Bigmouthmedia Search Engine News: /ethics/

Samsung wins court ruling to access detail of Apple-HTC patent deal

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 04:00:00 GMT

An American court has ordered that Apple must disclose details of a recent patent agreement with HTC to their bitter rivals Samsung.

The ruling by the judge means Apple will have to share the specifics of their 10 year license agreement, although the information will not be publicly available.

Samsung's lawyers were able to convince the court that the Apple-HTC deal related to at least some of their own patent disputes, that they are currently locked in worldwide litigation with the Californian company over.

Andrew Milroy, vice president of ICT research at Frost & Sullivan, commented to the BBC about Samsung's actions, saying, "It is clearly a very smart move from Samsung - because the general feeling is that a lot of its patent disputes with Apple are very likely to be similar to those between HTC and Apple.

"And if there are similarities, it gives Samsung an advantage in any future legal issues and negotiations with Apple. Apple has been having a really bad time of late in its legal battles. They are going to have to re-examine the legal approach they take from here on."

Apple's deal with HTC is thought to have ended legal disputes in around 20 countries that dated from March 2010. Samsung is currently fighting 10 patent battles with Apple, with the two companies suing and counter-suing each other over alleged design infringements.

This latest loss comes amid a string of other recent legal defeats for Apple. The South Korean company has appealed Apple's award of £662 million compensation for patent infringement in the US whilst also winning a case in the UK and defeating an attempted American sales ban.

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Web users unsure if online content is legal

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 03:13:00 GMT

Half of all web users admit that they aren't sure if the content they view online is legal and one in six say they have breached online copyright, according to a new study.

Media regulation body Ofcom has found 47 per cent of web users do not know the source of their downloads or if they are even legal.

When asked if they were confident in knowing what is legal or illegal in terms of streaming, downloading and viewing online content, 28 per cent of those asked reported that they were not particularly confident and 17 per cent answered "not at all."

Of the one in six users who said they knowingly accessed illegal content, half of them were consuming music and two per cent games and software, with 54 per cent saying the most common reason for doing so is because it is free.

Internet Service Providers are soon to be made responsible for informing users the content they are about to view or use could be illegal and used for copyright infringement cases. They will also be encouraged to promote legal places for users to download content.

"Consumer research is only one perspective on levels of online copyright infringement. For a more complete picture, it should be considered alongside direct measurement of behaviour on file-sharing websites and wider industry data. Ofcom expects to consider all these data sources as part of its statutory reporting duties in the near future," Ofcom stated in a press release.

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GoDaddy goes down

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 06:36:00 GMT

Many thousands of websites crashed after one of the world's biggest internet domains GoDaddy went down.

A possible hack has been blamed for site disruption yesterday, with many users expressing annoyance via the websites hosts Twitter page.

"Hey, all. We're aware of the trouble people are having with our site. We're working on it" a representative for GoDaddy wrote on the company's Twitter page.

They apologised to their users for any frustration caused by the technical glitch believed to be the result of a hacking incident.

One Twitter account - @AnonymousOwn3r, which recognises itself as the "security leader" of the infamous hacking group, said the attack had been carried out by an individual and not the organisation itself.

The worldwide hosting service is reported to have generated a staggering £687m in sales last year alone. In an interview with the BBC, Rick Ferguson, Director of Security Research at computer corporation Trend Micro said: "What I've seen and heard is it was a DoS attack on the DNS infrastructure.

"If it is true, then that has not been constructed to scale up in a sizeable DDos. The GoDaddy site can cope with a sizeable amount of traffic, but its DNS may not have been.

"Of course, that's speculation and without confirmation from GoDaddy on the nature of the attack, we don't yet know the full facts," he concluded.

Anonymous is an organised group of hackers and hacking advocates who were responsible for staging protests in India against internet censorship and in April of this year, and also claimed responsibility for defacing almost 500 websites in China.

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Google to pay up for cookies

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 09:49:00 GMT

Google looks set to pay a hefty $22.5m (£14.5m) penalty in the United States over allegations it broke privacy agreements and secretly tracked users of Apple's Safari browser.

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Search titan Google is set to pay a staggering $22.5m (£14.5m) penalty after circumventing user privacy settings on Apple's Safari browser - the largest fine ever imposed on a single company by the Federal Trade Commission.

A loophole - which Google maintains was an unintentional mistake - allowed the search seraph to install cookies via adverts and track user web habits even if their Safari browsers had been set to reject them. According to Google, no personal information was collected.

