Italy risks internet Stone Age

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DISTRACTED while thinking how to begin this column, I clicked on an email from a friend. She had sent me a YouTube video in which a tidy cylindrical shape on a shoulder strap unrolled to become a computer.

Almost every day, someone sends a YouTube clip or invites me to join them in Facebook or LinkedIn or something called Friendster.

When trying to find a way to contact a possible source last week, I Googled him and found he had Twitter but no listed phone number or email address. Maybe I should drop the curmudgeonly attitude and sign up myself.

None of this is remarkable, which is what makes an Italian judge's order last week ''astonishing'', as a Google spokesman put it.

Judge Oscar Magi in Milan found three Google executives guilty of invading the privacy of a disabled teenager in Turin. They didn't know him, didn't photograph him, nor were they aware of it when someone else posted a video of him being bullied by high-schoolers.

When Italian police informed Google it was hosting the video, employees took it down and helped authorities locate the teenager who posted it. She was prosecuted and sentenced to 10 months' community service.

Nonetheless, Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, its global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, and former chief financial officer George Reyes now stand convicted in Italy of invading privacy. Each got suspended sentences of six months in jail. They are the first internet executives to be held criminally liable for something some outsider posted.

In Italy, executives are punished when their company does wrong. (In another context, I recently argued in favour of punishing individuals instead of companies, by the way. But in that case, somebody clearly did something wrong.) As for the Google matter, if these men or this company can be convicted in this case, then to operate comfortably in Italy, internet hosts must monitor content submitted by users and weed out any ahead of time that may offend the law.

On a practical level, the volume of user-generated content is too great to scrutinise, even if national mores allowed that sort of censorship.

Internet executives all over the world should be very, very nervous. If that were the law in the United States, it probably would have killed eBay, YouTube, Facebook and the rest before they got started, says Eric Goldman, who teaches law and technology at Santa Clara University in California.

''Rulings like this absolutely suppress entrepreneurial innovation,'' he says. Goldman suspects it is no coincidence that the US is the global leader in creating new enterprises based on user-generated content.

The US is a country with a free-speech tradition, and a 1996 law shields internet service providers from liability for content their users post. ''Congress has said it's safe to be an innovator,'' says Goldman.

Judge Magi has said it isn't. His ruling, if it stands, will chill speech and squelch the spirit that makes the internet an ever-evolving creature - engaging, educating, entertaining and connecting us in ways we could not imagine a few minutes ago.

From an American perspective, the ruling is crazy. Cultural differences help explain why we look at these things so differently. Americans don't know what it's like to be invaded by another country, as Italians do, or to feel as though a centuries-old culture and deeply held values are being swallowed up and trashed by technological invaders.

The ruling comes at a time when Europe is pushing back against American dominance on the internet. The European Commission has launched a preliminary investigation into Google for possible antitrust violations, for one thing. For another, Italy is considering a law that would create greater restrictions on internet companies, making them subject to the same sort of laws that govern television.

As for the case at hand, it's no wonder it caused a furore in Italy when the video exposed an innocent youngster to ridicule around the world. And even though his parents dropped their complaint against Google, I understand why a group that advocates for the disabled, Vivi Down, kept the case going.

It should be a crime to bully a vulnerable child and another crime to expose his humiliation to a global audience.

But Google took down the video when told of it. Google helped find the teenager who posted the video. Google and its executives acted responsibly, not criminally.

And if Italy wants to hold them responsible, it should anticipate a future without the internet innovations that freer countries in the world enjoy.

Now, how did they make that computer roll up like that?

Ann Woolner is a Bloomberg News columnist.

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/italy-risks-internet-stone-age-with-trial-of-google-executives-20100228-pb4u.html

Factbox: About the Kneber Botnet

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"The ZeuS compromise" may sound like a great movie, but it's actually a massive hacking network for rent to the highest bidder -- and it's a doozy, affecting more than 74,000 PCs in 2,400 business and government systems around the world. Here's what you need to know.

"The ZeuS compromise" may sound like a great movie, but it's actually a newly uncovered, massive hacking network -- and it's a doozy, affecting more than 74,000 PCs in 2,400 business and government systems around the world. And it's still up and running.

But worse, the security analysts who detected the underground network believe the criminals behind it aren't even after money. Instead they have built a secret underground network to rent out to gangs, cybercrooks -- and even rogue governments. Here's what you need to know.

Botnet: A collection of software robots, or bots, that run autonomously and often maliciously.

ZeuS: ZeuS is a trojan horse, a botnet system designed to steal information from an infected computer. It records specific, targeted keystrokes of the infected computer and relays them to remote computers.

Kneber: Kneber uses the internal name "BTN1," the default name given to ZeuS botnets. NetWitness has called it "Kneber" after the username linking the infected systems worldwide.

Waledac: Waledac is a peer to peer spamming botnet often used to deliver additional malware to PCs. According to NetWitness, Waledac can reinstall Kneber and vice versa.

Size of Botnet: By counting unique IDs assigned to the botnet, NetWitness estimates that 764,126 computers have been compromised at 2,411 companies.

Age of Botnet: The campaign has been running for nearly a year and is still active. Initial reports from NetWitness tie the origin of the network to 25 March, 2009.

Origin of Attack: By associating domain names with IP address, NetWitness was able to tie the attack to a global network of servers, with a clear focus on Chinese IP addresses.

Targeted Countries: The top five sources for compromised computers: Egypt, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United States.

Type of PC Infected: The ZeuS bot is purpose-built to infect the Microsoft Windows operating system, notes NetWitness. The top five versions of Windows infected: XP Pro SP2, XP Pro SP3, XP Home SP3, XP Home SP2, Vista Home SP2

Information Stolen: NetWitness discovered over 68,000 stolen credentials during a 4-week period. The top 6 credentials stolen: netlog.com, sonico.com, metroflog.com, hi5.com, yahoo.com, facebook.com.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/18/factbox-kneber-botnet/

Should Elin Attend Tiger Woods' Press Conference?

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As the world waits for Tiger Woods' press conference on Friday, the biggest question is whether his wife Elin will be by his side to support him. This will mark his first public appearance since he crashed into a tree and his infidelity was exposed, so Elin's choice to attend (or not) may be the event's biggest newsmaker. She hasn't said yes yet, so we'll have to wait and see. Maybe she'll show up like Kobe Bryant's wife ... with a brand new apology diamond on her finger. Either way, we want to know what YOU think.

A majority of our Facebook readers don't want Elin to attend. "I'd hate to see the wife standing there like the good little woman and staring adoringly at her hubby," one fan says.

Another fan goes on to add, "She needs to do what SHE feels is right, not what everyone else tells her she NEEDS to do. Having your personal life blow up in public is hard enough without being told by people who don't matter what to do."

Other fans believe her presence is needed for him to overcome the scandal. "Yes, she should be there if she still loves her husband and wants her marriage to work out. Forget what everyone else thinks and has to say because everyone is on the outside. No one knows what happens inside their marriage."

"She should of been by his side all along throughout their marriage. Maybe they wouldn't be in this mess," another fan adds.

Elin's choice is perhaps the dictionary definition of a double-edged-sword situation. "It's hard enough for her to try and make this marriage work after what he did to her and their children," an insider tells PopEater's Rob Shuter. "The last thing she wants to do right now is stand next to him in front of him and the world's press. What message is she sending to her daughter and women and girls around the world."

Source: http://www.popeater.com/2010/02/18/elin-tiger-woods-press-conference