Hasta La Gadget!

You may not be familiar with a service called Tor. Tor is a web service that allows users to surf the Internet, use IM, and other services while keeping themselves completely anonymous. Tor is a free and open-source that is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.

The National Police Agency in Japan is now asking ISPs to begin blocking Tor for customers if the customers are found to have abused Tor online. The push by Japanese authorities is because they’re worried about an inability to tackle cyber crime enabled in part by anonymizing services such as Tor. Clearly, the indication from the NPA is that there is some guilt associated with people who heavily use Tor.

The push to curb the usage of Tor in Japan stems from a case last year where a number of death threats were posted online from compromised computers. Several arrests were made in the case, but those arrested turned out to have had nothing to do with the posted messages. Once police finally caught up with the real perpetrator of the crimes, it was discovered that he frequently used Tor to cover up his cyber crimes.

The NPA also claims that Tor makes it easier for criminals to conduct financial fraud, child abuse, and to leak confidential police information. Whether or not ISPs in Japan go along with a request to block Tor remains to be seen. Privacy advocates will likely fight the request.

[via Wired]

Japanese National Police Agency wants ISPs to block Tor is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Several years ago a man named Tim Langdell was able to successfully win trademarks on several rather generic terms. The terms trademarked by Langdell included “edge,” “cutting edge,” “the edge,” and “gamer’s edge.” After winning those trademarks, the man said about suing any video game company that used any of those words in the title of their video games.

Reports indicate that he was successful in getting several developers to pay money to license the use of those terms in their games. Eventually Langdell set his sights on a bigger fish in the form of the EA and sued them for trademark infringement over the popular game Mirror’s Edge. This is where things went south for Langdell.

One thing EA had that most of the other developers that were forced to pay licensing fees to use those generic trademarked terms lacked was money and a legal team at their disposal. The fight ensued in court and in 2010, United States District Court Judge sided with EA against Langdell. After all these years the US Patent and Trademark Office has finally got around to canceling those trademarks.

The trademarks in question are filed under registration numbers 2219837, 2251584, 3105816, 3381826, and 3559342. Now that the trademarks are being canceled, game developers will be able to use those words in video game titles without fearing a suit from a patent troll. There is no indication at this time if any of the companies that paid licensing fees to avoid court will get their money back.

[via Games Industry]

USPTO shreds Edge trademarks and kills a troll is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

A new legislation, known as the Marketplace Fairness Act, will allow states to require online retailers to collect and remit use tax on purchases shipped into their states. The new legislation will only affect businesses that generate over $1 million in out-of-state sales, however, John Donahoe, CEO of eBay, says that merchants who generate less than $10 million in sales, and/or have less than 50 employees, should also be exempt.

Donahoe began sending out emails earlier this morning and hopes to reach at least 40 million eBay users within the next few days. He encourages users to send a message to the members of Congress asking them to consider some changes to the legislation. In the email Donahoe states that the legislation puts both small merchants, and big retailers like Amazon in the same category, which is unfair to the vast majority of merchants. In an email viewed by Reuters, Donahoe wrote,

“This legislation treats you and big multi-billion dollar online retailers – such as Amazon – exactly the same. Those fighting for this change refuse to acknowledge that the burden on businesses like yours is far greater than for a big national retailer.”

Amazon stated in regards to the legislation that giving merchants who generate more than $500,000 in annual sales would give them an unfair tax advantage over large retailers. However, compared to eBay’s small merchants, Amazon has less to lose if this legislation passes. Donahoe stated in the email that Amazon makes over $10 million in sales every 1 1/2 hours, giving it more resources than a small merchant to remit taxes. Many speculate that many major retailers are in support of this legislation because it would limit the powers of smaller merchants.

This new legislation will affect both eBay users and small merchants alike. Merchants will be required to pay sales tax to the state that its product is shipped to, meaning they will have to familiarize themselves with the 9,600 separate tax jurisdictions. With smaller merchants requiring to pay sales tax to the states, much of the slack will fall upon consumers. eBay encourages its users to send a message to the members of congress within the next few days and ask that amendments be made to the legislation to make it less burdensome.

[via Reuters]

eBay seeks help from users to fight an upcoming federal sales tax legislation is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the man known as Cody Andrew Kretsinger has been issued a prison sentence for his part in a 2011 attack on a Sony Pictures-owned website, this incident earning hima cool 1 year in a federal cell. This particular hack ended up having the names and information of customers of Sony products stolen and leaked to the public. This information included the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of a massive amount of customers.

This sentence has been passed down after the defendant was arrested back in September of 2011. His original part in the crime took place in May of that same year, and he pled guilty to the crime in April of 2012. In other words, it’s not always a quick path from the crime to the final sentence!

In similar situations related to this Sony Picture hack, LulzSec members Raynaldo Rivera and Hector Xavier Monsegur have also gone into agreements with the authorities. Monsegur, also known as “Sabu”, has according to PC World agreed to work with the FBI as an informant and – again, according to this same source – played an important part in the identification of the other members of the LulzSec team.

Monsegur is currently set to face a maximum sentence of 124 years in prison, while Rivera (aka “neuron”) is set to be sentenced on May the 16th. You’ll be able to find more information on the hacking universe in our hacking tag portal as well as through a search for LulzSec in our archives!

LulzSec hacker gets prison sentence for Sony Pictures hack is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It has been a long process, but one of LulzSec‘s hackers who went by the name “Recursion” has been sentenced, receiving one year in prison for his part in a cyberattack on Sony Entertainment. After serving his year, the hacker, who’s real name is Cody Kretsinger, will have to perform 1,000 hours of community service and home detention. Kretsinger plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected computer, according to Reuters.

LulzSec is a branch from the more popularly-known Anonymous hacker collective, and has claimed to have initiated quite a few high-profile cyberattacks against private and government websites alike. One such attack was against Sony, who’s website Kretsinger claims to have accessed, gathering information and spreading it to two other LulzSec hackers.

That information was then made public on the group’s Twitter account and on its website, resulting in what prosecutors say was in excess of $600,000 worth of damage to the corporation. Additional members of the hacking group are slated for sentencing, having plead guilty to various related charges earlier this month and back in the summer of 2012.

On April 9, LulzSec members Jake Davis, Mustafa al-Bassam, and Ryan Ackroyd all plead guilty in London to cyberattacks against Sony, in addition to other entities, such as the NHS and News International. Ackroyd, in particular, plead guilty to also plotting cyberattacks against many other websites, among them being 20th Century Fox. Davis and al-Bassam plead guilty to conspiracy to attack law enforcement agencies in both the UK and US. They will be sentenced on May 14.

[via Reuters]

LulzSec hacker “Recursion” sentenced to a year in prison is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.