general internet news - 17 August

[David Goldstein <goldstein_david@yahoo.com.au>]

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sg: Welcome to me.com
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2006/8/15/lifefocus/15120925

Chinese censors target web spoofs
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/Guardian/china/story/0,,1844995,00.html

uk: Playground bullies move online
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/personal-computer-world/news/2162354/playground-bullies-move-opnline

vn: Politics a no-no but porn okay
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20126375%5e15306%5e%5enbv%5e15306,00.html

nz: Anti-porn talks cost police $163,000
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10396086
http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3764293a11,00.html

nz: Email exchange amounted to contract, court rules
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/UNID/FD96D9D3A9158E43CC2571CA0012B823

au: ISPs should block child porn - survey
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20133439%5e15306%5e%5enbv%5e15306,00.html

au: Australians Not Confident In Blocking Porn
http://www.smarthousenews.com.au/Computing/Industry?Article=/Computing/Industry/B7J3A4E3

Why Google is right to rebuke brand abuse
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/15/google_brand_abuse/
http://www.out-law.com/page-7193

Apple lays legal claim to the word ?Pod?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/859887f2-2be6-11db-a7e1-0000779e2340.html

Top 15 Online Populations and Web Properties
Worldwide, June 2006
http://clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623166

uk: Ofcom Communications Market Report reveals new
industry trends and changes in consumer behaviour
(news release)
http://ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2006/08/nr_20060810

uk: Ofcom finds the generation gap
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/15/ofcom_comms_report/
http://www.publictechnology.net/article_avantgo.php?sid=5732

Time Magazine's 50 Coolest Websites
http://www.time.com/time/2006/50coolest/index.html

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CENSORSHIP, FILTERING & CONTENT REGULATION
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au: ISPs should block child porn - survey
CHILD welfare advocates say ISPs should block child
pornography at the server level. A survey commissioned
by Child Wise reveals 83 per cent of Australians
believe ISPs should shoulder the responsibility of
blocking access to internet child porn regardless of
customer choice.
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20133439%5e15306%5e%5enbv%5e15306,00.html

au: Australians Not Confident In Blocking Porn
The majority of Australians believe that their home
software Internet filters are not effective in
blocking child pornography, according to a new survey.
http://www.smarthousenews.com.au/Computing/Industry?Article=/Computing/Industry/B7J3A4E3

us: Pornography: the social ill behind some dangerous
crimes
>From his jail cell a few days ago, 20-year-old Craig
Roger Gregerson explained the reason he has been
arrested and charged with capital murder, punishable
by death, and first-degree child kidnapping.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0816/p09s02-cojh.html

us: Teens online: Major study
'Tis the season for surveys about online teens, it
seems. Several have just been released, but the
biggest news in Net safety this week was the
much-anticipated "Second Youth Internet Safety Survey"
(the first, much-quoted, study came out back in 2000)
from the Crimes Against Children Research Center at
the University of New Hampshire, sponsored by the US
government-funded National Center for Missing &
Exploited Children. Let's look at it first because
it's a milestone
http://www.netfamilynews.org/nl060811.html#1
http://www.netfamilynews.org/newsletter.shtml#newsitemEEVVFEpEZyAdatiByH

Iranian censors clamp down on bloggers
Sayeed Habibi considers himself a marked man. The
reason: his Internet blog that challenges some of the
policies of Iran's theocracy. He predicts that someday
- perhaps soon - he'll be taken to prison and his site
will be shut down. "And another voice will be
silenced," said Habibi, a 34-year-old postgraduate and
an unofficial elder statesman for student-led activist
movements. "I fully expect to see the inside of a jail
cell."
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/15267735.htm

Chinese censors target web spoofs
Beijing declares war on satirical internet clips which
belittle officially approved films and songs. 
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/Guardian/china/story/0,,1844995,00.html
http://go.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=13190320

uk: Playground bullies move online
School bullying is heading from the playground to the
computer room thanks to the rise of social networking
sites such as Myspace, according to a security firm.
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/personal-computer-world/news/2162354/playground-bullies-move-opnline

vn: Politics a no-no but porn okay
VIETNAM'S internet censors tend to block political
rather than pornographic content, a study shows. The
communist nation "is focusing its filtering on sites
considered threatening to its one-party system," says
the OpenNet Initiative report by several of the
world's top universities,including Harvard, Oxford,
Cambridge and Toronto.
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20126375%5e15306%5e%5enbv%5e15306,00.html

au: SECONDARY STUDENTS EMPOWERED THROUGH CYBERNETRIX
Thousands of Australian secondary students will become
empowered in safe websurfing following the launch of
CyberNetrix, the newest Internet-safety program
available through Australia?s Internet safety advisory
body, NetAlert.
http://www.netalert.net.au/03582-Secondary-Students-Empowered-Through-CyberNetrix.asp

