Archive for 2012/06/15
Study: Cost of German Music Piracy at $660 Million
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Illegal File Sharing, Stats / reportsDesigned to fight online piracy and maximize the commercial sharing of legal authorized films online, WolfeOnDemand.com features a built-in affiliate revenue program allowing fans to reap commissions when they direct others to watch movies
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, File Sharing, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Stats / reportsWolfe, the largest exclusive distributor of gay and lesbian films, today announced the launch of the worldwide video-on-demand service WolfeOnDemand.com. The new platform for distributing LGBT movies debuts with an initial slate of 30 films. Ultimately, the service will showcase the entire Wolfe library of more than 100 gay and lesbian features and documentaries.
Current highlights on the groundbreaking worldwide LGBT movie-watching platform include recent hits: Celine Sciama’s Tomboy (Berlin Panorama Teddy Award winner) and Sundance award winner Undertow (Contracorriente), alongside popular classics such as the gay teen musical Were The World Mine, controversial lesbian drama Loving Annabelle, Jamie Babbit’s hit lesbian drama Itty Bitty Titty Committee and many others.
“This launch helps Wolfe meet the needs of our customers on a global scale”
Designed to fight online piracy and maximize the commercial sharing of legal authorized films online, WolfeOnDemand.com features a built-in affiliate revenue program allowing fans to reap commissions when they direct others to watch movies. This game-changing model is Wolfe’s latest aggressive strategy for fighting illegal movie file sharing and online piracy.
Universal Pictures Tackling Piracy On 100th Anniversary
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Illegal File Sharing, Stats / reportsUniversal Pictures are celebrating their 100 year anniversary this year and they are not only celebrating their success but they are trying to tackle movie piracy.
They have teamed up with Screenthing to educate youngsters at the importance of not downloading movie.
Location managers Sue Quinn Adam Richards talk about the movies that they have worked on and how illegal downloads will damage that industry if something isn’t done about it.
Comedies such as Notting Hill, Love Actually and Bridget’s Jones Diary have been filmed in London as has sweeping romance epic Atonement and Shakespeare In Love.
Cinema & Universal has provided us with some of the greatest characters and moments over the years and that is a tradition that is under threat with the emergence of the illegal download trend.
Universal have been a driving force in cinema over the last 100 years with many movie showcasing UK talent from locations to actors, directors and those behind the camera.
The centennial celebrations are set to run all year and Universal will mark the occasion with the extensive restoration of thirteen of the studio’s most beloved titles such as To Kill a Mockingbird, All Quiet on The Western Front, Jaws, The Sting, Out of Africa, Frankenstein, and Schindler’s List bringing some of their greatest classics to a new generation.
More (and video):
http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/Universal+Pictures-243281.html
Former RIM CEOs Paid Millions and Millions for Ruining Company
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reportsThe Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) proposes that the U.S. Army be used to plan, command, and carry out (with the help of civilian law enforcement) domestic police missions
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports…the CFR would see the Army used to address “challenges in the United States itself” in order to keep the homeland safe from domestic disasters, including terrorist attacks.
Two hackers who provided a range of services to credit card fraudsters have been sentenced to almost five years after facilitating fraud valued at more than £26.9m
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Public Policy, Stats / reportsJay Moore, aged 21, from Gloucestershire, who used the online moniker of ‘t0pp8uzz’, set up the Freshshop website to facilitate the bulk sale of stolen financial data. He recruited Damian Horne, aged 22, from Manchester, who was known by the online moniker of ‘GM’, to assist in his online criminality.
Moore and Horne, who both pleaded guilty to a range of fraud, money laundering and computer misuse offences, were sentenced at Bristol Crown Court recently to 3 years and 21 months respectively.
The duo met through an online ‘hackers’ chat forum, and commenced their criminal activities by selling stolen iTunes vouchers and other online gaming codes on eBay. Within a short space of time they escalated their criminal enterprise to sell compromised credit card data, and laundered the proceeds of their criminality through a network of bank accounts, online financial institutions and overseas money exchangers.
