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Randall Stross / New York Times:
Goodbye, Passwords. You Aren't a Good Defense. — THE best password is a long, nonsensical string of letters and numbers and punctuation marks, a combination never put together before. Some admirable people actually do memorize random strings of characters for their passwords …
Matthew Hines / eWeek Security Watch:
Apple's Rotten Decision — One of the more hotly-discussed topics among attendees of this year's Black Hat conference in Las Vegas was Apple's last minute decision to cancel its scheduled presentations, and the somewhat disengaged stance it continues to maintain regarding the vulnerability research community in general.
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
uTorrent 1.8 Released, Mac Version Coming Soon — After months of hard work and more than six months since their previous stable release, the uTorrent team has released version 1.8 of their BitTorrent client, with significant improvements and updates. Adding to the excitement …
Discussion:
Digg
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
eBay: It's a Gamble! — This I know: A brand has definitively jumped the shark when it's turned into a slot machine. It's happened to That Girl and Blondie (the comic strip, not the band) and poor Dean Martin, who isn't around to give a yay or nay to gambling devices based on his likeness.
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
The Pirate Bay Blocked in Italy — The Pirate Bay has been “censored” in Italy following an urgent decree from a deputy public prosecutor. Pirate Bay's IPs and the domain name are inaccessible, as they are blocked by ISPs all over the country. Whether these blocks will be very effective …
Fred Goodman / New York Times:
An Old Rocker Gets Digital — WHEN Charles Grimsdale, a British investor, started the Internet music venture OD2 in 1999, he had a hard time persuading large record companies to license their music. But when he approached the rock musician Peter Gabriel about putting his music catalog online …
Discussion:
Guardian Unlimited
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Does Google Have An Organic Growth Problem? — Google pulled in $5.37 billion in revenues last quarter, and $1.25 billion in net profits (nearly ten times what Yahoo made last quarter). Yet behind the consistently amazing financial performance, a few chinks are beginning to appear in Google's armor.
Discussion:
Epicenter
Ray Beckerman / Recording Industry vs The People:
Innocent infringement defense may reduce damages to $200 per song file in Maverick v. Harper — In Maverick v. Harper, a San Antonio, Texas, case of which we were unaware until yesterday, the RIAA has been pursuing a college age defendant who admitted to having committed copyright infringement using …
Janko Roettgers / NewTeeVee:
Vatata: Chinese P2P TV Coming to Set-Top Boxes — Chinese P2P solutions provider Vatata, whose similarly named P2P streaming platform Vakaka we wrote about last year, has developed a set-top box solution to bring a Joost-like P2P TV experience to the living room.
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Picking Steve Jobs' Next Moves: iPods, MacBooks Yes, Tablet Maybe, TV Probably Not (AAPL) — What's up Steve's sleeve? Probably nothing radical soon — at least according to Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope, who launched coverage of Apple (AAPL) this week.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Defcon: EFF defends MIT students' right to talk; federal court stops speech — LAS VEGAS — At the Defcon security conference, the Electronic Frontier Foundation held a press conference saying it is representing the MIT hackers who figured out how to get free rides on the Boston's subways.
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Christina Warren / TUAW:
Found Footage: ‘I Am Rich’ walk through — Apparently, eight people actually bought the famed “I Am Rich” iPhone application. If you weren't rich stupid lucky enough to buy the app, or if you are merely curious what the fuss was all about — the above “guided tour” is for you.
Brian Stelter / New York Times:
Tape Delay by NBC Faces End Run by Online Fans — NBC, which owns the exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics in the United States, spent most of Friday trying to keep it that way. — NBC's decision to delay broadcasting the opening ceremonies by 12 hours sent people across the country …
Discussion:
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