Buys Inc. Attorneys
ICT Law Blog
 
 
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
 
  Government proposes additional use of citizen information
The UK Government believes that data protection laws must be changed to facilitate more efficient Government, but privacy campaigners fear that changes would introduce a 'big brother' style all-knowing bureaucracy.

Ex-Qualcomm man sentenced for trade secret theft
An ex-Qualcomm employee has been sentenced for stealing trade secrets from the chipmaker before he applied for a new job with rival Nokia.

Dell accused of selling defective notebooks - again
A lawsuit filed in Ontario Superior Court alleges that Dell notebooks suffer from design defects that cause premature failure of the motherboard due to overheating. The suit, which seeks class-action status, was filed on behalf of an Ontario owner of an Inspiron PC, according to articles by the Canadian Press and the Associated Press.

Trader jailed for eBay fraud
A ROGUE dealer on eBay, whose business was based in Herefordshire, has been jailed for fraudulent trading. David Hammond, whose Kington-based company specialised in selling television and audio equipment, was jailed for eight months after defrauding users of the popular internet auction site.

EU data retention laws 'too costly' for telcos
EU laws that mean service providers will need to retain communications data for the purposes of possible criminal investigation will place a huge burden on carriers, market watchers warn

Disclosure of Government data mining could become US law
The newly Democrat controlled US Senate and Congress will soon vote on a law that would force the Government to disclose all data mining programmes on US citizens. The bill requires all federal agencies to disclose their data analysis activities.

Government proposes additional use of citizen information
The UK Government believes that data protection laws must be changed to facilitate more efficient Government, but privacy campaigners fear that changes would introduce a 'big brother' style all-knowing bureaucracy.

Trader jailed for eBay fraud
A ROGUE dealer on eBay, whose business was based in Herefordshire, has been jailed for fraudulent trading. David Hammond, whose Kington-based company specialised in selling television and audio equipment, was jailed for eight months after defrauding users of the popular internet auction site.

EU data retention laws 'too costly' for telcos
EU laws that mean service providers will need to retain communications data for the purposes of possible criminal investigation will place a huge burden on carriers, market watchers warn.

Disclosure of Government data mining could become US law
The newly Democrat controlled US Senate and Congress will soon vote on a law that would force the Government to disclose all data mining programmes on US citizens. The bill requires all federal agencies to disclose their data analysis activities.

Government proposes additional use of citizen information
The UK Government believes that data protection laws must be changed to facilitate more efficient Government, but privacy campaigners fear that changes would introduce a 'big brother' style all-knowing bureaucracy.

Web pirates seek own island
THE Pirate Bay, one of the world's most popular websites for the illegal downloading of films through file sharing, has said it wanted to buy its own island in a bid to avoid copyright laws."It's not only about Pirate Bay, it's more about having a nation with no copyright laws," said one of those behind the site, who gave his name only as Peter.

Saturday, January 27, 2007
 
  Get ready for Vista
NEXT WEEK the man in the street will finally be able to lay his hands on the long awaited successor to Windows XP - Windows Vista.

Friday, January 26, 2007
 
  Multi-nationals ignore SA patent law
"Does Microsoft intend to continue to break the law by filing software patents in South Africa?" This was the question Derek Keats of the University of the Western Cape asked Microsoft national technical officer, Potlaki Maine, in an open debate held at Freedom to Innovate South Africa's workshop on software and business method patents last Friday.

Disney creates online world for virtual pirates
Walt Disney Corporation has created an online world in which people can be virtual swashbucklers in the spirit of iconic movie company's blockbuster "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise.

Technology News: YouTube, Wikipedia storm into 2006 top brand ranking
Internet firm Google has again pipped Apple to the top spot in a global brand ranking that also sees YouTube and Wikipedia debut in the top five, a survey showed on Friday.

InformationWeek News: Rivals Attack Vista As Illegal Under EU Rules
A coalition of rivals charged on Friday that Microsoft Corp's new Vista operating system, due for worldwide release next week, will perpetuate practices found illegal in the European Union nearly three years ago.

Google Video surrenders to YouTube
Google announced that its online video-sharing service would shift focus to search and leave the video sharing to websites such as recently acquired YouTube.

Cultural shift to digital records management
As more organisations move towards an electronic document management system (EDMS), many employees wonder what they will do with all their files. The concept of moving from paper filing cabinets to an electronic system is at first a bitter pill to swallow, but with the right solution and the right messages, management can ease the cultural shift.

ECA will be key for VOIP
The Electronic Communications Act (ECA) will be key in the growth of voice over IP (VOIP) in South Africa, says Michael Kuczmierczyk, product development manager at Sentech

Credit Act uncertainty persists
Furniture retailers are moving ahead with implementing new systems despite uncertainty surrounding the National Credit Act.

Industry representation guidelines released
Guidelines for the recognition of telecoms industry representative bodies (IRBs) by the minister of communications, in terms of the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act, have been issued, four years after the original law was passed.

