The latest from TechCrunch
- WikiLeaked Diplomatic Cables Confirm China's Politburo Was Behind Google Hacking Incident
- Symbian Sputters Towards Open-Source Irrelevancy
- WikLeaks Reports It Is Under A Denial Of Service Attack
- Sites With Government Seized Domains Are Moving On, On Twitter
| WikiLeaked Diplomatic Cables Confirm China's Politburo Was Behind Google Hacking Incident | Top |
| Details about the U.S. State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks are starting to come out. Although WikiLeaks itself may be under a denial of service attack , it provided several newspapers around the world acces to the raw documents it is preparing to release later today. The New York Times just posted it’s first article summarizing the contents of the cables and highlighting the most newsworthy ones. Among the 251,287 U.S. diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks, there is one set which deals with the massive computer attack on Google and other companies which was first revealed last January . At that time, Google went public with its contention that the attacks came from the Chinese government, and resulted in Google temporarily pulling out if China. They returned in a more limited way last summer. According to the NYT, some of the new leaked cables point directly at China’s Politburo for instigating the original attacks: A global computer hacking effort: China's Politburo directed the intrusion into Google's computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January, one cable reported. The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said. The cables should shed some more light on why the White House and State Department backed Google so vociferously at the time. CrunchBase Information Google WikiLeaks Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Symbian Sputters Towards Open-Source Irrelevancy | Top |
| Remember two years ago when Nokia open-sourced the Symbian mobile operating system? The thinking was that cell phone manufacturers who depended on the Symbian OS could help keep it going. But it was already too late. The iPhone’s iOS and Android started to take over. Even die-hard Symbian supporters abandoned ship. As the fanboy blogger Symbian Guru explained last summer when he decided to give up on Symbian : I also can't continue to support a mobile operating system platform that continually buries itself into oblivion by focusing on 'openness' while keeping a blind eye towards the obvious improvements that other open platforms have had for several iterations. Now Symbian is delivering itself another blow—this time self-inflicted. The Symbian Foundation, which hosts all the open-source code, big fixes, and documentation for the OS, is shutting down its websites on December 17. The Symbian OS will still technically be open-source, it will just be impractical for many developers to look at it or improve it. According to a post on the Symbian Foundation’s developer blog, the open-source code and other information currently on its websites will be made “available in some form, most likely on a DVD or USB hard drive upon request to the Symbian Foundation. . . . A charge may be levied for media and shipping.” In other words, the Symbian OS will be open only in name. What good is open-source code if it is not available online, where it can continue to evolve? For all practical purposes, it will become an artifact of the age of feature phones. Nokia will no doubt continue to develop the Symbian OS for its own purposes. But what a way to show disdain to the open-source community it professed to embrace only two years ago. Of course, there is nothing stopping someone else from hosting all the code and documentation going forward on an independent site. Will any developers care enough to take on that task? CrunchBase Information Nokia Symbian Foundation Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| WikLeaks Reports It Is Under A Denial Of Service Attack | Top |
| @wikileaks WikiLeaks We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack. about 4 hours ago via web Retweet A lot of people, including many governments, have problems with WikiLeaks , the site dedicated to publishing sensitive and often classified documents. (Read more background on the controversial organization). The site is currently under a distributed denial of service attack, according to a Tweet from the WikiLeaks account. The site seems to be withstanding the attack so far. It is up right now . The DDOS attack comes just as WikiLeaks is preparing to release another set of U.S. government documents—this time diplomatic cables which may prove so embarrassing that the State Department decided to warn foreign governments ahead of their release. But WikiLeaks reports via Twitter that even if the site goes down, newspapers around the world will publish excerpts from the cables: @wikileaks WikiLeaks El Pais, Le Monde, Speigel, Guardian & NYT will publish many US embassy cables tonight, even if WikiLeaks goes down about 4 hours ago via web Retweet So who is behind the DDOS attack—government spy agencies, the Russians, 4chan? It is obviously a conspiracy. Different people will have different theories, including that WikiLeaks itself is behind the “attack” to draw attention (and sympathy) on the eve of its latest big leak. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt for now, until proven otherwise. Update : The New York Times published its first series of articles on the leaked documents along with selected cables . CrunchBase Information WikiLeaks Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Sites With Government Seized Domains Are Moving On, On Twitter | Top |
| Last week while everyone was waiting for the COICA bill to move through Congress, the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency one upped the Attorney General and seized domain names from a group of over 70 copyright infringing websites . A visit to the blacklisted domains now results in the ominous looking message from Homeland Security below. While the graphic is pretty scary, Market Ticker’s Karl Denninger points out the websites themselves and the servers they run on have not actually been seized , just the domains. “That’s a lot of staff attorney time and trouble to get a big fat nothing out of it, which is exactly what they get going down this road. Why? Because all they can do is redirect the domain pointers which will do exactly nothing when the sites re-register under a top-level domain not under the US Government’s jurisdiction – and there are lots of them.” Domains under US jurisdiction currently include anything controlled by Verisign which puts .com site owners in a legal relationship with the United States. According to Denninger, all afflicted site owners need to do is move to a non-US controlled top level domain in order to dodge further ICE seizures. Some have already started to migrate to other domains, though it’s likely choices like .net won’t be any safer. Torrent-Finder owner Waleed Gad El Kareem said he switched his site over to Torrent-Finder.info the moment he saw the ICE message on Torrent-Finder.com, posting the new site’s address on Twitter. @gadelkareem Waleed GadElKareem Torrent Finder is now http://www.torrent-finder.info November 25, 2010 11:49 pm via Digsby Retweet Hip hop site RapGodfathers has aggressively followed suit with its own .info address, using Twitter to get the word out about the move and asking people to retweet as well as @replying fans with its new domain. @RapGodFathers RapGodFathers.info Everyone please retweet our new link, lots of people still don't know about it. http://www.RapGodFathers.info #RGF about 20 hours ago via web Retweet Onsmash seems to have not made the move over, but is soliciting emails from fans on Twitter who oppose the domain name seizure as well as tweeting out stuff like “THEY CAN NEVER STOP US!!!” I’ve emailed them and sister site dajaz1.com about possible plans to move to a different domain and am waiting to hear back. @HofOnSMASH Hof // OnSMASH ARTISTS: If you oppose the seizure of @ OnSMASH pls send an email to gmail .com”>freeonsmash@ gmail .com & express why. Your participation is appreciated! about 20 hours ago via web Retweet Even the counterfeit sites have caught on, an email I sent to www.2009Jerseys.com was met with the following auto response, “Notice: The original Domain Name has been suspended, please visit the new domain name www.2009Jerseys.net, We apologize for the inconvenience. If there is new information, we will first time inform you.” The people behind Dvdcollects.com have decided to focus all their energy on the yet unfettered Bestcollects.com according to their Facebook page. If it really is that easy to pick up and move on its hard to believe that the other 70 or so sites won’t find friendlier domains on which to land, rendering ICE’s efforts ultimately futile. If anything, the seizures serve as lesson to all possibly infringing sites — Steer clear of the .com top level domain. | |
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