Taking a step that has tempted and terrified much of the newspaper industry, The New York Times announced on Wednesday that it would charge some frequent readers for access to its Web site — news that drew ample reaction from media analysts and consumers, ranging from enthusiastic to withering. Starting in January 2011, a visitor to NYTimes.com will be allowed to view a certain number of articles free each month; to read more, the reader must pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the print newspaper, even those who subscribe only to the Sunday paper, will receive full access to the site without any additional charge
The Gmail accounts of foreign reporters in at least two news bureaus in Beijing have been hijacked, a journalists’ group in China said Monday. The news comes just one week after Google said it had been targeted by recent cyberattacks aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The US search giant cited the attacks as one reason it has decided to stop censoring its Chinese search engine and may ultimately close its China offices, a threat China has dismissed. The hijacked Gmail accounts used by the journalists in Beijing had been set to forward all e-mails to a stranger’s address, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said in an e-mail to members. The group did not name the news organizations hit by the attack or say when the hijacking occurred
Last week, CYBERsitter sued the People’s Republic of China, the two Chinese software makers, and seven computer manufacturers for distributing Web filtering software known as Green Dam with allegedly stolen code. This week, the law firm representing the company said that it had been targeted in a cyber attack from China. In a phone interview, Elliot B Gipson of Gipson Hoffman & Pancione described what amounts to a spear-phishing attack — the same technique used against Google in China. They were e-mails targeted at individuals in our law firm that were made to appears as if they were coming from other individuals at our law firm,
he said. They attempted to get the target to click on a link or attachment
In a statement issued today, the German Federal Office for Security in Information Technology (known as BSI) recommends that all Internet Explorer users switch to an alternative browser. They may resume using Explorer after a fix is issued by Microsoft for a critical vulnerability that has been implicated in the Chinese cyberattack against Google
Updated Hackers who breached the defences of Google, Adobe Systems and at least 32 other companies used a potent vulnerability in all versions of Internet Explorer to carry out at least some of the attacks, researchers from McAfee said Thursday. The previously unknown flaw in the IE browser was probably just one of the vectors used in the attacks, McAfee CTO George Kurtz wrote in a blog post. Using a sophisticated spear-phishing campaign, the perpetrators included malicious links exploiting the bug in emails and instant messages sent to employees from at least three of the targeted companies. Contrary to previous speculation, there was no evidence vulnerabilities in Adobe’s Reader or Acrobat applications were used in any of the attacks, Kurtz said. In its own statement, Adobe concurred, saying researchers have not been able to obtain any evidence to indicate that Adobe Reader or other Adobe technologies were used as the attack vector in this incident
. Kurtz said his findings were based on malware samples taken from three to five
of the targeted companies and he stressed that other zero days or exploits could have been used against other victims
Channel 4 looks set to become embroiled in another taste row after backing a project which seeks to mummify a terminally-ill volunteer for a TV documentary. The body of the candidate selected to be embalmed could then end up being displayed in a museum. If the project goes ahead it will follow a trail of programmes which seek to challenge views on death
Internet giant Google has said it may end its operations in China following a sophisticated and targeted
cyber attack originating from the country. It did not accuse Beijing directly, but said it was no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine — google.cn. This could result in closing the site, and its Chinese offices, Google said
Most consumers are aware that they’re entitled to have goods replaced if they prove faulty early in their life after purchase, but just how long does that period last? In the case of Vodafone and mobile phones, the answer now turns out to be more than two weeks
thanks to an ACCC court ruling that should help everyone who owns a mobile phone. The ACCC has sought and received court enforceable undertakings from Vodafone that it will not automatically tell consumers that they are entitled only to a repair on faulty phones any time two weeks after purchase, a policy apparently adopted by some 3 stores prior to its merger with Vodafone and one which violates the Trade Practices Act. The decision is interesting even if you’re not a Vodafone customer, as it essentially defines reasonable periods for demanding a replacement phone (as opposed to a repair) when things go wrong
Macquarie University has revealed plans to ditch its inferior
