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Old 21-11-07, 10:32 AM   #1
JackSpratts
 
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Join Date: May 2001
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Default Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - November 24th, '07

Since 2002


































"Internet users will create 161 exabytes of new data this year, and this exaflood is a positive development for Internet users and businesses, IIA says. An exabyte is 1 quintillion bytes or about 1.1 billion gigabytes. One exabyte is the equivalent of about 50,000 years of DVD quality video." – Grant Gross


































November 24th, 2007




France Plans to Cut Off Internet Pirates
Ben Hall

Internet users in France who download music and films without paying for them could find their web access shut down by a government body, under a ground-breaking industry agreement backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The plan, which Mr Sarkozy is to endorse in a speech on Friday, will put France at the forefront of the battle against internet piracy with a three-strikes-and-you-are-out policy against repeat offenders.

The proposed enforcement body would use information collected by internet service providers on their highvolume users to detect illegal file-sharing. Persistent offenders would be cautioned but could see their internet accounts suspended or terminated if they ignored as few as two warnings.

The proposals have been drawn up by an independent review headed by Denis Olivennes, the chairman of Fnac, a French entertainment retailer.

The music and film industries, internet service providers and the government are all likely to sign up to the plan.

In exchange for the clampdown on illegal downloading, the music industry has agreed to make individual downloads of archive French material available on all types of players by dropping digital rights management protection.

The French film industry has agreed to release DVDs more quickly after a film’s first cinema screening, reducing the delay from 7½ months to 6 months.

However, consumer groups and even some of Mr Sarkozy’s own members of parliament on Thursday attacked the proposal for a new internet policeman as a threat to civil liberties.

UFC-Que Choisir, a consumer association, said the plans were “very harsh, potentially repressive, anti-economic and against the grain of the digital age”. It pointed out that illegal downloading was already punishable by a prison term of up to three years.

Marc Le Fur and Alain Suguenot, both deputies from Mr Sarkozy’s UMP party, said in a statement that they deplored the proposal to confer judicial powers on an enforcement agency, saying the move “creates a truly exceptional jurisdiction for downloaders contravening the principle of equality before the law”.

Mr Sarkozy has taken a strong stand against internet piracy, raising the issue during his election campaign and appointing Mr Olivennes to lead the review soon after becoming president.

The president will use his speech on Friday to “underline his attachment to culture but also his wish to see artists live from their work and have their rights respected on new platforms”, his spokesman said.

The music industry has campaigned for ISPs to take action against the illegal file-sharers who operate through their services.

The IFPI, a trade body for the global recording industry, said more than 50 per cent of all internet traffic was so-called peer-to-peer file-sharing, much of it illegal.

The problem appears particularly acute in France because of the relatively high download speeds of its internet services.

Mr Olivennes this year highlighted the problem of illegal downloading in a book entitled Free is Theft, in which he argued that piracy stole funds from French culture by reducing the money raised by levies on cinema takings and pay-television.

The book accused ISPs of exploiting an abundance of pirated material on the web to recruit new subscribers. “It is a little like . . . big store chains putting out free stocks of stolen CDs and DVDs to attract new customers into their shops,” he wrote.

Mr Olivennes appears now to have persuaded internet service providers to help the authorities police their own users more effectively.

To put in place the new enforcement body, the government would have to introduce legislation amending copyright, data protection, telecommunications and consumer protection laws, with a vote in parliament as soon as spring 2008.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/562f2a02-9...nclick_check=1





MPAA University 'Toolkit' Raises Privacy Concerns
Brian Krebs

The Motion Picture of Association of America is urging some of the nation's largest universities to deploy custom software designed to pinpoint students who may be using the schools' networks to illegally download pirated movies. A closer look at the MPAA's software, however, raises some serious privacy and security concerns for both the entertainment industry and the schools that choose to deploy the technology.

On Oct. 24, MPAA sent a letter to the presidents of 25 universities that the association has identified as top locations for the downloading of pirated movies over online file-sharing networks. In the letter, the group said it "has developed the University Toolkit, an application which can produce a report that is strictly internal and therefore confidential to illustrate the level of file sharing on [your school's] network. In addition, we will send a hard copy in the near future to your university's Chief Information Officer."

Security Fix downloaded the University Toolkit and studied it, with the help of David Taylor, a senior information security specialist with the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. (Taylor's school was not among those that received the letter.)

What we found was that depending on how a university's network is set up, installing and using the MPAA tool in its default configuration could expose to the entire Internet all of the traffic flowing across the school's network.

First, an explanation of what the toolkit is and how it works. The University Toolkit is essentially an operating system (xubuntu) that you can boot up from a CD-ROM. The package bundles some powerful, open-source network monitoring tools, including "Snort," which captures detailed information about all traffic flowing across a network; as well as "ntop," a tool used to take data feeds from tools like Snort and display the data in more user-friendly graphics and charts.

The MPAA overview of the toolkit stresses that the software does not communicate any information about a university's network back to the association. But in its current configuration, the very first thing the toolkit does once it is fired up is phone home to the MPAA's servers and check for a new version of the software. So, right away, the MPAA knows the Internet address every computer that is running the software.

The MPAA also claims that using the tool on a university network presents "no privacy issues -- the content of traffic is never examined or displayed." That statement, however, is misleading.

Here's why: The toolkit sets up an Apache Web server on the user's machine. It also automatically configures all of the data and graphs gathered about activity on the local network to be displayed on a Web page, complete with ntop-generated graphics showing not only bandwidth usage generated by each user on the network, but also the Internet address of every Web site each user has visited.

Unless a school using the tool has firewalls on the borders of its network designed to block unsolicited Internet traffic -- and a great many universities do not -- that Web server is going to be visible and accessible by anyone with a Web browser. But wait, you say: Wouldn't someone need to know the domain name or Internet address of the Web server that's running the toolkit? Yes. However, anyone familiar enough with the file-naming convention used by the toolkit could use Google to search for the server.

But surely there are ways a network administrator might keep this information from being available to the entire Web, right? Yes. The toolkit allows an administrator to require a username and password for access to the Web server. The problem is that the person responsible for running the toolkit is never prompted create a username and password. What's more, while Apache includes a feature that can record when an outsider views the site, that logging is turned off by default in the MPAA's University Toolkit.

On the surface at least, it was beginning to seem like the MPAA was asking universities to install a black box tool that would allow anyone to wiretap their networks, all the while hiding the tracks of those listening in on the network. So I put a few questions to the MPAA about its toolkit.

Craig Winter, the MPAA's deputy director for Internet enforcement, said the toolkit was in the "beta" phase. Winter said the MPAA and the developer of the software -- Fairfax, Va.-based Mantech International Corp. -- plan to release another version of the software within "a few weeks."

When asked about the phone-home update feature of the toolkit, Winter said the MPAA ultimately decided to include the update mechanism so that it could ship a new version when developers had fixed what he said was a "bug" in the ntop software. According to Winter, once the portion of the ntop program that counts the ones and zeros representing how much bandwidth a given connection has used gets to four gigabytes, it resets, starting the counter back at zero again.

Winter emphasized several times that the toolkit was not designed to determine whether someone is infringing on copyrights. "It can tell you how much traffic is going back and forth on BitTorrent [a popular file-sharing service], but it can't see what's in those files or what the names of those files are, and it doesn't communicate anything back to the Internet. "

He added that the MPAA would consider making it mandatory for administrators of the toolkit to set a username and password for the Web server, and that future versions of the software may also ask the user if they want to check for updates rather than phoning home automatically each time the toolkit is booted up.

"It's certainly not a tool intended for us to come and inspect [university networks] without permission," Winter said. "We wanted to make this as easy to use as possible, to accommodate system administrators who might want to go back to their dorm and monitor it remotely."

Unfortunately, even with a firewall keeping non-university students from accessing the toolkit's Web server, any student on the network armed with the Internet address of the Web server could view all of the traffic on his or her segment of the network, said Penn's Dave Taylor.

The MPAA's letter campaign and the release of this software package comes as Congress is considering a higher-education funding bill that would place new anti-piracy obligations on universities that participate in federal financial aid programs. Included in that massive bill, which was approved by the House Education and Labor Committee last week, are provisions that would require the very same 25 universities that received the MPAA letter to develop technology-based approaches to keep students from downloading infringing content, or risk losing their federal funding.

It's not clear how many -- if any -- universities are currently using the MPAA's toolkit. The MPAA itself says it doesn't know how many have deployed it. Doug Pearson, a technical director of the Research and Education Networking - Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC), said he is not aware of any schools that have installed the toolkit, but that many were still poking and prodding it.

"There are a lot of people trying to figure out exactly what all the thing does and what risks it might present to a network that it's placed on," Pearson said.

Steve Worona, director of policy and networking programs at EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association that promotes the use of information technology in higher learning, said he'd like to think that "no university network administrator in their right mind would install this toolkit on their networks." But he said some campus IT personnel may fail to dig too deeply into what the device actually does before installing it.

Reached by cell phone on Thanksgiving eve, Worona said he hadn't had time to investigate the toolkit, but that if Taylor's report was accurate then the MPAA's toolkit conjures up memories of the Sony rootkit fiasco. In that saga, Sony got in trouble with privacy and security advocates after it shipped hidden anti-piracy software with a number of music CDs, software that not only destabilized PCs running it but also opened them up to a host of Internet security threats.

"The important thing about the Sony rootkit wasn't the details about what a rootkit was or why it ended up being put into those CDs, but rather what the intention was versus what the CDs really did," Worona said. "The MPAA appears to be asking university administrators to run something which could expose sensitive, private data and in the process leave the campus subject to privacy complaints by virtue of student data being exposed."

If you know of any universities that are using the MPAA toolkit, please post in the comments. We'll also watch to see if and when MPAA updates the software and whether the update addresses the privacy and security issues raised here.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/secur...t_opens_1.html





Anti-Piracy Lobby Urges Sweden To Take Down The Pirate Bay
Ernesto

Several anti-piracy lobbyist organizations have joined forces in urging the Swedish authorities to take “swift and decisive action” against The Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay laughed away this attempt, and assures its users that they are not doing anything illegal according to Swedish law.

Unlike less democratic countries, Sweden is not too keen on lobbyists who try to manipulate the actions of their government, something the MPAA did last year. Directly influencing Swedish authorities to intervene in this specific case, is considered illegal in Sweden (the term is “minister rule”).

The letter is signed by several copyright protection organizations, and was sent to the Swedish minister of communications. Noticeably upset they write: “We believe that, given the Pirate Bay’s cult popularity, this is a key opportunity for one country to educate the global internet community about the need for respect of copyright and the importance of intellectual property.”

Brokep from The Pirate Bay responded to this letter on his blog writing:”They seem to think that TPB is actually illegal and are very concerned about this! But I can reassure you, the site is not illegal so there’s no reason to be alarmed. It’s recognized worldwide as legal and helpful for the normal people around the globe that have something to share with each other. And we all do want to share!”

One of the people who signed the letter to the Swedish government is John Kennedy, Chairman of the IFPI. The IFPI is also fighting with The Pirate Bay over the IFPI.com domain name which the IFPI forgot to renew - and there’s more. Last month we revealed a leaked email where the IFPI planned to request confidential information from the Swedish police on an ongoing investigation into The Pirate Bay.
http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-...sweden-071120/





Poor Anti-Pirates: E-mail About Leaked IFPI Email Gets Leaked
Ernesto

The infamous anti-piracy organization IFPI sent an email to warn its members NOT to any send email to colleagues that use an xxx@ifpi.com email address because that domain is now owned by their rivals from the “International Federation of Pirate Interests”. Unfortunately the members did not listen, and even the email about the leak leaked.

Last month a leaked email from The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) - the anti-piracy organization that represents the recording industry worldwide - revealed that they had plans to request confidential information from an ongoing police investigation of The Pirate Bay.

Several people were wondering how this email leaked, and rumors about hacked mail servers started to circulate. It now now becomes clear how the email leaked - and there is not much hacking involved - it seems that some of their members were still sending emails to xxx@ifpi.com addresses - not that smart.

The IFPI of course warned their members not to use any .com addresses anymore, but ironically, this email was forwarded to a .com address a few hours later. Here’s a quote from the leaked email correspondence that was anonymously forwarded to TorrentFreak.

“… please be aware that the person operating the domain is also collecting emails that are sent in error to anything@ifpi.com. You may have seen press reports regarding an email leak from IFPI – this was a result of an email being sent in error to an ifpi.com email address and is not indicative of any more serious problem with email security.”

Can you be even more stupid than to forward this message to someone using an IFPI.com address? I’ve always doubted the rumors that most people who work at these anti-piracy organizations are too dumb to tie their own shoes, but I’m starting to believe it now.

Unfortunately there was not much news in the email, the huge list of anti-pirate email addresses may come in handy sometime though. In addition, there was some info about the domain dispute the IFPI filed to get their .com domain back, as they write: “… we filed a complaint at WIPO under the dispute resolution procedure designed for cyber-squatting cases like this one. We are hopeful of a result from the WIPO procedure soon, and we will keep you updated.”

… I guess that means that we’ll be updated too?
http://torrentfreak.com/email-about-...-leaks-071122/





Forced Exodus of BitTorrent Sites Is Imminent
Ernesto

The Dutch ISP LeaseWeb can’t take the pressure from BREIN anymore. As a preliminary measure they have now ordered dozens of BitTorrent sites - including some big-shots - to pack their stuff before December 1st, leave LeaseWeb and find a new home.

Last week we reported that LeaseWeb forced SumoTorrent to move to another ISP due to pressure from BREIN. In that article we published a list of other potential BRIEN targets hosted by LeaseWeb (we left out dozens of other sites) including mybittorrent.com, btmon.com, btjunkie.org, seedpeer.com, what.cd and waffles.fm.

Over the past few days several admins of the sites in this list confirmed to TorrentFreak that they indeed got a letter from LeaseWeb in which they were asked to move their websites before the end of the month. At this point it is not sure whether the dozens of other, mostly smaller private BitTorrent communities, received a similar letter. A questionable request since BitTorrent sites are not considered to be illegal according to Dutch law.

However, it seems that LeaseWeb has succumbed to BREIN’s pressure as it orders its clients to take all BitTorrent related material from their servers before December 1st. LeaseWeb takes this proactive measure to protect their clients they say, but it’s not needed since the court order that BREIN has applies ONLY to everlasting.nl and not to all other BitTorrent sites

One of the biggest mistakes they made in the process is to hand over the personal details of the SumoTorrent administrator. Somehow LeaseWeb was under the impression that they had to give this information to BREIN, thereby violating the privacy of one of their clients. This mistake also contradicts a statement LeaseWeb gave earlier this week to ISPam.nl, where they said that they are not allowed to give customer information to a third party without a funded request.

One of the big questions right now is where on earth all the BitTorrent sites will go now that LeaseWeb is a no-go. There are still some other options in The Netherlands and countries like Canada and Sweden, but they are slowly running out of alternatives.

LeaseWeb announced that it will appeal the decision in the everlasting.nl case, “LeaseWeb has filed an appeal and will keep fighting for its client’s privacy and right of freedom of expression up to the highest court.” We wish them well.
http://torrentfreak.com/forced-exodu...-sites-071122/





Finnish FBI Raids Warez Topsites Following MPA, IFPI and BSA Investigation
enigmax

A crack police unit dedicated to tackling organized crime in Finland has conducted a series of raids on so-called Warez-Scene Topsites, arresting three individuals and seizing equipment and an alleged 10 terabytes of files. Years in prison are threatened for those involved.

According to its website, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation’s (NBI) main responsibility is “to fight the most serious, professional and organized crime.” Understandably, they’re currently involved in the investigation into the terrible recent shooting at a Finnish school but apparently simple piracy demands their resources too.

Following complaints from Finland’s Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre (CIAPC) and a subsequent investigation by anti-piracy teams, Friday 16th November saw NBI police raids against Warez-Scene ‘Topsites‘ - servers where release groups first place pirate material. According to Antti Kotilainen, CIAPC Director, ‘Topsites’ are “the absolute top of internet piracy and their activity enables sharing of millions of illegal files.”

The multi-site raids in Oulu, Finland, saw the arrest of three people and the seizure of many computers and around 10 terabytes of data. An investigation in to the nature of the seized data is focused on finding copyright infringements which in this case are said to carry a penalty of up to two years in prison.

CIAPC Director Antti Kotilainen explains: “These top sites have been sharing movies, music and computer games as well as software. Each site was also specialized in sharing particular material, such as animation, Finnish movies or the newest videogames.”

Showing a united front, the many organizations involved in the raids were all quick to put their spokesperson forward for comments about how these topsites affected their particular industry. Jeremy Banks, the IFPI’s chief internet Anti-Piracy officer said: “These actions by the Finnish police send a powerful message to operators of infringing servers: contrary to what you may think, you are not anonymous - you can and you will be caught. These sites were run by highly sophisticated operators who were stealing music and damaging the legitimate music community on a very large scale.”

For the movie industry, Halli Kristinsson, Vice-President and Director of the MPA’s European, Middle East and African anti-piracy operations explained the importance of the various industry associations working together: “These raids prove that efficient co-operation between MPA, ISFE, IFPI and BSA has lead to the fact that the net around top sites and release groups is tightening all the time. These actions will not be the last of their kind.”

John Wolfe, Director of Internet Enforcement at the Business Software Alliance (BSA) applauded the “strong and visible action against internet Topsites” stressing that “Individuals like the ones operating the sites raided last Friday contribute to the staggering losses that Internet piracy causes the software industry.”

Following on from yesterday’s report about a Topsite Site-Op leaking information to the press in Finland’s neighbor, Norway, pressure seems to be building on Scene members in Scandinavia.

When countries consider piracy to be among the most serious crimes today - worthy of the precious time and resources of their most skilled investigators - it’s no wonder Scene members go to unprecedented lengths to hide their identities.
http://torrentfreak.com/finnish-fbi-...psites-071120/





Another EliteTorrents Uploader Facing 10 Years in Prison
enigmax

The fallout from the FBI raid on EliteTorrents in 2005 continues, with a seventh defendant associated with the uploading of Star Wars Episode III facing the prospect of 10 years in prison coupled with a $500,000 fine.

Every few months it seems the FBI manages to come up with yet more people to charge in connection with Operation D-Elite - the joint ICE and FBI raids against the US-based BitTorrent tracker, EliteTorrents, in 2005.

Everyone charged so far has been accused of being involved in the uploading of Star Wars Episode III which, at the time, was a pre-release movie, carrying criminal implications for the uploaders under the Family Entertainment Copyright Act.

According to an announcement by Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a seventh defendant has pleaded guilty.

An Duc Do, aged 25, of Orlando, Florida, has pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Legrome D. Davis of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on a two-count felony. He’s charged with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and criminal copyright infringement.

Do is the latest in a line of people pleading guilty in this operation against EliteTorrents. Previous guilty pleas and convictions include those of Scott McCausland, Grant Stanley, Sam Kuonen and Scott D. Harvanek.

In this copyright case tried in the criminal (rather than civil) legal domain, potential punishments are harsh. Do is facing up to 10 years in prison coupled with a fine of $500,000.

He will be sentenced on February 27th, 2008.
http://torrentfreak.com/another-elit...prison-071117/





Pirate Bay Faces Prince Pressure, Private Investigators in Foreign Cars
Nate Anderson

In addition to facing the wrath of content owners around the world, The Pirate Bay's administrators have recently been facing a much more local threat: camera-toting investigators following them around in cars marked with Danish plates. Is Prince to blame?
Prince to "reclaim the Internet" by suing YouTube, eBay, Pirate Bay

Prince loves sticking it to the man—this is the guy who changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol and performed with the word "slave" written on his face when he was unhappy about his recording contract. But when "the man" is Prince himself and the one doing the sticking is BitTorrent search site The Pirate Bay, Prince reaches for the lawyer stick. He has declared himself out to "reclaim the Internet," and The Pirate Bay is at the top of his list (fan sites appear to be on the list as well).

Peter Sunde, a Pirate bay admin, tells Ars that the Purple One's legal team has already started leaning on some advertisers to drop support for the site. "We're not even worried, since the Internet is too big for morally upset people to get it their way," Sunde said in an e-mail. "I'm just sad that Prince—whose music I really like—can't understand that he's the new Metallica versus Napster. And we all know who lost that..."

Comparing his site to the original Napster seems a bit strange, since Napster was eventually shuttered and then retooled after legal pressure. Sunde doesn't want to go the way of the original Napster, of course, but similar legal pressures on the site are ratcheting up. The newest wrinkle in the long saga of The Pirate Bay: investigators following Pirate Bay members around in cars with Danish plates. Sunde says that the investigators are taking pictures from inside the car "with a flash, so I'm not sure how smart they are." He notes that something similar happened last year before a police raid on Pirate Bay servers.

He is "quite sure" that this is related to Prince's own announced plan to sue the site (though a Swedish prosecutor has also announced plans to sue the administrators in the next couple of months). "What do they think they can find out by following us around?" Sunde asks. "Everything we do is digital."

It's just another strange day in the increasingly strange life of a Pirate Bay admin.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...eign-cars.html





Chili Peppers Sue US TV Network
BBC

Rock band the Red Hot Chili Peppers are suing a US network over the name of its TV show, Californication.

The band says the title is "immediately associated in the mind of the consumer" with its 1999 album and single release.

It has filed a lawsuit against Showtime Network - the makers of the TV show, which stars David Duchovny as a writer going through a mid-life crisis.

"For some TV show to come along and steal our identity is not right," said the band's singer, Anthony Kiedis.

He described Californication as "the signature CD, video and song of the band's career".

'Dani California'

The legal action seeks a permanent injunction barring Showtime from using the title of the show and "disgorgement of all profits derived by the defendants".

It says the programme also features the character, Dani California, which is also the title of a Red Hot Chili Peppers song which was released in 2006.

Tom Kapinos, the show's creator and executive producer, was unavailable for comment.

In July, he told reporters that he first heard the term "Californication" in the state of Oregon.

"Apparently in the 70s there were bumper stickers that said 'Don't Californicate Oregon', because Californians were coming up there, and I just thought it was a great, great title for this show," he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...nt/7103400.stm





The Romantics Sue Over Guitar Hero

Detroit rock band The Romantics have filed a federal lawsuit against Guitar Hero publisher Activision, claiming that the game’s cover version of 1980 hit “What I Like About You” infringes on the group’s rights.

According to an Associated Press report the lawsuit was filed on Tuesday at the U.S. District Court in Detroit, seeking unspecified damages.

The lawsuit admits that Activision did obtain the proper permissions for using the song in the game - but claims that the cover version was too close to the original recording, thereby infringing on the group’s rights to its own likeness.

The song appears in standalone expansion pack Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the ‘80s, originally released in North America for PlayStation 2 in July 2007. The band’s attorneys have indicated that they are seeking an injunction that would force the game to be withdrawn from sale.

Although around half of the songs in the newly released Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock feature recordings by the original artists, in previous Guitar Hero games the majority of songs were cover versions.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new...hp?story=16342





RIAA Targets 16 More Students for File Sharing

Music org. sends 10th wave of letters, but GW lawsuit could hurt efforts to curb downloading
Albert Sun

Yet another round of pre-litigation letters from the Recording Industry Association of America hit Penn students last week.

The RIAA, which represents the country's major music labels, continued its legal onslaught against college students last week, sending pre-litigation letters to 16 Penn students and 401 other students across the country.

Over the last year, 64 Penn students have received letters, which threaten illegal downloaders with a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement unless the offenders choose to settle at a "discounted rate" - usually about $3,000.

Of those 64, 20 have settled or are nearing an agreement and 27 others are being sued, according to RIAA spokeswoman Liz Kennedy. The remaining students are in the preliminary stages of the process.

As the RIAA tries to curb illegal downloading, the organization has focused mainly on student offenders, sending almost 4,000 letters to college campuses since February.

The RIAA picks out IP addresses where file-sharing has occurred and asks colleges to forward the letters to students that match the IP addresses. If the student does not settle, the RIAA usually subpoenas the university to release the student's name so that a lawsuit can be filed.

But the RIAA suffered a setback in its campaign against file-sharing last week when a federal judge said the organization must explain its reasons for subpoenaing colleges.

In a case involving 19 students at George Washington University, the defendants argued that the legislation the RIAA uses to obtain file-sharers' names, called the Cable Communications Policy Act, only applies to cable companies.

Federal District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has since ordered the RIAA to show just cause for why the act also applies to universities, giving the organization until Nov. 29 to respond.

If Kollar-Kotelly doesn't find the RIAA's reasoning compelling, it would provide a blow to a key facet of the organization's recent legal tactics.

It could also have implications for the way the RIAA sues illegal downloaders. Critics allege that the organization often issues the subpoenas without giving the defendants a chance to respond, called an ex parte subpoena.

"This is a viable [legal] option for students everywhere," copyright lawyer Ray Beckerman said. "They should be pooling their resources and taking action to stop this ex parte nonsense."

And while some universities have said they will help students fight the subpoenas, Penn officials say the University will continue to forward letters they receive from the RIAA. Once the student has a letter, the University is no longer involved, said University information-security officer Dave Millar.

"If somebody has received an early settlement notice it's between them and the recording industry," he said.
http://media.www.dailypennsylvanian....-3113268.shtml





MPAA: Linking College Funding, Piracy is 'Perfectly Legitimate'
Anne Broache

What's wrong with Congress being a little stingy about doling out taxpayer dollars to universities if they let peer-to-peer file-sharing pirates run amok on campus networks?

Not a thing, says the Motion Picture Association of America's top lawyer in the nation's capital.

On the heels of a House of Representatives committee's passage of a higher-education funding bill that includes new antipiracy obligations for universities that participate in federal financial aid programs, MPAA Washington general counsel Fritz Attaway suggested it's reasonable to condition federal education funding on copyright enforcement efforts.

"When the government is subsidizing universities...and it discovers that those universities are spending a lot of taxpayers' money to build digital networks that are being used primarily to allow college students to traffic in infringing content, I think it's perfectly legitimate for Congress to say, wait a minute, if we're giving you money, we don't want it to be used to help college kids infringe copyright," Attaway said during a panel discussion here Monday that was organized by the Federal Communications Bar Association.

At the same time, Attaway attempted to diffuse alarms universities and fair-use advocates are sounding about the House's higher-education bill. Embedded in the more-than-700-page bill is a requirement that universities devise plans for providing their students alternatives to illegal downloading and developing technology-based filters to keep offending content out of students' hands in the first place.

The MPAA vice president emphasized that there's technically no requirement under the bill that universities actually sign up for such "alternatives," namely subscription-based music services like Ruckus.com and Napster, nor that they actually activate the filters they're planning to develop. Committee aides close to the bill-drafting process have denied that schools would see their funding yanked if they didn't come up with satisfactory plans, even if Attaway seemed to suggest that wouldn't be a bad idea.
University representatives who oppose the provision have acknowledged, too, that they're not sure what exactly the punishment would be for failing to craft such plans, although some have read the bill to say their schools would no longer be eligible for at least some student financial aid programs.

Attaway's defense of the bill drew a sharp rebuke, however, from Gigi Sohn, president of the digital-rights advocacy group Public Knowledge. "Why do you put things in bills that you don't want to enforce at some point?" she asked. "Even if I agree, and I don't, that it's toothless, I don't want that language in there for some other Congress to give it some teeth."

There's still a chance that the Hollywood-backed provision won't survive any final version of the legislation. That's what happened when a similar proposal came before the U.S. Senate this summer. The full House is expected to debate the broader higher-education funding bill soon after it returns from its Thanksgiving recess in early December.
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-982...=2547-1_3-0-20





Thinly veiled

Copyright Coalition Polls Pols
Brooks Boliek

In an effort to get on the presidential radar screen a copyright industry coalition is sending the candidates of both parties a questionnaire designed to illuminate their positions on issues surrounding intellectual property.

The five-question missive by the Copyright Alliance which includes the major studios, labels, and a couple of the guilds and artists' rights organizations is considered more of an educational document than a way to get campaign promises, said Copyright Alliance executive director Patrick Ross.

An industry that contributes $1.3 trillion to the U.S. economy and 11 million jobs needs to be paid attention to, Ross said.

"We're telling the candidates this is a significant constituency that you need to be aware of," Ross said.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...2385657b66b52f





Few Admit to Being File Sharers in Japan
Ken Y-N

It’s been a while since I last looked at P2P (Peer-to-Peer) software; although it is still a big issue in Europe and the USA with many organised piracy rings and individuals getting their collars felt for illegal file-sharing, what is the current situation in Japan, where government workers seem to have perfected the fine art of losing secret information through ill-configured file-sharing software? To find out some of the answers, japan.internet.com presented the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into the use of Winny and other P2P filesharing software.

Demographics

On the 13th of November 2007 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research Inc’s online monitor pool employed in the private or public sector successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 7.9% of the sample were in their twenties, 40.0% in their thirties, 34.8% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 4.5% in their sixties. The split of the sexes is not reported, but recent surveys by JR Tokai Express Research with samples taken from employed people have had around 82% male and 18% female respondents.

In Q1SQ3, I don’t know if the worry about infringing copyright is from the point of view of not wanting to deprive artists, or if it is due to a fear of being caught doing it, although the wording suggests its the stealing aspect that was considered when answering, not the subsequent chance of being arrested for possession.

In addition, only 3.4% complained about their connection speed, because as another recent survey shows, the vast majority of Japanese have fat pipes.

Research results

Q1: Have you ever used P2P file sharing software? (Sample size=330)
Yes, currently using (to SQ1, SQ2) 3.6%
Used to use, but stopped (to SQ1, SQ2) 16.7%
No, never used (to SQ3) 52.7%
Don’t know what it is 27.0%

Q1SQ1: What file sharing software have you used? (Sample size=67, multiple answer)
App Votes Percentage
Win MX 32 47.8%
Winny 25 37.3%
Napster 11 16.4%
BitTorrent 6 9.0%
Cabos 3 4.5%
Don’t know 3 4.5%
Other 4 6.0%

Q1SQ2: What kinds of files do/did you tend to download? (Sample size=67, multiple answer)
Files Votes Percentage
Music 43 64.2%
Movies 35 52.2%
Still images 20 29.9%
User-generated contents 7 10.4%
Other 2 3.0%

Q1SQ3: Why have you never used file sharing software? (Sample size=174, multiple answer)
Reason Votes Percentage
Feel there’s a danger of leakage of personal information 138 79.3%
Feel there’s a danger of viruses 120 69.0%
Don’t feel it’s needed 85 48.9%
Worried about infringing copyright 41 23.6%
Have slow connection 6 3.4%
Other 4 2.3%

http://whatjapanthinks.com/2007/11/2...rers-in-japan/





Blank Media Levy Breaches Should be Criminal, Say Authors

Report tries to stop EU scrapping levy
OUT-LAW.COM

Breaches of the European copyright levy system on blank media should be criminalised, a report by an authors' group says. The report is an attempt to convince the European Commission not to scrap the levy.

The levy is a small additional charge on blank CDs, MP3 players and other media which is used to compensate artists for the presumed use of the media to copy their material without payment. It is strongly opposed by consumer electronics companies.

The European Union's Copyright Directive says EU nations can allow a limited private right to copy material such as music but only if they fairly compensate artists for the presumed loss of income. They can, like the UK, avoid the levy by not having a private right to copy.

The UK, though, is introducing a private right to copy and it is not thought that the Government plans to introduce a levy. It has not yet explained how it intends to make this compatible with EU rules.

GESAC is the European umbrella body for the societies which collect royalties and distribute them to authors and artists. It has published the report which seeks to debunk the arguments of the opponents of the levy.

"The existence of different private copying remuneration schemes (PCRS) (or none at all) in the different EU Member States has been presented as an obstacle to the free movement of goods," said the GESAC proposals. "GESAC is not aware of any commission decision or ECJ judgment in that sense."

The body calls for the treatment of non-payment of levies as a criminal offence rather than a civil wrong. It also calls on countries to make sure that sellers of media pay the levy and not consumers, recognising that distance selling such as online retailing makes the situation more complicated.

"A significant number of the operators that are liable for the payment of private copying remuneration seek ways to circumvent this payment," said the GESAC document. "It is also necessary to address the case of distance sales in order to avoid that liability for the payment of the private copying remuneration be extended to consumers."

EU Internal Markets Commissioner Charlie McCreevy recently attempted to reform the levy system, but faced insurmountable political opposition, particularly from France. It is thought that he could make another attempt at making the system more transparent.

"We don't want any more emotional debate. We want a concrete discussion and concrete proposals," said GESAC secretary general Veronique Desbrosses, according to Reuters news agency. "We know the commission is still willing to address the issue."

The report said the long term benefits of the levy system were that consumers were able to make freer use of material, and artists were given greater incentives to create.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11...a_levy_report/





MediaDefender Leaks Cost The Company $825,000
Ernesto

The anti-piracy organization MediaDefender lost $825,000 as a result of the leaked emails according to a recent filing submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It is beginning to look like they have to walk the plank to bankruptcy after all.

This September we were the first to report that nearly 700mb of MediaDefender’s emails leaked on BitTorrent. The leaked emails gave the world a unique insight into the workings and the effectiveness of their BitTorrent decoy operations and revealed much more sensitive information.

The leaked emails were published by a group that goes by the name “MediaDefender-Defenders” and they were soon followed by other leaks such as a tracking database, a phone call and several anti-piracy tools.

From a recent SEC filing by MediaDefender’s parent company ArtistDirect we now learn that these leaks have cost the anti-piracy company some serious cash, $825,000 to be exact. Most of the money, $600,000, was spent to compensate their customers and the rest of the money was used to cover legal expenses.

In the SEC filing we read: “MediaDefender recorded approximately $600,000 for service credits to customers, which were recorded as a reduction to revenues during the three months ended September 30, 2007. This amount was determined based on various factors, including discussions with customers, and is subject to adjustment in future periods based on additional information. MediaDefender also recorded approximately $225,000 of legal, consulting and other direct costs related to the breach during the three months ended September 30, 2007.”

Surprisingly, the company does not think that the leaks have hurt the goodwill of MediaDefender on the long run, well, I hope for them that future clients don’t use Google then.
http://torrentfreak.com/mediadefende...825000-071120/





Canadian Report Finds P2P Might Sell More CDs, CRIA Sponsors Objection
Nate Anderson

The Canadian debate over the effects of peer-to-peer file sharing has morphed into a verse from "It's a Small World After All" as researchers from Australia, Canada, the US, and the UK battle over the proper interpretation of the data. And not all of this battling is disinterested: the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) is actually funding the Australians to debunk the report written by the Brits about the condition of the Canadians. Weird? Not when there's this much at stake.

It all began with Industry Canada (part of the Canadian government). The group last year commissioned a report into the effects of unauthorized file-swapping and handed the project to two researchers from the University of London, Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz. That report was released earlier this year.

Such government reports are a dime a dozen, but they attract more interest than usual when they conclude that a strong correlation exists between downloading songs from P2P networks and buying more CDs (no such correlation exists between downloading and purchasing music online). Andersen, one of the researchers, insists that "when we entered this research project, we had no preconceived views on what effect downloading a free music may have on music pay-markets."

The report generated immediate interest and criticism, most notably from Dr. Stan Liebowitz in the US and a pair of Australians from Australian National University. The critiques can get technical, and weighing the data and methods is best left to the specialists. What stands out, though, is that CRIA took an active role in rebutting the Industry Canada report, and crossed whole oceans to do so.

Dr. George Barker and Dr. Richard Tooth, the Australian professors, published a curious critique of the report. For one thing, CRIA supported their work with a grant. For another, the authors go beyond attacking deficiencies that they see in the report to attacking press coverage of the report. This is hardly the usual domain of economists, and it seems more than a little odd to include other people's coverage of a report in your critique of the report itself unless your goal is to mount a press offensive and not just an academic critique.

Canadian law professor Michael Geist has a nice rundown of the current situation, which shows the lengths to which trade groups will go to discredit reports that they feel are inaccurate or bad for business. Government reports, especially, are important targets for attack, since they can be most easily used to craft government policy positions. Anything, accurate or otherwise, that might lower the volume on the "P2P is evil" drumbeat is bad news for CRIA, and they'll go halfway around the world to sponsor objections.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ot-so-bad.html





P2P File-Sharing Author Defends Study
p2pnet news

File-sharing doesn’t lead to a drop in CD sales. In fact, P2P file-sharing tends to “increase rather than decrease” music purchasing.

