May
20
2011
20
2011
How a law firm tested “phantom” AT&T smartphone data use
New attention is being paid to a class action lawsuit against AT&T. The suit claims that the company's billing system records data use up ...
May
20
2011
20
2011
Twitter asked to stop users from gossiping, then gets sued
If you're not based in the UK, you may have no idea what a "super-injunction" is. But if you're a Brit, they're apparently an ...
May
20
2011
20
2011
Senator to Apple, Google: why are DUI checkpoint apps still available?
Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) took his allotted five minutes during Thursday's US Senate hearing on mobile privacy to lambaste Apple and Google for not ...
May
20
2011
20
2011
Critics demand halt to "fishing expedition" laptop searches
A group of ex-miltiary personnel, academics, and politicians have asked the Department of Homeland Security to put the kibosh on "suspicionless" or "fishing expedition" ...
May
20
2011
20
2011
Nonprofit sees Comcast funding yanked, restored after critical Tweet
Comcast saw fit last week to defund a nonprofit it supported after a critical tweet and at least one Comcast ...
May
19
2011
19
2011
RIAA v. the cloud: Box.net faces subpoena over prerelease music
Watch out, Box.net users—if the RIAA suspects you of mixing in music files with those boring Word and Excel documents that you use for ...
May
19
2011
19
2011
Prolific "spokesman" for Anonymous leaves the hacker group
In one year, Barrett Brown made himself into one of the best-known public faces of the hacker collective Anonymous—and now he's stepping away from ...
May
19
2011
19
2011
Setting the record straight on the North Carolina level playing field bill
Op-ed. The North Carolina Cable and Telecommunications Association responds to a Free Press "hatchet job" and argues that cities rolling out their own broadband, ...
May
18
2011
18
2011
Google chairman: Internet blacklists make us more like China
Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman, has strong views on legislation setting up government Internet blacklists. "I would be very, very careful if I were a ...
May
18
2011
18
2011
Developers ask Apple for help against patent troll via bug reports
iOS developers are organizing a boycott of Apple's in-app purchasing APIs in the hopes that it will goad Apple into responding to the lawsuits ...
May
18
2011
18
2011
Copyright policy based largely on "lobbynomics," not data
A major new independent report to the UK Prime Minister on his country's intellectual property laws is out.
May
18
2011
18
2011
Senate bill would require warrant for e-mail, cloud searches
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) proposed sweeping digital privacy protections Tuesday that would require the government, for the first time, to get ...
May
18
2011
18
2011
Google fiber expands to the other Kansas City
At a press conference yesterday, Google announced that it was expanding its 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home testbed network. No longer limited to ...
May
18
2011
18
2011
Netflix now "the king" of North American Internet traffic
Metered billing and broadband caps be damned—consumer hunger for on-demand applications and video has put Netflix way out in front when it comes to ...
May
17
2011
17
2011
France halts "three strikes" IP address collection after data leak
The French government's “three strikes” approach to online copyright infringement relies on a private company that scans file-sharing networks and gathers the IP addresses ...
May
17
2011
17
2011
Daily Show mocks FCC’s Baker for taking Comcast job
The antics of FCC officials don't generally make their way into the mass media, but FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker has managed the feat. ...
May
17
2011
17
2011
US warns: hack us, and we might bomb you
The US revealed its "International Strategy for Cyberspace" (PDF) yesterday. It's mostly blather about how terrific "cyberspace" is, but it gets more ...
May
17
2011
17
2011
Senate has more questions for Apple, Google, Facebook on privacy
Apple and Google are headed back to Washington—D.C., that is—for another hearing on mobile privacy. The two companies will be joined by Facebook this ...
May
16
2011
16
2011
New bill upgrades unauthorized Internet streaming to a felony
Two months ago, US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel produced her wishlist of changes to US law. One item in particular caught our ...
May
15
2011
15
2011
WSJ: data caps keep Netflix from "swamping the network"
The Wall Street Journal's op-ed page this week quoted "the respected geek site Ars Technica" while waxing eloquent about Internet data caps—and, rather surprisingly, ...
May
13
2011
13
2011
Patent troll shakes down iPhone app programmers
If your pockets aren’t deep enough to fight a corporate giant, then sue the little guys for milk money.
That’s the idea behind a patent ...
May
13
2011
13
2011
LimeWire settles: are Google and Amazon next on RIAA’s docket?
LimeWire, the defunct file-sharing service, and its owner are agreeing to pay the record labels $105 million to end a 5-year-old copyright-infringement lawsuit.
The settlement, ...
May
13
2011
13
2011
Feature: How Robber Barons hijacked the "Victorian Internet"
As the Ars team convenes for two days of meetings in Chicago, we're reaching back into the past to bring you some of our ...
May
12
2011
12
2011
Senate bill gives feds power to order piracy site blacklisting
Senate anti-piracy legislation introduced Thursday would dramatically increase the government’s legal power to disrupt and shutter websites “dedicated to infringing activities.”
A major feature of ...
May
11
2011
11
2011
After approving NBC buyout, FCC Commish becomes Comcast lobbyist
Attwell Baker
Meredith Attwell Baker, one of the two Republican Commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, plans to step down—and right into a top lobbying ...
May
11
2011
11
2011
Senate probes “unfixable” AT&T/T-Mobile deal
When a Senate antitrust committee hearing is called “The AT&T/T-Mobile Merger: Is Humpty Dumpty Being Put Back Together Again?”, you know that the back-and-forth ...
May
11
2011
11
2011
Revised ‘Net censorship bill requires search engines to block sites, too
Surprise! After months in the oven, the soon-to-be-released new version of a major US Internet censorship bill didn't shrink in scope—it got much broader. ...
May
10
2011
10
2011
P2P lawyer fined after £5.99 Web host falls to Anonymous attacks
Not surprisingly, a £5.99 Web host doesn't handle Anonymous distributed denial of service attacks well.
Last year, the UK's main law firm sending out "settlement ...
May
10
2011
10
2011
City of Boston: We want our authority over basic cable back
Boston is on the warpath when it comes to basic cable rates. Its mayor Thomas M. Menino is filing an "emergency" petition ...
May
10
2011
10
2011
The hackers hacked: main Anonymous IRC servers seized
War rages between competing factions within the hacker collective Anonymous after this weekend's drama-filled takeover of the main Anonymous IRC server network. That network, ...
May
09
2011
09
2011
Privacy groups applaud Senator Rockefeller’s "Do Not Track" bill
Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has introduced a new "Do Not Track" bill to Congress that aims to hold companies accountable for collecting information on ...
May
09
2011
09
2011
It’s official: over-represented states take home more cash
The negotiations that produced the US constitution left us with a democracy that's not quite representative. Even the most sparsely populated states have ...
May
09
2011
09
2011
Worried about data caps? Here’s how to check your usage
Bandwidth caps are all the rage these days, in North America and around the world. We're talking about the notorious ceilings on how much ...
May
09
2011
09
2011
Domestic surveillance court approved 100% of 2010 warrant requests
The secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved all 1,506 government requests to electronically monitor suspected “agents” of a foreign power or terrorists on US ...
May
09
2011
09
2011
San Francisco backtracks on cell phone radiation bill
The City of San Francisco's controversial cell phone radiation disclosure bill has been put on "indefinite hold," and
a "watered-down version" will probably ...
The Protomen - Rock Music and Mega Man Combined.
An Irrelevant Take on the Zombie Goodness of the Walking Dead
Halloween Fear Fest - Mega Shark VS Giant Octopus
Amnesia: The Dark Descent will induce heart problems.
Redline - 7 Years in the making and damn, it looks good.