If you don’t know anything about Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) then you should watch at least this video. It doesn’t matter why you are using internet or you think that it doesn’t affect you, it does. It appears that SOPA and PIPA were just distractions to the real enemy of the internet, ACTA. They have created ACTA in the name of intellectual property rights and to create international standards to protect them. ACTA gives access to everything you do or say over the internet, everything. They will have access in everything that you send and receive over the internet even you emails and chats. And they do this to check if anything you send or receive has to do with intellectual property rights.
Google to pay 500.000 euros for being anti-competitive
A French commercial court ordered Google France to pay 500.000 euros for being anti-competitive by offering Google maps for free. A French company is also offering the same service (maps) but obviously for a fee. For example, if a Verizon customer gets the Xperia PLAY can choose between two services, Google maps for free or Verizon’s VZ Navigator for $10 per month. Now I can see why the company is complaining about free maps. Bottin Cartographes, the French mapping company which filed the complaint, argues that Google is providing Google maps for free to eliminate its competitors. The half million euros was for the damages and interest and Google also fined with 15.000 euros for its practice. Google France will appeal the decision.
Rust: A new programming language by Mozilla
Mozilla, the developers of Firefox, the best web browser, have created a new programming language called Rust. If you are familiar with the C-family then you will have no problem learning Rust. Although, there are many differences in both syntactic and semantic details. Rust was designed with the “programming in the large” in mind. The source files of the Rust programming language have a .rs extension. You can find a tutorial and more information about the Rust programming language in its website.
MegaUpload users will sue FBI
It is not secret that MegaUpload, as all file sharing sites, was used to share pirated material. The same happens in video sites like YouTube and any other technology like BitTorrent. Users tend to share anything in every opportunity but this does not means that every technology and every site is responsible for that. If anything, this way of thinking makes sites more popular. MegaUpload was shut down with no warning and users lost their files without knowing when and if they will ever retrieve their files. There is a huge number of MegaUpload users that were not sharing pirate data and those people want to sue FBI. Among them are scientists that were sharing their results, people that were sharing their work documents and many people storing and sharing their personal data and videos.
How Google got caught
Google paid a $500 million settlement to U.S government for showing ads from illegal online pharmacies. The reason is that Google was showing those ads in their knowledge and U.G government proved that with the help of a con artist. David Whitaker, the con artist sent by the government, appeared to Google sales executives as an agent for (illegal) online drug dealers. He spent about $200.000 (government’s money) in paid ads for selling illegal drugs. The website he created was very obvious to Google that it was not a licensed pharmacy but they accepted it (in order to make money). You can read the full story in the source link. Google now in not the Google we knew back then and they no longer follow their do no evil policy.
FileSonic disabled file sharing feature
Some of you have noticed that Ultra PDF Merger alternative links have been removed. The reason is that the files were hosted in FileSonic and the feature of file sharing is now disabled. It was a big file sharing site and now it is just another website for storage. It seems that the fact that MegaUpload was shut down scared other sharing sites or the feds are going after all of them. If this trend continues, the Internet will suffer. The Internet was created to share knowledge and files and they try to limit or block these features. Some people are very narrow minded and they don’t see the big picture. FileSonic is not the only one that limited its features and if that continues most of them will. I will not buy another music album or DVD unless the media companies stop attacking file sharing websites.
Find about SOPA and PIPA
You probably see every day, at least once, the SOPA and how angry every internet user is about it. For those of you that you don’t have time to learn more about it or you don’t want to read now you can be informed by watching a ten minute video. It explains what Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) are and why they are bad for internet. You can easily see what these censorship regulations are all about and how they can affect you. Even if you think that SOPA and PIPA are not affecting you personally, you should be informed because they affect everyone that uses internet. And don’t believe that thay can’t shut down websites and they need such regulations to do it because it is a lie. Megaupload was shut down by US officials for violating piracy laws.
Facebook: Filter news feed
If you don’t like the fact that your news feed is fool of junk news about people you barely know or people who are very active and they are flooding your news feed you can change it. In fact there are many ways to do it and this post will show you three of them without the need to unfriend anyone. First of all, the most time-consuming method is to create a new list, add the ones that are annoying and make that list of people not visible to your news feed. I don’t have time for this method but there are several people that they are doing this. The second method and my favorite is to move the mouse on the new, click the right upper corner that appears and select the only important option. This method will hide the annoying news from that friend but you will still be able to view important changes about that person. Finally, the last method is to unsubscribe from that friend. You can find the option the same way as before, but if you choose this you will not see any news from that person.
Virus found on JAXA’s data terminal
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have discovered a computer virus on one of their data terminals. They believe that the virus gathered sensitive information. They are investigating on how the specific computer was infected. Information about the unmanned vessel H-2 Transfer Vehicle and its operations are believed to be compromised. In addition, the attacker that put the virus there knew the login credentials of the employee who was working on that terminal. The virus was found on Jan 6 2011 but the same terminal was also infected on Aug 2011. The only sure thing is that JAXA will increase the security to prevent malware infections in the future.
The Pirate Bay without torrent files
The Pirate Bay has announced that it will stop serving torrent files in about a month. Don’t worry, you will still find torrents and you will be able to download them but by using magnet links and not torrent files (.torrent). The Pirate Bay will make this move to save bandwidth and because they think that .torrent files are not required. The default download link on The Pirate Bay is the magnet link and not the torrent file, a move that helps to make this transition smooth. We don’t know for sure if other sites will follow Pirate Bay but for now the other sites will have both magnet links and torrent files. What this means for you? This means that some times it will take a little bit longer to add the file to the torrent client because you will get the torrent file from other users instead of Pirate Bay’s server.