More:
http://www.soca.gov.uk/news/449-cyber-criminals-jailed-for-multi-million-pound-credit-card-fraud
ICANN eggfaced after publishing dot-word biz overlords’ personal info
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy, Stats / reportsAfter proudly revealing the details of almost 2,000 new generic top-level domain applications, red-faced ICANN was today forced to yank the whole lot after applicants complained that their home addresses had been published by mistake.
ICANN accidentally also published the full contact information of each bid’s primary and secondary contact – including in many cases their home addresses.
More:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/15/icann_big_reveal_reveals_too_much/
Council chief overrules blackout on Scots 9-yr-old’s school lunch blog!
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Stats / reportsAn hour after accusing a nine-year-old girl of causing distress with her “inaccurate” lunch blog, the Argyll and Bute council has overturned its cameras-in-the-canteen ban and once again allowed school children the option of photographing their lunch.
“There is no place for censorship in this council and never will be whilst I am leader,” said Argyll and Bute council leader Roddy McCuish, in a statement just issued. Promising that he would ask the council to “clarify [its] policy position in regard to taking photos in schools”, he said that senior officials should “consider immediately withdrawing the ban on pictures from the school dining hall”.
The ban yesterday, and the council’s defence of it today, caused a web storm, pushing the dinner blog up to the top two trending topics on Twitter in the UK, and the most read story on the BBC. The school dinner blog NeverSeconds had been cited in the national press before it was banned, but got much more intense global interest after Martha was banned from continuing it yesterday. The young food-blogger recounted how she was taken into the headmistress’s office and told that she was no longer allowed to use a camera in the canteen.
More:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/15/council_overturns_school_dinner_photo_ban/
US culture to spread worldwide by means of Kindle, not iPad
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy, Stats / reportsAmazon offers a better, more complete and more secure ecosystem
“The additional features [of the iPad] are not only unnecessary, but also present unacceptable security and usability risks for the government’s needs in this particular project. Critically, the Apple iPad falls short on two requirements: the centrally managed platform for registration and content delivery, and battery life.”
Korea prohibits trade of online game items
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Education / Awareness, Legislation, Public Policy, Stats / reportsKorea has decided to ban trade for commercial game items from the second half of this year as a measure aimed at encouraging students to not waste time. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has announced that it is planning to halt all virtual item trades with a new law, to be announced sometime next month.
“The main purpose of the games is for entertainment and should be used for academic and other good purposes,” said Kim Kap-soo, head of the ministry’s content policy division, Wednesday. The government official also stressed item collecting for commercial use is a serious hindrance to creating a healthy game culture.
For online role-playing games, the law prohibits users from using programs that allow in-game characters to hunt and collect items without the need of a player controlling them. The ministry calculates that over 60 percent of items exchanged on the market were obtained by the use of automatic programs. Such programs and other method are impinging in the way of on-line games’ negative reputation, the government agency said.
Those who violate this law will face up to a 50 million won fine, at a maximum, and five years in jail.
Much more:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2012/06/129_112964.html
Use of VoIP hardware and software has just been made a crime by the new Ethiopian Telecom Service legislation
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Filtering, Legislation, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy, Stats / reportsAnyone violating this provision could be sentenced to up 15 years in prison
More:
http://en.rsf.org/ethiopia-government-steps-up-control-of-07-06-2012,42735.html
Dutch Version Of Alex Jones Behind Bars. Reporter And Whistleblower Micha Kat Arrested And Now In Custody For At Least 90 Days
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Jurisprudence, Litigation, Stats / reports
Having exposed numerous scandals in Dutch society involving financial fraud in the Dutch banking sector, corruption among multiple judges, the moral decay of Dutch newspapers and fraudulent activities of accounting firms, Dutch reporter Micha Kat may have selected a target that’s beyond his reach: Dutch Secretary General of the Dutch Department of Justice Mr. Joris Demmink.
For reasons yet unknown, the Dutch version of Infowars‘ Alex Jones, has been arrested and will – according to an article posted today – remain in custody until September 2012.
What else is new in a country where judges appear to be corrupt, members of parliament are being arrested for joining a protest march, asylum seekers are being mistreated and child abuse and human trafficking networks can roam free. The abundance of such practices makes it quite logical to arrest reporters if one aims to keep up appearances.
Meanwhile, volunteers continue to post news articles on Micha Kat’s popular Dutch language blog KlokkenluiderOnline.nl (WhistleblowerOnline).