Adult sites face prosecution
Not all .za Web sites trading adult content have shut down and those still doing business now face prosecution, says the Film and Publications Board (FPB).

Undersea wrangling
The investors behind the proposed development of new submarine telecommunications cables linking Africa with the world are facing a range of obstacles - regulatory, political and economic - before the projects can even get off the ground.

Naspers joins MXit frenzy
Media group Naspers (NPN) on Friday announced the acquisition of a 30% stake in popular instant-messaging service MXit Lifestyle (Pty) Ltd for an undisclosed amount.

Naspers soars on news of big Russian internet deal
NASPERS’ stock powered to a new record yesterday, as the media company struck it third time lucky in Russia by nailing down a $165m deal to buy into the country’s largest internet portal.

Internet shaking up media industry
The Internet is causing something of an earthquake in the US media industry, which last year reported a nearly twofold increase in job cuts as more people turn to the Web as their main source for news.

Is there any hope for SA broadband?
Recent media reports have once again highlighted the dismal state of the local telecoms and broadband arena, with consumers becoming so frustrated that they pooled their funds to launch an advertising campaign organised through the Telecoms Action Group (TAG).

Court battles loom as partners fall out
THE joint owners of a software development house have become bitter enemies, with six separate court cases in play as each accuses the other of reneging on agreements and flouting their fiduciary duties.

South Africans revolt against high phone charges
South African telephone subscribers, enraged by high rates charged by fixed-line provider Telkom, are turning on the government and on the company which has near-monopoly status.

95% of consumers think Telkom CEO has failed
A recent MyBroadband poll revealed that 95% of the voters on the site thought that Papi Molotsane, Telkom’s CEO, has failed consumers.

Feds Keep Up the Heat on Pretexters
Several months after news of Hewlett Packard's boardroom spying scandal broke, pretexting -- misrepresenting one's identity to obtain confidential records -- remains a hot topic. On January 12, President Bush signed legislation that prohibits the use of pretexting to obtain phone records. And on January 10, federal charges were brought against Bryan Wagner, one of the outside investigators involved in the HP affair. Wagner was charged with aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Social Security Act. Moreover, while Congress and law enforcement have thus far targeted the pretexters, lawmakers and regulators are reportedly considering new measures that would impose additional responsibilities on telecommunications carriers and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers to protect records.

Neteller Arrests Suggest Online Payment Processors Are Holding a Losing Hand
On January 16, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that its crackdown on online gambling had raked in two new defendants, Stephen Eric Lawrence and John David Lefebvre, former executives and founding shareholders of Neteller PLC, a leading Internet payment services company. While DoJ's anti-gambling initiatives in 2006 focused on the online gambling companies themselves, the Department now appears to be casting a wider net. DoJ claims that Neteller, based in the Isle of Man and traded on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market, "facilitated the transfer of billions of dollars of illegal gambling proceeds from United States citizens to the owners of various internet gambling companies located overseas," in violation of U.S. money-laundering laws. The Department's decision to go after Neteller should further stifle the U.S.-facing online gambling market, which is still struggling to recover from the recent enactment of a federal law prohibiting any person "engaged in the business of betting or wagering" from "knowingly accept[ing]" payments made by financial institutions on behalf of individuals engaged in "unlawful Internet gambling." And since Lawrence and Lefebvre's only current connection to Neteller is their status as major shareholders -- something highlighted by DoJ, though not the legal basis for its action -- investors in online gambling companies and their payment-services partners should also take note.

Warrantless Wiretapping Ends With a Whimper, But Serious Questions Remain
On January 17, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that the President will not reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP), which involves the National Security Agency's warrantless interception of certain international telephone and Internet communications to or from the United States. In a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Ranking Minority Member Arlen Specter (R-PA), the Attorney General stated that "any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the [TSP] will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court" (FISC), the special court charged with overseeing requests for surveillance warrants involving suspected foreign terrorists and spies. The letter came the day before Gonzales was due to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and can be seen as part of an effort to short-circuit both pending court challenges to the TSP and the prospect of serious congressional oversight. Notably, though, Gonzales stated that the decision to end the TSP was a result of the FISC's issuance of what appear to be broad orders authorizing the same sort of sweeping intercept program, apparently without specifying individual targets. If that's the case, serious questions remain over whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) actually authorizes such generalized orders. Moreover, if the Administration's action fails to persuade courts to dismiss pending court challenges to the TSP, telecoms and other entities that cooperated with NSA could still face tough sledding.

Government proposes additional use of citizen information
The UK Government believes that data protection laws must be changed to facilitate more efficient Government, but privacy campaigners fear that changes would introduce a 'big brother' style all-knowing bureaucracy.

Labels: ,


Fox Subpoenas YouTube Over '24' Episodes
Before the first episodes of "24" aired on Fox this month, a YouTube user uploaded them to the file-sharing site and another, LiveDigital. This has prompted 20th Century Fox to serve YouTube and Live Digital with subpoenas to provide the studio with information about the user. The user also uploaded recent episodes of "The Simpsons."

