Pirate Bay launch official appeal

The Pirate Bay four, who were convicted of being accessories to breaching copyright laws on Friday, have fired off an official appeal against the $3.6m fine and one-year jail terms they were handed by a Swedish court last week.

The BitTorrent tracker site’s co-founders Peter Sunde, Carl Lundström, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg always planned to appeal if they lost February’s high-profile trial in Stockholm. As a result, the case will be referred to the Swedish Supreme Court, which could take several years to reach a final verdict. In the meantime, Sunde, who throughout the trial was the main spokesman for the group, said he is planning a trip to Brazil as well as working on other internet projects. On Saturday protesters against the judgment hit the streets of Stockholm, Goteborg, Karlstad and Lund, to express their anger at the decision that the four men should be thrown in the slammer and cough up $900,000 each in damages to the entertainment industry.
According to the Associated Press, hundreds of pro-file sharing advocates, many wearing jolly roger bandanas, rallied against what they described as “judicial murder”. The Pirate Party, which is an entirely separate outfit from The Pirate Bay, but shares political views on the issue, organised the protests. It claimed membership shot up 20 per cent to 20,000 people, following Friday’s verdict. The party is hoping to grab a seat in the European Parliament elections in June.
"The establishment and the politicians have declared war against our whole generation," said Pirate Party chairman and founder Rickard Falkvinge at the rally in Stockholm. He also called on "file-sharing for the people."

Elsewhere, Paul McCartney has come out, unsurprisingly, in support of the verdict by labelling it a “fair” decision.Macca, who continues to tussle with the Fab Four's record label EMI over making the entire Beatles back catalogue available through Apple's iTunes, told the Beeb: "If you get on a bus you've got to pay. And I think it's fair you should pay your ticket." But over at The Pirate Bay, despite the judgment, it continues to be very much business as usual at the site, which remains fully operational – for now.

“You, our beloved users, know that this little speedbump on the information super highway is nothing more than just, a little bump,” reads a defiant message on TPB’s blog.

MySpace HQ shutdown due to insider breach

While the usual cause of a data breach at a social-networking site is down to an outsider hacking into the database, last week’s breach at my favourite site MySpace was attributed to an employee who gathered the names, social security numbers and other personal information on a number of his co-workers. The employee in question was detected and fired, but the discovery of the data breach led to a shutdown of MySpace’s Beverly Hills headquarters all day Thursday, as employees were told to work from home. An email was sent out to all employees asking them to work away from the office on their laptops while the company was “analyzing their systems to reduce the possibility of any future breaches”. There were no reports of a data breach of MySpace user information. The last big data breach at MySpace was in June of last year, when a flawed security setting allowed Yahoo! users to simply type in the web address of private profiles and gain access to private pictures. The private photos of celebrities including Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan were exposed in this security flaw, which questioned how secure data portability between sites such as Yahoo! and MySpace really is.

New Jaguar XJ exposed

I rarely write anything about cars because its rare I even take interest in them but I must admit the new jaguar xj really looks great. The teaser pictures have just been released to mark the beginning of shanghai motor show. I love big cars such as Mercedes & Maybach so maybe that’s what appeals to me so much about this jag. Apart from looking great & being on four wheels it is the first of the new generation of aluminium bodied cars & it will be the first ever jag to feature a panoramic roof which will be an optional extra. As for engine power it will be available in V6 diesel which is one of the cleanest & most fuel efficient on the market, and in the turbocharged V8. Its set to be unveiled in the UK this July & will go on sale at the end of the year. Rolls Royce have just announced the name of their new car “ghost”, it will use most of the same materials as the phantom but also parts of the recent bmw 7 series. Again aiming for a 2009 release date it will be equipped with a 500+ horsepower, in a word ..fast.

Vannina Vesperini 2009 collection

French designer Vannina Vesperini created her own brand back in 1996 & rapidly gained respect for her work. over the years she has created a niche with her 'visible lingerie' collections; which means she creates pieces that are meant to be layered or shown as part of your outerwear. Often times Vannina will create a bra & panty, and also design a matching camisole, sweater, skirt and/or wrap so that the look can be worn out. The bras in her collection are so luscious and beautifully-detailed, it's no wonder she makes it possible for you to show them off. Vannina Vesperini is now a big name in luxury lingerie. with concepts like the ‘visible lingerie’ that brought lingerie closer to pret-a-porter fashion her latest spring collection follows the trend. Her latest campaign was designed by Marco de Rivera, photography by Gilles Pernet.