Facebook no longer supports a controversial federal cybersecurity bill that would let U.S. companies share personal information with government agencies in ways currently prohibited by privacy laws.

The social-networking company had previously applauded the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, which was reintroduced last month. Facebook Vice President Joel Kaplan wrote a letter (PDF) last February to Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, "to commend you on your legislation," and Rogers sent out his own press release noting Facebook's "strong support" for the bill.

But then groups including the American Civil Liberties … Read more

Two cryptography scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have won the 2012 Turing Award for pioneering ways to make online transactions secure, the Association for Computing Machinery announced today.

Scientists Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali were recognized for laying the "foundations of modern theoretical cryptography," which lead to the development of technology that is now standard in security, like encryption and digital signatures, according to ACM.

The prestigious award, named after British mathematician Alan M. Turing, comes with a $250,000 cash prize provided by Intel and Google. Turing is known as a pioneer of modern computing … Read more

It's not exactly a secret where President Obama stands on a controversial Republican-backed cybersecurity bill: he's already promised to veto it.

But a cadre of Internet activists opposed to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act nevertheless created a petition to the president asking him to "stop CISPA" -- and it has crossed the 100,000-signature threshold necessary to secure a response from the administration.

In reality, there's little Obama can do to stop CISPA that he hasn't already done. The administration offered a stark warning in last year's veto threat, which talked … Read more

Sometimes here at Technically Incorrect, one has to operate with eyes wide shut. This is one of those times.

For I have been forwarded an infographic about various Internet searches around the world related to online porn and ordered to discuss it. By someone who, no doubt, is wearing extremely slippery leather.

This infographic claims to show the most popular search terms related to porn that are entered around the world, and I am grateful to BuzzFeed for buzzing me into it.

It was prepared by PornMD, a search engine of which I had previously been unaware. This is not … Read more

Aaron Swartz, the Internet activist who committed suicide while facing the possibility of a felony criminal conviction, was prosecuted under a law that was never intended to cover what he was accused of doing.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984 dealt only with bank and defense-related intrusions. But over the years, thanks to constant pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, the scope of the law slowly crept outward.

So by the time Swartz was arrested in 2011, the tough federal statute meant to protect our national defense secrets covered everything from Bradley Manning's offenses to … Read more

Several visits to bars when I was 13 taught me a simple thing: it's rarely good to insult someone who's larger and more muscular than you are.

The Web, though, offers some theoretical protection from this maxim. The object of your bile doesn't know who you are.

There again, they could find out. Which is what British boxer Curtis Woodhouse decided to do after a particular annoying human being mocked him on Twitter.

Woodhouse, you see, had just lost a fight for the English light-welterweight title. As so often seems to happen in this sport, the decision … Read more

National governments are increasingly purchasing surveillance devices manufactured by a small number of corporate suppliers and using them to control dissidents, spy on journalists, and violate human rights, the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders warns in a new report released this afternoon.

The group's 2013 report for the first time names five private-sector companies "Corporate Enemies of the Internet" for their choice to become "digital mercenaries" and sell surveillance and censorship technology to authoritarian regimes.

"If these companies decided to sell to authoritarian regimes, they must have known that their products could be used … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--If there's one man in the world who can convince thousands of people to take off their pants in the subway, to follow the disembodied instructions of a downloaded MP3, or to high-five a stranger on an escalator, it's Charlie Todd.

The brainchild behind Improv Everywhere, a New York-based "prank collective" that has been culture jamming society since 2001, Todd knows a thing or two about how to get a group of perfect strangers involved in something very unexpected and very funny.

Over the years, Improv Everywhere has grown from Todd and a couple of … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas -- SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk wowed a capacity SXSW crowd here today with the first public showing of a video of a rocket capable of blasting off and then returning safely and gently to the ground. And he later added he hopes to one day travel (perhaps one-way) to Mars.

The video of the company's Grasshopper rocket, filmed just about a day-and-a-half ago, demonstrates one of SpaceX's key propositions: That it can develop reusable rockets at a fraction of the cost of a traditional NASA mission, and that it can bring them back down … Read more