A new cyber attack aimed at South Korean social network aficionados was perpetrated this week, resulting in the theft of some 35 million users' personal info. It's possibly the largest hacker undertaking since the colossal PlayStation Network security breach in April which affected an estimated 77 million people around the world.
“This is not one massively coordinated campaign anymore, it’s pure anarchy,” says the security experts on the PandaLabs Blog who have been tracking Operation Payback activities since they began in September.
Representative Jared Polis (D-CO) visited an unusual forum this week to ask gamers to stand together against the Stop Online Piracy Act.
The DDoS revenge attack that Operation Payback began on the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) in response to the unsuccessful outcome of the Pirate Bay appeal began on November 28th and is still going, making it the longest continuous attack on a single target yet.
Copyright infringement and anti-piracy legislation seems to be all the rage these days. A draft of the PROTECT IP act, provided to Ars Technica by a source in Washington, appears to be even more extreme than it's parent bill, COICA. COICA (Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act) which failed to pass last year proposed to allow the Justice Department the power to declare a website "rogue" and obtain a court order forcing third parties to censor that site. PROTECT IP takes this concept a step further, not only allowing the Justice Department the power to force censorship of a site but also giving the rights holders themselves the right to take action.
The OPEN Act, introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa and supported by Rep. Ron Wyden, received support from the same Internet businesses that spoke out against previous anti-piracy legislation. MPAA Executive Vice President Michael O' Leary, however, wasn't satisfied. The trade group boss last month called the bill's proposal to place the burden for shutting down foreign rogue sites on the International Trade Commission a big mistake. This week, O'Leary once again slammed the OPEN Act, saying it "falls significantly short" of meaningful anti-piracy legislation.
If you're in the US and a customer of one of the large ISPs, then you might be interested in reading the following story
Finnish anti-piracy group CIAPC seizes child's laptop
Anonymous is continuing their reign of terror on the Arizona police force with another huge dump of information. This posting contains email addresses, usernames, passwords, and even credit card information for 1,200 officers. This information dump marks part three in an operation Anonymous has coined Chinga La Migra.
It seems that the legislation which, would make Internet service providers responsible for logging relevant information about users for a period of 18 months, has hit a road block. A previous supporter of the bill, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, isn't happy with the bill as it stands right now and insists, "It's not ready for prime time."
For illegally sharing 30 songs over the Internet, Joel Tenenbaum shouldn't have to pay $675,000, a federal judge decided.
A search engine for the recently launched Mega appeared. The search engine has an index of files stored on Mega and gives access to large amounts of mainly pirated content. Mega has discovered the search engine and is actively deleting the files. In order for files to appear in the index, users need to manually add their files.
France-based video game publisher Ubisoft elicited scorn from gamers and consumer rights advocates due to its widespread implementation of 'always on' DRM protection within the PC versions of countless titles. The measure was intended to cut-down on piracy, but found little favor within the gaming community. In January, the company relented and removed all DRM via an update. Ironically, Ubisoft is now being accused of including music torrents from file-sharing site Demonoid as a bonus in the PC release of hit game "Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood." Especially odd since the music in question is Ubisoft's own "Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood" soundtrack.
As more networks put crazier and crazier limitations on internet accessible television, customers will continue to adapt. And that's bad.
A slew of Xbox Live users are reporting that their accounts have been hacked and used to purchase content for either FIFA Soccer 11 or FIFA Soccer 12. Microsoft has responded, rather slowly, to these reports by locking down affected Live accounts for as many as 25 days to investigate the fraudulent activity.
Hackers calling themselves The Script Kiddies lived up to their name by assuming control of the official USA Today twitter feed this week. The group took the brief opportunity (the publication has since regained access) to engage in some cyber shenanigans - something it's quickly earning a reputation for.
