Hasta La Gadget!

It was recently revealed in a court filing that Microsoft had accessed a blogger’s Hotmail account as part of an investigation against an employee suspected of having leaked confidential Microsoft property. The blogger received a tip from a former Microsoft employee Alex Kibkalo, who shared pre-release Windows 8 RT source code, among other confidential items. Microsoft found out about the leak and accessed the blogger’s Hotmail account to see if Kibkalo’s emails were really there. While this landed Kibkalo into hot soup, Microsoft came under severe criticism for accessing a user’s communications without their knowledge.

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Microsoft Makes Changes To Policy After Hotmail Snooping Criticism original content from Ubergizmo.

Under the U.S. Wire Act, online gambling was considered illegal. Towards the end of 2011, a Justice Department ruling essentially neutered the online gambling provisions of the Wire Act. Since the ruling several states have legalized online gambling, New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware to be precise. Other states, including California, are considering this as well. Congress doesn’t seem to be too happy about it. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) today introduced joint legislation that seeks to ban all forms of online gaming except horse racing and fantasy sports.

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Online Gaming Could Be Hit By Congressional Ban original content from Ubergizmo.

Microsoft recently admitted that it went through a blogger’s Hotmail account to collect evidence of a leak by an employee. The proof led to the arrest of Alex Kibkalo, a former Microsoft employee who leaked Windows 8 files and Microsoft Activation Server Software Developer Kit to a French blogger. Microsoft was well within its rights to access the account, even though it may border on violation of privacy. The company’s privacy policy states that it can access content of communications “to protect the rights or property of Microsoft.” After this story broke, Google was accused of doing the same through Gmail. The company has formally denied allegations.

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Google Denies Allegations Of Gmail Snooping To Weed Out Leaker original content from Ubergizmo.

There was much debate over Google’s decision to display marketing and promotional emails in a standalone “Promotions” tab in Gmail. Incoming emails that are deemed to be offering promotions or deals are no longer shown along with the users’ personal emails. An experimental Gmail feature is now being tested which displays these emails as large ads with images.

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Gmail Experiment Shows Promotional Emails As Ads original content from Ubergizmo.

One of the ways copyright holders are able to determine where copyright materials have been downloaded is by tracing the IP address, which in most cases usually reveals information about that person, like their name, phone number, home address, and so on.

For the most part that is how copyright holders, like record labels and movie studios, track down people who might have been pirating their property, such as through torrents. However in a recent ruling by a judge, it seems that he might have set a precedent in which IP addresses will start to lose their potential as a way of tracking down a pirate. (more…)

Judge Rules That IP Addresses Aren’t Conclusive Enough To Determine Pirate’s Identity original content from Ubergizmo.