MySpace is sued over child safety
MySpace is being sued by the families of five teenage girls who it is claimed were sexually assaulted by men they met through the social networking website.

China net use may soon surpass US
China could soon overtake the US to have the world's largest number of internet users, according to a state-controlled think-tank.

Net 'backbone' has security patch
The firm that makes hardware for much of the backbone of the internet has released three patches for security holes in its products.

Criminals 'may overwhelm the web'
Criminals controlling millions of personal computers are threatening the internet's future, experts have warned.

Microsoft in hot water over Wikipedia edits
Microsoft Corp. has landed in the Wikipedia doghouse after it offered to pay a blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site.

Re: Book written in txt msg
A novel whose narrative consists entirely of mobile phone text messages has been published in Finland.

Unsubscribing from cellphone spam
With MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) advertising growing rapidly in the market as an alternative means for companies to extend their brands, Multimedia Solutions recognises consumers' legitimate concern about spam.

Labels:


Tuesday, January 16, 2007
 
  Telkom in Constitutional Court appeal
The contract dispute between local fixed-line operator Telkom and US software firm Telcordia has escalated, with Telkom refusing to accept defeat.On 13 December, Telkom lodged an application with the Constitutional Court for leave to appeal the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling made in November, notes Lennard Cowan, Telcordia's attorney of record for all South African litigation matters.

Failsafe software
While buggy software and applications that miss the mark in terms of business expectations seems to be the norm in commerce today, there are some industries in which poor quality software is unacceptable because of the severe impact of downtime on their business. The telecommunications industry, for example, can lose millions of rands, as well as customer loyalty, when systems fail for even as little as an hour.

Cyber-squatters pounce on Beckams move to US
David Beckham's switch to US Major League Soccer sparked a mad scramble by cyber-squatters for Internet domain names that could cash in on the move, industry insiders said Friday.

Internet piracy site in bid for own island
The Pirate Bay, one of the world's most popular websites for the illegal downloading of films through filesharing, said on Friday it wanted to buy its own island in a bid to avoid copyright laws. "It's not only about Pirate Bay, it's more about having a nation with no copyright laws," one of those behind the site, who gave his name only as Peter, told AFP.

Is Telkom Breaking the Law?
Nearly five months after ICASA released their long awaited ADSL Regulations not much has changed in their provisioning of ADSL. Is Telkom breaking the law?

Fraudsters using new phishing tactics
A new phishing kit has been discovered that is being used by fraudsters to capture victims’ personal information online in real-time. The Universal Man-in-the-Middle Phishing Kit, discovered by veondor RSA, enables fraudsters to sit between prospective victims and legitimate businesses.

US watchdog cracks down on pay-up pop-ups
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has reached a short-term agreement with a video download site accused of bombarding users with pop-ups and demanding money to make them go away. Digital Enterprises Inc has entered into an interim agreement with the FTC to limit its pop-up software and to inform users what the software will do beforehand.

Grim 2007 Cyber Forecast (and a Nod to Late Pres. Ford)
The Washington Post's Business section today ran a story I wrote last week about the rise in spam and organized cyber crime -- a rise driven principally by a huge uptick in the number of security holes identified in widely used software products.

Internet Explorer Unsafe for 284 Days in 2006
Security Fix spent the past several weeks compiling statistics on how long it took some of the major software vendors to issue patches for security flaws in their products. Since Windows is the most-used operating system in the world, it makes sense to lead off with data on Microsoft's security updates in 2006.

Microsoft's Achilles' Heel: Office
The cyber attack last month against a U.S.-based public utility came wrapped in a Microsoft PowerPoint document featuring holiday illustrations and heartwarming reflections. This PowerPoint file, which resembled an innocuous version that was being forwarded around the Web by many sentimental e-mail users, had been modified to include a Trojan horse program designed to open a secret backdoor into the utility's internal computer network.

Free Tool Scans Your PC for Missing Patches
A number of past Security Fix postings lamented the lack of a free software tool that Windows computer users could use to quickly and easily scan their machines for missing patches for the myriad applications that run on top of Windows. Well, I was surprised to stumble across such a tool this week while scrounging for some past patch information over at vulnerability watcher Secunia's site.

Note to MySpace Users: Get Better Passwords
An active scam Web site designed to look like the login page for social-networking site MySpace.com appears to have stolen user names and passwords from nearly 60,000 people, according to data in a file that was linked to today from a popular security mailing list.

Guilty plea entered in HP case
The first guilty plea in the Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) boardroom snooping scandal is expected to be a distraction — but not necessarily a disaster — for the No. 1 PC maker. Private investigator Bryan Wagner, 29, on Friday plead guilty in federal court in Silicon Valley's San Jose to using an unidentified Wall Street Journal reporter's Social Security number to access personal phone records on behalf of HP.