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CYBERCRIME, CYBERSECURITY AND PRIVACY
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nz: Anti-porn talks cost police $163,000
Police paid more than $163,000 for seminars for staff
caught with pornographic emails. The seminars were run
by Rape Crisis and adult sexual offending and internet
safety organisations, and the job was not put out to
tender.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10396086
http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3764293a11,00.html

nz: Email exchange amounted to contract, court rules
Tempus Fugit, maker of the Opus One payroll
application, has lost an appeal to the High Court
regarding whether an exchange of emails with a
reseller, Team Progress, amounted to a contract.
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/UNID/FD96D9D3A9158E43CC2571CA0012B823

us: Child porn employee cites 4th Amendment
A US federal appeals court has rejected the claim of a
Montana man who used his work computer to access child
pornography that a probe of his machine breached his
Fourth Amendment rights against "unreasonable searches
and seizures", Reuters reports.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/14/court_privacy_ruling/

To google or not to google? It's a legal question (sub
req'd)
Search engine giant Google, known for its mantra
"don't be evil", has fired off a series of legal
letters to media organisations, warning them against
using its name as a verb.
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article1218805.ece

Why Google is right to rebuke brand abuse
Opinion: Google has been accused of lacking a sense of
humour after setting its brand police on publishers
who used its name as a verb. But the company has to
protect its name.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/15/google_brand_abuse/
http://www.out-law.com/page-7193

Apple lays legal claim to the word ?Pod?
Apple has laid legal claim to the word ?Pod,? arguing
that other companies that use the word as part of
their product names risk infringing the trademark of
its popular iPod music player.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/859887f2-2be6-11db-a7e1-0000779e2340.html
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/5306/106/

*****
SPAM
*****
us: Hey, spammer, leave those kids alone
A pair of firms accused of sending unsolicited emails
about gambling and alcoholic drinks to children are
being sued by the State of Michigan.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/15/michigan_kid_spam_prosecution/

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INTERNET & NEW TECHNOLOGY USE
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au: MySpace.com comes to Australia
SOCIAL website phenomenon MySpace has landed in
Australia, touching down with the riff-laden thump of
1970s-inspired Melbourne rockers Jet.
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,,20128212-2,00.html
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20131507%5e15306%5e%5enbv%5e15306,00.html

au: Local MySpace launch prompts net safety warning
The social networking site MySpace has launched an
Australian version. The international site has more
than 100 million members and lets users create a
personal web page and meet people with common
interests.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1714733.htm

sg: Welcome to me.com
Polytechnic student-model Feliza Ong is one of at
least 50 million bloggers in cyberspace jostling for
attention. Welcome to the me-me-me world of blogging,
but is it self-expression or self-indulgence?
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2006/8/15/lifefocus/15120925

Top 15 Online Populations and Web Properties
Worldwide, June 2006
Close to 713 million people around the world age 15
and over used the Web in June. The global projection
is based on research from comScore's June 2006 World
Metrix data.
http://clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623166

Internet brings 'increasing bewilderment' about
concept of privacy
The Kelantan region is part of Malaysia. Kids there
like to eat deep-fried fish-flesh sausages ? an item
not likely to be added to Lunchables packages anytime
soon. And the culture has no history of privacy. If
you want to hide personal information from your fellow
Kelantanese, they will treat you the way a space
shuttle crew would treat a member who sings Cher hits
non-stop. But that's not the deal here in the USA. The
level of alarm about privacy, especially as it applies
to the Internet, is going off the charts. There are
some interesting cultural reasons why, and they say
something about the solutions that might work.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/maney/2006-08-15-digital-privacy_x.htm

