Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - November 23rd, ’19

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November 23rd, 2019




Court in Paris Orders French ISPs to Block More Than a Dozen Pirate Websites
Bill Toulas

• French court orders five ISPs to block thirteen pirating domains, including file-hosting providers.
• These websites do not respond to take-down notices and disregard all laws about copyright infringement.
• Europe has just recently started blocking pirating domains on the ISP level, so this trend is poised to continue in the future as well.

A Paris court has issued a blocking order concerning 13 torrenting and file-hosting websites that are apparently distributing pirated content. The blocking order was sent to five internet service providers in the country, who are now obliged to comply within a specified period of time. The ISPs whose customers won’t be able to access these websites anymore are Bouygues, Free, Orange, SFR, and SFR Fibre. The court has published three blocking orders, addressing distinct sets of websites which are the following:

• nippyspace.com
• nippyshare.com
• yolobit.com
• nippybox.com
• nippyfile.com
• nippydrive.com
• torlock.com
• toros.co
• 2ddl.vg
• bittorrent.am
• seedpeer.me
• yggtorrent.ch
• yggserver.net

The websites that belong to the “nippy” family belong to the same team and feature a simplistic design. They are file-hosting services that have no upload filtering and no copyright-related limitations in place. This renders them into a pirating platform, as people can freely share copyright-infringing content. Usually, hyperlinks to these platforms are posted on user forums, or even on other pirating websites that do not host the content themselves. The “nippy” websites are easy to use as standalone piracy platforms as they offer a powerful search engine for visitors to quickly locate what they’re looking for.

The decision to block file-hosting services via a court order that is handed over to ISPs is among the first ones in Europe after the Greek authorities did the same last year. This could signify the dawn of a new age where ISPs begin blocking anything that is even remotely related to piracy, regardless of the specific technology, the legal implications, or contradicting regulations that may underpin the process. In fact, the court even suggests that the use of the word “BitTorrent” should be enough for ISPs to consider taking proactive action against a domain, as it assumes evil intent and is often associated with pirating activities.

Whereas the ISPs are expected to block the domains at their own cost, and while blocking, in general, is against freedom on the internet, none of them expressed their opposition to the three court orders. This means that we should expect the orders to be applied, so the websites will stay blocked for the next 18 months which is the period of validity for these orders. The regular pirates in France comment that blocking these domains will change nothing, as they are just a drop in the ocean of readily available pirated content online.
https://www.technadu.com/paris-court...ebsites/85735/





Federal Court Issues First Ever Order to Block Piracy Website

Decision is the first nationwide blocking order in Canada, setting a precedent that worries critics
David Friend

A federal court is ordering Canada's internet service providers to block websites for a company selling pirated television online, deeming that such a move wouldn't infringe on freedom of expression or net neutrality.

The decision, issued Friday, affects Gold TV, an IPTV service that offers thousands of traditional TV channels for a nominal fee, streaming over internet networks. It's the first time a nationwide blocking order has been made in Canada, setting a precedent that critics say could have broader consequences.

Earlier this year, a coalition of Canadian telecommunications companies and ISPs — Bell Media, Groupe TVA and Rogers Media — filed a complaint in a federal court saying GoldTV.ca was selling subscriptions to numerous channels without owning the rights.

GoldTV.ca billed itself as "Canada's premium IPTV provider" offering 4,000 live TV channels in standard and high definition for as little as $15 per month. Among the Canadian TV channels its website offered were Citytv, CTV, Global, as well as international outlets BBC, ESPN and Animal Planet.

A judge says ISPs have 15 days to comply with blocking Gold TV's services.

University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist calls the federal court order "an enormously problematic decision, and flawed from a legal perspective."

"At a minimum, site blocking ought to be a measure of last resort, and it wasn't in this case," Geist said in a phone interview.

"Before you can even entertain the possibility of taking what is really the most extreme step in terms of literally trying to block content, you need to have taken every step you can short of that, and that's not what happened here."

A long-running battle

The federal court move comes as Canadian media companies look for ways to quash illegal file-sharing websites and torrent applications that trade copyrighted entertainment between users for free or a nominal price.

Last year, FairPlay Canada, a coalition of more than 25 Canadian media companies, filed an application with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) urging the regulator to play a role in identifying and forcing ISPs to block piracy websites.

