Archive for the ‘Blocking’ Category
And There You Have It. When An Ecosystem Equals An Oppressive Regime. Apple Censors Book Of Dutch Author Heleen Van Royen. No Court Order Needed
Posted: 2013/05/17 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Stats / reportsThe book will not be accepted in Apple’s App Store. Reasons?
- De book contains (two) links to adult websites;
- Apple wants the author to remove a section of text from page 282;
The author is furious and has contacted a law firm.
Dutch language news articles:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/prive/21571780/__Boek_Heleen_te_pikant_voor_Apple__.html
http://www.powned.tv/nieuws/media/2013/05/apple_weigert_porno_heleen_van.html
See also:
http://vrritti.com/?s=ecosystem
Records Labels Prepare Massive ‘Pirate Site’ Domain Blocking Blitz
Posted: 2013/05/15 in Blocking, Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Illegal File Sharing, Stats / reportsIn their ongoing battle against websites said to infringe music copyrights, record labels have initiated a fresh wave of actions aimed at forcing UK ISPs to carry out domain blocking. This third wave is set to be the biggest so far, affecting as many as 25 domains and including some of the world’s largest torrent sites and file-hosting search engines. Furthermore, the BPI – the entity coordinating the action – will ask courts to block US-based music streaming operation, Grooveshark.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/records-labels-prepare-massive-pirate-site-domain-blocking-blitz-130515/
Facebook kills social suicide app Social Roulette. No Freedom Of Information Or Freedom Of Innovation
Posted: 2013/05/15 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionMimicking the real-life game Russian roulette, the app gave Facebook users a one-in-six chance of deleting their own account before the social network deleted the app.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57584314-93/facebook-kills-social-suicide-app-social-roulette/
Pirate Bay Challenges U.S. Government By Taking Over Distribution of Censored 3D Printable Gun
Posted: 2013/05/10 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Public Policy, Stats / reportsA few days after the blueprints for the world’s first printable gun were published online, Defense Distributed has been asked by the State Department to pull them down, citing possible arms trafficking violations. The blueprints, however, are still available on The Pirate Bay and many other file-sharing sites, which adds a 3D chapter to the IP enforcement debate.The Pirate Bay says it welcomes the blueprints and has no intention of taking the files down.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-takes-over-distribution-of-censored-3d-printable-gun-130510/
YouTube Admits: “With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call”
Posted: 2013/05/10 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Filtering, Google, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionDavid Bowie’s latest video, which stars Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard, was temporarily pulled from YouTube over its graphic content.
3D printable gun ordered to shut down by government
Posted: 2013/05/09 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution“Until the Department provides Defense Distributed with final CJ determinations, Defense Distributed should treat the above technical data as ITAR-controlled,” meaning the files must comply with the UN . “This means that all such data should be removed from public access immediately. Defense Distributed should also review the remainder of the data made public on its website to determine whether any additional data may be similarly controlled and proceed according to ITAR requirements.”
Defense Distributed recently garnered major attention after they were able to produce a complete firearm, titled the Liberator, solely using 3D printed parts. Data for the Liberator files have reportedly already been downloaded over 100,000 times.
It’s clear that it was this milestone that inspired the Department of State to pursue compliance orders.
More:
http://www.infowars.com/breaking-3d-printable-gun-ordered-to-shut-down-by-government/
YouTube bans ad for porn website aimed at disabled people. No Court Order Needed
Posted: 2013/05/09 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Google, New Business Models, Stats / reportsAnd where’s the transparency report on YouTube bans?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/media-blog/2013/may/09/youtube-bans-ad-porn-website-disabled-people
Google Falsely Accuses Infowars, Drudge of Malware
Posted: 2013/05/08 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Filtering, Google, Stats / reportsGreek Anti-Piracy Group Demands Blocks Of KickAss, isoHunt, 1337x, H33T And Possibly The Pirate Bay
Posted: 2013/05/02 in Blocking, Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Filtering, Illegal File Sharing, Litigation, Stats / reportsIn a continuation of the website blocking phenomenon, an anti-piracy group fresh to the action has applied to have several major torrent sites blocked at the ISP level in Greece. AEPI, the Greek Society for the Protection of Intellectual Property, has filed at court to have KickAssTorrents, isoHunt, 1337x and H33T all rendered inaccessible to subscribers. Sources inform TorrentFreak that The Pirate Bay will also be targeted later this month.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-group-demands-blocks-of-kickass-isohunt-1337x-and-h33t-130502/
Disguise: Freedom Of Information? Sure, As Long As You’re Inside Google’s Ecosystem
Posted: 2013/04/27 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Filtering, Google, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution“An app downloaded from Google Play may not modify, replace or update its own APK binary code using any method other than Google Play’s update mechanism.”