So said The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study for Industry Canada, an Industry Canada study by Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz.

It was released in a climate of anger and distrust between Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US) and their customers, the latter said by the Big 4 to be just waiting for an excuse to “steal” online music files.\

Predictably, the labels lost no time in trying to shoot down the paper and coincidentally, well-known economist Stan Liebowitz also immediately leapt to the attack, later backing off a little but still stating:

My initial criticism was too harsh regarding the simultaneity bias because the authors (A/F) attempt to control it but they do so only partially so that some bias is likely to remain. Nor do the authors acknowledge that the results of the survey are likely to be biased in a particular direction. The single biggest problem with the report is that the authors present two sets of results, one for the entire sample and one just for downloaders. It makes little or no sense to look only at downloaders and when they do so the authors find a result that is not only implausible but is actually is impossible to be true, given their data. When the appropriate full sample is used the results are still likely to be biased upward because the authors do not fully account for the impact of music interest, which impacts both downloading and purchasing. There are other less important issues, such as the regression specification and the construction of some variables …

Now Andersen has gone online to defend the study.

Here’s what she says in full >>>

1. We are intrigued by the debate our study has stimulated in various blog-postings on the internet.

Before responding to the debate, we would like to emphasise that, when we entered this research project, we had no preconceived views on what effect downloading of free music may have on music pay-markets.

However, Professor Stan Liebowitz who perhaps is the most prolific advocator against our results (his web-page on IP/File-sharing lists his views), writes in a critique in relation to another paper by Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf (2007):

“O/S are aware that their conclusion-that file-sharing causes no reduction in record sales-contradicts conventional wisdom. […] Nevertheless, their results leave an extremely large elephant in the room-if not for file-sharing, why have record sales declined so precipitously?” (Liebowitz, 2007:1)

But, what if we wrongly blame downloaders of free music for declining sales? Then management and policy aimed solely at addressing file-sharing can only fail.

We are in the midst of a technological revolution. New ways in which music is created, delivered and consumed, affect both market and industry structures. There are many different stakeholders affected by this change, including music publishers (the big 4 and the independent), artists and consumers. One should not assume that existing industry structures are also the most optimal in the new technological paradigm. The growth of the online music industry is creating new business opportunities. For example, the responses indicate that free downloads are motivated, among other things, by consumers looking for music that is not available in stores, and that they are not necessarily interested in purchasing the album version but prefer a single file or a digital file. This illustrates a possible opportunity for new artists to enter music pay markets and a change in the way music users prefer music to be delivered and consumed.

2. We believe that everyone can agree that the better and more diverse data we examine, the closer we come to uncover true relationships. Different data and methods have their unique strengths and weaknesses. If we want to understand the performance of industries and product markets, then we need to understand the strategies of firms who make up these industries and the behaviour of the people who are the consumers. Micro-data is best suited to bring us closer towards that understanding.

Macro data can describe a situation or some relationships at the aggregate level, but such data are limited when it comes to shedding light on explanations of the situation. For this we need micro-data, as we need to understand how the micro behaviour underpin the creation of the situation at the aggregate level. For example, an overall high level of unemployment may seem like an economy in crises at the macro level. However, at the micro level we might find that some declining sectors have huge unemployment and some growing sectors are in need of workers, and this could be due to a very vibrant and dynamic economy with fast changing industry structures.

This type of argument related to conclusions being drawn from macro data, is also the long standing fundamental argument led by evolutionary economists when debating the use and misuse of data and statistics, and it was frequently raised in the methodology debate regarding the proper use of patent statistics.

Therefore, we believe that Liebowitz’s analysis, which is based on macro-data, has a weak empirical underpinning, and as a result, the following is probably wrong.

“I have written a recent paper (forthcoming in Management Science) that examines record sales and Internet uses in 99 US cities to measure the impact of file-sharing. While I am partial to my own work, I believe this paper provides the strongest analysis to date of these issues. The methodology avoids many empirical difficulties found in other papers. It concludes that file-sharing is responsible for the entire decline in record sales that has occurred, and that except for file-sharing there would have been an increase in sales since 1999 instead of the strong decline.” (Liebowitz, 2007)

His core argument is based on city-level data: record sales measured for an entire city and Internet penetration in a city (used as a proxy for file sharing). Liebowitz writes that, unfortunately, there is no direct measure of P2P music file-sharing. He recognises the weaknesses of his proxy, but these are still the data which underpin his strong conclusion:

“… file-sharing [or internet penetration in his case] appears to have caused the entire decline in record sales and appears to have vitiated what otherwise would have been growth in the industry”. (Liebowitz, 2007)

Our own study relies on micro-data obtained by asking individuals to what extent they are engaged in downloading and/or purchasing of music, and about their incentives behind such behaviours. While this may not be without its problems, it clearly has its merits as discussed above if we want to understand the behaviour of people on whom music markets depend on.

The survey provides information on a wide range of variables including:

Downloading from free music markets:
» Downloading free music from P2P file-sharing networks, like Kazaa, LimeWire, eDonkey, BearShare or Gnutella
» Ripping CDs and copying them onto computers
» Downloading free music from promotional website
» Downloading music from peoples’ private Internet websites
» Copying MP3 from friends

Buying music
» Number of CDs purchased by respondents
» Number of MP3s purchased (i.e. buying music tracks from online pay-sites like iTunes or Archambault)

Incentives
» Percentage of P2P downloads to ‘hear before buying’
» Percentage of P2P downloads due to wishing to not to buy ‘whole album’
» Percentage of P2P downloads due to ‘album too expensive’
» Percentage of P2P downloads due to music ‘not elsewhere available’

There are many other aspects to the survey, such as several demographic factors, MP3 ownership, supplementary entertainment goods and more.

3. Liebowitz’s key criticism is that we examine a sub-sample of file-sharers; i.e. only people who declared that they engaged in P2P file-sharing. He states:

“The single biggest problem with the report, however, is that the authors present two sets of results, one for the entire sample and one just for downloaders, and it is only the former results that should be considered. It makes little or no sense to look only at downloaders.” (Liebowitz, 2007)

He continues with an example to illustrate his point:

“When we compare the efficacy of a drug, we compare those who take the drug with those that do not.” (Liebowitz, 2007)

However, there is a key difference between data based on drug trial experiments and this data. In drug trials people are randomly allocated to those who receive the drug and those who receive a placebo. This is not the case in our dataset. Here, belonging to the group of file-sharers and belonging to the group of non-file-sharers is not a random event. It is a deliberate choice made by each individual to either engage in P2P file-sharing or not to engage in P2P file-sharing. Being a file-sharer is an endogenous decision, just like taking illegal drugs. We expect illegal drug takers and file-sharers to behave different from the rest of the population, and we therefore model the differences in their behaviour.

We now move onto a point Liebowitz made in his first posting, and which he revised in his second posting several days later. In his first posting Liebowitz claimed that we do not control for ‘music interest’ in our study. This is still reflected in Internet blogs when contributors state that our finding (a positive association between the number of P2P downloads and CD album purchases for the sub-sample of downloaders) is trivial and can be explained away by the fact that people with a high interest in music, do both: purchase CD albums and download P2P files.

In Liebowitz’s second version of his critique he now reconizes that we are controlling for music interest (albeit imperfectly in his view, which means something very different). Nonetheless, the numerical example given by Liebowitz, and still included in his website, is based on the assumption that no controls for music interest are made and therefore is hugely misleading.

4. Given the 0.44 estimate has been a subject of debate, there is something we believe needs clarification. On page 27 the paper suggests that for an increase in the average number of P2P downloads of 1, the number of CD purchases per year will increase by 1.212/2.718282 or 0.44. This is a point estimate. We compute marginal effects at the means of the regressors, and, thus, the point estimate refers to those people who claim to download approximately 13 P2P files in an average month and not to downloaders who claim more or less downloads in an average months. This is because the assumed relationship is non-linear (negative binomial distribution plus log transformation of the number of P2P downloads). Many arguments against the paper (including the one of Liebowitz) seem to be based upon the assumption that we work from a linear relationship.

5. Some blogs (resembling Liebowiz’s first critique) discuss if our paper, which suggests a positive association between P2P downloading and CD sales for the sample of P2P downloaders, is not valid because we have seen a decline in CD sales. Hence, they find it a weakness that we cannot identify why CD sales have dropped. We can of course speculate why CD sales have declined (and as most other writing in the blogs we have some personal views on this), but this is not the aim of this study.
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/14059





Top Pirate Reveals Warez Scene Secrets, Attracts MPAA Lawyer’s Attention
enigmax

Last week, a senior member of the warez scene took part in a rare interview. In it, he reveals some interesting things about this shadowy world but the question is: Did he reveal too much? MPAA pirate-chasing lawyer Espen Tøndel now says that The Scene will be “brought to justice”.

We’ve carried articles in the past about the Scene. So legend goes, these people are ultra-secretive but of course there’s always a few who like to talk, despite being targeted by law enforcement in cases such as Operation Fastlink and Operation Buccaneer.

Last week, an administrator of a Topsite (an important guy, near to the top of the so-called ‘Piracy Pyramid‘) linked to some very famous release groups, broke cover in a very rare interview with Trond Bie of itavisen.no, seemingly giving away quite a few secrets such as the security techniques used by the Scene and the locations of some of their servers. He also explains why the Scene dislikes torrents and sites like The Pirate Bay, and reveals how some torrent sites manage to get Scene releases so quickly.

In the interview, the Site-Op mocks the efforts of Norwegian police in trying to shutdown the Norwegian Scene, joking that Norwegian law prevents them from being caught in the traditional ways. This attitude could’ve been the thing that attracted the eye of Espen Tøndel, the aggressive MPAA/IFPI lawyer who also talked about action against torrent sites recently. RayJoha, a reader of TorrentFreak who did a lot of work on this article, contacted Tøndel and asked him a few questions which you can read at the bottom of this article.

The Interview (translation from Norwegian, courtesy RayJoha)

The guy we talked to is one of the few administrators of a Topsite in Norway. He’s in his mid twenties, is a student of programming and has been a part of the Scene for many years. He first became a Topsite Site-Op in 2003 and has since been responsible for adding users, banning ruleset violators and programming automating IRC-scripts.

In addition to being a Site-Op he also has his own home-based server where he downloads movies, games and TV-shows to and from the Topsites. He has a very fast Internet connection which make it possible to download a DVD movie in minutes.

Everybody keeps everybody informed

In addition to categories such as games, software, music and movies we have a news category on the Topsites warning against raids. Lamers are also posted in this news category. It’s also possible to find out who leaks warez to trackers and the P2P community. Those who leak will be banned from the Scene. It is very easy for the police to find those people who are spreading torrents.

One of the reasons it is quite difficult to break the Scene is due to a very sophisticated security system. The system we use on Topsites and IRC is SSL. This comes on top of Blowfish-aggregation on IRC. You have to log in to one of the Topsites to get the Blowkey password. Without Blowkey everything will be encrypted. The Topsites encrypt everything with SSL.

It’s not unusual to have 30 TerraBytes of warez on a Topsite. Last summer German police raided a Topsite which had 40 members. The following was posted on Topsites news sections to warn the entire Scene, (from German):

New police action in Germany. This morning 40 members got a visit from the BKA, (Bundes Kriminal Amt). All user accounts etc…. Everybody that has visited the site is in great danger!

I miss you

Laws must change?

Changing the laws will have no effect. The MP3 legislation… the only thing they do is make it difficult for ordinary downloaders/torrent users - those who download from a website, torrentsite, Limewire or with any other P2P software. It would be easier for the government if the police could create their own ‘entrapment servers’, but they could only hurt the Scene, not destroy it.

What’s the probability of getting caught?

HaHa, there’s almost no chance of getting caught in Norway. The Norwegian police cannot do anything illegal to get somebody. By law, they cannot set up servers to entice users to join. All the users in the network know each other. Members of the Scene have joined only through someone vouching for them. I do it because it’s a learning experience and fun. I learn a lot about running servers, programming, (C, C ++, Java and scripting). I started with this before I realized I could have a career in programming. When you learn a few programming languages it’s quite easy to pick up new ones.

His interest in file sharing has been there for years, but it took some time before he became a Topsite Site-Op. He reveals that there are lot of Norwegian ISPs, especially those that deliver fiber connections, that have Topsite servers as customers.

The first time I became a Site-Op it was 2003. I started setting up servers on my own, but at that time we had no affiliation with the Scene. There are lots of sites on Lyse, Hafslund and Sandefjord and I also know that servers are found around university campuses.

The Site-Op tells us that he has no plans of quitting piracy, even when he gets a real job in the software business.

It’s real hard to catch pirates, i’ve learned. I get to understand how it works, making it possible to protect myself against it. Anything that comes to market is cracked even before we post it. There’s no point for the industry in spending millions on copy protection.

The social side of the Scene

Is there a social environment in the Scene or is it just IRC chatting all the time?

Nobody sees anybody. The IRC OPs knows who the others are, but normally we don’t know who they are in real life. We only use nick names.

The Site-Op feels it’s easy to replace persons that are arrested in raids with some exceptions. Game crackers [people who remove copy protection] can’t easily be replaced. There’s just a few people with their skills around.

It’s correct that you can’t easily replace a cracker, it’s a real genius game. Sometimes we might lose everyone, but they’re real hard to catch. Let’s say they manage to cripple the Game-Scene, but they still have to deal with movies and music, and thats something Mr. anybody can do. [Rip movies and music]

The FBI are allowed to set up fake servers, but they are not successful in their endeavors. If the Norwegian police are going to catch anyone they have to adopt the same strategy. You can’t take down Topsites without resorting to illegality: they’d have to distribute copyrighted material. Actually doing something illegal. note: strictly prohibited in Norway

Site-Op’s responsibilities

I don’t know any informants, but there is a strong possibility there are some. If the Scene discovers this the individual will be banned with the help of Topsite news and barred from access to any resource within the Scene.

As a Site-Op he has a series of tasks perform in order for the site to work properly.

A Site-Op adds users and makes sure the ruleset are obeyed. He’s programming and scripting. Linux servers are almost always running glftpd.

Pre-Information

The Site-Op is one of a selected few who has pre-information. Pre-information is information about a specific warez that haven’t been shared with anyone yet. The different groups, (Razor1911, Fairlight etc), have their own folders on the Topsites with not yet released content. The competition is fierce when it comes to being the first to release a movie or a game.

When a “ware” is pre-released a so-called Race starts. A Race means that every Topsite tries to be the first to distribute. In this way the Scene is almost like an economy in itself. First to market doesn’t mean monetary survival but rather the gain of Respect.

There are unbelievably few people that has pre-information. Only Admins can browse all Pre-folders. One shouldn`t sneak a peak on a pre. It’s a rule not to browse on somebody else’s folder.

The Site-Op’s connections with the ‘Big’ people in the Scene

A Site-Op communicates with the real ‘big-wigs’ in the Scene - the ones that really puzzle the game and movie industries. The largest groups use their own IRC servers to communicate, while the Topsites often use Linknet with SSL.

We are in direct contact with Fairlight and the others. We talk to them on IRC. A great proportion of them are Linknet. The largest Topsites have their own servers giving them increased security.

Additionally, the Site-Op reveals that many Sceners post internal information on Wikipedia.

The scene harbours ill feelings towards the torrent community. According to the Scene they are stealing their warez and posting it on trackers. The Scene is of the opinion that it’s real easy to bust people that posts warez on torrent sites like The Pirate Bay.

What happens is that people leak from the Scene to torrent sites just before a release. That indicates that these lamers have access to early sites. And if you are the one of those that does this you are categorized as an Insecure user and therefore banned from the Scene. So, to be clear, this is the only connection we have to the torrent scene.

Dislike of The Pirate Bay

We, as Site-ops, have no fondness for The Pirate Bay. We do not want to talk to the press because it pressures the police to focus on us. As a software programmer I dislike file sharing, because of the small companies that suffers from it. Members of the Scene learn a lot and find it to be a fun experience. The top Sceners buy the music and the movies on DVD anyway.

As an example I have purchased, ( With money ), FlashFXP to support the developers. This is software I use a lot. If you follow this thinking the best thing to do is to get rid of all the file sharers, mainly because it`s so insecure. The police are able to just walk in and identify the sharers. END

Q+A: Espen Tøndel, MPAA/IFPI lawyer

Q: Is there anything in this interview that gives you tips on how to get these guys?

Let me put it this way - we have a considerable amount of information about these sites. We know how they work.

Q :Do you think this article [the original interview] will make it easier to bring the Norwegian Scene to justice, considering that he reveals what kind of software and which ISPs they’re using?

From my point of view the Norwegian Scene will be brought to justice, we possess a lot of information.

Q: Norway has always been at the forefront of technology development. Do you think Hollywood should target Norway first?

Norway is obviously a good place for tech development and we have necessary legislation hence Norway is a good place for pursuing these kind of activities. We have the full backing of the Motion Picture Association in doing that.

Did this guy give away too many secrets or is Tøndel simply bluffing? Time will tell.

Update: Some people are naturally questioning the authenticity of the guy claiming to be a Site-Op. The author of the original article, Trond Bie from Norway’s ITavisen has just confirmed that he conducted this interview at his home and all the time he was watching the Site-Op doing ‘administrative stuff’ on the topsite which he says, couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.
http://torrentfreak.com/top-pirate-r...ecrets-071119/





The Gnu and the RIAA’s Worst Nightmare
p2pnet

The Gnu is helping to take on the RIAA and in the process, the RIAA’s worst nightmare is about to come true.

The one major element missing in virtually all the RIAA cases has been the lack of examination of RIAA so-called expert witnesses, the notable exception being Ray Beckerman’s grilling of Dr Doug Jacobson, whose expert testimony he reduced to rubble, with more to come.

Beckerman was, to an extent, able to do this with help from the online P2P communities, with Slashdot and Groklaw to the fore.

Now the Free Software Foundation has stepped in to help establish an Expert Witness Defense Fund for RIAA cases.

The killer is:

Contributions to the fund are entirely tax deductible.

Donors, says the FSF, will also get a listing on our ‘Thank GNUs’ web page for donations of $500 or more (if desired), the satisfaction of supporting the defense of the RIAA lawsuits and, definitely more importantly, the deep and heartfelt thanks of not only the P2P community, but also RIAA victims who before this innovation were forced to watch the likes of Jacobson attempt to snow technically ignorant judges with junk science.

Says Beckerman on Recording Industry vs The People:

1. The sole use of the funds will be to pay fees and/or expenses of technical expert witnesses, forensic examiners, and other technical consultants assisting individuals named as defendants in non-commercial, peer-to-peer file sharing cases brought by the RIAA, EMI, SONY BMG, Vivendi Universal, and Warner Bros. Records, and their affiliated companies, such as Interscope, Arista, UMG, Fonovisa, Motown, Atlantic, Priority, and others.

2. The Fund will be advised by Ray Beckerman, the author of Recording Industry vs. The People, along with a group of selected attorneys acting as advisors. These attorneys will submit payment requests to the Fund, based upon their views as to which cases are most deserving of assistance, and in what at amounts, and at what time.

3. Among the criteria to be considered in making recommendations to the Fund will be the following:

A. The importance of the case to critical legal issues.

B. The demonstrated commitment of the defendant, and/or of the defendant’s attorney if the defendant has an attorney, to seeing his or her case through to conclusion, and to fighting for important legal issues.

C. The facts and circumstances of the particular case.

D. The level of investment made by the defendant, and/or by the defendant’s attorney if the defendant has an attorney, in time, money, and labor, in defending the case.

E. The legal posture of the case.

F. The need for assistance.

G. The need for technical expertise in the case.

H. The quality and commitment of technical expertise which may have been contributed to the case.

I. The competing needs of other cases.

J. And other similar factors.

4. Defendants, or attorneys representing defendants, who request funding for experts or technical consultants, should send requests by email to Ray Beckerman, the subject field reading “Technical Expert Funding Request”.

So don’t just stay tuned —- DONATE!

Here again is the link: https://www.fsf.org/associate/riaa

http://p2pnet.net/story/14045





Broken DRM Scheme: $45 Million; Trampling Fair Use: Priceless
Eric Bangeman

Macrovision, the DRM firm perhaps best known recently for creating security holes in Windows with its SafeDisc DRM, has purchased the intellectual property surrounding the BD+ DRM scheme used by Blu-ray to thwart attempts at copying. For $45 million, Macrovision will get ownership of the Self-Protecting Digital Content (SPDC) technology that forms the basis for BD+ as well as associated patents owned by Cryptography Research.

Both Blu-ray and HD DVD use AACS to thwart copying, but that was cracked last spring. Blu-ray is alone in using an additional layer of security, BD+, to keep users from copying Blu-ray discs. BD+ works via a small virtual machine that is launched each time a disc is inserted. The VM does some code transformation to correct deliberately-corrupted video streams, and checks to see if the disc is playing on a Blu-ray player known to have been hacked. If the player has been compromised in the past, playback can be disabled. When the disc is ejected, the VM disappears from memory, which, in theory, makes it more difficult to hack or reverse engineer.

One small problem: BD+ was hacked earlier this month by SlySoft, makers of AnyDVD. The crack made good the company's boast that a crack would be available by year end and called into serious question the claims made by Blu-ray's backers that BD+ was uncrackable.

With the crack, users of AnyDVD make copies of the movies for fair use purposes. Mandatory Managed Copy is part of the Blu-ray spec, but has yet to be implemented, meaning that there's no way for Blu-ray disc owners to legally copy the discs.

Despite the recent cracks, Macrovision is excited about owning BD+. "The integration of SPDC into our product portfolio will enable us to continue to provide innovative technology to our customers as they expand their distribution vehicles," said Macrovision CEO Fred Amoroso in a statement. "Not only is BD+ critical for content security, but it also supports value-added features that enhance the consumer playback experience, such as potentially unlocking bonus content."

Even if BD+ has been dented and its long-term viability is uncertain, it's still an important acquisition for Macrovision. The DRM company will now rake in the dough for BD+ licenses paid by the studios backing Blu-ray and will turn its expertise towards fighting hackers intent on defeating BD+.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...priceless.html





Universal Goes DRM Free
James Jolly

Universal, via its UK wing Universal Classics and Jazz (UCJ), has made recordings available without DRM (digital right management). This means that its recordings are now compatible with most portable devices (including iPods). EMI was the first company to release DRM-free music right across its catalogue in a deal with iTunes, but the UCJ offering is restricted to its classical and jazz catalogues and is made available through the company’s own digital store, classicsandjazz.co.uk

UCJ stress that this is a trial venture, resulting from consumer demand for DRM-free “open” MP3 files (an option that is already widely used in the independent sector on such as emusic.com and theclassicalshop.net). Dickon Stainer, managing director of UCJ, says that “by making our entire catalogue available in an open MP3 format we will have the opportunity to assess the level of demand, the effect on the wider music download market and of course whether we will have a problem with piracy.”

Visitors to the UCJ site are directed to a “Dress Circle” area where, after free registration, they can accumulate points in a loyalty rewards scheme that can be used against future purchases. (50 points are offered for each open MP3 album – 500 can be redeemed for a £5 discount off a future purchase.)

The lack of iPod-compatibility was seen as a major hurdle for UCJ when it launched its website, but this step could line it up as a serious challenger to the market dominance of iTunes in the classical arena.
http://www.gramophone.co.uk/newsMain...ewssectionID=1





UK

Anti-Piracy Moves 'Hurt Sales'
Andrew Edgecliiffe-Johnson

Retailers are urging the music industry to drop piracy protection for online downloads after new figures showed the average Briton has bought fewer than three digital tracks in the past three years.

Incompatible proprietary technologies, aimed at defeating rampant piracy in the digital music era, are instead "stifling growth and working against the consumer interest", said Kim Bayley, director-general of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA).
Her warning comes as high street retailers and digital music specialists watch pre-Christmas sales trends nervously. The music industry makes at least 40 per cent of its revenues in the fourth quarter, but the traditional sales build-up has started later than usual.

Although Leona Lewis - the X Factor winner backed by Simon Cowell's Syco label - this month notched up the highest first-week album sales for a debut artist, album volumes are down 11 per cent, or 12m units, for the year to date, according to the Official UK Charts Company and Music Week.

Recorded music companies had been "quick to complain" that the slide in CD sales had not been offset by growth in digital music, Ms Bayley said, but their embrace of digital rights management (DRM) systems "might have added to the slow take-up of legal digital services".

Just 150m tracks have been downloaded legally in the UK over the past three years, she added. "Sadly, that amounts to an average of less than one 79p per download per head of population per year."

The ERA's appeal comes as more companies experiment with the DRM-free MP3 format, following a pre-emptive challenge in February by Apple's Steve Jobs. Most recently, Universal Music this month began offering its classical and jazz catalogue in MP3 format.
In April, EMI "unlocked" its catalogue, charging consumers a premium for DRM-free versions of its music on Apple's iTunes store, and has since signed deals with other digital retailers for MP3 files encoded at more than twice the quality of standard audio files.

"There are certainly experiments, but there's still a certain element of resistance within the music industry," Ms Bayley said. "At the moment, [DRM] just puts consumers off," she said, adding that confusion about formats was driving people toward illegal downloads.

She cited research this month that found consumers were almost four times as likely to choose an MP3 file as a DRM-protected track when the two were offered alongside each other.

The ERA, which represents high street retailers and online sites, said it was making the appeal now in the hope that music companies would drop DRM protections before the Christmas season and the January sales rise, when consumers load up the iPods they receive at Christmas.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ed6dd08-9...0779fd2ac.html





PickyPirate: Metacritic Meets BitTorrent
Ernesto

It’s not hard to determine what’s hot on BitTorrent, just go to your favorite BitTorrent site and order the results by most seeds or peers. However, finding out what’s popular by people “in the know” usually requires some more steps.

This is exactly the gap PickyPirate is trying to fill. PickyPirate fetches the most popular movies, games and music albums from Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, two well known review aggregators, and lists them on the frontpage.

For those not familiar with meta-review sites, these websites make a ranking of the movies, games and music albums that received the best reviews from critics. The links to these entries on Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes are of course included and there you can read the full reviews.

Ehud, the developer of PickyPirate told TorrentFreak that a friend asked him why nobody created a mashup of BitTorrent and Metacritic, “I immediately thought ‘Hey, that’s a really good idea!’” he said. “Basically I never know what to download from all the stuff that’s available.”

The site currently lists most popular items from the last 30 days for all categories (Music, Movies, PC Games, Xbox 360 and Wii). The lists are updated every 15 minutes, so if the scores change on Metacritic, they will be quickly updated on PickyPirate too.

If you click on one of the items on the frontpage it automatically lists all the “relevant torrents” available on The Pirate Bay and Mininova for that title, but more sites might be added later.

BitTorrent users have a huge amount of material at their fingertips and as such, they can afford to be very picky indeed. However, not everyone has the time to be picky but with the help of sites like this, allowing others to do it on your behalf can come a good second.
http://torrentfreak.com/pickypirate-...orrent-071121/





Very nice

MuViBee: Music Video Aggregation Tool
multi



http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...ad.php?t=24323





Cox Pulls a Comcast with eDonkey
Cade Metz

Comcast isn't the only American ISP throttling peer-to-peer file sharing traffic. Cox Communications is pulling exactly the same trick.

According to Robb Topolski - the networking guru who first revealed that Comcast was busting BitTorrents (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10...busting_again/) back in May - Cox is using some sort of network hardware tool to sever connections on another P2P service, eDonkey. "I'm seeing the same thing with Cox and eDonkey that I saw with Comcast," Topolski told us.

In essence, Cox is preventing P2P users from seeding files. When one machine attempts to trade a file with another, the ISP is sending a duped "reset flag" to break this peer-to-peer connection.

"At the point where the remote peer asks for a particular section of a shared a file, Cox is sending a forged reset," Topolski said. "This reset is intended to take two peers that are out of sync and get them back in sync. But in this case, the reset is being forged even though there's nothing wrong with the connection."

Previous Topolski tests showed that Comcast is pulling this trick with eDonkey and Gnutella as well as BitTorrent - though it was the BitTorrent bagging that got all the press. Now, he reports that exactly the same interface that plagues eDonkey users on Comcast is hitting users on Cox.

When we asked Cox if this was indeed the case, it tossed us the same canned statement it sent to DSLReports.com (http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/C...Traffic-89481), where Topolski's tests were first revealed. Cox reserves the right to "manage" high-bandwidth traffic:

To ensure the best possible online experience for our customers, Cox actively manages network traffic through a variety of methods including traffic prioritization and protocol filtering. Cox does not prohibit the use of file-sharing services for uploads or downloads, or discriminate against any specific services in any way. To help our customers make the most out of their Internet experience, we take proactive measures to ensure that bandwidth intensive applications do not negatively impact their service.
This is a bit easier to stomach than Comcast's initial response to the news that it was bagging BitTorrents. When the story first went web-wide in August, Comcast flatly denied it. The big-name ISP didn't adopt this sort of we're-just-managing defense until last month, when the The Associated Press ran a piece confirming Topolski's tests.

With Comcast, Topolski was able to verify that a network management tool called Sandvine was firing off fake resets, but with Cox, he's yet to zero-in on the specific piece of offending hardware. "I'm not ready to confirm, but I'm 90 per cent sure they're using Sandvine too."

His tests are ongoing, and he also hopes to determine whether Cox is bagging BitTorrents as well as eDonkey swaps. But don't start hounding the guy for answers. He just had a massive tumor removed.

When The Associated Press ran its Comcast story, we phoned Topolski for a comment, but he was in the middle of a nine-day hospital stay. "When the AP story broke, I was out of it," he said. "I don't remember too much."

But now he's cancer-free. And he's back to busting ISPs.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11...edonkey_swaps/





SaveTheInterneters to Save the Internet from Comcast
Cade Metz

Members of the SaveTheInternet.com Coalition hope to save the internet from Comcast.

Joining forces with a few internet-savvy legal scholars, several of the coalition's spunky public advocates have formally asked the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to prevent America's second largest ISP from secretly throttling peer-to-peer traffic.

They think Comcast is undermining net neutrality.

Earlier this month, nationwide tests by The Associated Press proved that Comcast was actively interfering with attempts to swap files over P2P networks like BitTorrent, eDonkey, and Gnutella. And similar accusations date all the way back to last spring (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10...usting_again/).

Comcast claims that it's merely "managing" traffic in an effort to provide users with really awesome internet service. But this doesn't sit too well with several members of SaveTheInternet, including Free Press, Public Knowledge, and the Media Access Project. These net rescuers have long urged the US government to adopt laws that would prevent ISPs from discriminating against certain kinds of net traffic.

"Comcast’s defense is bogus," said Free Press policy director Ben Scott. "The FCC needs to take immediate action to put an end to this harmful practice. Comcast’s blatant and deceptive BitTorrent blocking is exactly the type of problem advocates warned would occur without Net Neutrality laws. Our message to both the FCC and Congress is simple: We told you so, now do something about it."

Management schmanagement

In filing a "Petition for Declaratory Ruling" with the FCC, these SaveTheInterneters have asked the feds to acknowledge that BitTorrent bagging violates their "Internet Policy Statement" - a 2005 effort to protect the rights of users online.

"In 2005, when the FCC adopted an order reclassifying wireline broadband as an information service, it sought to ensure that network providers of Internet service, like phone and cable companies, would not violate network neutrality," the petition reads.

"Consumers are entitled to access all applications, services, and content of the consumer’s choice, and entitled to competition among providers of networks, applications, services, and content."

The FCC's policy statement includes a footnote that says ISPs have the right to practice "reasonable network management," but the public advocates insist this doesn't apply when a provider "intentionally degrades" net applications.

Footnote fetish

Of course, Comcast is doing its best to find shelter under this footnote. "We engage in reasonable network management to provide all of our customers with a good Internet experience, and we do so consistently with FCC policy," reads a canned statement from David L. Cohen, Comcast executive vice president.

"As the FCC noted in its policy statement in 2005, all of the principles to encourage broadband deployment and preserve the nature of the Internet are 'subject to reasonable network management.' The Commission clearly recognized that network management is necessary by ISPs for the good of all customers.”

But this hasn't deterred the SaveTheInterneters. With a separate FCC complaint, they urge the commission to crack down on Comcast specifically. "Comcast, the nation’s number two provider of high-speed Internet access, is blatantly violating the FCC’s Internet Policy Statement by degrading a range of peer-to-peer applications," the complaint reads.

"It falsely denied degrading peer-to-peer applications and now continues to degrade applications without informing users and while advertising access to the 'internet.' The FCC should immediately enjoin this discrimination and impose forfeitures on Comcast."

The complaint also asks the FCC to adopt umbrella fines for ISPs that exhibit Comcast-like behavior. As an organization spokeswoman told us, the SaveTheInterneters don't want this to happen again.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11...ent_bag ging/





Mark Cuban: 'P2P Users Should Pay a Premium'
Terrence Russell

Comcast is undoubtedly in a heap of trouble over allegations of throttling P2P traffic. However, the embattled broadband provider does have an unlikely ally in dot com entrepreneur and billionaire, Mark Cuban. In a post to his personal blog, Cuban lays out his myopic reasons for supporting Comcast's P2P traffic jams:

As a consumer, I want my internet experience to be as fast as possible. The last thing I want slowing my internet service down are P2P freeloaders. Thats right, P2P content distributors are nothing more than freeloaders. The only person/organization that benefits from P2P usage are those that are trying to distribute content and want to distribute it on someone else's bandwidth dime.

Cuban's ideal solution? Well, let's say it's not exactly in sync with the FCC's Net Neutrality policies:

Comcast, Time Warner, etc should charge a premium to those users who want to act as a seed and relay for P2P traffic. After all, that is why P2P is used, right? For content distributors to avoid significant bandwidth and hosting charges. That makes it commercial traffic far more often than not. So make them pay commercial rates.

Cuban may have an interesting take on the issue, but his solution hardly seems fitting for legit users of the protocol. Comcast's throttling has allegedly affected Lotus Notes users and anyone patching a copy of World of Warcraft. So, it's unlikely that charging these users extra would effectively address the issue at hand -- namely, the legality of Comcast's current sleight of hand.

UPDATE: Cuban has put up another post that backpedals a little and attempts to further explain his unique take on the issue. Here's what it boils down to in 22 words: "I think there are valid applications for P2P on private networks, but nothing on the Internet that I think is worth surviving."
http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/...cuban-p2p.html





Whose Web is it, Anyway?

The equation bittorrent = pirate doesn't hold water. And, major ISPs in Canada and the U.S. know this. They're just trying to scare and co-opt naive North Americans who think peer-to-peer is the Devil's handiwork.

Until about three weeks ago, net neutrality was a difficult issue to explain at a dinner party. It was even more of a struggle to get anybody worked up about it. Now, thanks to the major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) Comcast and Bell-Sympatico, the stakes are crystal clear and the acrid scent of a smoking gun hangs in the room.

Last month the Associated Press ran a series of tests that demonstrated that U.S. broadband provider Comcast was interfering with its customers' ability to download files stored on what are called peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

In Canada, a forum supervisor for Bell-Sympatico has admitted the Canadian carrier does likewise.

So what? Peer-to-peer? Customer interference? Read on.

Peer-to-peer networks allow Internet-connected computers to distribute the burden of storing and transferring honking big digital files. Those files are often, but not always, music and videos. You might have also heard of it as sharing files via bittorrent.

You might also have heard that bittorrent is only used by scofflaws, pedophiles, university students and pirates illegally swapping Hollywood movies, pictures of naked children and Dan Hill tunes. So, at first glance, you might say, "Hey, what the carriers did makes sense. I mean, why should bandwidth-sucking evildoers who like sappy folk ballads get to download a metric buttload of pornography and bad music, all the while slowing things down for the rest of us?"

That's exactly what the carriers want you to think. But, that's just so wrong on so many levels. Let me explain.

While pirating music and movies is illegal, using bittorrent or peer-to-peer sharing isn't. For example, I use bittorrent to download Creative Commons-licensed videos from miro.com, as do thousands of other law-abiding, non-pirating individuals.

Content from National Geographic, Lionsgate Films, MTV, Dow Jones and the Discovery Channel is available online via bittorrent, legally. And, lots of large but legal downloads of medical x-rays, unmixed music tracks etc., raw footage for documentaries etc., take place everyday via peer-to-peer, and nobody is breaking the law.

