US Lawyers Demand Freedom for Cuban Five Cuba News

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 17 (acn) Representatives from the US National Lawyers Guild expressed their solidarity with the five Cuban heroes incarcerated in US jails for a decade for averting terrorist actions against Cuba, this Monday in this capital. Dean Hubbard, member of this organization, declared himself in favour of the immediate release of these antiterrorism fighters in his speech at the Third Labor Lawyers International Meeting in Cuba’s Hotel Nacional. In front of the 160 delegates attending the event, Hubbard, on behalf of his organization, said they will not stop fighting till achieving the total freedom for the Cuban Five and their return to their homeland. [Additional info on the Cuban Five can be found here, http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/cubanfive.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Five]

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Canadian Libel law needs changes, media lawyers say CNet News

Canadian libel law needs to be reinterpreted to offer better protection to journalists, even when they get some of their facts wrong, the country’s top court has been told. Richard Dearden, counsel for the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, contended Tuesday that traditional common law principles put too much emphasis on protecting individual reputation, to the detriment of free speech and the public’s right to know. “The pendulum has swung too far over to the reputation side (and) it has to swing back,” Dearden declared as he opened a Supreme Court of Canada case that could redefine the rules for defamation suits. The new test, he said, should be whether a story is in the public interest and whether a news outlet makes a good-faith effort to ensure its information is correct. That would be a dramatic departure from long-standing legal tenets that essentially require every fact in a story to be proven true in defending a libel action. The Citizen is supported by an array of other news organizations, including the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the CBC and the Canadian Newspaper Association, as well as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. But Ronald Caza, the lawyer for a former Ontario Provincial Police constable who won a $100,000 damage award against the Citizen, urged the court to reject the media pleas. “How can we win by lowering the standard of the news we’re going to get in this country?” said Caza. He derided the suggestion that making an effort to be correct – as opposed to actually being correct – should be the new legal yardstick. “They’re asking you to take away some of the rights to reputation of people all over Canada, so that they can publish stories that are not true,” Caza told the nine-member bench. Several of the judges seemed to be of two minds as they grappled with the legal implications of the case.

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Television executive beheads wife CNet News

Buffalo, N.Y. – The crime drips with brutal irony: a woman decapitated, allegedly by her estranged husband, in the offices of the television network the couple founded with the hope of countering Muslim stereotypes.

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Counterfeit Toothbrushes Found In Canada City News

Kids looking for a way to escape brushing their teeth just got a great excuse, courtesy of Health Canada. The federal agency is pulling thousands of counterfeits off the shelves, including the following brands:
* Colgate Massager * Colgate Navigator * Oral B Classic 40 * Oral B Contura * Colgate 360

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Al-Jazeera English seeks approval to broadcast in Canada The Star

The English-language arm of the controversial channel Al-Jazeera is seeking permission to broadcast in Canada, and if it wins approval the station would also open a Canadian news bureau, the managing director of Al-Jazeera English said today. Tony Burman said the all-news channel, based in Doha, Qatar, hopes to be up and running here by the fall. He credited the channel’s recent coverage of the Israeli-Gaza war, which included exclusive material from Gaza, with significantly raising its North American profile and fostering a demand for international news.

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Nano-sized radio plays Eric Clapton`s Layla ZDNnet

Accurately more nano than the iPod Nano, a radio built out of a single carbon nanotube that detects and plays songs was singled out in the latest issue of Scientific American as one of the first truly functional nanoscale devices that has a measurable effect on the larger, macroscale world. The nanotube radio was developed in 2007 by physicist Alex Zettl and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley.  It is a fully functional, fully integrated radio receiver, orders-of-magnitude smaller than any previous radio. If you`re in disbelief, you can actually listen to the song Layla played on the nanotube radio [ http://www.sciam.com/nanoradio]. (Note there`s a significant amount of static noise since it uses none of the external circuitry to filter or process the signal typically found in typical radios). [Comment: I wonder if the RIAA will sue these mad scientists?]

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Facebook downplays eternal user data grab The Register

You can trust us…bitch. Responding to a torrent of outrage and suspicion over changes to Facebook’s terms of service, the site’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is asking users to trust the social networking company with eternal permission to use and license all content and information ever posted there – even after an account is deleted. Zuckerberg jumped into PR damage control mode Monday afternoon with a blog post attempting to sooth Facebook users angered by the recent service policy changes regarding who ultimately has control of the web site’s content.

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FCC white space device rules to take effect next month Beta News

The FCC’s final Report and Order regarding the use of radio spectrum (including the portion freed up after the DTV transition) was made public today, revealing that the guidelines for developing white space devices will take effect March 19.

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CRTC needs to step into new media regulation: cultural groups CBC

Cultural groups want Canada’s broadcast regulator to wade into the new media realm, as the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on Tuesday kicked off a series of hearings investigating the issue. While the call “doesn’t mean the CRTC should regulate videos of kids or singing dogs on YouTube,” said actor Colin Mochrie, inaction could mean “our stories will get lost and our culture will drown in a sea of non-Canadian content.” They also urge the regulator to introduce a levy on internet service providers whereby three per cent of revenues would go to a fund that would specifically support the creation of Canadian online programming, from documentaries and webisodes to comedy skits and internet games. However, communication industry giants Rogers and Bell are already voicing their displeasure at the proposed levy — which they have said they would pass on to consumers via increased fees. Per http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090217/crtc_review_090217/20090217?hub=Canada , Despite such criticisms, ACTRA and the DGC have asked the CRTC to create a fund to finance Canadian productions that are destined for the web. They say the fund should be paid for by Internet and wireless providers to the tune of $100 million annually. [Comment: Wow. Imagine if 100-MILLION dollars was injected into health care or research annually instead of these asshats who can't attract the average Canadian to their own websites due to their uninteresting content.]

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New exploit targets IE 7 hole patched last week CNet News

Cybercriminals are exploiting a critical hole in Internet Explorer 7 that was patched a week ago by Microsoft, security firm Trend Micro warned on Tuesday. The malicious code, which Trend Micro named “XML_DLOADR.A,” is hidden in a Word document. On unpatched systems, when the file is opened an ActiveX object automatically accesses a Web site to open a backdoor that installs a .DLL (dynamic link library) file that can steal information, according to a Trend Micro blog entry. The code sends stolen data to another Web address via port 443, Trend Micro said. Trend Micro researchers reveal that BKDR_AGENT.XZMS takes screenshots of the infected system and sends these screenshots to a remote malicious location. It also creates a hidden Internet Explorer window which connects to a website to listen for commands. See, http://blog.trendmicro.com/another-exploit-targets-ie7-bug/

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Spammers break Live Hotmail’s CAPTCHA yet again Infoworld

The latest version of Microsoft Live Hotmail`s CAPTCHA authentication system has been broken. Websense reports that spammers have come up with a new scheme to fool CAPTCHA that takes possible attack scenarios to new levels of sophistication.

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Cache of Ice Age fossils found in Los Angeles CTV

Scientists are studying a huge cache of Ice Age fossil deposits recovered near Los Angeles’ famous La Brea Tar Pits. Among the finds is a near-intact mammoth skeleton and bones of sabre-toothed cats, dire wolves, bisons, horses, ground sloths and other mammals.

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Verizon To Finally Crack Down On Spam dslreports

Spamhaus has long kept a list of the top ten most spam-laden networks. Many of the list’s ISPs are regular fixtures because they’ve decided to save money by ignoring the problem of infected botnets on their network. Verizon has traditionally been a frequent mainstay on the list (which changes daily), and according to Spamhaus, hosts the most infected botnet machines of any broadband ISP. However, the telco tells the Washington Post security blog, that within the “next few months,” Verizon will join most ISPs in locking down port 25, and will be migrating customers to send/receive e-mail on port 587. [Additional coverage, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/02/verizon_to_implement_spam_bloc.html]

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Wikileaks releases NATO report on civilian deaths-WIKILEAKS PRESS RELEASE wikileaks

Following the arrest of a high ranking British Army Officer this month for leaking civilian casualty figures for Afghanistan 2006-2007, Wikileaks has released a fresh NATO report showing that in the last 12 months civilian deaths from the war in Afghanistan have jumped by 46%. The report reveals a dramatic escalation of the war and civil disorder. Coalition deaths increased by 35%, assassinations and kidnappings by 50% and attacks on the Kabul based Government of Hamid Karzai also more than doubled, rising a massive 119%. Other significant NATO/International Security Assistance Force figures from the 2009 report are…

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Another iPhone App Banned: Apple Deems South Park App “Potentially Offensive” EFF

In its filing with the Copyright Office a few days ago, Apple argued that restricting the iPhone to run only software from the iTunes App Store is great for application creators. Apparently, they didn’t mean the creators of South Park, whose app has been rejected multiple times: We first announced our iPhone App back in October, after we submitted the Application to Apple for approval. After a couple of attempts to get the application approved, we are sad to say that our app has been rejected. According to Apple, the content was “potentially offensive.” But Apple did admit that the standards would evolve, citing that when iTunes first launched it didn’t sell any music with explicit lyrics. At this point, we are sad to say, the app is dead in the water. Sorry, South Park fans. This is particularly ironic, as episodes of South Park are available through the iTunes Store. And, for that matter, on basic cable. The South Park app joins a growing list of other applications (many listed in EFF’s reply comment to the Copyright Office) that have been barred from the Apple App Store for a variety of stated (or unstated) reasons.

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Lawsuit Says Google Was Unfair to Rival Site New York Times

A small Web site operator filed an antitrust suit against Google on Tuesday, accusing it of unfairly manipulating its advertising system to harm a potential competitor. TradeComet.com, which operates a site called SourceTool.com, a vertical search engine for those seeking business products and services, accused Google of raising the advertising rates it charged the company after it realized that SourceTool was a potential competitor.

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Boring couple loses case against Google The Inquirer

THE COUPLE THAT sued Google claiming that the firm’s Street View represents an invasion of their privacy have lost their case. Aaron and Christine Boring said that Google had “significantly disregarded privacy interests” when it photographed their house. But a judge in the US District Court for Western Pennsylvania dismissed the case, saying the Borings “failed to state a claim under any count.” Google said privacy no longer exists, what with all these new-fangled satellites in the sky and CCTV and what have you. And there’s nothing wrong with cars cruising the streets taking shots of people in their underwear, it said. The judge agreed.

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Twitter Exposes 186 Job Applicants Valley Wag

For a company that’s not making money, Twitter is being awfully picky about who it hires to come up with ideas for generating cash. The company accidentally published the email addresses of 186 rejects.

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INXS fires lead singer J.D. Fortune NewsAU

REALITY TV rockers INXS have sacked their lead singer, J.D. Fortune. Fortune has revealed he was given the boot from the group at Hong Kong airport. He says he was given no indication that he was about to get his marching orders. The singer, who was picked to front the group after winning reality TV show Rock Star: INXS, said he was broke and living in his car in his native Canada. “I was in an airport at Hong Kong and literally got a handshake,” Fortune told Canada’s Entertainment Tonight. “They said, ‘Thank you very much’.

February , 2009

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