If owners try to resell or even lend their glasses to someone else, Google may simply cause the product to seize up
Posted: 2013/04/21 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Google, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionYes, Google is able to throw a remote brick through your lenses — though some informed sources suggest the company has no intention of doing so.
Openness has a very interesting definition on occasion. As does fandom. For what some might find moving is that it was Google fanboys who actively tried to ensure that Ed’s auction wouldn’t succeed.
More:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57580581-71/google-activists-try-to-sabotage-google-glass-auction/
Although they complain extremely loudly about piracy in the United States, the major record labels have never tried to have a domain blocked there
Posted: 2013/04/17 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Filtering, Illegal File Sharing, Jurisprudence, Litigation, Public Policy, Stats / reportsInstead they’ve focused on countries around Europe and have achieved many of their site blocking successes through the UK High Court.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-proxy-now-included-in-secret-isp-blocklist-130417/
Fox & YouTube pull ‘Family Guy’ episode that aired last month featuring mass deaths at the Boston Marathon
Posted: 2013/04/17 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Filtering, Google, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution- The episode first aired on March 17 and featured Peter Griffin, the show’s main character, reminiscing about winning the Boston Marathon by mowing down runners in a car
- The episode also features Griffin unknowingly assisting terrorists who were plotting to blow up a bridge
- YouTube users have mashed together the unrelated clips to suggest that the show predicted the tragic bombings at the marathon Monday
- ‘Family Guy’ creator Seth MacFarlane calls the edited clips ‘abhorrent’
And
YouTube has now censored a commentary video which merely pointed out that a recently broadcast episode of Family Guy contained scenes eerily similar to those that unfolded during the Boston Marathon attack. YouTube deleted the video claiming it contained, “spam,” “scams” or “commercially deceptive content,” when it contained none of these things. YouTube has also placed a strike against the host channel and threatened to delete it.
Tivo and others are now removing the episode from their systems, which is strange given that the episode is supposedly a “hoax” and doesn’t exist, according to the media.
This underscores the fact that if they will censor a cartoon in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, they will censor anything – including your right to merely talk about it.
More:
http://www.infowars.com/family-guy-episode-predicted-boston-marathon-attack/
Virgin Media UK will cut the ISPs download speed throttling to just 30% for some and rising to at most 40% but for a shorter period
Posted: 2013/04/16 in Bandwidth Management, Blocking, Education / Awareness, File Sharing, Filtering, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionUsenet via SSL may still escape the wrath of Virgin
Cable operator Virgin Media (Liberty Global) has today introduced a “more flexible and responsive” Traffic Management policy for customers on its 30Mbps and faster “unlimited” superfast broadband packages, which will cut the ISPs download speed throttling to just 30% for some and rising to at most 40% but for a shorter period.
Under the new policy Virgin Media will manage traffic between the hours of 4pm to 11pm each weekday and 11am to 11pm at weekends, which the provider claims will only impact around 5% of their customers each day. During these times the ISP will slow your upload and download speeds if you go above a certain level of usage (threshold) within a given timeframe.
The new system works on a 1 hour threshold (30% download / 60% upload speed reduction) and 2 hour threshold (40% download / 75% upload reduction), which means that some customers will be able to exit traffic management after at least 60 minutes if they get into it (the reduction use to last for 5 long hours).
But to exit after 60 minutes you’d need to stop any big downloads, otherwise the stricter 2 hour threshold might trigger. The usage thresholds, which trigger a speed reduction once you go over them, are perhaps best explained with the use of an example – Traffic Management on Virgin’s 60Mbps (XL60) package.
Some of the thresholds have also been lowered, especially on the side of upload speeds. For example, under the old system 60Mbps customers downloading over 10,000MB (10GB) during the daytime period would have triggered the 40% throttle for 5 hours. But now a 30% throttle will trigger, albeit after only 3.6GB of usage, and rising to 40% after 4.5GB if you fail to exit the first 60 minute window in time. This system may benefit some but others are likely to view it as being more restrictive.
As usual it can be complicated to explain the details of any policy and as a result Virgin Media has updated its Traffic Management Threshold’s page to give a better explanation for each package, which is useful because the usage thresholds (but not the reduction %) are different for each package and trying to explain all that here would quickly cause confusion.