uk: Ofcom Communications Market Report reveals new
industry trends and changes in consumer behaviour
(news release)
Ofcom published its annual Communications Market
Report for 2005 revealing new trends in the
television, radio, telecommunications and wireless
communications industries and analysing consumer usage
of, and attitudes to, communications services. The
Report combines original Ofcom research, data provided
to Ofcom by the companies it regulates and
publicly-available material. It provides a
comprehensive overview of one of the UK?s most dynamic
sectors, representing 4.1% of UK GDP and with retail
revenues which in 2005 exceeded the £50 billion
threshold for the first time.
http://ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2006/08/nr_20060810

uk: Ofcom finds the generation gap
Ofcom research has found that spending on
communications equipment is falling - for the first
time in five years. In 2004, 4.63 per cent of total
household expenditure was on communications, but this
fell slightly in 2005 to 4.60 per cent.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/15/ofcom_comms_report/
http://www.publictechnology.net/article_avantgo.php?sid=5732

Time Magazine's 50 Coolest Websites
How do we select our finalists? We evaluate hundreds
of candidates?some suggested by readers, colleagues
and friends, others discovered during countless hours
of surfing. Many of this year's choices are shining
examples of Web 2.0: next-generation sites offering
dynamic new ways to inform and entertain, sites with
cutting-edge tools to create, consume, share or
discuss all manners of media, from blog posts to video
clips. Think we missed one? Send us your thoughts and
we'll post a selection of your comments online.
There's always next year.
http://www.time.com/time/2006/50coolest/index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4793481.stm

es: Spain sees 45% increase in internet connections
The number of internet connections in Spain has
increased by 45 per cent in the first three months of
this year, reports Telecompaper quoting Spanish
telecoms regulator CMT.
http://dmeurope.com/default.asp?ArticleID=17495

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COMMENT, MICROSOFT & DEVELOPMENTS
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uk: VI Computer Law World Conference
The 2006 Conference will be hosted by the AHRC
Research Centre for studies in Intellectual Property
and Technology Law, located in the School of Law at
the University of Edinburgh. The conference brings
together legal academics and practitioners from around
the world to consider and debate all aspects of
information technology law. Previous years?
conferences have fostered links between educational
institutions and legal practices across the globe,
reaching out to a wider international audience each
year.
http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrb/complaw/index.asp

Dell recalls 4m laptop batteries
The world's largest manufacturer of personal
computers, Dell, is to recall 4.1 million of its
notebook computer batteries because of a fire risk.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4793143.stm
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-6105486.html

Advertisers Trace Paths Users Leave on Internet
Internet companies are analyzing records of what their
users search for to target advertising directly to
them
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/15/technology/15search.html

us: Google launches home town wi-fi
Google is offering free wireless access to the
inhabitants of its home town.
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1851314,00.html

uk: Traders strike over changes at eBay
Internet giant eBay yesterday fell foul of hundreds of
users who staged a one-day strike in protest at new
policies.
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1851106,00.html

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS
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nz: NZ television on threshold of a revolution
Kiwis will be able to watch their favourite TV
programmes over the internet within 18 months, says
Woosh Wireless chairman Rob Inglis, after securing
broadcasting spectrum from Sky TV.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10395996

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VoIP
*****
uk: Calls over internet predicted to soar
SERVICES that allow users to make free calls over the
internet are used in nearly two million British
households, Ofcom research found. The number of
Britons using the services, pioneered by companies
such as Skype, is expected to rise significantly as
broadband uptake increases.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,20411-2307937,00.html

us: E-mail security hero takes on VoIP
Phil Zimmermann gave free e-mail encryption to the
world more than a decade ago in the form of software
called Pretty Good Privacy. Now Zimmermann, who became
an instant Internet hero in part because of a threat
of federal prosecution for much of the 1990s, is
trying to bring the same kind of encrypted security to
Internet phone calls.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-6105589.html

VOIP Cuts Out Middlemen
The accelerating migration of service providers and
enterprises to VOIP peering platforms is having a
profound and permanent impact on the economics of
telecom network interconnect, resulting in the
disintermediation of a number of operators from
once-lucrative businesses, according to a major new
report from Heavy Reading.
http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=100757&WT.svl=wire1_10

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(c) David Goldstein 2006

David Goldstein
 address: 4/3 Abbott Street
           COOGEE NSW 2034
           AUSTRALIA
 email: Goldstein_David @yahoo.com.au
 phone: +61 418 228 605 (mobile); +61 2 9665 5773 (home)


		
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