FAQ: How to get rid of mobile spam

AT&T: Customers can block text messages or calls from a specific phone number on its Web site here, as well as restrict the sources of e-mail that reach your phone on this site. Customers can also reply to text messages by typing in "BLOCK" or "STOP" to prevent future messages from that sender.

Sprint: Sprint wants customers to call customer service to report all spam messages so the company can modify its spam-filtering technology to block the phone numbers that are sending it, said Sprint spokesman John Taylor. Customers should not reply to the messages, otherwise it verifies to the spammer that the phone number is valid, he said.

T-Mobile: Postpaid and FlexPay customers can create their own filters and block chargeable text messages, MMS (multi-media service) messages, instant messages, and e-mail from being sent to their phones by calling customer service.

Verizon: Customers can log into the site and sign up for Usage Controls ($4.99 a month) that allow them to block certain numbers from calling or sending text messages to the phone. And if customers text only with a few people they can create an alias address here for free and receive only text messages sent to that address, said Verizon spokeswoman Debra Lewis.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/07/09/cnet.cell.phones.spam.messages/index.html

The Pirate Bay sold to gaming firm for £5m

The Pirate Bay, the notorious file-sharing website, was yesterday sold to a Swedish software company, Global Gaming Factory (GGF), sparking outrage from many of its users. The Pirate Bay, whose founders were sentenced to a year in prison and a Skr30m (£2.36m) fine in April for promoting copyright infringement, said yesterday it agreed the Skr60m deal as otherwise the site would collapse. The profits from the sale will go into a foundation that supports projects on freedom of speech, information and the openness of the internet, it said. File-sharing, much of it illegal, is estimated to account for more than half of global internet traffic. Many users attacked the move yesterday, labelling the founders "sell-outs". Many predicted that the Pirate Bay would die as the new parent company seeks a new business model to satisfy "content providers, broadband operators, end users and the judiciary," which would include "compensation" according to GGF. User264 said this "doesn't sound like something pirates would like".

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-pirate-bay-sold-to-gaming-firm-for-1635m-1726215.html

Limewire helps to circumvent Irianian Internet censorship

Limewire is encouraging its users to download and share videos documenting the protests against the Iranian election. The company's P2P client started to display a splash screen late last week that asks users to add videos about the protests in Iran to their shared folders, explaining: "Iran has been limiting its own citizens' and the world's access to coverage of the post-election protests by blocking sites distributing such material. Peer-to-peer software, like Lime Wire, provides access to critical information and coverage of the events in a manner that the Iranian government cannot effectively block." Users that click on the splash screen are automatically starting to download a zipped 110 MB archive of videos from Iran. The Zip file comes straight from Limewire's servers, and users are encouraged to unzip and then share it. Some of the videos are pretty graphic, and most of it is clearly shot with mobile phone cameras or small photo cameras. Of course, you'll probably find most of these videos on Youtube as well - unless you're in Iran, and Youtube is blocked ...

Source: http://www.p2p-blog.com/item-1097.html

BREIN Summons The Pirate Bay to Court via Facebook and Twitter

BREIN, the Dutch copyright agency known for pushing Demonoid out of the Netherlands, is now looking to have The Pirate Bay blocked in the Netherlands. In a press statement just released, BREIN is demanding the three administrators, Fredrik Neij, Peter Kolmisoppi and Gottfrid Warg, appear before district court in Amsterdam on July 21. According to BREIN, Swedish officials were not able to locate and personally deliver the summons to the three administrators. But that's OK, in this age of digital communities, a simple Tweet should do. "You can find the defendants on Facebook and Twitter. Internet works for enforcers as well as infringers. Now they know about the court case in The Netherlands. The hearing is on the 21st of July," said BREIN director Tim Kuik. Of course, The Pirate Bay admins don't necessarily own their FaceBook or Twitter pages, typically these types of pages are run by fans. But BREIN seems to feel that The Pirate Bay has received the message, considering an apparent attack on BREIN's web server. "That Neij, Kolmisoppi and Warg are aware of the summons appears to be emphasized by the regular DoS (Denial of Service) attacks on the BREIN site since its call via Facebook and Twitter. Kuik: "We are looking at the source of the attacks but it would be a remarkable coincidence…"