An article published earlier this year by the Wall Street Journal exposed the process after a Stanford University researcher discovered it - the paper alleged Google code tricked Safari by making it think users had filled out an "invisible form" allowing cookies to be used.

Google pledged to halt this process when the article was published, arguing the process was an "unanticipated side-effect" that came as a result of its efforts to "personalise" Google+ accounts for users.

According to the BBC, the FTC could fine Google a maximum of $16,000 (£10,349) for each violation of its privacy practices per day - when the settlement fee is officially set it could potentially be much higher than originally suggested.

"We... set the highest standards of privacy and security for our users," a Google spokesperson told the BBC.

"The FTC is focused on a 2009 help-centre page published more than two years before our consent decree, and a year before Apple changed its cookie-handling policy.

"We have now changed that page and taken steps to remove the ad cookies, which collected no personal information, from Apple's browsers."

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Russian Wikipedia goes down for 24 hours

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 09:24:00 GMT

Wikipedia's Russian version has been taken down for 24 hours in protest at a new law that would let that country's government blacklist certain websites. The Russian government says it wants more power to block sites that spread information about drugs, show images of child pornography and promote teen suicides.

However human rights activists argue the law would be too wide in scope, giving government officials the power to 'subjectively' select sites for blacklisting.

The Act for Information is sought to be amended by Russian administration when it comes under review in the Duma (Russia's parliament) on the 11th July. If the amendments are approved, then a government agency will be set up to create and maintain a list of banned websites.

During the blackout, users were greeted with a message reading: "The State Duma is expected to hold a second hearing about amendments to the Information Act, which could lead to the creation of extra-judicial censorship of the entire internet in Russia, including banning access to Wikipedia in the Russian language.

"Today the Wikipedia community voices protest against the introduction of censorship, which is dangerous for the freedom of knowledge - something which must be open-access for all mankind."

Wikipedia has compared these moves to the 'Great Firewall of China', Beijing's method of blocking any information on the internet that it deems controversial.

In reaction to the taking down of the site, Russian Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov said on Twitter: "I do not support the idea of shutting down Wikipedia. Its step is an important reaction by the web community which says that the law [submitted to the Duma] needs to be improved."

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Google receives 'alarming' amount of government censorship requests

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 02:24:00 GMT

Google has published its bi-annual Global Transparency Report which shows that it received more than 1,000 censorship requests from governments all over the world. These requests include the removal of items such as website search listings and YouTube videos.

The search giant has complied with more than half of these requests.

"Unfortunately, what we've seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different," said Dorothy Chou, Google's senior policy analyst, in a post on the official Google blog.

"When we started releasing this data, in 2010, we noticed that government agencies from different countries would sometimes ask us to remove political content that our users had posted on our services. We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it's not."

Of the censorship requests, Google received 461 court orders to remove 6,989 items and consented to remove 68 per cent of them. They also complied with 46 per cent of 546 informal requests.

"It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect - western democracies not typically associated with censorship," said Chou.

These requests include the Spanish government asking for the removal of 270 blogs and links to articles that criticised public figures in the country. The British government asked for the removal of five YouTube videos that they believed promoted terrorism. However, the majority of requests that Google complied with came from the Thai government, who asked for the removal of 149 YouTube videos that allegedly insulted the King of Thailand.

It is also interesting to note that none of these requests include censorship from the Chinese and Iranian governments. Both countries block content without notifying Google.

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Critics dub new communications bill "snooper's charter"

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 01:37:00 GMT

Activists have hit out against updated government legislation which extends the type of data ISPs must retain.

The most recently published draft of the government's communications bill is an update to the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) and outlines new duties for UK communications companies. The government said the new legislation will protect the general public and aid the fight against criminals and terrorist organisations, however critics of the bill have dubbed it a "snooper's charter".

"This is all about giving the police unsupervised access to data. It is shocking for a government that opposed Labour's plans on this to propose virtually the same thing," Jim Killock, director of the Open Rights Group told the BBC. "It will cost billions of pounds and will end up only catching the stupid or the innocent. Terrorists will circumvent it."

Although under new proposals ISP would not be required to save data on the content of websites visited, they would be required to keep details of the use of social networking sites, gaming, voice calls over the internet, webmail and websites visited.

The Internet Service Providers' Association (Ispa) is considering the proposals, although will be in talks with the government to ensure the proposals are fit for purpose.

"Ispa has concerns about the new powers to require network operators to capture and retain third party communications data," a spokesperson said in a statement.

"These concerns include the scope and proportionality, privacy and data protection implications and the technical feasibility.

