Class-action suit filed in SC over data breach

A lawsuit over the cyber attack was filed against the SC governor and the SC Dept. of Revenue by a former state legislator.

Former state Sen. John Hawkins, a Spartanburg attorney, claimed that state law was broken when the SC authorities took too long to notify the public about the data breach.

The attorney is calling the data breach “a Category Five cyber hurricane.” The breach was discovered on Oct. 10th. By then, the hackers could have already made use of the compromised data.

When it comes to breaches that affect the public, they should have been told about it within 24-48 hours.

Source: WIS News

U.S. ISPs begin six strike anti-piracy program in November

In November 2012, Internet providers such as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Cablevision, and a few others will start up their six strikes anti-piracy program. The program is meant to educate Net users about online piracy, and prevents them from downloading materials that may infringe copyright, including the monitoring of peer-to-peer communications.

July 12th was the said date for the program, not sure if this was related to the program, or perhaps rescheduled.

This is made possible thanks to an agreement between the ISPs and the entertainment industry (Hollywood) such as the MPAA and the RIAA, and their associates.

As it stands, the mitigation measures will be used on your sixth strike and beyond, such as the temporary block of Internet traffic, and throttling down of Net speed, that is, after you’ve been warned by your ISP many times.

Source: TorrentFreak

SOPA-supporting Hollywood wants to go after resellers

First, the entertainment industry wants to stump out piracy on the web, and now, they want to go after those who resell their products or works – such as Amazon, Ebay, Craigslist, and others.

To put it simply, your right to resell products you own is in jeopardy. These people claim that if you sell your used i-Pad to someone for example, they say it’s infringing, and leaves the intellectual owners in the dust, with no intervention in the reselling process.

Seems the intellectual owners want some percentage of the take in resales, or want to leave the reselling of their products and works to themselves.

Sign the petition from Demand Progress if you oppose the intervention of intellectual property owners in reselling what you own.

Iran’s new Internet censorship move: blocking by file type

It's no secret that the Iranian government has a bit of an uncomfortable relationship with the internet. First of all, it's trying to build its own internet, at which point it supposedly would like to block out that "other" internet completely. It's also pretty aggressive in censoring various sites it doesn't like.

From TechDirt – Ever heard of a regime censoring the Net by file extension, such as audio, video and picture files? It was even used after the 2009 Iranian elections.

Texas schools punish students who refuse to be tracked with microchips

See this video from RT America: Schools in Texas going after students who do not wish to be tracked with microchip technology. Wearing your ID badge for your safety and security is one thing, being tracked constantly in and out of the school is another.

Maine candidate attacked for playing World of Warcraft

The Maine Republican Party went after Maine candidate Colleen Lachowicz, who is called "lazy and immature" for playing World of Warcraft. As if video gamers aren't permitted to take part in political affairs. The Maine GOP obviously have the wrong idea about the Maine candidate, so here's a chance to tell those Maine republicans what video gamers are really made of. 

Video games in fact work wonders - they boost sales, create jobs and improve our daily lives.

So let's send a message while there's still time: Sign the Video Game Voter's Network petition here.

Iran backs off on blocking Gmail

Iran had second thoughts of blocking one of Google's services: Gmail, after hearing complaints from the country's parliament.  Seems that Iran's Parliament or its supporters have an interest in Gmail, too. With Iran's National Intranet being tested, how long will this Gmail accessibility last?

Source: Huffington Post Tech

YouTube opens Turkish website with a twist

YouTube has launched its Turkish site under a Turkish domain name extension, all thanks to the Turkish regime. The catch: YouTube will need to pay Turkish taxes. The site will show video content locally within the country based on user IP addresses.

Turkey has a history of blocking YouTube on political and religious grounds, and listed as one of many "countries under surveillance."

Source:  Reuters

Russia wants to restrict free public WiFi

Russia is looking at restricting free public WiFi access to those who are under the age of 18 - just another nanny-state initiative of Internet regulation. Probably because the Russian regime do not with to entrust public WiFi with teenagers. With this, Russia is on track of becoming the next behemoth of Internet censorship.

Source: Information Policy Blog

FTC halts tech support scammers

You may be one of those people who gotten a call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft Tech Support, that claim you have a problem with your computer and want to fix it, and trick you into paying to remove malware on your computer that you may not have.

Rest easy, the United States Federal Trade Commission have teamed up with international law enforcement and the tech companies like Microsoft that have been affected reputation-wise, in snuffing out the scammers. Most of them were operating in India, the U.S, and a few other nations, and are targeting consumers in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Ireland, and a few others.

If you still getting calls like these, just hang up.

A video here about the scam, and the conversation between the scammer and a FTC investigator:

Iran closer to launch domestic Intranet

Iranians could be soon cut off from the rest of the world when the Iranian regime deploys its national Intranet, or closed network.

Al Jazeera video on Iran's National Intranet: