investigation
Court Shuts ShareConnector Down For Good
Five years ago, when most BitTorrent sites had only a handful of visitors, ShareConnector was serving eDonkey links to millions of file-sharers every month. This popularity didn’t go unnoticed by the local authorities, who were tipped off by BREIN and started a criminal investigation into the operator of the site, as well as the people behind the site Releases4U. What followed was more than 5 years of legal battles in both civil and criminal court cases.
Continue reading »Microsoft Learned of IE Zero-Day Flaw Last September
Microsoft was aware months ago of a critical security vulnerability well before hackers exploited it to breach Google, Adobe and other large U.S. companies but did not patch the hole completely until Thursday. The software giant had intended to release a patch for the flaw in February — more than four months after learning about it –but had to speed up that plan and role it out this week in the wake of news that Google and others had been hacked through the flaw, the world’s largest software maker acknowledged Thursday.
Continue reading »Ethics Committee Staffer Leaks Secrets On File-Sharing Network
A staff member of the House Ethics Committee is being blamed for accidentally leaking a sensitive document over a peer-to-peer network from her home computer. The 22-page, confidential document, listing the names of more than 30 lawmakers who are under investigation by the Ethics Committee and the Office of Congressional Ethics, found its way to the Washington Post after a now ex-employee inadvertently placed it in a file-sharing folder on her home computer, according to Politico.com. Some of the probes involve congressional representatives linked to a now-defunct lobbying firm that was under criminal investigation by the Justice Department for issues related to defense spending and influence peddling.
Continue reading »AT&T and astroturf: is “following the money” enough?
AT&T’s government lobbying has a long and fairly sordid history. Before taking you inside our investigation of AT&T’s recent anti-net neutrality lobbying (and the charges of “astroturfing” being thrown around), let’s take a stroll down memory lane. It was 1976, and a House subcommittee was considering a bill called the Consumer Communications Reform Act.
Continue reading »Achtung! Criminal Investigation Against YouTube Underway in Germany
A criminal investigation has been launched against senior executives of YouTube and parent company Google in Hamburg, Germany, over allegations of copyright infringement, according to media reports from that country. The case started after a complaint by German music rights holders; Hamburg’s prosecutor has formally requested assistance from U.S. colleagues to compel YouTube to produce log files identifying who uploaded as well as who viewed 500 specific videos.
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