Chinese Internet search engine Baidu.com was asked by Beijing's Internet self-discipline organization to make a public apology for spreading Hong Kong star Edison Chen's pornographic photos.
China's top Internet search engine, Baidu.com, has been censured by a government-sponsored watchdog for allegedly helping spread sexually explicit photos that appear to feature several Hong Kong stars.
The photos, which appear to show actor Edison Chen and several female stars performing sex acts or in sexually suggestive poses, are believed to have originated in Hong Kong. They have circulated widely here.
"'Key-words searching' and 'Tieba', a picture-sharing section of Baidu.com became a platform to show and spread the obscene pictures and Baidu failed to block the photos after other Beijing-based websites had taken actions against the pictures' spreading," said in Beijing Association of Online Media's statement.
The association praised other Chinese websites, such as NetEase.com, Sina.com and Sohu.com for urging their users not to spread the photos.
Baidu.com is the most popular internet search engine in the China and even dominates the global leader Google. China's online population has soared to 210 million people, and was said could surpass the United States this year to become host to the world's biggest online community.
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technorati tags: china, baidu, internet
China censures its own popular search engine Baidu
EBay to change rules on its feedback system
All buyers and sellers are equal in the virtual auction world of eBay, but buyers are about to become more equal than everyone else. The on-line auction site is to ban sellers placing negative feedback about buyers on trades that go sour.
eBay has said it plans to overhaul its feedback system, said problems were occurring, and slowing down trade, when buyers left negative comments about sellers who then retaliated with their own views. The move, which will affect users worldwide, has angered many sellers.
EBay has defended the move, claiming that buyers need more protection than sellers because they have to send money to a counterparty they do not know.
The group added that it is rare for buyers to renege on payments. But sellers have claimed that the new system leaves them vulnerable to extortion with buyers wielding the ability to blacklist them without the opportunity to defend themselves. And they complain that by still allowing buyers to leave dissenting comments about sellers, eBay has skewed the whole trading process.However, eBay counters that problem buyers can still be dealt with.
"If a buyer doesn't pay, the seller can easily contact eBay, we will review any complaint and maybe remove the buyer," a spokesman said.
EBay says that only a minority of sellers leave negative feedback for buyers.
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technorati tags: ebay, feedback system
Sweden claims Pirate Bay Violates Copyrights
The four men in charge of running Pirate Bay, a popular file-sharing site, have been charged with conspiracy to break copyright law in their home country of Sweden.
A Swedish prosecutor filed charges Thursday against the organizers of popular file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, saying it has helped millions of users worldwide violate copyrights.
The Pirate Bay, started in 2004, allows 10 million to 15 million users share films, music and other copyright-protected material. Pirate Bay acts similar to Kazaa in that it is a source for users to find, share and download content, much of which is copyrighted. The site creates Torrent files, which must be accessed through third-party software programs before it can be viewed.
Swedish prosecutors say because Pirate Bay receives advertising revenue for its infringement of the copyrighted works, the people who operate the site are in violation of the law.
There are four men facing the charges: Peter Sunde, Carl Lundstrom, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Frederik Neij. If the men are found guilty they could face a possible maximum of two years behind bars. Pirate Bay has been under legal scrutiny for a while but the owners always refused to shut down their operations. In fact, the site is still up and running today.
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technorati tags: pirate+bay, sweden, copyright violation
Church of Scientology responds to Internet attacks
After the Church of Scientology's website has been taken down by a group of hackers calling themselves "Anonymous," the church responded by airing a video Friday evening.
Karin Pouw, public affairs director for the Church of Scientology, focused on the leak of a Tom Cruise video on YouTube earlier in the week.
As the Church previously announced, the pirated and edited excerpts of Mr. Cruise were contained in an official Church event in 2004, an event attended by 5,000 Scientologists and their guests and further available for viewing in any Church of Scientology world over. Having presented these selective and out-of-context excerpts with the intent of creating both controversy and ridicule, nevertheless resulted in people searching for and visiting Church of Scientology Web sites...