So the equation bittorrent = pirate doesn't hold water. And, major ISPs in Canada and the U.S. know this. They're just trying to scare and co-opt naive North Americans who think peer-to-peer is the Devil's handiwork. Sort of the way George Bush used the threat of terrorism to invade Iraq.

Second, peer-to-peer blocking isn't an exact science. In fact, Comcast in the U.S. stepped in it big time when their peer-to-peer blocking schemes stopped businesses from exchanging Lotus Notes data. Big mistake.

So, not only is it true that many P2P users are engaged in perfectly legal acts, folks who aren't even using P2P are getting caught in the arc of a blunt instrument.

Third, it's not just peer-to-peer sharers and Lotus Notes users who are getting bludgeoned. Other carriers in Canada have been accused of degrading Internet phone calls. Internet telephony, also called Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) lets you make long distance calls dirt cheap. VOIP services like Skype and the Gizmo Project allow international computer-to-computer calls for free.

Why would carriers throttle VOIP traffic on their networks? They claim it sucks bandwidth but, again, that's a clever smokescreen.

Canadian carriers like Rogers and Shaw offer their own VOIP services. Those VOIP services also take bandwidth, but don't get throttled.

And last year VOIP provider Vonage complained that broadband (and VOIP) provider Shaw was charging customers a $10 per month "quality of service enhancement" fee for the privilege of using non-Shaw VOIP providers. In other words, a non-Shaw VOIP tax.

Is it in the carriers' best interest to allow upstart cheap phone companies like Skype or Vonage to suck up bandwidth with its inexpensive and excellent service? Nope, but in a free market and a neutral Internet, upstarts happen. The traditional players just don't like it much and want the nonsense to stop.

That takes us back to peer-to-peer. Why? Because the truth is, Rogers, Shaw and Bell-Sympatico want to start offering you video over the Internet - also called IPTV (Internet Protocol Television). NBC is already starting this with hulu, which distributes primetime shows online (to U.S. residents only - that's so cable). But soon Canadian networks will want to send you their content, on their terms, over their networks. And what's a great way for them to distribute that content? Peer-to-peer and bittorrent.
So, when you and I use bittorrent we're bandwidth-hogging criminals. When the carriers use it, it's just good business. When Shaw and Rogers offer VOIP, it's smooth and clear. When competitors do, it degrades badly or you get up-charged so it won't devolve to stuttering static. When we use lots of bandwidth, the carriers complain we're degrading the service for everyone. Yet, somehow, when they want to, the bandwidth will be there. Odd how it works.

But the problem runs deeper still.

In the past few years, broadband carriers in North America have:

• Prevented the abortion rights group Naral Pro-Choice America from getting a "short code" that would allow them to send text messages to supporters. (Verizon, 2007)

• Cut off the webcast of a Pearl Jam concert just when lead singer Eddie Veder was critical of U.S. President George Bush. (AT&T, 2007)

• Blocked emails critical of a pay-to-send email plan. (Time Warner/AOL, 2006)

• Blocked customers from accessing a website sympathetic to the Telecommunications Works Union during a strike. (Telus, 2005)

These incidents and others have raised the concern of net neutrality advocates. Why? Because they suggest that as well as blocking access to peer-to-peer sharing, throttling bandwidth and degrading competing VOIP services, carriers are also keen on controlling the content that's flowing through the Web. They'd like it to be their content.

"The carriers have a myriad of conflicts of interest," says Steve Anderson, the Coordinator of the Campaign for Democratic Media. "They have popular websites or they own television stations, so it's in their interest to get traffic to them. If they allow P2P sharing and people are watching shows that way, it's likely they're not watching shows from Rogers."

How could that affect you?

Here's an example. Right now the Canadian online news service The Real News (which I've done work with) provides daily video news that asks tough and uncomfortable questions about business and politics worldwide. Being video-based it consumes bandwidth, and lots of it.

It is within the power of Canadian carriers to say, "We'd rather folks watch the news our partners provide, so we'll just throttle back the speed of access for The Real News". They could choke off or degrade your access to an alternative viewpoint.

Or, let's move closer to home. Right now, rabble.ca is developing rabble tv, an Internet video version of rabble.ca. Canadian carriers could make rabble tv stutter and jump like a filmstrip caught in a projector.

Or, they could offer The Real News and rabble tv a chance to get out from underneath that throttling, if we were willing to pay more to get back on the fast lane of access - just like mobsters shaking down shopkeepers for protection money.

That's what's called the tiered Internet. And, that's what carriers would like to see. It's an Internet where the big players get the high road and everyone else gets the slow dirt path. That's the opposite of a neutral net where the carriers don't control or discriminate against the traffic they carry. But, it's exactly the way cable companies have always run their businesses. Why should today be different from yesterday?

Are they allowed to do this? Not really.

Section 27(2) of the Canadian Telecommunications Act says: "No Canadian carrier shall, in relation to the provision of a telecommunications service or the charging of a rate for it, unjustly discriminate or give an undue or unreasonable preference toward any person, including itself, or subject any person to an undue or unreasonable disadvantage."

That's stronger than U.S. legislation, at least in theory, but so far neither the CRTC nor the government in general has enforced it when it comes to net neutrality issues.

The carriers say they would never discriminate based on content. But, they are starting. And, more to the point, they have also consistently denied that they throttle bandwidth and target peer-to-peer sharing. We now know they do. We have the smoking gun. So, when it comes to net neutrality, they're not to be trusted. And, they've only just started.

Judging from what's happened to date, the government doesn't much care. If you do, here's what you can do right now. Head over to http://www.neutrality.ca and sign their petition. It's easy, and, best of all, it doesn't take much bandwidth.
http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=64622





FAQ: Comcast vs. BitTorrent
David Ramel

Cable TV giant and Internet service provider Comcast Corp. has been accused of blocking -- or at least throttling -- traffic from subscribers trying to share files through the popular BitTorrent peer-to-peer network.

What's BitTorrent?
BitTorrent is a networking protocol that lets users who download client software share (transmit and receive) files from other users. These shared files can be any type of file, but BitTorrent is well known for sharing MP3 music files, software applications, movies and other videos. Many of these files are copyrighted. BitTorrent is somewhat similar to the old Napster network that was used by millions of users to share MP3 files, but it doesn't use central servers. Instead, users download metadata files (torrents) related to the file they wish to get. Then the client software sends out a request to "trackers," which are computers that coordinate the transfer of the file -- typically in many different parts from among many peers.

So, if many of these files are being shared illegally, what's the big deal about blocking -- or throttling -- the traffic?
BitTorrent Inc., founded by the creator of the protocol, emphasizes that BitTorrent can be used for legally sharing files that aren't copyrighted and even offers the protocol/software as a legitimate service for businesses. Many others in the Internet community also use the technology for legitimate purposes. For example, Blizzard uses the BitTorrent protocol to distribute updates and patches to its popular World of Warcraft game.

Then why is Comcast (reportedly) hindering this traffic?
There are no exact numbers available, but some have claimed BitTorrent traffic comprises a significant portion of total Internet traffic. Comcast has limited bandwidth available for its millions of customers and has reportedly cut off service for some users who used more than their share of bandwidth. The company has admitted it restricts users who consume too much bandwidth (not specifically BitTorrent traffic) to ensure all of its customers receive adequate service, although it won't officially say what the limit is.

What is Comcast's reply?
The company says it doesn't block peer-to-peer traffic, but it does practice "reasonable network management" to ensure quality service for all it subscribers.

What does the other side say?
Claims of Comcast interference with BitTorrent traffic have been circulating for many months, at least, but the issue came to the forefront recently when the Associated Press published results of its own investigation into the issue. The AP concluded that Comcast was hindering BitTorrent traffic.

I don't use BitTorrent, so why should I care?
The dispute points to a larger issue called Net neutrality. This is a contentious dispute about the kinds of controls that Internet service providers can put on their networks. Those advocating for the principle of Net neutrality generally want to keep providers from regulating what kind of traffic or level of traffic is allowed. They also don't want providers to be able to charge different rates for different levels of service -- so consumers or companies would have to pay more to be guaranteed certain minimum levels of download/upload speed, for example. Those opposing Net neutrality generally maintain that some kind of control is necessary to promote improvements in equipment and services and guarantee minimum levels of performance. Others believe providers have the right to manage traffic on their network, but argue that -- especially in the Comcast case -- they should be more upfront about what they're doing.

What else is going on?
Besides BitTorrent traffic, Comcast has been accused of blocking or throttling Lotus Notes traffic. Also, complaints about Comcast interfering with BitTorrent traffic have been filed with the FCC by online video distributor Vuze and the group Public Knowledge and other members of the Open Internet Coalition.

Where are things going from here?
Comcast was recently sued by a California man for interfering in file sharing. At the time of this writing, Comcast hadn't officially commented on the suit. If the litigation proceeds, it could reveal details about exactly what Comcast is doing and eventually result in legislation or an FCC ruling to settle the legality of the practice.
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscente...ittorrent.html





Exinda Networks Controls Broad Range of Recreational Internet Traffic Slipping Past Corporate Firewalls: Exinda's New Capability Detects and Controls Encrypted Peer-to-Peer Traffic That Cripples Corporate Applications
Press release

Exinda Networks today announced an enhancement to its WAN optimization appliances that helps control a broad range of recreational Internet traffic, such as instant messaging, gaming and downloading files for entertainment, that significantly slows business applications on corporate networks. Exinda’s new feature detects and blocks or slows recreational Internet traffic, called encrypted peer-to-peer traffic, that cleverly slips past corporate firewalls, ensuring that business applications are not negatively impacted. Exinda is the only WAN optimization vendor that can detect, classify and control more than 1,000 applications which includes encrypted peer-to-peer traffic.

The ability to detect and control this traffic also saves companies money and keeps employees more productive by not having to wait for business applications to respond. According to a survey conducted by America Online and Salary.com in June, 2005 employers spend $759 billion per year on salaries for which real work was expected, but not actually performed. Web surfing for recreational use was cited as the #1 time waster at work by 44.7 percent of more than 10,000 people polled.

Skype, BitTorrent, MySpace and Facebook are among the most common Web applications that send encrypted peer-to-peer network traffic over corporate networks. Skype, a free software that is used for both business and recreational purposes, offers instant messaging, file transfer and video capabilities and is well known for its ability to circumvent firewalls. BitTorrent is an application most commonly used for social purposes to download large files including movies, TV shows, games and MP3 audio files. MySpace and Facebook are social networking applications for sharing photos, personal profiles, videos and more. Recreational use of these applications are gaining in popularity, negatively impacting business applications. Exinda’s appliances can detect, classify and control 98 percent of BitTorrent traffic whereas other WAN optimization vendors allow this traffic to pass undetected or at best only detect and classify half of the rogue traffic.

According to a survey conducted by Ashton, Metzler & Associates in August, 2006, 63 percent of IT professionals see unauthorized use of company networks for instant messaging and 58 percent see unauthorized use for peer-to-peer file sharing. The statistics are likely much higher given that these two types of traffic go highly undetected by most firewalls.

“The recreational use of Skype and BitTorrent has become a serious problem for companies and service providers,” said Con Nikolouzakis, chief executive officer of Exinda Networks. “These recreational applications have a way of making business application run as if they were in slow motion. They have been known to crash the network in some instances. It’s disruptive to employees and adds unnecessary expense to operate the corporate network.”

Nikolouzakis added, “There are situations where encrypted peer-to-peer traffic is used for legitimate business purposes such as conference calls being hosted on Skype. In those instances, it is important to be able to detect and prioritize this traffic rather than restrict it. Until now, WAN optimization vendors have fallen short on properly handling encrypted peer-to-peer traffic.”

Skype and BitTorrent traffic were designed to use different network ports and file server IP addresses making it very difficult for firewalls to detect it. Exinda’s new feature classifies Skype and BitTorrent traffic using Layer 7 heuristics to detect traffic patterns and apply the proper network policy to control it.

Additionally, Exinda’s new heuristics-based classification speeds data at up to 100 times faster than before. Faster classification is helpful in large service provider and enterprise networks handling large amounts of data and numerous applications.

Availability and Pricing

Exinda’s new classification engine will be available on December 3, 2007 as part of a firmware update at no charge to Exinda customers who have a current software subscription. Visit www.exinda.com/support/ for more details.
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2.../emw570969.htm





Certification Testing for 100Mbps Cable Modems Begins, 2008 Rollout Eyed
Eric Bangeman

CableLabs has begun testing the first set of DOCSIS 3.0 gear, as five companies have submitted cable modems to the organization for official approval. We've seen precertification equipment tested, and some cable ISPs in Asia have rolled out pre-DOCSIS 3.0 equipment, but this is the first set of gear to be tested for compliance with the final DOCSIS 3.0 standard.

Cable ISPs currently use DOCSIS 1.1, which has been "good enough" in the past. Unfortunately, when compared to fiber, DOCSIS 1.1 lacks in the speed department. DOCSIS 3.0 has the potential to drastically change that, with download speeds of up to 160Mbps and uploads of up to 120Mbps possible. In addition, DOCSIS 3.0 also offers full support for IPv6, along with enhanced network management and security features. DOCSIS 3.0 also offers enough bandwidth for IPTV and other high-def video services.

Trials of pre-DOCSIS 3.0 gear have been promising. One of the deployments mentioned above has resulted in download speeds of 100Mbps for customers of a South Korean ISP that has a reach of 1.1 million subscribers. Another DOCSIS 3.0 trial in Singapore earlier this year saw speeds of up to 145Mbps.

The first round of DOCSIS 3.0 certification comes at an important time for the cable industry. Cable companies used to be the unquestioned kings of download speeds, but they're finding it impossible to compete with fiber-optic deployments such as Verizon's FiOS service. Last month, Verizon announced its new 20/20 symmetrical FiOS service, and earlier this week made the service available across its entire territory. The company also rolled out a new service tier with speeds of 50Mbps down and 30Mbps up.

Cable companies are definitely feeling the heat. "Cable's got to be ready with a [comparable] product that's not going to break the bank," Gartner analyst Patti Reali told Cable Digital News. With certification testing under way, cable companies should be able to begin deploying DOCSIS 3.0 gear at some point in 2008—likely in areas where they are facing competition from Verizon and AT&T's fiber networks.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...lout-eyed.html





Mininova Hits The Million Torrent Uploads Mark
Ernesto

The well-known BitTorrent site Mininova reached a new Milestone today. Just weeks after hitting the 3 billion torrent downloads mark, Mininova notched up its 1,000,000th uploaded torrent.

Torrent number 1,000,000 was uploaded yesterday by an anonymous user. Unfortunately, the memorable torrent has no seeds, which makes it likely that it wont be around much longer.

One million uploaded torrents is a great accomplishment, especially if you consider that Mininova only allows user uploads. Contrary to what most people assume, Mininova doesn’t scrape any torrents from other websites, all the torrents hosted on the website are uploaded by its users.

It took almost a year to get from the 500,000th torrent, which was uploaded November 2006, to the millionth torrent. So, the traffic and the torrent downloads grow faster than the torrent uploads, indicating that most new users are mostly interested in downloading and not in publishing content. At the moment, approximately 1350 torrents are uploaded to Mininova every day and the site hosts over 550,000 .torrent files in total.

Earlier this week we reported that Mininova entered the list of the top 50 most visited websites on the Internet. Some people might have noticed that Mininova spits out a few errors every now and then if you try to load a page, this is one of the downsides of the traffic increase. However, Mininova founder Niek assured us that they are working on it and that it should get better soon.
http://torrentfreak.com/mininova-hit...s-mark-071118/





DMCA Notices for Unlicensed Anime (Comcast)

Over the past few days some disturbing news has reached the AnimeSuki email box: it seems several Comcast (an US internet provider) users have received DMCA ("stop illegal downloading") notices for unlicensed anime. It seems there might be some fact to the news reported in the Japan Asks America to Stop Illegal Net Releases of Anime thread after all.

So far I've seen DMCA notices about the following anime (Japanese anime studios in parenthesis):

- Suteki Tantei Labyrinth (Studio Deen)
- Gundam 00 (Sunrise / Mainichi Broadcasting)
- Seto no Hanayome (AIC / avex / Gonzo)
- Nagasarete Airantou (feel / Starchild)

As you can see there is no real pattern, other than that the anime was unlicensed and the people who received the notices were Comcast users.

I wonder if this is a trend, so I'd like to ask if anyone else has received a DMCA ("stop illegal activity") notice from their ISP or third party recently for downloading anime in the US or Europe? (the issue with Odex in Singapore is another story...)

Forum member aldraek's thread about this issue was deleted because he misinterpreted the notice as a the series being licensed (which is possible, but seems terribly unlikely considering not all of the series seem like likely license candidates to me). Here is the contents of his post, which shows how the DMCA notices look like:

Quote:
Originally Posted by aldraek
So I grabbed the first episode of Gundam 00 a few days ago just to check it out and see if it was worth watching... (unfortunately not something that grabbed my attention after watching it) and today, very surprisingly, I got an e-mail from Comcast about it. Anyone care to comment? I know that downloading anime is in the grey-area legally if it's not been licensed in your region, but I also know that Gundam 00 is not licensed in region 1. Can anyone care to tell me what's going on? Maybe some advice on how to handle this? This is the FIRST letter of any kind that I've received regarding this nature... Interesting fact was that I had uTorrent running with encryption on, guess it's not all that cracked up.

Anyway, here's a copy of the e-mail with sensitive information removed:

From: Comcast Network Abuse [mailto:abuse-noreply@comcast.net]
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2007 4:23 AM
To: Comcast Internet Subscriber
Subject: Notice of Claim of Copyright Infringement.

Notice of Action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Abuse Incident Number: NA000000-------
Report Date/Time: Wed, 14 Nov 2007


Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Subscriber:

Comcast has received a notification by a copyright owner, or its authorized
agent, reporting an alleged infringement of one or more copyrighted works
made on or over Comcast's High-Speed Internet service (the 'Service'). The
copyright owner has identified the Internet Protocol ('IP') address
associated with your Service account at the time as the source of the
infringing works. The works identified by the copyright owner in its
notification are listed below. Comcast reminds you that use of the Service
(or any part of the Service) in any manner that constitutes an infringement
of any copyrighted work is a violation of Comcast's Acceptable Use Policy
and may result in the suspension or termination of your Service account.

If you have any questions regarding this notice, you may direct them to
Comcast in writing by sending a letter or e-mail to:

Comcast Legal Response Center
Comcast Cable Communications, LLC
650 Centerton Road
Moorestown, NJ 08057 U.S.A.
Phone: (856) 317-7272
Fax: (856) 317-7319
E-mail: dmca@comcast.net

For more information regarding Comcast's copyright infringement policy,
procedures, and contact information, please read our Acceptable Use Policy
by clicking on the Terms of Service link at http://www.comcast.net.

Sincerely,
Comcast Legal Response Center

Copyright work(s) identified in the notification of claimed infringement:

Evidentiary Information:

Notice ID: ---
Asset: Gundam 00
Protocol: BitTorrent
IP Address: xx.xx.xx.xx
DNS: xx.xx.xx.comcast.net
File Name:
[Conclave-Mendoi]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_00_-_01v2_[1280x720_H.264_AAC][871FCBC2
].mkv
File Size: 361374904
Timestamp: 12 Nov 2007 04:56:59 GMT
Last Seen Date: 12 Nov 2007 04:56:59 GMT
URL: http://tracker.radicand.org:5190/announce
Username (if available):
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=58005





From April

File-Sharing to Bypass Censorship
Tracey Logan

By the year 2010, file-sharers could be swapping news rather than music, eliminating censorship of any kind.

This is the view of the man who helped kickstart the concept of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing, Cambridge University's Professor Ross Anderson.

In his vision, people around the world would post stories via anonymous P2P services like those used to swap songs.

They would cover issues currently ignored by the major news services, said Prof Anderson.

"Currently, only news that's reckoned to be of interest to Americans and Western Europeans will be syndicated because that's where the money is," he told the BBC World Service programme, Go Digital.

"But if something happens in Peru that's of interest to viewers in China and Japan, it won't get anything like the priority for syndication.

"If you can break the grip of the news syndication services and allow the news collector to talk to the radio station or local newspaper then you can have much more efficient communications."

'Impossible to censor'

To enable this, Prof Anderson proposes a new and improved version of Usenet, the internet news service.

But what of fears that the infrastructure that allows such ad hoc news networks to grow might also be abused by criminals and terrorists?

Prof Anderson believes those fears are overstated. He argued that web watchdogs like the Internet Watch Foundation, which monitors internet-based child abuse, would provide the necessary policing functions.

This would require a high level of international agreement to be effective.

"The effect of peer-to-peer networks will be to make censorship difficult, if not impossible," said Prof Anderson.

"If there's material that everyone agrees is wicked, like child pornography, then it's possible to track it down and close it down. But if there's material that only one government says is wicked then, I'm sorry, but that's their tough luck".

Political obstacles

Commenting on Prof Anderson's ideas, technology analyst Bill Thompson welcomed the idea of new publishing tools that will weaken the grip on news of major news organisations.

Such P2P systems, he said, would give everybody a voice and allow personal testimonies to come out.

But the technology that makes those publishing tools accessible to everyone and sufficiently user-friendly will take longer to develop than Prof Anderson thinks, added Mr Thompson.

Prof Anderson's vision underestimates the political obstacles in the way of such developments, he said, and the question of censorship had not been clearly thought through.

"Once you build the technology to break censorship, you've broken censorship - even of the things you want censored," said Mr Thompson.

"Saying you can then control some parts of it, like images of child abuse, is being wilfully optimistic. And that's something that peer to peer advocates have to face."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...gy/3611227.stm





Is Facebook Really Censoring Search When It Suits Them?
Michael Arrington

Earlier this month I wrote a blog post showing that a search for presidential candidate “Ron Paul” in Facebook Groups yields zero results. Facebook blamed the problem on a bug (unofficially, via comments by employees to that post), which was later corrected.

But a new issue may be harder to explain. On Tuesday, scores of mainstream press organizations (see WSJ, NYT, LATimes, CNET, AP, etc.). and bloggers reported on a privacy issue around part of Facebook’s new advertising platform.

MoveOn.org was leading the charge, and created a petition to demand Facebook not disclose personal information about a user without their explicit consent.

But now a side story is developing around the issue that relates to search censoring, again, at Facebook. Naturally all the press on the issue led people to go to Facebook to find the group MoveOn set up to organize their opposition to Facebook’s current privacy policy on this issue.

The group, which now has over 12,000 members, could not be located via search. Yesterday a search in Facebook Groups for “Privacy” began to return an error message saying “search is currently unavailable” (see image to right). But at the same time, searches for any other term yielded normal results.

Later search began working again, but the MoveOn Group was not included in the results even though it clearly had the term “privacy” in the title. A filtered search yielded seventeen results, but only sixteen could be viewed. The MoveOn group was likely the seventeenth, unseen result. See bottom image below.

MoveOn contacted Facebook to complain, and the search is now working. Facebook has not responded to a request for comment sent yesterday on why this may have happened, although we are in the middle of the Thanksgiving holiday.

MoveOn’s Adam Green, who alerted us of the issue, had this to say:

Facebook has the potential to revolutionize how we communicate with each other and organize around issues together in a 21st century democracy. But to succeed, they need the trust of their users. That trust will be undercut if they continue to put the wish lists of corporate advertisers ahead of the privacy interests of their users. It would also be undercut if it turned out our group was intentionally hidden from Facebook users — as opposed to it being an accident.

We’ll see if Facebook responds at all, and if they blame this on a bug as well.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/22...it-suits-them/





Sen. Feingold Speaks Out On Media Consolidation
FMQB

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) is the latest politician to speak out against FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's rush to alter the media ownership rules. Feingold has sent a letter to Martin voicing his concerns about the plan.

In a statement, Feingold says, "I have been fighting for years against the increasing consolidation of media ownership in this country. The 1996 Telecommunications Act, which I voted against, allowed for significant consolidation in radio ownership silencing many of the exceptional voices that are the strength of local radio. In the decade since the law’s passage, we have seen small and independent media outlets replaced by corporate monoliths. I have contacted FCC Chairman Kevin Martin with my concerns about the FCC’s failure to adequately address the harmful effects of media consolidation on local ownership, including minority-owned and women-owned broadcast stations. I also strongly support Senator Dorgan’s Media Ownership Act to improve transparency in media ownership rulemaking. I will push for adoption of Senator Dorgan’s bill and continue my efforts to ensure diverse and open media."

In his letter to Martin, Feingold wrote that he is "particularly concerned that the Commission has not sufficiently evaluated the impact of media consolidation on local programming, and may even be selectively collecting and releasing information to support its pre-conceived agenda," in reference to the delayed release of localism studies.

He concluded, "While the Commission has commissioned some reports and held some hearings on media ownership, there is no completed localism proceeding to inform the consideration of proposals in this area. In addition, the selective burying of reports raises questions about the objectivity of the FCC reports that were allowed to be published. Moreover, the limited hearings that have been held have confirmed that other issues of public importance, including the lack of women-owned and minority-owned broadcast stations, deserve more careful attention from the Commission. Keeping in mind the contentious media ownership proposal in 2003, I respectfully suggest the need for additional information gathering and opportunities for public comment before the Commission acts on this matter again."
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=516246





51 More Lawmakers Oppose Performance Royalty For Radio
FMQB

Fifty-one more lawmakers have backed the bipartisan resolution to recognize the free airplay value of radio airplay. The resolution was introduced late last month to counter the proposed performance royalty rates for radio. According to the NAB, the resolution now has 104 co-sponsors, including its authors, Reps. Gene Green (D-TX) and Mike Conaway (R-TX).

"Congress should not impose any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge relating to the public performance of sound recordings on a local radio station for broadcasting sound recordings over-the-air, or on any business for such public performance of sound recordings," reads House Concurrent Resolution 244.
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=516946





Studio Chiefs Decry Interference

FCC's attempt to regulate cable is 'ill-considered'
Brooks Boliek

The heads of four major motion picture studios have told FCC chairman Kevin Martin that his attempts to regulate cable operators could damage the U.S. economy and harm the nation's competitiveness.

In a letter dated Tuesday, News Corp. president and COO Peter Chernin, Disney president and CEO Robert Iger, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman and NBC Universal president and CEO Jeff Zucker urged Martin to back off his attempts to restore cable regulation.

"Because of the vibrant competition in both programming and distribution, and because of the myriad of options and alternatives available to consumers, there is no conceivable justification for government intervention in this marketplace," the studio chiefs wrote. "Media content is one of the few industry sectors in which the U.S. is still pre-eminent on the world stage. Ill-considered and unjustified government interventions cannot be permitted to undermine this vibrant American industry."

Martin has been searching for ways to force the cable industry to offer its programming on a per-channel basis, and he might have found a way by invoking a provision in the 1984 Cable Act that says the government can regulate cable operators with 36 or more channels once they are available to 70% of the nation's households and at least 70% of those households subscribe to the service.

Martin contends that cable operators have passed the 70-70 threshold and has scheduled a vote on the FCC's "Video Competition Report" for Tuesday. If the findings of the competition report support Martin and are accepted by the commission, that could open the way for new regulation by the FCC. It was unclear exactly what was in the report; calls to the commissioners were not returned Tuesday.

There are questions about the report's veracity, however, and Republican commissioners Robert McDowell and Deborah Tate have both concluded that the data is faulty.

On Monday, McDowell said he would not support the report if it included the data that Martin is using to justify the new regulations.

Martin obtained his data from the Television and Cable Factbook, published annually by Warren Communications News. In the past, the agency's analysis included Warren, two other outside sources and its own annual cable price survey.

Warren chairman and publisher Paul Warren has said that his data is not conclusive because many cable operators refused to disclose the number of subscribers they have and the homes available.

McDowell contends that a change of that magnitude needs to be vetted in the rulemaking process with time for the public to comment.

If Martin cannot depend on the two GOP commissioners, then he would have to gain the support of Democratic commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein. Add the voices of the studio chiefs, and it makes it even more difficult to get a majority. To bolster their argument, the studio heads contend that the necessity for the 70-70 regulation has long passed.

"The reality is that consumers today enjoy a wider range of media choices than at any time in history," they wrote. "The range and diversity of media options available to consumers is almost overwhelming, and all of these options are increasing virtually every single day."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...a39f02476e9f3f





Study Linking Broadband, Job Creation Shows Need for Coherent US Policy
Jacqui Cheng

The adoption of broadband helps the economy by leading to more jobs and an overall increase in payroll, according to a new study. The research was conducted by the Sacramento Regional Research Institute on behalf of AT&T, and showed a strong correlation between broadband growth in California and the number of new jobs available, forecasting that even small increases in broadband use could substantially affect the state over the next 10 years. The findings suggest that a greater investment in broadband deployment would significantly benefit not only California, but the rest of the country.
"Not tonight, honey, I'm on the Internet"

The SRRI looked at California's overall broadband usage between 2001 and 2006, and found that adoption has more than tripled to 53.5 percent in 2006. During the same period of time, the use of dial-up to access the Internet decreased steadily (surprise!), and the two crossed in 2004. Historically, SRRI found that such an increase in broadband use was tied to an increase in jobs—more jobs were created than they would have during "business as usual." The institute estimates that for every one percentage point of the adult population using broadband, the employment growth rate rises by 0.075 percentage points—the payroll growth rate also grows by up to 0.088 percentage points.

Based on an estimate of "strong" broadband growth over the next several years (about 3.8 percent), SRRI says that California could see a cumulative 10-year gain of 1.8 million jobs and $132 billion in payroll. A "dramatic" increase in broadband adoption—7.6 percent growth per year—"could push the state to universal diffusion of broadband within the next 10 years," says the institute.

The findings underline a need for a coherent national broadband policy. President Bush's dream of universal broadband access by this year turned out to be just that—a dream—and the FCC has acknowledged the sad state of US broadband. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) recently outlined an ambitious goal to make universal 100Mbps broadband available throughout the US by 2015 and the House has finally passed a bill that would improve the Federal Communications Commission's broadband data collection, but more needs to be done to improve the state of US broadband.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...us-policy.html





The Future of Internet Immune Systems
Cory Doctorow

Bunhill Cemetery is just down the road from my flat in London. It’s a handsome old boneyard, a former plague pit (“Bone hill” -- as in, there are so many bones under there that the ground is actually kind of humped up into a hill). There are plenty of luminaries buried there -- John “Pilgrim’s Progress” Bunyan, William Blake, Daniel Defoe, and assorted Cromwells. But my favorite tomb is that of Thomas Bayes, the 18th-century statistician for whom Bayesian filtering is named.

Bayesian filtering is plenty useful. Here’s a simple example of how you might use a Bayesian filter. First, get a giant load of non-spam emails and feed them into a Bayesian program that counts how many times each word in their vocabulary appears, producing a statistical breakdown of the word-frequency in good emails.

Then, point the filter at a giant load of spam (if you’re having a hard time getting a hold of one, I have plenty to spare), and count the words in it. Now, for each new message that arrives in your inbox, have the filter count the relative word-frequencies and make a statistical prediction about whether the new message is spam or not (there are plenty of wrinkles in this formula, but this is the general idea).

The beauty of this approach is that you needn’t dream up “The Big Exhaustive List of Words and Phrases That Indicate a Message Is/Is Not Spam.” The filter naively calculates a statistical fingerprint for spam and not-spam, and checks the new messages against them.

This approach -- and similar ones -- are evolving into an immune system for the Internet, and like all immune systems, a little bit goes a long way, and too much makes you break out in hives.

ISPs are loading up their network centers with intrusion detection systems and tripwires that are supposed to stop attacks before they happen. For example, there’s the filter at the hotel I once stayed at in Jacksonville, Fla. Five minutes after I logged in, the network locked me out again. After an hour on the phone with tech support, it transpired that the network had noticed that the videogame I was playing systematically polled the other hosts on the network to check if they were running servers that I could join and play on. The network decided that this was a malicious port-scan and that it had better kick me off before I did anything naughty.

It only took five minutes for the software to lock me out, but it took well over an hour to find someone in tech support who understood what had happened and could reset the router so that I could get back online.

And right there is an example of the autoimmune disorder. Our network defenses are automated, instantaneous, and sweeping. But our fallback and oversight systems are slow, understaffed, and unresponsive. It takes a millionth of a second for the Transportation Security Administration’s body-cavity-search roulette wheel to decide that you’re a potential terrorist and stick you on a no-fly list, but getting un-Tuttle-Buttled is a nightmarish, months-long procedure that makes Orwell look like an optimist.

The tripwire that locks you out was fired-and-forgotten two years ago by an anonymous sysadmin with root access on the whole network. The outsourced help-desk schlub who unlocks your account can’t even spell "tripwire." The same goes for the algorithm that cut off your credit card because you got on an airplane to a different part of the world and then had the audacity to spend your money. (I’ve resigned myself to spending $50 on long-distance calls with Citibank every time I cross a border if I want to use my debit card while abroad.)

This problem exists in macro- and microcosm across the whole of our technologically mediated society. The “spamigation bots” run by the Business Software Alliance and the Music and Film Industry Association of America (MAFIAA) entertainment groups send out tens of thousands of automated copyright takedown notices to ISPs at a cost of pennies, with little or no human oversight. The people who get erroneously fingered as pirates (as a Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) spokesperson charmingly puts it, “When you go fishing with a dragnet, sometimes you catch a dolphin.”) spend days or weeks convincing their ISPs that they had the right to post their videos, music, and text-files.

We need an immune system. There are plenty of bad guys out there, and technology gives them force-multipliers (like the hackers who run 250,000-PC botnets). Still, there’s a terrible asymmetry in a world where defensive takedowns are automatic, but correcting mistaken takedowns is done by hand.
http://www.internetevolution.com/aut...doc_id=139358&





Expert Scares World with VoIP Hacking Proof
John E. Dunn

An expert has released a proof-of-concept program to show how easy it would be for criminals to eavesdrop on the VoIP-based phone calls of any company using the technology.

Called SIPtap, the software is able to monitor multiple Voice-over-IP (VoIP) call streams, listening in and recording them for remote inspection as .wav files. All that the criminal would need would be to infect a single PC inside the network with a Trojan incorporating these functions, although the hack would work at ISP level as well.

The program can index 'IP-tapped' calls by caller - using SIP identity information - and by recipient, and even by date. Running from August this year until the most recent tap on November 21st, SIPtap had no problems in extracting enough information on the test network to prove that call recording of any and every VoIP call at a hypothetical company was now a trivial exercise.

SIPtap demonstrates that the worst-case nightmares of VoIP vulnerability are now well within the capabilities of organised crime, which could use such a program to steal confidential data from companies, governments and even the police.

The demonstrator is the work of UK-based VoIP expert, Peter Cox, who co-founded and was CTO of firewall vendor BorderWare, before leaving the company last summer to start his own VoIP consultancy, due to be up and running by Spring 2008. He was inspired to write the software after conversations with encryption guru Phil Zimmermann, creator of Zfone, the latter designed to protect against SIPtap-like hacking by using VoIP call encryption.

"We are in the early days of VoIP, but there is a knowledge gap," said Cox, lamenting the naivety about VoIP's inherent security weaknesses among the mostly telecoms-oriented engineers building such systems. "Companies using VoIP internally think they are protected."

"The threat is that an attacker engineers a Trojan and has it sit there passively [on a network], recording calls from anywhere on the Internet," says Cox.

His advice was simple. "Apply the same vigour when building a VoIP network you would when building a website."

Cox is currently running a series of workshops on VoIP threats in conjunction with SIP Services Europe, and has published his own Video podcast on the topic.
http://www.techworld.com/security/ne...m?newsid=10736





Skype Encryption Stumps Police
Louis Charbonneau

German police are unable to decipher the encryption used in the internet telephone software Skype to monitor calls by suspected criminals and terrorists, Germany's top police officer said.

Skype allows users to make telephone calls over the internet from their computer to other Skype users free of charge.

Law enforcement agencies and intelligence services have used wiretaps since the telephone was invented, but implementing them is much more complex in the modern telecommunications market where the providers are often foreign companies.

"The encryption with Skype telephone software ... creates grave difficulties for us," Joerg Ziercke, president of Germany's Federal Police Office (BKA) told reporters at an annual gathering of security and law enforcement officials.

"We can't decipher it. That's why we're talking about source telecommunication surveillance - that is, getting to the source before encryption or after it's been decrypted."

