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India launches national surveillance system, monitors Internet, calls, texts
- Last month, India's government deployed what is known as the "Central Monitoring System". The several-million dollar surveillance initiative gives Indian government agencies unprecedented power to silently monitor communications, not the least of which include Internet activity, text messaging and phone…
Online retailers may have to charge sales tax if Senate vote passes
- The United States Senate is set to vote on whether online retailers should be forced to charge sales tax on all purchases, regardless if the buyer lives in a state where the retailer has a physical location or not, according…
Mozilla demands firm halt spyware masquerading as Firefox
- Gamma International, a British security firm with ostensibly few scruples, has been accused of developing surveillance software which intentionally masquerades as Firefox. The program's unauthorized similarities to Mozilla's well-known browser prompted the organization to issue a cease-and-desist notice in an…
Vote on US Internet sales tax bill nears: Marketplace Fairness Act
- The U.S. Senate is poised to vote on the Marketplace Fairness Act -- an innocuously named piece of legislation which is actually an initiative to implement a nation-wide sales tax. Essentially, the MFA doesn't create a federal sales tax, but…
CISPA passes House (again), White House threatens veto (again)
- The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is once again making the rounds. The bill passed the House on Thursday with a 288-127 vote. Although there appears to be a fair amount of bi-partisan support for the bill, it may…
PlusD is Wikileaks' searchable archive of U.S. classified documents
- Wikileaks has unveiled a newly searchable archive dubbed the "Public LIbrary of U.S. Diplomacy" or otherwise known as PlusD. The whistle-blowing organization hopes its efforts to sort, tag and analyze an enormous collection of more than two million U.S. documents…
Phone-unlocking petition author launches "Fix the DMCA" campaign
- Sina Khanifar, co-found of OpenSignal, has launched a campaign to "fix" the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Interestingly, Khanifar is also the same person who authored a recent petition to legalize cellphone unlocking. His "We the People" submission was subsequently blessed…
Microsoft enables China to spy on Skype users via keyword triggers
- University of New Mexico student Jeffrey Knockel claims to have revealed an encrypted list of 1,100+ keywords within China's Skype client, TOM-Skype. This list, containing words like "BBC" and phrases like "Democratic Unionist Party", are suspected to be used for…
Iceland drafts Internet porn ban, EU considers "self-regulated" approach
- The European Parliament is mulling over a proposal brought forth by the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality which, amongst other things, calls for a self-regulating ban on all forms of pornography in the "media". Parliamentary member Christian Engstrom…
White House: It's time to legalize cell phone unlocking
- In February, a petition calling for an end to the ban on unlocking cell phones was introduced. In a short amount of time, the petition received the requisite 100,000 signatures needed to elicit a possible White House responsible. Today, the…
Denmark to slap Microsoft with $1B in taxes after funneling profits overseas
- Microsoft's clever accounting techniques may have been a little too clever, at least according to Danish authorities. Denmark officials are considering a tax levy of 5.8 billion kroner -- or roughly 1.01 billion USD at current exchange rates -- over…
FCC will investigate phone unlocking ban, cites innovation, competition concerns
- FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski says the FCC will be investigating whether or not a ban on cellphone unlocking is a sensible demand. The government communications body will also be exploring its options to address the ban, assuming it determines the…
Manning pleads guilty, hoped leaks would "cause society to reconsider" war on terror
- During his military trial at Ft. Meade, Bradley Manning, age 25, plead guilty yesterday to 10 of 22 charges stemming from the submission of classified information to Wikileaks in 2010. Manning has claimed responsibility for obtaining and sharing hundreds of…
Petition to legalize unlocking reaches 100K signatures, warrants White House response
- With over 100,000 signatures (and counting), an open petition asking the White House to legalize unlocking cell phones could elicit an official response from the Obama administration. Currently, 100,000 signatures within the first month of a petition's life is the…
Australia subpoenas Microsoft, Apple to explain why products cost Aussies more
- Australian parliamentary officials have launched a formal inquiry which aims to examine why many tech products cost Aussies up to 50 percent more than they do for American consumers. Reportedly, Microsoft, Apple and Adobe are among some of the companies…
Japan to broadcast 4K UHDTV in 2014, 8K as early as 2016
- If CES was any indication, Ultra-High Definition televisions will soon be all the rage. While increasing pixel counts are always proportionately more awesome, there's a minor snag: 4K UHD content is nearly non-existent. Japan is aiming to wrestle this problem…
Pentagon to quintuple cyber defense personnel
- Although yet to be formally announced, a report by the Washington Post reveals plans by the Department of Defense to bolster its Cyber Command unit. The Pentagon's cyber defense force is currently comprised of roughly 900 military and civilian personnel,…
Skype calls purportedly being tapped, Skype-based malware spreads
- In terms of security, privacy and trust, it looks like 2013 is shaping up to be a tough year for Skype. The latest ding against the Microsoft-owned company comes from Reporters Without Borders' online censorship project leader Grégoire Pouget, who…
Banning sex offenders from social media sites violates free speech, Federal court rules
- Due to First Amendment concerns, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has invalidated an Indiana law barring registered sex offenders from using social network sites. "The Indiana law targets substantially more activity than the evil it seeks to redress,"…
Former FCC chair: ISP data caps are about monetization, not network congestion
- Data caps, also known as broadband caps and bandwidth caps, have long been a controversial method of managing network congestion by ISPs -- or has it? While numerous ISPs have explained away the necessity of bandwidth caps to maintain quality…
Pakistan lifts YouTube ban, reinstates ban minutes later
- When YouTube refused to take down a controversial video called "Innocence of Muslims" this summer, a small number of violent protests were sparked. Pakistani officials reacted by imposing a country-wide block of YouTube. According to the New York Times, YouTube was made…
Amazon to begin collecting sales tax in Massachusetts, Nov 2013
- Slowly but surely, it appears Amazon is losing the battle against collecting state sales tax on purchases made through its website. Massachusetts is the latest in a growing list of places where Amazon must charge sales tax on the goods it…
FCC asks FAA to relax in-flight device restrictions, study under way
- Federal Communications Commission chairman Juluis Genachowski has asked the Federal Aviation Administration to consider relaxing its strict set of policies (pdf) prohibiting the in-flight use of certain portable electronics. Specifically, the FCC would like the FAA to, "enable greater use of…
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