The church however still allows anyone who wants to know more about their religion to visit their websites.
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technorati tags: hack attack, scientology, anonymous
Hack Attack! Hackers Hit Scientology With Online Attack
A group of hackers calling itself "Anonymous" has hit the Church of Scientology's Web site with an online attack. This group claims to have knocked the Church of Scientology's Web site offline with a distributed denial-of-service attack.
According to a web page maintained by Anonymous, the attack was launched Jan. 19, which is seeking media attention to help "save people from Scientology by reversing the brainwashing," according to a Web page maintained by Anonymous.
Anonymous has managed to generate a measurable attack against the Scientology.org Web site. Over the past few days, the site was hit with several DDOS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks, which flooded it with as much as 220M bps of traffic, according to Jose Nazario, a senior security engineer with Arbor Networks, whose company compiles data on Internet attacks.
If publicity was Anonymous' ultimate goal, the group has had some success. Late in the day Friday, seven of the top 10 stories on the Digg.com news-linking site related to Scientology or to Anonymous' communiques.
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technorati tags: scientology, anonymous, hack attack
China Showing Their Numbers on the Internet
The Chinese government said Friday its Internet population has soared to 210 million people, putting it on track to surpass the U.S. online community this year to become the world's largest.
That figure puts China just 5 million users away from becoming the world's largest wired nation -- and with only about 16 percent of the population online. At its current growth rate, China will become the world's top Internet market sometime in the next few months.
The greatest growth came from users under 18 and over 30, CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center) said. China's most popular Internet application is online music, used by 86.6 percent of those surveyed, followed by instant messaging with 81 percent. E-mail placed only fifth, with 56.5 percent using it.
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technorati tags: china, internet population
Would You Buy a Domain Name Worth $750,000?
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Hack Attack! CIA Confirms Blacked Out Cities caused by Cyberattacks
Have you seen Bruce Willis' Die Hard 4.0? Well the plot of the movie is John McClane taking on an Internet-based terrorist organization who is systematically shutting down the United States. If you think that only happens in Hollywood films then think again. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has just confirmed that recent black outs from select cities were caused by hackers.
Criminals have launched online attacks via the Internet that disrupted power equipment in several regions outside of the U.S., CIA analyst Tom Donahue said, without identifying the countries affected. The goal of the attacks was extortion, he said.
Hacking the power grid made front-page headlines in September when CNN aired a video showing an Idaho National Laboratory demonstration of a software attack on the computer system used to control a power generator. In the demonstration, the smoking generator was rendered inoperable.
The U.S. is taking steps to lock down the computers that manage its power systems, however.
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technorati tags: hackers, black out, cyberattack
Yahoo To Support OpenID Standard
Yahoo announced Thursday that it is supporting the OpenID standard for a universal Internet log-in. Once the new Yahoo ID service is live, people with a Yahoo user name and password will be able to use that ID information to access non-Yahoo Web sites that support the OpenID 2.0 digital identity framework, reducing the amount of different log-in information people need to create, remember and enter online.
Yahoo’s 248 million users worldwide is a huge addition to the current OpenID members which is just around 120 million OpenID accounts so far. OpenID is designed to facilitate single log-ins for multiple unaffiliated Web sites. Gradually, large sites like AOL and Plaxo have begun supporting the standard, but it remains a tool for the Web's early-adopter set rather than the online community at large.
Yahoo launches its OpenID in public beta form on January 30.
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technorati tags: yahoo, OpenID, OpenID 2.0
FeedDemon RSS Reader 2.6 Now Free! And I'm lovin' it!
Before, what I usually do is open all my bookmarked news sites just to check on the latest web news, not today.. I just found out that FeedDemon 2.6- one of the most popular RSS Reader for Windows is now FREE!
It was January 9 when NewsGator announced that FeedDemon 2.6 and NetNewsWire 3.1 will be available free of charge and will include free synchronization along with other services. NetNewsWire is their RSS Reader for the Macintosh system. NewsGator also announced that users can synchronize to provide the same view of their RSS content no matter where or when they read it.