Use of virtual reality spreading in business world
The pillars glide by as you float through the courtyard of an ancient palace. Moments later, the world turns blue as you slip along the ocean floor and poke through the Earth's crust in search of oil. The journeys take place in Room 278 at the Joshi Research Center, a data-crunching, virtual-reality hub where visitors are immersed in a dizzying array of computer-generated 3-D images.

BBC moves to file-sharing sites
Hundreds of episodes of BBC programmes will be made available on a file-sharing network for the first time, the corporation has announced. The move follows a deal between the commercial arm of the organisation, BBC Worldwide, and technology firm Azureus.

Technology 'embraced by public'
More people than ever are becoming early adopters of technology, says research outlined in Las Vegas. "Consumers get it; they understand technology and they are adopting it accordingly," analyst Sean Wargo told the Consumer Electronics Show.

Rivals battle for connected world
Technology giants Microsoft and Apple will set out their rival visions of the digital future at two separate events in the coming days.

No ceasefire in DVD format battle
The high definition DVD format war will continue until a winner is declared, technology watchers have heard. Blu-ray and HD-DVD are battling to become the pre-eminent hi-def format to replace the slowing DVD market.

Government looks at data shake-up
The way the government makes its vast amounts of data available to the public could be about to change. It has decided to make access to a database of UK laws completely free for the public to access and re-use.

Spy vs. Open Source Searcher
The search abilities of Web sites like Google and Wikipedia have given ordinary citizens intelligence-gathering capabilities that in some ways rival those of clandestine government agencies. The power of wikis and search engines lie in the massively collaborative effort that the technologies enable.

The Fear of Wandering E-Mails
Many corporate technology specialists express the fear that Google and its rivals may actually own the intellectual property in the e-mail that resides on their systems. Gmail's terms of service state that e-mail belongs to the user, not to Google. Its automated software does scan messages in Gmail, looking for keywords that might generate related text advertisements on the page.

Analytics: In-House or Outsource?
If analytics isn't absolutely core to your business, then you'll probably be better off outsourcing -- at least until the hiring/training/method situation has improved dramatically. It's hard enough for companies to do non-core jobs well without all the difficulties currently afflicting Web analytics.

DRM Needs to Work On Time, Every Time
For media companies, distribution through the Web can cut down on inventory and efficiently deliver content, both mainstream and otherwise, to customers. Consumers have proven that they will pay for what they want. However, once content is purchased, users will want to play it on multiple devices. Complex rules and limitations will quickly turn them off.

AOL Shuts Down Subscription Music Service
AOL will drop its MusicNow subscription music download service and transfer its 350,000 members to Napster. This comes just days after the Virgin Group announced similar plans for its own service. Competition among subscription-based music services is steep, especially when they have to go up against the pay-per-download model offered by the iTunes Store.

Graphic Images Give Spammers Better Tool
Spammers often change tactics to try and stay ahead of the curve, and the latest is image-based spam. Because spam blockers have become so efficient at detecting text-based spam, no matter how many different ways they try to spell "mortgage" and "Viagra," the spammers have added a new weapon to their arsenal: the graphic file.

Employees Using Web E-mail Raise Security Concerns
A growing number of Internet-literate workers are forwarding their office e-mail to free Web-accessible personal accounts offered by Google, Yahoo and other companies. Their employers, who envision corporate secrets leaking through the back door of otherwise well-protected computer networks, are not pleased.

Friday, January 12, 2007
 
  2007 Security Threats on the Rise
With the new calendars freshly hung on the wall, an important question surfaces: What security threats are on the rise for 2007? It appears that the year will bring more narrowly defined threats or "targeted threats," which are different from what we've seen before

2007 Security Threats on the Rise
With the new calendars freshly hung on the wall, an important question surfaces: What security threats are on the rise for 2007? It appears that the year will bring more narrowly defined threats or "targeted threats," which are different from what we've seen before.

Supermodel Says She Disagrees with YouTube Ban in Brazil
Brazilian supermodel Daniela Cicarelli said she disagreed with a judge's now-reversed order to ban YouTube in an attempt to stop steamy footage of her from being viewed. But she stopped short of offering an apology.

Parents Ask Court to Delete Juvenile Arrest Record Online
A Miami couple is asking a judge to force the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to remove their teenage daughter's arrest record for stealing a can of Coca-Cola from its publicly accessible, online database. The record details the Oct. 15, 2006, arrest of then 13-year-old G.G. for shoplifting.

Cisco Files Trademark Suit Against Apple Over "iPhone"
Cisco Systems has filed a lawsuit against Apple accusing the company of infringing its iPhone trademark, the networking company said. The suit also accuses the iPod maker used a front company to try to acquire rights to the name.

Betonsports Lawyer Stays Away From U.S. Arraignment (Update2)
Betonsports Plc lawyers didn't appear for the company's arraignment today on charges of violating U.S. gambling laws, opening the U.K. Internet bookmaker to sanctions.

Plans firm up for .xxx domain
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) has announced that it will try once more to start up a .xxx domain for pornography.