Experts say Skype and other Voice over internet Protocol (VoIP) calling software are difficult to intercept because they work by breaking up voice data into small packets and switching them along thousands of router paths instead of a constant circuit between two parties, as with a traditional call.

Ziercke said they were not asking Skype to divulge its encryption keys or leave "back doors open" for German and other country's law enforcement authorities.

"There are no discussions with Skype. I don't think that would help," he said, adding that he did not want to harm the competitiveness of any company. "I don't think that any provider would go for that."

Ziercke said there was a vital need for German law enforcement agencies to have the ability to conduct on-line searches of computer hard drives of suspected terrorists using "Trojan horse" spyware.

These searches are especially important in cases where the suspects are aware that their internet traffic and phone calls may be monitored and choose to store sensitive information directly on their hard drives without emailing it.

Spyware computer searches are illegal in Germany, where people are sensitive about police surveillance due to the history of the Nazis' Gestapo secret police and the former East German Stasi.

Ziercke said worries were overblown and that on-line searches would need to be conducted only on rare occasions.

"We currently have 230 proceedings related to suspected Islamists," Ziercke said. "I can imagine that in two or three of those we would like to do this."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/st...ectid=10477899





Study: Internet Could Run Out of Capacity in Two Years
Grant Gross

Consumer and corporate use of the Internet could overload the current capacity and lead to brown-outs in two years unless backbone providers invest billions of dollars in new infrastructure, according to a study released Monday.

A flood of new video and other Web content could overwhelm the Internet by 2010 unless backbone providers invest up to US$137 billion in new capacity, more than double what service providers plan to invest, according to the study, by Nemertes Research Group, an independent analysis firm. In North America alone, backbone investments of $42 billion to $55 billion will be needed in the next three to five years to keep up with demand, Nemertes said.

The study is the first to “apply Moore’s Law (or something very like it) to the pace of application innovation on the ‘Net,” the study says. “Our findings indicate that although core fiber and switching/routing resources will scale nicely to support virtually any conceivable user demand, Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will likely cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years.”

The study confirms long-time concerns of the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA), an advocacy group focused on upgrading U.S. broadband networks, said Bruce Mehlman, co-chairman of the group. The group, with members including AT&T, Level 3 Communications, Corning, Americans for Tax Reform and the American Council of the Blind, has been warning people of the coming “exaflood” of video and other Web content that could clog its pipes.

The study gives “good, hard, unique data” on the IIA concerns about network capacity, Mehlman said. The Nemertes study suggests demand for Web applications such as streaming and interactive video, peer-to-peer file transfers and music downloads will accelerate, creating a demand for more capacity. Close to three-quarters of U.S. Internet users watched an average of 158 minutes of video in May and viewed more than 8.3 billion video streams, according to research from comScore, an analysis group.

Internet users will create 161 exabytes of new data this year, and this exaflood is a positive development for Internet users and businesses, IIA says. An exabyte is 1 quintillion bytes or about 1.1 billion gigabytes. One exabyte is the equivalent of about 50,000 years of DVD quality video.

Carriers and policy makers need to be aware of this demand, Mehlman added.

“Video has unleased an explosion of Internet content,” Mehlman said. “We think the exaflood is generally not well understood, and its investment implications not well defined.”

The responsibility for keeping up with this growing demand lies with backbone providers and national policy makers, added Mehlman, also executive director of the Technology CEO Council, a trade group, and a former assistant secretary of technology policy in the U.S. Department of Commerce.

“It takes a digital village,” he said. “Certainly, infrastructure providers have plenty to do. You’ve seen billions in investment, and you’re seeing ongoing billions more.”

U.S. lawmakers can also help in several ways, he said. For example, the U.S. Congress could require that home contractors who receive government assistance for building affordable housing include broadband connections in their houses, he said. Congress could also provide tax credits to help broadband providers add more capacity, he said.

Consumers also pay high taxes for telecommunication services, averaging about 13 percent on some telecom services, similar to the tax rate on tobacco and alcohol, Mehlman said. One tax on telecom service has remained in place since the 1898 Spanish-American War, when few U.S. residents had telephones, he noted.

“We think it’s a mistake to treat telecom like a luxury and tax it like a sin,” he said.
http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/11...city/index.php





Video, Interactivity Could Nab Web Users by '10
David Lieberman

Enjoy your speedy broadband Web access while you can.

The Web will start to seem pokey as early as 2010, as use of interactive and video-intensive services overwhelms local cable, phone and wireless Internet providers, a study by business technology analysts Nemertes Research has found.

"Users will experience a slow, subtle degradation, so it's back to the bad old days of dial-up," says Nemertes President Johna Till Johnson. "The cool stuff that you'll want to do will be such a pain in the rear that you won't do it."

Nemertes says that its study is the first to project traffic growth and compare it with plans to increase capacity.

The findings were embraced by the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA), a tech industry and public interest coalition that advocates tax and spending policies that favor investments in Web capacity.

"We're not trying to play Paul Revere and say that the Internet's going to fall," says IIA co-Chairman Larry Irving. "If we make the investments we need, then people will have the Internet experience that they want and deserve."

Nemertes says that the bottleneck will be where Internet traffic goes to the home from cable companies' coaxial cable lines and the copper wires that phone companies use for DSL.

Cable and phone companies provide broadband to 60.2 million homes, accounting for about 94% of the market, according to Leichtman Research Group.

To avoid a slowdown, these companies, and increasingly, wireless services providers in North America, must invest up to $55 billion, Nemertes says. That's almost 70% more than planned.

Much of that is needed for costly running of new high-capacity lines. Verizon is replacing copper lines with fiber optic for its FiOS service, which has 1.3 million Internet subscribers.

Johnson says that cable operators, with 32.6 million broadband customers, also must upgrade. Most of their Internet resources now are devoted to sending data to users - not users sending data. They'll need more capacity for the latter as more people transmit homemade music, photos and videos.

"Two years ago, nobody knew what YouTube was," Johnson says. "Now, it's generating 27 petabytes (27 million gigabytes) of data per month."

Schools, hospitals and businesses could add to the flood as they use the Web for long-distance education, health care services and videoconferencing.

Service providers might not appreciate how fast Web demand is growing, Johnson says: "Comcast doesn't know what's going on in AT&T's network, and vice versa. Researchers are increasingly shut out. So nobody's getting good, global knowledge about the Internet."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/200... 7S13GXIjtBAF





A Guerrilla Video Site Meets MTV
Robert Levine

Vice magazine has built a small media empire out of a raw, ironic sensibility, risqué photographs and a willingness to deal in taboo subjects.

On VBS.tv, the video Web site the company runs, viewers can find short videos about independent music, extreme sports and, of course, some nudity. But there are also a surprising number of ambitious news reports, like an interview with Hezbollah’s self-proclaimed “mayor of Beirut,” investigations of environmental abuse, and a story about a Colombian date-rape drug.

What’s even more surprising is the company that finances most of these projects: Viacom.

Late last year, the Viacom-owned MTV Networks Music and Logo Group made a deal to start VBS, with financing from MTV and content from Vice, which also sells ads.

“They gave me a pitch of ’60 Minutes’-meets-‘Jackass,’” said Jeff Yapp, the executive vice president for program enterprises for the MTV Networks music group.

In return for its investment — which is not mentioned on the VBS site — MTV gets a low-cost laboratory in which to experiment with Internet video programming as it struggles to adjust to a world where online content is chipping away at television’s dominance.

MTV virtually owned youth culture on television a decade ago but has not translated that success online. Viacom missed its chance to buy MySpace, a failure that many believe cost Tom Freston, the company’s former chief executive, his job.

“MTV’s online distribution strategy has been one of confusion,” said Michael Wolf, a research director at ABI Research. “I think they could use a content partner if it helps them bring in a fresh perspective.”

Major media companies like Viacom have been looking to smaller firms like Vice to lead them through the digital wilderness. But this deal will also give MTV Networks a source of new television programming, since it has the rights to show VBS content on any of its channels worldwide. MTV Latin America has already shown four half-hour programs assembled from VBS content, and the first United States VBS special will appear Saturday on MTV2. More could follow.

“We were at this place in time when all the great creative energy was around music videos,” said Van Toffler, president of the MTV Networks music group. “Now you see all that energy happening again.”

VBS is set up as a separate venture, although neither Vice nor MTV Networks would discuss the exact terms of the deal. The two companies also work together on several other projects.

Vice did some work on the marketing of the MTV Networks video game Rock Band and consulted on a virtual world project the company is working on. Vice also has a publishing deal with MTV Books, under which it has released two titles; a third, “The Vice Photo Book,” which collects images from the magazine’s history, is due out Dec. 1.

Vice was started in Montreal in 1994 by Shane Smith, Suroosh Alvi and Gavin McInnes when all three were on welfare, they have said. During the late ’90s, the company was bought by Richard Szalwinski, a Canadian software millionaire who made big plans for expansion and moved the operation to New York.

The magazine quickly became known for politically incorrect, sometimes racially charged, humor and photographs from Terry Richardson and Ryan McGinley. The company opened several retail stores that sold the kind of street fashion the magazine advertised.
As the dot-com boom ended, however, “everything fell by the wayside,” Mr. Smith said. In 2000, the three founders bought the company back, closed the stores and focused on the media business. The company now controls 13 foreign editions of the magazine, published with partners around the world, and runs an independent record label.

As Vice added international editions, the perspective of the founders began to change.

“The world is much bigger than the Lower East Side and the East Village,” Mr. Alvi said. So the magazine started to cover more serious issues, usually in its own inimitable style. One recent issue about Iraq, written mostly by people there, portrayed daily life in that country; in true Vice fashion it included an interview with an Iraqi prostitute in Syria.

The deal with MTV gives Vice the resources to apply its D.I.Y. approach in a new medium, and it has enlisted Spike Jonze, the film director, as VBS creative director. “I don’t care if it’s for Internet or TV or film or mobile phones, I want to create the best content,” Mr. Smith said.

Although VBS shoots in standard-definition video, so its footage can be used on television, its programming owes little to the medium’s conventions. It sends out correspondents in teams of three — a producer, a cameraman and a host who expresses his opinion freely. There are no lights or makeup.

“Our aesthetic is raw,” said Bernardo Loyola, an editor at VBS. “If it’s raggedy, if they’re hung over, it’s part of the shoot.”

At least one VBS series has already worked out better than MTV Networks might have hoped. Mr. Loyola and Monica Hampton, whom VBS hired from the film industry, edited footage Mr. Alvi and his friends shot in Iraq into “Heavy Metal in Baghdad,” a documentary about an Iraqi hard rock band that loses its practice space to an explosion and goes to Syria as refugees. In September, the movie received positive reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Mr. Alvi said that a distribution deal would be announced shortly.

“We made a feature-length documentary by accident,” said Mr. Alvi, who appeared in the film. “These are the people who are getting affected by this war.”

VBS is also beginning to build an audience online. In August, the site had 184,000 unique viewers from the United States, according to the Internet traffic monitor ComScore; the company says the actual number is much higher.

That’s a smaller audience than some other online video sites; collegehumor.com had 1.3 million viewers in the same month. But MTV has yet to put its promotional muscle behind VBS. Although such numbers are small compared with television, the site’s perspective seems to intrigue advertisers, and it already has attracted record companies and fashion labels.

“This is a singular vision. It’s not cats playing with yarn,” said Todd Krieger, a senior vice president at Denuo, a division of the advertising giant Publicis Group. “What MTV is getting out of it is a relationship with people who have a following, and they have a certain style.”

That style may have mellowed with age. Mr. McInnes, who had become known for making racially charged remarks, perhaps as pranks, fell out of day-to-day involvement with the company. He still writes the withering fashion dos-and-don’ts section that has become a key part of the magazine.

Vice is still owned by the founders and several employees, and Mr. Smith said that it was profitable, although he acknowledged exaggerating the company’s success in the past. “After we bought the company I’d bang the drum and say how great we were doing,” he said. “But we’ve always had to make money. It’s not like we could go to the bank and get money — they’d look at us and run away.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/bu...ia/19vice.html





Hollywood Producer of Varied Interests, Many Hits, but Little Fame
Allison Hope Weiner

Brian Grazer, one of the most successful producers in Hollywood, would seem to be a memorable guest, with his energetic manner and elaborately spiked hair. But to make sure he is not forgotten, he will often leave behind a small photo of himself in an inexpensive heart-shaped frame after attending a dinner or party, hiding it among his host’s family photographs.

Over the years, he has left these photos at the homes of movie executives, socialites and even one in Fidel Castro’s military compound. “When I first started doing it, some people got really angry,” Mr. Grazer recalled. “That made me continue doing it. I get to see how long it takes for them to find it and whether they think it’s funny. It’s interesting to see what they’ll do with it.”

There is another level to the joke: despite Mr. Grazer’s enormous success in the movie business, his public profile remains relatively slight when compared with his Hollywood peers. Imagine Entertainment, founded 20 years ago by Mr. Grazer and the director Ron Howard, has produced a strong slate of films, including “Liar Liar,” “Eight Mile,” “Inside Man,” “A Beautiful Mind” and “The Da Vinci Code.” His latest, “American Gangster,” opened two weeks ago as the top film in the country, taking in more than $43 million at the box office its first weekend.

The diversity of his films makes Mr. Grazer an anomaly in Hollywood, where careers are typically built on well-defined brands. Everyone knows what a Steven Spielberg movie is, or a Jerry Bruckheimer film. But few people could describe a Brian Grazer project, except to say that it will probably make a lot of money.

Even for the most discerning moviegoer, there is no obvious common theme among his movies. Instead, he operates under the assumption that his own interests reflect those of the public. More often than not, he is right.

“He’s curious, smart and has a sixth sense in many ways for what the public wants and for what will appeal to talent,” said Ron Meyer, the president of Universal Studios, which finances Imagine’s films. He added, “If they end up being Oscar-contending films, that’s a wonderful bonus.”

In part, this eclecticism is a product of how Mr. Grazer works, turning his own passions into fodder for a film or a television show. For the last 20 years, Mr. Grazer has met each week with a person who is an expert in science, medicine, politics, fashion, religion — anything other than entertainment. He is so serious about the meetings that he has a staff member whose job it is to find interesting people.

The weekly get-togethers have led to some of Mr. Grazer’s most successful ideas. After meeting with five of the top trial lawyers in the country, Mr. Grazer came up with the idea for “Liar Liar.” “Eight Mile” came about because he had met Chuck D, the lead singer for Public Enemy, and Slick Rick, a rapper from the 1980s. A meeting with a former F.B.I. agent, Christopher Whitcomb, led to “The F.B.I.,” a new show for Fox.

“I like learning stuff. The more information you can get about a person or a subject, the more you can pour into a potential project,” Mr. Grazer said. “I made a decision to do different things. I want to do things that have a better chance of being thought of as original. I do everything I can to disrupt my comfort zone.”

Despite having won Oscars as well as most other film and television awards, Mr. Grazer remains largely unknown outside Hollywood. And while he acknowledges the success of his work, he still craves public recognition.

Mr. Grazer’s tendency to base shows on his own curiosities may hurt him in television, where brand names with identifiable styles like Mr. Bruckheimer or Dick Wolf tend to flourish. Imagine Entertainment has produced a wide variety of acclaimed series, including “Felicity,” “Sports Night,” “Arrested Development,” “Friday Night Lights” and “24,” but only the Fox drama “24” has achieved mainstream commercial success.

“I feel like our television company is most like our feature company. For better or for worse, I don’t think we have an easily defined brand,” said David Nevins, president of Imagine Television. “We try to avoid formula television. Although ‘24’ is a hit, we’ve not spent a lot of time trying to copy what makes ‘24’ a hit. We’re not going to do ‘24 Miami.’”

Mr. Grazer’s public profile has risen substantially over the last year — although not always for the reasons he wished. He weathered a public split from his wife of almost 10 years, the novelist Gigi Levangie Grazer, and was also caught up in an internal fight at The Los Angeles Times, which had asked him to edit a special section as a guest.

Days before the section was supposed to run, reports surfaced about a romantic relationship between a representative for Imagine and a Times editor. Eventually, The Times chose not to publish the section. Mr. Grazer was deeply upset by the episode and remains disappointed in the paper’s decision.

Despite his success and his status as a seasoned Hollywood player — he counts Sumner M. Redstone and other moguls among his closest friends — Mr. Grazer remains oddly insecure. He resists confrontation, often preferring to have other people in his company deliver bad news. He wears a conservative uniform to work each day — black pants, a white shirt and skinny black tie — because he fears looking like the typical Hollywood producer struggling to appear young.

Before he makes most decisions, he engages in an informal survey to garner the opinions of his friends. “I try things on people to test them out,” Mr. Grazer said. “Before I made ‘Eight Mile,’ I was nervous that I might be empowering someone who was not only misogynistic, but homophobic. So when I had dinner with Tom Hanks, I asked him if I was empowering the wrong person. He said no; the guy isn’t taken seriously. He talks through a character.”

The one area in which Mr. Grazer is secure is in his ability to spot talent. His first film, “Night Shift,” starred Michael Keaton — then unknown — and his second, “Splash,” made a movie star of Mr. Hanks. Both were directed by Mr. Howard, then still better known as Richie Cunningham from “Happy Days.”

Mr. Grazer almost passed up a partnership with Mr. Howard because he feared the director’s celebrity would overshadow his own role in the company. “He was just too famous for me,” Mr. Grazer said. “I felt that no matter how hard I could work, it would always be gigantically eclipsed by him.”

Mr. Howard said, “We’ve always been aware of the disadvantage of being a company that in fact wasn’t entirely driven by the identities of Brian and me. But to a degree, that’s kind of unavoidable. I never wanted a great director, young or old, to feel like I was going to sit as a principal in the company and sit there over their shoulder and try to co-direct the movie. Brian feels that to a degree as a producer as well.”

Mr. Grazer’s next projects seem conventional by comparison to his other works. “The F.B.I.,” which is scheduled for broadcast next year, will compete on networks already heavy with police procedurals. But Mr. Grazer insisted that his show won’t play it safe.

“I want to do the opposite of corny with the ‘F.B.I.’ series — something really edgy. When I was making ‘Eight Mile,’ I was desperate to avoid being corny. I’d been talking to Dr. Dre for a year to try and get as much guidance as possible. And one day he finally just said, ‘Hey, don’t clown out our world,’” Mr. Grazer said. “So, now, I try to apply that axiom. I don’t want to clown out the F.B.I. world.”

Another coming project, “Angels and Demons,” a follow-up to “The Da Vinci Code,” represents something new for Mr. Grazer — a sequel, the first his company has produced. Sequels are, of course, the ultimate safe bet in Hollywood, but he wants the approach this time to be less reverential than in “The Da Vinci Code.”

“I probably should have a brand,” Mr. Grazer said, “but I think you can’t get the best artists to work for you if you’re branded. I get the trade-off, and I really would like to be more famous for my work, get more credit for my achievements. We all want more of that. But on the other hand, if you get too big — like it says in ‘American Gangster’ — success is your enemy.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/bu.../19grazer.html





Amway Adds Entertainment to Product Line
Brooks Barnes

Amway, the door-to-door peddler of vitamins and soap, wants to reinvent how Hollywood sells entertainment.

The owners of the multilevel marketing company are pouring millions of dollars into a new online store called Fanista (pronounced fa-NEE-sta). The Web site, set to make its public debut this week, will initially sell DVDs and CDs.

In the coming months it plans to add video games, digital downloads and books.

People can simply use Fanista as a place to shop. But the company hopes most consumers will join as members — signing up is free — and then recruit their friends.

The carrot: If your friend joins and buys something, identifying you as the reason for joining, you get 5 percent of the sale in cash or credit.

Think of it as part Amazon (online retail), part MySpace (social network) and part Amway (direct pitch from somebody you know).

“The distribution system for the entertainment business is broken,” said Daniel H. Adler, Fanista’s founder. “We’re pioneering a new model.”

A newfangled Internet business pops up every few weeks in Hollywood and promises to revolutionize something or other. But movie studios and music labels are taking the upstart seriously.

Money is a reason: Alticor, the owner of Amway and Fanista’s sole financial backer, says it generates about $6 billion in annual revenue.

“Those are awfully deep pockets,” said the writer and entrepreneur Norman Lear, who helped connect Mr. Adler with the direct-sales giant.

Through his various business partners and friends in Hollywood, Mr. Lear knew that Mr. Adler was tinkering with a new Web-based distribution system and that Alticor was looking for a new angle, perhaps in entertainment.

More important, Mr. Adler, 44, is an entertainment insider. He formerly worked at the Creative Artists Agency, where he led the new-media division, and Walt Disney, where he was a creative developer, or “imagineer.”

Mr. Adler helped introduce LidRock, which created a stir in 2004 by distributing music on miniature CDs tucked inside the lids of movie theater soda cups.

“His Rolodex of relationships is what makes this different,” said Sherry Lansing, the former chairwoman of Paramount.

Mr. Adler aims to exploit the increasingly cynical view of consumers, particularly young ones, about the way Hollywood pushes its wares.

“Regardless of what the big marketing campaign says is hot, regardless of what the big-name critic says is good, people make entertainment purchases based on the recommendations of people they encounter directly,” he said. “That is the only authentic voice.”

The company arrives as Hollywood experiments with the Web to build a more direct relationship with consumers.

The rock band Radiohead last month allowed fans to set their own price for digital downloads, while Blockbuster recently signed a deal with Facebook to promote movie rentals. When members of the social network rent films from Blockbuster.com, they will be encouraged to have their movie choice broadcast to all their Facebook contacts.

Some Internet analysts say Fanista faces an uphill battle, however. “It’s certainly interesting, but I’m not completely sold on what they’re trying to do,” said David Card, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research who focuses on online media. “Historically, with the exception of Amazon and Wal-Mart, the shopping mall approach hasn’t worked online.”

Amway also suffers from an image problem because of lingering memories of its past legal troubles. Most prominently, the company pleaded guilty in 1983 to defrauding the Canadian government and paid $25 million in fines.

In recent years, India, China and Britain have investigated the company’s business practices.

Conscious of the negative connotation of multilevel marketing, Fanista coined a happier term. The site describes the sales model to users as “common interest commerce.” The site is currently being tested and operates independently of Alticor.

On Fanista, members create and customize profiles where they list favorite DVDs and CDs — preferably to Fanista, ones in its inventory of about 500,000 titles.

Mr. Adler, for instance, added the movie “Fletch” to his home page. Members are then asked to write reviews for each item.

“If you love good comedy, this is a must,” wrote Mr. Adler of the 1985 film, which stars Chevy Chase as a wisecracking reporter.

The next step is to invite friends to join. If they become members and identify you as the reason, you will always earn a 5 percent commission on any purchases they make on the site. Fanista has additional hooks, too.

If, for instance, your friends’ purchases within a year total $100, you get a 5 percent discount on any Fanista purchases.

The idea is that once people are brought inside the site they will make impulse purchases by reading reviews from their circle of friends or people who are passionate enough about items to write personal reviews.

“We think people want a richer and more intuitive shopping experience, and that’s what we really are trying to deliver,” Mr. Adler said.

Fanista, developed in secrecy over the last two years, plans to make noise in multiple ways, Mr. Adler said. Celebrities, attracted partly though Mr. Adler’s contacts in Hollywood, will be members, while the company also hopes to get exclusive access to certain new releases from studios and record labels.

Statistics about online shopping comfort Mr. Adler as he introduces Fanista to the public. More consumers shop online for books, DVDs and music than any other product, according to iCrossing. According to Nielsen SoundScan, about 12 percent of physical album purchases are made over the Internet.

And 75 percent of online shoppers seek consumer reviews to make purchase decisions, according to Jupiter Research.

Fanista’s multilevel marketing, also called affiliate marketing, has a bad reputation because it can be confused with illegal pyramid, or Ponzi, schemes.

Multilevel marketing companies — Amway, founded in 1959, is perhaps the best known but there are others, including Avon — sell products through part-time sales representatives who typically work from home.

Amway, which now generates most of its income overseas, primarily sells health and beauty products.

Multilevel marketing is legal if money is earned on sales of products. The technique becomes illegal if participants are paid primarily for recruiting new members, or if they are required to buy more product than they can sell.

Alticor decided to finance Mr. Adler’s idea because it sees entertainment as an expansion opportunity, according to Bill Payne, the chief marketing officer. “That world is a mystery to us in many ways,” he said. “We saw Dan’s vision as a chance to learn about the attractiveness of the segment.”

The company has dabbled in entertainment before. In the 1980s, Amway owned a large string of radio stations. And the billionaire co-founder of Amway, Richard DeVos, has contributed to Gospel Communications, which distributes evangelical films and operates a popular Christian Web site.

Mr. Payne declined to say how much money Amway was sinking into Fanista, as did Mr. Adler.

Building Fanista may be more expensive than the company thinks, according to Mr. Card of Jupiter Research. “They will need to spend some money getting in people’s faces,” he said. “The Internet is a viral medium, but that is a very risky way to build a media company.”

Another worry involves people who try to game the system. An online store built on the concept of “authentic voice” will crumble quickly if marketers pop up as members, said Mr. Card.

Mr. Adler acknowledges he has never been a person to whom “no” means a lot. He decided to pursue a career in entertainment after seeing a Bruce Springsteen concert in 1978.

“I weaseled myself backstage and asked him to autograph a dollar bill,” he said.

His arrival in Hollywood was equally brazen. He wrote Michael D. Eisner, who was a rising entertainment executive at the time, a letter about how he had worked at a Vermont summer camp that Mr. Eisner’s children attended.

Mr. Eisner pulled strings and Mr. Adler was soon an assistant to one of the industry’s most powerful figures, Michael S. Ovitz.

On a recent afternoon at his offices in Beverly Hills, Mr. Adler leaped up several flights of stairs — past a suite where Sylvester Stallone is putting the finishing touches on a new installment of “Rambo” — to a floor where Fanista engineers were working out bugs.

The red and gray Web site was suffering from an overeager welcome video. “Share your passions ...buy entertainment,” the welcome screen flashed over and over again as a rock song blared.

“That needs to be fixed,” Mr. Adler said. “We want to be inviting, not hard sell.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/bu...a/20amway.html





The Munchkins Receive Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles


UPI Photo/Jim Ruymen

Honorary Mayor of Hollywood, Johnny Grant, center with black hat, honors The Munchkins from "The Wizard of Oz" as they receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles on November 20, 2007. The Munchkins from left: Mickey Carroll, the Town Crier; Clarence Swensen, a Munchkin soldier, Jerry Maren, part of the Lollipop Guild; Karl Slover, the Main Trumpeter; Ruth Duccini, a Munchkin villager; Margaret Pelligrini, the 'sleepyhead' Munchkin and Meinhardt Raabe, the coroner. Back row from left: Ted Bulthaup, star sponsor and owner of a Trip to the Movies Theatre in Chicago, Hollywood Chamber Chairman Jeff Briggs, Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti, Johnny Grant, Tom LaBonge, Los Angeles Councilman, and Leron Gubler, Chamber President & CEO.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Enterta...photo/gallery/





Hollywood and Strikers Watch Clock
Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes

Sun Tzu, the Chinese sage, warned of the danger in prolonged conflict. “Let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns,” he wrote in “The Art of War.”

In the next week, that advice will probably be on the mind of David Young, a leader of Hollywood’s striking writers, who has closely studied the famous treatise in his time as a hard-nosed union organizer. Now 16 days into a work stoppage, screenwriters and their employers are scheduled to talk on Monday for the first time since Nov. 4.

A rapid settlement would jump-start the entertainment industry. But anything less, and Mr. Young and the writers could be stuck on the wrong side of yet another of the master’s admonitions: “Not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided.”

A protracted war, much like the sides fought during a five-month strike in 1988, would pose a particular threat for writers. They have been operating under a strategy intended to shock their employers into an early settlement by shutting down as much television production as possible before alternative programs were in place or guild morale began to flag. A lengthy strike, however, could sap the staying power of the writers, who do not have the resources their media conglomerate opponents possess.

Screenwriters, represented by the Writers Guild of America East and the Writers Guild of America West, took to the streets of Hollywood with supporters from other unions on Tuesday afternoon in a demonstration that was meant to telegraph resolve. The show was complete with a performance by Alicia Keys and the presence of eight aging actors who played Munchkins in “The Wizard of Oz.”

“We’re here to show our teeth,” Patric M. Verrone, president of the West Coast guild, said in kicking off the rally attended by thousands. Later, the actress Sandra Oh stepped up the anticorporate tone, suggesting that the crowd boycott Disneyland.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates labor contracts for the studios and networks, maintained silence.

To make progress despite continued animosity, the sides would have to close a wide bargaining gap — and no public signals have shown that either is ready to make a substantial move.

For the sale of shows and movies via the Internet, producers have been seeking to impose a payment structure that mirrors the residuals paid over the years for home video showings. Writers, deriding that formula almost from the time they agreed to it two decades ago, have sought far more. Similarly, the sides are in sharp dispute over writer payments for free showings of programs on the Web.

Representatives for both sides declined to discuss the coming talks, in keeping with a mutual agreement not to discuss them publicly.

In e-mailed communications, union representatives told members that employers had been forced back to the table by heavy pressure from the writers. Numerous shows, including “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Two and a Half Men,” have ceased work on previously written scripts because the writer-producers who oversee these shows withheld their producing services. But the renewed discussions were also intended to lure these writer-producers, known as show runners, into resuming their nonwriting duties.

“We agreed at a meeting a couple of weeks ago that if the C.E.O.’s went back to the table then we would go back in our producer capacity,” said Neal Baer, the show runner for “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”

Mr. Baer said many of the show runners he knows have already returned — albeit quietly. At least some television executives have hopes that going back to the table would give cover for others to return to work, notably late-night comedians whose shows were instantly shut by the strike. NBC Universal notified the 100 or so employees of “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” on Nov. 6 that they could be laid off as of Nov. 19. So far the company has not done that.

Television networks and movie studios are well positioned to withstand a prolonged walkout, Wall Street analysts say. Because of widespread consolidation in the industry, all of the big players are housed inside giant conglomerates. The lights do not even flicker at General Electric, which had $163.4 billion in annual revenue last year, if its $16 billion NBC Universal unit has a bad quarter or even year.

Even the CBS Corporation, viewed as the most vulnerable to a strike because television makes up the bulk of its business, is not in any immediate financial danger. Ratings for the late-night shows have not dipped drastically. And the company has enough original episodes of prime-time shows to stretch into January.

And some studios and investors are actually bullish about the media companies’ near-term fortunes — and largely because of the strike. “My guess is that during fiscal 2008, a strike is probably a positive for us,” as lower production costs would more than make up for any loses from advertising, said Peter Chernin, president of the News Corporation, in a conference call with analysts on Nov. 7.

Mr. Young, who is executive director of the West Coast guild, is well acquainted with corporate strength, something he confronted during the mid-1990s as a leader in the unions that sought unsuccessfully to organize garment workers employed by Guess Inc.
Writing of that campaign in the fall/winter 2005 issue of The American Sociologist, Edna Bonacich, a sociologist who worked closely with Mr. Young both then and later at the writers guild, noted that “he studied Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ with deep attention, trying to find its applicability to union struggles.” (The fascination has been shared by modern students of conflict as diverse as Douglas MacArthur, Lee Atwater and Michael S. Ovitz.)Should Mr. Young and his colleagues make only small gains next week, they could make a midcourse correction in their strike strategy and sidestep the dangers of a protracted fight against a strong opponent. They could return to work without a contract, with an eye toward joining the much larger Screen Actors Guild in a renewed strike next June.

Yet another threat to be confronted is the possibility that the Directors Guild of America, its own deal set to expire next June, will soon open its own negotiations and perhaps reach an accommodation with companies, undercutting the writers’ bargaining stance.

In an e-mail message last week, Peter Lefcourt, who is on the board of the West Coast writers guild, told writers who also belong to the directors guild that any near-term move by companies to talk with directors would be like “Hitler dangling a separate peace in front of Stalin.”

Gil Cates, who will lead the directors guild in its negotiations, told Mr. Lefcourt in an e-mailed response that his fellow members could do without the writers’ advice. “It will be the membership and the membership only who will make the decision” about accepting any deal, Mr. Cates wrote.

Progress on any front would be welcomed by many of the directors, production managers, actors, assistants and others who are being shut out of work.

In a grass-roots movement, hundreds of such workers are now trying to organize their own “Strike a Deal” demonstration in Hollywood on Dec. 2.

“It was born out of frustration by people who were working on films and television shows,” said Christopher L. Griffin, a producer of the “Nip/Tuck” series on the FX Network. “There’s a general sense of desperation and helplessness.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/bu.../21strike.html





Ontario School Board Bans Fantasy Book
AP

A Roman Catholic school board in Ontario ordered the popular fantasy book "The Golden Compass" taken off library shelves at dozens of schools Thursday after receiving a complaint about the author referring to himself as an atheist.

Similar concerns prompted a Catholic organization in the U.S. to urge parents to boycott a movie version of the book starring Nicole Kidman.

The board for Catholic schools in Ontario's Halton region said a complaint was lodged after British author Philip Pullman stated in an interview that he is an atheist.

"We have a policy and procedure whereby individual parents, staff, students or community members can apply to have material reviewed. That's what happened in this case," said Rick MacDonald, the board's superintendent of curriculum services.

The board, which oversees 43 Catholic elementary and secondary schools, has not released the identity of the complainant. It also removed two other books in Pullman's "Dark Materials" trilogy as a precaution.

While "The Golden Compass" was first published in 1995, attention was drawn to the book by the film, which opens next month, MacDonald said.

Pullman has made provocative statements in the past, telling the Washington Post in 2001 that he was "trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief."

In 2003, he said that compared to the Harry Potter series, his books had been "flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God."

In the U.S., the Catholic League has criticized Pullman's trilogy for bashing Christianity and promoting atheism. The organization urged parents to boycott the movie. The league also boycotted the movie adaptation of "The Da Vinci Code," which went on to become one of biggest movies of 2006.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...&feed=rss.news





Movie Director Uses BitTorrent as Lawyers Chase Those Downloading His Movie
enigmax

The director of a successful Norwegian ‘Kill Bill’ parody movie who admits to downloading TV shows via BitTorrent himself, doesn’t support his distributor as they take legal action against his fans. Fourteen people accused of sharing the movie have been reported to the police by MPA copyright lawyer, Espen Tøndel.

Tommy Wirkola is the director of ‘Kill Bill’ parody, ‘Kill Buljo‘, which has been one of this years most discussed Norwegian movies.

Having started as a joke and despite its feeble $163,700 budget, its been a success, and has so far pulled in 90,000 domestic admissions and 62,000 DVD sales in 26 territories.

Inevitably, ‘Kill Buljo’ was available for download from file-sharing networks around 6 weeks before the DVD was due its commercial release.

However, in a interview with Thomas Talseth of VG Nett, director Wirkola reveals that he’s not concerned about people downloading the movie and feels that they probably wouldn’t have bought it anyway, which is quite an unusual stance for someone in the movie industry.

This article is in part, direct translation of the original Norwegian interview. Many thanks to Håvard and RayJoha.

Wirkola believes it is an honor to have people download your movie and reveals he is a BitTorrent user himself, downloading TV-shows such as ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘South Park’. He explains why:

“I download lots of TV-shows, I’ll admit that. But it’s also about them already having been aired on TV, and have kinda been accessible for free already. I also think it’s stupid to have to wait for six or seven months to get to watch a TV-show that’s already been aired in the USA.”

Despite the pro-sharing stance of Kill Buljo’s director, the distributor of the movie CCV and their lawyer (uh oh, here he is again) Espen Tøndel, are going on the offensive against BitTorrent users. This week they sent a letter to the Norwegian police wishing to press charges against 14 individuals it accuses of sharing ‘Kill Buljo’ on The Pirate Bay BitTorrent tracker.

Director Tommy Wirkola doesn’t think that downloading causes any problems, on the contrary, he believes the opposite is true:

“I understand that CCV is pressing charges, and feel the need to protect their movie. But it’s flattering that people are making copies of the movie and releasing it on the internet. Besides, all movies today are released onto the web. It would have been worse if no one wanted to share the movie.”

“The artist in you feels some pride?” asks Thomas Talseth, the interviewer.

“Yes, you can say that” admits Wirkola. “I love watching movies in the cinema, in large theatres, and I don’t like the bad quality you often find on the versions floating around online. But I have no moral position on this.”

