Federal government shuts down file-sharing site over accusations of piracy

File-sharing site Megaupload.com was shut down today, and federal prosecutors charged its founder and several company executives with violating piracy laws. The indictment accuses Megaupload of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated content. The indictment was unsealed a day after mass protests over the SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills, after which the legislation lost […]

Researchers: Kill spam e-mails by choking off scammers' cash

With billions of junk e-mails floating around the global Internet, it seems like our inboxes are forever flooded with unwanted spam. But researchers may have identified a spammers’ Achilles heel in that could bring an end to those annoying messages that hawk cheap prescription drugs and other knock-off goods. The New York Times reported that computer scientists at two universities […]