675 000 dollars for 30 songs on Kazaa: penalty once again confirmed

New episode in the saga of the American judicial Joel Tenenbaum, whose sentence to a fine of $ 675,000 for downloading and sharing 30 songs on Kazaa has once again been confirmed.

In the mid-2000s, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) went on a rather misguided witch-hunt, filing lawsuits against individual file-sharers seemingly at random, despite winning a combined nine-figure settlement from the main culprits: the peer-to-peer networks themselves, Napster and Kazaa.

Back in 2005, then-college student Joel Tenenbaum was busted for sharing 31 songs via Kazaa. In the seven years since, his case—one of only two of its kind to go to trial—has been decided and appealed countless times. Federal copyright law mandates a penalty in the range of $750 to $150,000 per infringement, so a jury  in 2009 somehow decided upon $22,500 per infringement, saddling Tenenbaum with a $675,000 fine. It was then reduced to a total fine of $67,500 by a district court judge. And then an appeals court overturned that decision, reinstating the $675,000 fine.

Finally, the case was due to be tried in front of the Supreme Court this month. Except it wasn’t—because they decided it wasn’t worth their time. So, the fine sticks. For 31 songs.

Google Goggles updated, works with non-autofocus cameras too

The Google Goggles has been updated: it now allows owners of a smartphone that does not have an autofocus use, which was not the case before. In the process, Google has introduced a new system to protect users from malicious links.

Google has been hard at work  updating its mobile applications as of late. Yesterday, the search giant updated its mobile browser Chrome for the iPhone, now it’s delivering an update to its Google Goggles application for Android devices. New Google Goggles features include support for devices that don’t have autofocus cameras, which is perfect for low-end smartphones.

Moreover, the application brings faster and better tracking of objects when in continuous mode, and the search-from-camera feature no longer needs to have Search History enabled for it to work. Goggles also improves its QR-scanning abilities, and will show a thumbnail if the QR code has an embedded URL, will scan URLs against known malicious links, and can read much more bar codes. Lastly, Google Goggles adds search results that appear similar to the subject if it can’t find an exact match.

 Google Goggles version 1.9 adds support for devices without autofocusing optics, giving those on budget gear a chance to use the real world as a search box. Point it at a QR code containing a URL, and it'll show you a thumbnail of the page and check its credentials against its blacklist of malicious sites. If it comes up short when searching for a product, it'll even search for similar-looking items to help you find what you're looking for, and it's available from the Play store for free.

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New smartphone HTC Proto first pictures

The next smartphone from HTC, known for the moment under the code name "Proto" is unveiled at the corner of two photographs published by The Verge site. The terminal could be officially unveiled next week during IFA.

 If it has not yet been formalized by HTC, the Proto is still talked about for several weeks in early August, The Verge , Android already evoked a terminal with a 4-inch screen, a sensor 5 megapixel camera, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage space.  A processor Qualcomm MSM8225 dual-core 1 GHz is also present.

Kaspersky Lab’s New “Safe Money” Technology Protects Personal Data and Real Money

Kaspersky Internet Security Comes Loaded with Latest Technologies to Protect Personal Data and Real Money

It’s no secret: most cybercriminals don’t want online fame, they want your money. Kaspersky Lab research shows that each day, more than 1,400 new pieces of banking malware are created. These malicious programs are designed specifically to hijack your online purchases, snoop on credit card transactions, and redirect your web browser to fraudulent sites. More than $1.2 trillion will be exchanged over the Internet in 2012, and stealing even a small percentage can mean a big pay-day for cybercriminals.

Today, Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content and threat management solutions, announced new versions of Kaspersky Internet Security and Kaspersky Anti-Virus. Both products feature our strongest protection ever against modern threats and significant improvements to performance and simplicity, including a faster installation, less drain on computer resources and battery life, and real-time protection against viruses, spyware, and more.

A new offering found in Kaspersky Internet Security is Safe Money, Kaspersky Lab’s unique technology designed to protect the user’s money when shopping and banking online. To keep your cash safe, Kaspersky Internet Security’s Safe Money will:

1. Automatically activate when visiting most common payment services (PayPal, etc.), banking websites, and you can easily add your own bank or shopping websites to the list.

