Rogers, a huge cable internet provider in Canada, has decided to hijack all unregistered domains, and replace them with Yahoo! advertisements. This means Rogers users who type in a domain that doesn’t exist, are now getting Yahoo ads instead of the normal not found
error. Interestingly, Rogers also decided to do this with subdomains
Scientists are searching within the virtual world and finding real viruses. Every hour, HealthMap, an infectious disease-tracking Web site, culls through news Web sites, public health list servs, the World Health Organization’s online pages, and other Web sites in six different languages to pinpoint outbreaks of disease that real-world doctors can then act on
Kaspersky Labs has discovered malware that inserts links to malicious Web pages within ASF media files, posing a danger to Windows users who download music files from P2P networks. Infected files launch IE and load a page that asks the user to download a codec. The download, a Trojan horse, installs a proxy program to route other traffic through the PC. The malware also has worm-like qualities, according to Secure Computing. It searches for MP3s, transcodes them to WMA format, wraps them in an ASF container, and adds links to further copies of the malware, all without modifying the .MP3 extension — via Slashdot
Google said it will pay US$140 million for a Russian contextual advertising company as it seeks to expand its services to advertisers and web site publishers outside the US. The 6-year-old company, Zao Begun but known as Begun, has a search and contextual advertising business, with about 40,000 advertisers and a network of 143,000 Russian-language web sites
Google’s most popular web applications will work offline. After Google Reader and Google Docs, two other services will integrate with Gears. Gmail and Google Calendar will add offline support in approximately six weeks
A 27-year-old man was sentenced to 30 months in prison Tuesday for blasting AOL subscribers with spam over a four-month period. Adam Vitale was also ordered to pay AOL US$180,000 in restitution, according to his attorney, David Touger. He was sentenced in US District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan
Microsoft is in discussions with Time Warner over how to combine Microsoft and AOL’s online groups
Mozilla has patched a pair of critical vulnerabilities in Firefox, taking the unusual step of updating the older version 2.0 on Tuesday but delaying the fixes for the newer version 3.0 until Wednesday. Both updates, labeled Firefox 2.0.0.16 and Firefox 3.0.1, plug two holes rated critical
by Mozilla, which uses a four-step threat ranking system. One of the flaws patched in 2.0.0.16 and 3.0.1 was credited to security researcher Billy Rios, who wrote last month about a blended
threat to Windows users who had both Apple’s Safari browser and Firefox installed on the same system
YouTorrent is without a doubt the most talked about newcomer in the BitTorrent scene this year. The site initially indexed all the popular torrent sites, but switched to purely verified
torrents after receiving legal threats. Today, YouTorrent officially relaunches with 67,170 legal
torrents, good for 6TBs of data
UK ISPs will be invited to tender for a British government scheme to monitor all internet communications and telecommunications in the country. But Britain’s information commissioner, Richard Thomas, has raised serious concerns about a government plan for a vast new database holding the telephone numbers and email accounts of everyone in the country
A deal struck today lets Google cloak identities of YouTube users while complying with a court order to show Viacom the video viewing habits of everyone who has ever used the popular web site
eBay scored a major legal victory on Monday when a federal judge absolved it of taking more steps to police fake Tiffany jewelry sold on its web site and held that brand owners are ultimately responsible for protecting their own trademarks. All of Tiffany’s trademark infringement claims against eBay were rejected — a knockout blow to the four-year-old lawsuit that had been closely watched by Internet companies as well as luxury goods makers seeking to stop the sale of counterfeit products online. The ruling is expected to be appealed
eBay’s recent deal with Buy.com appears to be seriously irritating its veteran individual sellers. The deal allows Buy.com and other large fixed-price retailers to list millions of items on eBay without paying listing fees, and appears to be the direction that eBay will follow in the future. Understandably, individual sellers are outraged — via Slashdot
Internet-based payment service Paymate, a PayPal rival, has lodged a complaint with the competition regulator alleging that eBay has breached the Trade Practices Act. From 21 May, eBay amended its user agreement so sellers have to include PayPal as one of their payment methods for each listing. This conduct, argues Paymate, restricts its ability and that of other payment options to be adopted because eBay mandates PayPal for sellers
Japanese scientists have made a micro-sized sewing machine to sew long threads of DNA into shape. The work published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Lab on a Chip demonstrates a unique way to manipulate delicate DNA chains without breaking them
The Pirate Bay have embarked on a project to encrypt all internet traffic, probably by means of an OS-level wrapper around all network connections, which would fall back to an unencrypted connection when the other end is not similarly equipped. The move has been prompted by a recent change in Swedish law, allowing the authorities to snoop on network traffic. This will be a boon to filesharers and anyone else concerned about authorities and trade groups’ recent moves towards ‘policing’ network traffic at the ISP level — via Slashdot
A group of Bangladeshi expatriates have developed a plan to bring affordable Internet access to their homeland through a blend of high-end wireless technology and what the company calls social entrepreneurship
An appeals court in Germany has ruled that the owners of a network are not responsible for the copyright infringement of their users. The decision overturns a previous judgment that held an open WiFi network owner liable for damages, even if the infringer is a stranger making use of the network. Although the latest ruling may affect others across Europe, it’s not likely to carry much weight in the US
Lively, an online tool, allows people to embody a cartoonish online avatar and have text-based conversations with friends and other Internet users in virtual chat rooms
A new way of capturing the energy from the Sun could increase the power generated by solar panels tenfold, a team of American scientists has shown. The new technique involves coating glass with a specific mixture of transparent dyes which redirect light to photovoltaic cells in the frame. The technology could be used to convert glass buildings into vast energy plants. The technology could be in production within three years
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