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And see my website - http://technewsreview.c
om.au/ - for daily updates in between postings.
**********************************************************
Sponsored by the Singapore Internet Research Centre
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
http://www.ntu.edu.sg
/sci/sirc/
**********************************************************
us: Study: 'Cyberbullying' hits one third of teens
http://n
ews.com.com/2100-1038_3-6193723.html
uk: Computers 'can raise [educational] attainment'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6231704.stm
Report: U.S. lags behind other nations in broadband speeds
http://computerworld.co
m/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9
025726
Social sites reveal class divide
htt
p://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6236628.stm
TorrentSpy begins weeding out copyright content
http:
//news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9734127-7.html
YouTube copyright fight hinges on whether it controls its
content, says US court
http://out-law.com/page-
8180
***************
RESEARCH PAPERS
***************
Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and
MySpace by Danah Boyd
Over the last six months, I've noticed an increasing number
of press articles about how high school teens are leaving
MySpace for Facebook. That's only partially true. There is
indeed a change taking place, but it's not a shift so much
as a fragmentation. Until recently, American teenagers were
flocking to MySpace. The picture is now being blurred. Some
teens are flocking to MySpace. And some teens are flocking
to Facebook. Who goes where gets kinda sticky... probably
because it seems to primarily have to do with socio-economic
class.
http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html
us: Cyberbullying and Online Teens
About one third (32%) of all teenagers who use the internet
say they have been targets of a range of annoying and
potentially menacing online activities – such as receiving
threatening messages; having their private emails or text
messages forwarded without consent; having an embarrassing
picture posted without permission; or having rumors about
them spread online.
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/216/report_display.asp
***********
CENSORSHIP
***********
The public and the private portrayal of Iran
Internet censorship in Iran is one of the issues in this
article by Antony Loewenstein in The Guardian. Antony looks
at the real Iran, not the one that's regularly portrayed in
the western media. He finds many Iranians shun the views of
their leaders - but they won't say so openly.
http://comment
isfree.guardian.co.uk/antony_loewenstein/2007/06/spending_ti
me_in_iran_inevitab.html
Google Fights Global Internet Censorship (AP)
Once relatively indifferent to government affairs, Google is
seeking help inside the Beltway to fight the rise of Web
censorship worldwide. The online search giant is taking a
novel approach to the problem by asking U.S. trade officials
to treat Internet restrictions as international trade
barriers, similar to other hurdles to global commerce, such
as tariffs.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/06/23/1182019391
954.html
Fears of self-censorship at French news outlets
Besides any influence, direct or otherwise, by media barons
close to the new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, self-censorship
is influenced by the economic vulnerability of the print
media and its dependence on French government subsidies.
http://iht.com/articles/2007/06/24/business/media25.php
'Citizen journalism' battles the Chinese censors
In the strictly controlled media world of China,
"citizen journalism" is beating a way through
censorship, breaking taboos and offering a pressure valve
for social tensions.
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/26/1962255.htm
th: 'No' to censorship
The Democrat Party has pledged greater electronic media
freedom if elected to power in the next general elections.
Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand,
Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva gave his views on
the political turmoil and laid out his party policies on
restoring the democratic process, peace in the South through
prosecution of officials responsible for state atrocities
and reviving the economy that has suffered from years of
infrastructural neglect before fielding questions from a
packed room.
http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/article-southeastasi
a.asp?parentid=72602
************************************************
CHILD PROTECTION, FILTERING & CONTENT REGULATION
************************************************
au: Net closes on predators with 'virtual girl' trap
The net is closing on pedophiles in Sydney and elsewhere who
have been using the Skype internet chat tool to prey on
teenage girls. A "virtual girl" set up to help
investigate the actions of people wanting to have cybersex
with minors was launched from bond yesterday.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/06/25/1182623820
428.html
au: Gothic fan groomed teen for sex, court told
Daniel William Peckham decided to create his own Gothic
appreciation club on the internet, based on Rookwood
cemetery. The membership fee he demanded from under-age
teenage girls seeking to join was sexual intercourse or for
them to email naked photographs of themselves to him,
federal police alleged in Central Local Court yesterday.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/06/25/1182623820
425.html
us: Study: 'Cyberbullying' hits one third of teens
One in three teenagers say they've been bullied in some way
online, but two-thirds of teens still believe they're more
likely to be harassed offline, according to a new study.
