Archive for 2011/01/21
One out of five cellphones sold is unlicensed copy: Nokia
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reportsHow to Create a Portable Hackintosh on a USB Thumb Drive
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Tech EvolutionThe Top Ten Things We Can’t Believe Eric Schmidt Ever Said
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Googlehttp://gizmodo.com/5739210/the-top-ten-things-we-cant-believe-eric-schmidt-ever-said
Google’s Matt Cutts, principal engineer and lead voice on search-quality issues, said that the company will employ crowd-sourced feedback and other metrics in hopes of penalizing content scrapers and obviously low-content sites within its index
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, GoogleReport: Stolen data sold over online black market
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Organized Crime, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports
(Credit: PandaLabs)
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-20029163-83.html
Android OS bombshell: Did Google illegally lift copyrighted code?
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Google, LitigationThe Federation Against Software Theft, a not-for-profit group that campaigns for the legitimate use of software, has called on UK broadband ISPs to help combat unlawful copyright file sharing by their customers through the development of ‘mutual business models’
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, New Business ModelsEurope Approves GBP1.53 Billion in Digital Agenda Broadband State Aid Funding
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Public PolicyThe European Commission (EC) has approved £1.528bn (€1.8 billion) in state aid (public funds) to help achieve its Digital Agenda targets for broadband development. The agenda promises, among other things, to bring “basic” and “competitively-priced” broadband internet access to all Europeans by 2013.
In addition the EU’s plan goes even further and aims to ensure that, by 2020, all Europeans have access to much higher internet speeds of above 30Mbps and 50% or more of EU households subscribe to internet access above 100Mbps.
The cash, which was all approved for various projects around the EU last year (2010), could potentially generate up to £2.97bn (€3.5 billion) of investment in the sector. The approved aid in 2010 is more than four times the amount allowed in 2009.
Rick Falkvinge: Today’s level of copyright can’t coexist with the right to communicate in private
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awarenesshttp://torrentfreak.com/do-you-prefer-copyright-or-the-right-to-talk-in-private-110121/
Rickard ”Rick” Falkvinge, born Dick Greger Augustsson (aka Dick W Augustsson from Fidonet) on 21 January 1972 in Gothenburg, is a Swedish IT entrepreneur known as the founder and ex party leader of the Swedish Pirate Party. He is currently an “political evangelist” within the party, working with spreading the politics. Falkvinge has previously worked as a project leader at Microsoft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickard_Falkvinge
A man and woman who operated a 50TB capacity file-sharing hub have been found guilty of copyright infringement offenses
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, LitigationDespite arguing that their 2,600 member system was set up merely for discussion, the pair now face paying damages to the IFPI of more than $1 million and suspended jail sentences totalling 7 months.
http://torrentfreak.com/file-sharing-operators-hit-with-big-fines-jail-sentences-110121/
Piracy Horrors and The Music Industry’s Twisted Reality
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reportsBritain’s broadcasters are struggling with the internet. Efforts to design a single, consistent IPTV platform have become mired by the need to accomodate participants’ existing services – some with commercial agendas, others without – and mud slung by competitors is beginning to stick
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech EvolutionEMC, IBM, HP, and SAP Dump the BSA – Gone are the days when customers will pay for software just because there’s a proprietary wrapper on it and a big price tag. They increasingly demand real value for real money. Savvy vendors will embrace this trend rather than blindly fight piracy. They’ll embrace new models that enable efficient distribution of software and still allow payment for value delivered
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Tech EvolutionEMC, IBM, HP, and SAP Dump the BSA
http://techrights.org/2011/01/14/bsa-loses-key-members/
Pirates: Good for Microsoft, great for open sourcers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/21/the_plusses_of_pirates/
Friends are likely to associate with people who are similar to them in terms of their DRD2 genotypes, and different when it comes to their CYP2A6 genotypes
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reportsPrevious studies have linked DRD2 to alcoholism, and it is possible that drinkers gravitate toward social scenes where booze is present, whereas non-drinkers are more likely to congregate in places where alcohol isn’t abundant. CYP2A6 has been associated with openness, and a mechanism driving the negative correlation between CYP2A6 genotypes is less obvious
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/01/weve-all-heard-the-axiom.ars
Why is Verizon suing over net neutrality rules it once supported?
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, LitigationIFPI: Fighting music piracy is a government job
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, Public Policy, Three StrikesThe music industry has set an explicit goal: get graduated response laws passed everywhere because it “cannot compete with free.”
Catholic bishops, Protestant leaders: we need net neutrality!
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Net NeutralityZeus Trojan targets online money services – Second-tier providers in firing line
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Network Security, Organized Crime, Privacy / Data ProtectionAccording to Israeli company Trusteer, which specialises in tracking the activities of Zeus and its variants, there are now at least 26 different configurations to attack one company alone, Money Bookers.
One thing that becomes clear is that along with the other services attacked – Web Money and Nochex, netSpend – this Zeus campaign is going after second-tier companies. Perhaps fearing attention, the criminals appear to be steering clear of large consumer payment services such as PayPal.
http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/security/3257680/zeus-trojan-targets-online-money-services/
WikiLeaks, An all-expenses-paid study trip to the US: that was the offer to a number of prominent Dutch Muslims following the killing of controversial filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Public PolicyNordin Ghoudani was one of those fortunate enough to be offered such a trip after being invited for a number of conversations at the US Embassy. Now that he is aware of being a cog in the wheel of US policy, he tells Dutch broadcaster NOS that he looks back on the trip with mixed feelings.
