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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 14 Issue 07
Volume 14, Issue 07 Atari Online News, Etc. February 17, 2012
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2012
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Ferd Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1407 02/17/12
~ Germany Won't Do ACTA! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Hackers Target Putin!
~ Typosquatters Closed! ~ MegaUpload Wasn't Mega ~ NJ Programmer Freed!
~ Sites Hacked Over ACTA ~ Yahoo-Alibaba Failing! ~ Facebook and User ID!
~ 38 Studio's Game Debut ~ ~ New Twitter for All!
-* A New Push for Cybersecurity *-
-* Stronger Cyber Regulation Bill Urged *-
-* FBI Could Take Down Internet for Millions! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Well, we dodged a weather "bullet" last week, and also this weekend. At
the risk of jinxing myself, this has been the winter that wasn't! And I'm
still not offering any complaints. If you've experienced bad, snowy
winters at some point, you'll understand what I'm talking about!
I don't have any ideas for discussion this week, as must be obvious with
my weather observations above! It's been a long week, although I ended up
with a shortened work schedule this week. Just too much going on to get
going with commentary this week. But, you're not reading these issues
for my comments, at least for most of the time! So, let's get to it!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Schilling's Company Launches First Video Game!
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Schilling's Company Launches First Video Game
A teenage Curt Schilling got a paper route so he could afford an Apple II
just like the one his Little League coach owned.
Three decades later with cash to spare from his baseball career, the
retired pitcher has invested nearly $35 million into a business producing
the sort of fantasy video game that first made him yearn for a personal
computer.
In New York on Monday to promote the first offering from his 38 Studios
entertainment company, Schilling stopped in at a video game store and
asked how "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning" was selling. The answer was
encouraging, though the conversation went a bit downhill when the clerk
realized who Schilling was and turned out to be a Yankees fan.
Schilling had long been a hard-core gamer when he led the Red Sox past New
York with his bloody sock. In the early 1980s, his best friend's father -
who was also Schilling's youth baseball coach - brought home an Apple II
from his job as an engineer. Young Curt was soon hooked on "Wizardry," an
early role-playing video game. The graphics felt cutting-edge at the time;
Schilling was stunned the other day when he looked up some old screen
shots and realized how primitive they look now.
Always a fan of books like "The Lord of the Rings" series, Schilling kept
inhabiting the world of role-playing video games throughout a 20-year
major league career in which he won three World Series championships.
Fascinated by technology, he owned a laptop in the early 1990s "before
they were truly portable."
"I wasn't really a big car or jewelry guy," Schilling said. "I always had
the best laptop you can have."
By the late 1990s, he was toying with the idea of launching a production
company.
Schilling got serious about it several years later. He recalled feeling
disappointed by "EverQuest II," the sequel released in late 2004 to the
popular multiplayer online game. Irked by certain elements, he'd wonder:
"What were they thinking?"
While playing online with several developers from Sony, which produced the
game, Schilling would muse about hatching his own startup.
"You do that, I'll definitely join your company," they'd tell him.
They didn't quite believe him when he later actually offered them jobs.
In October 2006, the business launched with 11 employees. Today, 38
Studios - as in his uniform number - has nearly 400.
The cost of producing an intricate video game was just one of many
surprises in store for Schilling. He knows he has the luxury of deep
pockets instead of having to search for venture capital. Other investments
have come from "high net-worth individuals" and the state of Rhode Island,
where the company is headquartered. Schilling, 45, is partnered with comic
book and toy creator Todd McFarlane and fantasy author R. A. Salvatore.
"Reckoning," a role-playing game, was released last Tuesday.
Up next is a product code-named "Copernicus," a multiplayer online game.
Schilling said he never realized how difficult it was to ensure the program
would work with players using different gaming systems.
"The only thing I've seen that could be harder is missile defense systems,"
he said.
Never lacking for confidence, Schilling plans for 38 Studios to create all
sorts of products and someday become a "multibillion dollar entertainment
company."
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Senators Launch New Push for Cybersecurity Bill
Leading senators introduced a cybersecurity bill on Tuesday aimed at
safeguarding the nation's water and power systems, which experts have
warned often only have the most rudimentary protections against hackers.
