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Old 29-05-20, 06:54 AM   #1
JackSpratts
 
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Default Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - May 30th, ’20

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May 30th, 2020




As Millions Work from Home, Govt Bans File-Sharing Site

In order against WeTransfer, Telecom dept cites national security, public interest
Sameer Desai

If you’ve been having trouble accessing WeTransfer.com for sending work files to colleagues, the problem isn’t your internet connection or a case of service’s servers buckling under increased demand. It is because WeTransfer, one of the world’s most popular file sharing services, has been banned by the Department of Telecommunications.

In an order dated May 18, the telecom department directed internet service providers (ISP) to ban three specific website URLs. The first two are specific pages of WeTransfer, while the third is the entire website. It is unclear as to what is contained in the first two URLs as the website is currently banned by several ISPs, but banning WeTransfer entirely is a perplexing decision.

The Netherlands-based independent file sharing service has more than 50 million users around the world, who send over a billion files between them every month. WeTransfer’s appeal lies in its simplicity – it allows users to send files up to 2 GB in size to anyone else, delivered straight to the recipient’s email, without having to create an account. A premium paid plan offers more features and larger file capacities, but for most users, the free plan does the trick.

SHOOTING THE MESSENGER

We Transfer is the latest in a long list of online services that have been arbitrarily banned in India due to the illegal practices of a few of its users. In 2011, the now-defunct file sharing service Megaupload was banned in India after pirated versions of a newly launched Bollywood film were found to have been uploaded by a user.

In 2014, more than 200 websites, including file-sharing sites like Google Docs, Rapidshare and Sendspace, had been ordered banned by the Delhi High Court after a complaint by Sony, broadcaster of the FIFA World Cup that year.

Most of the website bans in the past have come as a result of public interest litigations (PIL) drawing attention to pornographic or violent content, or piracy complaints from copyright holders such as filmmakers or broadcasters.

In many of these cases, John Doe orders by courts have let to hundreds of websites being banned.

However, in all cases, rather than simply targeting the dubious content in question, the bans have extended to the entire website. File sharing websites provide the service of allowing users to send files to others.

They are merely facilitators, and should not be penalised for illegal content that is uploaded by its users, especially since this data is only sent to the intended recipient and not made public.

These services are merely facilitators and the vast majority of its users do not use it to share illegal or objectionable content. In the case of WeTransfer, the ban isn’t the result of a PIL or a complaint, but rather an independent decision of the telecom ministry.

The order cites a stipulation of the Unified License that applies to ISPs, which states: “In the interest of national security or public interest, the Licensee shall block Internet sites/Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)/Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) and/or individual subscribers, as identified and directed by the Licensor from time to time.”

Even though the above condition allows for the removal of individual URLs, the telecom department has still taken the decision to block the entire WeTransfer website.

This will no doubt hurt the millions of Indians who continue to work from home during the lockdown, and who turn to file sharing services like WeTransfer to send documents and files back and forth.
https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/...w/76099734.cms





Hackers Release a New Jailbreak that Unlocks Every iPhone
Zack Whittaker

A renowned iPhone hacking team has released a new “jailbreak” tool that unlocks every iPhone, even the most recent models running the latest iOS 13.5.

For as long as Apple has kept up its “walled garden” approach to iPhones by only allowing apps and customizations that it approves, hackers have tried to break free from what they call the “jail,” hence the name “jailbreak.” Hackers do this by finding a previously undisclosed vulnerability in iOS that break through some of the many restrictions that Apple puts in place to prevent access to the underlying software. Apple says it does this for security. But jailbreakers say breaking through those restrictions allows them to customize their iPhones more than they would otherwise, in a way that most Android users are already accustomed to.

The jailbreak, released by the unc0ver team, supports all iPhones that run iOS 11 and above, including up to iOS 13.5, which Apple released this week.

Details of the vulnerability that the hackers used to build the jailbreak aren’t known, but it’s not expected to last forever. Just as jailbreakers work to find a way in, Apple works fast to patch the flaws and close the jailbreak.

Security experts typically advise iPhone users against jailbreaking, because breaking out of the “walled garden” vastly increases the surface area for new vulnerabilities to exist and to be found.

The jailbreak comes at a time where the shine is wearing off of Apple’s typically strong security image. Last week, Zerodium, a broker for exploits, said it would no longer buy certain iPhone vulnerabilities because there were too many of them. Motherboard reported this week that hackers got their hands on a pre-release version of the upcoming iOS 14 release several months ago.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/23/ha...new-jailbreak/





House Leaders Strike Deal to Protect U.S. Web Browsing Data From Warrantless Surveillance
Dell Cameron

After three days of negotiations, House lawmakers have struck a deal on an amendment to protect innocent Americans from being spied on by their own government online.

Discussions were carried out behind closed doors over Memorial Day weekend after news broke Friday that House leaders had agreed to allow a vote on an amendment introduced by Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Warren Davidson to prohibit the FBI from collecting Americans’ web browsing history without a warrant.

“After extensive bicameral, bipartisan deliberations, there will be a vote to include a final significant reform to Section 215 [of the USA Patriot Act] that protects Americans’ civil liberties,” Lofgren, a Democrat of California, said. “Without this prohibition, intelligence officials can potentially have access to information such as our personal health, religious practices, and political views without a warrant,” she added.