Lawyer Espen Tøndel, representing both CCV and Norwegian Videogramforening (they distribute all films in Norway), disapproves of Wirkola’s downloading habit:

“No, he shouldn’t be doing that” Tøndel tells VG adding that there’s no difference in downloading TV-shows or motion picture movies: “The laws on copyright have not introduced any way to make a difference between this kind of material, independently of what sequence the TV-show has been aired around the globe.”

Tøndel is making quite a noise around Norway at the moment. It’s a shame he doesn’t listen to people like Wirkola and Eric Wilkinson - he might learn something.
http://torrentfreak.com/movie-direct...orrent-071123/





Lawmakers Urge Google/DoubleClick Deal Scrutiny

Two U.S. senators on the antitrust subcommittee urged the Federal Trade Commission's chairman to submit Google Inc's (GOOG.O) purchase of advertising company DoubleClick to "serious scrutiny."

Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, argued that Google had a dominant position in a form of Internet advertising called contextual ads while DoubleClick was a market leader in display advertising.

They said industry experts believed the deal could harm competition on the Web.

"While we have not reached any definitive conclusion regarding this issue, we urge that you only approve the merger if you determine that it will not cause any substantial lessening of competition with respect to Internet advertising," they wrote.

Kohl and Hatch also raised questions about privacy implications since both Google and DoubleClick collect information about Web usage.

"We believe that this deal raises fundamental consumer privacy concerns worthy of serious scrutiny," the letter said.

FTC spokeswoman Nancy Judy said Chairman Deborah Majoras had received the letter but that it would inappropriate for her to comment on it.

Google said in a statement it had already discussed the privacy and market share questions with the FTC.

"We remain confident that the FTC will conclude that this deal is good for consumers, advertisers and Web site publishers," Google said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...111900994.html





Wholesaling of D Block Spectrum Okayed by FCC
Darren Murph

Landing an agreement to create a worldwide mobile broadband standard with the freed up 700MHz band isn't the only good news going on in the spectrum world, as the FCC has also waived a previous regulation that would require winners of the D block segment to not wholesale more than 50-percent of its capacity. Now, the winner will be able to wholesale up to 100-percent of the capacity so long as it abides by the other guidelines surrounding D block, most notable of which is the provision that requires the victorious bidder to "build out a nationwide wireless network that is good enough to meet public safety specifications for coverage and redundancy." The move is seen as one that will widen the range of potential bidders and encourage small business participation, and for consumers, it could offer up more competition in the mobile services marketplace. Sounds like a surefire win-win, eh?
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/19/w...okayed-by-fcc/





After Global Agreement, Companies May Bid Higher at Wireless Auction in U.S.
Victoria Shannon

When and if Google, Apple, Yahoo and the other potential bidders participate in the auction for wireless licenses in the United States in January, the prices they offer could be the first measure of the impact of the monthlong global radio-frequency spectrum conference that ended in Geneva on Friday.

The companies’ willingness to bet large amounts of money on the licenses will demonstrate, in part, their confidence in the global commercial market for services in a particular part of the spectrum, the versatile 700-megahertz band of ultra-high frequencies.

Their confidence would probably be shakier — and their bids lower — if that band had not been blessed last week by the more than 150 countries represented at the World Radiocommunication Conference, which meets every four to five years to evaluate global rules on how best to manage the airwaves. Google has said it might bid for a United States wireless license, although applications are not due until Dec. 3.

Because the conference elicited a global consensus, that confidence should extend worldwide. The conference said that countries could use the 700-megahertz slice for wireless broadband services like cellphones, mobile TV and WiMax, although at each country’s time of choosing.

The conclusions of the conference, which operates under the auspices of the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency, carry the weight of an international treaty.

“Most people in the industry believe this will be very important going forward in terms of supplying new services and new technologies to consumers around the world,” said Richard Russell, who led the 150-member United States delegation, which included government and industry representatives.

The auction of the frequencies was made possible because digital television broadcasts require less bandwidth than analog TV, which is now the main use of the 700-megahertz span. As countries move over the next decade to digital TV, that valuable UHF spectrum becomes available for other uses. The United States will go completely digital in 2009.

Although the W.R.C. — whose abbreviation participants pronounce as “work” — adjourned on Friday with a global sign-off on using that spectrum for mobile broadband, not everyone was singing its praises.

The European Broadcasting Union, in particular, was disappointed that the telecommunications agency decided to allow mobile services into the UHF bands before knowing the effects of interference with digital TV broadcast signals that would share the space. The union had urged the conference to study the consequences and wait until its next meeting, in 2011, to make a decision.

At the conference, a coalition of all the countries from the Americas pushed through the compromise of allocating the spectrum but then leaving the timing of its use up to national regulators. Many of the large countries in Asia — including China, India, South Korea and Japan — signed on to the American plan.

“Because of this conference, countries around the world have the flexibility now to open up spectrum to wireless broadband at the time of their choosing,” said Mr. Russell, the United States delegation leader.

More broadly, he said, the W.R.C. helped create a solid market for wireless broadband technologies and services. “There’s much more certainty today than there was before the conference started,” Mr. Russell said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/te...9wireless.html





Google Closer to Mobile Airwaves Bid, Sources Say
Peter Kaplan and Eric Auchard

Google Inc. is considering bidding alone on coveted airwaves to launch a U.S. wireless network, as a deadline nears to declare bidding plans, sources familiar with the situation said.

One source underscored that Google had made no decision as of Friday on whether it would bid with partners or on its own in the auction of 700-megahertz spectrum due to begin Jan. 24.

Bidding could pit Google against top wireless carriers AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, owned jointly by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc.

Going it alone at the government auction of airwaves would not rule out later signing up partners if Google were to win the necessary spectrum to create a network, the source said.

Google executives discussed the auction last week with Federal Communications Commission officials, including FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, sources familiar with the meeting said.

At the talks, executives for the Web search leader gave the impression of “inching more towards” a bid, one source said.

Another said it is “within the realm of possibility” that partners could be brought on later if Google wins. Google has talked to a number of prospective partners, not just carriers.

Google is “making all the necessary preparations to become an applicant to bid in the auction” ahead of a Dec. 3 deadline for applying to participate, a spokesman said in a statement.

“From the company's perspective, the overriding factor is how to foster more openness in networks. That is certainly the driving factor in our thinking about bidding on the spectrum.”

The 700-MHz band airwaves, which are being returned by broadcasters as they move from analog to digital signals early in 2009, can go long distances and penetrate thick walls. The auction is seen as a last chance for a new wireless player.

Google is considering funding a bid not only from its growing cash pile but by working with Wall Street. Outside financing would reduce its need for partners, one source said.

Google has said it would be prepared to bid at least $4.6 billion for the biggest chunk of spectrum if regulators agreed to policies to promote open use of such networks.

Google won half of what it asked: The FCC imposed a condition on a large portion of the spectrum that would require the winning bidder to open up networks to allow consumers to use any device or applications that works on those frequencies.

But the FCC did not require open access to network capacity to be resold to independent mobile service providers on a wholesale basis, another Google request.

Under the auction terms, if no one meets the $4.6 billion minimum bid, the auction for the open-access portion of the spectrum would be rerun without the open-access conditions.

One strategy Google is considering is to bid on a chunk of airwaves known as “D Block” that would be shared with public safety providers, as well as the more flexible, open-access piece of “C Block” spectrum.

One source said Google has met with Cyren Call, a company charged with managing public safety agency use of spectrum.

Google unveiled this month plans to offer software for building Internet-ready cell phones in an alliance of network operators and device and software makers. The first phones to result from it are due out in mid-2008, partners say.

Stifel Nicolaus analyst Blair Levin said Google is likely to apply to participate in the FCC auction and pay a required deposit later in December. Such moves would not guarantee it will submit a bid, but Levin thinks the company will do so.

Even if Google does bid, Levin said, it may not be designed to actually win the auction, but rather to make sure the FCC's minimum is met and the open-access provision stays in place.

John Hodulik, telecoms analyst with brokerage UBS in New York, said Google's entry into the highly competitive market will hurt the four big incumbents: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel Corp and Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA.

But it could also prove painful for Google. He estimated it would cost an $8 billion to $10 billion more to build another nationwide wireless network, not to mention heavy capital spending to keep up with constant evolutions in the market.

Hodulik said such cost considerations could hugely depress Google's highly valued stock, which trades about 33 times what analysts, on average, expect it to earn next year. Google shares closed on Friday up $3.98, or 0.6 per cent, at $633.63.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...wgtgoogair1119
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Vodafone Gets Restraining Order On T-Mobile's iPhone Sales
Stefan Mechnig

The German unit of Vodafone Group PLC has obtained a restraining order against Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile unit prohibiting the German telecommunications giant from selling Apple Inc.'s iPhone in Germany.

The restraining order was issued by a regional court in Hamburg Monday, a Vodafone Deutschland spokesman told Dow Jones Newswires.

Vodafone is questioning Deutsche Telekom's iPhone sales practices, the spokesman said. Deutsche Telekom is marketing the iPhone exclusively in Germany.

Specifically, Vodafone is questioning the iPhone's exclusive use in T-Mobile's network and the use of the device being limited to certain fees within T- Mobile's subscription offerings.

Vodafone isn't generally opposed to T-Mobile's exclusivity contract with Apple, but wants to have these new sales practices examined, the spokesman said. The restraining order doesn't aim at a total sales stop, he added.

A spokesman for T-Mobile Monday confirmed the restraining order has been issued, adding that the company is examining the issue. So far, it is too early to comment on possible consequences for the company, he said.

A spokesman for the Hamburg-based court wasn't immediately available to comment.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/...2_FORTUNE5.htm





T-Mobile Changes IPhone Sale Terms After Court Ruling
Kenneth Wong

Deutsche Telekom AG, whose exclusive rights for Apple Inc.'s iPhone in Germany are contested by Vodafone Group Plc, said it will change some terms and let rival networks operate the handset.

Deutsche Telekom will offer the device for 999 euros ($1,477) without requiring a two-year exclusive contract with its T-Mobile unit, T-Mobile spokesman Alexander von Schmettow said by phone today. The original 399-euro offer with a binding contract remains valid, he said.

T-Mobile backed down after Newbury, England-based Vodafone, the world's largest wireless company, won a court injunction that bans T-Mobile from selling the iPhone with contracts or the so-called ``SIM-lock'' that prevents the phone from working on another network. In France, laws stop France Telecom SA's Orange unit from selling the device with similar restrictions.

``How many people are going to spend 999 euros on a phone?'' said Carolina Milanesi, a research director at Gartner Inc., a research firm in Stamford, Connecticut. ``People are not used to spending that kind of money. In every single country now, people are going to look at the possibility of getting around the exclusivity issue.''

Unlocking Phones

German customers who bought the combination phone and iPod digital music player after Nov. 19, when the Hamburg court ruling took effect, can have their phones ``unlocked'' to work with another network operator, T-Mobile said in an e-mailed statement.

``Once the SIM-Lock is removed, the phone can be used with another network, although many of the functions will only be available to T-Mobile customers with a complete tariff package,'' the company said.

These features include Web-surfing on T-Mobile's network of 8,000 WiFi access points, and ``visual voicemail'' that allows users to call up messages without listening to previous ones. Monthly contracts range from 49 euros to 89 euros. The cheapest package includes 100 minutes of calling time and 40 text messages.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris declined to comment on T-Mobile's new offer. Vodafone spokesman Jens Kuerten called the additional 600 euros for an iPhone without a contract a ``penalty'' for German customers. ``We have to look into the details of their offer now and the possibility of customers unlocking the iPhone,'' Kuerten said by phone.

T-Mobile started selling the device on Nov. 9. The Bonn- based company has more than 34 million customers in Germany, Europe's largest wireless market.

France Telecom, Telefonica

T-Mobile sold more than 10,000 iPhone contracts on the first day, in what Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Officer Rene Obermann last week called a ``promising start.''

In the U.K., Telefonica SA's O2 division won exclusive right to operate the iPhone. It started selling the device on Nov. 9 for 269 pounds ($553) with a mandatory 18-month contract. Orange will sell the handset in France starting Nov. 29. It hasn't said how much it will charge.

AT&T Inc. is the exclusive distributor of Cupertino, California-based Apple's iPhone in the U.S. Software locks the device to AT&T's service. To quash unauthorized use, Apple released an iPhone software update in September that rendered some unlocked devices inoperable.

Deutsche Telekom shares fell 14 cents, or 0.9 percent, to 15.10 euros on the Frankfurt exchange. Vodafone dropped 9.1 pence, or 4.7 percent, to 183.4 pence in London. Apple fell $2.47, or 1.5 percent, to $166.33 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading at 11:48 a.m. in New York.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...yr4&refer=home





Technology: Hacking the iPhone for Espionage

No, it's not enough that you can hack your iPhone to operate on the T-Mobile network, or launch third-party applications, or play games. No, someone had to go and demonstrate how you can -- quite easily, with some know-how -- turn an iPhone, or any smartphone, into a full-blown spy gadget. Go warm up your missile-laden Aston Martin, and then watch security expert Rik Farrow show you how it's done:

I have an iPhone. I've also owned BlackBerrys, Treos, and even an awesome little Palm-based thing called the Samsung i500 that never quite caught on. But never once did it occur to me that someone could use it to record the mundane details of my daily existence. And now that it does occur to me, courtesy of Rik Farrow, I have one thing to say. This is pretty awesome.

I know, I know -- the upstanding thing to do is abjure piracy and hacking. But to acknowledge that the device in my pocket is capable of spying on me is also a tacit acknowledgment that the device in my pocket is very, very close to being a full-blown personal computer. Watch as Rik penetrates the iPhone; when he first logs in, the Terminal shows him system information for the device. Just when you notice the screen describing the iPhone's kernel, Rik reminds us that the commands he's using are the same for any Unix, Linux, or Mac OS X-based computer. This thing, like the entire generation of smartphones it accompanies, are increasingly based on viable, robust platforms, rather than piddling, proprietary software.

Would it be better if they were ironclad? Sure, but nothing is. Just as the utility of the Internet overshadows the nuisance of viruses, the upward march of the smartphone is a worthy cause, despite its occasional vulnerabilities. The solution, of course, to the immutable personal computing device: awareness. If you know not to click on that suspicious e-mail attachment from a Zimbabwean Prince, the chances of your computer (and now, your iPhone) coming down with a flu are greatly reduced. I, for one, will put my idiocy to the test, eager to see what convenience -- and perhaps, scandal -- the next generation of phones can bring me.
http://blog.fastcompany.com/archives...espionage.html





EXCLUSIVE: Apple Secretly Tracking iPhone IMEI and Usage (with Proof)
Dan

As I sit here applying a new layer of Reynolds tin foil to my international hat of conspiracy, its been proven that Apple tracks iPhone usage and tracks IEMI numbers of all their iPhones worldwide. Hidden in the code of the “Stocks” and “Weather” widgets is a string that sends the IMEI of your phone to a specialized URL that Apple collects.

When the widgets perform a query an IMEI is handed off to Apple’s servers:

dgw?imei=%@&apptype=finance

This let[s] Apple knows which app you are using when connecting with your iPhone. Obviously, they know the IP address you were using, the stocks companies you are interested [in], and so they can track down their customers all around the world. This also proves that there are probably other apps that do the same. Weather.app is also acting the same way. (Offset 13AE0)

Any attempts to modify the URL to exclude the IMEI information will not allow you to retrieve any information in the “Stocks” and “Weather” apps. It is still unknown if any other applications leak information to Apple HQ.

And did you know you actually consented to this gross invasion of privacy?

When you interact with Apple, we may collect personal information relevant to the situation, such as your name, mailing address, phone number, email address, and contact preferences; your credit card information and information about the Apple products you own, such as their serial numbers and date of purchase; and information relating to a support or service issue.

Obviously “Weather” is kinda benign, but Apple knowing your Stock habits, isn’t that a little personal? What’s next, they read your email too? Now who thinks I’m crazy?
http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2007/11/12686/





iPhone Doesn't Send IMEI Information to Apple

OK, you can take your tinfoil hats off now. German site Heise Online has tested Hackint0sh user XianLi's claims about the iPhone sending its IMEI to Apple while accessing the web. According to Heise and other sources, this is not true:

While the code says "IMEI," which stands for International Mobile Equipment Identity, it seems that the actual IMEI is not transmitted. Using a sniffer, Heise says they were able to get the information that the applications are actually sending. The strings aren't the same as the test iPhone's IMEI and, in fact, each application sends its own unique code.

According to further testing by Rene at blog docpool, these IDs are identical in all iPhones he has tried. The most plausible explanation: the codes could be just application identifiers. Rumor smashed. Mystery solved. Time to get a bourbon at Big Joe's.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/iphone-do...ple-324640.php





Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request

Secret warrants granted without probable cause
Ellen Nakashima

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

Such requests run counter to the Justice Department's internal recommendation that federal prosecutors seek warrants based on probable cause to obtain precise location data in private areas. The requests and orders are sealed at the government's request, so it is difficult to know how often the orders are issued or denied.

The issue is taking on greater relevance as wireless carriers are racing to offer sleek services that allow cellphone users to know with the touch of a button where their friends or families are. The companies are hoping to recoup investments they have made to meet a federal mandate to provide enhanced 911 (E911) location tracking. Sprint Nextel, for instance, boasts that its "loopt" service even sends an alert when a friend is near, "putting an end to missed connections in the mall, at the movies or around town."

With Verizon's Chaperone service, parents can set up a "geofence" around, say, a few city blocks and receive an automatic text message if their child, holding the cellphone, travels outside that area.

"Most people don't realize it, but they're carrying a tracking device in their pocket," said Kevin Bankston of the privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Cellphones can reveal very precise information about your location, and yet legal protections are very much up in the air."

In a stinging opinion this month, a federal judge in Texas denied a request by a Drug Enforcement Administration agent for data that would identify a drug trafficker's phone location by using the carrier's E911 tracking capability. E911 tracking systems read signals sent to satellites from a phone's Global Positioning System (GPS) chip or triangulated radio signals sent from phones to cell towers. Magistrate Judge Brian L. Owsley, of the Corpus Christi division of the Southern District of Texas, said the agent's affidavit failed to focus on "specifics necessary to establish probable cause, such as relevant dates, names and places."

Owsley decided to publish his opinion, which explained that the agent failed to provide "sufficient specific information to support the assertion" that the phone was being used in "criminal" activity. Instead, Owsley wrote, the agent simply alleged that the subject trafficked in narcotics and used the phone to do so. The agent stated that the DEA had " 'identified' or 'determined' certain matters," Owsley wrote, but "these identifications, determinations or revelations are not facts, but simply conclusions by the agency."

Instead of seeking warrants based on probable cause, some federal prosecutors are applying for orders based on a standard lower than probable cause derived from two statutes: the Stored Communications Act and the Pen Register Statute, according to judges and industry lawyers. The orders are typically issued by magistrate judges in U.S. district courts, who often handle applications for search warrants.

In one case last month in a southwestern state, an FBI agent obtained precise location data with a court order based on the lower standard, citing "specific and articulable facts" showing reasonable grounds to believe the data are "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation," said Al Gidari, a partner at Perkins Coie in Seattle, who reviews data requests for carriers.

Another magistrate judge, who has denied about a dozen such requests in the past six months, said some agents attach affidavits to their applications that merely assert that the evidence offered is "consistent with the probable cause standard" of Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The judge spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

"Law enforcement routinely now requests carriers to continuously 'ping' wireless devices of suspects to locate them when a call is not being made . . . so law enforcement can triangulate the precise location of a device and [seek] the location of all associates communicating with a target," wrote Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA -- the Wireless Association, in a July comment to the Federal Communications Commission. He said the "lack of a consistent legal standard for tracking a user's location has made it difficult for carriers to comply" with law enforcement agencies' demands.

Gidari, who also represents CTIA, said he has never seen such a request that was based on probable cause.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said field attorneys should follow the department's policy. "We strongly recommend that prosecutors in the field obtain a warrant based on probable cause" to get location data "in a private area not accessible to the public," he said. "When we become aware of situations where this has not occurred, we contact the field office and discuss the matter."

The phone data can home in on a target to within about 30 feet, experts said.

Federal agents used exact real-time data in October 2006 to track a serial killer in Florida who was linked to at least six murders in four states, including that of a University of Virginia graduate student, whose body was found along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The killer died in a police shooting in Florida as he was attempting to flee.

"Law enforcement has absolutely no interest in tracking the locations of law-abiding citizens. None whatsoever," Boyd said. "What we're doing is going through the courts to lawfully obtain data that will help us locate criminal targets, sometimes in cases where lives are literally hanging in the balance, such as a child abduction or serial murderer on the loose."

In many cases, orders are being issued for cell-tower site data, which are less precise than the data derived from E911 signals. While the E911 technology could possibly tell officers what building a suspect was in, cell-tower site data give an area that could range from about three to 300 square miles.

Since 2005, federal magistrate judges in at least 17 cases have denied federal requests for the less-precise cellphone tracking data absent a demonstration of probable cause that a crime is being committed. Some went out of their way to issue published opinions in these otherwise sealed cases.

"Permitting surreptitious conversion of a cellphone into a tracking device without probable cause raises serious Fourth Amendment concerns especially when the phone is in a house or other place where privacy is reasonably expected," said Judge Stephen William Smith of the Southern District of Texas, whose 2005 opinion on the matter was among the first published.

But judges in a majority of districts have ruled otherwise on this issue, Boyd said. Shortly after Smith issued his decision, a magistrate judge in the same district approved a federal request for cell-tower data without requiring probable cause. And in December 2005, Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein of the Southern District of New York, approving a request for cell-site data, wrote that because the government did not install the "tracking device" and the user chose to carry the phone and permit transmission of its information to a carrier, no warrant was needed.

These judges are issuing orders based on the lower standard, requiring a showing of "specific and articulable facts" showing reasonable grounds to believe the data will be "relevant and material" to a criminal investigation.

Boyd said the government believes this standard is sufficient for cell-site data. "This type of location information, which even in the best case only narrows a suspect's location to an area of several city blocks, is routinely generated, used and retained by wireless carriers in the normal course of business," he said.

The trend's secrecy is troubling, privacy advocates said. No government body tracks the number of cellphone location orders sought or obtained. Congressional oversight in this area is lacking, they said. And precise location data will be easier to get if the Federal Communication Commission adopts a Justice Department proposal to make the most detailed GPS data available automatically.

Often, Gidari said, federal agents tell a carrier they need real-time tracking data in an emergency but fail to follow up with the required court approval. Justice Department officials said to the best of their knowledge, agents are obtaining court approval unless the carriersprovide the data voluntarily.

To guard against abuse, Congress should require comprehensive reporting to the court and to Congress about how and how often the emergency authority is used, said John Morris, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews





Protecting IM From Big Brother
holden

Ian Goldberg, leading security researcher, professor at the University of Waterloo, and co-creator of the Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) protocol recently gave a talk on protecting your IM conversations. He discusses OTR and its importance in today's world of warrant-less wire tapping. OTR users benefit from being able to have truly private conversations over IM by using encryption to obtain authentication, deniability, and perfect forward secrecy, while working within their existing IM infrastructure. With the recent NSA wiretapping activities and increasing Big Brother presence, security and OTR are increasingly important. An avi of the talk is available by http as well as by bittorrent and a bunch of other formats.
http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/11/23/1324201.shtml





Lose an Unencrypted Laptop and 'Face Criminal Action'

Britain's data protection commissioner finally calls for some teeth
Tash Shifrin

The data protection watchdog has called for criminal action against those who lose individuals’ personal data on unencrypted laptop computers.

Information commissioner Richard Thomas and his deputy, David Smith, revealed to members of the House of Lords they had called on the Ministry of Justice to make it a criminal offence “for those who knowingly and recklessly flout data protection principles” where there are serious consequences.

Smith told the Lords constitution committee that an example might be a doctor leaving a laptop containing personal details of patients in a car. It was “hard to say [this was] anything other than criminal negligence”, he said.

At present, the Information Commissioner’s Office is largely toothless in the face of serious data security breaches. In March, the watchdog issued a warning – largely a slap on the wrist – to 11 banks that dumped customer data in outside rubbish bins.

But the ICO officials told the Lords committee that stronger measures were needed and that “a blatant breach” of data protection laws should attract a criminal penalty.

Committee members pressed the ICO team, with one peer suggesting that GPs sometimes had to carry patients’ data with them and the suggestion that there should be a criminal penalty for loss of a laptop holding such information was “out of proportion”.

Thomas replied that criminal sanctions should be used where a laptop had “a lot of personal information that hasn’t been taken care of and hasn’t been encrypted”. Doctors and others carrying sensitive information on portable devices “should know the basics of encryption”, he told the committee.

The ICO was not seeking to criminalise doctors for a single incident, but where there was “gross negligence”, Thomas said.

HM Revenue and Customs is among the organisations that have recently suffered high profile data security breaches as a result of laptops being lost or stolen. The HMRC laptop containing taxpayer data was encrypted – but other organisations have often failed to encrypt their machines.

Smith also told the Lords that the watchdog body was seeking powers to inspect organisations to check whether they were applying data protection laws. The ICO was “almost unique” in not having powers to check that regulations were being put into practice, he said.

The ICO has previously put the case for inspection powers to the Commons home affairs committee.
http://www.computerworlduk.com/manag...fm?newsid=6241





Darling Admits 25m Records Lost
BBC

Alistair Darling has blamed mistakes by junior officials at HM Revenue and Customs after details of 25 million child benefit recipients were lost.

The Chancellor said information, including bank details of 7m families, had been sent on discs to the National Audit office by unrecorded delivery.

The discs had never arrived at their destination, Mr Darling told MPs.

He apologised for what he said was "an extremely serious failure" but insisted people were not at risk from ID fraud.

The records include parents' and children's names, addresses, dates of birth, child benefit and national insurance numbers and in some cases, bank or building society details.

He said the missing data was not enough to access accounts on its own but anyone who thought they had been the victim of fraud would be reimbursed by the banks.

He said a police investigation had been launched into what he described as a "deeply regrettable incident," which is the latest and most serious in a string of mistakes with data at Revenue and Customs.

'Not recorded'

The chairman of Revenue and Customs, Paul Gray, resigned earlier after the incident emerged.

Briefing MPs on the incident, Mr Darling said the information had been transferred at a junior level in breach of HMRC's procedures.

"Contrary to all HMRC standing proceedures two password protected discs containing a full copy of HMRC's entire data in relation to the payment of child benefit was sent to the National Audit Office by HMRC's internal postal system operated by the courier TNT.

"The package was not recorded or registered."

"Mr Speaker, it appears that the data has failed to reach the addressee at the NAO.

"Mr Speaker I also have to tell the house that on finding that the package had not arrived at the NAO a further copy of this data was sent - this time by registered post which did arrive at the NAO However, again HMRC should never have let this happen."

'Get a grip'

The data was sent on October 18 and senior management at HMRC were told it was missing on November 8 and the Chancellor on November 10, said Mr Darling.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said the government needed to "get a grip" and deliver a basic level of competence.

He said it was the "final blow for the ambitions of this government to create a national ID database" as "they simply can not be trusted with people's personal information".

Lib Dem acting leader Vince Cable said it was now the Treasury and not the Home Office that was "not fit for purpose".

He asked why the information had been sent on discs through the internal mail when it should have been sent electronically.

'Searching questions'

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said: "This is an extremely serious and disturbing security breach. This is not the first time that we have been made aware of breaches at the HM Revenue and Customs - we are already investigating two other breaches.

"Incidents like these illustrate that any system is only as good as its weakest link. The alarm bells must now ring in every organisation about the risks of not protecting people's personal information properly.

"As I highlighted earlier this year, it is imperative that organisations earn public trust and confidence by addressing security and other data protection safeguards with the utmost vigour."

Mr Thomas welcomed the Chancellor's announcement of an independent review of the incident by Kieran Poynter of PricewaterhouseCoopers and said he would decide on further action once he has received the report.

"Searching questions need to be answered about systems, procedures and human error inside both HMRC and NAO," said Mr Thomas.

The prime minister's official spokeswoman said Gordon Brown has "full confidence" in Mr Darling. She added that Mr Darling has not offered to resign.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7103566.stm





Hackers Use Banner Ads on Major Sites to Hijack Your PC
Betsy Schiffman

The worst-case scenario used to be that online ads are pesky, memory-draining distractions. But a new batch of banner ads is much more sinister: They hijack personal computers and bully users until they agree to buy antivirus software.

And the ads do their dirty work even if you don't click on them.

The malware-spiked ads have been spotted on various legitimate websites, ranging from the British magazine The Economist to baseball's MLB.com to the Canada.com news portal. Hackers are using deceptive practices and tricky Flash programming to get their ads onto legitimate sites by way of DoubleClick's DART program. Web publishers use the DoubleClick-hosted platform to manage advertising inventory.

If you've seen any of the ads, you may have experienced something like this: You're on a legitimate site. Your browser window closes down. A new browser window comes up, redirecting you to an antivirus site, while a dialog box comes up telling you that your computer is infected and that your hard drive is being scanned. The malware tries to download software to your computer and scans your hard drive again. (Here's a video demonstration of the rogue ads.)

The malware looks like a ordinary Flash file, with its redirect function encrypted, so that when publishers upload it, the malware is not detectable. Once deployed on a site, the Flash file launches the malicious redirects, which appear to be triggered at preset times or at selected Web domains.

John Mark Schofield, a Los Angeles IT director, encountered the ads on Canada.com. He thinks that because he was on a Mac OS computer, the damage wasn't so severe. "My feeling is that it would have caused me a lot more grief if I had been on a Windows computer: It may have installed the malware. Instead, it took over my browser, which I just fixed by exiting Firefox," Schofield says.

DoubleClick acknowledges the malware is out there, and says it has implemented a new security-monitoring system that has thus far captured and disabled a hundred ads.

"This is an industry-wide challenge. Unfortunately, there are bad actors who misrepresent themselves and purchase advertising as an avenue to distribute malware. This has the potential to affect all businesses and consumers in the online environment," says Sean Harvey, senior product manager at DoubleClick DART.

Publishers may be somewhat culpable, too. The distributor of the malware-infected ads is believed to be AdTraff, an online-marketing company with reported ties to the Russian Business Network, a secretive internet service provider that, security firms say, hosts some of the internet's most egregious scams. AdTraff is believed to have posed as a legitimate advertiser, using its partners as references. The ads were almost always paid for with credit cards or wire transfers, according to Alex Eckelberry, CEO of Sunbelt Software, a provider of security software.

"The AdTraff guys probably register at a bunch of sites -- maybe more than 300. They say they're advertisers. They get the sales guys at the end of the quarter when they're anxious to take the deal. (AdTraff) wires the cash, and they buy the inventory on the site," Eckelberry says.

AdTraff could not be reached for comment. The company lists a phone number in Germany which leads to a generic voicemail box.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/n...11/doubleclick





Riding Shotgun With Google Street View’s Revolutionary Camera

The 11-lens, softball-size, video game-style gadget that had privacy advocates shifting in their seats turns out to be changing how users interact with video and the commercial realms. Now it’s got everyone from the military to the NBA ready to remap the world, and we get hands-on in a PM exclusive.
Wayne Ma

For the past seven months, Kevin Nanzer has been on the road almost nonstop, living in and out of motel rooms and corporate apartments. He’s crisscrossed the country, living for weeks at a time in cities like Austin, Texas, Oklahoma City, Okla., Raleigh, N.C., and Albany, N.Y.

Nanzer, 23, is a geoimmersive data producer for Immersive Media, a Canadian company that specializes in the fast-growing world of “spherical video”—aka mapping the world for Google and beyond. For 5 hours each day (the most he can film because of the sun’s angle to the Earth), Nanzer and a co-worker drive anywhere from 80 to 200 miles through a major city, capturing video and location data of every single street, bridge and highway.

“By the end, you’ll get to know the city better than the one you grew up in,” he says. “You can call me if you’re lost in Oklahoma City, and I can tell you how to get somewhere. I know all the streets.”

On this particular day, I’m sitting shotgun with Nanzer for a sneak peak at the 360-degree, roof-mounted data collection for topography 2.0. He typically wouldn’t shoot footage on a rainy Manhattan day like this, because raindrops obscure the camera’s 11 image-sensing lenses. And while the several blocks we covered looked as crystal clear as they do on the Google site (click here to play around with our test-drive footage), I’m not sure I could have taken it much longer anyway: Immersive uses a Volkswagen Beetle because of its small footprint and low ride, but that makes for one hell of a cramped trip. With all the equipment in the backseat, this tricked-out Bug fits just two people up front, where a laptop already takes up most of the dash on the passenger side, leaving me barely enough room to turn on and hold my camcorder steady.

By far the company’s most recognizable client, Google uses screen shots of Immersive’s video footage for Google Maps Street View, a Web application that adds a level of interaction beyond the landmarks and driving directions that accompany most online maps. Users can zoom in on New York City, for example, to view panoramic shots of everything from Times Square and ground zero to their favorite restaurants and bars. The savviest users can even make out people and faces in some of these photos—an aspect that has generated heated debate among privacy advocates.

This interactivity, however, will only increase over time. One day, users might be able to go beyond snapshots to cars whizzing by along the Golden Gate Bridge or runners training for a marathon in Central Park. Strapped up with a virtual reality-style headset a few days earlier, I moved my head around a Humvee to see a moving battlefield simulation—evidence of Immersive’s full-motion video capabilities that, with some effort, can even stream live footage.

Advances at Immersive and other mapping startups are quickly changing the basic relationship between filmmakers and photographers and their audiences. Rather than present a specific perspective to viewers, Immersive’s equipment puts them in an environment where they can freely explore. Petroleum engineers can watch aerial footage of pipelines from the comfort of offices rather than pile into expensive helicopters. In scenarios such as this, viewers gain back control of what they can and cannot watch.

“There’s more to life than where the camera operator tells you where to see,” says Tom McGovern, director of federal programs for Immersive Media. “And the more people use [the technology], the more they’ll expect it.”

At the heart of Immersive’s services for Google and a number of other contractors is the Dodeca 2360, a softball-size camera that records from nearly a dozen different angles at 30 frames per second. Later, photos can be extracted and stitched together to form pictures with a resolution of 2400 by 1200 pixel—a frame “bigger than any high-definition image,” says its inventor and chief technology officer, David McCutchen.

But at $45,000 for the camera, twice that with mounts and a base unit that processes images in real time, plus anywhere from $125 to $700 per mile of video footage, the rig doesn’t come cheap. That’s probably why just six two-man teams make up Immersive’s geodata services, using an off-the-shelf Logitech video-game controller to operate the camera, which is mounted above each VW—not that they haven’t hoisted it on backpacks for shots of the Grand Canyon and the Everglades.

So far Immersive’s cameras have logged more than 50,000 miles across the United States, providing Google with images for 13 of the 15 cities that offer Street View (the Web giant did San Francisco and Los Angeles in-house). “Our goal with Street View is to provide users with a rich, immersive browsing experience,” insists Megan Quinn, a Google spokesperson. Going forward, the Google Maps team hopes to make the new feature available in as many cities as possible. “Our users have told us that this ability to view a location as if they were actually there helps them better understand and find information about places they live and visit,” Quinn continues.

But the Dodeca 2360 has been used elsewhere. One unit went underwater to survey coral reefs in Fiji for the Planetary Coral Reef Foundation. For George Bush’s 2001 inauguration, the U.S. Capitol Police took it for security alongside the presidential motorcade. Adidas recently used one to follow David Beckham’s soccer debut in Los Angeles, and the U.S. Army used the camera on a new tactical truck.

While Immersive is ahead of the field with its tech and early commercial success, it’s far from the only company collecting video and positioning data. Similar mapping outfits like Tele Atlas use custom vans to collect petabytes (that’s a million gigabytes) of geospatial information about cities for navigational purposes, but only one or two companies also record video of locations. “People are seeing the value of it,” says Edward Jurkevics, a geospatial businesses analyst for Chesapeake Analytics. “And the space is heating up.”

Microsoft and Google, with their respective mapping applications, might eventually want to reconstruct whole 3D worlds where users can walk into highly detailed rooms or even retail shops. A company could go into these worlds and update its virtual street signs or storefronts, Jurkevics says. “The ‘wow’ is going to be when you can actually go on the Internet, pick which building you’re going to and do a virtual drive-by,” he promises. “It’s going to be revolutionary in the way we do business.”

