P2P-Zone - View Single Post - The Newspaper Shop -- Friday edition

walktalker · 22-11-02, 09:28 PM

No More Music Piracy, Por Favor
When the Mexican Supreme Court moved some of its offices last week to a quieter workspace, few federal officials saw it as anything more than a sensible relocation. After all, the court is located smack in the middle of Mexico City, surrounded by traffic, street vendors and crowds of tourists and commuters. The Recording Industry Association of America, however, saw things differently. According to the RIAA, the court's relocation was directly related to music piracy. Shortly after getting wind of the move, the RIAA drafted an open letter to Mexican President Vicente Fox, urging his government to crack down on vendors of pirated CDs. The recording industry trade group blamed vendors they say were blasting pirated music from boom boxes outside for disturbing the justices' peace.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,56522,00.html

Geek 'Vigilantes' Monitor Border
A group of tech-savvy ranchers in Arizona is using military technology to monitor and apprehend illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. Members of the group have spiked their land with thousands of motion sensors. They also use infrared tracking devices, global positioning systems, night vision goggles, radar and other gear to survey movement near the border. The ranchers, members of an organization called the American Border Patrol, said their goal is to use technology to inform the public about the "slow invasion" they claim is happening at the southwest border. But not everyone agrees the group is simply a source of information. The governor of the Mexican state of Sonora said in a statement on Wednesday that he will ask the U.S. government to stop "vigilante groups who are hunting" for immigrants along the border.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56523,00.html

Plot Twist for Indie Filmmakers
Independent filmmaking is a rough business. Of the more than 1,000 American independent features completed each year, only a handful reach theaters. But a more pragmatic and sustainable production model for independent filmmakers may be emerging: the digital film studio. Several companies in New York are attempting to use digital moviemaking tools to produce a steady stream of low-budget, profitable and arty feature films. In at least two cases -- Independent Digital Entertainment (or InDigEnt) and Blow Up Pictures -- the plan seems to be working. InDigEnt, a production company founded by director Gary Winick, attorney John Sloss and producers Jonathan Sehring and Caroline Kaplan, has completed and sold seven features since 2000. Five of those films, including Richard Linklater's Tape and Ethan Hawke's Chelsea Walls, were released in theaters.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56510,00.html

Apple 'It' Girl Breaks Silence
First she turned down David Letterman. Then she said no to Jay Leno. For months, Ellen Feiss, the mysterious Net celebrity who starred in a popular commercial for Apple Computer's "Switch" campaign, refused all interview requests, including those from the two titans of late-night television. But Feiss, whose fame continues to grow even as she eschews the media spotlight, has finally granted her first sitdown with a reporter, albeit from an unlikely publication. The interview with the Brown Daily Herald, the college newspaper of Brown University, will be published Friday. In that article, Feiss reveals she was, as many of her "fans" had guessed, under the influence of drugs during filming of the infamous commercial that shot her to Internet fame, but exactly what she took, editors at the Herald aren't saying; all is revealed in the interview. The best guess is allergy medication, according to online scuttlebutt.
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,56528,00.html

A Fan Site's Tome to the Opera
The fat lady coughed at the Metropolitan Opera this week. Whether she'll be able to keep singing is another matter. Last week, John Patterson, the beleaguered creator of an opera fan site called MetManiac, reluctantly shut down the site after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the opera company's legal department. The company claimed the name MetManiac and the contents of the site violated their trademarks and copyrights. Although the threats made Patterson and other opera lovers très misérables, they made their voices heard. Members of the Opera-L e-mail list and watchdog webloggers wrote a flurry of e-mails to the Metropolitan Opera's general manager, Joe Volpe, detailing their disappointment in the opera company.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56532,00.html

ActiveX Control Acting Up
There's a new hole in the slab of security Swiss cheese otherwise known as Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser.

