Articles by date
08 February 2010
CDT: More Thoughts from State of the Net 2010 (Center for Democracy and Technology)
One of the most highly anticipated panels at last week's State of the Net Conference was the Judith Krug Memorial Intellectual Freedom Panel, entitled "Global Free Expression: Will the Internet Reign or Get Reined In?". Held less than one week after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's widely-lauded speech on global Internet freedom and less than one month after Google announced that after suffering cyberattacks traced to the Chinese mainland it would no longer censor search results in China, the panel was a timely and fitting tribute to long-time free speech advocate Judith Krug.
Australian home internet access quadruples in the last decade (Computerworld)
ICT has become increasingly more affordable over the past decade with the Australian Bureau of Statistics recording marked increases in access to PCs and the Internet in Australian households.
Internet protocol TV braces for Australian push (The Australian)
In the US it's often referred to as "over-the-top TV", but in Australia, it lurches along with the humble handle of internet protocol TV.
Australian iiNet ruling casts cloud over legal online content (The Australian)
The Federal Court's decision last week not to hold Perth-based internet service provider iiNet liable for peer-to-peer online copyright infringement has created uncertainty for providers of legal internet movie and TV services.
Google's phone faces cut-price challenger (The Guardian)
Google's plans to take on the iPhone are running into problems in Europe as several mobile phone companies plan to sell a cheaper version within weeks of the internet company's Nexus One device going on sale.
Facebook dominates UK mobile use (BBC News)
Facebook dominates the lives of mobile internet users in the UK, according to figures from a mobile industry body.
FBI tackling rising number of Haiti scams (USA Today)
Federal law enforcement officials have received more than 170 complaints about fundraising scams tied to Haitian earthquake relief, and they're bracing for more online cons using Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.
Terrorists 'gaining upper hand in cyber war' (The Independent)
Western governments are facing a potent and ill-understood new threat from terrorists and hostile powers in the shape of cyber warfare, military and security experts have warned.
China Heralds Bust of Major Hacker Ring (Wall Street Journal)
China heralded a major bust of computer hackers to underscore its pledge to help enhance global online security, with state media saying officials had shut what they called the country's largest distributor of tools used in malicious Internet attacks.
Internet viewed as positive development, prompts publishing itch in British over-60s (Reuters)
The Internet is helping older British readers rekindle a love of books and writing, and an overwhelming majority of senior citizens see the medium as a positive development, according to a survey.
Chinese porn website owner jailed for 13 years (ABC News)
China has sentenced a man who operated a porn website to 13 years in jail and fined him 100,000 yuan (15,000 US dollars), state media said, amid an ongoing campaign to crack down on online sexual content.
FBI still wants two years of ISP Web logs (ars technica)
Largely at the behest of the European Union, search engines like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have cut their data retention periods over the last few years. Now, all those sensitive search queries you make will be anonymized in a matter of months -- Yahoo will do so after 90 days, Microsoft will remove all IP addresses after six months, and Google anonymizes IP addresses after nine months. Europe has decided that six months should be the limit.
German Minister Takes on Google Street View (Der Spiegel)
Many in Berlin have long viewed Google's Street View service with some suspicion. Now, Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner has called for better privacy laws. She says that even intelligence agencies wouldn't "collect photos so unabashedly."
UK Digital Economy Bill bill could 'breach rights' (BBC News)
An influential group of MPs and peers has said the government's approach to illegal file-sharing could breach the rights of internet users.
Internet gambling again in play in US (Washington Post)
Poker lobbyists are ramping up an aggressive push backed by millions of dollars to legalize Internet gambling in the United States this year, hoping to overcome passionate objections from social conservatives, sports leagues and other longtime opponents.
Sex, Kids, and Crime in Cyberspace: Some Reflections on Crossing Boundaries by Bert-Jaap Koops (Social Science Research Network)
Abstract: This contribution sketches some contours of the landscape of sex, minors, and crime in cyberspace, illustrated by a varied casuistry of case-law emerging in the Netherlands. It discusses exposure to indecency, self-representation, viewing child porn online, grooming, and webcam sex abuse.
What Murdoch Still Doesn't Get About the Internet (BusinessWeek)
Like most media giants, the boss of News Corp. doesn't grasp that content is now a service, not a product
Google's Display-Ad Sales Should Top $1 Billion (BusinessWeek)
Google CEO Eric Schmidt hinted in July that display advertising would probably be the next of his company's businesses to generate $1 billion in sales. Analysts say 2010 is the year he'll deliver on that prediction.
Two futures of the internet: next cold war or up in the clouds (The Observer)
Will the future be cyber-attacks and an uneasy balance of terror or cultural collaboration hosted by Google's servers?
07 February 2010
500,000 EU computers can access private British data (The Observer)
Privacy campaigners expressed shock last night after it emerged that large amounts of confidential personal information held about British citizens on a giant computer network spanning the European Union could be accessed by more than 500,000 terminals.
Cloud computing: how information giants are setting the pace for the internet's next decade (The Observer)
From Google's library project to Apple's iTunes store, 'cloud capitalism' provides an innovative way forward for business - but raises more questions about privacy and security
06 February 2010
Facebook’s Project Titan: A Full Featured Webmail Product (TechCrunch)
Facebook is completely rewriting their messaging product and is preparing to launch a fully featured webmail product in its place, according to a source with knowledge of the product. Internally it's known as Project Titan. Or, unofficially and perhaps over-enthusiastically, the Gmail killer.
Facebook six years later: from a dorm room experiment to a household name and reaches 400m users (Los Angeles Times)
On Feb. 4, 2004, a Harvard student named Mark Zuckerberg, along with a few of his fellow classmates, had an idea to create a social network for Harvard students. Dubbed "TheFacebook," the site was a place where students could communicate and share photos with their friends.
Google: We will bring books back to life (The Guardian)
If you love books and care about the knowledge they contain, there is a problem that needs to be solved. Somewhere in the region of 175m books exist in the world today. A tiny fraction of those are in print and for sale in bookshops or on the web. Another small portion are so old that they are out of copyright and anyone can use them.
05 February 2010
Climate emails: were they really hacked or just sitting in cyberspace? (The Guardian)
Slack security or subversion at the university may have led to 'unintentional sharing', making the police investigation pointless