Winny linked to more GSDF data breaches
Members of the Ground Self-Defense Force have inadvertently allowed information to be exposed in 27 cases via the Winny file-sharing program installed on their personal computers between fiscal 2002 and the end of October, sources close the GSDF said Monday.

Va. Bill would Protect Against Identity Theft
Some Virginia lawmakers want better protection against identity theft.
They are proposing a bill that would require victims to be notified of any breach of security when personally identifiable information is hacked or stolen from a government or private agency.

Singaporean faces jail for tapping wireless network to make bomb threat
A Singapore court charged a man for posting a bomb hoax online while illegally tapping into a wireless Internet network. Both offenses which carry jail terms, court documents showed Friday.

16-year-old Norwegian filesharer charged
A 16-year-old from Stavanger in Norway who shared thousands of movies and songs through the P2P program Direct Connect, has been charged with illegal file-sharing, Norwegian Aftenposten reports. The boy allegedly ran the Stavanger Dragon Hub, from where at least 7,000 movies, 150,000 songs and 20,000 video clips were shared illegaly.

2 City Employees Plead Not Guilty In Hacking Case
LOS ANGELES Two high-ranking transportation engineers accused of hacking into the city's traffic center and disconnecting traffic signals hours before a union protest pleaded not guilty Monday to criminal charges.

Ready to produce IMs in court?
Companies that do not keep close tabs on PDAs, instant message conversations and other forms of electronic data may soon be in for a nasty surprise, should they find themselves in court.

Thursday, January 11, 2007
 
  Cisco to sue Apple on iPhone name
Cisco Systems is suing Apple for trademark infringement in a US federal court, for using the iPhone name.

Study: On MySpace, girls seek friends, boys flirt
More than half of U.S. teenagers use social networking sites like MySpace, but girls go online to reaffirm existing friendships, while boys are more often there to flirt, a survey published on Sunday has found.

Telecoms players who think laterally stand to profit in 2007
2007 will be a year of wildcards in the telecommunications sector, meaning those who think laterally will position themselves well for a profitable future.

Free Web site audit for SA universities
Acunetix, the Euro-American Web application security solutions provider, is offering all South African universities a complimentary Web site audit through its recently launched service, Acunetix SiteAudit.

Top ten spyware for 2006
PandaLabs has published its list of the spyware most frequently detected by ActiveScan in 2006.

Shoppers get the hang of buying online
Local consumers are finally catching up with the rest of the world, with more of them going online to shop, according to auction company bidorbuy, which has seen a steady growth in the past five years.

Icasa chief leaves quietly, charges dropped
The chief executive of the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), Jackie Manche, has quietly resigned.

‘White Economic Empowerment’ website launched
A new website, formed to assist white people in business to ‘take action to survive economically’, was recently launched.

French Court Suggests That Processing IP Addresses Requires Government Approval
We can't tell whether the Beatles' song You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) was one of the 12,000 songs illegally downloaded by French citizen Laurent Fernandez using P2P software in 2001 through 2004. But in deciding in December that Fernandez could not be prosecuted for those downloads, a French lower court clearly seemed to have similar thoughts to those of the Fab Four when singing this song. Or rather, the reverse. With potentially far reaching implications, the court decided that the tracking of Fernandez' downloads using his IP address involved processing of personal information, and that this was unlawful without the approval of French data protection authority the Commission Nationale de l'Information et des Libertés ("CNIL"). If the decision by the court is upheld, the implications could extend far beyond the context of the fight against P2P music piracy. A huge number of activities on the Internet involve processing of IP addresses, and the (entirely impractical) implication is that many of these activities could be subject to a CNIL approval requirement. Moreover, the issue is not necessarily limited to France; although not all EU member states have the same strict data protection authorization requirements that exist in France, many have similar requirements. We doubt that the court's decision will ultimately lead to such serious legal restrictions on the ordinary operation of the Internet, but the issue nevertheless bears watching as the case proceeds through the French appeals process.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007
 
  China signs to fight online copyright infringement
The Chinese government has signed a memorandum of understanding in Beijing with four United States and British industry associations for better protection of online copyright.

Development bank urges ICT policy reform
The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) has called for policy reform in the ICT sector in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).The bank says this is imperative for ICT's contribution to sustainable development in the region to reach its full potential.

Police 'sex assault' turns up online
Human Rights Watch urged Egyptian authorities Saturday to prosecute a group of police officers whose alleged sexual assault of a Cairo minibus driver was recorded in a cellphone video and has cropped up on the Internet.

Italy enacts law to block child porn Web sites
Italy has introduced a new law requiring Internet service providers to block child pornography Web sites within six hours of being told to do so, the communications ministry said on Tuesday.

Sony 'deceived' consumers: French court
Sony has been convicted of misleading the French public and told to pay damages to a consumer watchdog for selling downloadable songs that only run on its own music players, the association said on Friday.

