Articles Posted in Technology

If you use email in your day-to-day business operations the CAN-SPAM Act is a law that sets the rules for commercial email. It also establishes the requirements for commercial messages, provides recipients the right to have the sender stop emailing them, and mentions the penalties for related violations.

The CAN-SPAM Act applies to bulk email and all commercial messages, which the law defines as “any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service,” including email that promotes content on commercial websites. The law makes no exception for business-to-business email which means all email. As an example, a message to former customers announcing a new product line is required to comply with the law.

Each violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000. Here are the CAN-SPAM Act’s main requirements:

Samsung Electronics, the second largest maker of mobile phones, claims that Apple Inc. has infringed upon its patents since entering the mobile-phone market with the iPhone 3G, a lawyer for Samsung told a Dutch court as the Korean company seeks a ban on some Apple products in the Netherlands.

“Apple just entered the market in 2008 without taking care of the licenses,” Bas Berghuis van Woortman, a lawyer for Simmons & Simmons LLP who represents Samsung, said in The Hague court. “Apple is consciously, structurally infringing the 3G patents.”

The parties will be discussing settlement soon as this is yet another legal battle between two technology giants over intellectual property rights.

In the recent years, politically-motivated hackers have made sensitive information available to bloggers and mainstream media at unprecedented rates. For example, Wikileaks released leaked Afghan war logs and government diplomatic cables. Anonymous individual hacked and released emails from the computer security firm HBGary. A college student gained access to and released emails from Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account. LulzSec hacked into and publicly released confidential data belonging to Sony and others. Most recently, the Antisec movement hacked into over 70 police departments and released confidential emails and other files.

A this time, some important questions to ask ourselves would be as follows:

1. What are some applicable legal issues when publishing information obtained by hackers?

Facebook Inc., which is currently considered the world’s largest social network, plans more acquisitions so to improve its site design, keep services more reliable and advance its mobile features to compete with Twitter and Google which are active in the same arenas.

Facebook’s director of corporate development, Vaughan Smith stated that, the company aims to make approximately 20 purchases in year 2011 which is up from 10 last year and one in 2009.

It is important for our blog readers to know that Facebook obtains income from advertising and takes certain commission when software developers sell virtual goods on its website. As we know, Facebook is a closely-held company and it does not disclose its financials. Based on my research, the company is seeking to generate $2 billion or more in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in 2011.

In April 2010, David Kernell faced trial for “hacking” into then-Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin’s personal email account.

In November 12, 2010, David Kernell was indicted (i.e., a grand jury believed there was sufficient evidence to place him on trial on federal charges). Thereafter, a jury convicted him of two charges. First, computer fraud. Second, obstruction of justice. David Kernell’s defense was that his conduct was a prank. However, the jury was not pursuaded and he was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison with a recommendation to spend his time in a halfway house.

This case is illustrative of the types of crimes an email hacker may face including: (1) Wire Fraud; (2) Computer Fraud; (3) Identity Theft; and (4) Obstruction of Justice.

A rise in attacks by hackers in 2011 is showing limits of an older generation of security software from Symantec Corp. (www.symantec.com) and McAfee Inc. (www.mcafee.com) and is placing pressure on these high-tech companies to upgrade products.

These and similar companies are seeking to keep up with cloud computing and the growth of workers plugging mobile devices into networks. According to Johannes Ullrich, a researcher at the SANS Technology Institute (www.sans.edu), none of the recent attacks tied to hacker groups such as Anonymous and Lulz Security could have been repelled by traditional antivirus programs or firewall software.

George Kurtz, who is the current chief technology officer at McAfee, now part of Intel Corp. (www.intel.com), expressed his concern by comparing the current predicament to a “security Armageddon” which is also of great concern for end users and customers.

Google, Inc. has temporarily shut down a search engine feature that allows users to find real-time updates from Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and other social networking sites.

See more on www.twitter.com/salaratrizadeh.

Hackers broke into Fox’s political Twitter account early Monday, posting updates saying President Barack Obama had been assassinated. A series of six tweets coming from the FoxNewsPolitics account reported that Obama had been shot to death in Iowa and the shooter was unknown.

See more on www.twitter.com/salaratrizadeh