"Whilst we appreciate that technological developments mean that government is looking again at its communications data capabilities, it is important that powers are clear and contain sufficient safeguards."

Home Secretary Theresa May stood by the bill and emphasised its importance for tackling crime in an age of new technology.

"Communications data saves lives. It is a vital tool for the police to catch criminals and to protect children," May told the BBC.

"If we stand by as technology changes, we will leave police officers fighting crime with one hand tied behind their backs.

"Checking communication records, not content, is a crucial part of day-to-day policing and the fingerprinting of the modern age - we are determined to ensure its continued availability in cracking down on crime."

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Google Street View case to be reopened in the UK

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 01:12:00 GMT

Google is under investigation again by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) after gathering personal data while its cars photographed the country for the firm's Street View service. The first investigation had been dropped after Google said that the data had been collected by mistake.

However, reports have since arisen that a Google engineer had written software to gather a wide range of material on purpose. As a result, the case has been reopened and more information requested by the ICO.

The ICO wants to know what data was captured; when Google's managers become aware of the data; how this was dealt with; and why the full range of data was not presented. The ICO is also requesting a certificate to say that the data has been destroyed.

The ICO noted, in a letter to Google, that the FCC had said that the captured data had included "complete email messages, email headings, instant messages and their content, logging-in credentials, medical listings and legal infractions, information in relation to online dating and visits to pornographic sites".

It added: "It therefore seems likely such information was deliberately captured during the Google Street View operations conducted in the UK."

Google are adamant that the data was untouched and that they would be happy to co-operate with the ICO.

"We're happy to answer the ICO's questions. We have always said that the project leaders did not want and did not use this payload data. Indeed, they never even looked at it," a Google spokesman told the BBC.

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Researchers find spyware in Simurgh

Wed, 30 May 2012 07:13:00 GMT

Internet users in Iran and Syria who try to get around censorship controls are being targeted by spyware, researchers from the University of Toronto have found.

The team discovered installation software for a proxy tool called Simurgh was also implanting keylogging spyware.

Simurgh software is used to keep the web users identity anonymous and allow them to gain access to blocked sites, but a corrupted version also adds a Trojan virus to the PC - sending data to a site registered with a Saudi Arabian ISP.

Data sent includes usernames, machine name, windows clicked and each keystroke entered.

Simurgh makers posted a message of warning on their website, suggesting versions of the software downloaded from file sharing site 4shared could have been compromised. Meanwhile, antivirus providers Sophos and Avira have updated their malware scanners to identify when the code is present.

"This Trojan has been specifically crafted to target people attempting to evade government censorship," Morgan Marquis-Boire, a technical adviser in Toronto University's Munk school of Global Affairs, said.

"If found to be installed on a computer one must consider all online accounts (email, banking etc) to have been compromised and it is advised that all online passwords be changed as soon as possible."

The discovery comes following another malware attack in the Middle East - dubbed Flame - which sought to steal sensitive data.

"Unlike Flame, which is highly targeted malware that has only been found on a handful of computers globally, this malware is targeting users for whom having their communications compromised could result in imprisonment or worse," Chester Wisniewski, senior security advisor at Sophos, wrote on the company's blog.

"Many thousands depend on the legitimate Simurgh service, which makes it likely that far more people have been impacted by this malware."

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Weibo introduces user contracts

Mon, 28 May 2012 06:12:00 GMT

User contracts for Chinese microblogging site Weibo were implemented after local authorities were critical of the 'unfounded rumours' that were put on the website by a number of users. A code of conduct has now been introduced in order to restrict such rumours.

BBC News has been told a credit score system may also be introduced with points deducted for rule breaches.

It is thought each user will have 80 points to start with, gaining more if they take part in promotional activities but will have them removed if they break the code of conduct. Those who constantly offend will have their accounts deleted.

The rules apparently state that users must not spear rumours or publish untrue information. Libellous comments and personal insults are also not allowed.

In addition to this, posting material that is against China's constitution and honour is also in breach of the rules, as well as promoting cults, protests and mass gatherings.

Further, users are also not allowed to use 'oblique expressions' to circumvent the rules.

"This is a sign of the authorities trying to restrain the internet in China, but a hardcore group of people will still find ways to get round the restraints," Dr Kerry Brown, head of the Asia Programme at the Chatham House think tank, told the BBC.

"There is a tradition of indirect criticism in which people make points using coded references. I very much doubt these rules will change anything."

Weibo is run by its parent company, Sina Corp, and has more than 300 million registered users.

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