Here’s Micha Kat appearing at Max Keiser’s Show ‘Keiser Report’ as well as a related article on Infowars.com, stating:
Micha Kat is one of the few journalists in the Netherlands, if not the only one, to follow the Bilderbergers wherever they go, thereby performing the duties so thoroughly neglected by the mainstream media
The Netherlands is a small and delicate society with low levels of corruption, but high levels of collusion, due to which any whistleblower will quite easily be facing very difficult times. One famous example being whistleblower Ad Bos, who exposed the largest construction fraud case in The Netherlands (video with English subtitles) in 2001 and who was told this week that he will still be prosecuted after 11 years.
Another one being Fred Spijkers who was facing the Dutch Ministry of Defense after being told to lie about an accident involving faulty land mines. It took 26 years to have his name cleared. Having been called a ‘political criminal’, it became known that the Ministry of Defense had put together a document which contained a strategy to target Spijkers.
Dutch language news articles:
http://www.argusoog.org/micha-kat-voor-90-dagen-opgeborgen-in-de-vernederlandse-goelag/
http://www.klokkenluideronline.nl/artikel/13137/justitie-dit-is-micha-kat#more-13137
Founder Of Download Link Site Kino.to Receives 4.5 Year Prison Sentence, Forfeits $4.7m
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, Jurisprudence, Litigation, Public Policy, Stats / reportsThe founder of one of Europe’s former leading illicit movie streaming portals has been convicted. The man, known as Dirk B, received a reduced sentence after giving a full confession and apology for this activities on Kino.to, the site hit by a massive international police operation in 2011. Despite his overtures, Dirk B received a 4.5 year jail sentence and was ordered to forfeit $4.7m of the claimed $8m he earned from the site.
In June 2011, the biggest ever operation aimed at tackling online movie piracy took place in Europe. The target for police in Germany, Spain, France, and the Netherlands was movie-streaming portal Kino.to and its affiliates.
More than a dozen people were arrested and since then various individuals have been brought to justice. The latest to face punishment is the site’s founder.
Known only as Dirk B due to German privacy laws which protect the identities of suspected criminals, the 39-year-old faced an extended stay in prison after prosecutors requested an 11 year sentence.
According to Deutsche Welle, District Court judge Karsten Nickel described the case as the “most serious” copyright breach ever to come before the courts in Germany. He went on to hand Dirk B a 4.5 year jail sentence.
The prosecution said that the operators of Kino.to generated huge profits through advertising and so-called “subscription trap” schemes. As part of his plea bargain, Dirk B agreed to hand over around $4.7m of the claimed $8m he made in revenue through his Spanish advertising company.
Dirk B is the 6th person to be sentenced in the Kino.to case.
In December 2011, 33-year-old web designer Marcus V. was handed 2.5 years in prison for his role in the site. A week later 27-year-old Martin S. – reportedly the main admin of Kino.to and brother-in-law of Dirk B. – received a 3 year sentence.
Later in December an unemployed IT assistant received 1 year 9 months probation after he confessed to uploading pirate movies and TV shows to Kino.to servers between June 2009 to July 2011.
A week later a 47-year-old server operator was sentenced to 3 years and 5 months in prison after being found guilty of storing more than 10,700 movies for paid subscription access.
In April this year, Kino.to’s 29-year-old lead programmer was sentenced to three years and ten months in prison.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/download-site-founder-receives-4-5-year-jail-sentence-forfeits-4-7m-120615/
Previously:
Anonymous Releases 2.8 Gigabytes Worth Of E-mails From The Church Of Scientology In Austria
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reportsGerman language news article:
http://www.wienerzeitung.at/themen_channel/wz_digital/digital_news/463994_Anonymous-outet-Scientology-Sympathisanten.html
Location of the files as distributed by Anonymous:
http://pastebin.com/ByA0DV5R
Auckland High Court has ordered the United States government to “immediately commence preparation” to supply Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and his co-defendants with a copy of data held on seized Megaupload servers
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, Litigation, Public Policy, Stats / reportsAccording to a judgement delivered by Justice Helen Winkelmann today the material to be handed over includes over 10 million intercepted emails, “voluminous financial records obtained from a number of different countries” and more than 150 terabytes of data that was stored on servers seized in New Zealand alone. The judgement refers to the contents of servers rented by Megaupload in the US as being “very large” but according to other reports amount to 25 petabytes.