“The knowledge that Washington, and former president George W Bush, insisted on these trips… yes, that puts things in a different perspective.”
The most prominent of these contacts is Ahmed Aboutaleb, then Executive Councillor of Integration in Amsterdam and current Mayor of Rotterdam. Reporting on WikiLeaks documents, the NOS says Americans describe him as one of their best Muslim contacts. He too enjoyed an all-expenses-paid three-week study trip to the US.
http://www.rnw.nl/africa/article/wikileaks-us-courted-dutch-muslims-after-theo-van-gogh-murder
Pictures of Putin’s Black Sea Palace published by Ruleaks, a group of self-proclaimed activists from the Pirate Party of Russia and Russian-speaking activists from other Pirate Parties around the world
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Public PolicyRuleaks underwent a DDoS attack shortly after the photographs went live on January 18, making it temporarily impossible to access the website.
The photographs come one month after St. Petersburg businessman Sergei Kolesnikov sent an open letter to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev alleging that a palace “for the personal use of the Prime Minister of Russia” was being built on the Black Sea. “To date this palace costs over $1 billion U.S., mainly through a combination of corruption, bribery and theft.” Kolesnikov goes on to painstakingly detail the corrupt business dealings and theft of state funds that culminated in the creation of this complex. After publishing the letter, Kolesnikov reportedly went abroad and is waiting for the president’s reaction.
http://www.theotherrussia.org/2011/01/21/ruleaks-posts-pictures-of-putins-black-sea-palace/
‘ACTA agreement violates EU law’
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Legislation, Public PolicyThe controversial anti-piracy agreement ACTA is contrary to European law. This statement was recently made by a group of scientists from Dutch, German, British and Spanish universities. In a joint statement they urged the EU Member States, the European Parliament and the Commission to reject the current draft text of the ACTA agreement.
How ‘Cyberlockers’ Became The Biggest Problem In Piracy
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awareness, Illegal File Sharing, Stats / reportsWhile cyberlockers have plenty of legitimate uses—they’re useful for sharing any type of work-related file one can think of—they can also be used to illegally share copyrighted material. And while the major services themselves don’t provide search engines, there are a number of third-party search engines that go ahead do provide that service. They also advertise what they do (FilesTube.com, for example, advertises right on its front page that it can help a user “search for files on rapidshare and other download sites.”) A search for a popular movie or TV show on one of these specialized search engines, like FilesTube.com, shows there’s plenty of pirated material that’s easily accessed through cyberlocker sites.
Here’s a video demo from BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield explaining to clients (sub. req.) how pirates can use cyberlockers to trade movies as new as Black Swan. (Skip to 1 minute and 35 seconds)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzUs6WQq0PM
Much more: http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-how-cyberlockers-became-the-biggest-problem-in-piracy/
WikiLeaks claims to be an advocate against corruption, but in reality they are enveloped in it
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / AwarenessThey encourage the stealing of private information for publication, even if it doesn’t pertain to any actual act of corruption, and hold the lives of others as collateral.
http://www.loyolamaroon.com/mobile/wikileaks-is-straying-from-original-goal-1.2436443
The effect of Anonymous on Wikileaks, Tunisia & the world
Posted: 2011/01/21 in Education / Awarenesshttp://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=16568&ew_0_a_id=372818
See also:
The journalist Suelette Dreyfus collaborated with Julian Assange to create Underground, a 1997 book about hackers in Australia and around the globe. Here she reveals the inside story on Assange, the geek who founded WikiLeaks and became the scourge of world governments.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-geek-who-shook-the-world-20101211-18tep.html
WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange – A CypherPunk
http://vrritti.com/2010/12/10/wikileaks-julian-assange-a-cypherpunk/
WikiLeaks co-producer Rop Gonggrijp: First Hacker and Techno Anarchist of the Netherlands
http://vrritti.com/2010/12/11/wikileaks-co-producer-rop-gonggrijp-first-hacker-and-techno-anarchist-of-the-netherlands/
Three years ago, at the 2007 (Chaos Computer Club) congress, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange presented an early sketch of the now-contraversial website. There, he met CCC member, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, (then known by his alias, Daniel Schmitt), who until a few months ago was considered Assange’s number two at WikiLeaks. While the two groups are not formally affiliated, Frank Rosengart, a Chaos Computer Club spokesperson, said that his organization supports WikiLeaks because both groups have similar goals
http://vrritti.com/2010/12/30/international-hackers-convene-in-berlin-27th-annual-chaos-communication-congress-is-currently-underway-in-germany/
Appelbaum has been an active member of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective since 2008, and is the co-founder of the San Francisco hackerspace Noisebridge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum
The American Wikileaks Hacker
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/meet-the-american-hacker-behind-wikileaks-20101201
Hacker Against Hacker
Then there’s the matter of Lamo’s personal betrayal of Manning.
Evidently the 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst was something of a fan. He knew a lot about Lamo when he contacted him on May 21, and no doubt he believed he was reaching out to a kindred spirit.
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/07/21/wikileaks-snitch-hacker-faces-wrath-of-his-peers/
From Indymedia to Wikileaks: What a decade of hacking journalistic culture says about the future of news
In the case of both Indymedia and WikiLeaks, developments which have had a serious impact on the newsroom have been powered by what I like to call the “leading politicized edge” of the online geek community.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/12/from-indymedia-to-wikileaks-what-a-decade-of-hacking-journalistic-culture-says-about-the-future-of-news/
Cypherpunk the Origin of Wikileaks
http://stevebeckow.com/2010/12/cypherpunk-the-origin-of-wikileaks/