Senators John Rockefeller and Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats; Susan
Collins, a Republican, and Joseph Lieberman, an independent, drafted a
comprehensive bill that would require the secretary of homeland security
to designate certain infrastructure as critical and compel steps to
safeguard against hackers.
"The prospect of mass casualty is what has propelled us to make
cybersecurity a top priority for this year, to make it an issue that
transcends political parties or ideology," Rockefeller told the Senate on
Tuesday morning.
He noted hackers' success in breaking into sensitive government agencies
and Fortune 500 companies, and warned that air traffic control, rail
switching networks and chemical pipelines could be the next target.
Under the bill, some financial networks, or portions of networks, could be
deemed critical if damage to them could result in catastrophic economic
damage to the country.
The Department of Homeland Security would have the power to penalize
companies that do not put in place appropriate safeguards. However,
companies that have good security and are hacked anyway will not be liable
for damages.
The legislation would also ease information-sharing between the federal
government and the private sector to combat cyber crime and espionage, and
would require the government to take steps to secure its own networks.
Last, it would update recruitment of cybersecurity experts into the
federal workforce.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last year called for the drafting of a
comprehensive cybersecurity bill, and this 207-page bill is the product.
Defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin Corp have been among the
high-profile victims of cyberattacks. Others include Google Inc, Citigroup
and Nasdaq OMX.
Industry has fought back and succeeded in stopping previous cybersecurity
bills, even though experts have warned for years that portions of the U.S.
critical infrastructure - particularly water and electrical plants -
sometimes have woefully inadequate defenses against hackers.
Industry opposes additional regulations as burdensome and argues it should
focus on fighting hackers instead of complying with government rules.
Companies will likely try to weaken the measure in coming weeks and
months, said James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert for the Center for
Strategic and International Studies.
"The spin is that it's burdensome regulation and will hurt innovation. The
counter to that is 'OK, we'll sacrifice national security,'" he said. "It
would be really nice to have something (legal) in place but just because
we need it doesn't mean we're going to get it."
The House of Representatives is considering legislation that overlaps with
the Rockefeller bill on some points.
Republican Representative Mac Thornberry, who oversaw the writing of a
report outlining Republican priorities, supports regulation to require
better cyber defenses for critical companies.
A key difference would be that the companies' usual regulator, rather than
the Department of Homeland Security, would oversee the new regulation.
Experts Urge Stronger Cyber Regulation Bill
Cybersecurity experts are urging senators to close loopholes in
legislation to give the government more power to force critical industries
to make their computer networks more secure.
Two experts are saying the bill could allow many companies to avoid
regulation entirely or drag out the process for up to eight years before
they would actually have to improve their computer security.
The legislation would limit the number of industries subject to regulation
to those in which a cyberattack could cause "an extraordinary number of
fatalities" or a "severe degradation" of national security.
"So an individual infrastructure owner, such as a rural electricity
provider, has no responsibility under this title if it can show that an
undefended cyberattack would only cause an ordinary number of fatalities?"
said Stewart Baker, in testimony prepared for the committee's hearing on
the bill Thursday. "How many dead Americans is that, exactly?"
Baker, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security
who is now with the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson, and James Lewis, a
cybersecurity expert and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, said the bill takes important steps toward
improving computer security.
But they said the measure has been weakened by corporate and other
interests arguing against any attempt at regulation.
By using "terms like mass casualties, mass evacuations, or effects similar
to weapons of mass destruction, we are essentially writing target lists
for our attackers," said Lewis, also in prepared testimony. "They will
attack what we choose not to defend."
The legislation is intended to ensure that computer systems running power
plants and other essential parts of the country's infrastructure are
protected from hackers, terrorists or other criminals.
The Department of Homeland Security, with input from businesses, would
select which companies to regulate, and the agency would have the power
to require better computer security.
U.S. authorities are increasingly alarmed about the constant attacks that
target U.S. government, corporate and personal computer networks and
accounts. And they worry that cybercriminals will try to take over systems
that control the inner workings of water, electrical, nuclear or other
power plants.
The most glaring example of that was the Stuxnet computer worm, which
targeted Iran's nuclear program in 2010, infecting laptops at the Bushehr
nuclear power plant.
Business groups argue that more regulation is not the answer and that any
new mandates will drive up costs without really increasing security.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. and chairman of the Homeland Security panel,
said the bill will better arm the country against enemies and terrorists
who "who would use the Internet against us as surely as they turned
airliners into guided missiles."
And Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the senior Republican on the committee,
said the attacks threaten U.S. economic stability. One study, she said,
estimated that global cybercrime costs as much as $388 billion annually.
During a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Thursday, Gen. Martin
Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the legislation is
needed to help combat a rising threat to the U.S. homeland.
"We can't place enough emphasis on it," he said, adding that there is no
sanctuary in the U.S. that is adequately protected against cyberattacks by
fringe groups and hackers.
Germany Refuses To Sign ACTA Amid Protests
Germany will not sign an international anti-piracy treaty, despite having
already agreed to it in principal, government sources in Berlin said
Friday, February 10.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), initiated by the United
States and Japan, seeks to protect intellectual property rights,
"including infringement taking place in the digital environment."
It was signed by the European Union and 22 of its 27 member states in
January. Germany said at the time it would soon follow suit.
But since January, the treaty has been the subject of protest, mainly
online, by people who say it will require signatory countries to punish
even non-commercial breaches of copyright with criminal prosecution and
jail terms.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to take part in protests in 60
German cities on Saturday, M&C reported, citing DPA.
US Sites Hacked as Objections Grow To Piracy Deal
Opponents of a controversial global copyright treaty counted three
victories Friday as American government websites were hacked and the
Eastern European nations of Poland and Slovenia distanced themselves from
the deal.
Sites belonging to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the National
Consumer Protection Week were vandalized by Anonymous, a loose collection
of cyber rebels who have helped lead the charge against the
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA.
The hackers replaced the sites with profanity-laced statements and a
violent German-language video satirizing the treaty.
At the same time, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday the
country was abandoning plans to ratify the deal. He said he now sees his
earlier support for ACTA as a mistake. "I was wrong," he said at a news
conference.
His announcement came after Slovenia's government also said Friday that
it is halting the ratification of ACTA.
"This agreement is obviously not a matter of understanding, but of major
misunderstanding," Slovenian Education Minister Radovan Zerjav said.
The developments are bad news for industrialized countries such as the
United States, which have pushed ACTA as a way of defending the
entertainment industry and luxury goods manufacturers from pirates and
counterfeiters. American officials spent years negotiating ACTA in an
effort to harmonize intellectual property protection across different
countries.
The goal is to help countries fight everything from fake pharmaceuticals
to pirated music, but grass-roots activists - many of them in Eastern
Europe - have been waging weeks of protests against what they see as moves
intended to clamp down on free expression and Internet privacy.
So far around 20 countries have signed up to the deal, a key step before
ratification. Four EU countries have now backed away from it - Poland,
Slovenia, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic - and its approval at the
European Union level appears increasingly uncertain.
Tusk also said Friday that he sent a letter to the European People's
Party, a center-right group in the European Parliament to which his Civic
Platform belongs, urging it not to back ACTA in its current form.
Back in the United States, the Trade Commission confirmed that the sites
had been compromised, saying in an email that they had been taken down
and wouldn't be brought back "until we're satisfied that any
vulnerability has been addressed."
Anonymous boasted of stealing a large amount of personal data from Trade
Commission employees - including everything from banking statements to
dating website information.
The Trade Commission said that while it was still investigating the hack,
"the nature of the site limits information that could have been
accessed."
MegaUpload Indictment Reveals Site Wasn't That Mega
Looks like the piracy going on over at file sharing site MegaUpload was
less rampant than expected, reveal documents from the site's indictment.
"The file-sharing site claimed to have had more than 180 million
registered users, but in fact, the document says that Megauploads
internal databases show that the site had only 66.6 million as of Jan. 19,
2012," according to The Washington Post's Sarah Halzack. "Furthermore, the
records reveal that only 5.86 million of these users ever uploaded a file
to either Megaupload.com or Megavideo.com, prosecutors said."
The file-uploading site's numbers may look relatively small, but that
doesn't mean there wasn't a good deal of activity from some users. And
those who never uploaded a single file, still partook, feeding off of the
files of power users like "VV," a user detailed in the indictment. Again,
per The Post, "[VV] uploaded approximately 16,950 files to Megauploads
sites. These items were viewed more than 34 million times." Now that's one
mega busy uploader.
