services

Secret Service urges users to report threatening tweets

With less than two weeks to go before the November 6 presidential election, things are getting heated out there on social-media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter said that Monday's third presidential debate generated 6.5 million tweets, on top of the 21 million churned out during the previous debates (two presidential and one vice presidential). Most of that activity was harmless -- partisans supporting their candidate or taunting the opponent, remarking on hot memes like Big Bird or binders full of women, noting interesting exchanges, and more.

But according to the Los Angeles Times, some people tweeting during … Read more

GitHub suffers through second day of denial-of-service attacks

GitHub, a leading repository of open-source code, has been hit by two days of denial-of-service attacks.

The attacks, which shut the service down temporarily on Thursday, and which slowed it down today before things returned to normal, were an odd turn of events for a site that's a favorite among coders, and an increasingly popular place to find programming talent.

According to GitHub's Liz Clinkenbeard, the service suffered a "major service interruption" due to a distributed denial-of-service attack yesterday, and a minor interruption on GitHub Pages today due to a denial-of-service attack. The service is back … Read more

MegaUpload rises from the dead as Mega

MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom has proven to be unstoppable. After the U.S. government's major takedown of the cloud-storage service, which came with charges of racketeering, copyright infringement, money laundering, and more, DotCom has escaped extradition to the U.S. for now and was given a formal apology by New Zealand's prime minister.

Emboldened, DotCom has announced that he is building a new file-sharing site called Mega. According to Wired, this new site will work slightly different than MegaUpload but will still let users upload, store, and share data files. DotCom also intends to make it raid-proof.

"… Read more

HSBC hit by broad denial-of-service attack

If you haven't been able to log into your HSBC online banking account today, you're not alone.

The multinational bank based in the U.K. confirmed this afternoon that it has become the target of a denial-of-service attack that overwhelmed its servers.

This denial-of-service attack did not affect any customer data, but did prevent customers using HSBC online services, including Internet banking.

We are taking appropriate action, working hard to restore service. We are pleased to say that some sites are now back up and running.

We are cooperating with the relevant authorities and will cooperate with other … Read more

AOL's twist on e-mail: You've got stacks

Thursday's CNET Update is checking your away message:

Just when you've given up all hope of having an organized inbox, along comes AOL with a new e-mail client called Alto. Today's tech news roundup looks at how Alto manages multiple accounts and sorts messages into stacks. The service is in beta test now (so you have to sign up for an invite to try it), but it could be open to everyone by February.

In other news, Yelp is cracking down on companies that pay for reviews. If Yelp sees that a business is trying to inflate … Read more

Yelp clamps down on paid reviews with new 'consumer alert'

Yelp is taking aim at business owners that try to artificially inflate their reviews on the site.

The user-reviews site today announced today that it has launched a new initiative to root out companies that have made "significant attempts to pay for reviews." In the event it finds such attempts, Yelp will post a "consumer alert" on a company posting alerting users to the violation.

"We caught someone red-handed trying to buy reviews for this business," the alert reads. "We weren't fooled, but wanted you to know because buying reviews not only … Read more

Uber quietly puts an end to NYC taxi service

Now you see it, now you don't.

Just over a month after car-hailing service Uber launched support for taxi service in New York City, the company is pulling out, CEO Travis Kalanick confirmed to CNET in an e-mailed statement today. All mention of taxi service in New York City has also been removed from the company's Web site.

"We did the best we could to get more yellows on the road but New York's TLC (Taxi and Limousine Commission) put up obstacles and roadblocks in order to squash the effort around e-hail which they privately have … Read more

Twitter experiencing service disruption

Some Twitter users are unable to access the network this evening, getting instead a greeting from its fail whale.

Some visitors to the site reported getting a message that the site was "over capacity," an issue Twitter confirmed this evening.

"Users may be experiencing issues accessing Twitter. Our engineers are currently working to resolve the issue," the company said in a status update this evening.

A quick survey of Downforeveryoneorjustme and Downrightnow found that Twitter was being reported as "up" and experiencing "possible service trouble," respectively.

Microsoft bakes Xbox Music into Windows 8

Microsoft plans to use the full force of its dominant Windows operating system to challenge iTunes and Spotify in the digital music business.

The software giant has baked its new 30-million-track Xbox Music service into Windows 8, making it the default way for users to listen to songs. The service, which CNET first reported in February and the company announced in June, will let users stream music for free, creating custom playlists, as long as they're willing to hear occasional ads. They can also subscribe to an ad-free version for $9.99 a month. And users can buy and … Read more