Of course I could have tried other free readers out there like the somewhat controversial(?) Google Reader. But I don't know, I think I was too lazy to try it that time. ^_^
Other than FeedDemon and NetNewsWire, Newsgator Inbox and Newsgator Go! will also be available for free. NewsGator Inbox gives you the ability to track and manage all of your RSS content within Microsoft Outlook, while NewsGator Go lets you track and manage all your RSS content on your Blackberry, Windows Mobile device, Java Mobile Smartphone or Java PDA.
As of now I'm still putting all my fave news sites to my reader- from CNN to CNET.. from TechCrunch to TechDirt. I'm loving it! No more 15 tabbed sites open at the same time on my Firefox browser, they are now well arranged and updated on my FeedDemon reader. If you haven't tried it you check it out on their website.
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technorati tags: NewsGator, RSS Reader, FeedDemon, FeedDemon Free, NetNewsWire, Newsgator Inbox, Newsgator Go!
web 2.0 comics slideshow
I saw this flash slide show on http://eisabainyo.net. It's like how the internet changed the way people (and even animals) live. enjoy (",)
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technorati tags: web comics, web 2.0 comics, slideshow Read more...
Yahoo! Mail and Messenger Together
Have you checked your Yahoo! mail? I checked mine this morning to see if my webhost received the payment for my hosting plan, and was surprised with the opening message saying - "Yahoo! Mail and Messenger Together!"
So Yahoo finally combined two of it's most popular web services. The look of yahoo mail is also different.. there is a home tab (I don't know if the old interface have those before, but I just noticed it now) which is similar to Yahoo's main site, a tab for your email messages, and additional tab for your Yahoo Messenger, so no more downloads and setup needed. Add to that the usual calendar, notepad, contacts and RSS feed reader.. and Yahoo Mail users will have lots of ways to easily organize and communicate with friends. So, have you checked your Yahoo! mail? What's your say on it?
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technorati tags: yahoo mail, yahoo messenger, combined mail and messenger
Get Broadband.. Save Planet
Can the internet save the planet? Solar arrays and wind farms grab all the green technology attention, but the Internet is quietly providing ways to save energy. Clearly, though, when it comes to energy use, the Web is both a crusader and a culprit. Server farms and data centers burn mountains of CO2, much of it to keep machines cool. But now a new crop of companies and thinkers is trying to make the Internet "carbon neutral" and find ways to use Web-based technologies to reduce worldwide energy consumption through "demand-response" schemes that give energy consumers more direct control over their energy use. Internet-enabled capabilities like telecommuting, e-commerce, teleconferencing, and distance learning that have been around for decades are expected to play an increasing role in cutting energy consumption--reducing air travel and the need for warehouses, trips to the mall, and even malls themselves. The American Consumer Institute projects that telecommuting alone will cut CO2 emissions by more than a half million tons over the next decade (see table, above). Overall, the Internet economy could help reduce growth in greenhouse gas output by 67% over the next several years, the study says, citing data from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
Couple the potential of Internet-related technologies with these investment engines and the optimists among us might foresee a significant dent in the energy crisis. But such pronouncements mask the inconvenient truth that the Internet hogs a great deal of power, particularly for big server farms on Google- and Amazon-like scales.
source: www.informationweek.com
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technorati tags: internet, save planet, save energy
Web Authorities Stepping Up Against Domain Tasting
Ever wonder why it seems more and more difficult for you to get the domain name you want when registering on a web host? Quite often it’s because the domain name tasting and kiting industry is alive, well and running rampant.
What is domain tasting by the way? it is a practice of registrants using the five-day "grace period" at the beginning of a domain registration to test the marketability of a domain name. During this period, the registrant analyzes the viability of deriving income from advertisements placed on the domain's website. Entrepreneurs have been taking advantage of a five-day grace period to sample domain names, keeping the relative few that might generate advertising revenues and dropping the rest before paying.
