Articles by date
30 September 2007
Why China shut down 18,401 websites: A fresh censorship wave is linked to next month's Party Congress. (Christian Science Monitor)
The Chinese authorities are in the midst of an unusually harsh crackdown on the Internet, closing tens of thousands of websites that had allowed visitors to post their opinions, according to bloggers and Internet monitors in China.
A PC for peasant farmers? China targets digital divide. (Christian Science Monitor)
Reporter Peter Ford says the goal of putting a computer into tens-of-millions of Chinese households is a grand goal, but not such a far-fetched one.
Internet access restored briefly in Myanmar (Reuters)
Internet access was restored briefly in military-ruled Myanmar on Saturday, a day after a Web blackout believed to have been imposed to stop reports and pictures of a major crackdown reaching the outside world.
Navigating to Nowhere on the iPhone (New York Times)
In less than two weeks, people downloaded 80,000 copies of the Navizon location software for the iPhone. It's now useless after Apple's phone software upgrade.
Internet pipes not ready to burst, researcher says (Network World)
Despite the fact that more people are dishing up video and other bandwidth-saturating content, Internet traffic growth rates are actually slowing down, according to a new Web site at the University of Minnesota.
Burma: Hundreds may be dead, as junta tries to keep brutality unseen (The Independent)
Yesterday [Friday], authorities shut Burma's only internet server and blocked all text and picture messaging on mobiles, in an effort to stem the violent images leaving the country, including pictures of a Japanese photographer shot in front of the Sule Pagoda. Though foreign journalists are banned, the regime ordered soldiers to go door-to-door at some hotels looking for foreigners. Includes coverage from The Independent, The Guardian, The Times, New York Times, Forbes, PC World [IDG] and The Washington Post.
29 September 2007
Who will replace Vint Cerf? An Italian, Kiwi or American?
The debate over who is in the running to take over as chair of ICANN is the focus of a story of DomainesInfo and picked up in the New Zealand press. There are three candidates listed: Roberto Gaetano, current vice-chair, Peter Dengate Thrush and Steve Crocker.
Apple iPhone warning proves true (BBC)
An Apple software update is disabling iPhones that have been unlocked by owners who wanted to choose which mobile network to use.
Green IT strategies stifled by inertia; Dell Jumps on Green Horse to Lead Carbon-Neutral Charge (Silicon.com)
Nearly half of IT executives -- 42 percent -- admit their company does not monitor IT-related energy spending. A further nine percent don't know, and of those that do monitor it, a quarter have seen their energy consumption increase over the past two years. The figures come from IBM-sponsored research, which claimed that while green issues might have a high profile within companies, few businesses have anything close to a proper strategy for dealing with it from an IT perspective. Also includes "Dell Jumps on Green Horse to Lead Carbon-Neutral Charge."
Myanmar appears to cut public Internet access (Reuters)
Myanmar's generals appeared to have cut public Internet access on Friday to prevent more videos, photographs and information getting out about their crackdown on the biggest protests against military rule in nearly 20 years.
Monasteries enter the internet age (Reuters)
A monk's life is still a simple one of prayer and austerity, yet many monasteries have moved online for business, communication and even headhunting purposes. Brother Luke Armour of the Abbey of Gethsemani in central Kentucky says the Trappist houses in the United States are communicating more effectively than ever before.
Google looking at privacy protections for users (Reuters)
Google told U.S. Senate lawmakers on Thursday the company is pursuing new technologies to protect the privacy of Internet users as it seeks to acquire advertising company DoubleClick Inc.
Clicks and links will bring all the walls tumbling down (The Guardian)
The New York Times has just abandoned its two-year effort to charge for content online, taking down TimesSelect, the pay wall around its columnists and much of its archives. So content is now and forever free. That isn't because people won't pay for content - some did. It's because there is a new economy of content online that isn't built on scarcity and control but instead relies on the idea that content must be public and permanent to realise its value in the wider conversation.
The word farms of the web (The Guardian)
The growing number of websites that mix and match low-quality articles produced by amateurs in order to generate traffic is causing concern, reports Danny Bradbury from The Guardian.
