Scamworld: 'Get rich quick' schemes mutate into an online monster
398inShare Jump To Close On a warm summer day in 2002, in Charlevoix, Michigan, Richard Joseph’s bad luck began. The lawyer, husband, and father of two was walking across the driveway with a bag of garbage when his bare foot slipped in a puddle of water that had collected beneath his car’s air conditioner.
Facebook and Apple a threat to Internet freedom
In an interview with the Guardian, Google co-founder Sergey Brin warned that the "open" Internet is in danger from very powerful forces, including Facebook and Apple. "I am more worried than I have been in the past ... it's scary," he said Brin identified the serious threats to the open Internet as repressive governments trying to control access to the Internet, entertainment industry crackdowns on piracy and so-called "wall gardens" that maintain more strict control over what can be done on their technology platforms, citing Facebook and Apple. He said that Facebook and Apple are stifling innovation and risk Balkanizing the Web, and went as far as to say that Google would never have come into existence if Facebook were dominant.
Google Removes 1 Million Infringing Links Monthly
Each month, Google removes more than 1 million links to infringing content such as movies, video games, music and software from its search results — with about half of those requests for removal last month coming from Microsoft. The search and advertising giant revealed the data Thursday as it released sortable analytics on the massive number of copyright takedown requests it receives — adding to its already existing data on the number of times governments ask for users’ personal data. The Mountain View, California-based company removes links to comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA requires search engines to remove links to infringing content at a rights holder’s request or else face liability for copyright infringement itself. Google said it complies with about 97 percent of requests, which are submitted via an online form and usually approved via a Google algorithm. Removal of links has become big business, as rights holders often farm out such duties.
Culture Desk: How to Get Privacy Right
Here’s a news cycle to get used to: a story breaks about a big technology company doing something that sounds like an invasion of privacy; then there’s outrage, and either an apology or a denial. Sometimes a class-action suit follows. Then everything gets forgotten until another week or two passes, and the cycle renews.
Google wouldn't exist if FB had been dominated the Internet
Google would not have been able to develop its search engine if the Internet had been dominated by Facebook, the company’s founder Sergey Brin said in an exclusive interview with The Guardian. While several of his negative comments focused on the social networking company in the wake of its recent IPO, he actually showed more general preoccupation with web freedom. It is under threat for several reasons, he said.
Quebec Erupts
100. One hundred days have now passed since the “Printemps Érable” (“Maple Spring”)began in February 2012. Students have been protesting on the streets of Montreal each night against announced increases in their tuition fees, ordered by government of Jean Charest, the Canadian province’s premier.
Malware and computer viruses: They’ve left porn sites for religious sites
AFP/Getty Images. As with herpes, one of the peripheral embarrassments of contracting a computer virus is that everyone has a pretty good idea of what you were up to when you got it. Oh sure, it’s possible you just chastely pecked a misleading email link. But odds are you picked it up because you were dallying on one of those shady, fly-by-night websites that people visit when they’re seeking fulfillment. You know—religious sites. What’s that?
It starts in Quebec: Our revolution of love, hope and community
In almost every report on the social movement now sweeping Quebec, including my own, words like conflict, crisis and stand-off figure prominently. Anger is omnipresent. The anger of protesters, the anger of government, the anger of those supposedly inconvenienced. Pundits scream about mob rule, anarchy in the streets and the dissolution of society as we know it.
One Per Cent: Anonymous members tricked into giving up bank details
Jacob Aron, technology reporter (Image: Isopix/Rex Features) Members of Anonymous regularly band together to take down websites owned by those they don't like, but security firm Symantec reports that a recent attack could actually have backfired, putting amateur hacktavists' bank accounts at risk. Anonymous uses tools such as the Low Orbit Ion Cannon or Slowloris to perform distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against its targets, with sympathetic Anons downloading the software to become part of a voluntary botnet. In January the group decided to hit the websites of the US Department of Justice and various media companies in response to the takedown of file storage site Megaupload, providing a guide on Pastebin for those who wished to take part in the attacks. Computers infected with the malware still took part in the Anonymous DDoS attacks, but were also secretly sending online bank account and webmail logins back to the attacker.
