Swedish password hacking scandal widens
210,000 login details dumped ...
Sweden suffered its worst internet security breach in history, with over 210,000 login details across least 60 websites made public, including personal identity numbers of journalists, MPs and celebrities.
On Tuesday, at least 90,000 passwords of the popular Swedish blog Bloggtoppen were exposed through a Twitter account of …
Dutch ISP calls the cops after Spamhaus blacklists it
Had to unfriend TPB chums to get unblocked
Dutch ISP A2B Internet has filed a complaint with the police after it claimed to have been "blackmailed" by London-based anti-spam outfit Spamhaus.
A2B managing director Erik Bais told Webwereld (report in Dutch) that Spamhaus "has gone too far".
The Spamhaus Project is an international organisation, founded by Steve Linford in …
Hard-up OpenOffice whips out begging-cap website
Coders seek new sugar daddy
Hamburg-based open-source project OpenOffice will embark upon a major fundraising campaign this week to defend itself against a looming shutdown.
On Wednesday a new website will be launched with many donation options, spokesperson Andreas Jäger told The Register: "The organisation will also look for a major investor, but one …
Belgian telcos ordered to blockade Pirate Bay
Court rules ISPs must cut access to torrent site
The Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation (BAF) has urged all Belgian ISPs to block freetard site The Pirate Bay after a higher Antwerp court ordered Belgian cable company Telenet and telco Belgacom to make the site inaccessible to their subscribers.
The banning order comes after an Antwerp Commercial Court last year believed such a …
Provider: Anti-piracy ruling has 'killed Usenet'
'Impossible to check the contents of 15 to 20 million messages a day'
Europe’s biggest Usenet provider News-Service Europe (NSE) says anti-piracy organisation BREIN has "killed Usenet". The Dutch organisation this week lost a landmark case in which it was ordered to remove all pirated content or risk fine of €50,000 per day.
"It is technically as well as economically impossible to check the …
Samsung plots 3G iPhone, iPad bans in the Netherlands
How d'you like them Apples
Samsung is seeking a sales ban on all 3G iPhones and some iPads in the Netherlands as the South Korean giant's bitter war with Apple rumbles on.
According to Dutch IT website Webwereld, Samsung will ask for a recall of all 3G iPhones and 3G iPads from Dutch retail stores, including large outlets such as Media Markt. It will also …
Belgians aim to be third neutral-net nation
Obviously some doubts could be cast on their neutrality
Belgium could be the second European country after the Netherlands to adopt net neutrality for both fixed and mobile networks. Three political parties have joined forces to launch a proposed law (in Dutch), which they hope will be approved early next year.
If accepted, all internet traffic in Belgium needs to be treated equally …
Galaxy Tab remains illegal in Germany
Judge: Non-iPad fondleslabs must be rough and complicated
Sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 remain illegal in Germany, a Dusseldorf court decided this morning.
Judge Johanna Brueckner-Hoffmann believes that Samsung’s "smooth, simple surfaces" on the 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet copied the minimalist design of Apple's iPad. The court said that Apple's design isn't the only way to make …
Galaxy Tab 7.7 pulled from IFA after new Apple moves
IFA 2011 'Apple makes iPads; does it make movies?' - Sony chief
Barely one day after the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin opened its doors to the general public, Samsung had to pull its unreleased Galaxy Tab 7.7 from its booth, including all posters and promotional materials.
A Dusseldorf Regional Court recently granted Apple a temporary sales ban on the earlier Galaxy Tab 10.1 model …
Galaxy Tab still legal in the Netherlands
Keen to fondle a new slab? Bless the open-minded Dutch
While Samsung is seeking to overturn a preliminary injunction that prohibits it from shipping its hotly anticipated Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Europe, a court in The Hague decided not to impose an immediate sales ban in the Netherlands until it reaches a decision on 15 September.
In an unprecedented intellectual property battle, Apple …
Spotify smacked with patent suits in US and Netherlands
Wait for my brother, he's much bigger
US company PacketVideo has filed patent infringement lawsuits against Spotify with courts in the Netherlands and the US.
In the Dutch courts, PacketVideo will claim the Swedish music streaming service violated European patents belonging to PacketVideo dating back to the mid-1990s. It will argue the same in respect of a US patent …
Google sets up €4.5m academic legal institute in Berlin
Euro law must 'catch up' with using other people's stuff
Google will fund a research centre at Humboldt University in Berlin, which from October will examine the evolution of the internet and its impact on society, science and economy.
