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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 04 Apr 2011
The seizure of file-sharing related domain names by the US Government in recent months have stirred up a lot of controversy. Despite heavy critique from various sides, the responsible authorities justified their actions and claimed that it is an effective tool to clamp down on Internet piracy. However, those who take a good look at the end result soon notice that reality paints a different picture.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 04 Apr 2011
Piracy runs rampant on the Internet, but Daniel Castro says it doesn't have to be this way. He wants the US government to start creating a blacklist of Internet sites; once approved by a judge, each site would be cut off from American Internet users at the Domain Name System (DNS) level, where readable locations like "arstechnica.com" are turned into numerical IP addresses. US-based credit card companies would be forbidden from doing any business with the site, and US-based advertising networks couldn't serve ads to the site.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 01 Apr 2011
A new pro-government Iranian blogging competition recently came to a close. Many Iran watchers see this new promotion of blogging as an example of a double standard set by the Iranian government.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 01 Apr 2011
Welcome to the dedicated website for the Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet and related 10 Rights and Principles for Internet governance. Both of these initiatives have been developed by the Internet Rights and Principles Dynamic Coalition (IRP), an open network of individuals and organisations working to uphold human rights in the Internet environment.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 31 Mar 2011
Google has yet to apply for the necessary state license to operate its online mapping service in China, putting another Google product in jeopardy as the first deadline looms.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 31 Mar 2011
Chinese authorities found three companies linked to Google Inc broke tax rules and are investigating possible tax avoidance, a Chinese state-run newspaper said on Thursday, raising the risk of fresh pressure on the Internet search giant.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 31 Mar 2011
The supervisor who spoke with me was not sure how this software ended up in the new laptop thus put me on hold. He confirmed that yes, Samsung did knowingly put this software on the laptop to, as he put it, "monitor the performance of the machine and to find out how it is being used."
In other words, Samsung wanted to gather usage data without obtaining consent from laptop owners.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 31 Mar 2011
While setting up a new Samsung computer laptop with model number R525 in early February 2011, I came across an issue that mirrored what Sony BMG did six years ago. After the initial set up of the laptop, I installed licensed commercial security software and then ran a full system scan before installing any other software. The scan found two instances of a commercial keylogger called StarLogger installed on the brand new laptop. Files associated with the keylogger were found in a c:\windows\SL directory.
According to a Starlogger description, StarLogger records every keystroke made on your computer on every window, even on password protected boxes.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 30 Mar 2011
In the wake of Egypt's "Facebook revolution," which was fueled in part by online social networks, much has been made about the role of technology in encouraging or even creating democracy.
"If you want to liberate a society, just give them the internet," said Wael Ghonim, one of Egypt's tech-savvy revolutionaries.
Syria, the latest country in the region to announce reforms in the wake of protests, is a curious test of that theory.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 30 Mar 2011
Google has publicly apologised for the mistakes it made during the launch of its Twitter-like social networking tool Buzz, and claims that it's learned its lesson - and will be undergoing independent privacy reviews to keep it on the straight and narrow.
