News

Saudi royals seek ban on .virgin, .sex, .catholic, .wtf and 159 more

Rebekah Heacock — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:20:10 +0000

Date:

14 August 2012

Teaser:

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has objected to the proposed new top-level internet domains .virgin and .baby – applied for by Virgin Group and Johnson & Johnson respectively – on the grounds that they will encourage pornography.

Source:

The Register

Researchers Seek Help Cracking Gauss Mystery Payload

Rebekah Heacock — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 18:36:52 +0000

Date:

14 August 2012

Teaser:

Researchers at Kaspersky Lab in Russia are asking the public for help in cracking an encrypted warhead that gets delivered to infected machines by the Gauss malware toolkit.

The warhead gets decrypted by the malware using a key composed of configuration data from the system it’s targeting. But without knowing what systems it’s targeting or the configuration on that system, the researchers have been unable to reproduce the key to crack the encryption.

Source:

Wired

Malaysia: Blackout Protest Against Internet Censorship Legislation

Rebekah Heacock — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 18:36:22 +0000

Date:

14 August 2012

Teaser:

This August 14, 2012, Malaysian netizens are blacking out in protest against the second of two recent amendments made to the Malaysian Evidence Act 1950. The amendment made by the Evidence (Amendment) (No2) Act 2012, Section 114A (S114A), deals with allegedly illicit or harmful content on the Internet

Source:

Global Voices Online

Australia calls for regulation of social media

Melody Zhang — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 15:33:52 +0000

Date:

10 August 2012

Teaser:

Australian MPs have started to call for legislative powers to compel social networks to swiftly remove offensive content, after Facebook failed to act decisively to remove a page containing numerous racist stereotypes of Australian aboriginals.

Source:

The Register

Google censors left-wing Israeli ad campaign

Melody Zhang — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 21:09:59 +0000

Date:

9 August 2012

Teaser:

Online advertising giant refuses to run an ad campaign against Finance Ministry's decision to grant huge tax breaks to multinational firms operating in Israel, due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Source:

Haaretz

Attack traffic from China and the US increased in the first quarter of 2012

Melody Zhang — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 18:06:03 +0000

Date:

9 August 2012

Teaser:

China and the U.S. were the two largest sources of Internet-attack traffic in the first quarter of 2012, increasing to account for 16 percent and 11 percent respectively, according to Akamai Technologies. Russia ranks third in the top ten and generated 7 percent of all attack traffic, a slight increase compared to last year's results.

Source:

PC World

Flame and Stuxnet cousin targets Lebanese bank customers

Melody Zhang — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 15:46:38 +0000

Date:

9 August 2012

Teaser:

A newly uncovered espionage tool, apparently designed by the same people behind the state-sponsored Flame malware that infiltrated machines in Iran, has been found infecting systems in other countries in the Middle East, according to researchers.

Source:

Wired

Second DDoS attack strikes WikiLeaks

Melody Zhang — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 17:32:04 +0000

Date:

8 August 2012

Teaser:

WikiLeaks has been hit by another distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, according to the organisation, and some have already claimed a government entity is behind the hit. Julian Assange’s publishing body took to Twitter to note that its site was down, as was the donation page run by French organisation Defense Fund Net Neutrality (FDNN).

Source:

TechWeek Europe

Brazil pioneers an Internet Bill of Rights

Melody Zhang — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 15:49:52 +0000

Date:

7 August 2012

Teaser:

The Marco Civil, a ‘bill of rights for Internet' users in Brazil, will come to a vote on August 8, 2012. While the majority seems to support the approval of the law, some are against the broad freedom that the initiative will bring.

Source:

Global Voices

Iran reschedules internet exit for 'next month'

Melody Zhang — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 15:47:16 +0000

Date:

7 August 2012

Teaser:

Iran is to move key ministries and state bodies off the worldwide internet next month in an effort to shield them behind a secure computer wall from disruptive cyber attacks like the Stuxnet and Flame viruses.

Source:

The Telegraph