Dotcom, Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, are awaiting an extradition hearing related to US copyright infringement charges which is due to take place on August 6. All four defendants have denied any wrongdoing.
In her judgement Justice Winkelmann said that the respondents (Dotcom, Batato, Ortmann and van der Kolk) were seeking a clone of the encrypted drive and that the absence of passwords provided no barrier to this.
On the timing issue, if a complete stay were issued, the extradition hearing date would “inevitably be lost.”
“Whilst it is certainly possible that, given the issues that remain outstanding between the parties, the 6 August 2012 date will be jeopardised, the applicant, as the prosecuting party, must accept an obligation to do all that it can to maintain that date,” Winkelmann said.
Winkelmann said she was therefore satisfied that a compromise suggested by Dotcom’s lawyer Willie Akelman was the “appropriate resolution”.
This means the US will not be required to provide the disclosure copies as ordered by Judge Harvey, however it must immediately start preparing to do so.
Much more:
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/nz-court-orders-us-to-prepare-to-hand-over-megaupload-data
Sweden Will Imprison WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange When Extradited
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Litigation, Public Policy, Stats / reportsJulian Assange will be imprisoned after he is handed over to Swedish authorities when he is extradited and will have a court hearing four days after extradition from the UK to decide if he will stay in custody, the Swedish government announced Friday.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom decided not to reopen Assange’s appeal and upheld the decision that the Wikileaks founder should be extradited to face sex crime proceedings in Sweden..
The UK Supreme Court has ordered that Assange won’t be handed over to the Swedes until June 28. After that date Assange will be brought to Sweden within ten days, according to European Arrest Warrant rules, Sweden’s Office of Public Prosecutions said.
Within four days of his arrival in Sweden, a court hearing will decide whether or not Assange should be remanded in custody for questioning by prosecution. Any decision by court can be appealed, according to the Swedish prosecutors.
Assange will be brought to Sweden by the country’s Department of Corrections which will also take him into custody. Since Assange is considered to be a flight risk, he will be kept in prison while waiting for the remand hearing.
However, the Prosecutor’s Office says Assange won’t be kept in isolation and will be able to watch TV, read newspapers and associate with other inmates.
More:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/sweden-prison-assange/
Net Neutrality in The Netherlands. This Is How They Do It
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Bandwidth Management, Blocking, Education / Awareness, Filtering, Legislation, Net Neutrality, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reportsProviders of internet access services shall not block or delay applications on the internet, unless the measures by which applications are blocked or delayed are necessary:
a) to reduce the effects of congestion, where equal forms of traffic are treated equally,
b) for the integrity and safety of the network
c) to reduce the transmission of unsolicited communications (such as Spam), and
d) to execute a legal requirement or a court order.
Providers of internet access services shall not make the price of the rates for internet access services dependent on the services and applications which are offered or used via these services.
Pricing of internet access service shall not be dependent on the usage of particular applications or services.
Pricing policy can not be used as means to restrict or hinder access to specific applications or services.
- Blocking or charging access to specific (types of) applications (e.g. voip) no longer possible.
- End users will have access to all applications and services, provided that they have sufficient bandwidth.
- Prevention of price discrimination (for instance between voip users, gamers, video or music users) may drive up average price level for all users.
- Increased need for operators to rebalance pricing of voice (↓) and data (↑) by e.g. introducing data caps.
In force from 1. January 2013
Much more:
http://www.ancom.org.ro/uploads/links_files/2012_Net_Neutrality_Remko_Bos.pdf
Anonymous, Jr.: German police search scores of underage ‘hackers’ in relation to DDoS attacks
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reportsGerman police have carried out a massive operation targeting people connected to a DDoS attack by hacktivist group Anonymous. Surprisingly, the majority of the hundred or so suspects turned out to be underage.
Police have conducted searches in the houses of some 106 individuals suspected of being involved into the Anonymous attack on the website of GEMA, a company protecting copyright laws.
According to police, for many parents, the police visit came as a big surprise, leading to a tough talk with their kids.