Hackers Target Putin's Vote-Monitoring System
Hackers have tried to crash a vast network of Web cameras which Vladimir
Putin has ordered to allay fears of vote-rigging in the March presidential
election, a deputy minister said on Friday.
Putin, facing the biggest protests of his 12-year rule after a disputed
December parliamentary election the opposition said was rigged, ordered
182,000 Web cameras to be installed at the 91,000 polling stations.
As early voting began in the most desolate corners of Russia for sailors
and reindeer herders, Putin inspected a polling station in the Siberian
city of Novosibirsk where the first two cameras went live on the
www.webvybory2012.ru website.
The cameras will stream footage of ballot boxes and vote-counting during
the election to the site, which Putin's supporters hope will take the
sting out of allegations of ballot-stuffing by authorities.
But Deputy Communications Minister Ilya Massukh told Reuters that the
system, operated by state-controlled Rostelecom, had already fallen victim
to regular distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDOS) originating in
Russia.
"We are launching this site ahead of time in order to understand the
nature of the threats," Massukh said. During a DDOS attack a network is
bombarded by so many requests that it eventually crashes.
Putin said theft and vandalism was also a problem.
"The most important thing is that the gear does not get swiped. There have
been such incidents already," said Putin, who in recent weeks has faced
mass protests at which Russians have called on him to step down.
The official demand of the protest leaders, a fragmented group of
politicians, activists, journalists and bloggers, is for a re-run of the
parliamentary election they say was fraudulent. Russia denies the vote was
rigged.
Official results show Putin's ruling party won 49.3 percent of the vote.
Opposition activists have shown dozens of videos shot by volunteers as
evidence of ballot-stuffing.
The clips showed neat stacks of ballots filled in for Putin's party inside
boxes and election commission officials filling in the ballots themselves.
To date 54,000 polling stations have been equipped with cameras. Massukh
said that at 4,000 polling stations in remote places cameras will not be
shown live.
The recording equipment is placed in a safebox and the key is held by
election commission officials.
"This will be the most transparent election in the world," he said.
"Russia can give a lesson in democracy to the world."
The government plans to spend 13 billion roubles ($434 million) on the
system. Critics say cameras are unlikely to prevent election officials
re-writing results lists or mass directives to staff of state
organizations to vote for Putin.
Massukh said election officials will have to count the ballots in front of
the cameras and then read out and show the results to the cameras.
NJ Programmer Freed as NY Court Orders Acquittal
A smiling former Goldman Sachs computer programmer was freed from prison
Friday after a surprise ruling from a federal appeals court reversed his
conviction on charges he stole computer code.
"Justice occasionally works," declared the beaming programmer, Sergey
Aleynikov.
He said he "just jumped all over the place" at 6 a.m., the moment he read
and repeatedly reread an email from his lawyer informing him that the 2nd
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan had reversed his conviction.
The words were, he said, "'We won!'"
The reversal came less than a day after defense lawyer Kevin Marino told a
three-judge panel that Aleynikov was wrongly convicted. The 42-year-old
North Caldwell, N.J., man had already served a year of a
more-than-eight-year prison sentence after a jury convicted him in
December 2010 of stealing trade secrets and transporting stolen property
in interstate and foreign commerce.
Aleynikov said outside court that he looked forward to seeing his family,
including his 8-, 6- and 3-year-old daughters.
"This is such big news to me that I don't have time to think about what
will happen tomorrow," said Aleynikov, dressed in a gray sweat suit and
white sneakers. "Today, it's a victory."
His lawyer said: "I've never felt better in my life."
The highly unusual immediate dismissal of a conviction by the appeals
court came in a case that tested the boundaries of what can be considered
a crime as companies seek to protect their intellectual property from
competitors.
Aleynikov has been in prison since he was sentenced in March. A three-judge
appeals panel heard arguments Thursday, but the judges gave no indication
they would reverse the lower court hours later with a terse, one-paragraph
order. The 2nd Circuit said it would issue a written ruling "in due
course" to explain its decision.
Marino said Aleynikov's immediate reaction when he spoke to him early
Friday was: "There is justice in the world."
"It's justice because Sergey Aleynikov did not commit either of the crimes
with which he was charged," Marino said. "The government's attempt to
stretch this criminal federal statute beyond all recognition resulted in a
grave injustice that put Sergey Aleynikov in prison for a year."
