Archive for November, 2010

Copyright protected adult entertainment was posted on 123video.nl without authorization and could be accessed and viewed for free. After complaints by actress and producer Kim Holland, the site did remove the videos but Holland filed a damage claim nonetheless.

The Dutch judge stated that 123video.nl can not be regarded as an intermediary which otherwise could have meant that 123video.nl wouldn’t be liable for the actions of its user base. One element that was crucial was the fact that site admins were actively moderating the site. Secondly 123video.nl was facilitating the video encoding process.

The judge still has to decide on the financial compensation for Kim Holland. 123video already stated that it will take this case to the Court of Appeal.

(my translation and summary)

Dutch language article: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/71071/rechter-stelt-123video-aansprakelijk-voor-content-van-derden.html

In an interview with Forbes, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says his site is in possession of a trove of secret bank documents that will likely “stimulate investigations and reforms.” “For this, there’s only one similar example. It’s like the Enron emails,” he said. When asked how high impact these documents are, he responded, “I mean, it could take down a bank or two.”

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/30/wikileaks-next-target-is-a-major-american-bank/

China’s Internet regulators have today blocked access across the country to the latest batch of WikiLeaks exposés.

http://www.techdigest.tv/2010/11/wikileaks_great.html

  • The judges did, however, consider it proven that Sunde played an active part in the development, the financing and the day-to-day administration of TPB. He functioned as an office manager and was closely involved in creating a good system for managing traffic to the site. Furthermore, he was responsible for advertisement, for which he cooperated with advertising companies in Sweden and Israel.
  • Fredrik Neij confirmed to the court that he was active on a daily basis to keep TPB operational. Furthermore, it followed from his statements that he was aware that he contributed to copyright infringement. To prevent this, he could have done two things. He could have taken steps to remove links to the infringing content. Or, more drastically, he could have just pulled the plug from the servers.
  • Carl Lundström was perceived as the main supplier of the hardware used by the admins of TPB. He was charged with having invested in computers from his own means and having made them available to TPB. He himself indicated to see TPB as customer, and to see the free delivery as a mere loan to be repaid at a later date. However, from Lundström’s own administration and his testimonies it became clear that in 2005, the period treated in the case, Lundström was very closely and personally involved with setting up TPB and that TPB was not paying for the computers.

More: http://futureofcopyright.com/index.php?page=news&id=1439

http://futureofcopyright.com/index.php?page=news&id=1441

Our friend Jason Silva—writer, filmmaker and founding host/producer of Current TV—is making a new documentary celebrating humans reaching their ultimate potential, the inexorable evolution that is turning us into gods. He’s quite optimistic about it. I’m not so sure-JD

http://gizmodo.com/5701488/are-humans-turning-into-gods

http://gizmodo.com/5701541/humans-can-only-walk-in-circles-and-we-dont-know-why

The European Commission said today that it has launched an in-depth investigation against Google over allegations that the search engine has abused it position as a search leader, specifically that it has tampered with the ranking of Web sites for competitive reasons.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/eu-launches-probe-against-google-now-what/42225

Previously:

The report, titled Googleopoly VI Seeing the Big Picture: How Google is Monopolizing Consumer Internet Media & Threatening a Price Deflationary Spiral & Job Losses in a $Trillion Sector”, was prepared by Scott Cleland, President of Precursor–a tech communications research and consulting firm. It contains a number of damning assertions about Google’s effect on the economy, and implores the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) to wield the antitrust hammer to put a stop to it.

“Google is a vastly more serious antitrust threat to consumers and the economy than Microsoft, because the DOJ blocked Microsoft from extending its monopoly vertically into the broader economy, while antitrust authorities have unwittingly aided and abetted Google’s vertical monopolization of vast parts of the broader economy.”

http://vrritti.com/2010/09/17/is-google-killing-the-economy/

Fibrestream’s Boss, Guy Jarvis, said:

“To maximise profits, the enterprising last mile Heroin dealer must find the least amount of active ingredient with which to just maintain the customer’s habit and keep them coming back for more of the same, rather than seeking an alternative source and cutting the current supplier out of the loop.”