http://n
ews.com.com/2100-1038_3-6193723.html
http://informationweek.com/news/showArticle
.jhtml?articleID=200001167
http://www.internetnews.com/stats/article.php/3685726
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/06/28/1182624023
645.html
***************************************
CYBERCRIME, CYBERSECURITY AND PRIVACY
***************************************
Google gestures German pullout on privacy principles
Google is threatening to close the German version of Gmail
if the Bundestag goes through with new laws to ban anonymous
email accounts. The federal internet surveillance
legislation, which comes into force next year, could compel
email providers to verify real names and physical addresses
in the name of fighting terrorism. Google reckons the
regulations are anti-privacy and that volk will just turn to
servers outside the country.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/25/google_germa
n_gmail/
au: Leader of net piracy gang jailed
A Briton has been jailed for 51 months after pleading guilty
to software piracy charges in the US. From his Australia
home Hew Griffiths led the DrinkOrDie piracy group which
specialised in cracking protection codes on software, music
and movies.
htt
p://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6237610.stm
Phishing the net for the gullible
Carl Robertson still shudders when he remembers it.
"You have to live through it to understand the damage
that can happen, not only emotionally, but
financially." A death? An assault? No. The 63-year-old
California-based estate agent is talking about phishing, the
stealing of personal credentials using spoof emails.
Robertson had been a casual internet user for three years
when he followed a link in an email purporting to come from
eBay. It led him to enter personal details into what he
thought was an account confirmation page.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/06/27/1182
623916665.html
us: Dangerous Ruling Forces Search Engine to Log Users
Public Interest Groups Urge Court to Block Radical Expansion
of Discovery Rules San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) and Center for Democracy and Technology
(CDT) urged a California court Friday to overturn a
dangerous ruling that would require an Internet search
engine to create and store logs of its users' activities as
part of electronic discovery obligations in a civil lawsuit.
The ruling came in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by
motion picture studios against TorrentSpy, a popular search
engine that indexes materials made publicly available via
the Bit Torrent file sharing protocol. TorrentSpy has never
logged its visitors' Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.
Notwithstanding this explicit privacy policy, a federal
magistrate judge has now ordered TorrentSpy to activate
logging and turn the logged data over to the studios.
http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_
news_portal_view.aspx?s=latestnews&id=1790
Israeli Court Holds Forum Manager Liable For User Content
In C 032986/03 Moshe Boshmitz v. Anat Aronowitz, Magistrates
Court of Tel-Aviv Jaffa, Israeli Judge Shoshana Almagor held
that the manager of an online forum may be liable for the
content published by the forum users on a theory of
negligence. The defendant, Ms. Aronowitz, was the manager of
a forum dealing with the welfare of animals in the popular
Israeli website “Walla!” The Claimant, Dr. Boshmitz, a
veterinarian and an owner of a farm that breeds monkeys and
sells them for research purposes, filed suit against the
defendant regarding libelous statements she made against him
in the forum as well as statements made by users of the
forum.
http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_
news_portal_view.aspx?s=latestnews&id=1789
us: Appeals Panel 'Reluctantly' Tosses Child Porn Case
Judges of the Georgia Court of Appeals last week said they
must "reluctantly" issue an opinion that may make
it more difficult for the state to prosecute people who look
at child pornography. A three-judge panel on June 21
reversed the conviction of a North Georgia man on 106 counts
of sexual exploitation of children because, the judges
found, prosecutors didn't prove that the man knew he had
pornographic images stored in his computer hard drive.
h
ttp://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1182848790153
us: Judge Rebuffs Google's Request To Extend Oversight of
Microsoft
A U.S. District Court judge yesterday declined to address a
petition by Google that asked the government to extend its
antitrust oversight of Microsoft.
http://www.washingtonpost.co
m/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/26/AR2007062602062.html
Does Google Have Another Move in Vista Chess Game?
