BitTorrent Census: About 99% of Files Copyright Infringing

It has never been a secret that the majority of files being shared over BitTorrent are movies and music that are likely being shared illegally. Princeton senior Sauhard Sahi confirmed this recently after setting out to survey the content available on BitTorrent and, although there are caveats to his findings, they highlight the relationship DRM has with illegal file sharing. As in: the more DRM there is on the legit versions of the content, the more popular it is on P2P

WikiLeaks Temporarily Closes Due to Lack of Funding

No more leaks, at least not for a while. The website WikiLeaks, known for breaking numerous news stories — ranging from publishing secret documents on Guantanamo Bay to corruption in Kenya — has shut down due to a lack of funds. In a statement posted on its website, WikiLeaks parent, The Sunshine Press, a non-profit organisation funded by human rights campaigners, investigative journalists and the general public, explained that the site needed $600,000 in order to survive 2010 and pay their employees. Since the December launch of their funding drive, the organisation has managed to raise just $130,000 in donations, far short of the amount required

Technology

Google Phases Out Support for IE6

Google has begun to phase out support for Internet Explorer 6, the browser identified as the weak link in a cyber attack on the search engine. The firm said from 1 March some of its services, such as Google Docs, would not work properly with the browser. It recommended individuals and firms upgrade as soon as possible

CIA, PayPal Under Bizarre SSL Assault

The Central Intelligence Agency, PayPal, and hundreds of other organisations are under an unexplained assault that’s bombarding their web sites with millions of compute-intensive requests. The massive flood of requests is made over the web sites’ SSL, or secure-sockets layer, port, causing them to consume more resources than normal connections, according to researchers at Shadowserver Foundation, a volunteer security collective. The torrent started about a week ago and appears to be caused by recent changes made to a botnet known as Pushdo

Gates: $10B Vaccine Program Could Save 8.7M Lives

Bill and Melinda Gates announced plans Friday to invest $10 billion in the fight against a number of illnesses including AIDS and said the record donation could save nearly nine million lives. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, they said the 10-year program will focus on vaccines for AIDS, tuberculosis, rota virus and pneumonia. We must make this the decade of vaccines, said Bill Gates. Vaccines are a miracle, added Melinda Gates. With just a few doses, they can prevent deadly diseases for a lifetime. We’ve made vaccines our priority at the Gates Foundation because we’ve seen firsthand their incredible impact on children’s lives

3 Strikes Coming To The United States Via The Back Door?

3 Strikes is a regime being introduced in various countries around the world to try to deal with illicit file-sharing. Already Taiwan, South Korea and France are putting their versions of the plan into action and other countries have similar proposals under discussion. In one form or another, could the same be coming to the United States?

iPad Is a ‘Huge Step Backward’

As Steve Jobs and Apple prepared to announce their new tablet device, activists opposed to Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) from the group Defective by Design were on hand to draw the media’s attention to the increasing restrictions that Apple is placing on general purpose computers. The group set up Apple Restriction Zones along the approaches to the Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts in San Francisco, informing journalists of the rights they would have to give up to Apple before proceeding inside

Laser Fusion Test Results Raise Energy Hopes

A major hurdle to producing fusion energy using lasers has been swept aside, results in a new report show. The controlled fusion of atoms — creating conditions like those in our Sun — has long been touted as a possible revolutionary energy source.—However, there have been doubts about the use of powerful lasers for fusion energy because the plasma they create could interrupt the fusion

Neuron Breakthrough Offers Hope on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

Neurons have been created directly from skin cells for the first time, in a remarkable study that suggests that our biological makeup is far more versatile than previously thought. If confirmed, the discovery that one tissue type can be genetically reprogrammed to become another, could revolutionise treatments for conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s, opening up the possibility of turning a patient’s own skin cells into the neurons that they need

Apple Unveils iPad Tablet Device

Apple has put an end to weeks of speculation by unveiling its tablet device, which it has called the iPad. Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive described the tablet, which will cost between $499 and $829 in the US, as a third category between smartphones and laptops. The device, which looks like a large iPhone, can be used to watch films, play games and browse the web. Apple has declined to reveal whether the iPad 3G model would be available in Australia, but confirmed that the Wi-Fi-only version would be available in March

