The controversial cybercrime law has been suspended by the Philippines’ top court after numerous protests were made because it affects freedom of speech.

Earlier this month as covered by our blog post here, we discussed the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 which came into power.

It was made with good intent to help prevent online child pornography, identity theft, and spamming as all these issues raised “legitimate concerns” about criminal and abusive behaviour online. The act is also designed to prevent cybersex, defined as sexually explicit chat over the internet – often involving “cam girls” performing sexual acts in front of webcams for internet clients. But after recent protests a 120-day suspension to revise the law is now in place.

A total of 15 petitions were filed to the Supreme Court questioning the legality of the law. As of now there is a temporary restraining order preventing the act from being enforced. The maximum punishment for breaking the Cybercrime Law was punishable by up to 12 years in jail.

Even though there is a temporary suspension, protests to continue as the legislation could be used to target government critics and crack down on freedom of speech. Under the new act, a person found guilty of libellous comments online, including comments made on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter or blogs, could be fined or jailed. Government officials would also have had new powers to search and seize data from people’s online accounts.

In a statement, Human Rights Watch’s Asia director Brad Adams welcomed the move by the court, but urged it to “now go further by striking down this seriously flawed law”.

After many UK networks gathering for a meeting it has been announced by the mobile firm EE that the 4G network will launch 30 October.

The plans had been laid out for some time, but announcements had been held off about a finalised date while peace talks between rival network operators commenced.

With rival companies were as to be expected, unhappy about other companies gaining an unfair advantage by launching the 4G network before they do.

O2 and Vodafone have now agreed that they would not pursue legal action to block EE’s roll-out.

In return they have been promised that officials will accelerate the process to free airwaves so they can offer their own high-speed data services. Their 4G networks are due to launch in spring 2013.

EE’s network will cover 16 cities this year. The firm’s target is be able to offer the facility to 98% of the UK’s population by 2014.

EE’s chief executive Olaf Swantee said: “This is a significant milestone for the United Kingdom, and for the people and businesses of our country who will now be able to enjoy the huge advantages of super-fast 4G technology for the first time”.

In recent news a new controversial law developed in the hopes of combating against cybercrime in the Philippines has come into effect. With it’s pass it has raised countless protests and concerns from citizens and media alike fearing censorship.

Named as the “Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012” it was signed last month on September 12 by the Filipino president. It’s intent is to try and stop cybersex, online child pornography, identity theft and spamming according to governmental officials. But the part which people are protesting against is the 12 year prison sentence which comes along side it.

“Questions have been raised about the constitutionality of certain provisions of the act. We recognise and respect efforts not only to raise these issues in court, but to propose amendments to the law in accordance with constitutional processes”

The act has been reported of have had at least eight large court cases raised already from large groups challenging its constitutionality and have been filed against the Philippines high court. Fears continued to rise about it being used by the government to crack down on critics freedom of speech. Under the new act, a person found guilt of libellous comments online, including comments made on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter or blogs, could be fined or jailed. But despite efforts made by protesters the act took place.

The turmoil that has been created because of this Act have lead activists to hacking into government websites, large social media campaigns being support across the globe with journalists holding rallies and citizens blacking out their social media avatars on Facebook and Twitter.

With the added power from the Government to search and seize any data from people’s online accounts, it has been questioned by numerous groups including a US-based Human Rights watch saying it is a clear violation of free speech.

“The cybercrime law needs to be repealed or replaced,” said the group’s Asia director, Brad Adams.
“It violates Filipinos’ rights to free expression and it is wholly incompatible with the Philippine government’s obligations under international law.”
The full Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 can be found here

Are you having problems with your computer? Is it running slow and not at the peak performance that it once was at? Has your PC had it? Then MAD IT!

Over time PC’s get clogged up with both dust and unwanted software. Both of these cause unnecessary strain on the computer system causing it to slow down and run at poor speeds.

Cleaning out dust may sound as simple as cleaning anything else but there is sensitive components inside a computer which can easily get damaged if not done correctly, why take the risk when you can let a professional take care of the work for you?

As we move further into the digital age more and more documents are being stored on computers as well as the increase in online banking, thus making it vitally important to make sure that the computer is secure from any unwanted information stealing malware.

Computer Repairs Halesowen

Like all machinery, over time things wear, systems get clogged up and things eventually break. Has this happened to your computer, then we can help. With our No fix No Fee solution we can give you peace of mind that your computer is in professional hands. With both onsite and in our local Halesowen workshop we are tailored to suit you.

PC Health Check Halesowen

Here at MAD Computer Solutions we offer a professional PC Heath Check service, which includes but is not limited to:

• Virus, Malware and Adware check & removal to ensure a clean PC.
• Dust removal to make sure your machine isn’t overheating
• Microsoft updates ensuring all your software is up to date
• Hard Drive checks to remove any errors
• Defragmentation to free up wasted space
• System diagnosis
• Uninstall old and unused programs to speed up your PC

Remote Support Halesowen

Sometimes remote support can be quicker, more efficient and cheaper for software based problems. Rather than visiting our workshop in Halesowen or have an engineer come for a site visit, a faster solution can be delivered to you through the use of remote internet support.