In oral arguments before the 2nd Circuit, Marino called it "ridiculous"
and "preposterous" that his client was facing eight years in prison
because he was found to have information that was not a product that
Goldman Sachs sold in interstate and foreign commerce. A prosecutor had
asked the court to uphold the conviction, saying protection of trade
secrets was the only way companies could retain their technological
advantages.
Prosecutors declined to comment Friday, though they agreed during a court
appearance that Aleynikov could be released on his own recognizance
without conditions while everyone awaited the full appeals court opinion,
which was unlikely to be released for weeks.
Aleynikov, a naturalized U.S. citizen who emigrated from Russia in 1990,
was first arrested in July 2009 as he returned from a trip to Chicago to
the offices of his new employer, Teza Technologies LLC.
Prosecutors accused him of taking trade secrets from Goldman Sachs Group
Inc. in 2008 to help his new company gain an advantage with high-speed
trading. He made $400,000 a year as a vice president at Goldman Sachs. His
move to Teza enabled him to be paid $300,000 annually, with a $700,000
bonus in his first year and a revenue-sharing plan that would have added
$150,000 annually.
During a two-week trial, Marino told jurors that his client was merely
trying to copy parts of the company's software that were taken from public
software codes. He acknowledged that Aleynikov had violated the company's
confidentiality agreements but said that was a civil matter.
The trial brought into focus sophisticated computer programs that use
mathematical formulas to execute scores of trades in short periods of time
after evaluating moment-to-moment developments in the markets.
The government said Goldman Sachs makes millions of dollars a year in
profits from high-frequency trading and carries a competitive advantage
over rivals because of the speed of its computer programs.
At sentencing, Aleynikov said he very much regretted "the foolish decision
to download information before I left Goldman Sachs," though he added that
only some of the information he took was proprietary to the company.
He said he "never meant to cause Goldman any harm, and I haven't acted with
malice to anyone at the bank."
After he was freed, Aleynikov said he did not know what he would do next,
though he noted that he believed his skills were up to date. He said he
did not have access to a computer in the prison but continued to write
computer programs "in my head."
Typosquatting Sites Wikapedia and Twtter Have Been Shut Down
Two fake websites posing as Wikipedia and Twitter have been kicked off the
Internet and fined £100,000 ($156,000) each.
The companies behind typosquatting websites capitalize on typos - they
register domain names that are similar to highly trafficked website names,
and are usually missing a letter or have common misspellings of popular
sites.
Typosquatting websites such as Wikapedia and Twtter are popping up on
the web to trick unsuspecting web users into clicking on fake ads that
claim the user has won a prize. In the case of these two sites, to receive
a prize, like an iPad, people were asked for their cellphone number. The
site sent a text with a pin and more texts with survey questions. Each
time a person responded to the survey questions via texts he or she was
charged £1.50.
PhonepayPlus, the UK watchdog body responsible for regulating premium rate
telephone services that booted Wikapedia and Twtter from the web,
wrote in a statement:
"In both cases, the landing pages for the squatted sites looked like
the genuine sites the consumer was searching for - the squatted sites
used the same logos, colouring and fonts.
"These squatted sites informed consumers that they had won or could
claim a prize, such as an iPad. In both cases, consumers were given the
impression that to enter or claim they simply had to enter their contact
details and answer some questions."
The companies, Amsterdam-based R&D Media Europe and Unavalley BV, fined for
the Wikapedia and Twtter sites, were ordered to repay those who were
charged for responding to survey questions, since pricing was not clearly
stated on the prize ads.
Yahoo-Alibaba Talks Falling Apart
Talks between Yahoo Inc and China's Alibaba Group over the U.S. Internet
giant's Asian assets have hit an impasse, throwing their plans for a $17
billion tax-free asset swap into question, according to sources briefed on
the situation.
The snag in negotiations came on the same day that activist investor Daniel
Loeb, of hedge fund ThirdPoint, sought to install his own slate of
directors on Yahoo's board, further highlighting the turmoil engulfing the
one-time Web pioneer.
Loeb, who has opposed Yahoo's previous efforts to strike a minority
investment deal with private equity, disclosed plans to nominate former NBC
Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, along with himself and two others, for Yahoo's
board in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission
on Tuesday.