This practice became controversial when some registrants started to register hundreds of thousands of domain names using automated programs and software, making it difficult for legitimate businesses and individuals to get a desirable domain name.
AP Internet writer A. Jesdanun reported that the Internet's key oversight agency is taking a preliminary step towards combating domain name tasting. In a draft report issued this week, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers outlined key issues for a committee to study further and craft recommendations. But don't expect any immediate relief. The committee, the Generic Names Supporting Organization, could take months or years to review the matter, after which ICANN's board still would have to vote on any changes.
And how rampant is domain tasting today? In a report by GoDaddy, In February 2007 55.1 million domain names were registered. Of those, 51.5 million were canceled and refunded just before the 5 day grace period expired and only 3.6 million domain names were actually kept.
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technorati tags: domain tasting, domain name tasting,
Mozilla Gets a New CEO
Mitchell Baker has stepped down as the CEO of Mozilla Corporation, where she helped make the Firefox Web Browser a potent rival to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Baker is handing over the CEO job to John Lilly, Mozilla's chief operating officer, who becomes responsible for pushing out the updates to Firefox and Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail software, the company announced Monday. Baker will retain her role as chairman and stay active within the group, she said.
Lilly will be focused on getting the next version of Mozilla's Web browser, Firefox 3, out of the door. He also wants to be more open about how Mozilla operates and how it will support itself in the future. "I'd like us to start talking more in public about how the future looks for Mozilla," he wrote on his blog.Mozilla, which is a nonprofit foundation with a for-profit subsidiary, has been one of the most marked successes among open-source software developers. Although it has not reported 2007 revenues, it took in $66 million in 2006, largely from a revenue sharing relationship with Google. It said about 140 million people around the world use its applications.
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technorati tags: mozilla,new ceo Read more...
Wikia Search goes live.. but don't expect a Google killer
Jimmy Wales, the famous founder of Wikipedia, just unveiled an alpha version of his Wikia Search engine project. But despite the hype surrounding its appearance, online commentary has been mostly negative.
Across the blogosphere, pundits pounced. But technologists at leading search companies defended Wales and said his efforts could benefit the entire industry.
Arrington of Techcrunch wrote on his blog that the project is "a complete letdown" saying:
Many of us have waited a year as the Jimmy Wales hype machine promised a human powered search engine that could take on Google. Tonight that search engine launched at alpha.search.wikia.com, and it may be one of the biggest disappointments I’ve had the displeasure of reviewing.Wales admitted that the current search results are "pretty bad," saying it will take a minimum of two years before Wikia Search produces results as good as the major search engines. Matt Cutts, who leads Google's Web spam team, on the other hand published a blog entry Monday welcoming Wales to the industry.
congrats to the Wikia crew on your public launch, and welcome to the search industry! I’m glad that you’re jumping into the search space.
Ironically(?), while Wales' team is jumping into the search space, Google is somewhat jumping into the wiki space with their knol project. Cool isn't it?
The basics so far whey you use the search engine, is that you will be presented with a "mini article" at the top of the results list. Most often a text definition of what is determined the best answer to that particular query. Below the "mini article" will be the list of results, picked from the Search Wikia index. And on the right side will display photos of people "matching" with the query (you have to be a member to add your profile). Funny note, Matt Cutts has been kind enough to add his photo when you type "viagra" on the search field (",)Eniweys, regarding the current state of the project I think we shouldn't judge that quickly, give them more time to improve and develop the search engine.. it's still in it's alpha stage, right? So I say let's wait for maybe 6-12 months, and if no drastic changes or improvements were still made.. then I think it will be something to be concerned with. Just my 2 centavos.
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technorati tags: Wikia Search, alpha stage, search engine
Latest Mcafee Virus Definition Blocks Friendster and Other Sites, Marked Them as Risky
A little over a week after Kaspersky's anti-virus software declared Windows Explorer was a virus, it appears that McAfee has had its own mistake, a flawed DAT file or virus definition got pushed out causing many user to get bogus warnings that several popular websites like Friendster, Ars Technica, Verizon Wireless, ESPN and others are running a malicious code.