Consumer protection bill 'will help direct marketers to do better business'
Instead of seeing the Consumer Protection Bill as a threat, direct marketers - including managers of outbound call centres and telemarketing businesses - should see it as an opportunity to actually boost sales.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007
 
  Mbeki's call for lower phone charges is falling on deaf ears
In 2005 President Thabo Mbeki called for intervention into pricing in the telecommunications sector.

51% of software on auction sites is counterfeit, study reveals
51% of the software sold by a well-known auction site was found to be either counterfeit or had software components that were counterfeit. This was revealed by a study conducted by the IDC.

ISPA clarifies ADSL CompCom, Telkom-BCX issues
ISPA has cleared up some concerns about its Competition Commission complaint related to ADSL provisioning and the Telkom-Business Connexion merger opposition, including the funding of these projects.

Companies to update websites and email footers before 2007
Companies in the UK must include certain regulatory information on their websites and in their email footers before 1st January 2007 or they will breach the Companies Act and risk a fine.

Brazil Expands YouTube Ban for Sexy Video
Brazil's ban on YouTube in response to a judicial order banning a sexy video of supermodel Daniela Cicarelli spread to the nation's populous south Tuesday. A judge last week ordered YouTube to prevent the video from being seen by Brazilians. The judge also said fixed-line operators that provide the gateway to Internet providers must take part in the ban.

Botnets Wreaking More Havoc Online, Experts Say
In their persistent quest to breach the Internet's defenses, the bad guys are honing their weapons and increasing their firepower. With growing sophistication, they are taking advantage of programs that secretly install themselves on thousands or even millions of personal computers, band these computers together into an unwitting army of zombies, and use the collective power of the dragooned network to commit Internet crimes.

County Attorney's E-mails Privileged, Court Rules
E-mail communications involving Erie County, Pa., officials and an assistant county attorney about a suit over the county's strip-search policy are privileged unless otherwise waived, according to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a holding of first impression that could significantly expand the attorney-client privilege of public officials, the circuit ruled that a broad array of discussions about political and policy matters can be shielded as long as the "predominant purpose" of the communications is legal advice.

Security Risk Reported in Adobe Acrobat Reader
A recently discovered security weakness in the widely used Acrobat Reader software could put Net users at more risk than previously thought, experts warned. It has been discovered that miscreants could exploit the problem to access all information on a victim's hard disk drive, said Web security specialists at WhiteHat Security and SPI Dynamics.

Music Labels Seek New Revenue from Copyrighted Content
If 2006 was the year of user-generated content, 2007 will be the year the music industry learns to generate new revenue from the hugely popular trend. Labels are striking licensing deals with sites like YouTube so that fans can post copyrighted content or include it in videos they make themselves.

Wikipedia Banned Anonymous Posts from Qatar After Attack
Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia temporarily banned anonymous posts to its site from people in Qatar after repeated reports of net vandalism. The 12-hour ban hit large numbers of people in the country because all web traffic in Qatar is routed through a single net address.

Broken promise ends year on sour note for YouTube
YouTube was poised on Saturday to ring in 2007 on a sour note by missing a deadline to deploy a system to prevent piracy of copyrighted music on the video-sharing website.

'999 adverts' to help young tell on website paedophiles
Social networking sites such as MySpace may be ordered to play adverts for the emergency services - including the number 999 - on their pages under plans being considered by the Home Office.

CITY WORKERS IN ID FEAR OVER DATA THEFT
A major health insurer has delivered a gloomy holiday message to 42,000 city employees, warning that their personal data may have been compromised during a burglary in Massachusetts, The Post has learned.

Patients warned of possible identity theft
A Deaconess Hospital laptop that contained private information on up to 128 patients has been missing for at least a month, a hospital spokesman said Tuesday.

Chinese portal loses suit over movie downloads
A court has ordered the popular Chinese Web portal Sohu.com to pay damages for distributing Hollywood movies online without permission, a U.S. film industry group said Friday.

High-def DVD copyright security allegedly hacked
The companies behind an encryption system for high-definition DVDs are looking into a hacker's claim that he has cracked the code protecting the new discs from piracy, a spokesman for one of the companies said yesterday.

French court favors personal privacy over piracy searches
A French court has ruled that music companies and other copyright holders cannot conduct unrestrained Internet monitoring to find pirates.

Copyright Law Key to Global Free Software Model
The existence of legal systems without robust enforcement of copyright law, in countries where software development is a highly robust enterprise, is a serious threat to the free software model.

What Impact Will GPLv3 Have on Open Source Licenses?
The impact of GPLv3 on license proliferation will depend on the FOSS license's final form, which is being shaped largely by the DRM and patent issues, said Finnegan-Henderson Partner Larry Robins. If these controversial terms remain in the GPLv3, then license proliferation may actually increase.

The Three Big Tech Battles of 2007: Who Has the Edge and What Is the Winning Strategy?
I've concluded that just as PDAs (personal digital assistants) stand alone, MP3 players will be on their way out in 2007, replaced by phones that pick up this capability. This is one of the reasons Apple is expected to enter the phone space, and since it owns the MP3 space, it has an advantage coming in. Still, it is questionable whether music or messaging will drive the next wave.