The House is preparing to vote as early as this week on the surveillance re-authorization bill, which will reinstate several key tools used by the FBI to conduct foreign intelligence investigations.

The Lofgren-Davidson amendment will require the FBI to obtain a warrant even if there’s only a possibility that the data it seeks is tied to a U.S. person. If the government wishes to access the IP addresses of everyone who has visited a particular website, it could not do so without a warrant unless it can “guarantee” that no U.S. persons will be identified.

“For too long, Americans’ most private information has been compromised by vague laws and lax privacy protections,” Davidson, a Republican of Ohio, said.

“With the vote on the Lofgren-Davidson Amendment to FISA reform this week, we take an important step toward restoring Americans’ long-neglected Fourth Amendment rights,” he added. “Protecting Americans’ internet browser searches from warrantless surveillance is a modest, though important first step. With the amendment’s adoption, I will be voting to reauthorize the expired sections of FISA, and urge my colleagues to do the same.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, who cosponsored a Senate version of the amendment, initially announced his support for the Lofgren-Davidson amendment, but later withdrew it based on remarks House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff gave to the New York Times, which appeared to downplay the bill’s impact. Privacy reformers in the House have painted Schiff, with whom they’ve had to negotiate, as a significant roadblock to the amendment’s success.

Democrats hoping to limit the FBI’s ability to conduct warrantless surveillance online faced stiff resistance from their own party leaders. In February, the House Judiciary Committee, which has primary jurisdiction over FISA-related issues, canceled its own markup hearing to stop Lofgren and Davidson from introducing their amendment, which will now go straight to the floor for a vote.

When the bill was taken up by the House Rules Committee in mid-March, a provision was attached to attract Republican votes that gave the U.S. attorney general final authority over investigations involving U.S. politicians.

Up until Tuesday morning, Lofgren and Schiff were still hammering out the exact language of the amendment. Sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations told Gizmodo on Sunday that early versions of the text were thought to contain a significant loophole that would enable warrantless surveillance of Americans’ internet activities to continue.

Though Schiff had reportedly agreed early on that the FBI should be required to get a warrant before targeting specific Americans by name, early copies of the text were thought to be inadequate when it came to gathering data on who had visited a particular website or viewed a particular piece of online content, such as a YouTube video.

An issue central to the discussion was how to protect innocent Americans caught up in FBI investigations involving U.S.-based IP addresses, which foreign actors can use to mask their locations.

A Schiff spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
https://gizmodo.com/house-leaders-st...1843678595/amp





Trump to Order Review of Law Protecting Social Media Firms after Twitter Spat: Report
Justin Wise

President Trump will reportedly sign an executive order on Thursday that mandates a review of a law that shields companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook from being held liable for the content appearing on their platforms after fact checks for the first time were added to two of his tweets.

The executive order Trump is expected to sign would direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to propose and clarify regulations stipulated under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, according to a draft copy obtained by Reuters. Section 230 protects social media platforms from facing lawsuits over what users share, though there are exceptions when it comes to copyright violations and breaches of federal criminal law.

The move is set to come as Trump rails against Silicon Valley over Twitter’s decision earlier this week to add a fact-check label to two of his tweets about mail-in voting. Trump, who has repeatedly accused the tech giants of political bias, has cast the decision as an attempt to “silence” conservatives and threatened to shut down social media sites altogether.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday that Trump would sign an executive order "pertaining to social media," though she did not offer any specific details.

An alteration to Section 230 could have wide-ranging consequences over how websites moderate comments and other posts shared on their platforms.

The order reportedly requests that the FCC evaluate whether social media companies should lose the Section 230 protections they enjoy if they take actions related to editing content. It also would direct the FCC to review whether any social media company uses deceptive content moderation polices and if they violate their own terms of service.

The final executive order could change before it is signed by Trump, Reuters noted.

A draft of the order also reportedly includes a directive for the White House Office of Digital Strategy to recreate a tool that gives Americans the opportunity to report alleged instances of censorship online. The so-called White House Tech Bias Reporting Tool would receive those complaints and submit them to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The FTC would then be required to consider taking action and examine whether the complaints violated the law. The attorney general would also be directed to create a working group that assesses content moderation practices from social media companies.

Twitter's decision on Tuesday to fact-check the president's tweets represented the first time the social media company has taken that step for one of its most prominent users. A Twitter spokesperson told The Hill that the decision was made because Trump's tweets contained "potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots."

The company declined to comment on the executive order.

Trump railed against the decision to add the fact checks, claiming that Twitter was "stifling FREE SPEECH" and later vowing to take “big action." Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate announced on Wednesday that they were crafting legislation that would strip Twitter of Section 230 protections.

“If @Twitter wants to editorialize & comment on users’ posts, it should be divested of its special status under federal law (Section 230) & forced to play by same rules as all other publishers,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), an outspoken critic of Big Tech, tweeted.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said he was working on the legislation "so we don't have election interference from companies like Twitter.”

Section 230 has become increasingly controversial in recent years, with some critics holding that it allows tech companies to avoid taking responsibility for harmful content that spreads on their platforms. A group of lawmakers in March introduced a bill that would hold tech companies liable for images and videos of child abuse posted to their sites. The legislation faced intense pushback from tech advocates and supporters of Section 230.
https://thehill.com/policy/technolog...responsibility

















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