The domain seizures by the United States authorities in recent days and upcoming legislation that could make similar takeovers even easier in the future, have inspired a group of enthusiasts to come up with a new, decentralized and BitTorrent-powered DNS system. This system will exchange DNS information through peer-to-peer transfers and will work with a new .p2p domain extension.

http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-based-dns-to-counter-us-domain-seizures-101130/

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101128/23431512028/trolling-as-ecommerce-strategy-online-store-increases-google-rank-via-obnoxious-perhaps-criminal-service.shtml

says Asa Dotzler, a member of the Mozilla leadership team

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/46241

Internet backbone provider Level 3 Communications says that US cable outfit Comcast is demanding a recurring fee for transmitting internet movies and “other content” to Comcast customers who request the content, accusing the cable provider of violating the Federal Communications Commission’s “net neutrality” principles. But Comcast says Level 3 is misrepresenting the negotiations between the two companies.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/30/comcast_and_level_3_clash_over_transit_fees/

The International Olympic Committee is threatening to sue the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers if they don’t receive protection for IOC trademarks in ICANN’s upcoming revisions to its generic top-level domains (gTLD) guidelines.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/30/ioc_threatens_to_sue_icann_over_gtld_guidelines/

The best we can do is ask Preston McAfee.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/30/yahoo_chief_economist_on_google_antitrust_question/

‘Hey Pentagon, we’re using your own software’

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/29/wikileaks_on_us_servers_again/

Version 6 with fully-integrated snooping

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/30/google_earth/

SCOTUS has upheld earlier federal court decisions that eBay is not directly responsible for the use of trademarks in auction listings posted by its users.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/supreme-court-shoots-down-tiffany-appeal-in-ebay-trademark-case.ars

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/11/kinect-sells-25m-in-25-days-consumers-are-the-controller.ars

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the WikiLeaks release of once-classified diplomatic documents as nothing less than an attack on the United States and its allies.

Attorney General Eric Holder also had harsh words for WikiLeaks today, and said the government has launched a criminal investigation of the matter.

The Obama administration has ordered agencies to review the way they handle secret, sensitive information.

“Any unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a violation of our law and compromises our national security,” says a memo from Jack Lew, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Much more: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/11/obamas-team-faces-sensitive-diplomacy-over-wikileaks/1

Some historical information:


Other posts: http://vrritti.com/?s=wikileaks

The incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee says WikiLeaks should be officially designated as a terrorist organization.Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the panel’s presumptive next head, asked the Obama administration today to “determine whether WikiLeaks could be designated a foreign terrorist organization,” putting the group in the same company as Al Qaeda and Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult that released deadly sarin gas on the Tokyo subway.

If the State Department adds WikiLeaks to the terror list, one effect would be to prohibit U.S. banks from processing payments to the group. WikiLeaks currently takes donations through PayPal, bank transfers, and Visa and Mastercard payments.

Seizure orders have been executed against 82 domain names of commercial websites engaged in the illegal sale and distribution of counterfeit goods and copyrighted works as part of Operation In Our Sites v. 2.0, Attorney General Eric Holder and Director John Morton of the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today.

The coordinated federal law enforcement operation targeted online retailers of a diverse array of counterfeit goods, including sports equipment, shoes, handbags, athletic apparel and sunglasses as well as illegal copies of copyrighted DVD boxed sets, music and software.

During the course of the operation, federal law enforcement agents made undercover purchases from online retailers suspected of selling counterfeit goods. In many instances, the goods were shipped directly into the United States from suppliers in other countries using international express mail. If the goods were confirmed as counterfeit or otherwise illegal, seizure orders for the domain names of the websites that sold the goods were obtained from U.S. magistrate judges. Individuals attempting to access the websites will now find a banner notifying them that the domain name of that website has been seized by federal authorities.

Much more: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/November/10-ag-1355.html

http://www.bgr.com/2010/11/29/sprint-launches-wimax-network-in-six-additional-cities/

Toshiba’s aiming it at people who suffer from numerous powercuts—a very niche market, you may agree.

http://gizmodo.com/5701110/toshibas-tvs-have-batteries-for-post+powercut-viewing

Manning’s been held in solitary confinement since April, after his unauthorised downloads were discovered. According to the soldier, it was all too easy to gain access to the network and download the files:

“I would come in with music on a CD-RW labelled with something like ‘Lady Gaga‘ … erase the music … then write a compressed split file. No one suspected a thing … [I] listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga’s Telephone while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history.”

