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Google Haveth a Hole, Google Doth Protest a FixAugust 9th, 2008 at 7:30 pmSource:Mashable! One might think it a stretch to take a label given to Mussolini by history and place it atop Silvio Berlusconi’s head, but that’s precisely what The Pirate Bay have done. Why for? The Italian government’s organizing of a clean sweep of Italian ISPs to prevent access to the BitTorrent website. Indeed, Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde is annoyed, according to TorrentFreak, and is claiming discrimination by fascism. The block put in place by ISPs is said to have been implemented with a formal government request issued Friday. TPB presented a brief explanation on its blog concerning the matter, and is for the moment asking Italian users to redirect their browser to another .org address, dubbed “La Baia.” Berlusconi, Italy’s Prime Minister between 1994-5, 2001-6, and now 2008 once more, has a particularly strong desire to do away with copyright infringement on the Web. He is the founder and majority owner of Fininvest, a media and finance conglomerate that controls much of the nation’s television market within the Mediaset empire, as well as the film company Medusa. —Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:PirateBay Now Operating From Sinai DesertPrince Gears Up to Battle YouTube, Pirate Bay and eBay tooGoogle Transit Route Planning Now Works In EuropeMySpace Blocks Revver?Turkey Blocks YouTube for the Zillionth TimeNewsFlash: Internet Porn Parts Can Prevent Certain Career PathsRecord Label, Claiming Losses To P2P, Closes; Uploads Music Library To Pirate Bay
DEFCON, the “underground hacker convention” currently underway in its sixteenth gathering at the Riviera Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, gave a mic to SecTheory CEO Robert Hansen (not to be confused with R. Hanssen, the former FBI agent infamous for spying against the U.S. for 20+ years), who proceeded to peg Google as slipshod in its pursuit for all the world’s knowledge. Widgets, too. Fan of Google Gadgets, are ye? Know this, then. Hansen claims that the platform which supplies iGoogle with various applications from its own treasure trove as well as those of outside sources is vulnerable to phishing attacks, according to Dan Goodin of The Register. Specific attacks might include: - causing a victim’s browser to access a router and change domain name system server addresses or other sensitive settings; - port scanning a network to conduct surveillance; - using cross-site request forgery techniques to force victim PCs to follow links to malicious sites. Hansen spoken the now common refrain of a phishing hazard that could compel “less tech-savvy users who don’t know to check the browser bar (to verify URL authenticity)” to potentially compromise their security. The risk of divulging data is heightened by the fact that a URL with the name ‘gmodules.com’ presents itself when the hole is exploited, said Hansen, which might deceive people otherwise conscious of peculiar changes within the address bar. Hansen brought this discovery to the attention of the audience at DEFCON after Google security engineers purportedly explained that “the redirection was a feature rather than a flaw.” In response to an inquiry about the vulnerability, the company told the AFP that it “checks gadgets for malicious code rarely finding any, and that it removes tainted programs.” —Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Google Gadgets Can Talk to Each OtherNext Up: Widgets in Search Results?Google’s Venture Initiative Enables Ecosystem Around GadgetsGoogle Finance Adds New Gadgets and an APIGoogle Gadgets on Blogs and WebpagesGoogle Desktop Gadgets for Your StartpageGadget Ads!
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