Archive for 2011/02/12

YouTube and the major film studios – will there ever be a clear policy on the consumer’s re-use of copyrighted movie material..?

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Google, New Business Models, Stats / reports

Google Blog:

Some copyright holders want control over every use of their creation. Many professional artists and media companies post their latest videos without telling us, while some home video-makers don’t want their stuff online. Some legal departments take down a video one day and the marketing department puts it up the next. Which is their right, but our community can’t predict those things, and neither can we…

For the most part, people who are uploading videos are fans of our movies. They’re not trying to be evil pirates, and they’re not trying to get revenue from it”.

If most of the other major studios feel the same (as Lionsgate Entertainment’s president of digital media Curt Marvis) - and YouTube product manager David King reported a 90% conversion rate in the same article cited above, indicating pretty strongly that they do – it might be in their interest to emerge from the slightly-cowardly vagueness that makes ‘Fair Use’ too unreliable a defence for the ‘hip’ uploaders (that the studios ironically court – and perhaps imitate) to bypass the blanket copyright warnings plastered over YouTube. If we’re helping, they ought to take the gun-sights off us and set some fair and clear rules.

Much more: http://www.shadowlocked.com/201102111470/opinion-features/youtube-and-the-major-film-studios.html 

A recently published book excerpt suggests that “Jay Lim,” an occasional WikiLeaks spokesperson often identified as its legal advisor, was merely an online pseudonym of Julian Assange

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness

Domscheit-Berg, usually described as once being the organization’s second most important player, writes that Assange used many pseudonyms, and suggests that “Lim” may have been one of them

Much more: http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/did_assange_play_lawyer.php

Guidelines on Security and Privacy in Public Cloud Computing

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports, The Cloud

http://cryptome.org/0003/SP-800-144.pdf

The video was digitally encrypted, and it took WikiLeaks three months to crack. Assange, a cryptographer of exceptional skill, told me that unlocking the file was “moderately difficult.”

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection

http://cryptome.org/0003/ddb-book/ddb-book.htm

War looms as Sony hints that it will abandon iTunes

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness

SONY has signalled it may withdraw its artists from Apple’s iTunes store and withhold its games from the iPhone in a sign the two companies are on the brink of all-out war. Sony plans to open a competitor to iTunes, a music streaming service called Music Unlimited, in Australia soon.

Another service launching later this year will enable mobile phone users to pay and play first generation PlayStation games on their handsets. The head of Sony’s games unit in Australia said it was unlikely to be available on the iPhone or through iTunes.

Two weeks ago Apple blocked Sony’s electronic book application from the iPhone because it would have bypassed Apple’s system for buying content.

More: http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/mp3s/war-looms-as-sony-hints-that-it-will-abandon-itunes-20110210-1aonn.html

Crytek has been alerted that an early incomplete, unfinished build of Crysis 2 has appeared on Torrent sites. Crytek and EA are deeply disappointed by the news. We encourage fans to support the game and the development team by waiting and purchasing the final, polished game on March 22

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Illegal File Sharing

Crysis 2 is still in development and promises to be the ultimate action blockbuster as the series’ signature Nanosuit lets you be the weapon as you defend NYC from an alien invasion.  Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community.

http://www.ea.com/crysis-2/blog/crysis-leak

Google CEO sees signs of Internet bubble: report

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Future Developments?, Google

Asked about the high valuations being put on companies such as social network company Facebook and game developer Zynga, Schmidt said in an interview with Bilanz: “There are clear signs of a bubble … But valuations are what they are. People believe that these companies will achieve huge sales in the future.”

More: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/10/us-google-idUSTRE7197CO20110210

UK Gov’t Admits That Protecting Big Record Labels More Important Than Getting Poor Online

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110210/14174213043/uk-govt-admits-that-protecting-big-record-labels-more-important-than-getting-poor-online.shtml

A Look At Internet Censorship Around The World

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy, Stats / reports


Much more: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110211/02025713055/look-internet-censorship-around-world.shtml

After other damning revelations which followed the initial Anonymous attack, Hoglund’s company which, he claims, provides “classified services to the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community and other U.S. Government agencies to meet their unique requirement”, is now effectively on the trash heap