The request by the group, which included CBC, Bell, Rogers and Quebecor, was denied by the CRTC which said it "does not have the jurisdiction under the Telecommunications Act."

The CRTC added at the time that "other avenues are more suitable to address this issue, which include the ongoing parliamentary review of the Copyright Act, as well as the expert panel review of the Telecommunications Act and the Broadcasting Act."

The smaller coalition of Bell Media, Groupe TVA and Rogers Media took a more specific case against Gold TV to a federal court, and the judge agreed with their argument.

In a joint statement supplied by their legal representatives, Bell, TVA and Rogers applauded the court order.

"Content theft remains a critical threat to Canada's creative sector, impacting rights holders and creators across the industry and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and thousands of lost jobs," the companies said.

"Similar orders are regularly issued by courts in other countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and France, and require Internet Service Providers to simply disable access to sites distributing illegal content."

But fellow ISP TekSavvy opposed the measures, and said the court should rely on the "specialized expertise" of the CRTC, rather than exercise its own jurisdiction on the matter.

"(A) blocking order is a grave violation of network neutrality and a fundamental change to what we do as internet service providers," said Andy Kaplan-Myrth, vice president of TekSavvy's regulatory and carrier affairs, in an emailed statement.

"All ISPs should defend the basic principle that we are not liable for or responsible for the content of the traffic on our networks. As unsympathetic as GoldTV may be, TekSavvy's view is that it does not represent such an urgent harm to the plaintiffs or to society that stopping its copyright infringing activities would justify such a fundamental change in the nature of the internet in Canada."

TekSavvy also raised concerns that ISPs would be faced with "hundreds or even thousands" of site-blocking orders in the future, and that could put a "significant strain" on its resources.

The judge acknowledged an internet censorship order of this nature hasn't been previously made in Canada, though something similar has been issued in the United Kingdom. The order cites a U.K. case where British ISPs were ordered to block e-commerce sites that were selling knock-off Cartier luxury watches.

Geist believes the Canadian court is relying too heavily on site blocking rules established in another country under different circumstances.

"Once you start inviting site blocking it won't surprise people if we start seeing other groups who have their own issues and their own perceived harms argue that we ought to adopt the same approach for their issue," Geist added.

"The so-called slippery slope is a very real concern."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainmen...site-1.5365032





Spanish Police Raids and Arrests 12 Pirate IPTV Network Members
Bill Toulas

• The Spanish police have dismantled a 1 million Euros pirate IPTV network.
• The police seized numerous computers and hard drives and arrested twelve individuals.
• Pirate IPTV services are becoming more popular, no matter what crackdown action takes place.

The Spanish police have announced that they dismantled a pirate IPTV network in the country after they raided various locations simultaneously and arrested twelve individuals. The total worth of the operation of the pirating network is estimated to be around a million Euros. This end result came after a two-year-long investigation, spreading across Madrid, Alicante, Tenerife, Toledo, Murcia, and the Gran Canaria. As for the hardware that was seized during the raids, this includes 10 computers, 15 hard drives, 17 mobile phones, 86 decoders, and 22000 Euros in cash.

The charges that the twelve individuals are now facing include intellectual property crime offenses, participation in a criminal organization, and money laundering. All of these charges pertain to the level of felonies, so the arrested individuals are at risk of receiving long-term imprisonment punishments. Among them, there are four who are considered to be higher-level members of the network, while the other eight were re-sellers of the illicit services. While all of them are involved in the operation, those who were in charge of capturing the broadcast signals and undertook the technical aspect of the distribution will be in greater trouble now.

As for which websites have been shut down, the police only told the press that the particular network was operating seven websites and promoted their services through two social media profiles. No particular domains have been disclosed yet, and the user reports on social media are mixed right now. It goes without saying that the police will now scrutinize the seized computers and hard drives, so everyone who collaborated with these twelve people will be exposed as well.

The last time we covered news about a police raid targeting a pirate IPTV network was only a month ago. The operation of that network amassed 6.5 million Euros, which indicates that these services are purely about making money and not about “ethical” file-sharing. Broadcasters and rightsholders feel that this money would instead end up in their pockets, but this is a misconception too. As the streaming market is getting more fragmented, the average consumer is finding it more costly to keep up with the content they want to consume. As such, pirate IPTV services are becoming more relevant to today’s reality, offering reasonably priced packages to those who want a piece of some good streaming entertainment.
https://www.technadu.com/spanish-pol...members/85427/





How Does Plume Get All these ISP Partnerships? Open Source Software

Simplified device management might be more attractive than Wi-Fi mesh itself.
Jim Salter

Yesterday, Charter Communications—the second-largest ISP in the United States—announced its adoption of the OpenSync software platform for Spectrum's advanced in-home Wi-Fi. This raises a few questions, first of which is "what's OpenSync?"

