Archive for the ‘Filtering’ Category
Tech companies are being held to a higher standard. They have only themselves to blame
Posted: 2013/05/22 in Bandwidth Management, Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Filtering, Jurisprudence, Litigation, Net Neutrality, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionLet’s see: freedom of information, freedom of speech, freedom of innovation, net neutrality, mere conduit, never deep packet inspection, never ad injection, unlimited downloading, right to privacy, no blocking, no filtering, court orders always…
Internet service providers in the UK have today begun blocking one of the world’s largest streaming movie portals
Posted: 2013/05/20 in Blocking, Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Filtering, Illegal File Sharing, Jurisprudence, Litigation, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionIn a follow up to similar actions, the MPAA obtained a High Court order which compels all major ISPs to begin blocking Movie2K, a massive site with millions of visitors each month.
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TorrentFreak can confirm that in the last week of April several of the UK’s leading ISPs including BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk, and almost certainly O2, EE and Sky, received a copy of a High Court order compelling them to block the sites.
BT have already begun blocking the site in the UK and Virgin Media inform us that they too will initiate a blockade today.
“Virgin Media has received an order from the Courts requiring it to prevent access to Download4All and Movie2K in order to help protect against copyright infringement,” a spokesperson told TorrentFreak.
“As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media complies with court orders addressed to the company, but strongly believes that changing consumer behaviour to tackle copyright infringement also needs compelling legal alternatives to give consumers access to great content at the right price.”
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/uk-isps-block-huge-movie-site-movie2k-proxy-immediately-unblocks-130520/
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.
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.”
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/
Their parents’ Internet provider was somehow involved in slapping ads onto webpages as they moved over the network
Posted: 2013/04/09 in Education / Awareness, Filtering, New Business Models, Online advertising, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionUpdate: CMA Communications’ Terms of Service now contains a section on “Internet Advertising” that is “effective as of April 4, 2013″—a day after Henkel’s reddit thread and the same day that I asked them questions about the practice. The section says, in part, that R66T will use a “digital layer which enables aggregated, curated, and created multimedia content and digital information presented in many digital formats” for “the purpose of inserting Information that is informational, promotional, entertaining, location-based, and generates advertising and sponsorship revenue for R66T and CMA.” R66T’s system is called BlueSky, and CMA has “entered into a contract with R66T to provide the services.”
The terms require that users waive all rights to sue R66T—arbitration is the only allowed recourse.
As for even linking to R66T content, that’s only allowed with permission; CMA users may not “link to the Services or any R66T Content contained herein unless specifically endorsed or authorized by R66T.”
Update 2: Two readers who use CMA tell us that they now no longer see the ads in question and suspect that CMA has halted the project. One reader thanked Henkel for bringing the issue to light, saying, “It has directly impacted the thousands of people that subscribe to CMA.”
Much more:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/04/how-a-banner-ad-for-hs-ok/
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
Fair 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
Dear Google, what happened to the direct download links for iOS apps?
Posted: 2013/04/02 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Filtering, Google, New Business Models, Online advertising, Stats / reportsA lot of people use Google’s search engine to find direct links to iOS applications. It used to be that queries such as ‘Twitter iPhone’ would result in Google showing direct links to the most relevant iTunes page up on top, or at least very close to the top, making finding and downloading apps from the desktop or iOS devices a breeze.
We’re not sure when things changed, or to what degree exactly, but Appsfire co-founder Ouriel Ohayon noticed today that it’s seemingly gotten way harder to swiftly find direct app download links using Google.
He’s far from the only one seeing this.
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Conspiracy theorists out there can start sharpening their knives, and here’s some more food for thought: some direct app download links aren’t being buried by Google’s search engine whatsoever – particularly those applications that were made by … Google.
More:
http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/04/02/dear-google-where-did-all-the-itunes-links-to-ios-apps-go/
isoHunt Loses Appeal Against the MPAA, Keyword Filter Remains
Posted: 2013/03/22 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Filtering, Illegal File Sharing, Jurisprudence, Litigation, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution“As noted, the record is replete with instances of Fung actively encouraging infringement, by urging his users to both upload and download particular copyrighted works, providing assistance to those seeking to watch copyrighted films, and helping his users burn copyrighted material onto DVDs,” Judge Berzon writes.
In addition the Judge concludes that there was financial benefit that could be directly tied to copyright infringements. For example, Fung used lists of typical user searches, including popular movies and TV-shows, to sell ad inventory. Adding to this, a very large part of the content shared through the site was copyrighted material, and more infringements led to more revenue.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/isohunt-loses-appeal-against-the-mpaa-keyword-filter-remains-130321/
UK ISPs Start Blocking KickassTorrents, H33T and Fenopy
Posted: 2013/03/22 in Blocking, Copyright, Education / Awareness, File Sharing, Filtering, Illegal File Sharing, Jurisprudence, Litigation, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionBT, Virgin Media, O2 and Be There have started to block access to three of the world’s largest BitTorrent sites. The blockades were put in place following a High Court order earlier this year, which ruled that KickassTorrents, H33T and Fenopy were facilitating copyright infringement. With the sites no longer accessible, hundreds of thousands of UK BitTorrent users will be looking for a new hope, or options to bypass the filters.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/uk-isps-start-blocking-kickasstorrents-h33t-and-fenopy-130321/
Facebook Removes Two ‘Party’ Pages Per Request Of Dutch Law Enforcement. No Court Order Needed
Posted: 2013/03/14 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Filtering, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reportsRiots should preferably be taking place in the Middle East. Facebook and freedom of information? Meh….