A vast e-wasteland: Are your digital secrets for sale?
Computer files on these American high school students are private and revealing.

Banks reject Lords’ call to disclose security details
Banking industry body Apacs has rejected calls to publish details of which banks have poor online security.

Russian Banks in the eye of the storm
A huge attack against several major Russian banks ended up with the leak of a database containing the personal details of about 3 million individuals. The data is now being sold for between 2,000 - 4,000 roubles (around $76 - $150) at Russian black market.

Record firms sue Russian MP3 site
A group of US record labels has started legal action against Russian music download site Allofmp3.com.

Record firms sue Russian MP3 site
A group of US record labels has started legal action against Russian music download site Allofmp3.com.

Spanish police arrests 6 suspects for allegedly hacking financial data
Spanish police have arrested six people suspected of hacking into more than 200,000 computers in Spain to steal credit card numbers and personal banking data, police said Thursday.

Spanish police arrests 6 suspects for allegedly hacking financial data
Spanish police have arrested six people suspected of hacking into more than 200,000 computers in Spain to steal credit card numbers and personal banking data, police said Thursday.

Spanish police arrests 6 suspects for allegedly hacking financial data
Spanish police have arrested six people suspected of hacking into more than 200,000 computers in Spain to steal credit card numbers and personal banking data, police said Thursday.

Sony BMG Settles Anti-Piracy CD Suit
Sony BMG Music Entertainment has agreed to settle lawsuits brought by California and Texas over music CDs that installed a hidden anti-piracy program on consumers' computers. The company will pay $1.5 million and kick in thousands more in customer refunds. The settlements cover lawsuits over CDs loaded with one of two types of copy-protection software -- known as MediaMax or XCP.

Yahoo China Wins Unfair Competition Suit
Yahoo China has won an unfair competition lawsuit in China it brought against Beijing Sanjiwuxian Internet Technology, the company that operates Qihoo.com. The court ordered Sanjiwuxian to cease the activity and compensate Yahoo China for damages and legal costs.

Study: Retailers Likely to Tighten Return Policies
Criminals, in part, are to blame for the tougher policies on returning that ugly sweater from Grandma. Retailers expect to lose US$3.5 billion from fraudulent returns this holiday season, the National Retail Federation survey revealed. The industry stands to bleed $9.6 billion this year due to the problem.

2006 in Review, Part 4: E-Commerce Continues to Come of Age
"Free shipping was something e-tailers felt they needed to compete when e-commerce was still gaining a foothold in the retail world," said Forrester Research analyst Carrie Johnson. "The longer they remain in place, the harder they are going to be for consumers to give up."

Another Court Applies Heightened Standard Before Ordering ISP to Identify Subscriber
Another court has found that plaintiffs must meet a heightened standard when seeking the identity of an Internet service provider's subscriber -- and this after stating that the subscriber had a "minimal expectation of privacy" because of the tortious conduct in which she had allegedly engaged. In General Board of Global Ministers of the United Methodist Church v. Cablevision Lightpath, Inc., a federal court in New York ruled that since the Church had made "a concrete showing of prima facie claim of actionable harm" and satisfied four other requirements, an ISP must disclose the identity of one of its subscribers. The court's ruling bolsters what appears to be a growing consensus by courts to require plaintiffs to meet a heightened standard in order to learn the identity of anonymous Internet users.

Google's Alliance with Libraries Prompts Copyright Concerns
Already facing a legal challenge for alleged copyright infringement, Google Inc.'s crusade to build a digital library has triggered a philosophical debate with an alternative project promising better online access to the world's books, art and historical documents. The latest tensions revolve around Google's insistence on chaining the digital content to its Internet-leading search engine and the nine major libraries that have aligned themselves with the Mountain View-based company.

Pedophiles Increasingly Target Websites, British Officials Say
British detectives say pedophiles focus on social networking Web sites which have taken the Internet by storm in recent years, allowing users to create their own Web pages, exchange photos and video and to listen to music. In the last seven months, the London Child Abuse Investigation Command has arrested 22 men including 14 suspects through the work of one online investigator alone.

Angry Worker Puts "Electronic Bomb" in Drug Firm Computers
A computer administrator angry about possibly losing his job allegedly planted an electronic "bomb" in the systems of one of the nation's largest prescription drug management companies, prosecutors said. If the so-called "logic bomb" had gone off at Medco Health Solutions Inc., it would have wiped out critical patient information, authorities said.

YouTube Agrees to Post Copyright Warnings for Japan
Popular video-sharing Web site YouTube Inc. has agreed to post Japanese language warnings about respecting copyrights in an attempt to prevent users from uploading copyrighted materials, a Japanese entertainment body said. The Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers said on its Web site Tuesday that YouTube notified it of the move in a response dated Dec. 15 to Jasrac's request earlier this month for a series of measures aimed at preventing uploads that infringe copyrights.