It seems that the latest batch of virus definitions – version 5197 - for the signature-based AV McAfee VirusScan hadn't had quite enough testing, and was rolled out with a flaw giving the scanner a hair-trigger when checking websites on-the-fly. Users of the software will have had trouble accessing not-inconsiderable chunks of the web since installing the update, which is performed automatically at regular intervals without prompting the user.
Users affected by the bug are recommended to upgrade to DAT file version 5198 or newer, which will be done automatically at the next scheduled check.
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technorati tags: McAfee, antivirus definition flaw, internet security
Netscape Browser to Die a Quiet Death in February 2008
Come February 1, 2008, AOL will cease development on all Netscape browsers.. according to a blog post by Tom Drapeau, AOL's director of the Netscape brand. He recommends that anyone running a Netscape-branded browser make the switch to Mozilla Firefox, the open-source browser upon which the last few versions of Netscape have been based.
"AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be," he writes. "Given AOL's current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reigns fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox."
Originally released in 1994, Netscape Navigator was the underdog contender in the "browser wars" of the late 1990s, when it faced stiff competition from Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. Unfortunately, Netscape, which needed to be downloaded and installed, lagged behind when Microsoft begun including IE on the desktop of every new Windows computer.
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technorati tags: netscape navigator, browser wars, navigator dead
Hackers quickly move to exploit Bhutto assassination
The tragic assassination of the former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has prompted malware authors to jump into action. Security experts are reporting a number of incidents where hackers have tried to con the curious into downloading a video of the assassination which delivers malware instead, according to the security experts McAfee Avert Labs Blog.
McAfee quickly located 10 sites hosted on Blogger.com, Google Inc.'s blog service, that were spreading the fake codec (see picture below).
The sites use the well-worn tactic of promising a video -- in this case one of Bhutto's assassination -- but telling Windows users that they need to install a new high-definition video codec, the program that decodes the digital data stream, to view the clip. Naturally, the so-called codec is no such thing, but is instead rigged code that downloads a variant of the Zlob Trojan horse, a back door that can infect the compromised PC with a wide range of other malware.
"Even death isn't sacred to some," said Symantec researcher Vikram Thakur in a post to the company's security response blog.
Pakistan's former PM Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday after addressing a large gathering of her supporters. John Moore, a photographer for Getty Images, said Bhutto was standing through the sunroof of her vehicle, waving to supporters, when two gunshots rang out. The attacker then blew himself up, killing and injuring a number of civilians. Head to cnn.com for more info and real video regarding the incident.--------------
technorati tags: hackers, Bhutto assassination, Benazir Bhutto, fake codec, trojan Read more...
Google tweaking its Reader service regarding Privacy concerns
Amidst a user backlash regarding changes to its Reader application, Google on Wednesday made slight adjustments to the service to enable more control over sharing capabilities. If you're not familiar about this issue, here's a short background: On December 14, Google announced that Reader, its RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed service, would link with contacts from GoogleTalk, the company's instant messenger, and Gmail, its web-based email service. Any feed tagged to "Share" in Reader would be visible to any Talk or Gmail contact.
This resulted to immediate reactions from some users. Others were much harsher in their criticism, including many of those who have posted hundreds of messages to a thread on a Google Reader forum. There's even an instance of a user's holiday being ruined because of this.
If you check out Google's official Reader blog, changes were already made on their sharing feature. You can now set "tags" to private or public. Each tag you share will get its own public page and feed URL, the same way shared items has a public page and feed; these tags will not be shared with anyone unless you send them the public address.
The firestorm over Google Reader is the second controversial attempt to expand social networking in the last two months. In November, Facebook launched an advertising system, dubbed Beacon, that users instantly slammed over privacy issues. Earlier this month, Facebook apologized, also made changes, and announced users could now switch off the system.
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technorati tags: google reader, online privacy, google