The organizer behind the attack on GEMA was a user calling himself AnonLulz, who on December 17 published a script that allowed sending multiple simultaneous requests to the website to disrupt its services.
Although the attack failed, the website was significantly slowed down.
All those who used the script have been considered by police as suspects in the case.
Police initiated a criminal case into the incident on charges of computer sabotage. In Germany, such a crime is punished by a fine or jail sentence.
It was also reported that Anonymous representatives are now offering legal assistance to all suspects.
More:
http://www.rt.com/news/german-police-raids-underage-hackers-anonymous-854/
UK ISP Fluidata Slams Outdated Music Industry for Pirate Bay Blockade – It’s Difficult To Get Used To The Concept Of Courts And Laws
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Blocking, Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Filtering, Illegal File Sharing, Jurisprudence, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionBecause to some within the internet industry, the business model of courts and governments is ‘out of date’ too
Business ISP Fluidata has criticised the UK music industry for forcing the country’s big broadband providers into blocking access to The Pirate Bay website, which is accused of facilitating unlawful P2P internet piracy, instead of updating their own “out of date” business models to address the real problems.
Andi Soric, Fluidatas Account Manager, said:
“That the record label business model is ‘out of date’ is a point that scarcely needs to be made. The twin pillars that upheld it; the reliance of artists on record labels to produce music, and consumer demand for cassettes/CD’s, have crumbled at alarming speed under the weight of file sharing and distribution of content, and although efforts have been made by these companies to embrace the internet age and find ways to charge for digital music, the industry still rests on precarious foundations.
While the internet has disadvantaged record labels, it is important to remember it hasn’t necessarily been a negative to the music industry. To the contrary, British artists such as Ed Sheeran, Jessie J and even American superstars such as Justin Bieber (my personal favorite) can be thankful to the internet for their current career success.
Self-made artists can now upload audio and use media platforms such as YouTube and MySpace to broadcast their talent to millions of people at virtually no cost. In my view, this can only be positive for music and society as a whole and makes you wonder how many stars have been missed in the last 50 years due to the costs attached to recording and distributing music.”
Man Goes on $1.5m Gambling Spree, After ATM Glitch Allows Him Unlimited Withdrawals
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reportsRonald Page, a retired GM worker living in the Detroit area, took advantage of one hell of a computer glitch, after happening upon an ATM that allowed him to make unlimited cash withdrawals.
As part of a new security initiative, Facebook wants your phone number
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reportsIt claims that it will help you recover your account in the event of an emergency—but should you hand it over?
More:
http://gizmodo.com/5918643/facebook-wants-your-phone-number
Popular direct links download site OneDDL has announced its immediate closure
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Education / Awareness, Illegal File Sharing, Public Policy, Stats / reports
The site, which has been around for the best part of seven years, is the latest casualty in the ongoing cyberlocker and linking controversy. What was once a legal gray area – the indexing and linking of copyright works – has now become a matter of black and white, the site’s owner reports.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/warez-download-site-oneddl-calls-it-quits-citing-legal-concerns-120614/
Karma: a 4G provider that rewards users for sharing their data plan with strangers
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Education / Awareness, Mobile tech, New Business Models, Stats / reports“Something is fundamentally broken in the market for mobile providers,” says Robert Gaal, one of the founders of Karma, a startup that just graduated from the TechStars NY accelerator program. “We want to give everyone a mobile, 4G hotspot that lives in their pocket. It’s open to everyone, and lets you pay as you go. Best of all it works no matter what carrier or what device you’re using.”
More:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/14/3078382/karma-4g-pay-as-you-go-clearwire-network
Another investor pulls out of Habbo Hotel after grooming claims
Posted: 2012/06/15 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Stats / reportsInvestors are pulling out of Finnish social networking firm Sulake and its teen-aimed website Habbo Hotel after revelations that Habbo was hosting illicit content.
Private equity firm 3i announced today that it had left Sulake’s board and was ditching its 16 per cent stake in Habbo Hotel, a social gaming network and online community for teenagers.
3i’s opt-out follows that of investor Balderton Capital, a London-based venture capital firm, which said on Tuesday that it was dumping its 13 per cent stake in Sulake after the news of pornographic chat on the site broke.
More:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/14/investors_leave_habbo_hotel/