Source: http://www.slyck.com/story1863_BREIN_Summons_The_Pirate_Bay_to_Court_via_Facebook_and_Twitter

DV8 Release Group Uploader Arrested

The music release group "DV8" appears to have a rather innocuous line up: Dinosaur Jr, Noisettes, The Mars Volta and Boy Crisis. This release group has seen much of its work end up on the newsgroups and other file-sharing mediums, and most of the work is from independent artists. Independent artists and P2P typically get along well with each other, but according to the IFPI, a 33 year old man with connections to DV8 was arrested on June 16. Although the release group hasn't been neutralized, it seems that the IFPI and other international copyright and police agencies are aggressively pursuing the group. The IFPI claims that DV8 is responsible for pre-releasing music from independent and major labels, however, very few if any of their releases are from top 40 or pop bands. DV8's releases appear concentrated on alternative work that often times don’t find its way to the radio airwaves.

Source: http://www.slyck.com/story1862_DV8_Release_Group_Uploader_Arrested

ISP Dragged to Court for Refusing to Block The Pirate Bay

Last year a Danish judge sided with IFPI and ordered the ISP Tele2 to block The Pirate Bay. According to the court’s decision, Tele2 was infringing copyright on a grand scale because users were transferring pirated material, copied via the ISP’s routers. The Danish case is not over yet as it’s currently under appeal at the Supreme Court. However, IFPI is already widening its territory in an attempt to score a similar victory in other countries. This March, IFPI set course for Norway and gave the country’s largest Internet provider ‘Telenor’ an ultimatum. IFPI demanded that the ISP block access to The Pirate Bay within 14 days - or get taken to court. “This would be the same as demanding that the postal service should open all letters, and decide which ones should be delivered,” was the response of Telenor’s Ragnar Kårhus at the time, while he stressed that they follow the law and not the demands of the music industry. Telenor thus refused to give into the demands of the music industry, and invited IFPI to file a lawsuit if they deem it necessary. True to form and together with several movie studios, IFPI has now filed a lawsuit against Telenor. Sveinung Golimo, a representative for Norwegian film makers said: “We want to highlight this problem. We do not wish to censor the Internet but we do want the possibility to make a living on what we create.” Apparently, the music and movie industries can’t make a living when Norwegians have access to The Pirate Bay.

Source: http://torrentfreak.com/isp-dragged-to-court-for-refusing-to-block-the-pirate-bay-090617/

U.S. State Department speaks to Twitter over Iran

The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had contacted the social networking service Twitter to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iranians who are disputing their election. Confirmation that the U.S. government had contacted Twitter came as the Obama administration sought to avoid suggestions it was meddling in Iran's internal affairs as the Islamic Republic battled to control deadly street protests over the election result. Twitter and Facebook have been used as a tool by many young people to coordinate protests over the election's outcome. President Barack Obama said earlier on Tuesday he believed "people's voices should be heard and not suppressed" in Iran. Obama, who has sought direct engagement with Iran, also said he did not want to be seen as "meddling" in Iranian internal affairs, given the two countries' rocky history. But his spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama has "deplored and condemned the violence that we've seen, and underscored that the world is seeing in Iran a yearning for change." Twitter Inc said in a blog post it delayed a planned upgrade because of its role as an "important communication tool in Iran." The hour-long maintenance was put back to 5 p.m. EDT/2100 GMT, which corresponds to 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday in Iran.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSWBT01137420090616

MySpace cuts 30% of staff

MySpace is cutting nearly 30 per cent of its staff in a back-to-basics effort that puts its numbers more in line with social networking leader Facebook. The News Corp.-owned social site said layoffs will affect its entire US operations, lowering the total number of staffers to about 1,000 in the country. MySpace claims the cuts are part of its master plan to become a "more innovative, efficient, and entrepreneurial business." The company's News Corp. overlords recently tossed out its co-founder and chief executive Chris DeWolfe in favor of former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta to helm the transformation. "Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company," said Van Natta in a statement. "I understand that these changes are painful for many. They are also necessary for the long-term health and culture of MySpace. Our intent is to return to an environment of innovation that is centered on our user and our product." News Corp.'s new digital chief, Jonathan Miller, added that the site "grew too big considering the realities of today's marketplace." Said realities involve MySpace continuing to lose ground against Facebook, it's more popular social networking rival. According to web traffic-watcher comScore, Facebook surpassed MySpace globally in 2008 and last month eked ahead of MySpace's US numbers for the first time ever. The Palo Alto, California-based Facebook has about 850 employees.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/16/myspace_cuts_30_of_staff/