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection

But what’s really fascinating “is the back-and-forth between HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr and others at HBGary Federal, including his main technical guy, who clearly thinks Barr’s methodology is worthless”, writes Mike Masnick on TechDirt

More: http://www.p2pnet.net/story/48641

TuneSecure introduces intelligent anti-piracy software, however, software such as TuneSecure may be too little too late for record labels who have been adapting to the reality of piracy for more than a decade

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Illegal File Sharing

http://futureofcopyright.com/index.php?page=news&id=1640

The Belgian financial sector and the Belgian mobile telephone companies – Belgacom, BASE (KPN Group Belgium) and Mobistar – have joined their efforts in order to launch a new mobile payment system in Belgium

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech Evolution

Currently, they are looking at the possibilities for jointly developing and optimising a product that will be accessible for the public at large. Their aim is to introduce this innovative product, as a result of a joint development, in 2011.
The continuous technological improvements, the growing range of mobile telephone functions (telephone calls, SMS messages, pictures/images, internet access, etc.) and the ever increasing userfriendliness have turned the mobile telephone into an indispensable tool for all Belgian citizens. Consequently, the financial sector, which wants to give a new boost to electronic payments in Belgium, and the telecom sector have started discussing about a new step forward in the field of payment systems.

More: http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=131936

Egypt, Twitter, and the rise of the watchdog crowd

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy, Tech Evolution

We shouldn’t go so far as to call this a social media revolution, but it nevertheless is arguably the first time in history that we’ve seen Facebook and Twitter, a crucial part of the way we now communicate, speedily and successfully conveying the ideas and beliefs that do lead to a revolution. More importantly, social media makes this all happen in a public forum with the rest of the world watching, something that made it possible for Egypt to be in the middle of a massive international spotlight, emotionally empowering those on the ground and strengthening the pressure on Mubarak’s regime with a force that came not from world leaders but from the sheer size of the crowd.

More: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20031600-36.html

Hollywood Usenet Enemy #1 Never Gets DMCA Takedown Notices

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness

http://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-usenet-enemy-1-never-gets-dmca-takedown-notices-110211/

TorrentReactor.net, listed among the ten most popular torrent sites on the Internet, has won a WIPO domain dispute against the owner of TorrentReactor.com. The latter domain was owned by Craig Pratka, a New York resident who used the domain to drive up revenues at a ‘dubious’ affiliate program

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness

More: http://torrentfreak.com/torrentreactor-net-wins-trademark-infringing-com-domain-110211/

How NBC Wanted Conan O’Brien Dump His Twitter Account

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110210/15233913045/how-nbc-wanted-conan-obrien-dump-his-twitter-account.shtml

US Chamber Of Commerce Wants More Censorship, More IP Protectionism

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110211/01091113054/us-chamber-commerce-wants-more-censorship-more-ip-protectionism.shtml

While BBC Wants To Kill Off A Bunch Of Websites, Geeks Quickly Archive Them

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Tech Evolution

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110210/16040613047/while-bbc-wants-to-kill-off-bunch-websites-geeks-quickly-archive-them.shtml

Public Citizen & EFF File For Sanctions Against Anti-P2P Lawyer Evan Stone

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Litigation

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110211/15280613062/public-citizen-eff-file-sanctions-against-anti-p2p-lawyer-evan-stone.shtml

At the moment, Bell aggregates the data from both its own retail customers and independent ISPs at this stage (which it says causes the congestion necessitating traffic shaping and UBB), though the independent ISP subscriber traffic later goes to the independent ISP before heading to the Internet. The “congestion problem” is therefore not at the last mile nor at the Internet – it is in the intermediate stage between the two

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Bandwidth Management, Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/48645

The Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee (MSIC) has drawn to the “special attention of the House” a number of serious concerns with the UK governments Secondary Legislation (Statutory Instrument) for sharing the costs of the controversial Digital Economy Act 2010 (DEA)

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Legislation, Stats / reports

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2011/02/11/uk-government-shuns-committee-concern-over-uk-isp-piracy-cost-sharing.html

UK ISP Virgin Media Business has revealed that 69% of office workers cannot send or receive emails larger than 10MB (MegaByte’s) in size, which rises to 89% for messages larger than 15MB. These restrictions mean that many people are unable to share large documents, slideshows and video content by email, with big messages often bouncing back