Data Recovery Halesowen

Your data is precious to you, from work to home life, from memories to essays we at MAD Computer Solutions understand that when the worst comes to the worst, loosing your data can be saddening. With many nearby schools and colleagues in the Halesowen area it can be sickening to loose work which you’ve spent hours on only for a computer error to loose it for you. With our specialist software we can attempt to get your software back with our No Fix No Fee guarantee.

Did you know that the time of the day can dramatically affect your download and upload speeds for the internet?

Many Internet Services Providers conveniently ignore this factor when advertising their download speeds and also their tests are sometimes from right next to the exchange. This distance will falsify the speeds obtained if you live further away as distance matters.

A graph obtained from the BBC using uSwitch’s information is shown below.

“Not many internet users enjoy the maximum headline broadband speeds offered by providers, and certainly not during the working week,”

The graph quite clearly shows a difference in 35%, The speed has been proven differ from an average of 35% up to 70% when comparing the early hours of the morning to peak time.

Almost half of broadband users are now on packages with advertised speeds above 10Mbps but the average broadband speed is 6.8Mbps according to Ofcom.

So in conclusion, when checking what deals are available for your internet packages, make sure the package you opt for will give you the speeds they advertise during peak time. Otherwise you could be paying for a service you won’t receive.

Telephone scams and fraud are commonplace at the moment with many cake companies pretending to be legitimate official companies such as microsoft or apple in an attempt to get money from you. Recently there has been a wave of scams that have been targeting PC users. They will claim to be from Microsoft and will phone you up telling you that your have errors or a virus on your computer which needs to be checked.

After this they would attempt to convince you to install software to allow them access to your computer, from here they would show you your log files and say that all of the errors are serious. The event viewer which they would use records all the computers logs, it’s natural that it has all the errors recorded, even from web pages not being displayed.

Once they have access to your computer they will then install malicious software onto your computer which can then track your keyboard inputs so that they can easily acquire your bank details or failing this they might invoice you for the fake work that they have done and request your bank details.

We at Mad Computer Solutions highly recommend that your inform those you know about the scams as we are well aware that numerous businesses and individuals have fallen for it already.

If you have let them onto your computer unknowingly it’s also a good idea to keep a track on your bank account finances over the next few months in the event that your bank security is compromised. Additionally we can offer a service to remove any potentially unwanted software which they may have installed onto your computer.

Remember: Microsoft Microsoft will never ask you to provide your user name, password, date of birth, country, credit card number, or any other personal information. Additionally Microsoft do not perform unsolicited phone calls to help fix your computer.

If on the unfortunate chance your or a friend or relative has been caught out by one of these scams and you think your PC may have likely been compromised, then please feel free to contact us using our Contact Form. We will perform a thorough check up on your computer to ensure that there is no residual software on your computer that may harm or steal your data.

Update – These calls do not only impersonate Microsoft, they have also been caught impersonating a company called Alien Touch.

Not quite what you would think, a harmless chunk of code labelled as “big boobs” can cause quite the controversy for one of the worlds leading computing companies, Microsoft.
In recent news a small hexadecimal string “0xB1GBOOB5” was discovered when when developers of the Linux kernel found it in a piece of software which helps a Microsoft program with with Linux open source software.

The piece of code executed every time that Microsoft program ran a virtual version of Linux.
“Somone (sic) was trying to be funny, I guess” as said by Kernel hacker Paolo Bonzini.
Microsoft was deeply embarrised by the mistake and quickly made a statement:
“We thank the community for reporting this issue and apologise for the offensive string,”

Also adding that they had prepared a patch that would change the spelling of the string in an update to come. Ironically the first form of the code, as pointed out by developer Dr Matthew Garrett was spelt as “0X0B00B135”, a rough form of letters and numbers which translates to “boobies”.
“Puerile sniggering at breasts contributes to the continuing impression that software development is a boys’ club where girls aren’t welcome,” had left speculation of possible sexism within the world of computing as noted by Dr Garrett.

The discovery of the string and the comments rasied by Dr Garrett have left a large debate on the Linux mailing list about whether use of the string was sexist and how male developers should conduct themselves. On Dr Garrett’s blog he questioned how easy it would to change the string considering that numerous services including Microsoft’s Azure cloud service are believed to make extensive use of it.

In early June, Microsoft suffered another embarrassment over ‘”vulgar” language used during a song and dance routine at a company conference.

It’s always a good idea to keep web browsers up to date as flaws are fixed and new features to improve your web experience are added. Outdated browsers can pose security risks such as the numerous exploits that are out there for Internet Explorer 6.

Internet Explorer:

Help -> About Internet Explorer
The best way to check for Internet Explorer updates is to check via the windows update tool.

Firefox:

Help -> About Mozilla Firefox
A nice feature that’s in Firefox is that when you go to check the version, it will automatically search for an update for you.

Google Chrome:

Click the Spanner in the top right corner -> About Google Chrome.
A nice feature that’s in Chrome is that when you go to check the version, it will automatically search for an update for you.

Opera:

Help -> About Opera
If you want to update Opera the update feature is in Help -> Check for Updates

If you find that you can’t find the help menu, press the alt key while in your browser and it should unveil a toolbar.

List of latest versions as of (July 23, 2012)

Internet Explorer – 9.0.8112.16421
Firefox – 14.0.1
Google Chrome – 20.0.1132.57
Opera – 12.00
Safari – 5.1.7

Want to find out more about how to check versions or update a browser that’s not featured here? Feel free to request it through our Contact Form.