Music Industry Drops Suit Against Mom, Pursues Kids
The recording industry is giving up its lawsuit against Patti Santangelo, a mother of five who became the best-known defendant in the industry's battle against music piracy. However, two of her children are still being sued.

Morgan Stanley Hid, Destroyed E-mails, NASD Alleges
The NASD, the nation's largest self-regulatory organization for the securities industry, accused Morgan Stanley of routinely failing to provide e-mail messages to aggrieved customers who had filed arbitration cases against the firm over three and a half years and with making false claims that millions of e-mail messages in its possession had been lost in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. The regulator also contended in its complaint against Morgan Stanley that the firm regularly destroyed millions of e-mail messages by overwriting its backup tapes and by allowing employees to delete messages.

Morgan Stanley Hid, Destroyed E-mails, NASD Alleges
The NASD, the nation's largest self-regulatory organization for the securities industry, accused Morgan Stanley of routinely failing to provide e-mail messages to aggrieved customers who had filed arbitration cases against the firm over three and a half years and with making false claims that millions of e-mail messages in its possession had been lost in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. The regulator also contended in its complaint against Morgan Stanley that the firm regularly destroyed millions of e-mail messages by overwriting its backup tapes and by allowing employees to delete messages.

Morgan Stanley Hid, Destroyed E-mails, NASD Alleges
The NASD, the nation's largest self-regulatory organization for the securities industry, accused Morgan Stanley of routinely failing to provide e-mail messages to aggrieved customers who had filed arbitration cases against the firm over three and a half years and with making false claims that millions of e-mail messages in its possession had been lost in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. The regulator also contended in its complaint against Morgan Stanley that the firm regularly destroyed millions of e-mail messages by overwriting its backup tapes and by allowing employees to delete messages.

Monday, January 08, 2007
 
  Patch issued for OpenOffice.org vulnerability
The flaw could be exploited by creating a malicious file in the Windows Metafile (WMF) or Enhanced Metafile (EMF) formats. If the file was opened by a user, it could start running unauthorized code on a computer, according to an advisory by Linux distribution vendor Red Hat, which offers the OpenOffice suite with several of its products.

PDF security risk greater than originally thought
A recently discovered security weakness in the widely used Acrobat Reader software could put Net users at more risk than previously thought, experts warned Thursday.

Internet toll lanes appear less likely
AT&T and other telecommunications companies fought furiously last year to block congressional proposals mandating such nondiscriminatory treatment of content, known as network neutrality. They warned that those rules would inhibit new spending on high-speed data lines and deprive network builders of a way to recoup their investments.

STRAIGHT TALK ON IP MANAGEMENT
Most companies do not know what IP they own, where the information is, or how securely it is stored. Is this sensitive information stored in a hi-tech, secure database? I bet it's not!
I doubt that board members, shareholders and investors understand the full impact of IP and innovation management on a company.

Bubble 2.0?
The December 25 issue of Time reckons that online collaboration is changing the world as millions of people use the Web to publish blogs and podcasts, to share and communicate their thoughts and ideas with a receptive world. Time cites Linux, Wikipedia and MySpace as examples of ways that people are "wresting power from the few" and in the process changing the world order.

Fast change, slow law
It's been an annus horribilis for the boss of SA's telecom regulator
Paris Mashile is angry. The chairman of the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), which regulates SA's telecommunications industry, has finally had enough of the critics who continually accuse him of mismanagement and inefficiency.

European network will target email and internet scams
Email, phone, prize draw and web shopping scams are being targeted by a new coalition of European consumer groups for the first time. The bulk of the Consumer Protection Co-Operation (CPC) Regulation came into force across Europe on 29th December.

Apple faces US iTunes lawsuit
A US class-action lawsuit has been launched against Apple over links between its iTunes music store and iPod music players. The action follows similar charges in Europe, brought by a French consumer rights group.

Brazilian court orders YouTube blocked
A Brazilian court has ordered the YouTube website blocked for failing to withdraw a compromising video of super model Adriana Cicarelli on a beach in Spain, a local newspaper reported.

British police warn of online paedophile risk
Within two hours of meeting the "12-year-old girl" through an Internet chat room, the predatory paedophile had already asked to meet her for sex.

 

 

 

  BUYS LINKS

TERMS AND CONDITIONS
BUYS INCORPORATED WEBSITE
CONTACT US
SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER
SYNDICATE VIA RSS FEED
VIEW OUR LATEST EVENTS
RECENTLY SUSPENDED DOMAINS
WHO GOT HACKED IN SA TODAY


GUIDES

INTERCEPTION ACT GUIDE
TOP 5 ICT RISKS
CONVERGENCE BILL GUIDE
JUDGMENTS 1998 - 2005


ONLINE SERVICES

ORDER PAIA MANUAL
REQUEST WEBSITE AUDIT


BLOG ARCHIVES
April 2004
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009