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Category Archives: Google

1/18/12 – The web protests against SOPA and PIPA

Protests All Across the web

     Today a large number of web sites (Big and Small) all across the internet are protesting the SOPA and PIPA bills that are current in the congress of the United States. The protests range from sites like (LINK) Google (https://www NULL.google NULL.com/) who have put a black bar across their name

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To sites like (LINK) Wikipedia (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Main_Page), which is going “dark” for 24 hours.

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Why these bills are such a concern

The following information comes from the site OpenCongress.org

PROTECT IP Act in the Senate

“Establishes a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be “dedicated to infringing activities.” The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against the alleged infringer and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. In some cases, action could be taken to block sites without first allowing the alleged infringer to defend themselves in court”. (From LINK OpenCongress.org (http://www NULL.opencongress NULL.org/bill/112-s968/show))

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House

“This bill would establish a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be dedicated to copyright infringement. The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against any site they deem to have “only limited purpose or use other than infringement,” and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty up to five years in prison. This bill combines two separate Senate bills — S.968 (http://www NULL.opencongress NULL.org/bill/112-s968/show) and S.978 (http://www NULL.opencongress NULL.org/bill/112-s978/show) — into one big House bill”. (From LINK OpenCongress.org (http://www NULL.opencongress NULL.org/bill/112-h3261/show))

Where can you get more information about these 2 bills
(LINKS)
  • 100 Law Professors oppose Protect IP Act (http://freedomforip NULL.org/2011/07/06/100-law-professors-oppose-protect-ip-act/) – From Freedom for IP (Freedomforip.org)
  • Act Now : This Bill Seriously Screws with the Internet (http://www NULL.publicknowledge NULL.org/e-parasite-stop-online-piracy-act) (SOPA) – From Public Knowledge (Publicknowledge.org)
  • H.R.3261 – Stop Online Piracy Act (http://www NULL.opencongress NULL.org/bill/112-h3261/show) – From Open Congress (OpenCongress.org)
  • S.968 – PROTECT IP Act of 2011 (http://www NULL.opencongress NULL.org/bill/112-s968/show) – From Open Congress (OpenCongress.org)
  • Stop the Internet Blacklist Legislation (https://wfc2 NULL.wiredforchange NULL.com/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173) – From the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF.org)
  • What is Protect IP and SOPA (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VxPQ320jBLc) (Video) – From Lockergnome (On YouTube)
  • End Piracy, Not Liberty (https://www NULL.google NULL.com/landing/takeaction/) – From Google

 

Getting in touch with your Representatives in Congress

If you visit a site like (LINK) Project VoteSmart (http://votesmart NULL.org/) and enter your address on the top right,

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you can get a list of information from the President to your local ballot measures.

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If you click on the + next to Congressional (or whichever area interests you), you will get information like Office, First Election, Next Election, and Most Importantly Contact Information.

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If you disagree with these bills and want to protect your freedom of speech, please contact your local Representatives in Congress and let them know that they need to vote against these bills if they want your vote in the next election.

Alert: BlackHat SEO attack targeting Google Nexus One (Updated) (From Panda Labs Blog)

From the Panda Labs Blog (BlackHat SEO attack targeting Google Nexus One (Updated) (http://pandalabs NULL.pandasecurity NULL.com/blackhat-seo-attack-targeting-google-nexus-one/))

A few days ago Google presented their brand new phone, called Nexus One:

And some days later we find out that if a user searchs for “buy Nexus One” he will obtain around 4,000 malicious links:

When clicking on any of these links, you will see some of the typical fake antivirus sites:

It will try to infect your computer with a rogueware called LivePcCare. Be careful while searching, and use at least some free web filtering tools (http://www NULL.mywot NULL.com/). (Like Web of Trust)

Update: 5 out of the 6 first results are malicious, including the 1st and the 2nd one.