Diamond Oceans Possible on Uranus, Neptune

Oceans of liquid diamond, filled with solid diamond icebergs, could be floating on Neptune and Uranus. The research, based on the first detailed measurements of the melting point of diamond, found diamond behaves like water during freezing and melting, with solid forms floating atop liquid forms. The surprising revelation gives scientists a new understanding about diamonds and some of the most distant planets in our solar system

After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday’s Web Site

In late October, Newsday, the Long Island daily that the Dolans bought for $650 million, put its web site, newsday.com, behind a pay wall. The paper was one of the first non-business newspapers to take the plunge by putting up a pay wall, so in media circles it has been followed with interest. Could its fate be a sign of what others, including The New York Times, might expect? So, three months later, how many people have signed up to pay $5 a week, or $260 a year, to get unfettered access to newsday.com? The answer: 35 people. As in fewer than three dozen. As in a decent-sized elementary-school class

Piracy Letter Campaign ‘Nets Innocents’

More than 150 people have approached consumer publication Which? Computing claiming to have been wrongly targeted in crackdowns on illegal file-sharing. ACS:Law has sent thousands of letters to people claiming they have illegally downloaded material and offers them a chance to settle by paying around £500. Which? says it has been approached by some — including a 78 year-old accused of downloading pornography — who have no knowledge of the alleged offence

Japanese Scientists Invent ‘Elastic’ Water

Japanese scientists from the Tokyo University have invented a new material, which consists of water by 95 percent. The report said it’s safe for humans and environment and could, therefore, be used in medicine in a long-term perspective. The new material was obtained by adding about two grams of clay and a small quantity of appropriate organic matters into normal water. The new aqua substance is elastic and transparent and looks very much like jelly. Its characteristics make it possible to use it in medicine for sticking together tissues

Moscow’s Stray Dogs Evolving Greater Intelligence, Including a Mastery of the Subway

For every 300 Muscovites, there’s a stray dog wandering the streets of Russia’s capital. And according to Andrei Poyarkov, a researcher at the AN Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, the fierce pressure of urban living has driven the dogs to evolve wolf-like traits, increased intelligence, and even the ability to navigate the subway

Call to Banish Virus-Hit Computers from Internet

Computers infected with viruses could be expelled from the internet under a new industry code to control Australia’s plague of contaminated PCs. The federal government has given the internet industry an operate-or-legislate ultimatum to identify zombie computers involved in cyber-crime. The Internet Industry Association — whose members include major internet service providers Optus, Telstra, Vodafone, AAPT, Virgin and Hutchison 3G, as well as industry giants Facebook, Google and Microsoft — is preparing a voluntary industry code to come into force this year. The move follows industry intelligence that Australia now hosts the world’s third-highest number of zombie computers infected with malicious software that can attack other PCs, send spam, store child pornography or steal the user’s identity

Chinese Human Rights Sites Hit by DDoS Attack

Five Web sites run by Chinese human rights activists were attacked by hackers over the weekend, as a separate row continued between Google and China over political cyberattacks. The Web site of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group, was hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that lasted 16 hours starting Saturday afternoon, the group said in an e-mailed statement on Monday. A DDoS attack involves the attacker ordering a legion of compromised computers all to visit a certain Web site at once, overwhelming its server with requests for communication and leaving the site inaccessible to normal visitors. The group said it could not confirm the origin of the attackers but called the Chinese government the most likely suspect

‘Monstrous’ $2m Download Fine Slashed

Condemning a $US2 million fine meted out to a Minnesota woman for illegally downloading music over the internet as monstrous and shocking, a judge has slashed the penalty to $US54,000 ($59,800). US District Court Michael Davis said the fine imposed by a jury on Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a single mother of four from the town of Brainerd, veered into the realm of gross injustice. In a high-profile music piracy case, Thomas-Rasset was found liable in June of violating music copyrights for using the Kazaa peer-to-peer file-sharing network to download 24 songs. A jury ordered her to pay $US1.92 million or $US80,000 per song to six record companies: Capitol Records, Sony BMG Music, Arista Records, Interscope Records, Warner Bros Records and UMG Recordings. The judge slashed the fine to $US54,000, or $US2250 per recording, and complained in his ruling on Friday, a copy of which was obtained by AFP on Monday, that he was constrained from reducing it even further