Archive for January, 2012

Megaupload closure hits legitimate users

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Following Megaupload being temporarily shut down, it now looks like many other file sharing websites are shutting down world wide due to a US Government led crackdown on piracy.

Unfortunately this is hitting legitimate users of these websites who are now unable to access their files.

Steve Su, an academic in Perth was caught out by the closure of Megaupload.

“It’s like confiscating everyone’s mobile phone because terrorists used them,” he said. “I don’t think it’s correct to penalise the technology because, based on that logic, shouldn’t the internet be taken down, as this is how people infringe copyright?”

You can read more over at stuff.co.nz

Trans-Tasman cable agreement made

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Southern Cross Cable has cut the price it charges for transferring internet traffic to and from New Zealand by almost 50%. The announcement came hours after a plan for a rival trans-Tasman cable took another step towards happening.

The rival cable would be owned by Axin and run by Kordia, a New Zealand state-owned enterprise.

Marketing director Ross Pfeffer, of Southern Cross Cable has said the timing was ”totally coincidental”.

You can read more over at stuff.co.nz

Email turns 40

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

It’s been 40 years (and a week or two) since email as we know it was invented.

Here’s  a brief extract on the history of email taken from stuff.co.nz:

“Internal messaging systems have existed since the 1960s but in 1971 Tomlinson was helping build ARPANET for the US Department of Defence and laying the foundations of the modern internet. Tomlinson needed an easy way to send electronic messages between the various computers hooked up to ARPANET. He chose @ – generally referred to as the ”at” symbol – to designate that a message was intended for a specific user ”at” a specific organisation. The email protocol continued to develop but, for the next 20 years, it was restricted to academic and military use.

The internet was opened up for commercial use in the 1990s and email went mainstream.”