International Phone Hacking Ring Busted; Stole $55 Million Worth of Calls

Authorities in several countries have helped bust an international phone hacking ring that cracked into thousands of corporate phone networks in the U.S. and elsewhere in order to route calls through the networks at the expense of the hacked companies. Three foreign nationals were indicted in the U.S., according to a document unsealed on Friday, for allegedly hacking into the phone systems, while five Pakistani nationals were arrested in Italy for allegedly financing the scheme and selling access to the hacked networks to other call centers and using the hacked networks to route their own customer calls. The ring had been operating for more than four years and had hacked into phone systems belonging to more than 2,500 corporations in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. According to the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey, which is handling the U.S. case, the ring sold 12 million minutes worth of time on the company networks, valued at more than $55 million in charges. Some of the profits earned from the scheme allegedly helped finance the activities of Islamic fundamentalist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to reports from Italian authorities. And some calls routed illegally through the hacked networks were made to the Middle East and other regions involved in political unrest, suggesting that the hacked networks might have been used by terrorist organizations to thwart eavesdropping and tracking by intelligence agencies. The three foreign nationals indicted in the U.S. are Mahmoud Nusier, 40, Paul Michael Kwan, 27, and Nancy Gomez, 24. All three were arrested in March 2007 in the Philippines, along with four other suspects. The three were indicted in New Jersey, following a years-long FBI investigation into the hacking ring’s activities. Nusier, a Jordanian national, and Kwan and Gomez, both Philippine nationals, were indicted on several counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, unauthorized access to computer systems and possession of unauthorized access devices. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey would not say whether the U.S. had initiated extradition proceedings. The announcement of their indictment coincided with the arrests of the Pakistanis in Italy.

Source: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/international-phone-hacking-ring-busted-stole-55-million-worth-of-calls/

Palm Pre's inner iPhone revealed

The Palm Pre has been available for only a few short days, but that's been long enough for the good folks at the online repair-and-parts-shop iFixIt to get their hands on one and perform a loving vivisection. The iFixIters have good things to say about the Pre's WebOS operating system, 3-megapixel camera, and replaceable battery, but are less impressed with its hardware keyboard and difficult serviceability. We don't recommend tearing a Pre apart by yourself - unless you have consummate gadget-surgery skills and nerves of steel. According to iFixIt, "The Pre is definitely not an easy phone to service. There are lots of fragile and tricky tabs that will make putting the phone back together challenging." You can view the entire 24-step Palm Pre Teardown on iFixIt's new geekalicious Gadget Teardowns website (user contributions encouraged). In addition, you can check out a component diagram and detailed chip-by-chip analysis of the Pre by one of iFixIt's partners, phoneWreck.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/10/inside_the_palm_pre/

Study Identifies Keywords Hostile Countries Searching for on P2P

Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia are using search terms like darpa, lawrence livermore, los almos, and photon research to name a few. ZapShares Inc., founded back in 2008 to help “improve the security” of users on file-sharing networks, today announced the findings of research it conducted that indicates computer systems located in Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia are scouring P2P networks for classified information that could place national security at risk. The research found offshore computers searching for, among other things, information pertaining to many principal United States national defense contractors, weapons system information, classified government documents, information that could be used to steal the identity of US citizens, and other data that could place national security at risk. Some of the search terms include: army, air force, bell helicopter, general atomic, general dynamics, general electric, lawrence livermore, lockheed, lo almos, mcdonnell douglas, norad, northrop, obama, photon research, radar, raytheon, stealth, and top secret among others. “What we found most alarming was the fact that a majority of these searches originated from Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia,” said Bernard Trest, President of ZapShares Inc. It also found that large numbers of people are inadvertently sharing personal tax returns, banking and other financial information, credit card information, and other data that identity thieves could use to steal a person’s identity.