Once again, the hole can be exploited when users visit a malicious website or open HTML mail. And once again the hole allows an attacker to take complete remote control over another computer. But this latest hole, which also affects Microsoft's IIS Web server software, has an interesting new twist. Even if Microsoft's patch is applied to close the hole, an attacker can easily unpatch the patch. The hole is caused by a badly coded ActiveX control. Typically, Microsoft would handle the problem by setting a kill bit, which would forever prevent Internet Explorer from being affected by the malformed ActiveX control.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,56526,00.html

Efforts to stop music piracy 'pointless'

Record industry attempts to stop the swapping of pop music on online networks such as Kazaa will never work. So says a research paper prepared by computer scientists working for software giant Microsoft. The four researchers believe that the steady spread of file-swapping systems and improvements in their organisation will eventually make them impossible to shut down. They also conclude that the gradual spread of CD and DVD burners will help thwart any attempts to control what the public can do with the music they buy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2502399.stm

Spam king lives large off others' e-mail troubles
You might call it the house that spam built. Alan Ralsky's brand new 8,000-square-foot luxury home near Halsted and Maple in West Bloomfield has been a busy place this month. Outside, landscapers worked against the November cold to get a sprinkler system installed before the ground freezes. Inside, painters prepared to hang wallpaper. Meanwhile, delivery trucks pulled into the bricked circular driveway with computers, routers, servers and other high-tech gear that will hook up to the high-speed T1 line installed a few weeks ago. In the lower level of the home, tucked away in a still-unfinished room, will soon be an array of 20 different computers -- the control center of what many believe is the largest single bulk e-mailing operation in the world.
http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend22_20021122.htm

Cannabis link to mental illness strengthened
The link between regular cannabis use and later depression and schizophrenia has been significantly strengthened by three new studies. The studies provide "little support" for an alternative explanation - that people with mental illnesses self-medicate with marijuana - according to Joseph Rey and Christopher Tennant of the University of Sydney, who have written an editorial on the papers in the British Medical Journal. One of the key conclusions of the research is that people who start smoking cannabis as adolescents are at the greatest risk of later developing mental health problems. Another team calculates that eliminating cannabis use in the UK population could reduce cases of schizophrenia by 13 per cent.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993098

Net activism offers lessons for ministers
The increasing use of the internet by political activists could provide valuable lessons for the UK Government, say experts. At a summit of ministers, business leaders and net experts in London this week, officials acknowledged that the government needed to do more to get citizens engaged in the political process online. And there were plenty of people on hand to offer advice. Dr Ian Kearns, head of the Digital Society Project at think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research told the conference that e-democracy must walk hand-in-hand with e-government.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2496363.stm

Critics See Threat to Medical Freedom and Privacy
On Nov. 13, 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives passed, by a vote of 299-121, legislation to create a cabinet level Department of Homeland Security. Quick approval by the US Senate is expected, followed by President Geoge W. Bush signing the legislation into law before the end of the month. The new department would combine workers from 22 agencies, including the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, FEMA, and the Customs Service, into one mega-department with expanded powers, a $37 billion budget, and about 170,000 employees. The reorganization is the largest in government since the creation of the Defense Department in 1947. One sticking point that prevented passage of the bill prior to the Republicans' Congressional victories on Nov. 5 involved disagreements about the creation of an independent panel to review possible government lapses prior to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
http://naturalhealthline.com/

Peer-to-Peer Lawsuit Faces Legal Hurdle
In a case that tests global jurisdiction issues, a U.S. federal judge is set to consider Monday whether entertainment companies can sue in U.S. courts the off-shore distributor of the Kazaa peer-to-peer file sharing software. The company behind the popular P-to-P software, Sharman Networks, is incorporated in the island nation of Vanuatu, operates out of Australia, and distributes the software from servers located outside of the U.S. Los Angeles District Court Judge Stephen Wilson is slated to decide if the entertainment companies may sue Sharman Networks for allowing the illegal trading of their copyrighted works over the company's P-to-P network in U.S. courts. Sharman Networks is arguing that it has no substantial contacts in the U.S. and therefore the companies lack jurisdiction to take it to court here.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,107276,00.asp

RIAA apparently published copyright material by mistake
Over enthousiastic folk at musicunited.org, which issues stern warnings on its Web site about the unauthorised reproduction and distribution of copyrighted music, found itself with egg on its face yesterday when it appeared to have accidently published some copyright material belonging to the University of Chicago. The RIAA – noted for its exceedingly fierce stance on music copyrights – owns the musicunited.org web site. The pages have now been removed but that watchdog of Internet freedom – our old pal Mr Google – has a copy of the some of the content of the removed pages cached on its site.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=6337

