Then again, the site – under its new domain ThePirateBay.se – is currently at no. 53 of most popular websites in The Netherlands, followed by Torrentz.eu at number 54.

See http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries;2/NL

As such, the Pirate Bay website (at this point in time) is more popular in The Netherlands than Groupon, The Meteorological Institute KNMI, eBay, YouPorn and even KPN.com itself.

The old domain ThePirateBay.org – even now it has been disabled and is only redirecting to the .se domain – is today still ranked at no.81.

See http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries;3/NL

When quite recently ThePirateBay.org  was positioned at number 27, more popular in The Netherlands than the websites of Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Paypal, WordPress, The Dutch Railway Company, The Dutch Tax Authority and soccer magazine Voetbal International.

So time is money (to everybody) obviously…

Dutch language news article:
http://www.nu.nl/internet/2748462/stichting-brein-daagt-providers-blokkade-the-pirate-bay.html

https://www.tugg.com/home

“In the US, we have a team of engineers, product managers and partnerships folks who only do gaming, from Zynga down to two-person shops. Now we’re creating that same unit in Europe too,” says Christian Hernandez, director of EMEA director of business development and partnerships at Facebook.

The move is the result of the recent success for several European social games companies on Facebook, including Wooga, King.com, Supercell and Nordeus. Hernandez says these companies have all managed to build healthy audiences on the social network by focusing on different kinds of games to giants like Zynga.

Hernandez believes that Europe is “the most interesting region in terms of the innovation on top of the Facebook platform in gaming”, although he adds that his job would hardly allow him to think otherwise.

More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2012/feb/22/facebook-games-europe

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/23/white_spaces/

That’s when she discovered that a substantial amount of money had been transferred to another account. She has filed a criminal complaint in relation to hacking, theft and vandalism.

Dutch language news article:
http://www.security.nl/artikel/40473/1/Vrouw_beroofd_tijdens_internetbankieren.html

http://www.naag.org/assets/files/pdf/signons/20120222.Google%20Privacy%20Policy%20Final.pdf

Quickly, prominent copyright enforcers for the entertainment industries – Hollywood lawyer Monique Wadsted and Antipiratbyrån lawyer Henrik Pontén – announced that the decision would signal a new crackdown on file-sharing sites in Sweden.

Although there was no immediate news of site closures, now there is a significant development. Tankafetast, Sweden’s second largest torrent site behind The Pirate Bay, has announced that it has ceased its operations with immediate effect.

While Tankafetast may not be hugely popular overseas, its importance in Sweden was reflected by its inclusion in Google’s 2010 Zeitgeist report. At the time the site claimed 39 million page views per month.

Much more:
http://torrentfreak.com/swedish-piracy-crackdown-2-torrent-site-calls-it-quits-120223/

With the latest update, it seems that the C&C server has disappeared entirely for this functionality. Where they were previously sending and receiving control messages to and from the C&C, these control messages are now handled by the P2P network.

This means that every peer in the botnet can act as a C&C server, while none of them really are one. Bots are now capable of downloading commands, configuration files, and executables from other bots—every compromised computer is capable of providing data to the other bots. We don’t yet know how the stolen data is communicated back to the attackers, but it’s possible that such data is routed through the peers until it reaches a drop zone controlled by the attackers.

While these changes make the botnet more resistant to takedown, and equally more difficult to track the attackers behind it, it also provides another major benefit to the attackers. Zeustracker is a site which has had considerable success in tracking and publishing IP block lists for Zeus C&C servers around the world. With Zeus switching to P2P for these functions means that the site would no longer be able to produce exact Zeus C&C IP block lists.

More:
http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/zeusbotspyeye-p2p-updated-fortifying-botnet

“Cybersecurity has become a priority on the international agenda. In January, the Netherlands opened the National Cybersecurity Center, a partnership between the public, private and academic sectors. Bilateral security cooperation between the Netherlands and the United States is already strong and this Letter of Intent will further enhance our collaboration in cybersecurity,” said Minister Ivo Opstelten.

The Letter of Intent signed today recognizes expanded coordination between the United States and the Netherlands, and outlines several areas to further collaborate on cybersecurity including incident management and response activities, control systems security, and cybersecurity exercises.

During the meeting, Secretary Napolitano and Minister Opstelten also discussed the importance of international security partnerships as well as collaborative efforts to combat terrorism and transnational crime, and ensure a stronger, safer, and more resilient global supply chain.

