Monthly Archives: December 2014

UK ‘Google tax’ will target inter-company payments

Posted on by

“A new British tax on companies that shift profits out of the country and into tax havens will target inter-company fees for services like use of intellectual property, according to a Treasury document seen by Reuters.  Companies will also be required to report their potential liability to the new tax, which the note said will sit outside the existing corporate tax system. That is intended to avoid legal challenges under existing tax treaties with countries like Ireland, a major conduit for shifted profits.  The Treasury document said that the 25 percent tax would be effective April 1, 2015, and would target conduit-type structures, such as the ‘double-Irish’ used by Google.”

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/10/us-google-tax-idUSKBN0JO00X20141210

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Hacked payment card service transmitted cardholder data in plaintext

Posted on by

“Charge Anywhere, a company that routes payment transactions between merchants and payment card processors, said that malicious software planted on its network may have accessed unencrypted sensitive cardholder data for almost five years.  The company warned that some of the card data it sends or receives appears in plaintext, allowing attackers to copy it and use it in fraudulent transactions. Details including names, account numbers, expiration dates, and verification codes are known to be exposed for transactions that occurred this year from August 17 through September 24, although it’s possible transactions dating back to November 5, 2009 may also have been accessed.”

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/12/hacked-payment-card-service-transmitted-some-data-in-plaintext/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Sony Left Passwords, Code-Signing Keys Virtually Unprotected

Posted on by

“The hackers that compromised Sony Pictures Entertainment’s network leaked extremely sensitive information-technology credentials, including a collection of passwords and hundreds of certificates, one of which was used to sign the same malware used by the attackers to compromise the company.  The passwords could be used to access a variety of business accounts used by Sony Pictures and its employees, while the code-signing certificates could be used to camouflage future attacks, making antivirus software more likely to trust signed code.  The certificate used to sign the Destover malware sample had been protected by a password that was the name of the file.”

http://www.eweek.com/security/sony-left-passwords-code-signing-keys-virtually-unprotected.html

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Anonymous hacking attack lands British rock guitarist in jail

Posted on by

“Geoffrey ‘Jake’ Commander, a rock guitarist who has played with the Electric Light Orchestra, George Harrison and Elton John, among others, walked unnoticed through the halls of the U.S. District Court in Alexandria early Friday afternoon.  He was one of 13 people charged last year as members of the underground group Anonymous in attacks against financial institutions and other companies. Initially, he faced up to 10 years in federal prison.  Records hardly depict Commander as a cybercrime mastermind as much as an online surfer who stumbled his way into an unfamiliar chat room. Once there, he clicked on a link that would lead him right into the crosshairs of the Justice Department.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/7/anonymous-hacking-attack-lands-british-rock-guitar/?page=all

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Sony Corporation Using Amazon Servers To Attack Torrent Sites

Posted on by

“Sony Corporation has launched a counterattack against torrent websites sharing its stolen data. The company is reportedly using Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud services to target torrents released by the hackers who crippled the corporate network of its entertainment arm, Sony Pictures Entertainment, late last month.  Sony is using hundreds of computers throughout Asia to execute denial of service (DDoS) attacks against file-sharing sites that allow people to download its stolen data, according to a report from Re/code published Tuesday. The site says Sony is paying Amazon Web Services (AWS) to carry out the attack.”

http://www.ibtimes.com/sony-corporation-strikes-back-its-using-amazon-servers-attack-torrent-sites-report-1748849

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

‘Each time police shut Pirate Bay, we’ll multiply other servers’

Posted on by

“No matter how many times law enforcement cracks down on The Pirate Bay, it will find a way to re-open, the Berlin chairman of the Pirate Party told RT – days after the website was taken offline by a Swedish police raid.   ‘It was already shut down in 2005, and the result was the creation of a party called Pirate Party coming with all the ideas of sharing of information, of knowledge and culture on the internet. And freedom on the internet,’ Kramm said.  Kramm also said that music industry has opened for streaming, adapting to the new circumstances – and the streaming has become one of the strongest developing markets.”

http://rt.com/news/213387-pirate-bay-party-chairman/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

France Considers Scrapping Its 35-Hour Working Week

Posted on by

“The shorter working week was implemented in 2000 by the then-Socialist government as a way to stimulate job creation. But according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, French employees work an average of 39.5 hours per week, just shy of the eurozone average of 40.9 hours per week. According to the Times, the shorter working week hasn’t kept unemployment down — which is at 10.2 percent in France — and might even have led to the rise in part-time contracts, which employers increasingly use to avoid having to pay full-time staff overtime.”

http://time.com/3608782/france-considers-scrapping-its-35-hour-working-week/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

The European Parliament Threatens To Break Up Google

Posted on by

“Or at least that’s what is being suggested in the European Parliament, that search engines should be forced to be divorced from other business activities. It’s also true that they don’t directly mention Google but that’s obviously who it is aimed at. Fortunately, as a matter of public policy this isn’t going to go very far. Because the European Parliament doesn’t actually have the right to propose either actions or legislation. Only the European Commission can actually propose something and then the Parliament gets to say yea or nay to it.  It is an indication of quite how wildly the (would be) policy makers over here in Europe are out of touch with the way that the real world works.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/11/22/the-european-parliament-threatens-to-break-up-google/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Germany’s top publisher bows to Google in news licensing row

Posted on by

“Germany’s biggest news publisher Axel Springer has scrapped a move to block Google from running snippets of articles from its newspapers, saying that the experiment had caused traffic to its sites to plunge.  Springer said a two-week-old experiment to restrict access by Google to some of its publications had caused web traffic to plunge for these sites, leading it to row back and let Google once again showcase Springer news stories in its search results.  Chief Executive Mathias Doepfner said on Wednesday that his company would have ‘shot ourselves out of the market’ if it had continued with its demands for the U.S. firm to pay licensing fees.”

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/05/us-google-axel-sprngr-idUSKBN0IP1YT20141105

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Spain Shuts Down Google, Confronts the Internet

Posted on by

the-daily-bell-top-logo61

“Spanish legislators have decided that any time someone reproduces even a few words of someone else’s writing, it is now considered stealing unless compensation is paid. Germany previously passed an unsuccessful law of this sort, but the difference is that most media companies waived their right to charge for excerpts because Google created so much traffic.  To make sure that the Spanish version was more successful, language stipulates that media companies MUST charge! There is no choice in the matter.”

http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/35907/Shock-Spain-Shuts-Down-Google-Confronts-the-Internet/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet