With Bird Flu, ‘Right Now, Anything Is Possible’

An international team of disease detectives are in China to investigate an outbreak of a new strain of bird flu, H7N9. The biggest puzzle right now is where these infections are coming from, as testing poultry has turned up very few infected birds. » E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us SOURCE Asia

Japanese National Police Agency wants ISPs to block Tor

You may not be familiar with a service called Tor. Tor is a web service that allows users to surf the Internet, use IM, and other services while keeping themselves completely anonymous. Tor is a free and open-source that is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The National Police Agency in Japan is now … Continue Reading

CDC: U.S. Hospitals Should Be Vigilant For Bird Flu

While there is still conflicting reports about how easily the new strain can be transmitted between humans, the CDC says early intervention is key. » E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us SOURCE Asia

Anonymous calls for ‘Internet Blackout Day’ to protest CISPA [video]

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which passed the House of Representatives this week, has drawn a lot of criticism from activist groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation for potentially undermining users’ online privacy. In particular, the EFF has said that the bill gives Internet companies the right “to monitor user actions and share … Continue Reading

Apple confirms it keeps Siri data for up to two years (update: Google too)

It’s no secret that Apple hangs onto your Siri data for some length of time (as other companies so with search data and the like), but it hasn’t been clear exactly how long it keeps that data sitting on its servers. Wired has now cleared that up somewhat, though, hearing from Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller … Continue Reading

CISPA Passes In The House But Senate Will Likely Knock It Down Due To Privacy Concerns

(The Consumerist) It’s baaaaaack: Last year we started paying attention to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, otherwise known as CISPA, for its perceived similarities to the reviled SOPA and PIPA bills. Despite getting killed off last year, CISPA has now been approved by the U.S. House of Representatives by a huge margin. The … Continue Reading

Obama Administration Threatens CISPA Veto, EFF Urges Action

An anonymous reader sent in word that the Obama administration is threatening to veto CISPA in its current form because “The Administration, however, remains concerned that the bill does not require private entities to take reasonable steps to remove irrelevant personal information (PDF) when sending cybersecurity data to the government or other private sector entities. … Continue Reading

Popular WordPress Plug-in Caught Spamming Is Put On Probation

chicksdaddy writes “Social Media Widget, a free plug-in for the WordPress blogging platform with more than a million downloads, was restored to WordPress’s official plugin directory on Thursday, days after it was found injecting WordPress websites with spam links to web sites offering Pay Day Loans. In a post on a support forum for Social … Continue Reading

The Pirate Bay gets booted out of Greenland in less than two days

Things haven’t been going very well for The Pirate Bay recently ever since the notorious file-sharing website had to scrap its plans to shift hosting responsibilities from the Swedish Pirate Party to the Norwegian Pirate Party after a local copyright enforcement group threatened the Norwegian Pirate Party with a lawsuit. In a recent desperate attempt to … Continue Reading

Google acquires Behavio: social prediction connects with the big G

When Google comes to your door – or your digital door – and tells you they’d like you to join their collective, generally you say yes, let’s do it! That’s what Behavio has announced they’ve done this week. Behavio is a company that was Knight Foundation funded and aimed to develop apps that would accurately … Continue Reading