I’m here in Geneva at the Open Forum Europe conference, listening to discussions about the problem with standards bodies today. More specifically, listening to IBM’s take on the problem with any standards body that would approve Open XML (like ECMA). […]

AFP reveals that “Pakistan has ordered all Internet service providers to block the YouTube website for containing ‘blasphemous’ content and material considered offensive to Islam.  […]  An inter-ministerial committee has decided to block YouTube because it contained ‘blasphemous content, videos and documents,’ a government official told AFP.  ‘The site will remain blocked till further orders,’ he said.  Other officials said the site had been blocked because it contained controversial sketches of the Prophet Mohammed which were republished by Danish newspapers [...]

According to the New York Times, “EU and U.S. senior officials said on Friday they would crack down on counterfeiting of computer components after they seized over 360,000 fake items in just two weeks in a joint operation at the end of last year.  Integrated circuits and computer components of over 40 trademarks including Intel, Cisco and Philips, worth more than $1.3 billion, were seized during the operation, the officials said.  ‘Traffickers and counterfeiters have become much more sophisticated ... [...]

According to InfoWorld, “[o]ver the past two years virus writers have increasingly targeted their malicious programs to users in different regions of the globe, creating programs that are specially designed to infect users in countries like Japan, Brazil, China or Germany.  Take the taunting Trojan, which goes after users of the Winny file-sharing program. (Winny creator Isamu Kaneko was convicted of abetting copyright violations in late 2006) Winny is file-sharing software that is incredibly popular in Japan, but virtually unknown [...]