New York: Indian military research bodies and Tibetan activists have been targeted by hackers based in China, with a former graduate student at a Chinese university emerging as a key figure responsible for the cyber breach, according to a report by a computer security firm. In its 24 page report, Tokyo-based Trend Micro said the hacking campaign, dubbed 'Luckycat' targeted Indian military research institutions, entities in Japan as well as...
02:04 PM, Mar 31, 2012
Beijing: China is shuttering more than a dozen websites, penalising two popular social media sites and detaining six people for circulating rumors of a coup that rattled Beijing in the midst of its worst high-level political crisis in years. The announcement carried late Friday by official media said the Internet companies and individuals were being punished for fabricating and disseminating rumors that military vehicles had entered Beijing or that something...
11:45 AM, Mar 31, 2012
In the midst of India's new found romance with Africa (do have a look at previous posts in this series), I thought it'd be interesting ...
12:24 PM, Mar 26, 2012
Dubai: United Arab Emirates authorities on Sunday briefly detained a political activist who criticised one of the Gulf country's rulers on his Twitter account, a prominent Emirati blogger said. Ahmed Mansour told The Associated Press on the phone that security agents detained the activist, Mohammed Abdel-Razzaq al-Siddiq, before dawn Sunday. He was taken from his home in the emirate of Sharjah and released on bail later Sunday, Mansour said. The...
09:41 AM, Mar 26, 2012
London: A controversial attempt to expand Internet addresses far beyond the likes of .com, .org or .net has provoked a rare threat from the US government to withdraw a key license from the body that runs the Internet's core functions. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) depends on its US government contract to coordinate the unique addresses that tell computers where to find each other, without which...
12:19 PM, Mar 24, 2012
Paris: France's president proposed a sweeping new law on Thursday that would jail those who visit extremist web sites, one of several tough new measures floated in the wake of a murderous shooting spree. The proposed rules, unveiled by Nicolas Sarkozy after the death of an Islamist fanatic wanted for a horrifying series of execution-style murders, have alarmed journalists and legal experts, who say they risk pulling the plug on...
03:24 AM, Mar 23, 2012
London: Britain's foreign secretary condemned Iran on Sunday for blocking a website aimed at explaining the United Kingdom and its policies to Iranians. William Hague said that barring the British government's "UK for Iranians" site three days after it was launched proved "the Iranian authorities fear their own citizens' interaction and involvement with the outside world." "UK for Iranians" was launched Wednesday, after Iran blocked the website of Britain's now...
09:01 PM, Mar 18, 2012
New Delhi: A total of 112 government websites belonging to various state government agencies, Planning Commission and Finance Ministry were hacked in the three-month period ending February 2012, Parliament was informed on Wednesday. "During the period December 2011 to February 2012, a total number of 112 government websites were hacked," Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. These hacked...
09:33 PM, Mar 14, 2012
New Delhi: US-based search engine Google Inc, facing a civil lawsuit along with 21 other websites for allegedly hosting objectionable contents on its web posts, has told a Delhi court that the blanket ban and monitoring of material would be against the right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Indian Constitution. In a reply, filed before Administrative Civil Judge Parveen Singh, Google Inc said, "Its mission is...
11:25 AM, Mar 04, 2012
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday quashed criminal proceedings against Yahoo India, which was summoned along with 20 other websites to face trial for allegedly hosting objectionable content on their web pages. "The summons issued against Yahoo India is set aside," Justice Suresh Kait said while allowing the plea of the website that the lower court wrongly issued the process against it, without attributing any specific role to...
06:35 PM, Mar 02, 2012
New Delhi: In a major relief for Yahoo India, the Delhi High Court on Friday stayed the personal presence summons issued to its chief by the Patiala House Court. The Patiala House Court had issued summons to all the 21 websites involved in the objectionable content case to appear before court on March 13. Facebook and Google have already got the summons stayed. "The summons issued against Yahoo India is...
04:41 PM, Mar 02, 2012
Thiruvananthapuram: Tech-savvy Kerala Tourism set a record by winning the National Tourism Award for its website, fifth time in the last ten years. Kerala Tourism Minister A.P.Anil Kumar received the prestigious award from President Pratibha Patil on Wednesday, according to a tourism department press release. Bolstered by the award, Kerala Tourism announced it would roll out a new set of user-friendly mobile-based applications very soon. The award-winning website www.keralatourism.org has...
07:18 PM, Mar 01, 2012
There's an old saying about newspapers: They aren't delivering news to readers, but readers to advertisers. But as many newspapers migrated to the web, where readers, in most cases, hate to pay for news at all, the saying evolved to: If you're not paying for it, you're the product. Dismal as it may sound, most people realise that is the way the media business operates. Readers rarely pay full or...
10:52 AM, Feb 28, 2012
Washington: Denouncing the disclosure of its emails by Wikileaks, the whistleblower website, as "deplorable breach of privacy", the US-based intelligence firm Stratfor cautioned that some of them may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies. In a video message to Stratfor subscribers, founder and CEO, George Friedman said that his resignation email was forged. "Emails sent to many people about my resignation were clearly forged," he said. Friedman said in...
09:41 AM, Feb 28, 2012
New Delhi: Fast growing e-commerce website Flipkart is flying into the digital music download territory with its MP3 download service called Flyte. The online music download store which opened on Monday will have to compete with music piracy websites and illegal BitTorrent downloads but also with free Indian online music streaming services. While Flipkart had previously announced its plans to come up with a digital media store, a link to...
11:22 PM, Feb 27, 2012
New Delhi: Two people were arrested for cheating unemployed youths by promising them government jobs through fake government websites, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said on Saturday. "The accused were running fake offices and websites in the names of government organizations like 'Rashtriya Gramin Vikas Awam Suchna Sansthan' and 'NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) Samiti'," said a CBI official. According to the investigative agency, the accused were arrested...
07:59 PM, Feb 25, 2012
Beijing: Authorities in China have shut down a total of 7,846 websites involved in illegal commercial activity, the government said. The ministry of public security took the step as part of a nationwide campaign against online black markets, Xinhua reported. Illegal activity singled out in the campaign included sale of weapons, ammunition, explosives, toxic chemicals, personal information and devices used to tap mobile phones. The campaign also resulted in the...
09:14 AM, Feb 22, 2012
Beijing: Authorities in China have shut down a total of 7,846 websites involved in illegal commercial activity, the government said. The ministry of public security took the step as part of a nationwide campaign against online black markets, Xinhua reported. Illegal activity singled out in the campaign included sale of weapons, ammunition, explosives, toxic chemicals, personal information and devices used to tap mobile phones. The campaign also resulted in the...
03:02 AM, Feb 22, 2012
Hyderabad: Just a day before the budget for 2012-13 financial year was to be presented in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, an unidentified hacker broke into the official government website budget.ap.gov.in, sending the state administration into a tizzy. The hacker, apparently from a foreign location, created additional pages dz.htm and x.htm to the budget.ap.gov.in website and named himself as BBOY1, sources in the state Information Technology and Communications Department said. Besides,...
08:08 PM, Feb 16, 2012
Kolkata: The website of the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal was on Wednesday restored, a day after it was hacked reportedly by a Bangladesh-based group. Party sources said the US-hosted website www.aitmc.org was hacked more than once on Tuesday evening but was fixed on Wednesday. The party's website was remodelled before the last assembly election by Hotmail founder Sabeer Bhatia. "It was blocked for a few hours but there...
06:39 PM, Feb 15, 2012
