Tirelessly keeping watch over the mean streets of the Internet! We\’re helping you with spam alerts, spyware warnings, spoof advisories, sleazeball sightings, security updates, system fixes - and, of course, product reviews - it\’s all part of the beat for the Net Patrol.
In a move that will surely pique the interest of Ron Paul, the Department of justice has chimed in the Capitol v. Thomas case that the $222,000 damages sought by Capitol is not unconstitutional:
“The US government has weighed in on the constitutionality of the $222,000 damage award in Capitol v. Thomas with a brief filed […]
Authorities are reporting that pirated online copies of the newest Harry Potter book, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”, hit the streets of the Internet in record time. Pirated (scanned) copies were available in ebook form, and audio versions on torrent sites, mere hours after the book was released for sale.
Remember the Florida veterinarian who caught the wardriver jacked into his wireless Internet access outside his home? Has Aunty impressed upon you strongly enough yet that wardriving is serious, and wardriving can happen to you?
[Contributed by Mick C. of Whizardries]
Symantec said Wednesday that it has been granted a $3.1 million default judgment in its California lawsuit against an accused software pirate.
In April of 2004, Symantec charged that Sam Jain and several co-defendants created fake pop-up ads telling consumers that their Symantec software was preparing to expire and needed to […]
A group of British ubergeeks calling themselves the “Drink or Die”, or “DOD”, gang has found itself on trial through the trials of several Drink or Die members, with the last - that of Drink or Die members Alex Bell and Stephen Dowd - wrapping up this week.
For those of you not aware, there is a trial ongoing down under in Australia, pitting record labels, among others, against Sharman Networks, the current owners of Kazaa.
The trial is about the usual beefs between the record companies and peer-to-peer networks, which we are not going to rehash here, as well as unmasking who actually […]
Two bits of news this week should cause consternation in the peer-to-peer development and initiation worlds.
First, California now has a bill wending its way through the law-making process which would require the developers of peer-to-peer and other file-swapping software to take “reasonable care” to ensure that their software cannot be used in the exchange of […]
This month’s issue of Wired Magazine has an absolutely brilliantly done piece by Clive Thompson in which he interviews and dissects Bram Cohen, the inventor and founder of BitTorrent.
Thompson expertly brings Cohen to life on the pages for his readers, painting a picture of someone who is at once so intense and so intensely focussed […]
Overpeer, a division of Loudeye, Inc., has been caught putting infected files on peer-to-peer filesharing networks, and putting attractive and likely sounding names on the files in order to induce users to download the files.
Thinking that they are downloading their favourite songs or other media files, the users only too late discover that the files […]
Think that software pirating is just a problem for the big guys, like Microsoft, or maybe not even so much of a problem at all?
Try telling that to Nigel Cross, owner of Xequte.com, developers of a number of software packages including SmartPix Manager, Mega View, Ez Pix, and Diji Album, among others.
Unfortunately for Cross, one […]
In April of 2001, a little known international cooperative aimed at stopping online software piracy had toted up an impressive 120 searches in 27 of the United States, and in 11 other countries.
Dubbed “Operation Fastlink”, the project is billed by the U.S. Justice Department as “the largest multinational law enforcement action against online software piracy”.
International […]
Popular file-sharing service BitTorrent today took a double hit as a large BitTorrent server site was raided by police in Finland, while in the United States hundreds of peer-to-peer system operators were sued by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
The Finnish raid lead to the arrest of 34 people, and authorities say that the […]
Aunty must really be behind the times. Lots of dust on this old fossil, apparently.
You see, Aunty thought that the purpose of sending our children to school was so that they could… you know… learn things. Things like how to read and write, how to string words together - properly - in order to be […]