The short answer is "Plume," which in turn means that Plume now has partnerships with the first- and second-largest ISPs in the United States, as well as the first- and second-largest in Canada—and also with the National Cable Television Collective (NCTC), a membership organization comprising several hundred independent US cable companies.

Earlier this month, we covered the announcement of a Plume partnership with J:COM, Japan's largest ISP. In that coverage, we referenced tighter integration into ISPs' existing infrastructure than better-known mesh alternatives such as Eero, Google (now Nest) Wi-Fi, or Orbi can provide. OpenSync is where that tighter integration comes from.

It’s all about the cloud

From its infancy, Plume has insisted that its cloud optimizer is the magic sauce that makes its little pods great. The cloud optimizer uses machine-learning techniques to analyze telemetry from customer-deployed pod and superpod networks. The optimizer determines which topologies and which uses of Wi-Fi channels are optimal to support each customer's client devices in that customer's specific environment.

The cloud optimizer can route around congestion from neighboring networks as well as minimize its own congestive problems. The cloud optimizer—and its massive ingestion of client telemetry—also gives Plume information about broad classes of device, identifiable by BSSID or MAC address, that have consistent problems of their own. This has enabled the company to create proprietary, device-specific rulesets for devices such as iPhones and iPads that tend to have particular problems with common Wi-Fi issues such as roaming or use of DFS spectrum.

This does help make your Wi-Fi better, but from an ISP's perspective, that's just a bonus. The real value proposition for ISPs is better support, with faster and cheaper ISP development pipelines. Plume's virtual NOC makes it easy for a support technician to see just what's going on in a customer's network and, therefore, make helpful and accurate assessments about problems. If a customer calls in to complain that their Apple TV, Fire Stick, or Roku keeps buffering, a technician can see at a glance whether the problem is low signal strength or congestion, and they can offer advice accordingly.

Connecting all the things

Fitting existing cable modems and routers into this kind of enhanced support infrastructure is a big challenge for an ISP. It's one thing to offer pods (or Eero routers and beacons) to customers, but it's another thing entirely to blend that infrastructure in seamlessly with the existing Wi-Fi capabilities of the hundreds of thousands—or millions—of existing cable or DSL modem/router gateways the company has already deployed.

ISPs don't want to have to support two different infrastructures—a "basic" one for "just the modem" customers and an "advanced" one for customers who paid a little extra for mesh. ISPs also don't want to leave money on the table by disabling perfectly capable Wi-Fi APs built into their gateway devices and plugging in a separate "router" device where the modem/gateway already is. That's where OpenSync comes in.

Plume has always envisioned its cloud infrastructure being largely hardware-independent and able to use non-Plume hardware as additional access points in a Plume network. In its earlier days of building ISP partnerships, the company offered to do the software integration—building its front end into the firmware on ISPs' modems and gateway devices—directly. This created a significant pain point, as there were intellectual property concerns involved on both sides.

In response, Plume re-developed OpenSync as a more generic front-end framework, and it offered the entire codebase directly to its partners. This allowed ISPs to do their own integration into firmware, solving two problems—the ISPs no longer needed to develop and maintain massive cloud infrastructure to manage and support their customers' Wi-Fi effectively, and they no longer needed to do anywhere near as much firmware customization on each new model of gateway device.

Hedging bets and increasing adoption with OSS

Releasing Plume's front end as open source software (OSS) does more than accelerate the development pipeline for ISPs. It also overcomes a potential objection to adoption—vendor lock-in.

Plume's tentacles aren't just spreading into major ISPs—they're even reaching Wi-Fi chipset vendors themselves. OpenSync is being adopted into RDK-B, the Reference Design Kit for Broadband. RBK-B is itself a collaborative open source initiative designed to standardize software functionality in modem and gateway devices, spearheaded by Arris and Cisco. OpenSync is also finding its way into Wi-Fi SoCs themselves, such as Quantenna's QSR5GU-AX Plus, a Wi-Fi 6 SoC released earlier this year.

