Summary: Internet abuse stories from throughout the week

GIVEN how close Microsoft is to pharmaceutical companies, this news was rather amusing:

Cybercrime affiliates of unlicensed pharmaceutical websites have begun moving on from attacks purely designed to poison Google search engine results, and are now targetting Microsoft's web properties.

According to this, there are other new sources of threat to Windows:

From serving malicious ads to poisoning search engine results for recently deceased actress Brittany Murphy, rogue antivirus operations have been going strong all year long.

The authorities have begun censoring the Internet in Australia, just like the neighbours up north. Someone has created a Web site to protest, only to be censored using the same malicious mechanism that this Web site was meant to denounce. Here is the latest update on this:

On Fri 18-12-2009 auDA issued a notice giving us 3 hours to provide evidence of our eligibility to hold stephenconroy.com.au and related domain names. We asked for reasonable time to prepare and make representations on our eligibility but auDA refused to grant this, insisting we reply within the 3 hour window.

Kate Lundy, a government representative from Australia, confirms that they are still treating adults like children, but she does not seem to have a problem with that. They are censoring the hell out of the Internet (in a secretive fashion) under the pretext of "saving the children".

Lundy writes:

To satisfy the policy objective of a mandatory filter for children, active acknowledgement that the subscriber is aware the government strongly recommends a filtered option for homes where children use the internet could be a part of this active (mandatory) choice.

If it's "mandatory", then it is no longer a "choice". They pretend to be polite when they gag the public. How sad. ⬆

"What really worries me is that the courts might choose a muddled half-measure—by approving an interpretation of “indecent” that permits the doctor program or a statement of the decency rules, but prohibits some of the books that any child can browse through in the public library. Over the years, as the Internet replaces the public library, some of our freedom of speech will be lost."

--Richard Stallman, 1996