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/20120222-napolitano-opstelten-cybersecurity-cooperation.shtm

http://www.gsnmagazine.com/node/25691?c=cyber_security

That development has raised questions in a mortgage and real estate fraud criminal case in U.S. District Court in Denver about whether turning over a computer password amounts to a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/colorado-woman-must-turn-over-computer-password-after-appellate-court-refuses-to-get-involved/2012/02/21/gIQAkuTVRR_story.html

Dutch language news article:

http://www.nu.nl/film/2747976/online-verkoop-redt-entertainmentindustrie-niet.html

The Do Not Track technology modifies communications between browsers and servers so people can signal that they don’t want their browsing behavior to become the basis for ad targeting.

Mozilla developed Do Not Track and built it into its Firefox Web browser. Microsoft followed suit not long after with Internet Explorer, Apple has enabled it as an option for developers in Safari 5.1, and Opera is building it into the forthcoming Opera 12.

Now Google’s getting on board, too, with Chrome.

“We plan to implement Do Not Track across our browser and advertising systems by the end of the year,” a Google representative said in a statement.

Craig Phillips, a former business partner of accused cable-modem hacker Robert Harris, told a Boston jury that Harris taught him how to use hacked firmware to “uncap” cable modems and use the firmware with cloned MAC addresses to steal cable service.

Uncapping a cable modem allows the user to remove bandwidth filters imposed by the cable ISP, which can increase the speed of the modem and defeat any throttling or content filtering an ISP may try to do.

Phillips has been given immunity by prosecutors for his testimony, and the jury has been instructed to regard his statements with healthy skepticism.

More:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/ryan-harris-trial/

- there are providers and telcos that own media / TV / news / entertainment companies

- providers are starting to take action against copyright infringement voluntarily especially when they’re deploying (their own) VOD services themselves

- the likes of Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google are also protecting their intellectual property aggressively

- people are still wondering about his own alleged relationship with a neo-nazi Pirate Bay investor, dodgy advertising brokers and shell companies on exotic islands

So is the pot calling the kettle black?

Much more:

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bays-peter-sunde-on-the-copyright-mafia-120222/

See also:

Pirates And Nazi’s…What Do They Have In Common?
http://vrritti.com/2012/02/20/pirates-and-nazis-what-do-they-have-in-common/

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski wants Internet service providers to work with government and security experts to adopt voluntary standards to protect consumers from cyber attacks.

The leader of the project, who would like to remain anonymous, explains that the project is a follow up to the so called Notice And Take Down Code Of Conduct already existing in The Netherlands. It promotes self-regulation in relation to online illegality.

Leaseweb’s Security Officer Alex de Joode is not particularly in favor of this project. He argues that:

1. he feels that the outcome of this project should be a document explaining to hosting providers and access providers how to deal with illegal content

2. he feels that the definition of ‘illegal’ remains problematic as well as proper procedures as to how evidence demonstrating illegal activities should be collected

3. he argues that a series of activities can be declared as illegal, but segments of a process need not be illegal (i.e. an illegal website can also contain legitimate content)

4. he feels that it is up to the judge (quoting article 54a procedures in The Netherlands) whether or not an entire chain of events can be declared as illegal

5. he feels that the discussion should not be aimed at having providers be the ones (solely) dealing with illegality online

De Joode does indicate that the website of the project is running at Leaseweb and that he has attended ‘one or two meetings’ in relation to the topic.

The project leader responds by arguing that the initiative has been launched to find ‘bottom up’ solutions, provided and supported by the industry and not forced on the private sector by government organizations. Therefore it is not a legislative effort. The parties involved limit themselves to the definition of the problem and descriptions of the internet & terrorism phenomenon.

The Clean IT Project, with its slogan ‘Fighting the illegal use of internet‘ (apparently now changed into ‘Limiting terrorist use of internet’), is a joint effort with participation of government organizations in Belgium, the UK, Germany and Spain. Europol is also contributing.

Dutch language news article:
http://webwereld.nl/nieuws/109614/nederland-leidt-project-tegen-internet-extremisme.html

See also:

Alex de Joode aka Usura is well known and oftentimes associated with the vox.hacktic.nl anonymous remailer, the utopia.hacktic.nl bulletin board and the Cypherpunk community discussed previously and appears a couple of times in John Young’s (Cryptome.org) Cypherpunk list (Google Cache) while e-mailing from the famous anonymous remailer domain replay.com, and the sabotage.org (Societé Anonyme BOTAGE) domain. He has traditionally been associated with crypto repository zedz.net and the dizum anonymous remailer.

In the past he has single-handedly shut down a complaint center for online child abuse images, arguing that the staff of the center didn’t adhere to proper procedures nor the bylaws of the organization.

His favorite tagline appears to be:  “Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?” – Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347, “Who Watches The Watchmen?”

http://vrritti.com/2010/12/11/leasewebs-alex-de-joode-provides-adittional-details-about-anonops-takedown-in-relation-to-pro-wikileaks-attacks/

and

The Flaws of the Slippery Slope Arguments
http://www.garlikov.com/philosophy/slope.htm