This wouldn't likely be possible without the assurances against vendor lock-in that open source software provides. Plume CEO Fahri Diner told Ars on a call that "Plume wants to be friends with everybody," meaning in part that the company envisions itself as providing Wi-Fi support infrastructure for as many organizations as possible. Opening up the software and APIs necessary for both the front end and back end of the cloud infrastructure connection makes this considerably more feasible.

Although Plume is currently the only big cloud infrastructure you can connect an OpenSync-enabled client to, that won't be the case forever. In the call, Diner alluded to at least one organization that's currently building out a back-end infrastructure that can be connected to with the OpenSync front end. Diner doesn't see this as a threat—or at least, not enough of a threat to offset the obvious advantages of reference software frameworks and even Wi-Fi SoCs that can be connected to Plume's cloud just by dropping in a couple of lines in a config file.

Is it really open source?

OpenSync is available under the BSD 3-Clause license. This is an Open Source Initiative-approved open source license which falls into the general category of "weak" OSS licenses. That means, in effect, that modifications made to the original project are not required to be open source themselves. A weakly licensed project can even be redistributed as fully proprietary software, with no distribution of or access to the source code required.

Unlike the more-popular MIT license, the BSD 3-clause license specifically protects the original project's branding. Redistribution of the original project requires the retention of the original copyright notice, in both source code and documentation, while also restricting redistributors from promoting derived products without explicit written consent from the project owners.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019...i-fi-hardware/





Justice Department Wants To Terminate Paramount Consent Decrees
Ted Johnson

The Justice Department will ask a federal court to eliminate the Paramount consent decrees, the 71-year-old restrictions on major distributors’ control of the exhibition pipeline.

The elimination of the decrees could alter the dynamics of the business, and perhaps lead to further consolidation. But the DOJ, which has been looking to eliminate the decrees since last year, believes that they are from an outdated time, before multiplexes, on-demand movies and streaming.

“We have determined that the decrees, as they are, no longer serve the public interest, because the horizontal conspiracy – the original violation animating the decrees – has been stopped,” Makan Delrahim, the chief of the antitrust division, said in a speech to the American Bar Association on Monday.

He said that they DOJ would be asking a federal court to terminate the decree, except for a two-year “sunset” period on the ban on block booking and circuit dealing.

A 1948 Supreme Court decision in favor of the government compelled studios to sell their theater chains. The landmark decision led to the crumbling of the studio system, in which the seven major studios of the time held tight control over all aspects of production, distribution and exhibition.

In the wake of the ruling, Paramount, MGM, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and RKO to divest their exhibition chains, and the consent decrees restricted certain types of distribution practices. The decrees applied only to those studios and to Columbia Pictures, Universal and United Artists, but not to Disney, which was then not among the majors.

Delrahim argued that the decrees are out of date, and even noted that “much of our movie watching is not in theaters at all.”

“We cannot pretend that the business of film distribution and exhibition remains the same as it was 80 years ago,” he said in his speech. New streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon are not bound by the decrees.

The Antitrust Division opened a review of the decrees last year, sending a signal that it would move to terminate them.

In comments to the Justice Department, the National Association of Theater Owners argued that the decrees were “more necessary than ever” given the changes in the industry. They specifically cited the prohibition on block booking, or the selling of an entire slate of films as a unit.

“If distributors are permitted to block book, they could demand exhibitors book an entire slate on multiple screens, leaving little room for the independent and smaller distributors to finance and distribute films that consumers demand,” NATO told the DOJ. “The risks of ‘overbooking’ a film on a multiplicity of screens are exacerbated with digital distribution, as the historic high costs associated with shipping film prints are set to expire entirely in the next few years, reducing the cost of film distribution to close to zero.”

Among other things, NATO argued that the result could be less room for midrange movies as major studios seek more screens for their tentpole movies.

“Without the ability to guarantee a wide release, or even a tailored platform release, independent studios will not have the screens they require for midrange movie success, to the detriment of consumers,” NATO said last year. They also argued that eliminating the prohibition on block booking would curb experiments in variable pricing.

In a statement on Monday, NATO noted that they “submitted comments to the Department previously and we stand by those comments. We will wait to review any actual motion the Department may file in court before commenting further.”

