Personal data including the signatures of recipients has been exposed to those tracking deliveries on the Parcelforce web site, the BBC has discovered. A failure in the system allowed people using the mail tracing service access to the name, postcode and signature of various addressees. The breakdown put Parcelforce at risk of breaching data protection rules. The delivery service, part of the Royal Mail Group, apologised. It said the problem had been resolved
In a dangerous judgment for British bloggers and whistleblowers, a British court has ruled (absurdly) that because blogging itself is a public activity, bloggers have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their identities, and newspapers are allowed to publish their identities if they can find them by fair or foul means. A British police detective who recently won the Orwell Prize for his excellent political writing used his blog to write highly critical accounts of police activities and unethical behavior, making very powerful enemies in the process. A well-funded newspaper with powerful connections quickly heard of his blog and decided it was absolutely vital to expose his identity using an investigative journalist. Like any good newspaper, the blogger anonymized the people and the locations in all the cases he discussed on his blog, but the newspaper alleges these were not sufficiently anonymised and complains that they could work out the identities, though British newspapers don’t complain that they are allowed to publish the identities of men who are falsely accused of rape and cleared in court. The newspaper also helpfully contacted the blogger’s employer, and his job is now threatened — via Slashdot
Weather balloons may soon provide the first affordable broadband Internet access to the one-billion-strong African mass market. Accountant Timothy Anyasi and petroleum engineer Collins Nwani, both Nigerian-born serial entrepreneurs based in the US, have secured exclusive rights to market a type of near-space technology — developed by American telecommunications company Space Data — throughout the African continent
The US Patent and Trademark Office has announced that it will revoke an illegitimate patent on Internet subdomains as a result of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) Patent Busting Project campaign. US Patent No 6,687,746, now held by Hoshiko, LLC, claimed to cover the method of automatically assigning Internet subdomains, like action.eff.org
for the parent domain eff.org
. Previous patent owner Ideaflood used this bogus patent to demand payment from website hosting companies offering personalised domains, such as LiveJournal, a social networking site where each of its three million users may have their own subdomain
Fixed-line telephone users will pay £6 a year to fund the rollout of superfast broadband across the country, the government said today as it launched its Digital Britain report into the future of the media landscape. A 50p-a-month levy on every copper telephone line will help pay for next-generation broadband for 90% of the population
Caving to public pressure, China on Tuesday said that use of its controversial Green Dam Youth Escort
software is not required, though all PCs sold on the mainland will come with it pre-installed. China’s turnaround comes as public outcry over the Green Dam Web filtering software struck a nerve both inside and outside China. Last week, the Chinese government mandated that as of 1 July, all PCs sold in the country must have the Green Dam software to block pornographic and violent Web sites. The public fought back, claiming the software could also block users from viewing political content and censor other content. Some opponents also contend that the software can create security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers. An official with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology who wouldn’t reveal his name told The Associated Press that the use of the Green Dam Youth Escort software is not compulsory
Anti-piracy groups and lawyers across Europe are unmovable — they say that since they logged a copyright infringement from a particular IP address, the bill payer is responsible. Now a court in Rome has decided that on the contrary, an IP address does not identify an infringer, only a particular connection
The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks. Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark’s list of banned web sites. The move by the Australian Communications and Media Authority comes after it threatened the host of online broadband discussion forum Whirlpool last week with a $11,000-a-day fine over a link published in its forum to another page blacklisted by ACMA — an anti-abortion web site
As the embattled government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to limit Internet access and communications in Iran, new kinds of social media are challenging those traditional levers of state media control and allowing Iranians to find novel ways around the restrictions. Iranians are blogging, posting to Facebook and, most visibly, coordinating their protests on Twitter, the messaging service. Their activity has increased, not decreased, since the presidential election on Friday and ensuing attempts by the government to restrict or censor their online communications
If you’ve ever thought those tiny disclaimers on premium