Google has been ratcheting up its campaign to compel
Microsoft to further open its Vista operating system to
third-party search engines. Its latest tactic entailed
petitioning the judge overseeing Microsoft's antitrust
agreement with federal and state governments to extend it
past November, when most of the terms are set to expire.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly declined to
consider the petition, saying that she would rely on
information from government lawyers and state attorneys
general on whether to proceed against Microsoft.
http://eco
mmercetimes.com/story/58055.html
eBay ends tiff with Google
The auction site says it will again buy ads through Google's
AdWords platform - though not as many as before
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/
tol/news/tech_and_web/article1983126.ece
**************************
GOVERNMENT & PUBLIC POLICY
**************************
au: Joint report released into communications
infrastructure
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and
the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)
today released a joint report titled Communications
Infrastructure and Services Availability in Australia
2006-07. The report addresses the availability of broadband,
fixed voice, mobile voice, mobile data, and broadcasting
infrastructure and services.
http://arnnet.com.au/index.php/id;1157405506;fp;41
94304;fpid;1
U.N. broadcasting treaty talks suffer setback (Reuters)
Efforts to clinch a long-sought international broadcasting
treaty have suffered a setback from lingering disagreements
over signal piracy and the Internet, a top U.N. official
said on Monday.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKL
2511665020070625
German Wikipedia receives state funding
For the first time, the German edition of the open Internet
encyclopedia Wikipedia will be receiving state funding.
Germany will be setting aside part of its budget to improve
information about renewable resources in Wikipedia. Over the
next few years, several hundred articles will be written on
this issue.
htt
p://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/91733
uk: Two-tiered net could be coming
ISPs may start charging some websites for faster access to
customers, a report has predicted: It could create a
"two-tiered internet" which, while making money
for providers would risk alienating consumers, Jupiter
Research said. Charging both customers and websites for
access could prove too tempting for ISPs to resist, said
analyst Ian Fogg.
htt
p://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6241386.stm
kr: Popular portals to ban false names
A limited real-name system for online portals is set to be
implemented today with the popular websites Naver and Daum
taking the lead, Ministry of Information and Communication
said yesterday.
http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/article-eastasia.asp?pare
ntid=72616
EU search engine probe expands beyond Google
European privacy regulators will expand their investigation
into Google's privacy practices to all search engine
companies, it has said.
http://out-law.com/page-
8179
eu: Self regulation applied to interactive games: success
and challenges
Speech by Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission
responsible for Information Society and Media
http://www.europa.eu/rapid/pressRelease
sAction.do?reference=SPEECH/07/429
us: FTC is Neutral on Net Neutrality
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is taking the middle
ground in the net neutrality debate.
http://www.pcworld.
com/article/id,133544-c,legalissues/article.html
http://informationweek.com/news/showArticle
.jhtml?articleID=200001185
*****************************
INTERNET & NEW TECHNOLOGY USE
*****************************
uk: Computers 'can raise attainment'
High levels of computer technology in schools can improve
attainment to an extent, a four-year study has found. The
£34m ICT Test Bed project by computer agency Becta in three
deprived areas of England showed gains in some GCSE and
primary school test scores.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6231704.stm
http://news.zd
net.co.uk/itmanagement/0,1000000308,39287717,00.htm
Truth first casualty of the internet?
More people are tuning into what bloggers have to say, but
should we trust them?
When his site reached 1 billion hits in 2002, American
blogger Matt Drudge - the self-styled Walter Cronkite of
online journalism - fired off a potshot at old media. Online
grassroots voices, he claimed, could offer something
corporate-owned media couldn't: full freedom in reporting.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/06/27/1182623916
608.html
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/06/27/1182
623916608.html
MySpace TV to challenge YouTube's lead
This week, MySpace plans to show that it is serious about
challenging YouTube in the booming world of online video.
http://iht.com/articles/2007/06/27/business/myspace.php
Playgrounds for adults
Everyone likes to belong, and that is one of the powerful
forces of the Internet. Where once your service provider was
your identifying online "community," today's
equivalents are online social networks like Second Life,
Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.
http://iht.com/articles/2007/06/27/business/ptend27.php
More than half of Australian homes online
More than half of all Australian households are surfing the
web, according to the first conclusive snapshot of internet
access across the nation.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/06/27/1182623963
575.html
au: Is your broadband better than average?