The police of the province of Noord Holland commented: “We asked whether they would remove them and that’s what they did”.
The pages contained a call to organize a party on behalf of the Mayor of the Dutch town of Haren, a town which had experienced severe riots as a result of a ‘Project X’ type of event.
The Mayor recently decided to step down when a critical report about his performance and that of local enforcement authorities had been released.
Dutch language news article:
http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/3369302/facebook-verwijdert-afscheidsfeest-burgemeester-haren.html
Previously:
http://vrritti.com/?s=project+x+haren&submit=Search
EU votes to reject ‘porn ban’ proposals. Kids not screwed up enough just yet. Everybody back to xvideos, pornhub and xhamster!
Posted: 2013/03/12 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Filtering, Net Neutrality, New Business Models, Online advertising, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionNot every instance of ‘adult entertainment’ is quite the same…some of it can hardly be labeled as ‘entertainment’…or ‘adult’ for that matter…
European citizens can breathe a sigh of relief after a vote in the European Parliament has rejected proposals to ban “all forms of pornography” — including on the Web — in the region.
The European Parliament votes in favor of the report, but rejects the ‘porn ban’ section.
Today, 625 members of the European Parliament voted 368-159 in favor of passing a report aimed at stamping out gender stereotypes in the region, with 98 abstaining. However, the controversial “porn ban” section of the proposal was rejected.
This vote forms a majority opinion based on Europe’s voting politicians, from which the European Commission can form legislation. Such a law would again be voted upon, and become legally binding in the 27 member state bloc of the EU.
Because the opinion of the Parliament has now been made, it will be extraordinarily difficult for the Commission to draw up similar porn-blocking legislation only to pass it back to the Parliament for another vote.
These porn-blocking proposals, initially introduced by Dutch Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Socialist Party Kartika Tamara Liotard, were buried within a report titled “Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU,” which was first submitted to the Parliament in early December. The report no doubt had positive intentions as a bid to close the gender inequality gap in the region by developing awareness and effective measures to reduce the prevalence of gender stereotypes in education, employment, and the media.
More:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57573771-93/eu-votes-to-reject-porn-ban-proposals/
See also:
David Cameron Wants To Protect Children Against The Pornhubs, Xhamsters And Xvideos Of This World
http://vrritti.com/2012/11/18/david-cameron-wants-to-protect-children-against-the-pornhubs-xhamsters-and-xvideos-of-this-world/
Has the constant bombardment of society with sexual imagery and the ready availability of online porn trivialised and demeaned sex to the extent that we are no longer revolted when individuals are openly graded on everything from their attractiveness to their rape potential?
http://vrritti.com/2013/03/10/has-the-constant-bombardment-of-society-with-sexual-imagery-and-the-ready-availability-of-online-porn-trivialised-and-demeaned-sex-to-the-extent-that-we-are-no-longer-revolted-when-individuals-are-ope/
Money vs Child Safety: Automatic Block of Porn Sites Rejected in UK. Pornhub, Xhamster and Xvideos Rejoice!
http://vrritti.com/2012/12/15/money-vs-child-safety-automatic-block-of-porn-sites-rejected-in-uk-pornhub-xhamster-and-xvideos-rejoice/
Xvideos, the largest porn site on the web with 4.4 billion page views per month, is three times the size of CNN or ESPN, and twice the size of Reddit
http://vrritti.com/2012/11/27/xvideos-the-largest-porn-site-on-the-web-with-4-4-billion-page-views-per-month-is-three-times-the-size-of-cnn-or-espn-and-twice-the-size-of-reddit/
You Know What’s Funny About The Google Zeitgeist 2012 Report? Everybody Is Looking For Nice, Happy And Legal Things. Piracy And Porn Are Sooo 2011
http://vrritti.com/2012/12/12/you-know-whats-funny-about-the-google-zeitgeist-2012-report-everybody-is-looking-for-nice-happy-and-legal-things-piracy-and-porn-are-sooo-2011/
When Porn Is Even More Of A Cash Cow Than Piracy: Survey Finds UK Internet Users Oppose Mandatory ISP Adult Site Blocks
http://vrritti.com/2012/05/21/when-porn-is-even-more-of-a-cash-cow-than-piracy-survey-finds-uk-internet-users-oppose-mandatory-isp-adult-site-blocks/
How Much Porn Does the Internet Hold?
http://vrritti.com/2012/04/05/how-much-porn-does-the-internet-hold/