2. Isolate your payment operations in a special web browser to ensure your transactions aren’t monitored.

3. Verify the authenticity of the banking or payment website itself, to ensure the site isn’t compromised by malware, or a fake website designed to look authentic.

4. Evaluate the security status of your computer, and warn about any existing threats that should be addressed prior to making payments.

5. Provide an onscreen Virtual Keyboard when entering your credit card or payment information so you can enter your information with mouse-clicks. This will activate a special program to prevent malware from logging any keystrokes on your physical keyboard.

In July, this new Safe Money technology was evaluated against 15 real-world attack styles used by malware to steal your banking information. Tested by independent research lab Matousec, Kaspersky Internet Security successfully blocked all 15 banking attacks. Most other popular security products failed to block even half of the attacks. The full test results are available online.

Watching for Security Flaws in Your Apps and Programs

Another new and unique technology added to both Kaspersky Internet Security and Kaspersky Anti-Virus is called Automatic Exploit Prevention. An easy way for a cybercriminal to gain control of your PC is to take advantage of a security flaw in one of the dozens of programs and applications you use every day. When cybercriminals discover an unpatched security flaw in a popular program – such as Adobe Acrobat, Java or Microsoft Internet Explorer, for example – they may race to infect as many victims as they can before the vendor fixes the flaw. Whenever you ignore a pop-up window telling you to download the latest updates for a program, you’re unwittingly keeping this window of vulnerability open even longer. Now, Kaspersky Lab will not only alert you when out-of-date programs are running on your machine, but Automatic Exploit Prevention will protect you from these vulnerabilities until you are able to update them.

Kaspersky Lab’s technology watches over the programs installed on your PC and knows how these programs are supposed to act. If the program tries to perform unusual or unauthorized activities, Automatic Exploit Prevent blocks the abnormal action while still allowing the program to perform its normal operations. This means Kaspersky Internet Security and Kaspersky Anti-Virus will keep you safe without inconveniencing you by shutting off the applications you use every day. It happens more often than you think – from January through March 2012, Kaspersky Lab detected more than 1 million malicious programs designed to exploit vulnerabilities in commonly-used software.

Kaspersky Lab: 15 Years of Award-Winning Security for Your Computer

In 2012, Kaspersky Lab celebrated its 15th anniversary of security research and technological innovation. For years, Kaspersky Lab has steadily refined and improved its cornerstone products – Kaspersky Anti-Virus for essential protection needed to secure a PC, and Kaspersky Internet Security for advanced protection to confidently browse online. Both products work behind the scenes to deliver the fastest and most trusted virus and spyware protection in the world. Kaspersky Lab’s key improvements to both products, designed to protect customers in 2013 and beyond, include:

— A new antivirus engine with better detection rates for the entire scope of emerging cyber-threats

— New anti-phishing technology that features improved detection of imposter websites that try to steal passwords and other valuable data

— A simplified user interface that provides faster installation and easier day-to-day use of the product

— Improved performance, to keep you safe without slowing you down

— More efficient power consumption, to ensure you get the most battery life from your laptop

In addition, both Kaspersky Anti-Virus and Kaspersky Internet Security are Windows 8 Ready, and will work seamlessly on the new Microsoft operating system. The new versions of Kaspersky Internet Security and Kaspersky Anti-Virus are included in Kaspersky ONE, a Universal Security product that protects PCs, Macs, smartphones(1) and Android tablets using a single activation code. No matter what devices you use to get online, all you need is Kaspersky ONE.

Pricing and Availability

Kaspersky Internet Security and Kaspersky Anti-Virus are available for purchase now on Kaspersky Lab’s online store, and wherever quality software is sold in the U.S. and Canada. Current customers may upgrade free of charge from Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 to the new products for the remainder of their existing license period. A standard subscription – 3-user licenses for a 1-year period – is $79.95 for Kaspersky Internet Security and $59.95 for Kaspersky Anti-Virus.