The Berlin University of Arts, the Social Science Research Center Berlin and the Hamburg Hans-Bredow-Institute are also involved in the project at …
Germany opens cyberdefence centre to protect water, electricity
Infrastructure the most important target for cybercriminals
Germany today launched its new cyberdefence facility in Bonn, dedicated to defending the country's critical infrastructure, including its electricity and water supply. The facility is believed to be the first of its kind in Europe.
The Cyber-Abwehrzentrum in Bonn is located in a securely fenced office block of the Federal Office …
Netherlands first European nation to adopt net neutrality
Telcos wail as revenues snatched from paws
The Dutch Parliament yesterday agreed to make the Netherlands the first nation in Europe to officially put net neutrality principles into law. The law will force ISPs and telecom operators to ensure access to all types of content, services or applications available on the network.
The new telecom law has won a near unanimous …
SCHEITERN: Scientologists want to friend schoolkids on Facebook
German gov says Nein as 'church' tries to reach children with social media
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) believes Scientology is recruiting children through Facebook and other social networks.
The domestic intelligence agency is ramping up its surveillance on the controversial group.
Scientology has posted several videos titled "Jugend für …
Sweden postpones EU data retention directive, faces court, fines
But Austria finally swallows it after court battles
Sweden is to delay the implementation of the controversial EU data retention directive for a year, risking a heavy fine of up to €68m, whereas Austria has decided to implement the directive after a European Court of Justice ruling in 2010.
The Swedish government this week decided to postpone the implementation of the law for at …
German data regulators move to tighten IP address laws
Marketers shouldn't pass on your IP without your OK
Passing along IP addresses of web visitors to a third party without their permission could become illegal in Germany.
According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, data protection authorities in Lower Saxony have already targeted sites who depend on IP addresses for online advertising.
The Lower Saxony authorities recently …
Dutch hacker group offers to 're-educate' teen hacktivists
Make info-love, not war
A Dutch hackers collective named Revspace wants to "re-educate" Dutch teens suspected of cyberattacks against Mastercard and Visa and websites of the Dutch National Prosecutors Office – and turn them into "ethical hackers".
Last week, Dutch police arrested a 16-year-old boy for participating in web attacks against MasterCard and …
Pirate Bay owners fined by Dutch court
But I thought Holland was such a tolerant place etc
The three Swedish owners of The Pirate Bay will have to pay €50,000 a day for failing to shutter the service in the Netherlands, an Amsterdam Court ruled on Friday.
The Swedish pirate site was ruled illegal earlier by the Dutch courts, but remained online because its servers are abroad.
Lawyers representing The Pirate Bay co- …
TomTom HQ raided in insider trading investigation
No board members involved says firm
Dutch financial services regulator AFM raided the Amsterdam offices of TomTom on Tuesday, to investigate allegations of insider trading by a senior financial executive.
A team of 20 investigators were involved with the raid at Rembrandt Square.
The prosecutor has stated that TomTom as a whole is not under criminal investigation …
Danish ISP ordered again to block Pirate Bay
Landmark decision or just a needle prick?
Danish ISP Sonofon (part of Tele2) has once again been ordered by a Danish court to block the controversial Swedish BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay. The record industry represented by The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) calls it a landmark ruling and says the decision confirms the illegality of Pirate …
Offshore hosting firm HavenCo lost at sea
Principality data sanctuary sinkage
Controversial hosting provider HavenCo - which operated from the 'nation' of Sealand, an old naval fort off the coast of Suffolk which was declared a 'sovereign principality' by its quirky owner Roy Bates - has finally gone offline.
As of last week, the HavenCo website is gone and the domain is now hosted outside the Sealand …
Sweden judges back Pirate Hunter Act
But government sailing against the tide
Resistance to a new anti-file sharing law dubbed by some as the Pirate Hunter Act is mounting in Sweden. More than 22,000 members have joined a group called Stoppa IPRED ('Stop IPRED') on Facebook, which has bombarded Swedish parliament members with protest mails. Youth organisations and all of the centre-right political parties …
Philips pops out the drug packing iPill
Take one of these computers with a glass of water
An "intelligent pill" with a microprocessor, battery, wireless radio, pump and a drug reservoir to release medication in a specific area in the body was announced yesterday by Dutch electronics firm Philips.
The multivitamin-sized iPill, to be swallowed with a sip of water, measures acidity or temperature with a sensor to …
German court curbs data collection law
34,000 class action suit pays off
Germany's Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe today has curbed Germany's wide-reaching data collection law even further, by stating that the data can only be collected and saved in case of real danger to citizens. The Court decided in response to a class action suit filed by 34,000 Germans.