More news later on

22-11-02, 09:28 PM	#3
walktalker The local newspaper man Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Montreal Posts: 2,036	No More Music Piracy, Por Favor When the Mexican Supreme Court moved some of its offices last week to a quieter workspace, few federal officials saw it as anything more than a sensible relocation. After all, the court is located smack in the middle of Mexico City, surrounded by traffic, street vendors and crowds of tourists and commuters. The Recording Industry Association of America, however, saw things differently. According to the RIAA, the court's relocation was directly related to music piracy. Shortly after getting wind of the move, the RIAA drafted an open letter to Mexican President Vicente Fox, urging his government to crack down on vendors of pirated CDs. The recording industry trade group blamed vendors they say were blasting pirated music from boom boxes outside for disturbing the justices' peace. http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,56522,00.html Geek 'Vigilantes' Monitor Border A group of tech-savvy ranchers in Arizona is using military technology to monitor and apprehend illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. Members of the group have spiked their land with thousands of motion sensors. They also use infrared tracking devices, global positioning systems, night vision goggles, radar and other gear to survey movement near the border. The ranchers, members of an organization called the American Border Patrol, said their goal is to use technology to inform the public about the "slow invasion" they claim is happening at the southwest border. But not everyone agrees the group is simply a source of information. The governor of the Mexican state of Sonora said in a statement on Wednesday that he will ask the U.S. government to stop "vigilante groups who are hunting" for immigrants along the border. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56523,00.html Plot Twist for Indie Filmmakers Independent filmmaking is a rough business. Of the more than 1,000 American independent features completed each year, only a handful reach theaters. But a more pragmatic and sustainable production model for independent filmmakers may be emerging: the digital film studio. Several companies in New York are attempting to use digital moviemaking tools to produce a steady stream of low-budget, profitable and arty feature films. In at least two cases -- Independent Digital Entertainment (or InDigEnt) and Blow Up Pictures -- the plan seems to be working. InDigEnt, a production company founded by director Gary Winick, attorney John Sloss and producers Jonathan Sehring and Caroline Kaplan, has completed and sold seven features since 2000. Five of those films, including Richard Linklater's Tape and Ethan Hawke's Chelsea Walls, were released in theaters. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56510,00.html Apple 'It' Girl Breaks Silence First she turned down David Letterman. Then she said no to Jay Leno. For months, Ellen Feiss, the mysterious Net celebrity who starred in a popular commercial for Apple Computer's "Switch" campaign, refused all interview requests, including those from the two titans of late-night television. But Feiss, whose fame continues to grow even as she eschews the media spotlight, has finally granted her first sitdown with a reporter, albeit from an unlikely publication. The interview with the Brown Daily Herald, the college newspaper of Brown University, will be published Friday. In that article, Feiss reveals she was, as many of her "fans" had guessed, under the influence of drugs during filming of the infamous commercial that shot her to Internet fame, but exactly what she took, editors at the Herald aren't saying; all is revealed in the interview. The best guess is allergy medication, according to online scuttlebutt. http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,56528,00.html A Fan Site's Tome to the Opera The fat lady coughed at the Metropolitan Opera this week. Whether she'll be able to keep singing is another matter. Last week, John Patterson, the beleaguered creator of an opera fan site called MetManiac, reluctantly shut down the site after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the opera company's legal department. The company claimed the name MetManiac and the contents of the site violated their trademarks and copyrights. Although the threats made Patterson and other opera lovers très misérables, they made their voices heard. Members of the Opera-L e-mail list and watchdog webloggers wrote a flurry of e-mails to the Metropolitan Opera's general manager, Joe Volpe, detailing their disappointment in the opera company. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56532,00.html ActiveX Control Acting Up There's a new hole in the slab of security Swiss cheese otherwise known as Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. Once again, the hole can be exploited when users visit a malicious website or open HTML mail. And once again the hole allows an attacker to take complete remote control over another computer. But this latest hole, which also affects Microsoft's IIS Web server software, has an interesting new twist. Even if Microsoft's patch is applied to close the hole, an attacker can easily unpatch the patch. The hole is caused by a badly coded ActiveX control. Typically, Microsoft would handle the problem by setting a kill bit, which would forever prevent Internet Explorer from being affected by the malformed ActiveX control. http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,56526,00.html Efforts to stop music piracy 'pointless' Record industry attempts to stop the swapping of pop music on online networks such as Kazaa will never work. So says a research paper prepared by computer scientists working for software giant Microsoft. The four researchers believe that the steady spread of file-swapping systems and improvements in their organisation will eventually make them impossible to shut down. They also conclude that the gradual spread of CD and DVD burners will help thwart any attempts to control what the public can do with the music they buy. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2502399.stm Spam king lives large off others' e-mail troubles You might call it the house that spam built. Alan Ralsky's brand new 8,000-square-foot luxury home near Halsted and Maple in West Bloomfield has been a busy place this month. Outside, landscapers worked against the November cold to get a sprinkler system installed before the ground freezes. Inside, painters prepared to hang wallpaper. Meanwhile, delivery trucks pulled into the bricked circular driveway with computers, routers, servers and other high-tech gear that will hook up to the high-speed T1 line installed a few weeks ago. In the lower level of the home, tucked away in a still-unfinished room, will soon be an array of 20 different computers -- the control center of what many believe is the largest single bulk e-mailing operation in the world. http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend22_20021122.htm Cannabis link to mental illness strengthened The link between regular cannabis use and later depression and schizophrenia has been significantly strengthened by three new studies. The studies provide "little support" for an alternative explanation - that people with mental illnesses self-medicate with marijuana - according to Joseph Rey and Christopher Tennant of the University of Sydney, who have written an editorial on the papers in the British Medical Journal. One of the key conclusions of the research is that people who start smoking cannabis as adolescents are at the greatest risk of later developing mental health problems. Another team calculates that eliminating cannabis use in the UK population could reduce cases of schizophrenia by 13 per cent. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993098 Net activism offers lessons for ministers The increasing use of the internet by political activists could provide valuable lessons for the UK Government, say experts. At a summit of ministers, business leaders and net experts in London this week, officials acknowledged that the government needed to do more to get citizens engaged in the political process online. And there were plenty of people on hand to offer advice. Dr Ian Kearns, head of the Digital Society Project at think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research told the conference that e-democracy must walk hand-in-hand with e-government. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2496363.stm Critics See Threat to Medical Freedom and Privacy On Nov. 13, 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives passed, by a vote of 299-121, legislation to create a cabinet level Department of Homeland Security. Quick approval by the US Senate is expected, followed by President Geoge W. Bush signing the legislation into law before the end of the month. The new department would combine workers from 22 agencies, including the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, FEMA, and the Customs Service, into one mega-department with expanded powers, a $37 billion budget, and about 170,000 employees. The reorganization is the largest in government since the creation of the Defense Department in 1947. One sticking point that prevented passage of the bill prior to the Republicans' Congressional victories on Nov. 5 involved disagreements about the creation of an independent panel to review possible government lapses prior to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. http://naturalhealthline.com/ Peer-to-Peer Lawsuit Faces Legal Hurdle In a case that tests global jurisdiction issues, a U.S. federal judge is set to consider Monday whether entertainment companies can sue in U.S. courts the off-shore distributor of the Kazaa peer-to-peer file sharing software. The company behind the popular P-to-P software, Sharman Networks, is incorporated in the island nation of Vanuatu, operates out of Australia, and distributes the software from servers located outside of the U.S. Los Angeles District Court Judge Stephen Wilson is slated to decide if the entertainment companies may sue Sharman Networks for allowing the illegal trading of their copyrighted works over the company's P-to-P network in U.S. courts. Sharman Networks is arguing that it has no substantial contacts in the U.S. and therefore the companies lack jurisdiction to take it to court here. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,107276,00.asp RIAA apparently published copyright material by mistake Over enthousiastic folk at musicunited.org, which issues stern warnings on its Web site about the unauthorised reproduction and distribution of copyrighted music, found itself with egg on its face yesterday when it appeared to have accidently published some copyright material belonging to the University of Chicago. The RIAA – noted for its exceedingly fierce stance on music copyrights – owns the musicunited.org web site. The pages have now been removed but that watchdog of Internet freedom – our old pal Mr Google – has a copy of the some of the content of the removed pages cached on its site. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=6337 More news later on __________________ This post was sponsored by Netcoco, who wants cookies, cookies, cookies and, you guessed it, more cookies