Internet

Web hosting services in China are allowing anyone to pay about $700 to send out an unlimited amount of spam worldwide. The service, also called "bulletproof hosting," is nothing new in the tech world. The actual intent of bulletproof hosting is to ... allow leniency in the kinds of material that users may upload. Unfortunately, spammers , gambling websites and porn pushers have constantly abused this system to the point where deviant behavior is almost expected. The Ministry of Public Security in China has been cracking down on online gambling sites and Internet pornographers for some time now, ... (view more)

If you have a need for speed, Cablevision could be the broadband firm for you. It's offering subscribers a new U.S. record of 101Mbps: fast enough to download an high definition (HD) movie in less than 10 minutes. The package, known as 'Ultra', will ... launch on May 11 and will cost $99.95 a month. It also allows uploads of 15Mbps and has no monthly limits on either: uploads or downloads. Cablevision is also doubling the speed of its WiFi service, which is available free to subscribers and uses hotspots in various locations across the northeast. (Source: dslreports.com ) Cablevision uses a ... (view more)

Now that Oprah's Twittering , it's only fair that America's weirdoes follow her onto the popular social networking site. Recently, an Oklahoma City man was arrested after threatening to go on a killing rampage over his tax return. In a Twitter post ... two weeks ago, Daniel Knight Hayden -- known to his Twitter friends as CitizenQuasar -- encouraged pals to join him in a bloody and brutal protest against the government over what CNET is reporting was a tax disagreement. "START THE KILLING NOW! I am willing to be the FIRST DEATH!," read Hayden's April 11th post. He followed that shortly afterwards ... (view more)

Facebook is about to make more user data available to outside websites. It's an attempt to promote third-party applications, but will inevitably bring attention back to the firm's privacy policies . The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) says speculates that ... the Facebook plans will be announced later today. The changes would mean companies could access and use data uploaded by users such as photographs, comments, blog-style note posts and videos. (Source: wsj.com ) Developers to Spawn External Sites from User Content Developers could then use the data to create an external website. For example, a ... (view more)

Facebook's Terms of Service vote wrapped up yesterday, and although participation fell far short of what the social networking company had hoped, by a vote of three-to-one users supported its new TOS. Earlier in the week, Facebook attempted to right ... earlier wrongs over its Terms of Service by throwing the issue open to a massive vote. Controversy erupted earlier this year when the site tried to introduce a new policy that could have left accounts in Facebook's possession, even if a user terminated his or her association with the database. Some even feared Facebook would take users' personal ... (view more)

It's estimated that publicity on the Oprah Winfrey show may have brought more than a million new users to Twitter. The site's sometimes-shaky servers survived the invasion, though some feel its 'trendy' and 'cool' status took a hit from a show ... associated with middle-aged ladies. Winfrey joined the micro-blogging site last Friday and posted her first message (known as a tweet) during the show. It capped a week of celebrity-led publicity about the site as Ashton Kutcher beat CNN in the race to be the first users on Twitter with more than one million followers. There's no way of telling exactly ... (view more)

Not so long ago, Facebook took some serious slack for its decision to alter its privacy policy. The new scheme, many worried, could have allowed third parties to tinker with user accounts even after they had been terminated. Thankfully, Facebook ... backed off and now it's turning to users for an alternative. The original debate surrounded Facebook's terms of service policy. Early in February the social networking giant quietly unveiled a rather cold-hearted plan giving the site ownership of its users' accounts forever -- even if they decided to cut ties with the page. Understandably, users raged ... (view more)

What's the best way to make sure those who use the most bandwidth get charged the most money? How about a tiered, "consumption-based" billing system? That was Time Warner's plan for its services -- that is, until huge protests at the national level ... down forced them to scrap the idea. Rising Network Costs Rising network costs are becoming a problem for providers like Time Warner, who struggle with the increasing popularity of downloadable songs, TV shows, and movies -- along with a deepening economic depression. As Torrents and peer-to-peer (p2p) protocols continue to climb in popularity, the ... (view more)

A trio of undergraduate students at the University of Richmond have developed a custom search engine that will be used to help feed those in the developing world . The three students have created Hoongle.org, a custom Google search engine that ... promises to donate 20 grains of rice per search to schools located in impoverished countries. The search engine has already generated more than 8.5 million grains of rice (about 4,000 meals) since it was introduced this past September. (Source: nytimes.com ) Of course, online clicks alone cannot put food in the mouths of people overseas. The Hoongle ... (view more)

How much of your time does Facebook consume? According to a recent study, most college students that use Facebook also admitted to lower grade point averages than those who said they did not have an account on the popular social networking site. ... It's pretty obvious that most 9-to-5 employers feel Facebook wastes time, decreases productivity, and generally hurts the work ethic of employees. Thus, it's not particularly surprising that this recent Ohio State University study found that of those student participants who used Facebook, grade-point averages (GPA) hovered around 3.0 to 3.5 -- ... (view more)