The data collection law, which …
Berlin bans handy iPhone metro app
Dutch Rail not happy either
Berlin public transportation company BVG has banned a popular iPhone application which helps to navigate the city's vast metro system with over 170 stations.
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands Dutch Rail is threatening a student who developed a nifty train timetable for the iPhone. Both BVG and Dutch Rail claim the apps violate their …
Flanders demands its own top-level domain
Flems go to war over a scrap of paper a URL
The detente between Belgium's fractious regions is under strain again after the Flemish parliament demanded its own top-level domain.
Instead of .be it wants vla, .vln, .vlaanderen or .fla. Kris Peeters, the prime minister of Flanders, says he will look into the possibility of creating such a domain extension.
The Internet …
Dutch court orders Google to reveal Gmail user
Secret mails auto-forwarded
Google Netherlands has agreed to hand over the IP addresses of a Gmail user in an alleged spy case.
The CEO of Dutch internet incubator company iMerge suspected that a former disgruntled employee, who also acted as a system administrator, had secretly created an auto-forward rule in one of the company's mail servers. Several …
Crazy Frog won't croak again
New future for Jamba
News Corp is killing Crazy Frog, along with the brands Jamba and Jamster. News Corp's mobile unit today announced a reorganisation of its business to "extend its global leadership in the mobile content industry".
And yes, the hideously annoying frog - the first real star of mobile content, according to Jamba CEO Maura Montanaro …
EU battery rule may zap iPhone, blow away MacBook Air
Replace this
The EU is readying a new set of directives that could spell trouble for Apple's iPhone and any other gadget that lacks an easily removable power pack.
A new, draft batteries directive mandates that power cells inside electronic devices must be "readily removable" for replacement and safe disposal. This isn't the case with the …
Microsoft turns Live Searchers into gamblers
More online bribery
Believe it or not, Microsoft has added a Vegas-style slot program to its Dutch search engine to lure users away from Google. If useful search results don't work, then money or prices probably will.
When you search with Google, through Luckysearch.nl or MSN.nl, the reels will spin. You can win LCD screens or laptops or get a …
Germans give peeking Google one in the eye
Schleswig-Holstein's answer is NEIN!
The town of Molfsee near Kiel in the north-western German state of Schleswig-Holstein doesn't want to be filmed by Google for its Street View program, a service that provides 360-degrees street level images via Google Maps.
The leader of the Christian Democratic Union on the town council told the Lübecker Nachrichten that "we …
Norway sends entire citizenry's ID info to media
Tax office admits to massive data breach
Norway's national tax office erroneously sent CD-ROMs crammed with the 2006 tax returns of nearly four million people living in Norway to national newspapers, radios and tv stations, news agency AFP reports.
Although tax statements have been open to public scrutiny in Norway since 1863, the social security number of each citizen …
iPhone auto-correct puts Euro tongues out of joint
'Stop cowwecting mie!!'
A Swiss web design company, Fruahjahr, has launched a petition to disable auto-correction on the iPhone. To many non-English users this is an even bigger nuisance than bad 3G reception or poor battery life.
It is almost impossible to write an email or an SMS message on the iPhone in a language other than English - the phone ' …
German court bans VoiP on iPhone
'Unfair business practices'
A VoiP application for Apple's iPhone has been banned by the Higher Regional Court in Hamburg, Germany at the behest of T-Mobile.
The app - available through Apple's iTunes App Store - allows users to make cheap phone calls using T-Mobile's Wi-Fi network and bypass roaming charges.
However, that's not why the app called Sipgate …
Neo-Nazi forum hacked
Blood & Honour, cloak and dagger
German anti-fascist hackers have broken into the secure forum server of one of the world's largest neo-Nazi groups, Blood & Honour, and copied more than 30,000 pieces of data.
Blood & Honour, founded back in 1987 in the UK by Ian Stuart Donaldson, leader of the notorious skinhead band Skrewdriver, has been banned in Germany …
Judge bans European-wide online music rights
PRS versus Dutch Buma
The UK's Performing Right Society has won a court case over its Dutch equivalent, Buma, preventing the issuing of a Europe-wide licence for online rights.
On 19 July 2008, Buma announced that it had issued such a licence to US online music provider Beatport and claimed that it was for worldwide repertoire, including that …
Dutch unlocked iPhone site takes €700,000 then goes offline
Phones down, site owner 'missing'
A Dutch online reseller who promised customers simlock-free iPhones has apparently gone missing, leaving coworkers bemused and hundreds of consumers a total of €700,000 in the hole.
