Internet

According to reports, the death of Michael Jackson, and the online whirlwind it created, helped crash some major news sources. In addition, there have been incidents where online wrongdoers have sought to take advantage in Jackson's death , with ... both hacking and spam related to the subject. Google News Unresponsive Google News was inaccessible for many users for 25 minutes on Thursday afternoon, replaced by a message stating: "We're sorry, but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right ... (view more)

Micro-blogging site Twitter is working on a scheme to verify that "celebrities" posting on the site are the real deal. But it says it will not be settling out of court in a legal action brought by St Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa. Starting ... this summer, the site will work on a beta (test) program to allow public figures to verify their identity. Once they have done so, their account will be labeled with a special logo to show it is indeed run by the claimed personality. Potential Charges for Account Verification At first the scheme will be open to celebrities, sporting stars, ... (view more)

One of the most powerful figures at Wikipedia has resigned after it was discovered he'd been editing entries under bogus names. David Boothroyd, who is also a British politician, had even used the fake account to edit the pages of political ... opponents. As well as being a registered volunteer editor, Boothroyd had been elected to the powerful Wikipedia Arbitration Committee: a group of around 15 editors which make final and binding decisions for any disputes on the site that cannot be resolved informally. In some cases, the committee could even overrule Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. ... (view more)

Circuit City has reopened as an online-only business under new management. However, it's brought in a tough, new returns policy which many consumers will consider a gamble. One of the first major victims of the economic downturn , Circuit City went ... into liquidation last November. Its woes were cause by a combination of poor sales and bad timing: the firm's struggling business prompted wary creditors to offer much less generous terms. This stretched its cash flow to the point where it could no longer operate. Circuit City had already received threats that if its stock price continued to hover ... (view more)

Researchers at Northwestern University and New York's Yahoo! Research have shown that they can catch spammers by the timestamps of their emails, paving the way for smarter advertisements, better spam filters, and more convenient social networking. ... (Source: wired.com ) The new technique can differentiate people by using only the timestamps in their Sent folders with a snapshot of what they're doing. You can get meaningful information by knowing what time people send their emails. 80 to 90 Percent of the World's Email is Spam Yahoo! is interested in finding a better way to catch spammers. ... (view more)

Facebook is exceptionally popular, and with all of that fame comes plenty of trouble. Scams are hardly new to the social networking site, and now it Facebook faces one of its most serious yet: a phishing routine that threatens to infect user ... computers with malware. The scam, which started nailing Facebook users yesterday, goes something like this: a member receives a message from a friend packing a link, usually with the subject line "Hello" or "areps.at" or other addresses ending with ".at". Those who click on that link will be sent to a website asking for their login information, which is ... (view more)

Web hosting services in China are allowing anyone to pay about $700 to send out an unlimited amount of spam worldwide. The service, also called "bulletproof hosting," is nothing new in the tech world. The actual intent of bulletproof hosting is to ... allow leniency in the kinds of material that users may upload. Unfortunately, spammers , gambling websites and porn pushers have constantly abused this system to the point where deviant behavior is almost expected. The Ministry of Public Security in China has been cracking down on online gambling sites and Internet pornographers for some time now, ... (view more)

If you have a need for speed, Cablevision could be the broadband firm for you. It's offering subscribers a new U.S. record of 101Mbps: fast enough to download an high definition (HD) movie in less than 10 minutes. The package, known as 'Ultra', will ... launch on May 11 and will cost $99.95 a month. It also allows uploads of 15Mbps and has no monthly limits on either: uploads or downloads. Cablevision is also doubling the speed of its WiFi service, which is available free to subscribers and uses hotspots in various locations across the northeast. (Source: dslreports.com ) Cablevision uses a ... (view more)

Now that Oprah's Twittering , it's only fair that America's weirdoes follow her onto the popular social networking site. Recently, an Oklahoma City man was arrested after threatening to go on a killing rampage over his tax return. In a Twitter post ... two weeks ago, Daniel Knight Hayden -- known to his Twitter friends as CitizenQuasar -- encouraged pals to join him in a bloody and brutal protest against the government over what CNET is reporting was a tax disagreement. "START THE KILLING NOW! I am willing to be the FIRST DEATH!," read Hayden's April 11th post. He followed that shortly afterwards ... (view more)

Facebook is about to make more user data available to outside websites. It's an attempt to promote third-party applications, but will inevitably bring attention back to the firm's privacy policies . The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) says speculates that ... the Facebook plans will be announced later today. The changes would mean companies could access and use data uploaded by users such as photographs, comments, blog-style note posts and videos. (Source: wsj.com ) Developers to Spawn External Sites from User Content Developers could then use the data to create an external website. For example, a ... (view more)