Thursday, December 19

Tag: USA

Dell to Cut 2,000-3,000 Jobs as EMC Deal Closes
News

Dell to Cut 2,000-3,000 Jobs as EMC Deal Closes

Dell Technologies, which completed the acquisition of data storage company EMC Corp on Wednesday, will cut 2,000-3,000 jobs, Bloomberg reported. Most of the job cuts will be in the United States, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The layoffs will be mainly in supply chain, marketing and general and administrative divisions, Bloomberg said, adding that the combined company has 140,000 employees. "As is common with deals of this size, there will be some overlaps we will need to manage and where some employee reduction will occur," Dell spokesman Dave Farmer said. He, however, declined to comment specifically on the report. Dell, which was taken private by founder Michael Dell along with private equity firm Silver Lake Management in 2013, agre...
World’s Largest Piracy Website Torrent Kickass Founder Arrested
News

World’s Largest Piracy Website Torrent Kickass Founder Arrested

Founder of KickassTorrents, the world's largest piracy website has been arrested by the USA. The 30-year-old Artem Vaulin, from Ukraine, was arrested today in Poland and is charged with criminal copyright infringement and money laundering. In addition, a federal court in Chicago has ordered the seizure of several KAT domain names. With millions of unique visitors per day KickassTorrents (KAT) has become the most-used torrent site on the Internet, beating even The Pirate Bay. Today, however, the site has run into a significant roadblock after U.S. authorities announced the arrest of the site’s alleged owner. In a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, the owner is charged with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit mone...
US Regulators Investigating Alibaba’s Financial Model
CHINA

US Regulators Investigating Alibaba’s Financial Model

U.S. regulators are investigating Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's accounting practices to determine whether they violated federal laws, the Chinese e-commerce giant said, sending its shares tumbling nearly 7 percent on Wednesday. Alibaba said the Securities and Exchange Commission launched the investigation earlier this year. Questions about its growth rate and its relations with affiliated companies have dogged the firm for years. It was not immediately clear what prompted the SEC investigation. Alibaba said that it was cooperating with the authorities and that the SEC advised it the investigation should not be seen as an indication the company had violated federal securities laws. The SEC focused on the accounting for logistics firm Cainiao Network, which is around 47 percent-owned ...
Qatar Based Al-Jazeera Network Shutsdown in America
BUSINESS

Qatar Based Al-Jazeera Network Shutsdown in America

Al-Jazeera America, which couldn't attract an audience to another cable news network in the United States, signs off tonight following a three-hour live farewell designed to highlight its work since a 2013 launch. The farewell begins at 6 pm (local time) and will be repeated immediately before Al-Jazeera America goes dark. Local cable and satellite operators will decide what replaces the channel in their markets. The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network announced in January that it was shutting down the US-based offshoot, calling it an economic decision. Backed by a deep-pocketed parent company, Al-Jazeera America began with lofty goals of offering serious-minded news and won some awards for its work. But when few people watched and oil prices plummeted, there was a limit to how much t...
White House Declines To Support Encryption Legislation – Sources
USA

White House Declines To Support Encryption Legislation – Sources

The White House is declining to offer public support for draft legislation that would empower judges to require technology companies such as Apple Inc to help law enforcement crack encrypted data, sources familiar with the discussions said. The decision all but assures that the years-long political impasse over encryption will continue even in the wake of the high-profile effort by the Department of Justice to force Apple to break into an iPhone used by a gunman in last December's shootings in San Bernardino, California. President Obama suggested in remarks last month that he had come around to the view that law enforcement agencies needed to have a way to gain access to encrypted information on smartphones. But the administration remains deeply divided on the issue, the sources s...
The End of Superpower: Internet Set to Cut Off US Oversight Role
USA

The End of Superpower: Internet Set to Cut Off US Oversight Role

A plan to end a key US government oversight role on the Internet is on track for completion this year, the head of the online address gatekeeper said, in a symbolic move towards asserting the independence of the web. While the transition will not change how the Internet works, it would help reassure users, businesses and governments about its integrity, according to Fadi Chehade, chief executive of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Chehade told AFP the transition plan being prepared since early 2014 will be delivered to the US government in February, and that it could take place on September 30, a year later than originally planned. If the US government approves the plan, "then the contract between ICANN and the US government which is set ...
White House, Silicon Valley to hold summit on militants’ social media use: Report
USA

White House, Silicon Valley to hold summit on militants’ social media use: Report

Senior White House officials and U.S. intelligence and law enforcement figures will meet with Silicon Valley executives on Friday to discuss how to counter the use of social media by militant groups, sources familiar with the meeting said on Thursday. In an escalation of pressure on technology firms to do more to combat online propaganda from groups such as Islamic State, the meeting follows attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, that underscored the role played by social media companies such as Twitter Inc, Alphabet Inc's YouTube and Facebook Inc. Invited participants include White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, presidential counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, National Intelligence Director James Clapper an...
China says tech firms have nothing to fear from anti-terror law
CHINA

China says tech firms have nothing to fear from anti-terror law

Beijing/Reuters- Technology companies have nothing to fear from China's new anti-terror law which aims to prevent and probe terror activities and does not affect their copyright, China's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, rebuffing U.S. criticism as unwarranted. The draft anti-terrorism law has caused concern in Western capitals as it could require technology firms to install "back doors" in products or to hand over sensitive information such as encryption keys to the government. The law is currently having another reading at the latest session of the standing committee for China's largely rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress, which ends on Sunday. This week, the U.S. State Department said it had expressed "serious concerns" to China about the law which would d...