According to the New South Wales state government, the Sydney Morning Herald, a local newspaper, attacked the government’s web site firewall security
for two days to research a recent story. The affected government minister said that the website was accessed 3,727 times, and that this is akin to 3,727 attempts to pick the lock of a secure office and take highly confidential documents
. The matter has been referred to the police, who are now investigating. But how did the paper hack
the web site? They entered the unannounced URL. Security by obscurity at its finest — via Slashdot
Following widespread objections, New Zealand’s Section92A guilty upon accusation
anti-piracy law was scrapped last year. Today, The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill will be introduced, which repeals Section 92A and replaces it with a three-notice
regime, backed up by $15,000 fines and 6 month Internet suspensions
While the communications networks that aid groups set up quickly following the earthquake in Haiti were surely critical to rescue efforts, the new networks have had some negative effects on the local ISP community. Now, more than a month after the earthquake devastated the island nation, local ISPs (Internet service providers) in Haiti are starting to grumble about being left out of business opportunities and about how some of the temporary equipment — using spectrum without proper authorization — is interfering with their own expensive networks, causing a degradation of their services
Early results from broadband information site Whirlpool’s annual survey has found that 91.8 per cent of respondents do not support the idea of mandatory internet filtering, with most believing the government should focus on educating parents and children instead
In the continuing saga of the Interzone debacle, Interzone employees have just released footage of a former Interzone manager attempting to unlawfully retrieve IP from the Perth game studio containing the Interzone Futebol content and assets that the employees had worked on, the previous 18 months of which were completed without payment. Last week, Mike Turner flew in from the US with the aim of obtaining the Interzone Futebol content and bringing it back home. He attempted to sneak into the offices at night expecting little to no confrontation, however, it seems he was caught red handed by staff
ebay urged European regulators to drop a requirement for Internet retailers to have bricks-and-mortar
shops, warning it would hurt small firms, keep prices high and stifle e-commerce. According to a draft regulation drawn up by the European Commission and seen by Reuters, suppliers may be allowed to require that distributors have a brick-and-mortar
shop before they can sell online. The proposed rules would replace existing guidelines exempting companies from strict EU competition rules under certain circumstances. Those rules expire at the end of May
French lawmakers voted Tuesday to approve a draft law to filter Internet traffic, a measure the government says is intended to catch child pornographers. The bill will now go on for a second and final reading. Critics of the catch-all Bill on direction and planning for the performance of domestic security
say that filtering won’t stop the spread of child pornography — but could allow the government to censor other materials. The bill, known as Loppsi II in French, was approved by 312 votes to 214 in a vote in the National Assembly on Tuesday. The government has a large majority in the Assembly; two of its deputies abstained, with the others all voting in favour of the bill
Google has received federal approval to buy and sell energy on the open market, giving it more options for the way it powers its data centres and opening the door to a potential move into the energy-trading business. Google applied for the authorization last December through a wholly owned subsidiary called Google Energy. The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved its application Thursday, granting Google market-based rate authorisation
, or the authority to buy and sell energy on a wholesale basis
The City of Norfolk, Virginia is reeling from a massive computer meltdown in which an unidentified family of malicious code destroyed data on nearly 800 computers citywide. The incident is still under investigation, but city officials say the attack may have been the result of a computer time bomb planted in advance by an insider or employee and designed to trigger at a specific date
Michael Atkinson says his family is more at risk from angry video gamers than outlaw motorcycle gangs. The South Australian Attorney-General revealed in an interview aired last night that a threatening note from a gamer
was placed under his door early one morning
But shocked bus passengers were literally attacked with Spam in Sydney’s inner west today. Police say a 32-year-old man was on a city-bound bus on Illawarra Road at Marrickville about 8.40am when he got into an argument with two other passengers. He got off and chucked the tinned meat — and a brick — at the vehicle’s windows, then fled
Electronic Frontiers Australia today launched a new campaign against the Rudd Government’s mandatory Internet filtering plan. The Open Internet campaign emphasises that Australians want an Open Internet that is free from an impractical and costly policy of Government imposed mandatory Internet filtering
Yet another Australian copyright decision, this one handed down on 10 February, has gone against the pro-copyright owner trend of recent decades. Telstra and Sensis have lost in the Federal Court of Australia before Justice Michelle Gordon in seeking to protect claimed copyright in White Pages and Yellow Pages
Iceland could become a journalism haven
if a proposal put forward by some Icelandic MPs aided by whistle-blowing web site Wikileaks succeeds. The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI), calls on the country’s government to adopt laws protecting journalists and their sources. It will be filed with the Althingi — Iceland’s parliament — on 16 February.—If the proposal succeeds it will require the Icelandic government to consider introducing legislation
The European Parliament has blocked a key agreement that allows the United States to monitor Europeans’ bank transactions — angering Washington. The US called the decision a setback for EU-US counter-terror co-operation
. The vote was a rebuff to intensive US lobbying for EU help in counter-terrorism investigations
PayPal does not have authorisation in India to provide cross-border money transfers, a spokeswoman for the country’s central bank said on Thursday. PayPal needs authorization to operate a cross-border money transfer service, under the country’s Payment and Settlement Systems Act, Alpana Killawala, spokeswoman of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), said Thursday. In a Tuesday blog post PayPal said that the suspension of personal payments to and from India would continue for at least a few months until it resolves questions from Indian regulators
Google says it will not voluntarily
comply with the government’s request that it censor YouTube videos in accordance with broad refused classification
(RC) content rules. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy referred to Google’s censorship on behalf of the Chinese and Thai governments in making his case for the company to impose censorship locally. Google warns this would lead to the removal of many politically controversial, but harmless, YouTube clips
The Iranian government plans to permanently suspend Google’s email service in the country, the Wall Street Journal reported on its web site on Wednesday
The famous chain renting out DVD, Blu-ray, and video games discs worldwide has announced it has gone bust in Portugal. Of course, it blames piracy
An internet group has taken down the Australian Parliament House web site and hacked into Kevin Rudd’s web site in a series of coordinated protests against plans to filter the internet. The government’s recently-commissioned Cyber Security Operations Centre discovered Wednesday’s attack was coming on February 5 but still couldn’t stop it entirely. Anonymous, the group responsible, is known for its many attacks against Scientology websites and has recently turned its attention to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and his plan to filter the internet. The attack came in the form of what is known as a denial of service — sites are bombarded with millions more communication requests than can possibly be handled
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