From Hollywood marketing to military training, the potential for spherical video and geodata maps is only increasing. Immersive, after inking deals with Adidas and the NBA to offer promotional Web videos, is now banking on the appeal of 360-degree exploration in more commercial fields. “We’re trying to drive consumer behavior through experiential marketing,” Immersive’s McGovern says. “There might be a significant event happening, like a concert or a sports event, and instead of just a snippet or picture of it, we can extend the experience by capturing it in an immersive camera and sharing that with people after the event.”
http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...y/4232286.html





Maxtor Comes with Fire and Waterproof Hard Disk

What do you get when you mix water with a hard disk? What about a hard disk and fire? Well? Right, a lot of problems! Seagate and a company named Sentry also found this out and came up with a solution. Sentry is specialized in residential and small office security-storage containers and Seagate is known for their hard disks (also sold by the Maxtor brand name).

When you happen to get a virus or fatal crash Maxtor's has SafetyDrill software available, a new bare metal system restore feature, allows for a nearly instantaneous restoration of an entire computer system including applications and setting as well as restoration of the operating system, to ensure access to important files even in a time of crisis.

The hard drive is protected by a Sentry Waterproof enclosure that protects data from fire and water. It is ETL verified for fire protection for 30 minutes up to 1550 degrees F and ETL verified waterproof -- meaning it is fully submersible for up to 24 hours.

You want it, you need it? The drives are available in 160GB with a MSPR $319.99 and in 80GB, MSRP $259.99.
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Maxtor-...hard-disk.html





Western Digital Launches Power-Efficient Disk Drives

Suppliers of data center products are endorsing the company's new power-efficient line of "green" drives
Chris Mellor

Western Digital Corp. has announced new hard drives that use up to 40% less power than competing drives.

The serial ATA drives are part of a new GreenPower-branded line (RE2-GP), with 500GB, 750GB and 1TB capacities. They use on average 4 to 5 watts less than similar-size drives from Hitachi GST, Fujitsu, Seagate and other major suppliers.

Western Digital said four branded technologies boost the power efficiency of the new drives:

• IntelliPower balances spin speed, transfer rate and caching algorithms to avoid always spinning at top speed. And less current is used during start-up, which allows more drives to spin up simultaneously, resulting in faster system readiness.
• IntelliSeek optimizes seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise and vibration.
• IntelliPark automatically unloads the recording heads during idle mode to reduce aerodynamic drag and disables read/write channel electronics.
• Active Power Management monitors a drive's workload and automatically puts the drive in idle mode whenever possible to reduce unnecessary power consumption. Drive recovery time from idle mode is less than one second.

Western Digital said that large data centers could save up to $100,000 annually if they replaced 10,000 standard drives with GreenPower drives. At a PC level, users might save $10 a year per drive.

Tom McDorman, general manager of Western Digital's enterprise business unit, said the new enterprise line of hard drives allows users to "expand their storage needs, reduce their total cost of ownership and improve the environment all at the same time."

Data center suppliers already selling more power-efficient products were quick to endorse Western Digital's new line.

Tony Gaughan, Rackable Systems Inc.'s chief products officer, said Western Digital's new RE2-GP hard drives "are an excellent choice for customers deploying Rackable Systems' newest generation of Eco-Logical storage systems, enabling even greater efficiency and performance."

David Driggers, Verari Systems Inc.'s chief technology officer, said, "By utilizing [Western Digital's latest] GreenPower technology, Verari is able to provide enterprise customers with a solution that delivers one of the most energy-efficient systems available today."

The new drives are available from Western Digital's online store, with suggested retail prices of $149.99, $249.99 and $349.99 for the 500GB, 750GB and 1TB drives, respectively.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/...&intsrc=kc_top





Videotape Producers Fined for Price Fixing
Leo Cendrowicz

European television stations and TV producers could see their expenses slashed after Sony and two other Japanese producers of videotape were hits with fines totaling nearly AC;75 million ($109.8 million) for price fixing.

The European Commission said the Sony, Fujifilm and Hitachi Maxell -- who jointly account for more than 85% of the videotape market -- managed to raise or otherwise control prices through a series of regular meetings and other illicit contacts between 1999 and 2002.

"This decision sends two warnings to companies engaging in cartel activities," EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said. "First, the commission can prosecute cartels effectively, even without prompts from immunity applicants, and second, obstructing a commission antitrust investigation leads to severe penalties."

The cartel covered the two most popular professional videotape formats at the time, Betacam SP and Digital Betacam. The commission said that, at the height of the cartel's activities, 2001, the EU videotape market had sales of about AC;115 million, but this would have been grossly inflated by the price fixing.

The commission fined Sony AC;47.2 million ($69.2 million), Fujifilm AC;13.2 million ($19.3 million) and Hitachi Maxell AC;14.4 million ($21.1 million).

It raised the fine against Sony, the world's second-largest maker of consumer electronics, by 30% because of deliberate obstruction -- one staffer refused to answer questions during a 2002 raid and another shredded documents. It was the largest percentage increase for impeding a cartel probe. "Obstructing the commission's antitrust investigation leads to severe penalties," Kroes said.

By contrast, Fuji's and Maxell's fines were cut by 40% and 20% respectively because they co-operated with investigators.

The case is the first under new guidelines that allow the commission to raise fines based on the size of the market and the length of the violation. The EU has levied a record AC;2.6 billion ($3.9 billion) in penalties in cartel cases so far this year, compared with AC;1.9 billion ($2.7 billion) in 2006.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...3e5eeb3698409e





New Bribery Allegation Roils Samsung
Choe Sang-Hun

Samsung, which has vigorously denied bribery charges in a snowballing corruption scandal, sustained another blow to its image on Monday when a former legal adviser to President Roh Moo-hyun said the company had once offered him a cash bribe.

The former aide, Lee Yong-chul, who also served as a presidential monitor against corruption, said that the money — 5 million won ($5,445) — was delivered to him in January 2004 as a holiday gift from a Samsung Electronics executive, but that he immediately returned it.

Before sending it back, Mr. Lee said, he took pictures of the cash package, which were released to the news media on Monday.

“I was outraged by Samsung’s brazenness, by its attempt to bribe a presidential aide in charge of fighting corruption,” Mr. Lee said in a written statement released at a news conference by a civic organization. He did not attend the event.

James Chung, a spokesman for Samsung Electronics, said, “We are trying to find out the facts around these allegations.”

Samsung Electronics is the mainstay of the 59-subsidiary Samsung conglomerate and a world leader in computer chips, flat-panel television screens and cellphones.

Mr. Lee’s accusation appeared to support recent assertions by a former chief lawyer at Samsung, Kim Yong-chul, that the conglomerate had run a vast network that bribed officials, prosecutors, tax collectors, journalists and scholars on behalf of Samsung’s chairman, Lee Kun-hee.

Prosecutors are investigating Mr. Kim’s accusations, and political parties have introduced legislation that would establish an independent counsel.

Opposition political parties say an independent prosecutor is needed because Mr. Kim identified the president’s new chief prosecutor, Lim Chai-jin, as one of many prosecutors to have received bribes from Samsung. Mr. Lim denied the assertion.

President Roh’s office dismissed the call for an independent counsel as an election-year political maneuver. The South Korean presidential election is scheduled on Dec. 19.

As the scandal expanded, the chairman, Lee Kun-hee, was absent Monday from a ceremony commemorating the 20th anniversary of the death of his father, Lee Byung-chul, Samsung’s founder. Company officials cited a “serious cold and illness from fatigue.”

Lee Yong-chul, the former presidential aide, now a partner at a law firm in Seoul, issued his statement and pictures through the National Movement to Unveil Illegal Activities by Samsung and Its Chairman, an organization that was started by civic groups after Mr. Kim’s allegations were made public.

Calls to Mr. Lee’s office were not returned on Monday.

“This is proof that Samsung’s bribery has reached not only prosecutors but the very core of political power, the Blue House,” the group said at the news conference, referring to the South Korean presidential office. President Roh’s office called that assertion “pure speculation.”

Mr. Lee said the bribe he received in 2004 was delivered after an executive at Samsung Electronics asked him whether his company could send him a holiday gift. Mr. Lee said he accepted, thinking that it would be a simple gift.

He said that when he returned the money with a protest, the Samsung executive apologized. The executive said he had simply allowed his company to send the gift in his name and had not known it contained cash, Mr. Lee related.

The executive could not be reached for comment. Samsung said the man left the company in June 2004 and now lived in the United States.

Lee Yong-chul said he decided to go public after reading about the lawyer Kim Yong-chul’s whistle-blowing. He said he believed Mr. Kim’s assertion that Samsung had run a systematic bribery effort.

Samsung has denied Mr. Kim’s allegations as “groundless.” A couple of Samsung executives Mr. Kim accused of delivering bribes have sued him.

In his statement, Lee Yong-chul said the cash was delivered to him while prosecutors were investigating assertions that Samsung and other conglomerates had provided large amounts of illegal campaign funds to presidential candidates during the 2002 election, which Mr. Roh won.

Several campaign officials for Mr. Roh and his opponent, Lee Hoi-chang, as well as Samsung executives, were convicted of playing major roles in raising slush funds in that campaign.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/bu...20samsung.html





Turning Nonworking Gizmos Into Money
Brad Stone

For a long time, there was only one destination for your old electronics: the dump.

In the last few years, environmentally conscious recyclers like Green Citizen have sprung up in a few major cities. They ask you to pay a few dollars, depending on the item, and then promise to take care of your old gear in a responsible manner. If you wanted to forgo that expense and even recoup some of your original investment, your best choice was selling the device on a site like eBay.

Now 25-year-old Brett Mosley of Denver has an even more appealing model. About a year ago, Mr. Mosley started BuyMyBrokeniPod.com and began purchasing, refurbishing and reselling used or broken iPods. Mr. Mosley, who is apparently comfortable around a soldering iron, started the company by posting an iPods-wanted ad on Craigslist. He has since launched a Web site, hired two employees and fixed over a thousand iPods. He recently renamed his company BuyMyTronics.com as he expanded into iPhones and video game consoles.

Mr. Mosley pays anywhere from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars, depending on the item and its health, and then either fixes and resells it online or scraps it for parts. He says his company is profitable but that the venture is not solely about that kind of green. “There’s definitely a market here, but I am keeping leads and toxic wastes out of the ground. They work hand in hand,” he said. “I figure I’ve probably kept thousands of pounds of waste out of landfills.”

The iPod is often thought of as the perfect consumer device, but after fixing thousands of iPods, Mr. Mosley has rare insight into its flaws. He says the hard drive, the most expensive component, breaks most often, which is why Apple is moving toward solid state storage like flash memory. Batteries and the screen are the next most likely components to go.

Mr. Mosley has also purchased and fixed over a dozen iPhones, and says the screens are especially susceptible to cracking. “I’ve also gotten ones that have been dropped, and it’s like an atomic bomb exploded inside them,” he said.

He has not heard from Apple about his fledgling business, but notes that the company appears to be generally hostile to this kind of repair aftermarket, since they are making their devices increasingly difficult to open. “I don’t think they want people opening them up and repairing them,” he said. “That would be awesome if they would be a little cooler about that, but obviously they are a company and their motivation is profit, unfortunately.”

With the name change to BuyMyTronics under his belt, Mr. Mosley said he would be expanding further into cell phones and laptops in a few months.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/1...mos/index.html





As U.S. Cools, World Demand Helps H.P. Outpace Rivals
Matt Richtel

Buoyed by its heavy international presence, Hewlett-Packard appears to have sidestepped the softening demand from corporations inside the United States for new technology.

In recent weeks, companies including Cisco, I.B.M. and Network Appliances have warned that American corporations are tightening their purse strings when it comes to technology spending. On Monday, Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest technology company, not only reported strong fourth-quarter net profit and sales, but also predicted further growth in the months ahead.

In conference calls with reporters and industry analysts, Mark V. Hurd, the chief executive, declined to answer directly whether H.P. is seeing softening in demand among corporate customers in the United States. Over all, he said, “we’re seeing fairly steady demand.”

He also said: “I don’t want to be confused with an economist in any way, shape or form.”

Hewlett-Packard, he also noted, does not depend on the financial industry for a significant portion of its sales.

Wall Street analysts said that the results, which beat their projections, reflected the diversity of H.P.’s business geographically and in terms of its reliance on selling to consumers, not just corporations.

“This is very different from what we heard from I.B.M. and Cisco, in particular,” said Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research. “H.P. continues to execute in this very tough environment. The key reason is that they’re very global.”

Mr. Hurd, known for giving conservative forecasts to analysts, predicted revenue for 2008 would rise about 7 percent to about $111.5 billion. The new forecast exceeded industry analysts’ predictions.

For H.P.’s fourth quarter, ended Oct. 31, the company reported revenue of $28.3 billion, and net income of $2.8 billion, or 86 cents a share, a figure that does not include one-time charges.

In the fourth quarter a year ago, H.P. reported net income of $1.9 billion, or 68 cents a share, and revenue of $24.55 billion. For its full fiscal 2007, H.P. reported revenue of $104.3 billion and net income of $8 billion, or $2.93 a share, excluding one-time charges.

A. M. Sacconaghi, an industry analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, called the fourth-quarter and fiscal 2007 earnings “very solid,” adding: “They beat handily and raised guidance, which investors always cheer.”

The company’s shares, which fell with the overall market Monday during regular trading, rose 86 cents in after-hours trading to close at $50.30. The company also announced a plan to buy back $8 billion of its shares.

Unlike many technology companies — which do roughly 60 percent of their business domestically — H.P. does around 65 percent overseas, industry analysts said. Dell, its chief competitor, does only about 35 percent of its business internationally, Mr. Wu said.

Despite its recent success, the question for a company as large as H.P. is where can it find opportunities that will satisfy investors’ interest in seeing continued growth at a rapid pace. Mr. Hurd has frequently warned analysts that the law of large numbers makes it increasingly difficult for the company to add $7 billion to $8 billion in new revenue each year.

Mr. Hurd said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts that he would continue to seek businesses with growth potential, but that he would also keep pursuing a program of cost cuts and efficiency improvements and would then reallocate resources to the growth sectors.

At the two largest individual business divisions, sales rose 30 percent, to $10.1 billion, in the personal systems group, which sells PCs to consumers and corporations, but they were up only 4 percent, to $7.6 billion, in the imaging and printing group.

“PC’s continued their torrid success,” Mr. Sacconaghi said. “The only mild disappointment was in the imaging and printing group.”

The performance in computers could underscore continued trouble for Dell, H.P.’s chief competitor, which reports its financial results next week. Sales of H.P. notebook computers rose 49 percent in the fourth quarter, Mr. Hurd said.

While Mr. Hurd declined to discuss the relative performance of corporations in the United States, H.P. did see more modest growth in North America in the fourth quarter than it did in its overseas markets.

Excluding currency effects, growth in North America was 10 percent, to $11.9 billion, compared with the period a year ago. Sales grew 19 percent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, to $11.6 billion, and in the Asia-Pacific market they were up 20 percent, to $4.8 billion.

H.P. estimated that for its first quarter of 2008, sales would be $27.4 billion to $27.5 billion, and net income would reach 80 cents a share, not including one-time charges.

Wall Street analysts were hoping H.P. would shed more light on overall economic conditions and on the spending patterns of American companies.

“The investment community is anxious about what’s happening in large corporate I.T. spending,” Mr. Sacconaghi said. “Even if it’s limited now to U.S. financial services companies, it could spread.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/te...20hewlett.html





A Little Laptop With Big Ambitions

How a computer for the poor got stomped by tech giants
Steve Stecklow and James Bandler

In 2005, Nicholas Negroponte unveiled an idea for bridging the technology divide between rich nations and the developing world. It was captivating in its utter simplicity: design a $100 laptop and, within four years, get it into the hands of up to 150 million of the world's poorest schoolchildren.

World leaders and corporate benefactors jumped in to support the nonprofit project, called One Laptop Per Child. Mr. Negroponte, a professor on leave from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hopscotched the world collecting pledges from developing nations to buy the laptops in bulk.

But nearly three years later, only about 2,000 students in pilot programs have received computers from the One Laptop project. An order from Uruguay for 100,000 machines appears to be the only solid deal to date with a country, although Mr. Negroponte says he's on the verge of sealing an order from Peru for 250,000. The first mass-production run, which began this month in China, is for 300,000 laptops, tens of thousands of which are slated to go to U.S. consumers. Mr. Negroponte's goal of 150 million users by the end of 2008 looks unattainable.

Mr. Negroponte's ambitious plan has been derailed, in part, by the power of his idea. For-profit companies threatened by the projected $100 price tag set off at a sprint to develop their own dirt-cheap machines, plunging Mr. Negroponte into unexpected competition against well-known brands such as Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.

A version of Mr. Negroponte's vision is starting to come true. Impoverished countries are indeed snapping up cheap laptops for their schoolchildren -- just not anywhere near as many of his as he expected. They now have several cut-price models to choose from, raising the possibility that One Laptop Per Child, or OLPC, will end up as a niche player.

"I'm not good at selling laptops," Mr. Negroponte has told colleagues. "I'm good at selling ideas."

"From my point of view, if the world were to have 30 million" laptops made by competitors "in the hands of children at the end of next year, that to me would be a great success," he said in a recent interview. "My goal is not selling laptops. OLPC is not in the laptop business. It's in the education business."

From its inception, One Laptop Per Child posed a threat to the personal-computing dominance of software giant Microsoft and chip maker Intel. Mr. Negroponte's team, drawn from MIT, designed a machine that didn't use Windows or Intel chips. It uses the Linux operating system and other nonproprietary, open-source software, which users are allowed to tinker with.

Last year, Intel, which normally doesn't sell computers, introduced a small laptop for developing countries called the Classmate, which currently goes for between $230 and $300. It has marketed the computer aggressively, although it stands to make little money on the initiative. But it hopes to prevent rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc., or AMD, whose chips are in Mr. Negroponte's competing computer, from becoming a standard in the developing world.

By most accounts, Mr. Negroponte and his 20-member team have created a rugged, innovative laptop with good software for learning. The small green-and-white device is designed to operate on very little power -- a small solar panel can keep it going -- and to resist rain and dust. Its unique, high-resolution screen stays bright even in direct sunlight. The laptop has a built-in video camera and connects wirelessly to the Internet and to other laptops of its kind.

But the project has hit snags. The $100 price target is proving difficult to hit, although Mr. Negroponte's team has succeeded in creating a device that's cheaper than other laptops. It now sells for $188, plus shipping. Potential buyers in the developing world have expressed concern about the availability of training for schoolteachers, and after-sales support. Mr. Negroponte's plan is for the machines to be simple enough that students can train themselves -- and solve any glitches that arise.

Some potential buyers are having second thoughts about One Laptop Per Child. Officials in Libya, who had planned to buy up to 1.2 million of the laptops, became concerned that the machines lacked Windows, and that service, teacher training and future upgrades might become a problem.

"The Intel machine is a lot better than the OLPC," says Mohamed Bani, who chairs Libya's technical advisory committee but doesn't have the final say on buying laptops. "I don't want my country to be a junkyard for these machines." Libya has decided buy at least 150,000 Intel Classmates. The future of the One Laptop program there is now uncertain.

Mr. Negroponte, who is 63 years old, is a computer-science expert and veteran technology investor. He co-founded and formerly directed the MIT Media Laboratory and helped to found Wired Magazine. He serves on the board of Motorola Inc. Recently, he was selected by News Corp. to serve on a committee to protect the editorial integrity of Dow Jones & Co., the owner of The Wall Street Journal, following News Corp.'s agreement to purchase the company. His brother is U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.

Nicholas Negroponte unveiled his $100-laptop plan in January 2005 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, suggesting it would transform education for the world's disadvantaged schoolchildren and help eliminate poverty. Later that year, he predicted the project would sell 100 million to 150 million laptops in 2008 to developing countries.

Google Inc., AMD and News Corp. were among the companies that each kicked in $2 million of funding. In November 2005, then United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan publicly endorsed the concept, demonstrating an early prototype powered by a hand crank, a feature that subsequently was scrapped.

At a presentation seven months ago, Mr. Negroponte expressed confidence that he had commitments from countries to purchase 2.5 million laptops in 2007. But the Taiwan-based manufacturer, Quanta Computer Inc., is producing only 300,000 units this year, he said in a recent interview. At a conference this month, he said that his new goal for 2008 is to produce one million laptops a month, but he added that he can't say when that target will be reached.

Because the initial production volume is smaller than expected, the project hasn't benefited from anticipated economies of scale. Design upgrades -- more memory and a faster microprocessor, the brains of the machine -- also added to the price, apparently costing the project sales.

Nigeria, for example, so far has failed to honor a pledge by its former president to purchase one million laptops. That's partly because they no longer cost $100 apiece, says Tomi Davies, a Nigerian-born technology entrepreneur who helped Mr. Negroponte set up talks with Nigerian officials.

The higher price also has made the laptop vulnerable to competition from sellers of more traditional, Windows-based machines. For many education ministries, "it's a no-brainer you go with Microsoft," says Mr. Davies.

The One Laptop initiative is facing competition from Taiwanese, Indian and Israeli sellers of inexpensive Windows laptops, who see the developing world's more than one billion potential young customers as a big opportunity.

Intel, based in Santa Clara, Calif., so far has proven the biggest competitive threat. The introduction of the low-cost Classmate sparked accusations by Mr. Negroponte that Intel was trying to undermine his nonprofit initiative. Intel made a multimillion-dollar contribution to the One Laptop project and joined its board in July.

Nevertheless, Intel has continued to compete with the nonprofit, and it appears to be winning. It recently inked deals to sell hundreds of thousands of Classmates in Nigeria, Libya and Pakistan -- countries that Mr. Negroponte had been counting on. Intel has launched a series of pilot projects in those countries, and has said it will test the Classmate in at least 22 other nations, donating thousands of machines.

In recent months, Mr. Negroponte has abandoned his initial strategy of trying to persuade a half-dozen developing countries -- Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Thailand -- to buy one million laptops each. The project has begun accepting much smaller orders, and is attempting to persuade wealthier countries, including Italy and Spain, to finance laptops for poorer ones.

As sales problems mounted, the project recently reversed course on its plan not to sell the device to American consumers. On Nov. 12, it began selling pairs of laptops to U.S. and Canadian buyers for $399. Under the program -- called "Give One. Get One." -- one goes to a student in a poor country like Haiti, the other to the buyer. The program was supposed to last just two weeks, but on Thursday One Laptop said it was extending the offer through Dec. 31 because "people want more time to participate." Mr. Negroponte says there were about 45,000 two-laptop orders in the first nine days, with nearly half coming on the first day.

Suppliers are grumbling about missed forecasts and lowered expectations. "We wish they would ship more, absolutely," says Scott Soong of Chi Mei Group, the Taiwanese manufacturer of the laptop's screen, who also serves on One Laptop's board. Laptop-maker Quanta, which was told early this year to expect initial orders of five million to eight million, also is disappointed, according to a person familiar with the matter.

"We're all frustrated with each other," says Mr. Negroponte of the friction with Quanta and suppliers. "Everybody's got a short fuse."

He seems most frustrated with Intel, whose overseas sales force has trumpeted the Classmate over his laptop in Nigeria and Mongolia, using marketing materials that claim the Intel machine is superior. "These are not isolated examples," he said in a recent interview. "They are daily events."

At a meeting this month in Cambridge, Mass., with representatives of Macedonia's government, Mr. Negroponte balked at authorizing a pilot project there after learning that officials also were considering testing the Classmate. He told them he didn't want to participate in a "bake-off."

Mr. Negroponte says he communicated this month with Intel's chief executive, Paul Otellini, and demanded that Intel stop selling the Classmate. Intel, which says there is room in the market for many machines, has refused, according to a spokeswoman.

Mr. Negroponte says he got the idea for the initiative after working on educational projects in Cambodia and other developing countries, where he saw that computers could spur children to learn and explore outside the classroom.

In November 2005, he demonstrated a working prototype with Mr. Annan at a U.N. technology conference in Tunisia. "It was the main highlight of the whole summit," says Raul Zambrano, a senior technology adviser at the U.N. Development Program, which provides assistance to developing countries and shared a booth with Mr. Negroponte. "People were coming up with cash, saying, 'I want to buy it now!' " Mr. Zambrano recalls.

Mr. Negroponte draws no salary from the nonprofit, which only has about 20 paid employees. For most of the past three years, he has promoted his idea around the world, meeting with numerous heads of state. In mid-2006, a One Laptop official said the project had "commitments" from Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina and Thailand to purchase one million laptops each. The organization later retracted the claim. In October 2006, the New York Times reported that Libya had agreed to buy up to 1.2 million of the laptops by June 2008.

Publicly, Intel and Microsoft officials didn't hide their disdain for Mr. Negroponte's machine. In December 2005, Intel Chairman Craig R. Barrett called an early version a "$100 gadget" that wasn't likely to succeed. At a conference in March 2006, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said: "Geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type."

This year, Mr. Gates announced in China that Microsoft would offer developing countries a $3 software package that includes Windows, a student version of Microsoft Office and educational programs. Mr. Negroponte said the move was a direct response to his project. James Utzschneider, general manager of Microsoft's Unlimited Potential Group, a unit whose targets include young people in developing countries, denies this.

Libya and Egypt plan to buy the $3 software, Mr. Utzschneider says. Mr. Negroponte had hoped to sell his Linux-based laptops to both countries. Mr. Utzschneider says an organization in Russia has signed an agreement to buy at least 200,000 copies, with an option to buy up to 800,000 more. The Russians, he says, initially will load the software onto a low-cost laptop made by Asustek Computer Inc. of Taiwan, another One Laptop competitor.

By this spring, many of Mr. Negroponte's informal agreements with world leaders to buy millions of laptops appeared to be unraveling.

The prime minister of Thailand, who backed the project, was removed in a military coup. Nigeria was having second thoughts, in part because of the rising cost of the machine, according to Tomi Davies, who is helping One Laptop in Nigeria. Last month, Intel's Mr. Barrett visited Nigeria and announced that the company would donate 3,000 Classmates to schools there and would train 150,000 teachers to use computers in the classroom.

"We can't compete," complains Ayo Kusamotu, One Laptop's attorney in Nigeria. "The minute we started getting some traction, they [Intel] intensified their effort." Nigeria recently agreed to purchase 17,000 Intel Classmates.

In May, Mr. Negroponte appeared on CBS's "60 Minutes" and blasted Intel, suggesting it was trying to drive his nonprofit out of business. Intel's Mr. Barrett called that idea "crazy." Two months later, Intel announced it was joining One Laptop's board. The agreement included a "nondisparagement" clause, under which Intel and One Laptop promised not to criticize each other, according to Mr. Negroponte.

John Davies, who oversees Classmate sales at Intel, says that after the broadcast, Intel decided to "purge" any marketing material that directly compares the competing laptops. But last month, an Intel representative gave a PowerPoint presentation to a Mongolian official that offered a "head-to-head comparison" between the Classmate and the One Laptop machine. Intel claimed the Classmate prevailed in nine of 13 categories, including processor speed and support for different operating systems, a copy of the presentation indicates.

Intel's Mr. Davies says the presentation violated company policy. "Sometimes you get escapees," he says, adding that he will be doing some "retraining" of the sales staff.

Mr. Negroponte says he complained to Intel's chief executive two weeks ago, then "made peace." Intel and the One Laptop project, he says, have agreed to work together to design by early January a new "Intel-based" One Laptop device. An Intel spokeswoman confirmed Mr. Negroponte's account, but said any comment would be "premature." AMD, whose chips are used in One Laptop's current machines, declined to comment.

There are no signs that Mr. Negroponte's project is in danger of fading away. Robert Fadel, its director of finance and operations, says the nonprofit has enough funding to last years. Its dozen corporate benefactors this year contributed $16.5 million, and it will be using $1 from each computer sold to cover administrative costs. Last year, it took in $7.6 million in revenue, mainly from donors, and its budget this year is about $9.5 million. As of September, it had $8.7 million in cash on hand, an internal document indicates.

But it continues to face skepticism from its target audience. At a training conference it hosted this month in Cambridge for a large group of educators and tech specialists from developing countries, participants peppered Mr. Negroponte and other project officials with questions about teacher training and software bugs. "It will always have bugs in it and it will never be perfect," Mr. Negroponte told them, adding that he has a "royal battle" with his Windows-based computer nearly every morning.

Later, at a private meeting with a group from Rwanda, he announced that 20,000 laptops, courtesy of the "Give One. Get One." program, would soon be distributed. Carine Umutesi, who works for Rwanda's Information Technology Authority, questioned who would fix them if they break.

Mr. Negroponte said some initial tech support would be provided by Brightstar Corp., a Miami-based wireless equipment distributor. Just who would provide support a few years from now, he said, was "a frightening question." The students, he said, will need "to do as much maintenance as possible."

--Jason Dean in Beijing contributed to this article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1195...we_banner_left





Publisher Gets Web Readers to Fill the Pages of Its Magazines
Evelyn Nussenbaum

A funny thing happened while Halsey Minor was trying to kill print journalism. He ended up publishing magazines — big, heavy magazines, with beautiful pictures on quality paper — the kind he and others had declared obsolete.

The founder of the technology news site CNet.com readily admits to an about-face. “I spent my time at CNet talking about how print was going to be challenged by the Internet and specifically how we were going to make magazines go away,” he said. “But two years ago I realized I was still reading over 100 magazines a month. I like holding them and turning the pages. And the images are better than on the Internet.”

Amid the YouTube-fueled craze for user-generated content, he wondered why readers, instead of writers and editors whom he would have to pay, could not do most of the heavy lifting. He also pondered how he might get rid of, or at least reduce, the large ad sales staff. He just was not sure how to pull it off.

Then in 2006 he met Paul Cloutier and Derek Powazek, Web-publishing veterans who had started a user-generated on-demand photo magazine called JPG. It took e-mail submissions and used a self-publishing service to sell downloads or print copies with the founders’ favorites

They wanted to expand. Mr. Minor, who has backed a number of successful ventures since CNet — including Salesforce.com, which went public, and Grand Central, which was sold to Google — had money to invest. A few weeks later, in June, 8020 Publishing was born. It was named after the proverbial ratio of passive Web users (sometimes called lurkers) to those who actually write and contribute. Mr. Minor wants to build the company into an empire of Web-generated print magazines.

“Dan Rather was a pivotal moment for me,” he said, referring to the way bloggers discovered inconsistencies in the anchorman’s 2004 “60 Minutes” story about President Bush’s military service. “You can be an ‘expert,’ but the collective way is so much richer and deeper that it’s almost impossible to compete with.”

He is hardly the only one with the idea of using user-generated content to make money. Many Web sites, like YouTube or Yelp, thrive on content that users donate. The Al Gore venture CurrentTV is a cable channel devoted to videos submitted by the general public. Google recently filed a patent for user-generated content publications.

But 8020 is different because Mr. Minor thinks he can also make money from old-fashioned print.

Online readers vote on their favorite submissions appearing at JPGmag.com. Then a tiny staff of 10 designs a layout for the winners and about 50,000 high-quality slick-looking magazines are printed six times a year. They are sold through $25 annual subscriptions and on newsstands for $6 each.

The online version is free. Readers can also download and print a PDF file of the entire magazine free, because the publishers assume that physically holding a high-quality magazine is more satisfying than viewing it online and therefore will not cannibalize newsstand sales.

Even with that freebie, Mr. Minor says that 70 percent of his magazines on newsstands are purchased, a surprisingly high “sell-through” rate; most magazine publishers would be thrilled with 50 percent.

The start-up was not without turmoil. Mr. Powazek (along with his wife, Heather Powazek Champ, also at the magazine since its founding) left 8020 in May, saying that a power-hungry Mr. Cloutier had pushed him out. On his blog, Powazek.com, he accused Mr. Cloutier and Mr. Minor of minimizing his contributions to the new and old versions of JPG. He was particularly upset that the earliest issues had been taken off the site.

Mr. Powazek said he did not realize his influence would be diminished so severely when he agreed that Mr. Cloutier should run 8020. He also laid claim to the idea for 8020, pointing out that he and his wife put together the first e-mail-driven version of JPG without Mr. Cloutier.

While he no longer has a role at 8020, Mr. Powazek still owns a small percentage of JPG. Mr. Cloutier does not dispute that the partnership ended badly or that the first issues were taken off the Web site. But he said it was necessary to distinguish between the incarnations of the magazine, since the new one was so different. And he said Mr. Powazek obstructed the introduction of the new company and magazine and alienated the staff members by refusing to let newcomers contribute to what he saw as his baby.
Nevertheless, Mr. Minor and company are so happy with the business model that they have produced a second user-generated magazine called Everywhere, devoted to travel. It went on sale last week.

“You’re going to see more of this,” said Samir Husni, who is chairman of the journalism department at the University of Mississippi and writes the well-known magazine business blog Mrmagazine.com. “I don’t think it’s just about getting cheap content into a magazine. Seeing their own work in print makes people feel like part of a community.”

Community is a mantra Mr. Minor and Mr. Cloutier, now chief executive of 8020, repeat often. The JPG and Everywhere sites have lots of what the staff calls “easy jumping-in points” — features meant to get users involved without intimidating them.

“Ask someone to write a magazine story and they freeze up,” said Mr. Cloutier, who has designed magazine Web sites and helped start CurrentTV. “But say ‘send us a postcard’ and it becomes easy.”

Users can submit photos, writing and travel recommendations to Everywhere and comment on everything. If a comment is popular enough, it might end up in print under someone else’s photo.

8020 tries to make the magazine more readable by limiting advertising. Web ads are subtle — no pop-ups. The dozen or so advertisers in the print issues are limited to the first few pages, the back, and sponsorships of special sections. Adobe Systems, Sony, Epson, Audi and Virgin America have bought ads. 8020 can afford to limit advertising because, Mr. Minor said, it does not need it to make a profit from them. It says it makes money on each subscription and newsstand sale — the opposite of the traditional magazine business.

And while JPG’s circulation is only 18,000 subscriptions, the company said it needed to sell just 30,000 to break even on each issue. The small print runs and low overhead leave money for quality paper, an increasing rarity among magazines. It is also reflected in the content. Data, like hotel phone numbers and addresses, is likely to be on the Web but not in a print version of Everywhere. Longer stories and photo essays might be featured solely in print.

Now they will see whether users share their vision. In the meantime, Mr. Minor and the 8020 staff are kicking around ideas for the next magazine. Mr. Minor said he was in the venture for the long haul. “I would be really upset if it didn’t work because it should work,” he said. “We should be able to build a large media company based on people publishing for themselves.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/bu...dia/24mag.html





Pride and Nostalgia Mix in the Times’s New Home
Nicolai Ouroussoff

Writing about your employer’s new building is a tricky task. If I love it, the reader will suspect that I’m currying favor with the man who signs my checks. If I hate it, I’m just flaunting my independence.

So let me get this out of the way: As an employee, I’m enchanted with our new building on Eighth Avenue. The grand old 18-story neo-Gothic structure on 43rd Street, home to The New York Times for nearly a century, had its sentimental charms. But it was a depressing place to work. Its labyrinthine warren of desks and piles of yellowing newspapers were redolent of tradition but also seemed an anachronism.

The new 52-story building between 40th and 41st Streets, designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, is a paradise by comparison. A towering composition of glass and steel clad in a veil of ceramic rods, it delivers on Modernism’s age-old promise to drag us — in this case, The Times — out of the Dark Ages.

I enjoy gazing up at the building’s sharp edges and clean lines when I emerge from the subway exit at 40th Street and Seventh Avenue in the morning. I love being greeted by the cluster of silvery birch trees in the lobby atrium, their crooked trunks sprouting from a soft blanket of moss. I even like my fourth-floor cubicle, an oasis of calm overlooking the third-floor newsroom.

Yet the spanking new building is infused with its own nostalgia.

The last decade has been a time of major upheaval in newspaper journalism, with editors and reporters fretting about how they should adapt to the global digital age. In New York that anxiety has been compounded by the terrorist attacks of 2001, which prompted many corporations to barricade themselves inside gilded fortresses.

Mr. Piano’s building is rooted in a more comforting time: the era of corporate Modernism that reached its apogee in New York in the 1950s and 60s. If he has gently updated that ethos for the Internet age, the building is still more a paean to the past than to the future.

