Cyberlaw Central Blog

Monthly Archives: May 2005

FBI shuts down BitTorrent server today – the first criminal action against BitTorrent

26th
May. Γ— ’05
The FBI earlier today raided the “Elite Torrents” BitTorrent network, shutting down its core server. Anyone accessing the site now receives the message “This Site Has Been Permanently Shut Down By The Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” The site had been one that was sharing the new Star Wars release, [...]

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FTC to urge ISP’s to take active role in policing the Net

24th
May. Γ— ’05
An interesting article written by Declan McCullogh points out that the FTC plans to ask ISPs to take a more active role in policing the net. Basically, the plan is for the FTC to send a letter to ISPs pointing out steps these service providers can take to help reduce spam by finding and eliminating [...]

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Blawg Review #7

24th
May. Γ— ’05
My post on extortion by means of distributed denial of service attacks was listed among about thirty other noteworthy entries as part of Blawg Review #7. I encourage you to read the other entries, too. No. 7 is hosted this week at Jeremy Richey’s Blawg, check out what this law student has to say.

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Comments expected

24th
May. Γ— ’05
I have noticed the lack of comments, which may have been because for a while the software was set to only allow registered Blogger users to post comments. Well, I’ve fixed that – anybody can now. If that grows to be a problem with comment spam, well, then I’ll rethink that. The only comments I [...]

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Spyware Survey Results

19th
May. Γ— ’05
The Ponemen institute released the results of their 2005 National Spyware Survey today. Interestingly, 97% of the people who reported having found spyware on their machine did not remember seeing an end user license agreement (EULA) before the software was installed. Not surprising is the figure that 87% reported reduced productivity losses as a result [...]

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Administrivia

19th
May. Γ— ’05
Please update your bookmarks, I’m now up and running at www.cyberlawcentral.com Also, please use the RSS feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/CyberlawCentral Thanks!Kevin

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Cybercrime in the spotlight: Extortion by means of DDos attacks

18th
May. Γ— ’05
A cybercrime that has been around for a while, but companies are starting to admit to being victims of, is a distributed denial of service (DDos) attack done for the purpose of extorting money from the target company. A DDos attack is one in which a multitude of compromised systems attack a single target, thereby [...]

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Virus sends Hate Spam

17th
May. Γ— ’05
Now I know why I got a bunch of German spam yesterday – It turns out that a new version of the virus called Sober.q has been released. It sends spam to addresses found on infected PC’s, with neo-Nazi messages in German and English. So, somebody who knows me needs to update their anti-virus software. [...]

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Musings on Convergence: A Buzzword ahead of its time?

12th
May. Γ— ’05
The discussion I heard recently on “Maximizing your digital lifestyle” made me reflect on the convergence of digital media and its impact on our modern lifestyle. (Convergence is usually defined as the ‘coming together’ of formerly distinct technologies, industries or activities.) The speakers on the podcast discussed their desire for the capability to experience their [...]

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Copyright Office adds RSS Feeds!

11th
May. Γ— ’05
I learned through Library Stuff (originally courtesy of Dave Winer) that the U.S. Copyright Office has added four RSS feeds to its website. The feeds are:* Copyright Office Home Page* NewsNet* Federal Register* Current Legislation I’ve already added the first two of these to my RSS news reader, it’s a great new way to keep [...]

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