MySpace agrees to safety plan

A coalition of law enforcement authorities and representatives from social networking site MySpace.com gathered yesterday morning to unveil an extensive plan for ensuring the safety of minors on the Internet, reports News.com.

Under the agreement, MySpace has pledged to work with the attorneys general on a set of principles to combat harmful material on social networking sites (pornography, harassment, cyber-bullying, and identity theft, among other issues). It has also agreed to better educate parents and schools about online threats, cooperate with law enforcement officials around the country, as well as develop new technology for age and identity verification on social networking sites.

"Today's announcement is a landmark step forward in providing new protections for teenage members of social networking sites such as MySpace," Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace's chief security officer, said at a press conference.

Toshiba, unwilling to concede defeat in the next-generation-DVD battle, said yesterday it would launch an aggressive advertising campaign to promote its HD-DVD players and slash prices by about 50%, says USA Today.

Entry-level players now start at about $150, down from about $300.

The consumer electronics maker said in a statement that it would step up marketing of the players. It provided few details but said the ads would run on television, in print and online.

A sophisticated hacking scheme seen early last year is affecting an increasing number of Web servers, including one owned by a major online advertising company, Finjan Software's CTO said yesterday, reports PC World.

It appears a single gang is behind the attacks, since the malicious software it spreads is storing login and password details on one server in Spain, said Yuval Ben-Itzhak. Finjan is trying to get the Internet service provider to shut it down, he said.

A Web server of an online advertising company that serves 14 million banner ads to other Web sites has also been hacked, Ben-Itzhak said. This means the PCs of those who visit a legitimate site hosting a malicious banner ad could potentially be infected if their computers are not patched, he said.

Microsoft ended 2007 on a down note, with widespread problems plaguing its Xbox Live online gaming service through the final week of the year and into January, says Gamespot.

While some gamers could not log in to the service or play games online, they could pass the time by reading frequent Xbox Live status on the blog of the service's programming director, Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb.

Among the updates Hryb gave was word that the problems with Xbox Live were due to the increased server strain associated with a slew of new 360 owners powering up and logging on. That explanation may come back to haunt Microsoft, as three disgruntled subscribers in Texas sued the company, saying it knew of the coming increase in Xbox Live users and failed to account for it.