Amounting to 1.6GB of data, Manning claims that “information should be free. It belongs in the public domain,” however he made the mistake of IMing another hacker, Adrian Lamo, and boasting of his deeds. Lamo then dobbed him in, while Manning uploaded all of the files to WikiLeaks.

New technology enabled film-makers to record the star’s facial movements in minute detail and then superimpose them onto a digital model of his younger self.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1332695/Jeff-Bridges-TRON-Legacy-This-technology-means-Id-work-again.html

His sumptuous triplex was found by police and military forces this Sunday at 11am local time, while cleaning the area of drug traffickers and criminal gangs in preparation for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

Much more: http://gizmodo.com/5700829/drug-kings-luxury-triplex-hidden-in-the-slums

what we say publicly isn’t what we know privately

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/microsoft-wikileaks-and-the-nobility-of-lies/7900

The specific points that got The Pirate Bay in trouble could all be equally applied to a general purpose search engine like Google. And with Google already dealing with executives given prison sentences due to its services in other countries, you’d think it would be a bit more sensitive to realizing the slippery slope created when you send someone to jail for the way a search engine is used.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101128/16524712023/as-pirate-bay-guys-lose-their-appeal-when-does-google-regret-not-coming-to-their-defense.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101128/23101612026/fox-sues-woman-15m-because-she-aggregated-tv-movie-scripts-she-found-online.shtml

See also:

The actual court papers go on to list 79 movie scripts, only one of which is unreleased i.e Deadpool. Fox want $150,000 in statutory damages for each and every one. Does 1-10 refers to the individuals who allegedly supplied  McIlvaine with the scripts.

http://www.scriptflags.com/2010/11/fox-sue-screenwriter-for-15-million.html

  • Under what legal mandate is a group that’s supposed to be focused on Immigration and Customs getting involved in taking down websites? What does a website have to do with either immigration or customs?
  • Since the original seizures were announced at Disney, is it common practice for Homeland Security and/or ICE to focus on using their guns and power of raids and seizures in efforts that are designed to help specific companies?
  • Since at least some of the websites taken down were search engines that hosted no infringing material, how does Homeland Security/ICE make sure that it is not seizing domain names incorrectly (as it appears to have done in this case)?
  • Since we thought the US believed in due process, how does seizing domain names, prior to any adversarial trial, fit with the concept of innocent until proven guilty?
  • John Morton has made numerous claims of “harm” from these websites, but has not shown any evidence (publicly) to support those claims. Considering that the GAO and OECD’s own reports question whether or not there is any such harm, can Morton show us which reports he relied on in proving “harm” before getting a court order to seize those domains?
  • Much more: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101128/15545412022/five-questions-homeland-security-concerning-its-online-censorship-campaign.shtml

    …and problems for Warner

    http://www.p2pnet.net/story/46247

    The five-day mainframe bank system meltdown at the National Bank of Australia (NAB) was due to a corrupted file on an IBM mainframe system that was being upgraded.

    It’s reported that staff attempted a mainframe upgrade on Wednesday 25 November, and this failed to complete. It was reversed and this was when, it appears, ongoing payment processing data in a file was corrupted.

    It caused payments to stop or to be recorded incorrectly, with some customer accounts having multiple incorrect debits applied. Money transfers to other banks as well as the NAB’s own customers were affected.

    Private and business customers were prevented from accessing their accounts at ATMs and electronic funds transfer payments stopped. Customers had to attend branches in person to get cash and the bank hurriedly opened some branches on Sunday to cope with the rush. It ran full-page adverts in Australian papers saying how sorry it was.

    More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/29/nab_mainframe_cockup/

    Cryptome operator John Young has a much better list, including:

    • Files on North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and perhaps most significantly, Israel – its weaponry, war plans, assassination squads, foreign sources of funds, Mossad and its collaborators
    • Files on weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, biological, chemical, radiological. Top secret files of the IAEA on nuclear non-proliferation contributed and deceptively withheld by a bevy of nations, ie, the CIA’s Valerie Plame and related front companies
    • Files of global WMD research laboratories and the status of reserve stocks of offensive and defensive weapons
    • War plans of all nations, for and against one another
    • Files of billionaire political meddlers
    • Files of the major world banks and their attorneys
    • Files of national tax agencies.

    Now isn’t that much more like it?

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/29/wikileaks_diplomatic_yawn/