The Motion Picture Association had no comment.

In his speech, Delrahim said that the sunset period will allow for a “period of transition,” in which studios and exhibitors can adjust their licensing proposals. He also suggested that termination of the decrees does not mean that practices like block booking are legal. He said that the Antitrust Division could still bring scrutiny to distributors’ conduct using the “rule of reason.”

“If credible evidence shows a practice harms consumer welfare, antitrust enforcers remain ready to act,” he said.

Delrahim has been looking to eliminate long-standing antitrust decrees that have no expiration dates. The DOJ is in the midst of reviewing an even older set of decrees that govern music licensing.

While theater owners are wary of the impact of lifting the consent decrees, Delrahim said that “changes over the course of more than half a century” have made it unlikely that the studios “can reinstate their cartel.”

“Evolution in antitrust law has further made blanket prohibitions of certain vertical restraints inappropriate,” he said.
https://deadline.com/2019/11/justice...es-1202789185/





Victory: Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules Police Can’t Force You to Tell Them Your Password
Andrew Crocker

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a forceful opinion today holding that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects individuals from being forced to disclose the passcode to their devices to the police. In a 4-3 decision in Commonwealth v. Davis, the court found that disclosing a password is “testimony” protected by the Fifth Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination.

EFF filed an amicus brief in Davis, and we were gratified that the court’s opinion closely parallels our arguments. The Fifth Amendment privilege prohibits the government from coercing a confession or forcing a suspect to lead police to incriminating evidence. We argue that unlocking and decrypting a smartphone or computer is the modern equivalent of these forms of self-incrimination.

Crucially, the court held that the narrow “foregone conclusion exception” to the Fifth Amendment does not apply to disclosing passcodes. As described in our brief, this exception applies only when an individual is forced to comply with a subpoena for business records and only when complying with the subpoena does not reveal the “contents of his mind,” as the U.S. Supreme Court put it. (For more on the foregone conclusion exception, see this post on a similar case currently pending in the Indiana Supreme Court.)

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed with EFF. It wrote:

“Requiring the Commonwealth to do the heavy lifting, indeed, to shoulder the entire load, in building and bringing a criminal case without a defendant’s assistance may be inconvenient and even difficult; yet, to apply the foregone conclusion rationale in these circumstances would allow the exception to swallow the constitutional privilege. Nevertheless, this constitutional right is firmly grounded in the “realization that the privilege, while sometimes a shelter to the guilty, is often a protection to the innocent.”

This ruling is vital because courts must account for how constitutional rights are affected by changes in technology. We store a wealth of deeply personal information on our electronic devices. The government simply should not put individuals in the no-win situation of choosing between disclosing a password—and turning over everything on these devices—or instead defying a court order to do so.

At least two other state supreme courts, in Indiana and New Jersey, are considering similar cases. EFF is participating in both of those cases as amicus along with the ACLU. With the victory in Pennsylvania, and several other courts set to weigh in, there’s a significant chance the U.S. Supreme Court will have the last word. We hope that like the Pennsylvania court, the Supreme Court recognizes just how fundamental the Fifth Amendment right is.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/1...tell-them-your





It’s the User’s Fault if a Ring Camera Violates Your Privacy, Amazon Says

The company's answers to congressional questioning only earned it more questions
Kate Cox

Amazon subsidiary Ring, which makes home surveillance equipment and cameras, has "partnerships" with more than 600 law enforcement agencies nationwide, allowing those police access to users' footage. And while Ring says it sets terms around how and when it will share that footage with police, anything the police do with it afterward is entirely out of its hands, the company says.

The partnerships between Ring and police, and the terms of the agreements, have not been transparent to the general public. Instead, they've come out in bits and pieces in media reports throughout the year. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in September demanded clearer answers from Amazon about Ring and published the company's responses this week.

In the pair of replies (PDF 1, PDF 2), Ring repeatedly deflects responsibility for the contents of captured footage to the consumers who capture it and the police departments that acquire it.

Who else watches the watchers?

Amazon in the last week of August agreed to share publicly a list of where it has police partnerships. At that time, there were 405 such agreements. As of November 15, however, that map now boasts 630 police partnerships, a greater than 50% increase.

Customers who buy Ring systems for their homes can connect to an app called Neighbors. Police who work in partnerships with Ring have a companion app to Neighbors that allows them to request footage from users in a given geographic area when it's pertinent to an investigation.