Update 2: Now the same crew is using the Haiti earthquake

UPDATE: Gmail is back up

Google has posted a notice on its blog concerning today’s Gmail outage.  (*Times posted on the Gmail blog are Pacific Standard Time (US) – I believe)

From the Gmail Blog (http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/todays-gmail-problems.html (http://gmailblog NULL.blogspot NULL.com/2009/09/todays-gmail-problems NULL.html))

Today’s Gmail problems (http://gmailblog NULL.blogspot NULL.com/2009/09/todays-gmail-problems NULL.html)

Tuesday, September 01, 2009 1:15 PM

Posted by David Besbris, Engineering Director
Update (2:37 pm): We’ve fixed the issue, and Gmail should be back up and running as usual. We’re still investigating the root cause of this outage, and we’ll share more information soon. Thanks for bearing with us.
We know many of you are having trouble accessing Gmail right now — we are too, and we definitely feel your pain. We don’t usually post about minor issues here (the Apps status dashboard (http://www NULL.google NULL.com/appsstatus) and the Gmail Help Center (http://mail NULL.google NULL.com/support/) are usually where this kind of information goes). Because this is impacting so many of you, we wanted to let you know we’re currently looking into the issue and hope to have more info to share here shortly. If you have IMAP (http://mail NULL.google NULL.com/support/bin/answer NULL.py?hl=en&answer=75725) or POP (http://mail NULL.google NULL.com/support/bin/answer NULL.py?hl=en&answer=10350) set up already, you should be able to access your mail that way in the meantime. We’re terribly sorry for the inconvenience and will get Gmail back up and running as soon as possible.

Tech: Something is Missing at Google (Anyone notice)

 google-logo  

     If your a user of Gmail (Google Email), Calendar, Google Docs, or Google Talk, then as of today your no longer using a Beta project. 

    From a post on the Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ (http://googleblog NULL.blogspot NULL.com/)

“We get asked all the time why Google keeps its products in beta for so long. And Gmail, five years after launch, is consistently a subject of this questioning, even of jokes.
Some people thought that once we opened sign-ups (http://googleblog NULL.blogspot NULL.com/2005/08/sign-up-for-gmail NULL.html), Gmail should have come out of beta.”

“Ever since we launched the Google Apps (http://www NULL.google NULL.com/apps/intl/en/business/index NULL.html#utm_medium=blog&utm_source=us-en-ogb-oob0707&utm_campaign=oob) suite for businesses two years ago, it’s had a service level agreement, 24/7 support, and has met or exceeded all the other standards of non-beta software. More than 1.75 million companies around the world run their business on Google Apps, including Google. We’ve come to appreciate that the beta tag just doesn’t fit for large enterprises that aren’t keen to run their business on software that sounds like it’s still in the trial phase. So we’ve focused our efforts on reaching our high bar for taking products out of beta, and all the applications in the Apps suite have now met that mark”

So basically since Google has a focus on business customers (not saying that they want to ignore you and me, but business customers are paying customers) and Google has realized that business customers may have a hard time justifying paying for software that is “Not ready for prime time” which is basically the understood definition for “beta”.  So with that in mind if you use these applications from Google your no longer using a Beta.

ALERT: Gmail Users Gets Phished

google-logo After the widespread Gmail outage yesterday users were hit by a phishing attack over the Gtalk chat client. "The malicious message spread via the Google Talk instant messaging chat system (http://www NULL.sophos NULL.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/02/25/gmail-users-hit-viddyho), urging users to a video by clicking on a link connected via the TinyURL service.

gtalk-viddyho

The link points to a website called ViddyHo, which invited users to submit their Gmail usernames and passwords."

viddyho

     When users entered their credentials the information would be logged and the email account would be compromised. If you think you may have been subjected to this attack it is advised you change your password immediately. The attack was not immediately picked up by Google either because it did not use conventional means. By using the Gtalk client it bypassed the Gmail filters completely.

(*Story information and pictures from http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/02/25/gmail-users-hit-viddyho (http://www NULL.sophos NULL.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/02/25/gmail-users-hit-viddyho))

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