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(CNET News.com) A former Boston College student was indicted for allegedly installing keystroke-recording software on more than 100 campus computers and accessing databases containing personal information on other students, staff and faculty.
(Washington Internet Daily) The German Ministry of Economy & Labor finalized a draft law that would require transparent billing by providers of new Web dialing services. The new dialer services have to be registered with German regulatory authorities. Not only the content providers themselves, but also the network providers such as Deutsche Telekom (DT) would be responsible to show users the actual rates of the dial-up connection of the respective 0190- service.
(Forum des droits sur l’internet) La Commission des clauses abusives a rendu public sa recommandation relative aux contrats de fourniture d’accès à l’internet. Après plusieurs années de travaux, ce document pointe du doigt 28 types de clauses en recommandant aux acteurs de les faire disparaître des conditions générales d’utilisation.
(BBC) Malaysian police have raided the offices of the independent news website, Malaysiakini. The editor of the site, Steven Gan, told BBC News Online the police had taken away all of its headquarters' 19 computers and servers.
(AP) Plans are in motion to quadruple the current number of Internet users in Vietnam to four million by 2005 and the country's fledgling information technology sector will get injections of $100 million over the next two years, an initial investment aimed at harnessing the Internet's economic potential.
(CNET News.com) In a move that raises questions about the security of governmental domains, the Bush administration has pulled the plug on the AONN.gov Web site pending an investigation into the authenticity of the organization that controlled it.
(Washington Times) A pro-life cyber-squatter didn't go to jail yesterday, but a federal judge said William Purdy is in contempt of a court order and must pay $500 a day until he stops using a raft of domain names that include well-known corporate trademarks including that of The Washington Post.
(Forum des droits sur l’internet) Le Forum des droits sur l’internet a rendu public le 3 février sa recommandation relative au "développement de l’administration électronique". S’inscrivant dans un contexte de mobilisation politique forte en faveur de la e-administration, cette recommandation a pour objet d’accompagner les travaux que mène actuellement le secrétariat d'Etat à la réforme de l'Etat sur ce sujet en portant à sa réflexion un plan d'action pour le développement de l’administration sur l’internet. Il offre des solutions concrètes à destination des praticiens pour mettre en oeuvre l’administration électronique dans une perspective de service au citoyen.
(Reuters) A U.S. appeals court ruled in favor of a Web site that enabled Gore and Nader voters to swap their votes in the 2000 presidential elections. A discussion forum, Votexchange2000.com, and others allowed citizens to swap Gore votes in states where Bush was likely to win anyway for the Green party candidate Nader. A Nader supporter in a state with a closer contest would then pledge to vote for Gore in return.
(RAPID) Mr Erkki Liikanen Member of the European Commission, responsible for Enterprise and the Information Society, Public Hearing on Open Platforms and Interoperability for Digital Television and 3G Brussels, 4 February 2003.
(The Register) Esther Dyson, one of the key figures in the development of the commercial Internet, advisor to Al Gore, promoter of the Net in Eastern Europe and poster woman for the dotcom millionaires, went to massive lengths to distance herself from the failures of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Dyson was speaking in the Oxford Union at a conference called 'The Politics of Code', jointly organised by the Oxford Internet Institute and the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Politics at Oxford University. The one day conference brought together many net luminaries, including Professor Lawrence Lessig from Stanford University, Alan Davidson of the Center for Democracy and Technology and Harvard Alvestrand, chair of the IETF.
(Center for Public Integrity) The Center for Public Integrity has obtained the Justice Department's draft of PATRIOT II. The document, 120 pages long, consisting of section-by-section analysis and legislative languag and dated January 9, 2003, appears to be genuine.
(Wired) One of the earliest hosts of online file trading has decided to abandon the controversial practice and return to its roots as a real-time chat network. DALnet, one of the largest Internet relay chat networks and a forefather of Napster and Kazaa, announced it would ban channels whose primary purpose is to distribute files beginning March 1.