What makes a great New York skyscraper? The greatest of them tug at our heartstrings. We seek them out in the skyline, both to get our bearings and to anchor ourselves psychologically in the life of the city.

Mr. Piano’s tower is unlikely to inspire that kind of affection. The building’s most original feature is a scrim of horizontal ceramic rods that diffuses sunlight and lends the exterior a clean, uniform appearance. Mr. Piano used a similar screening system for his 1997 Debis Tower for Daimler-Benz in Berlin, to mixed results. For The Times, he spent months adjusting the rods’ color and scale, and in the early renderings they had a lovely, ethereal quality.

Viewed from a side street today, they have the precision and texture of a finely tuned machine. But despite the architect’s best efforts, the screens look flat and lifeless in the skyline. The uniformity of the bars gives them a slightly menacing air, and the problem is compounded by the battleship gray of the tower’s steel frame. Their dull finish deprives the facades of an enlivening play of light and shadow.

The tower’s crown is also disappointing. To hide the rooftop’s mechanical equipment and create the impression that the tower is dissolving into the sky, Mr. Piano extended the screens a full six stories past the top of the building’s frame. Yet the effect is ragged and unfinished. Rather than gathering momentum as it rises, the tower seems to fizzle.

But if the building is less than spectacular in the skyline, it comes to life when it hits the ground. All of Mr. Piano’s best qualities are in evidence here — the fine sense of proportion, the love of structural detail, the healthy sense of civic responsibility.

The architect’s goal is to blur the boundary between inside and out, between the life of the newspaper and the life of the street. The lobby is encased entirely in glass, and its transparency plays delightfully against the muscular steel beams and spandrels that support the soaring tower.

People entering the building from Eighth Avenue can glance past rows of elevator banks all the way to the fairy tale atrium garden and beyond, to the plush red interior of TheTimesCenter auditorium. From the auditorium, you gaze back through the trees to the majestic lobby space. In effect, the lobby itself is a continuous public performance.

The sense of transparency is reinforced by the people streaming through the lobby. The flow recalls the dynamic energy of Grand Central Terminal’s Great Hall or the Rockefeller Center plaza, proud emblems of early-20th-century mobility.

Architecturally, however, The New York Times Building owes its greatest debt to postwar landmarks like Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s Lever House or Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building — designs that came to embody the progressive values and industrial power of a triumphant America. Their streamlined glass-and-steel forms proclaimed a faith in machine-age efficiency and an open, honest, democratic society.

Newspaper journalism, too, is part of that history. Transparency, independence, the free flow of information, moral clarity, objective truth — these notions took hold and flourished in the last century at papers like The Times. To many this idealism reached its pinnacle in the period stretching from the civil rights movement to the Vietnam War to Watergate, when journalists grew accustomed to speaking truth to power, and the public could still accept reporters as impartial observers.

This longing for an idealistic time permeates the main newsroom. Pierced by a double-height skylight well on the third and fourth floors, the newsroom has a cool, insular feel even as the facades of the surrounding buildings press in from the north and south. The well functions as a center of gravity, focusing attention on the paper’s nerve center. From many of the desks you also enjoy a view of the delicate branches of the atrium’s birch trees.

Internal staircases link the various newsroom floors to encourage interaction. The work cubicles are flanked by rows of glass-enclosed offices, many of which are unassigned so that they can be used for private phone conversations or spontaneous meetings. Informal groupings of tables and chairs are also scattered about, creating a variety of social spaces.

From the higher floors, which house the corporate offices of The Times and 22 floors belonging to the developer Forest City Ratner, the views become more expansive. Cars rush up along Eighth Avenue. Billboards and electronic signs loom from all directions. By the time you reach the 14th-floor cafeteria, the entire city begins to come into focus, with dazzling views to the north, south, east and west. A long, narrow balcony is suspended within the cafeteria’s double-height space, reinforcing the impression that you’re floating in the Midtown skyline.

Many of my colleagues complained about the building at first. There’s too much empty space in the newsroom, some groused; they missed the intimacy of the old one. The glass offices look sterile, and no one will use them, some said.

I suspect they’ll all adjust. One of the joys of working in an ambitious new building is that you can watch its personality develop. From week to week, you see more and more lone figures chatting on cellphones in the small glass offices with their feet atop a table. And even my grumpiest colleagues now concede that a little sunlight and fresh air are not a bad thing.

Even so, you never feel that the building embraces the future wholeheartedly. Rather than move beyond the past, Mr. Piano has fine-tuned it. The most contemporary features — the computerized louvers and blinds that regulate the flow of light into the interiors — are technological innovations rather than architectural ones; the regimented rows of identical wood-paneled cubicles chosen by the interior design firm Gensler could be a stage set for a 2007 remake of “All the President’s Men,” minus the 1970s hairstyles.

Maybe this accounts for the tower’s slight whiff of melancholy.

Few of today’s most influential architects buy into straightforward notions of purity or openness. Having witnessed an older generation’s mostly futile quest to effect social change through architecture, they opt for the next best thing: to expose, through their work, the psychic tensions and complexities that their elders sublimated. By bringing warring forces to the surface, they reason, a building will present a franker reading of contemporary life.

Journalism, too, has moved on. Reality television, anonymous bloggers, the threat of ideologically driven global media enterprises — such forces have undermined newspapers’ traditional mission. Even as journalists at The Times adjust to their new home, they worry about the future. As advertising inches decline, the paper is literally shrinking; its page width was reduced in August. And some doubt that newspapers will even exist in print form a generation from now.

Depending on your point of view, the Times Building can thus be read as a poignant expression of nostalgia or a reassertion of the paper’s highest values as it faces an uncertain future. Or, more likely, a bit of both.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/ar...gn/20time.html





Amazon Reading Device Doesn’t Need Computer
Saul Hansell

Jeff Bezos knows that the world is not exactly clamoring for another way to read electronic books.

“If you go back in time, the landscape is littered with the bodies of dead e-book readers,” Mr. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon.com, said yesterday.

Mr. Bezos is hoping that Kindle, an ambitious $399 e-book device that he introduced in New York, will avoid that fate. Kindle, which Amazon spent three years developing, lets users wirelessly download best sellers for $9.99 each, and it is designed to be simpler to use and more comfortable to hold than similar devices.

Most significant, Amazon has made it easy to shop for and buy books through Kindle without using a computer. The device connects to a high-speed wireless data network from Sprint, and wireless delivery is included in the cost of books and other products. Downloading a book takes less than a minute.

Mr. Bezos said Kindle was most likely to appeal to travelers and others who want to carry several books with them.

“Anyone who is reading two, three, four books at the same time should have one of these,” he said in an interview. Kindle can store 200 books at once.

Mr. Bezos added that he thought Kindle would be more comfortable for people to curl up with than previous reading devices. It weighs 10.3 ounces and uses so-called electronic ink technology licensed from the company E Ink, based in Cambridge, Mass.

The screen reflects light, making it easier to read in a bright room, and it uses less power and generates less heat, because there is no backlight to the display.

Kindle will also download and display newspapers, magazines and blogs. Among the newspapers available are The New York Times for $13.99 a month and The Wall Street Journal for $9.99 a month. Some 300 blogs are available for 99 cents or $1.99 a month. Amazon shares some of that fee with newspaper and blog publishers. The device will only be available at Amazon.

Amazon, which is one of the world’s largest booksellers, reached agreements with all the major publishers to sell their wares on Kindle. It has about 90,000 titles so far and 90 percent of current best sellers.

Sony, which introduced an e-book reader a year ago, has about 20,000 titles for sale.

Publishing executives said they were optimistic about Kindle.

“You kind of understand why it has been three years in development because it offers so much in an uncomplicated way,” said David Young, the chief executive of the Hachette Book Group USA, which owns Little, Brown.

“The big challenge, of course, is that it is still relatively expensive,” he added. “You have to be a very committed book person to get a repay on that investment.”

The publishers themselves are concerned about return on investment; most have been spending a great deal to digitize their libraries for electronic readers, with little to show for it so far.

“If it does contribute to the many millions of dollars we have invested as an industry, that’s great,” Mr. Young said.

Amazon and the publishers declined to discuss the specifics of their financial arrangements. But several publishing executives said the industry practice was to sell an electronic version of a hardcover with a list price of $27 for about $20. While deals vary, the wholesale price of a $20 e-book is about $10, and most retailers have been selling them for about $16. The publishers said Amazon was paying about the same wholesale price as Sony and other e-book vendors.

By offering best sellers for $9.99, Amazon is leaving no profit margin, and it will have the expense of paying Sprint for the data transmission. Amazon says it hopes to make money on older titles that have better profit margins.

Digital distribution of books would seem to have a lot of benefits for publishers. So far there is not much book piracy online (although there have been some high-profile leaks, most notably that of the latest Harry Potter book).

There also is not much pressure to break books into smaller pieces, in the way that people want to buy songs, not albums. And there are no conflicts with distributors of the sort that complicate the online video business.

Indeed, e-books have the potential to save publishers the cost of printing, distribution and returns. But publishers said their biggest hope was that Kindle would expand sales of books to a new generation of gadget lovers.

“We have great authors, and we want to get our books to readers, and this is another channel to us,” said Kate Tentler, senior vice president for digital media at Simon & Schuster.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/bu.../20bookxx.html





Kindle Sells Out in 5.5 Hours
Nilay Patel

Amazon isn't disclosing how many Kindles it actually had ready to go, but apparently the idea of a tiny e-book reader with free EV-DO and the visual flair of an Apple IIc hit home for quite a few people, because they sold out in just five and a half hours. Amazon's site says they'll be back in stock on the 29th, but availability is first-come, first-served, so it looks like you'll have to act fast if you want to get one before gift-giving time sets in.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/21/k...t-in-two-days/





Part of an Oil Book Relied on Wikipedia
Noam Cohen

The publisher John Wiley & Sons confirmed last week that its book “Black Gold: The New Frontier in Oil for Investors” by George Orwel had lifted almost word for word about five paragraphs from a Wikipedia article on the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia.

The book discusses the 1996 terrorist bombing, which killed 19 United States servicemen, as part of an overview of the situation in the Middle East as it affects the oil supply. Mr. Orwel, who lives in Brooklyn, has written about the industry for a variety of specialized publications; reached at home, he said his publisher’s statement spoke for him.

True to the ever-changing nature of Wikipedia, a comparison of Mr. Orwel’s book, which was published in 2006, and the current article on the bombing would show significant differences. But when compared with a 2005 version — available on a discussion page there about the incident — the text is virtually identical. A typo or two has been fixed, a phrase or two added, and the word “saw” had been changed to “witnessed,” for example.

The principal author of the Wikipedia article, reached via his user page there, wrote in an e-mail message that he considered the damages “insignificant,” and had “made no effort to contact the author or publisher.” He described himself as follows: “I’m male, in my 40s, have a Ph.D. in physics, and work as a professor at a university in California. I view my Wikipedia writings as a form of procrastination from real work, so I’d prefer to remain anonymous and not reveal the extent of my procrastination to colleagues.”

Copying from Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia produced by tens of thousands of contributors, does not raise the same legal complications as copying from a copyrighted book. According to Mike Godwin, the lead lawyer at the Wikimedia Foundation, under Wikipedia’s license anyone can reprint material found there as long as Wikipedia is given credit and the license itself is reprinted, assuring that the material continues to roam free.

“Wiley’s concern is not over copyright trouble,” Mr. Godwin said. “They want to represent their work as scholarly work. Their name is on the line in terms of scholarly ethics, more than the copyright issue.”

A Wiley spokeswoman said in a statement that the publisher would “provide corrections to all future reprints of this book.” In its statement, Wiley, which is based in Hoboken, N.J., said the passages were “inadvertently added by our author to the text without attribution.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/te...gy/19wiki.html





Ministry Bans Wikipedia Editing
AP

The Dutch justice ministry is to temporarily block its 30,000 employees from using Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, at work after a magazine reported that ministry computers had been used to edit more than 800 entries.

Intermediar said that while most of the changes were not objectionable, some involved changing the positions of political parties or the profiles of people in criminal cases. Many others were obscene.

"We're doing this as a temporary measure while we investigate how much use - and misuse- our people make of Wikipedia, and what we can do about it," said ministry spokesman Ivo Hommes. "You'd think it should be OK for someone to update an entry on their favourite football star during lunch, but obviously we don't want people doing things that are tasteless or worse during working hours."

The Intermediar report said one employee had changed a reference to the punishment given to a member of the Dutch nobility who was caught speeding.

The original text said "her driving licence was not revoked", while the revised version added "as is typical in such cases".

Anyone can edit a Wikipedia entry anonymously, but Wikipedia records the exact time and IP address - the numerical identifier of each computer on the internet - when any user alters a page.

Similar concerns about public-sector employees editing Wikipedia from work computers have cropped up in the United States and Japan in recent months.

The Intermediar report found 821 edits in all from justice ministry computers, more than from any other single ministry. But hundreds of edits came from computers at other ministries and at dozens of Dutch councils.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ernationalnews





To Free or Not to Free - the Big Question
nic

Right, so there's this guy, TayZonday, and he put his song up on YouTube and it's called Black Rain and it makes it to the front page, and millions of people are watching it. And tho it's really simple the melody is quite catchy and this guy has a real deep voice like old school soul. And now each of his songs are getting millions of views and four stars ratings, and he doesn't just sing for free on YouTube he also lets you download MP3s of his work for free, and download Acapellas and remix his work, and re-record his work and do all the sorts of things creative people like to have done with their work.

And he's famous. And he has an audience - 11 million views of one his songs on the tube . And he's in charge of his destiny as a musician.

And no-one from the label is saying, look man, we like what you do, but could you include some trumpets. Or could you get some dancing girls? Or, really without more tits and ass your video isn't going to make MTV. And without MTV no-one is going to know who you are. And without our lawyers, we're not going to be able to stop people from ripping you off - like that was possible anyway, when in fact the only person who really would ever rip him off, is the entity taking at least 95% of his turnover - the music machine itself, and the huge aparatus it traditionally needed to create, distribute and market the whole shebang.

So now he's a star, and he's his own boss, and people want to make donations, and no doubt will want to buy his limited edition album if/when it comes out, and all the rest of it. And of course this why Radiohead and Madonna are already changing their act.

And I keep thinking of the two women i spoke to at Edinburgh who were like, 'don't put your films online!'. Tell your friends, they said, tell em, don't put em on the web, they'll never get into festivals, they'll never make a TV sale. And Yousef Ali Khan (Skin Deep) had said the same thing a few months previously so while I was shocked, it seems, like, the common thinking on this issue in the UK. And I'm like, well, surely the festivals and the TV will be forced to change their position if more and more great films end up online?

Because if a filmmaker has a choice between 10 million views online or 100 at London Film Festvial, or, what, 25 at Edinburgh, well if they want to make a career out of making films, it's hardly a choice, unless they feel really confident that the 'established' model of film development/finance/production/marketing/distribution both works well and will survive, and furthermore is likely to give them a job.

And then it became clear that maybe the people who were saying 'Don't Put Online' are largely those who have something to lose by the replacement of much of the industry with technology - the sales agents, distributors and festivals (tho surely festivals will only benefit in this new world as webshooters encourage their fans to meet them and watch their film on the big screen).

Likewise the many artists want only to communicate and be true to themselves, and for them money is a nice side effect. And that the industry talks bullshit about all these models because they think they don't have a job if the models crumble. when in fact they just need to start again and think about new models.

But it's annoying how much crap filmmakers are being told, how much crap. And how far behind those who pay to go hear these panels and training courses will end up if they follow all the advice. It's a brave new world, with a billion people waiting to see your work. M'kay?
http://www.netribution.co.uk/2/content/view/1348/108/





Radiohead Frontman Pays Nothing for His Album
Mike Nizza

Rock fans and the music industry have watched with great interest as Radiohead offered downloads of its latest album, “In Rainbows,” to the world at the vaguest of price points. Allowed to pay whatever they wanted, how many would jump at the chance to pay zero?

One study concluded that the early answer was 62 percent, a larger-than-the-optimists-expected group that we learned today included none other than the band’s frontman, Thom Yorke.

“I downloaded it for nothing, obviously,” he told the BBC.

Jaws dropped. “Obviously”? Is the singer in league with the freeloaders, the very group that threatens to sink the whole music industry? Et tu, Thom Yorke?

Well, not exactly. Mr. Yorke said that in his case, paying for the album would have been an empty gesture. “There wasn’t any point,” he said. “I just move some money from one pocket to the other.”

Radiohead was so intent on keeping the album from leaking to illegal downloading sites — a near certainty these days — that, according to the band’s guitarist, Ed O’Brien, they decided “to literally tell no one” about their plans.

“I didn’t tell my wife we were going to release it like this,” he continued.

Keeping secrets from his wife? What kind of family man is that? Well, the kind who spent $800 more than his lead singer did, buying ten special boxed sets of the new album. Why? He has a big family, he told the BBC.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/200.../index.html?hp





Open-Source Software Rated: Ten Alternatives You Need
Nate Lanxon

Open source products comprise the work of many collaborators -- sometimes thousands of them, and often separated by oceans. Each person works on small portions of a project, and anyone is welcome to contribute. The finished product will be available freely for anyone to download and, in most cases, modify.

All very touchy-feely, carey-sharey, but why should you care about open source? You should care because the vast majority of common applications, even complex commercial stuff such as Adobe Photoshop, Windows Media Player and Microsoft Office, have free, open-source alternatives. And this point is worth reiterating: open-source software is free. No cost. Zero. Zilch.

We've put together a collection of ten free open-source applications that will potentially save you hundreds of pounds. We've outlined their pros and cons and compared them to the nearest commercial alternative.


Paid-for version: Microsoft Office
Open-source alternative: OpenOffice

OpenOffice is a feature-packed alternative to Microsoft Office. It's developed by Sun Microsystems in collaboration with a community of dedicated contributors. The primary applications of OpenOffice consist Writer (word processor), Calc (spreadsheet), Impress (presentations), Base (databases), Draw (vector graphics editor) and Math (mathematical formulae editor, similar to Microsoft Equation Editor).

The good: For home users and families it offers everything you'll need to write letters, publish documents, formulate graphs, build slideshows and design simple Web pages. It looks and works like Microsoft Word and because it's free, it'll save you about £119 -- the cost of Microsoft Office 2007. For families, OpenOffice is an absolute must.

The bad: Microsoft Office comes with Outlook, which is vital for most business users. For this reason, OpenOffice isn't an alternative to Microsoft's corporate solutions. It's also lacks some of the advanced design functions of the 2007 version of Word.

Conclusion: OpenOffice will be perfect for most home users. Business users will almost certainly need Outlook, though OO may still provide all the functionality needed for word processing and spreadsheet work.

Paid-for version: Microsoft Windows Media Centre
Open-source alternative: MediaPortal

MediaPortal is an open-source alternative to Microsoft's Media Centre and offers PVR functionality as well as management of all your videos, photos, music and radio stations. It runs on Windows and has the ability to display RSS feeds and weather information. The attractive GUI can be re-skinned with loads of free and professional-looking skins and a vast array of plugins written by the community extend functionality in loads of ways.

The Good: It's an extremely easy piece of software to use and looks and feels just like Windows Media Centre. For use as a living-room PVR and a media handler it's superb. More advanced users will appreciate the many layers of customisability offered, too. High-definition content is fully compatible as long as your PC is up to the job, so wiring your box up to that shiny new HDTV will be no problem.

The Bad: The software suffers a few bugs that could be something of a hurdle for newbies. It's in the advanced pre-release stages, meaning the team developing it hasn't deemed it suitable for general release, but it's well on its way. More tech-savvy users will work around any bugs they uncover, but technophobes may want to stick to Media Centre until a final release has been made.

Conclusion: MediaPortal is ideal for anyone who isn't afraid of looking at a program's preferences screen. If looking at settings confuses and scared you into a dark corner, stick with Microsoft's Media Centre for now. Otherwise, go grab yourself MediaPortal, because it's bloody marvellous.

Paid-for version: Windows Media Player
Open-source alternative: VLC media player

VLC is an exceptionally functional media player that not only handles almost any media format you throw at it, but will stream stuff from the Web and play your DVDs. It's also a great tool for anyone who downloads large video files, since VLC can play incomplete or damaged media.

The Good: For the home and for the office, VLC will work for you. If you use Windows, Mac OS X, Linux or BeOS, VLC will work for you. Almost regardless of what media formats you use, VLC will work for you. If you're an absolute newbie to computers, VLC will work for you. Do you see where we're going with this?

The Bad: VLC won't let you sync your media library with your new MP3 player. True, Windows Media Player doesn't work with an iPod anyway, and the vast majority of other models that claim to need WMP will actually let you drag and drop your content into their memory through Windows Explorer anyway. There are no radio services directly available through VLC, so if the integration of these services is important to you, you might still want to have WMP sticking around in the background.

Conclusion: For almost all uses, VLC will suit the beginner and the amateur. The experts will already be using it. There are loads of skins available to make it look much prettier than it is by default, and its undeniably superb functionality makes it a crucial download for any computer user.

Paid-for version: WinZip
Open-source alternative: 7-Zip

7-Zip is a file archiver that handles not only its own file compression format, but also the common .zip format, meaning it's ideal for everyday home and office use. It'll also unzip other popular archiving formats such as RAR, CAB and ISO. 7-Zip can be integrated into the Windows Shell for easy right-clicking compression of desktop files and folders.

The Good: Zipping and unzipping .zip files is the main function of the popular commercial application WinZip. 7-Zip performs this task without requiring any purchases. For this reason, it's a solid alternative for most people. It's also capable of encrypting archives for that added peace of mind.

The Bad: WinZip offers a vast array of features for advanced users, such as intelligent compression, which chooses the most efficient archiving method based on the type of files being compressed. WinZip will also let you schedule backups and periodic and automatic updating of existing backup archives.

Conclusion: Home users won't use most of the features in WinZip, so 7-Zip is highly recommended. It's lightweight, easy to use and will let you send batches of photos to friends as well as back up archives to DVDs.

Paid-for version: Adobe Photoshop
Open-source alternative: GIMP

GIMP is a package for creating digital images and manipulating photographs. It's been in production for 12 years and is compatible with most of the commonly used image formats such as JPG, TIFF, PNG, BMP and GIF, as well as most Adobe Photoshop and PaintShop Pro files.

The Good: It's no secret that many people download illegal copies of the enormously feature-packed Adobe Photoshop purely for cropping and resizing photos. GIMP takes care of this task without the risk of lawsuits. It's also got an array of tools for creating original raster graphics. The whole colour spectrum can be used with existing brushes or user-created ones, an array of filters and effects can be applied -- drop shadow being a popular choice. Once you've had some practice it's very easy to use and quickly proves itself to be a capable image editor.

The Bad: GIMP doesn't offer the extensive design and manipulation options that the £500 industry-standard Photoshop offers, though it has never aimed to. There really isn't any bad side to GIMP, considering what it's capable of doing. If you're used to editing images in Windows Paint, you'll need to spend a few hours getting to know it, but that's true with all applications that aren't aimed at children and the artistically backwards.

Conclusion: There's no need to illegally download spend £500 on Photoshop if all you're doing is resizing images, applying fancy effects and cropping photos, because GIMP is extremely capable at these tasks. If you're looking for a career in design however, you might still want to keep saving for the Adobe standard.

Commercial version: Google Reader, Bloglines
Open-source alternative: RSSOwl

RSSOwl is a simple and lightweight desktop feed reader. It offers multiple viewing options and easy importing of XML files.

The good: The 'Owl offers an uncluttered interface that allows easy navigation of multiple feeds. A Web browser is built in, so there's no need to leave the application to click through the Web sites. The application itself is extremely fast and very friendly, though rather basic, aesthetically. There's a feature that lets you enter a Web site's URL and RSSOwl will scour it for RSS feeds, which can then be imported with the click of a button. It's even possible to export all feed entries to PDF form for easy offline reading.

The bad: The built-in Web browser is Internet Explorer, raising the usual security issues common to IE.

Conclusion: Since you need to be online to use an RSS reader properly, RSSOwl is a great application. The ability to export feed items to offline documents could be a huge bonus over Web-based apps such as Google Reader.

Commercial version: Windows Live Messenger, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger
Open-source alternative: Pidgin

Pidgin combines the IM functionality of popular IM clients such as Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger into one lightweight application. This allows for seamless use of multiple clients and address books from the comfort of a single window.

The good: On computers with limited RAM, Pidgin does away with the need for multiple individual clients, which can greatly increase available memory. Multiple chat networks can be used simultaneously so there's no restriction on what networks you're connected to at any given time. It'll run on all the popular operating systems and a text-based alternative is available for anyone wanting to use the program within a console window.

The bad: It's not as attractive as the standard IM chat clients and it's not blindingly obvious which contacts are part of each network.

Conclusion: If you'd like all your contacts in one place, Pidgin is a superb option. Its functionality is flawless and features such as emoticons and file transfers are seamlessly integrated. It's not a particularly attractive program though, so if aesthetics are important to you, you might want to stick to separate chat clients.

Paid version: Nero Burning Rom
Open source alternative: InfraRecorder

InfraRecorder is an open-source alternative to commercial CD- and DVD-burning software. It was first developed during Google's Summer of Code in 2006. It uses a standard graphical interface for creating disc images and an express creation wizard that helps guide you through the process.

The good: InfraRecorder is a really capable piece of software that allows you to burn all the usual kinds of CD and DVD types. It also supports the creation of dual-layer DVDs and the burning of ISO and BIN images. We got perfect results from discs burned with the software and had no trouble using it from start to finish.

The bad: The interface is quite basic and not as accessible to less tech-savvy users. More sophisticated and well-designed wizards in programs such as Nero are better at easing newbies through the creation process. The program is also a little slow when preparing to burn a disc.

Conclusion: If you're used to manually creating DVDs and CDs, InfraRecorder is perfect. It worked flawlessly for us and produced great results. Technophobes, however, will prefer the idiot-proof wizards provided by commercial software bundled with pre-built PCs.

Paid-for version: Adobe Audition
Open-source alternative: Audacity

Audacity is a digital audio editor and mixing platform, complete with a graphical user interface and cross-platform OS support. It's one of the most popular open-source downloads in the world.

The good: One of the most common uses of the program is audio file conversion, as it handles a wide range of audio formats, including FLAC and OGG. It's easy to record, cut and edit sounds, remove noise, adjust levels and alter equaliser settings. An array of plugins allow you to extend core functionality, such as overlaying sound effects and samples. Audacity is a superb package for home users who want more control over their audio than the super-awesome-amazing Sound Recorder that comes with Windows allows.

The bad: While it's superbly kitted out for home users and podcasters, it can't match commercial products like Adobe's Audition software for studio recording. The GUI is also rather plain and not as easy to read as some paid-for alternatives.

Conclusion: Be prepared for a steep learning curve, but rest assured it'll pay off. Audacity offers a great set of features and is suited for loads of purposes. If you're setting up a home studio, you'll want to look for something vastly more capable. But for anyone who just needs to record, cut, manipulate and export, it's a killer.

Paid-for version: Internet Explorer
Open-source alternative: Mozilla Firefox

You didn't think we'd forget the 'Fox, did you? With over 400 million downloads and counting, the Firefox Web browser is more popular than even the most downloaded application of all time on SourceForge.net, eMule. It has snagged almost 15 per cent of the global browser market as of October 2007, translating to roughly 110 million global users.

The good: Firefox is commonly referred to as the most secure Web browser available. With a massive team of worldwide developers and contributors, holes and bugs can be patched and pushed out with extraordinary speed. Thousands of extensions are available, too, which are simple ways to add functionality to the browser. Tabbed browsing lets you have multiple Web sites open within a single browser window without cluttering the Windows taskbar. There's also an integrated download manager, RSS management and an integrated search bar for hundreds of Web sites.

The bad: Firefox can sometimes devour a system's RAM, though this is reportedly the result of certain extensions and plugins. It can also take a few seconds longer to load a page than Opera or Internet Explorer.

Conclusion: There is no reason not to use Firefox. It is the best, most configurable browser available. If you're used to Internet Explorer, you'll find the switch to Firefox painless. It looks similar and offers the same 'back, forward, stop, refresh' functionality, but offers as many extra features as you care to get hold of. If you're not using it, you're missing out.
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,3...294100,00.htm#





Why is the iPlayer a Multi Million Pound Disaster?
Chris Williams

Beeb Week The story of the BBC's iPlayer is of a multi-million pound failure that took years to complete, and was designed for a world that never arrived. More was spent on the project than many Silicon Valley startups ever burn through, but only now can we begin to piece together how this disaster unfolded.

When the iPlayer was commissioned in 2003, it was just one baffling part of an ambitious £130m effort to digitise the Corporation's broadcasting and archive infrastructure. It's an often lamented fact that the BBC wiped hundreds of 1960s episodes of its era-defining music show Top of the Pops, including early Beatles performances, and many other popular programmes.

The scope of the restructure was welcomed: it would be hard for anyone who values the BBC's place in society to argue against preserving and making available the huge investment in quality programming by licence fee payers over the last 50 years.

The iPlayer was envisaged as the flagship internet "delivery platform". It would dole out this national treasure to us in a controlled manner, it was promised, and fire a revolution in how Big TV works online.

For better or worse it's finally set to be delivered with accompanying marketing blitz this Christmas - more than four years after it was first announced.
Babylonian

When the BBC embarked on its first concerted effort at delivering internet video - the service was called iMP - it included both download and streaming options. Fast-forward two years to 2005, and iMP has been rebranded iPlayer, and streaming had been inexplicably binned and several million pounds burned.

One experienced web developer, who wishes to remain anonymous, described the project to us at the height of its Babylonian excess. He painted a picture of mismanagement and spiralling costs.

"The disorganisation was incredible. It was clear to me that the management had lost track of where they wanted [iPlayer] to go," he told us.

"I can honestly say it was the biggest mess I've ever worked on. There were individual executives within the BBC who ran their part of the project as a personal fiefdom, yet wanted involvement in all outside decisions."

He left the huge iPlayer team as soon as his freelancer's contract allowed.

Another source explained how every content department affected demanded a say in the direction of the iPlayer, including meetings deciding low-level technical decisions. The project encompassed over 400 staff at its height.

"It was worse than Boo.com," said one source.

Senior technical staff at the BBC tell The Reg that today the iPlayer is better managed, and less bureaucratic, following a big reorganisation (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/18/iplayer_rose/) and injection of new blood over this summer. The download iPlayer remains as a festering reminder of years of bloat, however.

Clunky

According to new-media boss Ashley Highfield, spending on the iPlayer has now hit £4.5m. Meanwhile, a variety of streaming products are making the running in internet TV. They're more widely used, interoperable, and support more "platforms" - particularly mobile devices such as phones and iPods.

Today, YouTube, Joost and BT Vision deliver video on demand to millions using streaming and P2P techniques that are evolving rapidly. For a large proportion of the web viewing public even YouTube's poor quality video is good enough.

The iPlayer now looks like an anachronism; a clunky, proprietary client in a world where content producers of the Beeb's quality should be more powerful than ever and "platform" operators are beating a path to their door.

As it turns out, the Beeb itself has proved that making shows available with streaming solution would have been cheaper and quicker to develop. The Flash player catch-up service cobbled together (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10...h_adobe_cloud/) in response to Mac and Linux iPlayer interoperabilty gripes took just a few months.

Before we examine why a download "platform" was wrong, we want to make it clear we're not making a happy-clappy anti-DRM argument against the iPlayer. The BBC has unshakeable obligations to producers who spend vast sums on the expensive telly-making process.

Downloads take time and build up certain expectations. Anyone prepared to wait for a download of their favourite programme to finish before they can watch it, expects it to last longer than 30 days - or however long it takes for the DRM to disable the file.

PC users who have become accustomed to using BitTorrent as a main source of TV aren't interested in iPlayer's lower resolution encoding.

And in the real mass market, most licence-fee payers won't be enamoured to learn that the iPlayer's Kontiki P2P system is distributing programming on the BBC's behalf - via their bandwidth. For the average consumer it's been made tricky to turn off, too.

It'll leave us, the British public, with a multimillion-pound internet curio.
Special Needs

Despite the widely reported problems and mistakes made over iPlayer, the BBC has keenly stage-managed its drunken stumble into the limelight. A bizarre opinion piece by Silicon.com in July, which called for a "ceasefire" on iPlayer from Linux enthusiasts, made the claim that "so far, it seems the Corporation has managed the development well".

As we wrote (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11...field_tactics/) earlier this month, arguments over interoperability have provided a convenient diversion for the spinners from our bigger question of how to deliver BBC shows over the net. In focusing on DRM and Linux interoperability, campaigners have missed the bigger picture.

The irony of this is that the whole free software versus BBC bunfight would have been avoided if the Corporation had only been more patient. It should have concentrated on getting the content management and archives right before spending big on a consumer-facing distribution system.

Even today, the internet TV business is immature: a special needs six-year-old who still wears nappies. Yet the BBC was teased into an expensive and premature attempt to second guess the market, and technology.
Rebirth?

BBC on demand via broadband and a TV set-top box - the real reason the BBC spent £130m - is on the cards, and makes much more sense than a redundant PC desktop app. Whether it'll be branded iPlayer remains to be seen, but hopefully it'll bear little resemblance to Auntie's current digital village idiot.

Today, the the size of the team that is building the second generation iPlayer client is closer to 15 - a far cry from 400, and far more productive.

Banishing the desktop download service altogether would be even better.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11...layer_comment/





Multiple Vulnerabilities In .FLAC File Format and Various Media Applications

Release Date:
November 15, 2007

Date Reported:
September 28, 2007

Patch Development Time (In Days):
48


Severity:
High (Remote Code Execution)

Vendor:
Multiple Vendors

Systems Affected:
Applications with FLAC Support

Overview:
eEye Digital Security has discovered 14 vulnerabilities in the processing of FLAC (Free-Lossless Audio Codec) files affecting various applications. Processing a malicious FLAC file within a vulnerable application could result in the execution of arbitrary code at the privileges of the application or the current user (depending on OS).

Technical Details:
The vulnerabilities in the .FLAC format are due to improperly handling metadata values from malformed files. The file format is available here: http://flac.sourceforge.net/format.html.

Vulnerability #1: Metadata Block Size Heap Overflow
The first notable vulnerability is the Metadata Block Size Overflow vulnerability. Editing any Metadata Block Size value to a large value such as 0xFFFFFFFF may result in a heap based overflow in the decoding software.
Whenever vulnerable software open or process a malformed FLAC file, they use the size fields for reference points to allocate memory (malloc) and write the contents of these files into those memory buffers. Setting these values to an overly large value, such as 0xFFFFFFFF, could cause an exploitable condition. Passing a size of 0xFFFFFFFF would cause a malloc(0) immediately followed by a buffer overflow on the read. This results in an exploitable heap overflow. Exploitation is dependent on the data allocation location, heap structure and error handlers of the affected software. After overwriting a large amount of memory and pointers with arbitrary data, code execution could then be redirected to the attacker’s payload located inside the FLAC file.

Vulnerability #2: VORBIS Comment String Size Field Heap Overflow
The second vulnerability lies within the parsing of any VORBIS Comment String Size fields. Settings this fields to an overly large size, such as 0xFFFFFFF, could also result in another heap-based overflow allowing arbitrary code to execute in the content of the decoding program. Similar to the Metadata Block Size Overflow vulnerability above, exploitation depends on data allocation location, heap structure and error handlers of the affected application. Exploitation would be achieved by overwriting pointers in memory with arbitrary values stored inside the FLAC file or hard coded addresses in DLL files that directing code execution toward the attacker’s payload.

Vulnerability #3: VORBIS Comment String Size Length Stack Overflow
This is due to predetermined buffer sizes in applications when handling data in the VORBIS Comment Metadata block. By inserting an overly long VORBIS Comment data string along with an large VORBIS Comment data string size value (such as 0x000061A8 followed by 25,050 A's), applications that do not properly apply boundary checks will result in a stack-based buffer overflow. This is due to most applications reading data until they encounter a NULL byte.

Vulnerability #4: Picture MIME-Type Size Heap Overflow
The Picture Metadata block allows the insertion of a MIME-Type for the embedded album art in a FLAC file. This field is vulnerable to a heap-based overflow when applications that support FLAC album art attempt to process an overly large MIME-TYPE Size field. Again arbitrary code execution depends on the location of the overwritten memory, the vulnerable programs exception handling, structure of the heap at the time of the overflow, and the ability to process Picture Data within FLAC files.

