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Posts Tagged ‘Fbi’

Biden’s "IP roundtable" brings together Big Content, FBI

Vice President Joe Biden has been one of the Obama’s administration’s point people on intellectual property. Biden attended an MPAA get-together in DC back in April 2009, where he told the assembled luminaries that they were going to love Obama’s choice for the new “copyright czar” position (officially known as IPEC). That choice was later revealed as Victoria Espinel, who actually attracted positive commentary from groups on all sides of the IP issue.

This week, Biden was at it again, hosting a roundtable on enforcing copyright infringement cases. Who was invited? Top names from the government, including Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Biden, and Espinel, along with the heads of NBC, Sony Pictures, Warner Music Group, and HarperCollins.

Oh, did I mention that the guest list also included the heads of the MPAA and RIAA, top execs from News Corp., Universal Music, Walt Disney, and Viacom?

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Symantec to enlist ordinary users in chasing down cybercriminals

Symantec is preparing to enlish ordinary users in hunting down cybercriminals in a an announcement of its new Norton Internet Security suite coming on Wednesday.

The security software company realizes that the strategy of blocking criminal hackers from getting valuable data isn’t working good enough, according to a Business Week article. Symantec plans to recruit the victims of computer crime and other ordinary users to help in the hunt, says Rowan Trollope, senior vice president of consumer products at Symantec. The new suite of security software will include Norton Community Watch, which collects the data. Another feature dubbed Autopsy put suspicious software in a quarantine and tells the user what location it came from.

Symantec will ask users to opt into a program that will collect data about attempted computer intrusions. It will forward the data to authorities, who can get a real-time sense of what attacks are under way at any given moment.

The idea of “crowdsourcing” user data is gaining popularity. Immunet has launched a cloud-based antivirus technology which determines whether it’s safe for you to open a file or take some action, based on how many other users have done the same thing safely in the past.

Symantec said it will start posting the FBI’s top ten most-wanted criminal hackers on its web site and what sorts of schemes they use to trick users out of their data or personal information. Next year, the company will start offering bounties for information leading to an arrest.

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Cop cops plea for e-mailing nude pics to woman he arrested

When Calvin Schaffer pinned on his police officer’s badge on February 27, 2009, he wasn’t planning on getting himself hauled into federal court for e-mailing nude pictures of himself to a woman he pulled over in a traffic stop. But that’s exactly what happened, and Schaffer yesterday pleaded guilty in a Kansas court to a case that eventually involved even the FBI.

How did a local scandal become a federal issue? As The Topeka Capital-Journal puts it, “The e-mails crossed state lines and through several jurisdictions by traveling over the Internet through servers in California and Virginia.” That was enough to trigger the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution, and the feds charged Schaffer with wire fraud. The court has scheduled a sentencing hearing for November 16.

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FBI Adds Facebook, YouTube, Twitter Profiles. MySpace Completely Dissed

The FBI is willing to do just about anything when it comes to tracking down bad guys. They did the widgets thing last year. And today they announced that they’ve “set up shop in several social media websites.”

They’ve now got profiles on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube profiles are highlighted. They even have billboards up in Second Life. But nothing is mentioned about MySpace. Except that you can add FBI widgets to “social media websites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Blogger.”

Given all the attention the Attorneys General have given MySpace over the years you’d think it would be the first place they’d stake out and infiltrate. But as of now, they’ve got no official presence there. At least, none that they’ll admit to. A search on MySpace, after you work through the ridiculous advertising clutter, shows nothing.

Probably the only thing MySpace hates more than getting too much government attention is this – getting completely ignored while fast growing competitors get all the attention.

Update: From Jonathan Cox at the FBI – “We have a widget that works on MySpace, but nothing formal yet. Its a long vetting process and I have so many government rules to follow it would make your head spin. This is just the beginning though. I’ll keep you posted as things progress. Thanks.”

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