreds of thousands of links. But a bigger fight is continuing to simmer over how broadly the new European right should apply -- one that could end up back in court.
The U.S. government's prosecution of a South Korean businessman accused of illegally selling technology used in aircraft and missiles to Iran was dealt a devastating blow by a federal judge. The judge ruled that the authorities illegally seized the businessman's computer at Los Angeles International Airport as he was to board a flight home.
Electric car battery maker A123 Systems is close to settling a lawsuit alleging Apple poached some of its top employees. A123 has requested a new extension to reply to Apple’s motion to move to the case from federal court in Massachusetts to one in northern California, saying a settlement was near, according to court documents.
Charles Tendell calls himself an ethical hacker who helps companies and individuals fight back against the bad guys operating online. But behind the scenes, Mr. Tendell, a Colorado resident and a decorated Iraq War veteran, started a new website called Hacker’s List that allows people to anonymously post bids to hire a hacker.
A Central California woman claims she was fired after uninstalling an app that her employer required her to run constantly on her company issued iPhone -- an app that tracked her every move 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Plaintiff Myrna Arias, a former Bakersfield sales executive for money transfer service Intermex, claims in a state court lawsuit that her boss, John Stubits, fired her shortly after she uninstalled the job-management Xora app that she and her colleagues were required to use.
Disagreements between Federal Communication Commission commissioners over the FCC’s net neutrality rules flared up at a Senate appropriations hearing. Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai said he believed that the panel should not provide funds for the agency to implement the rules, which allow the commission to regulate Internet providers as a utility.
Facebook Inc. may pursue a lawsuit against law firms that represented a New York man who recently turned fugitive rather than face federal charges that he tried to defraud founder Mark Zuckerberg out of half of the company, a judge ruled. New York Supreme Court Justice Eileen Rakower said Facebook and Zuckerberg could move forward with a lawsuit alleging law firms, including DLA Piper LLP and Milberg LLP, maliciously prosecuted claims by Paul Ceglia that were based on forged documents.
The White House is adding one of the tech policy world's most valuable players to it's roster: Princeton Professor Ed Felten. The White House announced that Felten will join the Office of Science and Technology Policy as deputy U.S. chief technology officer. In his decades long career, Felten has carved out a role as one of the world's top thinkers on computer security and privacy -- tackling technically difficult topics and translating them for Washington insiders.
A rise in cyber attacks against doctors and hospitals is costing the U.S. health-care system $6 billion a year as organized criminals who once targeted retailers and financial firms increasingly go after medical records, security researchers say. Criminal attacks against health-care providers have more than doubled in the past five years, with the average data breach costing a hospital $2.1 million, according to a study from the Ponemon Institute, a security research and consulting firm.
Yahoo is going after a former employee the company claims was spilling its secrets. The lawsuit alleges that Cecile Lal, who was chief of staff to a vice president at Yahoo, leaked information about the company to journalist Nicholas Carlson for his book "Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!"
Legislation under consideration in Congress would give private entities the right to defend themselves in cyberspace using computer-hacking tactics to enter the information systems of cyberattackers or would-be attackers. In light of the growing number of banks, retailers, online businesses and other companies that have reported substantial losses from thefts of data and intellectual property in attacks by cybercriminals, there is support for such a measure.
The Obama administration’s two-year-old strategy to aggressively fight foreign online espionage has done little to curb the theft of companies’ trade secrets. “There hasn’t been any change,” said James A. Lewis, a digital security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
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