Source: http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86372/study-identifies-keywords-hostile-countries-searching-for-on-p2p/

Apple ChiPhone set for July?

A few tantalizing tidbits surfaced today indicating that the iPhone's long-awaited entry into the Chinese market will occur next month and that the ChiPhone will include three communications methods: "EDGE (enhanced data rates for GSM evolution), 3G and China's related standards." The report comes from the China Economic News Service (CENS) and focuses on a few Taiwanese companies and how they will benefit from being iPhone parts suppliers. In discussing the companies' good fortune, the report says that "the third version of iPhone ... is scheduled to be officially launched in China early July." If, indeed, the article is correct, the launch will be a monster win for Apple, which has long been negotiating for access to that market. Talks with the largest Chinese wireless telecom, China Mobile, reportedly broke down over a year ago. More recently came a report that competitor China Unicom was deep in iPhone discussions with Cupertino.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/01/chinese_iphone_rumored_for_july/

Google Oz coders crossbreed email with IM

Google has unveiled a new-age communication and collaboration tool developed by the brother tandem behind the original Google Maps. Available today to a limited number of developers, the tool is called Google Wave, and naturally it's an online application that leans heavily on the still-gestating HTML 5 standard. "This is an unbelievable demonstration of what is possible in the browser," Google VP of engineering Vic Gundotra said in announcing the tool this morning at the company's I/O developer conference in downtown San Francisco. "You will forget you are looking at a browser. "The tool crossbreeds email with IM and document-sharing in a way that allows for threaded conversations between multiple users. You can respond to email-like messages with IM-like chatter - and vice versa. You can also include photos, videos, maps, and the like, dropping them into conversation threads in real time. And if you like, you can embedded threads - or "waves," as Google insists on calling them - into blogs, wikis, and other webpages. Lars and Jens Rasmussen joined Google in 2004, after the company gobbled their tiny online mapping startup, Where 2 Tech. But after releasing Google Maps, they left the project to start a new app code-named Walkabout. After more than two years of work in Google's Sydney Chocolate Factory, they've released a preview version of their browser-based thingamajig to the four thousand or so developers attending Google I/O.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/28/google_wave/

Saudi 'Killer Chip' Implant Would Track, Eliminate Undesirables

German media outlets reported last week that a Saudi inventor's application to patent a "killer chip," as the Swiss tabloids put it, had been denied. The basic model would consist of a tiny GPS transceiver placed in a capsule and inserted under a person's skin, so that authorities could track him easily. Model B would have an extra function — a dose of cyanide to remotely kill the wearer without muss or fuss if authorities deemed he'd become a public threat. The inventor said the chip could be used to track terrorists, criminals, fugitives, illegal immigrants, political dissidents, domestic servants and foreigners overstaying their visas. "The invention will probably be found to violate paragraph two of the German Patent Law — which does not allow inventions that transgress public order or good morals," German Patent and Trademark Office spokeswoman Stephanie Krüger told the English-language German-news Web site The Local.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520331,00.html

Google's Gmail launches automatic email translation tool

Gmail, Google’s email service, has launched Message Translation, a service which automatically translates 41 languages. The feature integrates Google Translate technology into Gmail and will appear within Gmail Labs as an experiment called “Message Translation”. It will be available to Gmail users around the world. Message Translation will automatically translate email conversations between 41 languages, allowing people from different countries to conduct entire conversations in multiple languages. Each participant will be able to read the emails in whichever language they prefer. The service will go some way to solving age-old problems of communication barriers between different nationalities, such as a holiday romances or friendships made while travelling. Gmail is a free search-based email service that combines the features of email with Google’s search technology and supplies more than 7GB of free storage space.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologynews/5362227/Googles-Gmail-launches-automatic-email-translation-tool.html

Record Labels Increase Legal Pressure on Pirate Bay

As everyone is now aware, defeat in the Spectrial did not lead to the closure of The Pirate Bay. Now, after being able to download hundreds of their own albums via the site, the record company plaintiffs from the case want action, and have applied to the court to issue fines to the defendants for every day they continue to infringe copyright. Despite a resounding court defeat against the combined might of the music and movie industries, The Pirate Bay continues to operate - at any given moment there are in excess of 20 million peers connected to the tracker. In any event, the verdict is subject to appeal and could drag on for years yet. The music industry plaintiffs from the case, Universal, EMI, Sony and Warner, have had enough of this situation and through their lawyer Peter Danowsky, have applied to the court requesting it starts imposing additional fines on three of the defendants for as long as they continue to infringe their copyrights. Because of this, the record companies have demanded that the operators of The Pirate Bay - Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi - take steps to ensure that it is impossible for Internet users to download any of the works to which they own the copyright, using The Pirate Bay.