Novell GroupWise staff email platform and replace it with Google’s Gmail offering, following an earlier successful roll-out among students
The Spanish cabinet has today passed legislation that will enable the authorities to shut down file-sharing sites more rapidly. The new legislation gives in to the demands of the US and local copyright lobby, who see Spain’s lenient copyright law as a thorn in their side
Sometime 2010
is when Vodafone Hutchison Australia has said it would commence selling Google’s new touchscreen handset, Nexus One. On the heels of an agreement between Vodafone Group and Google that was announced yesterday, the local arm, VHA, has confirmed it will be selling the device to Australians at some stage this year
A $US2.2 billion ($US2.39bn) lawsuit that targets the Chinese government and several international computer makers is the latest twist in the saga of China’s controversial Green Dam software, which last year was introduced to filter internet content on individual computers. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by Cybersitter, a California maker of parental-control software, alleges that Green Dam uses copied code from its filtering software. The complaint also alleges that China-based sources attempted to gain access to the private servers that held its proprietary material
Search giant Google has left Australia off the list of countries whose residents will be able to order its self-branded mobile handset based on its Android platform. Announcing the product overnight, Google said it would ship Nexus One devices to buyers in the Singapore, Hong Kong, Britain and the US
A web site that was taken offline by the domain name regulator .au Domain Administration, is now back online and continuing its protest against the Government’s internet filtering policy. The site stephenconroy.com.au, which takes aim at the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy for his policy on what it deems as internet censorship, was taken down by auDA at the end of last month less than two days after it went live
Obama administration officials say this new executive order doesn’t allow INTERPOL to do any more than they were allowed to do once Reagan recognised them as a public international organisation. Though clearly the Executive Order does prohibit US law enforcement from searching and seizing INTERPOL records, officials say, those provisions can be waived by the president if need be
The United States has lifted a 22-year ban preventing anyone with HIV or AIDS from entering the country. President Barack Obama says the measure was not compatible with American ambitions of becoming a world leader in the fight against the disease
Aker University Hospital is a dingy place to heal. The floors are streaked and scratched. A light layer of dust coats the blood pressure monitors. A faint stench of urine and bleach wafts from a pile of soiled bedsheets dropped in a corner. Look closer, however, at a microscopic level, and this place is pristine. There is no sign of a dangerous and contagious staph infection that killed tens of thousands of patients in the most sophisticated hospitals of Europe, North America and Asia this year, soaring virtually unchecked. The reason: Norwegians stopped taking so many drugs
Belarus’ authoritarian leader is promising to toughen regulation of the internet and its users in an apparent effort to exert control over the last fully free medium in the former Soviet state. “We will identify any person who disseminates lies and dirt, and will make them answer strictly to the law,” said President Alexander Lukashenko
The rules of political speech on the Internet are usually pretty simple. In America, almost anything goes. In places like China, the censors call the shots. But in India — a boisterous democracy that’s riven by religious and ethnic tension — the game is far trickier, as Google is discovering. In September, lawyers at Google’s New Delhi office got a tip from an internet user about alarming content on the company’s social networking site, Orkut. People had posted offensive comments about the chief minister of India’s southern state of Andhra Pradesh, who had died just a few days earlier in a helicopter crash. Google’s response: It removed not just the material but also the entire user group that contained it, a person familiar with the matter says. The Internet giant feared the comments could heighten tensions at a time when thousands of mourners of the popular politician were emptying into the street
New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone’s online life. The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand. In preparation, technicians have been installing specialist spying devices and software inside all telephone exchanges, internet companies and even fibre-optic data networks between cities and towns, providing police and spy agencies with the capability to monitor almost all communications. Police and SIS must still obtain an interception warrant naming a person or place they want to monitor but, compared to the phone taps of the past, a single warrant now covers phone, email and all internet activity. It can even monitor a person’s location by detecting their mobile phone; all of this occurring almost instantaneously
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