What police do after that, however, is a mystery in which Ring says it has no part.

"Ring does not require law enforcement to delete materials shared through a video request after a certain period of time," the company said. Law enforcement departments set their own terms for record retention in accordance with the laws of their jurisdiction and can keep it as long as they see fit.

Amazon and Ring also do not have any minimum security requirements for the use of user footage. Partners use their own "requirements, protocols, and security measures" for protecting any Ring data they acquire. And they can share it with whomever they like: "If videos are downloaded by law enforcement, Ring does not require police departments to agree to additional restrictions," the company said, citing potential public records law and police investigative procedures.

"Ring is constantly seeking ways to maximize transparency and user control, including adding additional information on how video footage may be used when a customer consents," the company added.

“Volunteered” data and privacy

Amazon has repeatedly said throughout the year that Ring users must volunteer to share their footage in response to a police request. In August, the company told Ars that participating law enforcement agencies must go through Ring to request footage, adding, "Customers can choose to opt out or decline any request, and law enforcement agencies have no visibility into which customers have received a request and which have opted out or declined."

The minimum region for requesting footage is 0.025 square miles, Ring told Sen. Markey, in order to prevent police from targeting specific individuals. The maximum region is 0.5 square miles, in order to prevent broad blanketing. The maximum time frame of data police can ask for is 12 hours, and they can only get footage less than 45 days old.

In some neighborhoods, housing may be dense enough to effectively mask the identity of someone in a radius of a few blocks. But in lower-density neighborhoods zoned for single-family homes, it could be trivial for police to figure out which residence in a 0.025-square-mile radius is using a camera, regardless of if it shares footage willingly, and which residents they may wish to talk to.

All that said, however, Ring said it believes that "state and federal procedures, regulations, and statutes serve to ensure that police departments do not open investigations or seek information for improper purposes."

Respecting users and non-users' privacy is also the camera owner's problem, Amazon said.

"Ring's Terms of Service state that users are responsible for their use of our products and services, including use in accordance with any applicable privacy laws," the company said in response to a question about cameras pointed at public space such as municipal sidewalks that aren't part of a homeowner's property. "Ring includes a door/window sticker in the box with each device that is equipped with audiovisual recording capabilities" so that homeowners can prominently notify anyone in the neighborhood that they may be recorded, Amazon added. It has no oversight or compliance program in place for owners, however.

"Amazon Ring’s policies are an open door for privacy and civil liberty violations," Markey said in a statement following Amazon's response. "If you're an adult walking your dog or a child playing on the sidewalk, you shouldn't have to worry that Ring's products are amassing footage of you and that law enforcement may hold that footage indefinitely or share that footage with any third parties."
Especially the kids

Ring's privacy policy says it does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of 13. But the cameras, of course, collect footage of whoever happens to be nearby. "Ring has no way to know or verify that a child has come within range of a device," Amazon wrote. "Customers own and control their video recordings."

And yet Ring itself seems to have no compunction about showing children under 13 in footage if it's good for their marketing. For example: 15.8 million Ring doorbells rang in the 24 hours of Halloween, the company said in a blog post.

The company shared some harmless data about all those trick-or-treaters. (Peak time on the East Coast was around 6:30pm, while West Coast kids peaked about 20 minutes later, apparently.) But the company also released a promotional video using captured Halloween footage, including several very clear images of children both with and without their parents present.

Website Mashable asked Ring whether parents consented to their children's appearance in the advertisement video, but the company did not respond.

Ring's terms of service allow for it, BuzzFeed pointed out earlier this year:

“You hereby grant Ring and its licensees an unlimited, irrevocable, fully paid and royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide right to re-use, distribute, store, delete, translate, copy, modify, display, sell, create derivative works from and otherwise exploit such Shared Content for any purpose and in any media formats in any media channels without compensation to you.”

All your face are belong to us

Markey also pressed Ring several times about the use of facial-recognition technology. The company responded that it does not use any facial recognition yet but may do so in the future.

A sentence in its privacy policy to the effect that Ring may "obtain certain facial feature information about the visitors you ask your Ring product to recognize" refers to "a contemplated, but unreleased feature," the company said. "If our customers want these features in Ring security cameras," it added, "we will only release these features with thoughtful design including privacy, security, and user control; and we will clearly communicate with our customers as we offer new features."