It’s important to stress that Virgin’s new TM policy isn’t just about slowing all service speeds. The system is designed to prioritise certain types of traffic (e.g. web browsing, gaming etc.) in busy times or busy areas to “ensure that it is of an adequate quality“, while P2P and Newsgroups will be slowed.
“Google currently has no plans to disqualify P2P websites from using .movie domain names”
Posted: 2013/04/13 in Blocking, Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Filtering, Google, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reportsThe news was even worse from Frank Rittman, SVP of the Motion Picture Association, Asia Pacific, who stated that potential pirates have all the digital tools they need to make illegal media sharing more viral than ever. “Digital online technology has enabled new channels of delivery for entertainment media,” he said. “The cloud also represents a threat in that it facilitates piracy, and the pirates seem to have gotten into this space first.”
The answer to both problems, Rittman believes, is pushing for Internet Service Providers to block sites known to be troublemakers when it comes to Internet piracy. He pointed to examples of the practice in Europe, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea as models of how this has worked as a low-cost way of cutting down on piracy that has met with some success.
However, he suggested that Hong Kong may have already missed the boat for that particular defense. “The legislative process in Hong Kong was hijacked by extremists and the laws were blocked over a political issue that had nothing to do with piracy and IP rights,” he said. Take notes, USA, while you still have the time.
More:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/international/the-future-of-online-movie-piracy-is-grim-experts-warn/
No Freedom Of The Press In The Netherlands – Part 2: Dutch Newspapers Are Not (Yet?) Publishing Names Of All Dutch Individuals And Businesses In The ICIJ’s Tax Evasion Database
Posted: 2013/04/06 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Filtering, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy, Stats / reportsIt seems like newspapers are only reporting on:
- non-Dutch individuals
- names of Dutch individuals and businesses which probably have not played a significant part in actual tax evasion schemes, so the damage to their reputation (and Dutch society) might be limited.
As such, it seems as if Dutch newspapers are controlling the damage of the ICIJ effort, rather than having it reach the core of the Dutch society.
This results in the exceptionally awkward situation that we have the Secretary of State at the Dutch Ministry of Finance, Mr. Frans Weekers, making an effort to get access to all the data regarding Dutch businesses and individuals, rather than newspapers simply reporting the facts. He seems willing to take Dutch newspapers to court to reach that goal.
Dutch language news articles:
http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4504/Economie/article/detail/3421370/2013/04/06/ING-en-ABNAmro-duiken-op-in-database-over-belastingvlucht.dhtml
http://www.powned.tv/nieuws/politiek/2013/04/weekers_zien_wie_geheime_reken.html
Previously:
One Huge Pile Of Money. 25.000.000.000.000 Euros To Be Exact. Where? Tax Havens. Who? Here You Go!
http://vrritti.com/2013/04/04/one-huge-pile-of-money-25-000-000-000-000-euros-to-be-exact-where-tax-havens-who-here-you-go/
How the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists made sense of the 260 gigabytes of information
http://vrritti.com/2013/04/04/how-the-international-consortium-of-investigative-journalists-made-sense-of-the-260-gigabytes-of-information/
There Is No Freedom Of The Press In The Netherlands. Main Stream Media Do Not Report On “Demmink E-mails”
http://vrritti.com/2013/03/21/there-is-no-freedom-of-the-press-in-the-netherlands-main-stream-media-do-not-report-on-demmink-e-mails/
Internet Provider Telenet May Have Blocked Rooted Android Devices When They Want To Access Live Streams
Posted: 2013/04/05 in Blocking, Copyright, Education / Awareness, File Sharing, Filtering, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionPerhaps the ISP wants to prevent rooted devices from relaying live feeds to the likes of Screencast
Dutch language news article:
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/88277/telenet-blokkeert-livestream-voor-geroote-android-toestellen.html
YouTube has a special deal with Universal which sees content taken down at the record label’s request and DMCA counter notices blocked with no chance of appeal
Posted: 2013/04/05 in Blocking, Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionFair Use Policies Of Dutch Internet Providers Not Always Clear. Internet Users Subject To Random Decision Making Process
Posted: 2013/04/04 in Bandwidth Management, Blocking, Education / Awareness, Filtering, New Business Models, Stats / reportsProviders like to decide for themselves what type of behavior they will condone…or not.
Dutch language news articles:
http://www.nu.nl/internet/3388897/upc-gaat-vast-internetgebruik-mogelijk-beperken.html
http://webwereld.nl/nieuws/113946/upc–zware-downloaders-gaan-extra-betalen.html