(Forum des droits sur l'internet) Le Forum des droits sur l’internet a rendu public le 6 février sa recommandation aux pouvoirs publics sur le projet de loi pour la confiance dans l’économie numérique présenté par Madame Nicole Fontaine, Ministre délégué à l’Industrie, au Conseil des ministres du 15 janvier 2003. Ce texte doit être examiné par l’Assemblée nationale à partir du 25 février prochain. Le projet de loi a notamment pour objet de transposer les dispositions de la directive 2000/31 sur le commerce électronique. Le Forum a travaillé sur des points essentiels du projet de loi qui concernent : la définition de la communication publique en ligne, la responsabilité des intermédiaires techniques avec en particulier le régime juridique des hébergeurs, et le filtrage des contenus illicites. La position exprimée résulte du processus de concertation interne au Forum auprès de l'ensemble de ses membres.
(CNET.com) If there is one ray of hope amid the gloom that has cloaked the digital economy, it could be summed up with one word: wireless.
(BBC) More than 1,600 men have so far been arrested in Operation Ore, the huge UK police investigation into child porn on the internet. Of those, 46 were suspected of being directly involved in child abuse.
(Guardian) Victor Keegan dismisses the mobile phone companies' squawks of protest at a recent ruling to reduce their charges
(RAPID) The Commission has decided to transmit to Parliament and the Council a draft Decision on the "Daphne II" Programme (2004-08) aimed at preventing violence against women and children and protecting victims and at-risk groups. "Daphne II" will cover the period 2004-08 and follows on from the Daphne Programme (2000-03) and an initiative of the same name launched by the Commission in 1997.
(BBC) It is the modern parent's nightmare - the new stranger danger - your child lured to a meeting by an adult they don't know over the internet. To find out how real that danger is, the BBC asked a team of specialist investigators to pose as a 14-year-old child in an internet chatroom.
(FindLaw) by Anita Ramasastry. Based on a treaty that went into effect in January, Europe is attempting to shut out racist and xenophobic "hate" Web sites. The result of Europe's actions, however, may not be to shut down such sites. Instead, the United States may become a haven for hatemongers' sites, due to the strength of our First Amendment.
(BBC) A scanning system meant to stop abusive and pornographic e-mails reaching MPs may also be blocking messages sent in Welsh because it does not recognise the language. The four MPs of the Welsh party, Plaid Cymru, have noticed that bilingual English-and-Welsh e-mails sent to them have been rejected for allegedly having "inappropriate content". see also UK Parliament Mail - The Ministry Of Silly Messages (Seth Finkelstein).
(Washington Post) President Bush has signed a secret directive ordering the government to develop, for the first time, national-level guidance for determining when and how the United States would launch cyber-attacks against enemy computer networks, according to administration officials.
(vnunet) The Which? Web Trader scheme may have closed down but the concept of the safe shopping kitemark lives on. The Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) has said it will continue to run its own larger but less well-known scheme featuring the Internet Shopping Is Safe (ISIS) logo, which runs on similar principles to Which? Web Trader. see also UK - Which? to end e-commerce scheme
(BBC) The latest research from telecoms watchdog Oftel has found that net take-up is levelling off, despite a huge increase in the uptake of broadband. Much of the interest in high-speed net services seems to be coming from people who already have a dial-up connection. In the past year overall figures for both dial-up and broadband net access at home have remained at around 42% of the population in the UK. see Oftel's latest research on key trends in fixed and mobile telephony, and Internet residential consumers and business users.
(Bertelsmann Foundation) A workshop organised by Bertelsmann Foundation and Asia Europe Foundation will take place in Singapore on 10-11 March 2003 to explore and promote greater understanding of media policy, Internet self regulation, user empowerment and media literacy. The Bertelsmann Foundation and the Asia Europe Foundation (ASEF), seek to start an Asian European dialogue to promote information sharing and offer new perspectives for both Asia and Europe in this field. Workshop Handbook and Workshop Program. events.htm
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