Websites to be forced to identify trolls under new measures

Sites such as Facebook have been 
used to abuse people under the 
mask of anonymity

BBC: Websites will soon be forced to identify people who have posted defamatory messages online.

New government proposals say victims have a right to know who is behind malicious messages without the need for costly legal battles.

The powers will be balanced by measures to prevent false claims in order to get material removed.

But privacy advocates are worried websites might end up divulging user details in a wider range of cases.

Last week, a British woman won a court order forcing Facebook to identify users who had harassed her.

Nicola Brookes had been falsely branded a paedophile and drug dealer by users - known as trolls - on Facebook.

Facebook, which did not contest the order, will now reveal the IP addresses of people who had abused her so she can prosecute them.

IPv6: Trillions of new net addresses now possible

BBC: A new standard which will enable the creation of trillions of new internet addresses has been enabled.

Several companies switched to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) at 00:01 GMT on Wednesday.

The new system is necessary to prevent the internet running out of available addresses for new devices.

Experts said users should not notice any difference in their web use, and new devices should be using the new system as standard.

Companies such as Google, Facebook and major internet service providers have enabled the new system in order to encourage the widespread adoption of the standard.

The actions come as part of World IPv6 Launch Day, a special event organised by the Internet Society.

IPv6 will eventually replace IPv4, which was conceived during the early days of the internet. It only allows just over four billion unique IP addresses - the sequences of numbers used to identify a device.

Dictator Mubarak jailed for protest deaths

Egyptians did it... Still bloody dictator of Maldives is free... We need justice. We need to bring him to justice before he die...!

BBC: An Egyptian court has sentenced ex-President Hosni Mubarak to life in prison for complicity in the killing of protesters during last year's uprising.

The 84-year-old is the first former leader to be tried in person since the start of the Arab Spring in early 2011.

But Mubarak suffered a "health crisis" as he was being transferred to prison, Egyptian state TV reported. 

Former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly also got a life sentence, but the acquittal of four aides sparked fury.

Mubarak and his two sons were also acquitted on separate charges of corruption. 

Shouting and scuffles erupted in court after the verdict was read out. 

Ilaahi mi bin kuravvaandhey amaan

Amnesty, NGOs concerned about Maldives PR “whitewash”: Independent

Minivan News: An international lobbying firm, based in London, has accepted a commission to boost the reputation of the regime that toppled the first democratically elected President of the Maldives, writes Oliver Wright for the UK’s Independent newspaper.

“Ruder Finn has been condemned for taking the contract – thought to be worth £300,000 – to boost the image of the Maldives in the UK and America.

Mohamed Nasheed, the elected former leader, was made to quit in a military and police coup in February. He was replaced by Mohammed Waheed Hassan – who, it is claimed, is backed by the ex-dictator who ran the Maldives for 30 years.

US toddler unfazed by hungry lioness

IP address doesn't ID individuals in piracy lawsuit, judge rules

CNET: In recommending a copyright-infringement case be dismissed, judge says an IP address alone was "unlikely" to uniquely identify the true defendant.

In a likely setback to the MPAA and RIAA's antipiracy efforts, a federal judge has ruled that an IP address alone is not enough to accuse a specific individual of illegal downloads.

An IP address only identifies the location at which any number of Internet-connected devices may be located, much that a single telephone number can be used by many telephones, Magistrate Judge Gary R. Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York said in a ruling earlier this week.

IPv6: Europe 'ahead' in new net address scheme

BBC: Norway is leading the way in preparing for the move to the net's new addressing scheme, a survey has shown.

The survey comes a month before World IPv6 day that will see many v6 websites permanently activated.

The new IPv6 scheme is needed because the older system, IP Version 4, is about to run out of addresses.

Compiled by Europe's net address overseer, RIPE, the report found that Norway was ahead of Asian nations where IPv4 addresses are no longer available. 

The UK sat just outside the top 20 of nations as only 17.3% of its networks can work with IPv6 traffic.

Bill Gates Quotes

“I failed in some subjects in exam, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft.” ― Bill Gates

Web War II: What a future cyberwar will look like

BBC: How might the blitzkrieg of the future arrive? By air strike? An invading army? In a terrorist's suitcase? In fact it could be coming down the line to a computer near you. 

Operation Locked Shields, an international military exercise held last month, was not exactly your usual game of soldiers. It involves no loud bangs or bullets, no tanks, aircraft or camouflage face-paint. Its troops rarely even left their control room, deep within a high security military base in Estonia. 

These people represent a new kind of combatant - the cyber warrior.