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Google

Submission + - Google Accuses China of Interfering with Gmail 2

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Guardian reports that Google has accused the Chinese government of interfering with Gmail. According to the search giant, Chinese customers and advertisers have increasingly been complaining about their Gmail service in the past month and attempts by users to send messages, mark messages as unread and use other services have generated problems for Gmail customers. The announcement follows a blog posting from Google on 11 March in which the firm said it had "noticed some highly targeted and apparently politically motivated attacks against our users. We believe activists may have been a specific target." The search firm is not commenting further on this latest attack, but technology experts said it seemed to show an increasingly high degree of sophistication. "In the wake of what is happening in the Middle East I don't think China wants to be seen making heavy-handed attacks on the internet, that would draw too much attention," says one internet executive who wished to remain anonymous adding making it look like a fault in Google's system was extremely difficult to do and the fact that these attacks appear to come and go makes the attack look "semi-industrial and very, very sophisticated.""
Networking

Submission + - HTTPS is more secure,so why isn't the Web using it 1

suraj.sun writes: HTTPS is more secure, so why isn't the Web using it?

You wouldn't write your username and passwords on a postcard and mail it for the world to see, so why are you doing it online? Every time you log in to Twitter, Facebook or any other service that uses a plain HTTP connection that's essentially what you're doing.

There is a better way, the secure version of HTTP — HTTPS. But if HTTPS is more secure, why doesn't the entire Web use it? Web security got a shot in the arm last year when the FireSheep network sniffing tool made it easy for anyone to detect your login info over insecure networks. That prompted a number of large sites to begin offering encrypted versions of their services via HTTPS connections.

ARS Technica: http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/03/https-is-more-secure-so-why-isnt-the-web-using-it.ars

Submission + - "An Internal Brain Drain" (sciencemag.org) 1

walterbyrd writes: Dr. Norman Matloff of the University of California-Davis computer science department, argues that US citizens are avoiding "Science Technology Engineering Math" (STEM) careers, because US citizens see those fields as being ruined by massive offshoring, and inshoring.

Submission + - Righthaven Copyright Lawsuit Backfires

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Steve Green reports in the Las Vegas that US District Judge James Mahan has ruled that the Center for Intercultural Organizing, an Oregon nonprofit, did not infringe on copyrights when it posted an entire Las Vegas Review-Journal story on its website without authorization and that there was no harm to the market for the story. Mahan stressed that his ruling hinged largely on the CIO's nonprofit status and said the copyright lawsuit would be dismissed because the nonprofit used it in an educational way, didn't try to use the story to raise money, and because the story in question was primarily factual as opposed to being creative. "The market (served by the CIO) is not the R-J's market," says Mahan. This is the second fair use defeat for Righthaven and is significant since it involved an entire story post rather than a partial story post. Green says that Righthaven's strategy of suing 250 web site and demanding $150,000 in damages plus forfeiture of the web site's domain name has clearly backfired and now Righthaven, the self-appointed protector of the newspaper industry, has left the newspaper industry with less copyright protection than if they never filed their lawsuits at all. "Righthaven may argue its lawsuits have deterred rampant online infringements of newspaper material — but there's no proof that infringements it usually targets involving bloggers and special-interest websites ever affected newspaper revenue in the first place," writes Green. "While these aren't binding precedents upon other judges, these rulings can now be used by special-interest websites to justify their postings of what used to be copyright-infringing content. These, clearly, are setbacks for all newspapers interested in protecting their copyrights.""
Censorship

Submission + - Obama wants new copyright law crackdown (cnet.com)

suraj.sun writes: The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers.

In a 20-page white paper (PDF http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ip_white_paper.pdf ), the Obama administration called on the U.S. Congress to fix "deficiencies that could hinder enforcement" of intellectual property laws.

The White House is concerned that "illegal streaming of content" may not be covered by criminal law, and to resolve that ambiguity, it wants a new law to "clarify that infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony in appropriate circumstances."

The term "fair use" does not appear anywhere in the report. But it does mention Web sites like The Pirate Bay, which is hosted in Sweden, when warning that "foreign-based and foreign-controlled Web sites and Web services raise particular concerns for U.S. enforcement efforts."

CNET News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20043421-281.html

Submission + - Internet-spreading American gets 15 years in Cuba (wsj.com)

decora writes: "American social worker Alan Phillip Gross, who has spent years connecting developing countries to the internet, has been sentenced by a "Security Court" in Cuba to 15 years in prison. His crime was “Acts against the Independence and Territorial Integrity of the State." The Guban government also claimed he was trying to "destroy the Revolution through the use of communication systems out of the control of authorities.""
Government

Submission + - Blogger Fined $60K For Telling The Truth (startribune.com)

jfruhlinger writes: ""Johnny Northside," a Minneapolis blogger with less than 500 readers a day revealed that a University of Minnesota researcher studying mortgage fraud had been involved in a fraudulent mortgage himself; the blog post was at least partially responsible for the researcher losing his job. The researcher then sued the blogger and won — despite the blogger having his facts straight. Johnny Northside plans to appeal the verdict."

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