<IT
WORLD> Google plays global
censor By Martin J
Young
HUA HIN, Thailand - As anti-American
unrest gathered momentum across the globe
following the release of a video deemed insulting
to Islam, Google enforced its role as arbiter of
free speech by blocking access to the content in
certain countries on its YouTube video sharing
website.
The low-budget movie angered
followers of Islam for its mocking of the Prophet
Mohammed and Muslims. Google's decision to
restrict access to it is one it claims to have
made itself; the
company stated that it had
determined that the video did not violate its
terms of service regarding hate speech, because it
was against the Muslim religion, not Muslim
people. Rather, it said it temporarily blocked the
video in Egypt and Libya of its own volition in
response to the delicacy of the situation.
In addition to Google's self censorship in
Egypt and Libya where violence has broken out,
resulting in the death of the US ambassador and
three of his colleagues, the video has also been
blocked, following government requests, in India,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
Russian and Israeli politicians and lawmakers have
also taken similar steps by seeking a ban to stop
the film being distributed within their respective
countries. The White House asked Google to
re-review the video and consider pulling it in the
United States; however, at the time of writing,
Google has said it will stay online in the US.
Pakistan and Bangladesh took matters into
their own hands and blocked the entire YouTube
website, along with a number of unrelated
associated Google services and products leaving
those that rely on them less than amused.
For a company that boasts
that it "acts every day to promote and expand free
expression online and increase global access to
information", Google has certainly cemented its
position as the digital regulator of what is to be
considered freedom of expression. With the
unprecedented power to influence the course of
global events Google needs to be more transparent
and a lot more consistent with its policies and
stance.
Security A massive flaw
in the world's most used web browser, Internet
Explorer, has resulted in its creators, Microsoft,
urging Windows users to download an additional
piece of security software to protect themselves.
The zero-day exploit, discovered last week by
Internet security researchers, enables software to
take advantage of a security hole in the browser
resulting in the infection of computers that visit
malicious websites.
Fraudulent and
malevolent sites have been using the exploit to
install the Poison Ivy and PlugX remote access
trojans, which allow attackers to remotely issue
commands and monitor e-mail communications on
infected machines. The bug affects Windows
versions XP, Vista and 7 and Internet Explorer
versions 7, 8 and 9.
Microsoft,
downplaying the flaw by stating "there have been
an extremely limited number of attacks", recommend
that users of their browser download
the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit until
the company can issue a patch. Microsoft states
that the toolkit aims to protect against this
issue and should not affect usability of websites,
it also said users should set their Internet and
local intranet security zone settings to "high" to
block ActiveX Controls and Active Scripting.
Other web and online security companies
are urging people to ditch the browser all
together and switch to a safer alternative such as
Firefox or Chrome. Supporting this advice the
German government also urged the public to stop
using the maligned browser, at least until
Microsoft roll out a patch.
There have
been implications that those exploiting the
vulnerability have done so to target the systems
of defense contractors.
Anti-virus
software company Symantec Corp and Russian based
Kaspersky Lab disclosed this week that they have
found evidence that operators of the Flame malware
that targeted systems in the Middle East may have
also worked with three other viruses that have yet
to be discovered.
Symantec, who performed
a detailed forensic analysis of two of the
command-and-control (C&C) servers used in the
Flame (W32.Flamer) attacks earlier this year,
claimed that the cyber-espionage tool has likely
been in operation for over five years and was
still running as recently as May this year.
Researchers from both firms said the Flame
operation was managed using a piece of software
named "Newsforyou" that was built by a team of
four software developers starting in 2006.
According to Kaspersky it was designed to look
like a common program for managing content on
websites, orchestrated to disguise its real
purpose from hosting providers or investigators so
that the operation would not be compromised. Three
other types of malware were also handled by
Newsforyou.
A large cache of data was
discovered on one of the servers, however due to
heavy encryption further analysis was not
possible. According to the Symantec report the
"approach to uploading packages and downloading
data fits the profile of military and/or
intelligence operations".
The findings are
likely to strengthen the view that the US, which
has already been linked to the Stuxnet attacks, is
using cyber-espionage in the Middle East.
Martin J Young is an Asia Times
Online correspondent based in Thailand.
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online
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