Hackers thwart privacy tools

Chinese hackers have found a way around widely used privacy technology to target the creators and readers of Web content that state censors have deemed hostile, according to new research.

The hackers were able to circumvent two of the most trusted privacy tools on the Internet: virtual private networks, or VPNs, and Tor, the software that masks a computer’s whereabouts by routing its Internet connection through points around the globe, according to findings by Jaime Blasco, a security researcher at AlienVault, a Silicon Valley security company.

Antitrust regulators target Amazon

European regulators said they were beginning an antitrust investigation into whether Amazon used its dominant position in the e-books market to favor its own products over those of rivals.

The announcement casts Amazon in a different role from three years ago, when it prodded the U.S. Justice Department to file an antitrust suit against Apple and five leading publishers for conspiracy to fix e-book prices.