Ever wondered if your ISP's coverage is exactly what they
promised? The government has released its latest state of
the nation report into Australia's broadband -- and
consumers can see exactly what they're getting.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/
news/communications/soa/Is-your-broadband-better-than-averag
e-/0,130061791,339279163,00.htm
YouTube visits larger than rivals combined: survey
(Reuters)
YouTube, which has had to pull copyrighted videos off its
site after legal attacks by some big media franchises, has
enjoyed a surge in U.S. audience share that leaves it far
larger than the next 64 video-sharing sites combined, a
survey found.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKN
2742598120070627
Report: U.S. lags behind other nations in broadband speeds
The U.S. is lagging behind other industrialized nations in
the availability and use of high-speed broadband
connections, according to a report released today by the
Washington-based Communications Workers of America.
http://computerworld.co
m/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9
025726
http://www.inf
oworld.com/article/07/06/25/US-lags-behind-other-countries-i
n-broadband-speed_1.html
ht
tp://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-speed26jun26,1,26259
71.story
Death networking: the latest e-trend
Memorial websites for the dead are emerging as a new way of
making social contact, rivalling Facebook and MySpace.
Initially intended to bear tributes to the deceased, these
sites are becoming popular meeting places for strangers in a
phenomenon known as death networking.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/ar
ticle2705364.ece
EC threat to BBC over downloads
(the Mac version may not be available for a while) The BBC
has been accused of forcing people to use Microsoft
operating systems and has been threatened with a complaint
to the European Commission. The charge concerns the use of
Microsoft technology in the corporation's forthcoming
iPlayer.
htt
p://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6236612.stm
Welcome to the world's largest supercomputing grid
With 20 petabytes of storage, and more than 280 teraflops of
computing power, TeraGrid combines the processing power of
supercomputers across the continent.
http://computerworld.co
m/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9
025254
http://iht.com/articles/2007/06/26/business/genius.php
us: I am a video game junkie: boy, 14
The American Medical Association has backed off calling
excessive video-game playing a formal psychiatric addiction,
saying instead that more research is needed. A report
prepared for the AMA's annual policy meeting had sought to
strongly encourage that video-game addiction be included in
a widely used diagnostic manual of psychiatric illnesses.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/06/28/1182624036
453.html
http://tvn
z.co.nz/view/page/488120/1205469
The iPhone matches most of its hype
Apple's new phone does so many things so well, and so
pleasurably, that you tend to forgive its foibles.
http://iht.com/articles/2007/06/27/technology/web
.0627pogue.php
iPhone gets glowing reviews from key duo
They are the titans of tech reviewing, whose opinions can
make or break a product in a couple of taps of their
keyboard, and today Apple breathed a sigh of relief after
they cast their blessing on the iPhone. Walt Mossberg, the
chief technology writer at The Wall Street Journal and David
Pogue, who holds a similar post at The New York Times, today
posted largely glowing reviews of the company's new
phone/iPod/handheld computer, which goes on sale at 6pm on
Friday.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/
tol/news/tech_and_web/article1993923.ece
us: Pooh-poohing iPhone damage to Nokia (Reuters)
Nokia is headed toward 40 percent global-market share and
Apple's iPhone won't make a dent in that, according to a
U.S. distributor of mobiles and other wireless devices.