Source: http://torrentfreak.com/record-labels-increase-legal-pressure-on-pirate-bay-090519/

Palm Pre, Coming to Stores on June 6

It's been touted as the iPhone killer, and could be Palm's last chance at rejuvenation. Palm, as a company, has struggled in recent years to stay relevant in the wake of the smart phone explosion. There's little doubt that Palm has made some great products over the years, such as the Palm Pilot, Palm Treo, Palm TX and so on, but at the end of the day, their products simply couldn't compete with the standard of smart phone technology, the iPhone. But the Palm Pre holds tremendous promise. During CES 2009, it was all the buzz and won high acclaim from those who managed to get a sneak peak at the product. Could the Palm Pre make inroads against the iPhone? The timing is excellent and in Palm’s favor. According to a Palm blog post this morning, the Palm Pre is scheduled to be released on June 6th. It will be available at Sprint stores, RadioShack, and select WalMart stores. The timing is critical because it will be released just prior to Apple's very important operating system upgrade to version 3.0.

Source: http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=47253

Ethan Zohn Diagnosed with Cancer

During Survivor: Africa, Ethan Zohn outwitted, outplayed and outlasted the competition. Now, the reality TV champion has an even bigger fight on his hands: Last week, Zohn was disagnosed with a rare form cancer called CD20-positive Hodgkin's Lymphoma; he began chemotherapy on Friday. "This is the ultimate game of Survivor," Ethan told People, "and there's really only one outcome, and that's to win. There's no other option." The survival rate for those suffering from regular Hodgkin's disease is around 90 percent. For years, Zohn has been dating Survivor: The Amazon winner Jenna Morasca. She vows to remain by his side throughout this ordeal. "I will fight with every fabric of my being to get him through this," Morasca said.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2009/05/ethan-zohn-diagnosed-with-cancer/

Pirate Bay Continues Business as Usual

Just because there's a multimillion dollar fine and a year of potential jail in the potential future of the Pirate Bay's administration, doesn't mean that the world's largest tracker doesn't need some TLC. With at least 22 million peers online at any moment, The Pirate Bay (TPB) continues to rule the file-sharing landscape despite the entertainment industry's legal victory in April. It's not difficult to see the important role TPB plays in the file-sharing ecosystem. Not only does it serve as the largest P2P platform, but provides the cultural and community center that for many years was lacking in the P2P landscape. For better or worse, like SuprNova before it, TPB is the identity of the file-sharing community. Without additional enforcement against TPB's network infrastructure since May 31 of 20006, it's likely that the entertainment industry is finding it difficult to pry this community offline. Blocking at the ISP level seems to be the only recourse, yet even at best, the results of this tactic appears marginal. And winning a multimillion dollar lawsuit doesn't seem like much of a deterrent either.

Source: http://www.slyck.com/story1855_Pirate_Bay_Continues_Business_as_Usual

Prism Firefox extension hits beta

Mozilla Labs has released a beta of a Firefox extension that turns any website application into a desktop app. The not-for-profit outfit launched the standalone web app late on Friday. Dubbed Prism, it comes with its own site and an updated API for developers to play with. Prism 1.0 beta comes loaded with several nifty features including tray icon support, automatic updates and application-specific settings. As with Mozilla’s latest Firefox browser, Prism also allows users to wipe clean their web surfing history with porn private browsing mode. Google’s Chrome browser already has the ability to run standalone web apps on any site, but it doesn’t currently offer add-ons such as those found in Prism. “With the release of Prism 1.0 beta we are ready to start fostering an ecosystem that makes it easier for developers to create and distribute compelling web app bundles,” wrote Matthew Gertner on the Prism development team blog last Friday.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/11/mozilla_prism_beta_1_0/