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2011/02/11/isp-virgin-media-business-uk-calls-for-end-to-email-file-attachment-bottlenecks.html

Microsoft is claiming a CRM executive who defected to Salesforce.com took hundreds sensitive documents to its cloudy competitor

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection, The Cloud

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/11/microsoft_versus_miszewski/

Google will allow users of Gmail and its other free online services to employ a second form of verification when logging in that uses one-time passwords transmitted over mobile or land-line phones

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Google, Privacy / Data Protection

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/10/gmail_2_factor_authentication/

O2 to raise broadband prices by up to 76%

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/02/11/o2_broadband_price_hike/

Vodafone believes the time is right for an internet-on-TV box, undaunted by the fact that everyone else has been trying to do the same thing for decades

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech Evolution

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/11/vodafone_webbox/

MPEG LA, the one-stop shop for motion video patent licenses, announced a call for patents essential to the VP8 video compression algorithm—the algorithm that is fundamental to Google’s WebM video format

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/02/mpeg-la-starts-the-search-for-vp8-patents.ars

While Fraunhofer SIT’s particular methods may be new, accessing the keychain and other encrypted information on a jailbroken iPhone has been possible for some time

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/02/six-minute-keychain-hack-highlights-busted-iphone-security-model.ars

PlayStation 3 jailbreaker George Hotz must allow console-maker Sony to comb through his computer’s hard drive and retrieve information “that relates to the hacking of the PlayStation”

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/02/sony-to-inspect-playstation-hackers-hard-drive.ars

World’s total CPU power: one human brain

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/02/adding-up-the-worlds-storage-and-computation-capacities.ars

Emerging Semantic Web Technology Could Help Intelligence Analysts Spot New Terror Threats

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Tech Evolution

A system that proactively and constantly builds and tests all the available evidence on a person, action, event, etc., is the current architecture of a Semantic Web. This approach is becoming prevalent in the private sector, and governments also are now taking advantage of the Semantic Web rather than a simple web of keywords.  

More: http://www.govtech.com/pcio/Semantic-Web-Could-Help-Spot-Terror-Threats-021111.html

Earlier this morning, The Tech Herald reported that Palantir Technologies severed all ties with HBGary Federal and issued an apology to reporter Glenn Greenwald. Now, Berico Technologies, the second data intelligence firm who was linked to a systematic plan of attack against WikiLeaks, has cut ties with HBGary as well

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness

http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201106/6810/Berico-Technologies-severs-ties-with-HBGary-over-WikiLeaks-plot

2011: The year hacking goes mainstream

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness

Before you fire up your email program or leap immediately to the comments to correct me: Yes, I know — “hacker” isn’t the right word for this kind of activity. Hackers are not necessarily criminals or even evil-doers. There are white-hat, black-hat, gray-hat, and the occasional houndstooth-hatted hackers.

More: http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/2011-the-year-hacking-goes-mainstream-255

Anonymous planning to to release 27,000 e-mails from the server of Greg Hoglund, the chief executive of software security firm HBGary

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness

A source from Anonymous says that most of the new e-mails from Hoglund are still unchecked and it is unclear who will be most liable when the information is made public, but added that briefly skimming the emails had revealed “three different malware archives, two bots, an offer to sell a botnet, a genuine stuxnet copy, and various malware lists.” Not entirely surprising given that HBGary is a security firm, but the source speculates that botnets aren’t typically rented out for “research.”

More: http://blogs.forbes.com/parmyolson/2011/02/11/anonymous-ready-to-dump-more-hbgary-e-mails-launch-anonleaks/

A British judge today said he needed time to consider whether WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange should be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of sex crimes and adjourned his extradition hearing to February 24th

Posted: 2011/02/12 in Education / Awareness, Litigation

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0211/breaking38.html

See also:

Assange extradition ruling two weeks away
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/assange-extradition-ruling-two-weeks-away-20110212-1aqsx.html

Speaking to reporters outside the court in south east London, Assange said he had not been able to present his side of the story
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12433830

The judge is expected to rule on February 24, but the case is likely to continue long afterward if either side files an appeal
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/02/assange-hearing/

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