A collapse of the proposed Asian asset deal - referred to as a cash-rich
split-off - would mark the latest setback for an erstwhile Internet leader
struggling to turn its business around and appease unhappy shareholders.
Yahoo, whose revenue slid by more than a fifth last year, brought in former
PayPal President Scott Thompson as chief executive in January, five months
after Carol Bartz was fired.
Two people briefed on the situation described the deal as effectively dead
in the water - noting the unreasonable terms sought by Yahoo during talks
in Hong Kong and a disconnect between Yahoo's negotiating team and its
strategic stakeholders.
Alibaba Group, whose Chinese e-commerce unit Alibaba.com is listed in Hong
Kong, and Japan's Softbank Corp, which owns around 30 percent of Alibaba,
planned to seek clarity on the matter from Yahoo's Thompson, one of those
sources said.
"They (Yahoo) left town knowing how everybody felt ... Alibaba and
Softbank are going to be reaching out to the new CEO to get clarity on
what the heck happened," said the source.
Yahoo appeared to see things differently. The company had not been
informed that the tax-free deal was officially off the table, and it
remained committed to continuing negotiations, according to one of the
sources familiar with the matter.
Yahoo representatives including Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse returned
to the United States late on Monday after a week of negotiations in Hong
Kong, and another call was set for this week, that source said.
Yahoo and Alibaba officials declined to comment.
The sources said Yahoo and its Asian partners could still strike another,
simpler and taxable, deal, but there was no agreement yet on the price at
which Yahoo should sell.
One of the sources close to the matter said Yahoo was not going to revisit
the price of the deal, even though Alibaba's value may have risen while
the talks were going on, and any increase could influence whether the deal
on the table made sense for Yahoo.
None of the sources wanted to be named in this article due to the
sensitive nature of the private talks.
Yahoo shares closed down 4.7 percent at $15.36 on Tuesday, the stock's
biggest one-day percentage drop in 16 weeks.
"I think the deal's either dead or it's going to take a lot longer to
complete, which means we don't have a near term catalyst; hence the
sell-off," said Brett Harriss, an analyst with Gabelli & Co.
The deal would have seen the return of Yahoo's slices of Alibaba and Yahoo
Japan back to those companies, in exchange for unspecified assets.
Investors had hoped Yahoo, after years of foot-dragging, would finally
arrange for the sale of its Asian assets, considered among the most
valuable parts of its portfolio.
AllThingsDigital, which initially reported the snag in the negotiations on
Tuesday, cited one source as saying discussions "completely halted" after
negotiators from Yahoo - whose chairman, Roy Bostock, is due to step down
and whose CEO is barely a month into the job - changed tack on what they
wanted from the deal. The report gave no details.
It was unclear what exactly had caused the sudden impasse in negotiations,
roughly two months after the various parties had agreed to basic terms for
a deal.
A third source familiar with the talks said Yahoo's negotiators had a
change of heart, though it was unclear why.
"Over the last few days in Hong Kong, it became evident that they don't
really have a desire to do this deal," that source said, dismissing
speculation both sides might have split on valuation terms agreed in
December. "A cash-rich split appears to be toast."
The slightly different interpretations over the current state of the deal
by people familiar with the matter raised the possibility that the public
airing of the latest snag could be a negotiating tactic.
"It could be a negotiating ploy by either side, or it really could be a
breakdown in negotiations," said Gabelli's Harriss, noting friction in the
relationship between Yahoo and Alibaba.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma has tried to buy back the 40 percent of his
company owned by Yahoo several times in recent years, only to be rebuffed
by Yahoo.
The rocky relationship between the companies came to a head last May when
it was revealed that Alibaba had abruptly handed Alipay - one of Alibaba's
crown jewels - to a company controlled by Ma, apparently without Yahoo's
knowledge.
"I find it very hard to believe that Alibaba and Softbank will just walk
away," said Ryan Jacob, chairman and chief investment officer of the Jacob
Funds.
If the companies can't agree deal terms, Jacob speculated Alibaba might
team up with private equity investors in the United States and seek to
acquire Yahoo outright - allowing Alibaba to regain its shares from Yahoo,
while private equity could take control of Yahoo's U.S.-based Internet
business.
"Having U.S. partners just makes the most logical sense, because they're
going to need help on financing, and in the long term they really don't
want the core Yahoo business anyway," said Jacob, whose firm owns shares
in Yahoo.
