Amazon, Apple, others sued by Droplets for Web tech

In Cnet

A lawsuit filed last week by software company Droplets takes aim at Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and YouTube for infringing on its patented Web technology.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, the Droplets suit alleges that the group of tech giants infringe on one or more of two patents it holds "for developing and delivering highly functional and scalable applications over the Internet." The company seeks damages as well as future royalties on the use of those patents.

The two patents in question are United States Patent No. 6,687,745, titled "System and method for delivering a graphical user interface of remote applications over a thin bandwidth connection," and No. 7,502,838, titled "System and method for delivering remotely stored applications and information." The No. 6,687,745 patent was granted in February 2004 with the No. 7,502,838 patent following in March 2009.

In its suit, Droplets specifically points to the defendants as infringing with their "Web applications and software" as well as the computers that store and serve those pages. Included by name are the front pages of Yahoo, Amazon, and Apple's Web sites, along with Apple's movie trailer page, and Yahoo's Mail and Maps properties.

One of the aforementioned patents was the focus of a 2006 lawsuit against Adobe that accused the company of infringing on the No. 6,687,745 patent with its Flex product, which Adobe got through its acquisition of Macromedia. The two companies settled in 2008 for an undisclosed sum.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20104994-248/amazon-apple-others-sued-by-droplets-for-web-tech/#ixzz1YOmCukGq

Anonymous Hackers group is rumoured to kill facebook

In The Telegraph

YouTube video labelled as a message from Anonymous claimed that "Operation Facebook" would take place on November 5. its aim was to destroy the social network on the grounds that it abused the privacy of users, the video said.

But an Anonymous spokesman told AFP that even heads of the group were uncertain how seriously to take the threat since the loosely-knit organisation doesn't have a strict command structure and members mask their identities.

"I found groups of people who say we absolutely are and have a trick up our sleeves," said the spokesman. "I found others that say it isn't us and that this is stupid."

The video displayed a gray image of the Anonymous logo as a digitally masked voice announced a plan to destroy Facebook and called for others to join in the cyber attack.

The video accused Facebook of holding onto the data people post in accounts and of even sharing some of it with law enforcement agencies.

Facebook Becomes A Favorite Target Of Phishers

The Securelist division of Kaspersky Labs issued a report yesterday, and the identities of the top three organizations that have been targeted by phishers may not come as a surprise to anyone; they're PayPal (with 52.2 percent of all attacks aimed at it), eBay (with 13.3 percent), and HSBC (with 7.8 percent).

The report, which covered the period between January and March of this year, next stated, though, "Facebook popped up unexpectedly in fourth place. This was the first time since we started monitoring that attacks on a social networking site have been so prolific."

By way of explanation, the report then continued, "Having stolen users' accounts, the fraudsters can then use them to distribute spam, sending bulk emails to the account owners and their friends in the network. This method of distributing spam allows huge audiences to be reached. Additionally, it lets the fraudsters take advantage of the social networking sites' additional options, like being able to send different requests, links to photo's and invitations, all with the advertisement attached, both within the network and to users' inboxes."

Obviously, this isn't good news for Facebook's users or the security community as a whole. Facebook acts as a sort of point of entry to information about a whole lot of people (the social network had 400 million users in early February).

This isn't good news for Facebook, either, though - nothing that makes its users uncomfortable or unhappy, and therefore likely to leave, is - so perhaps we'll at least see the company make some attempt(s) to address this problem.

Anyway, if you're curious, the list of phishers' targets picked up after Facebook with Google, the IRS, Rapidshare, Bank of America, UBI, and Bradesco.


About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for SecurityProNews, InternetFinancialNews, SearchNewz, and WebProNews.