What Ring users choose, however, affects not just homeowners who buy the systems but also anyone who gets close enough to their house for any reason.

"Connected doorbells are well on their way to becoming a mainstay of American households, and the lack of privacy and civil rights protections for innocent residents is nothing short of chilling," Markey said in his statement—a sentiment echoed by civil liberties organizations and advocates.

"Through consumer products like Ring, Amazon is collecting footage and all the data needed to build a nationwide surveillance network," Fight for the Future deputy director Evan Greer said in a statement.

"They leverage government relationships to promote their own products, gain consumer trust, and secure their position in the market. This is an unprecedented assault on our security, constitutionally protected rights, and communities," Greer added, calling on Congress to launch an investigation.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation have also both repeatedly expressed concerns about Ring, about facial recognition, and about both of them together.

Staff attorney Mohammad Tajsar of the ACLU of Southern California told the Associated Press that the potential for facial recognition in Ring products raised significant concerns. "Even if you don't sell data or provide data to law enforcement, you're creating a mechanism whereby people can express latent biases and racism and classism in a portal that encourages it," he said.

We’re not through

A group of senators, including Markey, found Amazon's response insufficient. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) joined Markey in a new letter (PDF) dated today asking pointed follow-up questions, particularly about Amazon's handling of consumer data.

"Ring's emphasis on safety and security has not always extended to the massive amount of data it amasses, retains, and shares," the senators wrote, referring to a vulnerability that sent WiFi network passwords in plaintext.

Additionally, the senators wrote, Amazon has reportedly sent footage to contractors in Ukraine and apparently is still doing so. "Please describe the process by which Americans' data is accessed by employees or contractors in Ukraine or any other country" outside the United States, the letter asks.

Amazon is also told to provide data on how many consumers own Ring devices; what kind of encryption Ring uses for the data; what data retention or deletion policy is used on the data; what employees, and where, have access to what content, and why; what consumer-identifying data might be included in that content; and what the company plans to do about facial recognition in the future.

Amazon has until January 6 to respond to the latest round of questions.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...azon-confirms/





Micron Now Offers Micro SD Card that Can Store 1 TB
Hilbert Hagedoorn

Micron has announced a new series of micro SD cards ranging from 32GB running up towards 1 TB called the i300 series. It is targeted at surveillance cameras. The model with the largest storage capacity has room for 1 TB of data, which currently seems to be the highest capacity for any micro SD card.

Micron unveiled the world’s highest-capacity industrial microSD card — Micron i300 1TB3 microSDXC UHS-I — to address the edge storage needs of the video surveillance market and other industrial applications. The new Micron® i300 1TB microSD card is based on Micron’s advanced 96-layer 3D quad-level cell (QLC) NAND technology, now making it cheaper for small- to medium-sized deployments to have primary storage in the camera compared to a centralized storage architecture. The i300 microSD card enables users of video surveillance systems to capture and store more than three months of high-quality video footage on-device and at the edge.

“Micron’s i300 industrial-grade microSD cards for edge storage open the possibility for a broad range of video surveillance as a service deployments that no longer require local network video recorders,” said Amit Gattani, senior director of Segment Marketing in Micron’s Embedded Business Unit. “Micron’s 96-layer 3D QLC NAND is instrumental in helping us deliver 1TB of storage in a microSD form factor and at a breakthrough price point to accelerate edge storage and cloud-based service models.”

Intelligence at the Edge

VSaaS systems are increasingly integrating artificial intelligence-based and higher-resolution cameras that require more storage at the edge. The Micron i300 1TB microSDXC card allows 24/7 continuous capture and storage of up to 1TB of high-quality video in the camera. Users of video surveillance systems can now store large amounts of video footage on-device, opening a broader set of uses for cloud-managed solutions.

“Demand for commercial surveillance cameras continues to grow at a rapid pace,” said Jeff Janukowicz, research vice president at International Data Corporation (IDC). “Smart cameras, artificial intelligence, machine learning and threat detection are being driven to the edge for real-time responsiveness, making Micron’s 1TB microSD card an invaluable solution for differentiation and innovation.”

