New Delhi: An analysis of a leaked list of items that were ordered to be blocked by Indian Internet Service Providers (ISPs) on directions from the Department of Telecom bring to light the inconsistencies in India's online censorship efforts. Pranesh Prakash, programme manager at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), analysed the 309 specific items that were asked to be censored from August 18, till August 21, 2012 by...
07:47 AM, Aug 23, 2012
Union Minister Kapil Sibal has defended the government's decision to ban certain websites saying it doesn't amount to censorship but is a means to control the spread of hate messages. ...
01:51 PM, Aug 22, 2012
Is restriction on social media a matter of Freedom of Speech or hate speech and incitement to violence? ...
10:19 PM, Aug 20, 2012
New Delhi: In the wake of morphed images triggering an unprecedented exodus of Northeast Indians from major cities in other states, the government has blocked 254 websites, including 98 on Monday, for uploading doctored videos and pictures. The Monday crackdown on websites follows a similar blocking of around 80 internet pages and user accounts spreading hate messages on a slew of social networking sites, including Facebook, Google and Twitter. The...
07:50 PM, Aug 20, 2012
New Delhi: The government is stepping in more actively to monitor social media content after the continued departure of north-eastern students from cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune. According to sources, the Home Ministry has asked the Intelligence Bureau and state police to monitor websites and social media. Also, the Centre has asked social media websites to monitor their content. Sources further said that the government warned the websites that...
07:46 PM, Aug 17, 2012
New Delhi: Anonymous India hackers targeted the official website Samajwadi Party in response to the party's Member of Parliament Ram Gopal Yadav demanding a ban on social networking websites. Yadav was participating in a debate in the Rajya Sabha on rumours triggering panic over ethnic violence in Assam that is leading to a mass exodus of people from the North East from Bangalore. "TANGO DOWN: http://www.samajwadiparty.in ..." @opindia_revenge tweeted. Access...
05:33 PM, Aug 17, 2012
New York: The blogging platform of the Reuters News website was hacked and a false posting saying Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal had died was illegally posted on a Reuters journalist's blog, the company said on Wednesday. "Reuters did not report the false story and the post was immediately deleted. We are working to address the problem," Barb Burg, director of global communications at Reuters News, said in...
11:49 PM, Aug 15, 2012
New Delhi: The website of Trinamool Congress was on Tuesday hacked with the hackers posting on it a quote from party chief Mamata Banerjee that she is a Maoist. One of the remarks posted by hackers quoted Mamata as "apologizing to the people whom I have hurt" and "I promise to make up for all this by drawing my own cartoons..." It was, however, later rectified and restored and the...
08:55 PM, Aug 14, 2012
Chennai: Want to submit a petition to Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa but are wary of the possible hassle in approaching her special cell? Relax. You can now file it online and get an acknowledgement. A new website for the Chief Ministers Special Cell that facilitates you to file your petitions online has just been inaugurated by Jayalalithaa. After you mail your petition to the website, http://tn.cm.gov.in, an acknowledgement will be...
12:59 PM, Aug 13, 2012
Mumbai: The Government Railway Police (GRP) has started a new website, displaying figures of the number of men, women and transgenders who have fallen victim to railway accidents. This is the first time that transgenders have been included in the GRP administration statistics. According to GRP officers, they have been asked from their superiors to compile the list in three categories, male, female and transgender. The total number of accidents...
02:37 PM, Aug 11, 2012
New Delhi: An inactive website of the Southern Railways www.southernrailway.gov.in has been defaced apparently by Pakistani hackers. The hacker group that calls itself 'Pak Cyber Pyrates' replaced the home page of the website with a page with content that denounces India's role in Kashmir. The official Southern Railways website moved to a new domain www.sr.indianrailways.gov.in back in 2010. Inactive websites are a soft target for hackers as they are not...
10:15 AM, Aug 07, 2012
New Delhi: The Government of India launched an anti-ragging website helping students of universities, colleges and professional institutes lodge online complaints against ragging or harassment and seek faster response. One can also get the anti-ragging affidavits through email registering on the website and keep a track about the progress of their complaints logging on www.antiragging.in, launched by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal. The UGC-managed portal has been developed in active collaboration...
01:22 PM, Jul 27, 2012
Bangalore: Registering a complaint about civic problems has become more easier now. Citizens can register their complaints online through Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force (BMTF) website. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, BMTF Inspector General of Police R P Sharma said, This is a first of its kind measure. One can log in to our website and register their complaints. The problems may not be related to the BBMP. Any complaints, related...
03:28 PM, Jul 20, 2012
Jakarta: Indonesia's communications and information ministry has shut down more than one million pornographic websites ahead of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Minister Tifatul Sembiring said Wednesday that his office would target more sites in the upcoming month. The closed websites were all run from abroad, he said. "We will block more porn sites during Ramadan, though that doesn't mean that we will allow such sites to operate during...
04:09 PM, Jul 18, 2012
New Delhi: Shiv Sakhuja, a teenager, is the domain holder, creator and developer of 'controlyourmac'. He has had his priorities in place. When most 11-year-olds were busy with their play-stations, Shiv was developing his own website. In 2008, he went on to become the domain holder, creator and developer of 'controlyourmac', a website that tells you everything your Mac can do in a simplified and user-friendly manner. "I used my...
09:52 AM, Jul 17, 2012
Bangalore: Comcast, the parent company of NBC, has bought out Microsoft's 50 per cent stake in MSNBC.com for a reported $300 million to assume full control of the news website. "Today we're taking on a new name - NBCNews.com. While our name is changing, our commitment is not," Jennifer Sizemore, editor-in-chief of NBCNews.com, said in a letter posted on the company's website. The New York Times reported the transaction was...
07:09 PM, Jul 16, 2012
New York: Shortly before the Harry Potter saga came to an end on movie screens a year ago, we were teased with more adventures about the young wizard through a website called Pottermore. One million fans who were able to solve riddles and find a Magical Quill have had a chance to try out Pottermore for nearly a year. The rest of us - the magic-free Muggles - had to...
03:17 PM, Jul 13, 2012
San Francisco: New York tech incubator Betaworks acquired the website Digg on Thursday in a deal that included the remaining brand assets, a humble close to what was once a celebrated online property that heralded the social media era. Launched in 2004 by then 27-year old Kevin Rose, Digg rose to prominence as an aggregator of online content, becoming at one point one of the more highly-trafficked stops on the...
06:24 AM, Jul 13, 2012
San Francisco: Zynga Inc CEO Mark Pincus said he remains wary of investing as heavily in mobile games as he has in proven Web-based titles like FarmVille despite an industrywide push toward catering to mobile devices. Game industry observers in recent months have stressed that developers must adapt as Internet users worldwide shift toward spending time on smartphones and tablets rather than desktop computers. Concerns that Zynga continues to rely...
02:05 PM, Jul 11, 2012
London: Can't think of a day without Facebook or Twitter? Beware, as these popular social networking sites feed anxiety and can make you feel insecure, a new study has found. A survey of hundreds of social network site users found that more than half of them admitted that the sites have changed their behaviour, and half of them said their lives had been altered for the worse. Most commonly, those...
04:26 AM, Jul 09, 2012
