Tag: Internet

Data Breaches: First half of 2015 saw venture firms invest $1.2 billion in cybersecurity startups

Staff Writer

Data Breaches Boost Funding for Cybersecurity Startups Extract: In the 2015 first half, venture firms invested $1.2 billion in cybersecurity startups, according to researcher CB Insights. That is down slightly from $1.4 billion a year earlier but up sharply from $771 million in 2013’s first half. The shift is particularly notable at Andreessen Horowitz, which used to view security companies as necessary for Internet safety but less lucrative than other technology niches. One reason is that cybersecurity startups were often acquired prior to an initial public offering, says Scott Weiss,…

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Website not mobile friendly? Google is making major Algorithmic change to rank you lower

Staff Writer
Privacy

On Tuesday, April 21, Google is making a major update to its mobile search algorithm that will change the order in which websites are ranked when users search for something from their phone or tablet, making it mobile friendly. The algorithm will start favoring mobile-friendly websites (ones with large text, easy-to-click links, and that resize to fit whatever screen they’re viewed on) and ranking them higher in search. Websites that aren’t mobile-friendly will get demoted. About 60% of online traffic now comes from mobile and Google wants users to have a good…

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European Regulators Publish Right To Be Forgotten Guidelines

Europe’s Article 29 Working Party, the body comprised of data protection representatives from individual Member States of the European Union, has now published guidelines on the implementation of the so-called right to be forgotten ruling, which was handed down by Europe’s top court back in May. The European Court of Justice Right To Be Forgotten ruling gives private individuals in Europe the right to request that search engines de-index specific URLs attached to search results for their name — if the information being associated with their name is inaccurate, outdated or irrelevant. The ruling…

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Amazon to Build Data Centres in ‘Every Large Country’ in Cloud Push

Staff Writer
Compulynx

Amazon.com Inc plans to build data centers in every large country over time as part of a broader investment push that will eventually make the Internet retailer’s cloud computing arm the largest part of its business. In a roundtable with reporters on Wednesday, Amazon Web Services chief Andy Jassy did not provide a timetable for these investments in the AWS unit, which provides Internet-based computing and data management to corporate clients. Jassy added that the Internet retailer intends to continue investing in AWS, despite investors’ concerns it was spending too…

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Facebook unprecedented reveals search warrant of hundreds of accounts

Staff Writer

Facebook revealed that since last summer it’s been fighting a court order that required it to disclose social-media information involving hundreds of people. “This unprecedented request is by far the largest we’ve ever received — by a magnitude of more than ten — and we have argued that it was unconstitutional from the start,” Chris Sonderby, Facebook’s deputy general counsel, wrote in a statement Thursday. The situation raises concerns over privacy in the digital age, when much of a person’s sensitive information is often available online and on mobile devices.…

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Understanding the Copyright’s Volition Requirement After Aereo

Staff Writer

Jonathan’s post continues DisCo’s ongoing coverage of the Aereo case.  Last week, Prof. Michael Carrier wrote a post for DisCo on the possible effect of Aereo on investment.  Previously, DisCo writer Matt Schruers guest-posted on SCOTUSblog about how Aereo creates uncertainty for the cloud. One of the great attractions (or frustrations) of copyright law is that it is based on metaphysical distinctions. The most obvious of these is the idea/expression dichotomy. The Second Circuit in Computer Associates v. Altai observed that “drawing the line between idea and expression is a tricky business.”…

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More IPv4 exhaustion alerts as ICANN address pool dwindles

The impending exhaustion of the IPv4 address space has been raised as an issue once more by ICANN, as it begins allocating the remaining blocks of addresses to the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). According to ICANN, this move signals that the global supply of IPv4 addresses is now reaching a critical level. With more and more devices coming online, especially with new trends such as the Internet of Things, the demand for IP addresses continues to rise, and IPv4 is incapable of supplying enough to meet demand, ICANN said.…

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Email exchanges between NSA and Google executives reveal far cozier relationship

Email exchanges between National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander and Google executives Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt suggest a far cozier working relationship between some tech firms and the U.S. government than was implied by Silicon Valley brass after last year’s revelations about NSA spying. Disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about the agency’s vast capability for spying on Americans’ electronic communications prompted a number of tech executives whose firms cooperated with the government to insist they had done so only when compelled by a court of law.…

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In The World Of Internet Policy, Online Freedom Hangs In The Balance

Staff Writer

Leave it to the National Security Agency and the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court to put the “spook” back in “spooky.” In recent weeks, the general public has learned what many of us specialists have long known, which is that vast swaths of the communications of ordinary citizens have been swept into intrusive dragnets, and, the legal framework for all this snooping is itself the product of a secret body of law generated by a secret special court. Yet these revelations of how much the US government has been spying on…

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25 years on, Tim Berners-Lee wins ‘UK’s Nobel prize’ for siring the internet

Staff Writer

Just the other day we were contemplating the tragic irony of the internet’s inventor Tim Berners-Lee having just 125,000 Twitter followers, while Jersey Shore’s trainwreck-in-chief ‘Snooki’ had over 6 million. Wasn’t it about time Sir Tim, who NBC’s presenters admitted they “hadn’t heard of” during the Olympic opening ceremony, got a little more recognition for his planet-altering creation of the world wide web? Well it turns out the judges for the inaugural Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, our new answer to the Nobel prize, felt the same way and have…

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