The VSaaS market is projected to reach $6 billion in 2022, corresponding to a growth of 22% compound annual growth rate between 2017 and 2022.4 The rising adoption of VSaaS by small to medium businesses and enterprises is attributed to lower overhead costs achieved through ease of installation and elimination of the need for on-site NVRs and DVRs. The ability to store large video footage files in the camera and at the edge reduces the demand for network bandwidth and expenditure associated with continuous cloud storage. These savings contribute to lowering the overall cost of ownership for businesses while bringing flexibility and scalability associated with cloud-based implementation models.

"The video surveillance market is quickly shifting toward hybrid cloud architectures that store video footage on-camera, allowing secure access via cloud-based software,” said Raj Misra, director of Hardware Engineering at Verkada. “Enterprise customers are choosing hybrid cloud offerings to reduce operational costs, simplify installation and management, and gain from powerful video analytics. Micron extending its range of reliable industrial-grade microSD cards to 1TB enables us to provide our customers with industry-leading data retention, security and video resolution options at very cost-effective price points."

Micron’s industrial-grade microSD portfolio is designed to endure the harsh environments in which surveillance systems are deployed. The Micron i300 1TB microSDXC card minimizes frame drops in a 24/7, 30 frames per second (FPS) recording environment, offering twice the reliability of hard disk drives at 2 million hours mean time to failure. The card features a smart tool for monitoring the health of devices.

“VIVOTEK has launched a series of edge-computing network cameras and successfully deployed Micron’s high-quality industrial-grade microSD cards,” said Shengfu Cheng, director of Marketing and Product Development Division, VIVOTEK Inc. “Micron’s portfolio of industrial microSD cards up to 1TB equips us to deliver greater flexibility, scalability and maintenance efficiency to our customers, all of which contribute to a better return on investment.”

Availability
The Micron i300 microSDXC UHS-I card is offered in 128GB to 1TB capacities, which are available for ordering. The entire industrial-grade portfolio includes capacities ranging from 32GB to 1TB.
https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/mi...tore-1-tb.html





‘It’s Really Refreshing And Relaxing’: College Students Say Ditching Their Smartphones For A Week Changed Their Lives

They survived!

Nearly two dozen Adelphi University students made it a full week without their cell phones!

As CBS2 first told you last week, it was part of a college course intended to break the powerful addiction of smartphones.

CBS2’s Carolyn Gusoff went back on Thursday as students were reunited with their beloved mobile devices.

It’s old school in Jacob Dannenberg’s dorm room – with an alarm clock to wake him.

Handwritten notes remind him an actual wristwatch to keep track of time.

No it wasn’t 1999, it was an Adelphi University course called “Life Unplugged.” where students did the unthinkable one week ago – handed over their smartphones.

“I’m freaking out, I could probably cry right now,” one student said.

It was a bold experiment to recognize today’s compulsive relationships with ever present devices.

Seven days later, “who’s excited they’re getting their phones back today?” Professor Donna Freitas asked.

Gone were the nerves and the shakes.

“Everything is perfect right now. I’m having a lot better relationships… it’s a stress free environment no pressure about social media,” Jacob Dannenberg said.

“I think it’s really refreshing and relaxing… I was able to fall asleep a lot easier,” student Adrianna Cigliano.

They managed to find their way, even without GPS for a week.

“I just had to take the same route everywhere,” one student joked.

They were also more productive.

“Doing homework was 100 percent easier. I got it done faster, I was in the zone,” Cigliano said.

Prof. Freitas says it’s important for everyone to assess their addiction.

“Are the conveniences worth it because the drawback are pretty significant,” Freitas said.

“The fact that no one can focus, that my students can’t sleep… They feel bad about themselves because of social media, the list goes on and on.”

The sweet reunions went sour quickly as endless notifications piled up.

“Oh my God this is so bad!… I just want to shut it off now!” the Adelphi class said.

Students say they’re not quite breaking up with their phones, but promise the relationship will change.

“I want to keep that balance and figure out the healthy relationship that we deserve to have with our phones,” Cigliano added.

“My screen time is definitely going to go down and I’m going start to appreciate my surroundings more because usually I’m looking at my screen all the time,” Ashley Castillero said.

Students told CBS2 they look forward to living more in the moment, with their heads up more often, notifications off, and the “do not disturb” on.

Students were allowed to use a desktop computer or laptop during the experiment. They also made emergency communication plans with family.
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/11...changed-lives/

















Until next week,

- js.



















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