FBI investigators may have infected MegaUpload's computers with spyware so as to monitor Skype and email messaging, it's been suggested, with sources within the Microsoft-owned VoIP company claiming it was not asked to turn over conversation logs. Multiple chat records were included by the FBI within its case against MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom and other employees at the file-sharing site, dating back as much as five years, though exactly how the US government acquired them is unclear. Sources within Skype tell CNET that no approach was made to them to release private logs.
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‘legal’ Stories
FBI spyware not Skype responsible for spilling MegaUpload secrets
Apple loses sales ban attempt against tweaked Galaxy Tab 10.1N
Apple's attempts to ban Samsung's redesigned Galaxy Tab 10.1N in Germany, along with the Galaxy Nexus, have failed, with the courts ruling that Apple's touchscreen patent was likely to be revoked in short order. "Samsung has shown that it is more likely than not that the patent will be revoked because of a technology that was already on the market before the intellectual property had been filed for protection," Judge Andreas Mueller told the Munich Regional Court today, Bloomberg reports.
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MegaUpload users offered data lifeline with EFF’s MegaRetrieval
MegaUpload users with non-copyright infringing content trapped on the sized file-sharing site's servers could have a lifeline, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and one of MegaUpload's hosts exploring data rescue possibilities. Frustration at the site's downtime turned to panic last week, when reports from US prosecutors suggested MegaUpload's inability to pay hosting bills would see data deleted. Not so, hosts Cogent Communications Group and Carpathia Hosting have since said, and now Carpathia and the EFF have launched MegaRetrieval.
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Swedish Supreme Court rejects Pirate Bay founders final appeal
It's certainly not a good day to be a founder of The Pirate Bay. The legal saga centering on the founders of the file sharing site Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström has been ongoing for several years. So far, the founders of been appealing the court decisions further and further up the Swedish legal ladder, and eventually they made it to the final rung with the Swedish Supreme Court.
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FCC Lifeline program for low-income telephone service overhauled
While normally reporting on government programs that have to do with low-income families wouldn't be within the realm of news that we report, our environment containing gadgets, technology, and the like, this particular service fits right in: telephone service. It's never a bad time to remember that not everyone in our vast human community has the same ability to enjoy the technology a lot of us take for granted, the news of the day centering around this "mobile" world we live in while many across the United States have trouble affording even a landline. What the FCC is doing this week is reforming and modernizing a service by the name of Lifeline, one that aims to keep low-income families connected to jobs, family, and 911 emergency services.
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Samsung sucker-punched by Euro set-backs
Samsung's short run of legal success against Apple has been quickly curtailed, with the past two weeks punctuated by court rejections and news that the European Commission has singled out the firm for potentially misusing patents. The Korean company's prospects had been buoyed by a Dutch court finding against Apple in an attempt to have the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned from sale, with vital design patents dismissed as less powerful than Apple had previously assumed. However, while Samsung had been arguing matters of style, Apple and the EU had focused on cellular-substance, dragging Samsung up short for its potentially dubious use of 3G technology IP.
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SlashGear Morning Wrap-Up: January 31, 2012
We're going to start seeing leaked and/or pre-released information about Mobile World Congress 2012 pretty soon, folks, and the flood does begin right here in ernest with a rather intimate look at the HTC Ville with Sense 4.0. We've got a report that iPhone 5 will be rolling out with NFC for the masses to pay their bills. And for your third completely unrelated news bit to start the morning off right: that conversation the president had with us on Google+ ended up speaking about SOPA - as if it's not already dead.
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Google responds to US Congress privacy concerns
Google has responded to US Congress demands for information on the search giants recent privacy policy changes, detailing the amendments in a 13-page letter that attempts to hammer home that Google's "approach to privacy has not changed." The new policy - which streamlines the majority of Google's existing privacy policies into a single document - actually saves on 85-percent of the previous reading required, Google's director of public policy, Pablo Chavez, wrote today on the company's Public Policy Blog.
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Samsung under EC antitrust investigation over 3G patents
Samsung is the subject of a new antitrust investigation, with the European Commission confirming that it is formally looking into whether the Korean company misused essential 3G/UMTS patents it holds. Tipped back in November, the investigation will look for evidence that Samsung has refused to license its wireless telecoms patents – deemed “essential” to European standards – under “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” (FRAND) terms. Samsung has cited the patents in recent lawsuits against Apple, among other rivals.
Court rejects Oracle’s attempt to kill Itanium processor support agreement with HP
Oracle and HP have been in court with Oracle trying to get out of an agreement it is said to have in place with HP that covers the support of Itanium processors. The legal fuss came about after Oracle announced in March of last year that it would no longer support the Intel Itanium processors with the latest version of its database system. Oracle's claim was that these processors were nearing their end of life.
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Samsung loses Galaxy Tab German Apple ban appeal
Samsung's bad luck in German courts continues, with the company's attempts to have Apple's sales ban against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 overturned rejected this week. The Korean firm had protested the Android tablet's injunction at the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court, which found in favor of the injunction instigated by the lower court - initially impacting the majority of Europe, but later limited to just Germany - though for different reasons.
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MegaUpload data reprieve: Safe until mid-February
Legitimate user data stored with seized file-sharing service MegaUpload is safe from deletion until at least mid-February, the lawyer for the piracy-accused site has confirmed, though there’s still no way for users to actually access it. Having been taken down by US federal prosecutors earlier this month, the longevity of MegaUpload’s database was in question after investigators said hosting companies could begin deleting data from Thursday, February 2. That’s been avoided, MegaUpload lawyer Ira Rothken told TorrentFreak, for “at least” two weeks more.
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