Mouse click could plunge city into darkness, experts say (CNN)
Researchers who launched an experimental cyber attack caused a generator to self-destruct, alarming the government and electrical industry about what might happen if such an attack were carried out on a larger scale, CNN has learned.
Number of malicious e-mails bearing bad links balloons tenfold (ComputerWorld)
The percentage of threats arriving in e-mails that rely on links to malicious sites -- rather than arriving as file attachments -- has ballooned tenfold since the first quarter of the year, a security company said.
us: Microsoft, others protest Google's DoubleClick deal (ComputerWorld)
Google Inc.'s proposed merger with online advertising server DoubleClick Inc. would create a giant that would control a huge portion of online advertising and hurt the Internet, opponents of the deal told U.S. lawmakers. Also stories from the E-Commerce Times and Forbes.
Expert: World misunderstands China's Web controls (Reuters)
The Internet in China is not as restricted as sometimes believed in the West, with most controls actually coming from sites practicing self-censorship, an academic who studies the Chinese Web said.
us: A Prosecution Tests the Definition of Obscenity (New York Times)
Sometime early next year, Karen Fletcher, a 56-year-old recluse living on disability payments, will go on trial in federal court here on obscenity charges for writings distributed on the Internet to about two dozen subscribers. In an era when pornography has exploded on the Web almost beyond measure, Ms. Fletcher is one of only a handful of people to have been singled out for prosecution on obscenity charges by the Bush administration. She faces six felony counts for operating a Web site called Red Rose, which featured detailed fictional accounts of the molesting, torture and sometimes gruesome murders of children under the age of 10, mostly girls.
28 September 2007
Burmese junta tightens media screw (BBC)
As Burmese soldiers fire bullets and tear gas to disperse anti-government protests in Rangoon, the military rulers have taken the offensive in the battle to control the flow of information in the country. Websites and internet blogs posting information and photographs of the government's action have been blocked. Telephone lines and mobile phone signals to monasteries, opposition politicians and student leaders have been cut.
us: Verizon Reverses Itself on Abortion Messages (New York Times)
Saying it had the right to block "controversial or unsavory" text messages, Verizon Wireless last week rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon's mobile network available for a text-message program. But the company reversed course this morning, saying it had made a mistake. ... The dispute over the Naral messages was a skirmish in the larger battle over the question of "net neutrality" -- whether carriers or Internet service providers should have a voice in the content they provide to customers.
uk: Ofcom opens door for 10 times faster broadband connections (The Guardian)
British internet users can look forward to surfing the web at more than 10 times the speed currently available after Ofcom, the communications watchdog, called on the telecoms industry yesterday to spend billions on next-generation networks to keep pace with countries such as France, Germany and the US.
Domain Name Theft Is Everyday Event: Short or Memorable Domain Names Can Fetch Millions of Dollars (Wall Street Journal)
Like real-world theft, the hijacking of an Internet address can happen quickly and with little warning. New York computer consultant Ronen Inowlocki knows firsthand. In July, a thief connived to take control of the yyy.com address that Mr. Inowlocki has owned for years. Mr. Inowlocki is still fighting to get it back, and can't access the "@yyy.com" email addresses he had used to communicate with clients. Meanwhile, the thief shifted the Internet address, also known as a domain, to a service in Germany and lists a mailing address in Iceland as his contact info.
U.S. Warrantless Spying Program Targeted Americans, Which Violates Constitution, Chief Spy Says (Wired)
The Bush Administration has carefully described its warrantless wiretapping program by saying it involved international phone calls and emails where at least one party was suspected of ties to terrorist groups and one party was inside the country. Most, including this reporter, have assumed that this meant that the program eavesdropped on the communications of Americans who emailed or called a suspected terrorist outside the country.
Claims NZ anti-spam law causing email havoc (New Zealand Herald)
Anti-spam legislation has not worked, says an Auckland email specialist. Jerry Flay, of email marketing firm Inbox believes that there are ways to combat the rising tide of spam, but the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act is not one of them.