Analysts say Yahoo failed to take aggressive action in past years to
reverse a decline in advertising revenue in the face of competition from
Google Inc and Facebook.
This month, Bostock announced he and three other directors would step down,
following co-founder Jerry Yang out the door. Yang was excoriated for
turning down a rich Microsoft Corp acquisition bid in 2008.
ThirdPoint's Loeb said the recently announced changes to Yahoo's board,
including Yahoo's announcement of two new board members, do not put the
company on "the right track."
Yahoo fired back with a statement on Tuesday that it was disappointing that
Loeb "has chosen a potentially disruptive path, just as the company is
moving forward under new leadership."
Alibaba has received fully underwritten commitments from six banks for a $3
billion loan it would use to buy back part of the Yahoo-held stake, sources
told Reuters' LPC service. The loan could be put in place within days, with
Alibaba.com expected then to make an announcement to the Hong Kong stock
exchange, where its shares have been suspended since last Thursday.
FBI Could Take Down Internet for Millions on March 8
The Federal Bureau of Investigation may soon be forced to shut down a
number of key Domain Name System (DNS) servers, which would cut Internet
access for millions of Web users around the world, reports BetaBeat. The
DNS servers were installed by the FBI last year, in an effort to stop the
spread of a piece of malware known as DNSCharger Trojan. But the court
order that allowed the set up of the replacement servers expires on
March 8.
In November of last year, authorities arrested six men in Estonia for the
creation and spread of DNSCharger, which reconfigures infected computers
Internet settings, and re-routes users to websites that contain malware, or
other illegal sites. DNSCharger also blocks access to websites that might
offer solutions for how to rid the computer of its worm, and often comes
bundled with other types of malicious software.
By the time the FBI stepped in, DNSCharger had taken over computers in more
than 100 countries, including half-a-million computers in the US alone. To
help eradicate the widespread malware, the FBI replaced infected servers
with new, clean servers, which gave companies and individuals with infected
computers time to clean DNSCharger off their machines.
Unfortunately, DNSCharger is still running on computers "at half of the
Fortune 500 companies," and at "27 out of 55 major government entities,"
reports cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs. These computers rely on the
FBI-installed DNS servers to access the Web. But if the court order is not
extended, the FBI will be legally required to remove the clean servers,
which would cut off the Internet for users still infected with DNSCharger.
Companies or other agencies that are unsure whether their systems are
infected with DNSCharger can get free assistance here. And private users
can find out if they are infected using instructions provided here.
Facebook Dabbles With Validating User Identity
Facebook on Thursday began testing a way for celebrities, journalists,
athletes and others with massive followings to have their identities
validated at the globally popular online social network.
"The new process enables people to verify their identities by submitting a
government issued ID," Facebook said in an email response to an AFP
inquiry.
"Once verified, they'll also have the option to more prominently display
an alternate name (nickname, maiden name, byline, etc.) on their timelines
in addition to their real name."
The validation option was being rolled out as a minor update to the
Subscribe feature at Facebook for people with large numbers of followers.
The benefits of confirming people's identities online have been touted by
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg at the company's developers
conferences.
Twitter has long validated accounts of high-profile users of the
one-to-many text messaging service as a way to instill confidence in the
reliability of "tweets."
The New, New Twitter Now Available to Everyone
The rollout of Twitters new and enhanced website is complete and is now
available to all Twitter users.
"Its been available for mobile phones, via the mobile web, Twitter for
iPhone and Twitter for Android, and weve been rolling it out steadily to
Twitter.com. Now, everyone has access to it," said Twitter in a February 16
post on its blog.
The latest version of Twitter was first introduced in December 2011. The
new version of the site was designed to provide an overhaul of essential
features and to make it easier for new users to start interacting on the
site.
Key features of the new design include the ability to click tweets within
your stream to reveal an expanded timeline of photos, videos, retweets and
favorites; a Connect tab to see who has followed you, mentioned you or
retweeted your tweets; a Discover tab which presents a personalized stream
of interesting content; and expanded profile and brand pages.
Facebook began the worldwide rollout of expanded profile pages, called
Timeline, in December. Earlier this week Facebook quietly introduced
verified accounts for selected prominent public figures and provided them
with an option to list a pseudonym which will appear alongside their birth
name on their profile.
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