SMS services were irresponsible and deceptive, you’re not alone — the ACCC is now hunting down advertisers who promote such services without making it clear what sort of fiscal hole the purchaser is digging for themselves. Back in May the ACCC announced new regulations for premium SMS providers, but it is already cracking down on the advertising of such services. Last week it announced two prosecutions relating to inadequate disclosure of terms as acting chairman Peter Kell
YouTube managed to achieve something incredible: browsers now cache YouTube videos and you can load the same video multiple times from the local cache. Try to go to a YouTube video, wait until the video is buffered and then reload the page. You’ll notice that the video starts instantly and you can watch it directly from your browser’s cache. This works even if you close the tab and open the same page later. If you have a slow Internet connection or if you frequently watch some videos, the new feature allows you to cache the videos, close the browser and watch the videos at a later time
Four nonprofit groups devoted to investigative journalism will have their work distributed by The Associated Press, The AP will announce on Saturday, greatly expanding their potential audience and helping newspapers fill the gap left by their own shrinking resources. Starting on 1 July, the AP will deliver work by the Centre for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, the Centre for Investigative Reporting, and ProPublica to the 1,500 American newspapers that are AP members, which will be free to publish the material. The AP called the arrangement a six-month experiment that could later be broadened to include other investigative nonprofits, and to serve its nonmember clients, which include broadcast and Internet outlets
The US Justice Department today unsealed indictments against three Filipino residents accused of hacking into thousands of private telephone networks in the United States and abroad, and then selling access to those networks at call centers in Italy that advertised cheap international calls. The indictment alleges that between October 2005 and December 2008, Manila residents Mahmoud Nusier, Paul Michael Kwan and Nancy Gomez broke into PBX systems, mainly by exploiting factory-set or default passwords on the voicemail systems. The government charges that the Italian call centre operators paid the hackers $100 for each hacked PBX system they found
Development of offshore wind farms has been restricted to places where turbines can be attached to the sea bed. But earlier this week, Siemens and energy company StatoilHydro installed what they call the first large-scale floating turbine. The installation is off the coast of Norway, and testing is expected to last for two years. The Hywind turbine will still have a ballast that is tied to the sea floor with cables. Wires will transfer the electricity produced to the mainland grid starting in July
The Nintendo Wii may help treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, including depression, a Medical College of Georgia researcher says. Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative disease that impairs motor skills. Dr Herz theorised that the popular computer game console, which simulates various sports and activities, could improve coordination, reflexes and other movement-related skills, but he found additional benefits as well
There can be little doubt that the provision of an effective and free service for BitTorrent anonymity would prove hugely popular. Today we bring you a detailed report on BitBlinder — a brand new open source project which promises to cloak your torrents, hide your browsing and get round many obstructive filters
Security firms Symantec and McAfee have both agreed to pay $375,000 to US authorities after they automatically renewed consumers’ subscriptions without their consent. The firms have agreed to settle the case with the New York Attorney General, who says the companies must be more up front about subscription renewals in the future
Like something out of Terminator 2, researchers are developing techniques for warfare of the future to create materials that self-assemble or alter their shape, perform a function and then disassemble themselves. These capabilities offer the possibility for morphing aircraft and ground vehicles, uniforms that can alter themselves in any climate, and soft
robots that flow like mercury through small openings to enter caves and bunker complexes
The Constitutionnal Council, highest jurisdiction in France gave its decision1 concerning the HADOPI three strikes
law, final stage before the promulgation of the law. It decided that presumption of innocence is more important than the idiotic schemes from the entertainment industries to artificially prolong their obsolete models. All sanctioning power (ie. disconnecting internet users) has been removed from the HADOPI
Mozilla is readying a program that will allow companies to build their own customised browsers based on the next version of Firefox, which will be out in a few weeks. The Build Your Own Browser program is a good fit for enterprises that want to create a customised browser that can be easily installed across multiple corporate desktops, said Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox at Mozilla
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