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‘Internet’ Stories

Lawmakers sway post-SOPA/PIPA protest but Acts still have venom

Chris Davies, Jan 19th 2012 Discuss [0]

Wikipedia is back, Google has taken off its blindfold and US Representatives have danced, shuffled and snuck across the aisles as the whip counts waver, leaving the future of SOPA and PIPA uncertain. After online protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act saw multiple sites post call-to-arms messages or black-out altogether, at least seven senators have jumped ship from supporting the proposed legislation. Yet Wikipedia – and others – highlight the fight isn’t over; “we’re not done yet” the online encyclopedia ominously warned today.

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TED talk video on SOPA and PIPA makes it all crystal clear

Chris Burns, Jan 18th 2012 Discuss [17]

The result of groups across the web making an effort to bring the damaging effects of SOPA and PIPA to light has been a nice cross-section of explanatory posts made to educate the masses, and what we've got here is a TED talk video of Clay Shirky taking all of that and making it so clear your grandmother could understand it. The video in this post has Shirky, a man who goes by many names, American writer, teacher, consultant, and specialists on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. He knows his stuff, he's very well spoken, and this is the video that'll make it clear for you why SOPA and PIPA are beyond dangerous, they're absolutely unacceptable. Read The Full Story

LightSquared claims FCC GPS interference Bogus

Chris Burns, Jan 18th 2012 Discuss [11]

In recent weeks, the folks at LightSquared, pushers of ultra high-speed broadband internet for the future, have been under fire from the FCC as their signals seem to have been interfering with GPS in pre-tests. What's going on now is that LightSquared is saying that the results of these tests were rigged. LightSquared's own executive vice president Jeffrey Carlisle's most recent statement even used the word "bogus" to describe the tests at hand. Read The Full Story

Google assists SOPA Blackout sites with slowed web crawlers

Chris Burns, Jan 18th 2012 Discuss [4]

Today there's one gigantic mass of SOPA and PIPA protests across the web, most of them taking the form of a total blackout of the sites participating - what Google has done to assist in these sites rankings within the search results of their site is to slow down their web crawlers. What this does for you, the blackout protestor, is to affect your page ranking in Google enough that you don't have to worry about having to climb your way back up into the results tomorrow when the blackout is done. Those of you that rely on Google for hits should rejoice and be glad. Read The Full Story

SOPA to be resurrected after blackout protests

Rue Liu, Jan 17th 2012 Discuss [4]

With growing opposition against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), an imminent blackout protest to kick off tomorrow, and a postponed vote on the legislation, it seemed as though SOPA was close to being dead. But that's not the case, reminds the legislation's creator and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith. In a press release today, Smith said he expects the committee to continue marking up the bill in February. Read The Full Story

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang resigns from board

Rue Liu, Jan 17th 2012 Discuss [1]

Yahoo has announced that co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang has resigned from its Board of Directors. Yang has also resigned from all other positions with the company, specifically from the boards of Yahoo Japan and Alibaba. The resignation is effective today and sees Yang leaving the company he co-founded nearly 17 years ago. Read The Full Story

China has 513 million web users

Shane McGlaun, Jan 17th 2012 Discuss [0]

China is the most heavily populated country on earth with over 1.3 billion people living there as of 2010. By comparison, the US has over 307 million as of the census conducted in 2009. China has more people that use the internet than live in the US. The astonishing part is that China has over 200 million more people using the web than the entire US population. Read The Full Story

Wikipedia joining Wednesday’s anti-SOPA blackout

Rue Liu, Jan 16th 2012 Discuss [5]

Wikipedia has decided to join the protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act by shutting down its English site for 24 hours on Wednesday, January 18. It will be joining companies like Reddit, which had announced last week that it would go offline for 12 hours on Wednesday. Both sites will temporarily shutdown and display only a message urging against the SOPA and PIPA legislation. Read The Full Story

SOPA shelved after Obama announcement

Chris Burns, Jan 16th 2012 Discuss [24]

Opponent of the Stop Online Piracy Act, California congressman Darrell Issa noted today that he’d been told by House majority leader Eric Cantor that there would be no vote on SOPA “unless there is consensus on the bill,” this essentially shelving the project until further notice. This move “effectively scuppers” SOPA, as the Guardian notes, and puts pressure on the next most notorious bill regarding these matters, the e-Parasite act, as it comes to a vote on January 24th. This is the victory we’ve been waiting for, folks, unless you’re a big media company that hoped to mis-use the bill, of course.

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Zappos discount site 6pm hacked too; International shutters slammed

Chris Davies, Jan 16th 2012 Discuss [2]

Zappos isn't the only site to suffer an embarrassing hack to its customer databases; discount affiliate 6pm has also been affected by the data theft. Just as with the main site, 6pm has contacted registered users to warn them that their personal details - including delivery and billing addresses, phone numbers, partial credit card details and more - have been extracted from a Kentucky data center. Read The Full Story

Zappos reveals data hack affecting 24m customers

Chris Davies, Jan 16th 2012 Discuss [0]

Online shoes and clothing retailer Zappos has warned customers of a security breach that exposed partial credit card details, billing and shipping addresses and other personal information, in a hack effecting 24m users. Detailed in a blog post last night, the Zappos attack was apparently though a Kentucky data center, though the servers responsible for storing full credit card and payment details was not impacted. Zappos is now mandating a change of password for all customers to restore security. Read The Full Story