The owner of the website iPhonehelpdesk.nl has allegedly emptied his offices in Amsterdam and disappeared without a word to his colleagues.
Like …
Dutch botnet herders arrested
FBI trace links to Brazil
Dutch police have arrested two Dutch brothers suspected of running a botnet controlling 40,000 to 100,000 computers, with only a small portion (1,100 computers) based in the Netherlands.
The FBI has been investigating this case for a while before contacting the Dutch authorities. The arrests were made shortly after the two young …
Focus plus excitement: Michael Dell talks turnarounds
Interview While avoiding trucks
Despite harsh economic times, Michael Dell hasn’t been complaining. "We've been growing faster than the industry for the last three quarters," the Dell CEO told a group of Latin-American and European reporters.
In Round Rock, Texas, a town which wouldn’t have existed today if Dell hadn't established its headquarters there, …
Dell adds multi-touch to Latitude XT
Bigger SSD drives too
Dell has announced it's incorporating touch-screen functionality - in the form of an easy-to-install firmware upgrade - on it's Latitude XT tablets.
Tablets or convertible PCs are notebooks with a rotating screen that can be used as a flat writing surface. With the free software, users can scroll by placing two fingers on the …
Dutch university can publish controversial Oyster research
Freedom of speech trumps all
Dutch researchers will be able to publish their controversial report on the Mifare Classic (Oyster) RFID chip in October, a Dutch judge ruled today.
Researchers from Radboud University in Nijmegen revealed two weeks ago they had cracked and cloned London's Oyster travelcard and the Dutch public transportation travelcard, which …
Swedes call on Human Rights Court to review snoop law
Angry boffins attempt to bork legislation
A Swedish organisation headed by lawyers and university professors has lodged a complaint this week with the European Court of Human Rights over Sweden’s controversial new snoop law.
Last month, the Swedish parliament approved a law that will grant Sweden's intelligence agency National Defence Radio Establishment sweeping powers …
Belgian operator will sell iPhone simlock-free
Low country, high price
Mobile telecoms group Mobistar SA. will launch the iPhone 3G in Belgium from Friday - but more importantly it will be one of the few European countries where the the iPhone will be totally simlock-free.
Belgian regulators forbid "koppelverkoop" (forced bundling), so as a result punters have to pay a very hefty price - the 8GB …
NXP sues to silence Oyster researchers
Report publication 'irresponsible'
Chipmaker NXP, formerly Philips Semiconductors, is taking Dutch Radboud University to court on Thursday to prevent researchers publishing their controversial report on the Mifare Classic chip.
Recently researchers from Radboud University in Nijmegen revealed they had cracked and cloned London's Oyster travel card. Earlier this …
BenQ administrator threatens to sue Siemens
Irregularities claimed
Was BenQ Mobile insolvent in May 2006, long before it filed for liquidation? The company's insolvency administrator in Germany, Martin Prager, is preparing a multi-million euro lawsuit against Siemens in the belief that it was.
German paper Die Welt broke the news on Saturday, but initially a spokeswoman for the insolvency …
Europe drafts law to disconnect suspected filesharers
Three strikes and you're out
France has suggested an amendment to the pan-European Telecoms Package, which would bar broadband access to anyone who persists in illegally downloading music or films.
Last month, the government of Nicolas Sarkozy insisted on a similar "three-strikes-and-you're-out" scheme for France. Under a cross-industry agreement, ISPs …
iPhone will ship in green packaging
Wrapped in Dutch spuds
Apple's new iPhone 3G will be shipped on July 11 in a potato starch paper tray. Apple placed an order with Dutch company PaperFoam, which also makes packages for Motorola.
The company confirmed this today to Dutch blog Bright. According to CEO Hans Arentsen, Apple ordered "millions of paperfoam packages" for its new 3G iPhone. …
Siemens siphons off 17,000 jobs
Battening down the hatches
German engineering group Siemens is to lay off 17,000 workers from its 400,000 workforce, including 6,450 jobs in Germany alone, as part of an effort to save €1.2 billion.
Trade union IG Metall had anticipated only 10,000 jobs as part of a broad revamp of the company's operations. The world economy and oil prices are adding to …
Maxdata goes titsup
Slumping revenues
Maxdata has gone bust. The German computer manufacturer filed for insolvency proceedings at the Local Court in Essen today.
The management board has "decided on this step because pending illiquidity puts continued business operations at risk", the company said in a statement.
In other words, it has run out of cash.
"The high …