http://n
ews.com.com/2100-1041_3-6193528.html
Global mobile phone use to pass 3 billion (Reuters)
Global mobile phone use will pass the 3 billion mark --
equivalent to half the world's population -- for the first
time in 2007 as mobile phone demand booms in China, India
and Africa, a survey said on Wednesday.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/i
dUKL2712199720070627
*****
SPAM
*****
US porn spammers guilty as charged
Two men who ran a spam operation to promote pornographic
websites had the book thrown at them today. A federal jury
in Phoenix, Arizona convicted Jeffrey Kilbride, 41, of
Venice, California and James Schaffer, 41 of Paradise
Valley, Arizona of eight counts, including conspiracy,
fraud, money laundering, and transportation of obscene
materials.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/26/can_spam_co
nvictions/
http://informationweek.com/news/showArticle
.jhtml?articleID=200000756
Accused Spammer To Decide Fate Of Anti-Spam Crusader
... In a courtroom drama that's dragged on for more than two
years, Mumma initially sued Bohan and her business
associates, alleging that they sent 11 unsolicited
commercial e-mail messages to Mumma's inbox webguy.net address, even after he verbally requested
the e-mails be stopped, in violation of the Controlling the
Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing, or
Can-Spam, Act of 2003. A Virginia court, while empathetic
regarding the annoying and often expensive problems that
spam causes, nonetheless ruled last November that Mumma
didn't have the right to call Bohan or her businesses
"spammers."
http://informationweek.com/internet/sho
wArticle.jhtml?articleID=200001079
***************
DIGITAL DIVIDE
***************
Social sites reveal class divide
Fans of MySpace and Facebook are divided by much more than
which music they like, suggests a study. A six-month
research project has revealed a sharp division along class
lines among the American teenagers flocking to the social
network sites.
htt
p://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6236628.stm
http://time-
blog.com/curious_capitalist/
http://
technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2111488,00.html
http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html
************
FILE SHARING
************
TorrentSpy begins weeding out copyright content
TorrentSpy, the torrent-file search engine accused by
Hollywood of aiding copyright violators, plans to remove
links from its search results to pirated content using a new
filtering system.
http:
//news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9734127-7.html
YouTube copyright fight hinges on whether it controls its
content, says US court
The first stage in the first copyright infringement suit
against video sharing giant YouTube has ended in stalemate.
Both sides in the fight applied for an initial judgment
against the other, but neither was granted and the case will
now proceed further.
http://out-law.com/page-
8180
*********************************
COMMENT, MICROSOFT & DEVELOPMENTS
*********************************
Hi Stu, you don't know me but ... big hug! xxx
Since when did it become OK to sign off work emails with
kisses? Stuart Jeffries laments the rise of bogus email
intimacy: Recently, I got an email complaining about an
article I'd written. It happens. The angry tone was nothing
if not consistent until very near the end. One question.
After all that rage, why did she sign off with her first
name and two kisses?
http://www.guard
ian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2111374,00.html
*******************
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
*******************
au: Behind the bullying on broadband by Paul Budde
The interesting thing about the bickering between the
Government and Opposition on broadband is that they are both
right. From my position as an independent observer, it
really doesn't matter who gets the broadband ball rolling,
as long as we do get that ball rolling.
http://austra
lianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,21969346-5013046,00.htm
l
au: Coonan's 'equal opportunity' broadband
The details of a scheme that promises the most far-flung
Aussies a chance to get the same broadband that their
city-dwelling cousins have had for some time have been
unveiled.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/ne
ws/communications/soa/Coonan-s-equal-opportunity-broadband/0
,130061791,339279025,00.htm
au: Labor whips up anger over broadband deal
Labor is encouraging losing bidders for the federal
Government's now $1billion rural and regional broadband
subsidy to consider a complaint to the Auditor-General over
the tenders for the grants.
http://theau
stralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21968351-2702,00.html
au: Broadband spectrum stoush looms
Wireless internet service providers are preparing to push
back against the federal Government's $1.9 billion broadband
plan, as static builds over the proposal's impact on
spectrum around the country.
http://austra
lianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,21967054-15306,00.html
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Sources include Quicklinks <http://qlinks.net/> and
BNA Internet Law News <http://www.bna.com/ilaw
/>.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(c) David Goldstein 2007
---------
David Goldstein
address: 4/3 Abbott Street
COOGEE NSW 2034
AUSTRALIA
email: Goldstein_David yahoo.com.au
phone: +61 418 228 605 (mobile); +61 2 9665 5773 (home)
"Every time you use fossil fuels, you're adding to the
problem. Every time you forgo fossil fuels, you're being
part of the solution" - Dr Tim Flannery
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