Vulnerability #5: Picture MIME-Type Stack Overflow
By using the same technique as the VORBIS Comment String Stack Overflow, by setting a large size value at roughly 5000 bytes (depending on the vulnerable application) and a large string value for the Picture MIME-Type a stack-based overflow can be reached. Exploitation depends on bounds-checking within the application in conjunction with the ability to process Picture Data within FLAC files.

Vulnerability #6: Picture Dimension Size Heap Overflow
By modifying the width and height values in the PICTURE Metadata block, a heap-based overflow could be achieved. When a vulnerable application that supports FLAC images attempts to render the excessively large image, the application allocates memory based on the dimension fields, which could be used to overwrite memory values and pointers with arbitrary values that could lead to code execution.

Vulnerability #7: Picture Description Size Heap Overflow
Overly large Description Size values such as 0xFFFFFFFF can lead to a heap based memory corruption and execute arbitrary code on vulnerable applications that support the Picture Metadata block. Successful exploitation depends on the location of the overwritten memory, the vulnerable programs exception handling, and structure of the heap at the time of the overflow.

Vulnerability #8: Picture Description Length Stack Overflow
Similar to the VORBIS Comment String Length Stack Overflow, this would be conducted in the same manner, by entering both an overly large Description Size value in conjunction with an excessively large Description String value. This could also lead to a stack based buffer overflow with the potential to overwrite any exception handlers depending on the vulnerable application.

Vulnerability #9: Picture Data Length Heap Overflow
By modifying the Picture Data Length field to an excessively large value, such as 0xFFFFFFFF, a heap based overflow can be achieved. When a vulnerable application that supports Picture Metadata blocks processes an album art image, it uses this field to determine the size in bytes of the embedded image file. This memory is allocated without bounds checking and could be used to overwrite memory and pointers with arbitrary values from inside the FLAC file.

Vulnerability #10: Picture URL Stack Overflow
Whenever a FLAC file’s MIME-Type is set to "-->" this is a flag to indicate that the value for Data is not actually the contents of an image file but a URL to where the image file is located. By setting this value to an overly large string value, applications with FLAC image support could be vulnerable to a stack based buffer overflow that could allow arbitrary code execution.

Vulnerability #11: Malformed Image/File Download Vulnerability
Using the "-->" MIME-Type flag to signal a URL for a FLAC image file could allow the possibility of arbitrary file downloads if the application does not verify the file-type prior to downloading the file. This could also be combined with GDI+ or other picture rendering vulnerabilities to allow code execution depending on the application. This could also be applied to image files inserted into the FLAC file. Alternatively, this might be a vector to store malicious data, such as an attacker's payload. This could then be combined with another vulnerability to allow a more reliable exploit especially if the data retrieved by the vulnerable application is stored in a reliable memory address.

Vulnerability #12: Padding Length Heap Overflow
An overly large Padding length field value would set the basis for another heap overflow inside a vulnerable application. By setting this value to a large value such as 0xFFFFFFFF, a malformed FLAC file could cause a heap based corruption scenario when the memory for the Padding length is calculated without proper bounds checks.

Vulnerability #13: Seektable Out-Of-Scope Double Free Condition
By modifying the Seektable values with invalid data point references inside a malformed FLAC file, a Double Free (deallocation of a pointer not malloc'd) condition could be initiated. Furthermore the location of the freed pointer could be controlled by arbitrary values hosted inside the FLAC file. This could lead to an exploitable condition that could allow arbitrary code execution under the right circumstances.

Vulnerability #14: Malformed Seektable Double Free Condition
Setting multiple Seektable Data Offsets to large values such as 0x41414141 and then setting Seektable Points to cross reference each other can lead to multiple Double Free conditions (up to 12 in our tests) particularly on Mac OS. This is ideally achieved using multiple FLAC files with multiple malformed seektables. These conditions are not trivial to exploit but could lead to arbitrary code execution particularly since the deallocated pointers can be controlled by values from within the file, similar to the above condition.

Protection:
Retina Network Security Scanner has been updated to identify this vulnerability.
Blink Endpoint Vulnerability Prevention preemptively protects from this vulnerability.

Vendor Status:
libFLAC version 1.2.1 was released in September, 2007, fixing these vulnerabilities for most vulnerable applications. Unfortunately, many vendors that were using libFLAC within their media applications or using their own homegrown FLAC file parsers had not been informed that their FLAC file parser was vulnerable. Because of that, the release of this advisory was postponed until all vulnerable vendors were contacted in coordination with US-CERT.

Credit:
Greg Linares

Related Links:
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/544656

http://research.eeye.com/html/adviso...D20071115.html





USB 3.0 -- 10 Times Faster -- In the Works for 2009
Christopher Null

USB, that little rectangular plug that can be found on just about every computer peripheral cable you come across, is one of the biggest success stories in the history of computing. Ditching the slow serial and parallel cables of yore and replacing them with a fast, universal standard that could draw power and allowed connecting of dozens of peripherals without rebooting... well, it was genius. When USB 2.0 arrived, with much faster performance, it got even better. It's not hyperbole to say that USB, despite its humble status as a mere connector, is one of the most important computer technologies to ever be invented.

Well, USB fans, things are going to get even more interesting and soon. USB 2.0 may be fast enough right now, but with more high-definition video products arriving and bigger and bigger files being transferred, that won't be the case forever. Enter USB 3.0, which moves the bandwidth needle from 480Mbps to roughly 4.8Gbps, 10 times faster than the current version.

The new standard, which was recently demonstrated using a new optical cable (but the same connector), will be backward compatible with older USB formats and promises better power efficiency, too, in order to decrease the load on portable devices. Possibly in the works: Better ability to charge devices over USB, some of which still require an A/C adapter or two USB connections to draw enough juice.

Specs are planned to be delivered early next year with commercial availability for 2009. Just do us a favor and clearly label USB 3.0 products with an appropriate logo this time! (USB 2.0 got caught up in a mini scandal when vendors started labeling USB 1.1 products as "USB 2.0 capable," with vendors later claiming they only meant the products worked with USB 2.0 connections. Fail!)
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/58765





Lahore Universitys ‘Poor Man’s Broadband’ to Allow Faster Downloads

London, November 20 (ANI): Students at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) are gearing up to test a new system called “poor man’s broadband” (PMB), which may allow faster download of big files without having to depend on the Internet.

The new system enables computers to link to each other directly for faster downloads, and it continues working as long as at least one computer running the software has already downloaded the desired file from the internet.

It is believed that the system will reduce the universitys risk of overloading the bandwidth supplied by its Internet service providers.

According to New Scientist magazine, PMB is a mixture of peer-to-peer (P2P) software, touted as the Internet’s future, and pre-internet techniques, whereby users dial other computers directly to exchange files.
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/...e_1005811.html





SyncTV: a New Video Download Concept, Just Add Content
Brad Linder

Pioneer spinoff SyncTV launches in private beta today. The service is hardly the first, or even the 30th company trying to get into the video download game. But there are a few things that set SyncTV apart from competitors like Amazon, Apple, and NBC.

First up, although SyncTV uses DRM, the system is pretty flexible. It works with Mac, Linux, and PCs. You can specify up to 5 computers for playing back videos. And once compatible portable media players are released, you'll be able to watch videos on up to 10 different devices.

The service uses a subscription model. Engadget reports you'll pay about $2 to $4 per channel of content you want to subscribe to. A limited number of channels will make their content available on a pay per download basis. But generally, once you shell out the monthly fee, you can download as many episodes as you'd like, even entire seasons of TV programs.

The biggest problem with the service is the same that faces every new startup in this space: a lack of content. The only big name that appears to be attached to SyncTV right now is Showtime. And while we love us some Dexter, it'd be nice to have a bit more variety. Because honestly, we don't feel like signing up with 12 different services just to download the handful of TV shows we're willing to pay to watch.
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/11...t-add-content/





Microsoft Struggling to Convince About Vista

Another survey highlights business concern about migration
Denise Dubie

The majority of IT professionals worry that migrating to Windows Vista will make their networks less stable and more complex, according to a new survey.

Ninety percent of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than half said they have no plans to deploy Vista.

"The concerns about Vista specified by participants were overwhelmingly related to stability. Stability in general was frequently cited, as well as compatibility with the business software that would need to run on Vista," said Diane Hagglund of King Research, which conducted the survey for systems management vendor Kace. "Cost was also cited as a concern by some respondents."

The survey, echoing one from Forrester last week, shows most IT professionals are worried about Vista and that 44% have considered non-Windows operating systems, such as Linux and Macintosh, to avoid the Microsoft migration.

"Clearly many companies are serious about this alternative, with 9% of those saying they have considered non-Windows operating systems already in the process of switching and a further 25% expecting to switch within the next year," the report "Windows Vista Adoption and Alternatives" reads.

Macintosh leads the pack of Vista alternatives, with support from 28% of respondents. About a quarter said they would opt for Red Hat Linux, with SUSE Linux and Ubuntu each garnering 18% of the vote. Another 9% cited other Linux operating systems and 4% were unsure.

IT professionals also said that virtualisation is one of the technologies making a move away from Microsoft possible. About two-thirds reported that the use of virtualisation has made it easier to implement an alternative.

Yet heterogeneous systems management could be a barrier to going with a provider other than Microsoft, the survey found. Respondents reported that challenges include the need to manage multiple operating systems (49%) and the need to learn a different set of management tools (50%). Sixty percent manage their Windows systems with tools that don't support non-Windows environments.

"Almost half of all participants (45%) cited challenges with system management in non-Windows operating systems as preventing them from adopting" alternatives, the report states.
http://computerworlduk.com/managemen...fm?newsid=6258





Plumber’s Progress
Seth Schiesel

Mario, the goofy, fat Italian plumber, is by far the most famous character in video games and perhaps one of the world’s most-recognized fictional characters in any medium. Think back, if you can, to 1981 and Donkey Kong. Mario was there.

After selling almost 200 million games over more than two decades and generating untold billions in revenue for Nintendo of Japan, Mario is back. Super Mario Galaxy, released this month for Nintendo’s Wii console, is the first major new Mario game in five years and is certain to end up one of the best-selling games of 2007.

But wait, there’s more! In a collaboration akin to an unthinkable Mick Jagger team-up with Paul McCartney, Mario shares top billing with his longtime rival Sonic the Hedgehog in a separate new game, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, that is a droplet in what will surely become a torrent of marketing for the Beijing Olympics next summer.

There are plenty of games for serious gamers, but Mario has always starred in games for everyone. So to test whether Mario could still appeal to an overeducated, media-saturated audience, I assembled a panel of nongaming yuppies in their 30s at my house last weekend, put the Wii controls in their hands and sat back to check the reaction.

Judging by the hours of giggles, chortles and downright guffaws, especially from two women who hadn’t played a video game in many years, Mario still has the goods: the madcap visual humor, the cheesy yet oddly compelling musical score and that incessant tug to play just five more minutes.

Watching the scene took me straight back to 1985 and a pizza parlor where my friends and I would set up shop on Saturday afternoons to play the arcade version of the original Super Mario Bros., one of the most influential and successful games of all time. Mario made his debut as the protagonist in Donkey Kong, but the fluidity and addictiveness of Super Mario Bros. made it a revelation. “The only way to really put it is that Mario is the Man,” Andy McNamara, editor in chief of Game Informer, the No. 1 game magazine, said by telephone this week. “He’s definitely like the Steamboat Willie of the video-game industry. Back in 1985 everyone thought the video-game industry was dead, and when Super Mario Bros. came out, it revitalized the whole thing. Mario is really in some ways the quintessential game experience, in that you get to have fun and explore places you would not normally visit, with all these crazy mixed-up worlds and the magic mushrooms and crazy stars. Also, every Mario game gets fairly challenging in the end, but anyone of pretty much any age can just sit down and start playing.”

Judging by the reaction in my living room and elsewhere around the world, Super Mario Galaxy is more than a worthy successor to the franchise’s considerable legacy of smiles. It is being widely hailed as the best game yet for the Wii and is drawing plaudits like this, from Hardcore Gamer magazine: “What I’ve been experiencing since first putting this game in my Wii is the culmination of several lifetimes of game design mastery by its creators.”

Like dancing or physical intimacy, a great game can truly be understood only through experience, not words. When reduced to a mere description — “Pass around small bits of laminated card stock in place of money” (poker), or “Roll imprinted cubes and buy fictional properties” (Monopoly) — even the most captivating games can seem impossibly boring.

Likewise, Super Mario Galaxy is really just about jumping, spinning and flying as you try to save the de rigueur kidnapped princess. There’s no rational reason that hopping around giant mushrooms on a purple planet in space should be so much fun, but it is. The best video games, like Mario, Ms. Pac-Man and Space Invaders, have the ability to make the absurd irresistibly seductive. When you do it, it makes all the sense in the world.

Super Mario is generally a single-player game, but in a nice innovation, a second player can jump in and use a Wii remote to control a separate cursor on the screen that can stun enemies, pick up treasure and otherwise assist the main user controlling Mario. The game’s whole feel is so finely tuned, so infectiously enjoyable, that it’s understandable why Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario’s creator, has been one of the most famous game designers in the world for decades. (Nintendo’s Japanese operation is almost as well known for its reticence as it is for its creative talents; more than a week of intercontinental negotiations failed to secure any comment from Mr. Miyamoto.)

Mr. Miyamoto’s stature in the game world is so grand that Simon Jeffery, president of Sega of America, resorted to a religious analogy in describing how his company collaborated with Nintendo in making the Mario and Sonic Olympics game.

Asked recently if Mr. Miyamoto had set up a satellite office at Sega headquarters, Mr. Jeffrey laughed and shook his head. “No, no, Muhammad doesn’t go to the mountain,” he said. “The mountain goes to Muhammad. We would bring versions of the game to him for him to consult on.”

My panel of nonexperts had a lot of fun with the game’s Olympic “events” (up to four can play at one time), especially the trampoline, but that game still is not receiving the praise being lavished on Super Mario Galaxy. As a reviewer on Yahoo put it: “Super Mario Galaxy is a reminder that games don’t have to be ultraviolent, make clever social statements or ride the marketing machine to succeed. They simply have to be fun, and you’d be hard pressed to find one as genuinely enjoyable as Mario’s latest.”

Super Mario Galaxy for Nintendo’s Wii, $49.99, rated E for Everyone. Mario & Sonic at the Olympics for Wii, Sega of America, $49.99, rated E for Everyone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/ar...ic/23mari.html





Senators Urge Tougher Rating for "Manhunt" Game

A bipartisan group of lawmakers including a Democratic presidential hopeful is calling on the makers of video games to review the industry's ratings system.

In letter to the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the lawmakers complained about its decision to give an "mature" rating Rockstar's "Manhunt 2" game.

Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., said the game's violent content, which includes "many graphic torture scenes and murders," should have garnered an "adults only" rating.

Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president, has long pressed for tougher ratings and has called for a unified ratings system for movies, games and TV shows.

"We ask your consideration of whether it is time to review the robustness, reliability and repeatability of your ratings process, particularly for this genre of 'ultraviolent' video games and the advances in game controllers," the senators wrote. "We have consistently urged parents to pay attention to the ESRB rating system. We must ensure that parents can rely on the consistency and accuracy of those ratings."

Rockstar also makes the controversial "Grand Theft Auto" series of games.
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...54151420071120





Italy Cracks Down on Gossip in Media
Eric J. Lyman

An Italian circuit court ruled Friday that reporting gossip in Italy will be illegal unless it helps make a larger point about the figure in question.

The case is part of a wider effort to improve standards on Italian television. State broadcaster RAI said this year that it would stop airing reality programming when current contracts run out, and the company also announced plans to remove advertising from one of its three networks by the end of 2009 in order to allow it to broadcast more cultural programs without consideration for economic factors.

Upon announcing the ruling, the Rome court said it would "remove gossip that exists only for gossip's sake." But critics said it will have little impact on content producers adept at framing reporting so that it can take on an unexpected context.

The most significant aspect may be that it gives prosecutors ammunition for attacking problematic programs that are guilty of breaking only the anti-gossip rules.

"Everyone will abuse the gossip rules, but now those who do will risk being sanctioned," said one television producer quoted by news agency ANSA. "The rules cannot be enforced universally but some will have to worry about their rivals using the rules against them."

The rules apply to television, print and radio media.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...d410bb7f?imw=Y





What to Do When Goliaths Roar?
Randall Stross

AS shoppers arm themselves for post-Thanksgiving bargain hunting later this week, they’ll also indulge in another, newer annual tradition: surfing the Web for advance information about Black Friday retail sales. By organizing sale prices from scattered newspaper circulars into a single database, the Internet has made it easy to search for particular items and compare prices — too easy, at least in the eyes of many major retailers.

For the last several years, Wal-Mart Stores and other large chains have threatened legal action to intimidate Web sites that get hold of advertising circulars early and publish prices online ahead of company-set release dates. The retailers’ threats rest upon some dubious legal arguments, however, which may be the reason they haven’t shown a keen interest in actually going to court over the issue.

Wal-Mart has been among the most aggressive retailers in trying to cow consumer Web sites. Last month, it sent a cease-and-desist letter to BFAds.net, a site devoted to publishing Black Friday ads. Wal-Mart sent the letter even before BFAds had published Wal-Mart’s sale prices, so the cease-and-desist letter would be more properly called a “don’t even think about it” letter.

Wal-Mart asserts that its sales-price data are “protected by copyright and other laws.” The “other laws” were never identified or explained in the letter, and the claim of copyright protection for facts themselves, like sales prices, that exist separately from their original expression was rejected by the courts long ago. In a 1991 case, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that names and phone numbers in a telephone directory could not be copyrighted and thus could be freely copied.

BFAds operates two months a year, as a sideline for a 20-year-old college student, Michael Brim, and his business partner, Dan Silvers, also a college student. The Wal-Mart letter posed a quandary for Mr. Brim. Should he assert his rights as a publisher who believed he had broken no laws? Or should he acknowledge that Wal-Mart (with revenue last year of $349 billion) and its law firm of Baker Hostetler (600 partner attorneys) had the resources to litigate him out of existence?

Mr. Brim chose the latter. He announced on his site that he had no other choice but to heed Wal-Mart’s letter. When Macy’s sent a similar letter, he gave ground again, under protest. BFAds did not post sale prices early for Wal-Mart and Macy’s this year.
Wendy Seltzer, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, said she believes that companies like Wal-Mart dispatch the letters without intending to pursue the matter in court, where their claims would be put to a test before a judge. “It’s cheap to send out lots of letters,” she said. “If many sites take the material down, that’s good bang for the buck.”

Ms. Seltzer oversees the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, a Web site that publicizes what it calls corporate misuse of cease-and-desist letters to curb legally protected speech on the Internet. The clearinghouse, sponsored by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the clinics of seven law schools, posts copies of cease-and-desist letters that Wal-Mart, Macy’s and others send to Web publishers. One aim of the project is to publicly shame companies that casually dash off the letters.

Wal-Mart defends its practice. “All retailers are harmed in the same way when this information is leaked — it tips off competitors,” said John Simley, a Wal-Mart spokesman.

But he also said he was unaware of any time when Wal-Mart had taken a Web site to court for divulging Black Friday sale prices prematurely. I was curious to learn what criminal statutes Wal-Mart referred to when it alerted BFAds’s principals in its letter about the possibility that they may have engaged in “criminal activity.” Mr. Simley declined to be specific, other than to say that “there are laws to protect advertisers.” Baker Hostetler didn’t respond to my requests for a similar tutorial.

If early disclosure was indeed a grave concern of everyone in retailing, why has Best Buy come around to the idea that Black Friday sales sites, above all else, offer an opportunity for free advertising, whetting appetites with a sneak preview of what will be officially announced? At present, Best Buy’s only concern is that inaccurate information may circulate on the sites, so it encourages customers to verify prices on its own site before going to the store. Brian Lucas, a Best Buy spokesman, said, “We don’t want people to wait in a line all night for a deal that doesn’t exist.”

Best Buy’s stance has changed considerably since 2002, when, like other retailers, it sent threatening letters to Web site publishers. In 2003, it did the same — and one site, FatWallet.com, struck back with a lawsuit asking a judge to declare that sale prices cannot be copyrighted. The case was dismissed on a technicality, but Fat Wallet is now happy to dare retailers to give it a chance to go to court again. Tim Storm, FatWallet’s founder and chief executive, said his company tells any retailer who makes threats, “Are you guys sure you really want to do this?” To date, he says, no company has answered yes.

TWO years ago, the young entrepreneurs at BFAds tried a linguistic ploy to avoid legal difficulties when companies complained about posting of sales data. As soon as Office Depot, for example, dispatched a cease-and-desist letter, its name was removed from BFAds’s site. But visitors could still look for sale prices from a company BFAds had renamed “Office Despot.”

Office Depot was not amused. It sued Mr. Brim and sought a temporary restraining order. The court turned down the request, and the company withdrew the suit 14 months later, before a trial could take place.

Shoppers clearly appreciate the convenience of looking at sale prices online. Last November, BFAds served up 55 million page views, and this year, traffic has increased by a multiple of three. Wal-Mart, unwilling to forgo a chance to engage those prospective customers, maintains an “affiliate” relationship with the site, paying a commission to BFAds for linking to Wal-Mart’s site.

Yes, Wal-Mart welcomes referrals from BFAds, where visitors come for nothing other than the earliest possible word of sale price information. Wal-Mart’s lawyers, meanwhile, are ordering BFAds to keep Wal-Mart’s own sales prices hidden. “They want the best of both worlds,” Mr. Brim said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/te...gy/18digi.html





The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos
Dan Ackerman Greenberg

This guest post was written by Dan Ackerman Greenberg, co-founder of viral video marketing company The Comotion Group and lead TA for the Stanford Facebook Class. Dan will graduate from the Stanford Management Science & Engineering Masters program in June.

Have you ever watched a video with 100,000 views on YouTube and thought to yourself: “How the hell did that video get so many views?” Chances are pretty good that this didn’t happen naturally, but rather that some company worked hard to make it happen – some company like mine.

When most people talk about “viral videos,” they’re usually referring to videos like Miss Teen South Carolina, Smirnoff’s Tea Partay music video, the Sony Bravia ads, Soulja Boy - videos that have traveled all around the internet and been posted on YouTube, MySpace, Google Video, Facebook, Digg, blogs, etc. - videos with millions and millions of views.

Over the past year, I have run clandestine marketing campaigns meant to ensure that promotional videos become truly viral, as these examples have become in the extreme. In this post, I will share some of the techniques I use to do my job: to get at least 100,000 people to watch my clients’ “viral” videos.

Secret #1: Not all viral videos are what they seem

There are tens of thousands of videos uploaded to YouTube each day (I’ve heard estimates between 10-65,000 videos per day). I don’t care how “viral” you think your video is; no one is going to find it and no one is going to watch it.

The members of my startup are hired guns – our clients give us videos and we make them go viral. Our rule of thumb is that if we don’t get a video 100,000 views, we don’t charge.

So far, we’ve worked on 80-90 videos and we’ve seen overwhelming success. In the past 3 months, we’ve achieved over 20 million views for our clients, with videos ranging from 100,000 views to upwards of 1.5 million views each. In other words, not all videos go viral organically – there is a method to the madness.

I can’t reveal our clients’ names and I can’t link to the videos we’ve worked on, because YouTube surely doesn’t like what we’re doing and our clients hate to admit that they need professional help with their “viral” videos. But I can give you a general idea of who we’ve worked with: two top Hollywood movie studios, a major record label, a variety of very well known consumer brands, and a number of different startups, both domestic and international.

This summer, we were approached by a Hollywood movie studio and asked to help market a series of viral clips they had created in advance of a blockbuster. The videos were 10-20 seconds each, were shot from what appeared to be a camera phone, and captured a series of unexpected and shocking events that required professional post-production and CGI. Needless to say, the studio had invested a significant amount of money in creating the videos but every time they put them online, they couldn’t get more than a few thousand views.

We took six videos and achieved:

• 6 million views on YouTube
• ~30,000 ratings
• ~10,000 favorites
• ~10,000 comments
• 200+ blog posts linking back to the videos
• All six videos made it into the top 5 Most Viewed of the Day, and the two that went truly viral (1.5 million views each) were #1 and #2 Most Viewed of the Week.

The following principles were the secrets to our success.

2. Content is NOT King

If you want a truly viral video that will get millions of people to watch and share it, then yes, content is key. But good content is not necessary to get 100,000 views if you follow these strategies.

Don’t get me wrong: the content is what will drive visitors back to a site. So a video must have a decent concept, but one shouldn’t agonize over determining the best “viral” video possible. Generally, a concept should not be forced because it fits a brand. Rather, a brand should be fit into a great concept. Here are some guidelines we follow:

• Make it short: 15-30 seconds is ideal; break down long stories into bite-sized clips
• Design for remixing: create a video that is simple enough to be remixed over and over again by others. Ex: “Dramatic Hamster”
• Don’t make an outright ad: if a video feels like an ad, viewers won’t share it unless it’s really amazing. Ex: Sony Bravia
• Make it shocking: give a viewer no choice but to investigate further. Ex: “UFO Haiti”
• Use fake headlines: make the viewer say, “Holy shit, did that actually happen?!” Ex: “Stolen Nascar”
• Appeal to sex: if all else fails, hire the most attractive women available to be in the video. Ex: “Yoga 4 Dudes”

These recent videos would have been perfect had they been viral “ads” pointing people back to websites:

• Model Falls in Hole on Runway
• Cheerleader Gets Run Over By Football Team
• PacMan: The Chase
• Dude
• Dog Drives Car
• Snowball – Dancing Cockatoo

3. Core Strategy: Getting onto the “Most Viewed” page

Now that a video is ready to go, how the hell is it going to attract 100,000 viewers?

The core concept of video marketing on YouTube is to harness the power of the site’s traffic. Here’s the idea: something like 80 million videos are watched each day on YouTube, and a significant number of those views come from people clicking the “Videos” tab at the top. The goal is to get a video on that Videos page, which lists the Daily Most Viewed videos.

If we succeed, the video will no longer be a single needle in the haystack of 10,000 new videos per day. It will be one of the twenty videos on the Most Viewed page, which means that we can grab 1/20th of the clicks on that page! And the higher up on the page our video is, the more views we are going to get.

So how do we get the first 50,000 views we need to get our videos onto the Most Viewed list?

• Blogs: We reach out to individuals who run relevant blogs and actually pay them to post our embedded videos. Sounds a little bit like cheating/PayPerPost, but it’s effective and it’s not against any rules.
• Forums: We start new threads and embed our videos. Sometimes, this means kickstarting the conversations by setting up multiple accounts on each forum and posting back and forth between a few different users. Yes, it’s tedious and time-consuming, but if we get enough people working on it, it can have a tremendous effect.
• MySpace: Plenty of users allow you to embed YouTube videos right in the comments section of their MySpace pages. We take advantage of this.
• Facebook: Share, share, share. We’ve taken Dave McClure’s advice and built a sizeable presence on Facebook, so sharing a video with our entire friends list can have a real impact. Other ideas include creating an event that announces the video launch and inviting friends, writing a note and tagging friends, or posting the video on Facebook Video with a link back to the original YouTube video.
• Email lists: Send the video to an email list. Depending on the size of the list (and the recipients’ willingness to receive links to YouTube videos), this can be a very effective strategy.
• Friends: Make sure everyone we know watches the video and try to get them to email it out to their friends, or at least share it on Facebook.

Each video has a shelf life of 48 hours before it’s moved from the Daily Most Viewed list to the Weekly Most Viewed list, so it’s important that this happens quickly. As I mentioned before, when done right, this is a tremendously successful strategy.

4. Title Optimization

Once a video is on the Most Viewed page, what can be done to maximize views?

It seems obvious, but people see hundreds of videos on YouTube, and the title and thumbnail are an easy way for video publishers to actively persuade someone to click on a video. Titles can be changed a limitless number of times, so we sometimes have a catchy (and somewhat misleading) title for the first few days, then later switch to something more relevant to the brand. Recently, I’ve noticed a trend towards titling videos with the phrases “exclusive,” “behind the scenes,” and “leaked video.”

5. Thumbnail Optimization

If a video is sitting on the Most Viewed page with nineteen other videos, a compelling video thumbnail is the single best strategy to maximize the number of clicks the video gets.

YouTube provides three choices for a video’s thumbnail, one of which is grabbed from the exact middle of the video. As we edit our videos, we make sure that the frame at the very middle is interesting. It’s no surprise that videos with thumbnails of half naked women get hundreds of thousands of views. Not to say that this is the best strategy, but you get the idea. Two rules of thumb: the thumbnail should be clear (suggesting high video quality) and ideally it should have a face or at least a person in it.
Also, when we feel particularly creative, we optimize all three thumbnails then change the thumbnail every few hours. This is definitely an underused strategy, but it’s an interesting way to keep a video fresh once it’s on the Most Viewed list.

See the highlighted videos in the screenshot below for a good example of how a compelling title and screenshot can make all the difference once the video is on the Most Viewed page.

6. Commenting: Having a conversation with yourself

Every power user on YouTube has a number of different accounts. So do we. A great way to maximize the number of people who watch our videos is to create some sort of controversy in the comments section below the video. We get a few people in our office to log in throughout the day and post heated comments back and forth (you can definitely have a lot of fun with this). Everyone loves a good, heated discussion in the comments section - especially if the comments are related to a brand/startup.

Also, we aren’t afraid to delete comments – if someone is saying our video (or your startup) sucks, we just delete their comment. We can’t let one user’s negativity taint everyone else’s opinions.

We usually get one comment for every thousand views, since most people watching YouTube videos aren’t logged in. But a heated comment thread (done well) will engage viewers and will drive traffic back to our sites.

7. Releasing all videos simultaneously

Once people are watching a video, how do we keep them engaged and bring them back to a website?

A lot of the time our clients say: “We’ve got 5 videos and we’re going to release one every few days so that viewers look forward to each video.”

This is the wrong way to think about YouTube marketing. If we have multiple videos, we post all of them at once. If someone sees our first video and is so intrigued that they want to watch more, why would we make them wait until we post the next one? We give them everything up front. If a user wants to watch all five of our videos right now, there’s a much better chance that we’ll be able to persuade them to click through to our website. We don’t make them wait after seeing the first video, because they’re never going to see the next four.

Once our first video is done, we delete our second video then re-upload it. Now we have another 48-hour window to push it to the Most Viewed page. Rinse and repeat. Using this strategy, we give our most interested viewers the chance to fully engage with a campaign without compromising the opportunity to individually release and market each consecutive video.

8. Strategic Tagging: Leading viewers down the rabbit hole

This is one of my favorite strategies and one that I think we invented. YouTube allows you to tag your videos with keywords that make your videos show up in relevant searches. For the first week that our video is online, we don’t use keyword tags to optimize the video for searches on YouTube. Instead, we’ve discovered that you can use tags to control the videos that show up in the Related Videos box.

I like to think about it as leading viewers down the rabbit hole. The idea here is to make it as easy as possible for viewers to engage with all your content, rather than jumping away to “related” content that actually has nothing to do with your brand/startup.

So how do we strategically tag? We choose three or four unique tags and use only these tags for all of the videos we post. I’m not talking about obscure tags; I’m talking about unique tags, tags that are not used by any other YouTube videos. Done correctly, this will allow us to have full control over the videos that show up as “Related Videos.”

When views start trailing off after a few days to a week, it’s time to add some more generic tags, tags that draw out the long tail of a video as it starts to appear in search results on YouTube and Google.

9. Metrics/Tracking: How we measure effectiveness

The following is how we measure the success of our viral videos.

For one, we tweak the links put up on YouTube (whether in a YouTube channel or in a video description) by adding “?video=1” to the end of each URL. This makes it much easier to track inbound links using Google Analytics or another metrics tool.

TubeMogul and VidMetrix also track views/comments/ratings on each individual video and draw out nice graphs that can be shared with the team. Additionally, these tools follow the viral spread of a video outside of YouTube and throughout other social media sites and blogs.

Conclusion

The Wild West days of Lonely Girl and Ask A Ninja are over. You simply can’t expect to post great videos on YouTube and have them go viral on their own, even if you think you have the best videos ever. These days, achieving true virality takes serious creativity, some luck, and a lot of hard work. So, my advice: fire your PR firm and do it yourself.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/22...y-viral-videos





The Lasting Digg Effect
Ben Cook

Just about every blogger around knows how powerful hitting the front page of Digg.com can be. We’ve all heard the stories about the massive hoard of visitors swarming over a site in just a few short hours. However, few people talk about the amount of traffic a front page Digg story leaves in it’s wake. Many seo sites have written about the influx of links that often follow a popular story, but I’d always read about it as one component of an overall link building or seo campaign. I hadn’t ever heard about a site that relied solely upon one Digg story for it’s promotion and traffic. So, I decided to make one.

The Idea

About 6 months ago an idea for a great article sprang to mind after a discussion with a co-worker. Originally I had planned to publish the article as a post on one of my existing blogs, but after a bit of thought decided to wrap an entire site around the article. I jumped online, was pleasantly surprised that my first choice of domain names was available, registered said domain, installed WordPress, and quickly typed out the post. After installing a new theme and cranking out an about page, HilariousNames.com was ready to roll.

The Digg

At that time I was very active on Digg and had been on a good run of submissions becoming popular. Since the site was brand new and no one knew it existed, much less that it was my own site, I decided I’d be ok to submit my own work. Obviously this is something normally frowned upon by the Digg community but occasionally you can get away with it. This was one of those occasions. The submission took off very quickly and became popular within a matter of hours. The traffic poured in at such a frantic pace that my host thought it was a DDOS attack and shut down the site. After two hours of panicked support tickets, the site came back up and the traffic resumed. In fact my follow up post (describing my dealings with my hosting provider) very nearly went popular on Digg as well. After all was said and done, the site had seen about 20,000 visitors over the course of a few hours.

The Lasting Effects

After a couple of days the blog was shelved for a different project I was working on (this very site in fact) and I decided to just let it sit to see what would happen. I hadn’t promoted the site anywhere else other than Digg and I hadn’t done any seo work on it. The popular post did get picked up by several other social sites and the traffic over the next week or so remained fairly high for a brand new site (around 1,000 visitors a day). After that, traffic began to trail off and eventually dropped down to under 10 per day. I figured the site had probably run its course but left it up to age just in case I ever decided to come back around to it. I recently decided to check my stats for all of my sites and was surprised to see the blog is now averaging nearly 40 visitors a day! 75% of the traffic is coming from search engines with another 19% clicking over from the Digg submission. Apparently the site ranks first in Google and Yahoo for the term “hilarious names” and also appears on the first page for other searches such as “worst names”, and “worst names ever”, etc.

While 40-50 visitors a day certainly won’t raise many eyebrows, keep in mind that this is entirely the result of a single popular story on Digg. Any and all links, rankings, and traffic the site has is due to the long term effects of that single post. I mean shoot, the last update was hours after the article hit the front page. No this level of traffic won’t shut your server down or spike your Alexa rankings. But these are the results I’ve seen without doing ANYTHING else with the site. Imagine the kind of growth and popularity that could be achieved if you leveraged the initial traffic into readers.

Imagine how many more links and how much more traffic your site would receive if you were able to make it to the front page of a popular social site multiple times. Hell, imagine how much better the results would be if you simple wrote posts regularly after becoming popular. This is the lasting Digg effect, and it might just be more powerful than the tsunami of traffic Digg is famous for.
http://bloggingexperiment.com/archiv...igg-effect.php





In Korea, a Boot Camp Cure for Web Obsession
Martin Fackler

MOKCHEON, South Korea — The compound — part boot camp, part rehab center — resembles programs around the world for troubled youths. Drill instructors drive young men through military-style obstacle courses, counselors lead group sessions, and there are even therapeutic workshops on pottery and drumming.

But these young people are not battling alcohol or drugs. Rather, they have severe cases of what many in this country believe is a new and potentially deadly addiction: cyberspace.

They come here, to the Jump Up Internet Rescue School, the first camp of its kind in South Korea and possibly the world, to be cured.

South Korea boasts of being the most wired nation on earth. In fact, perhaps no other country has so fully embraced the Internet. Ninety percent of homes connect to cheap, high-speed broadband, online gaming is a professional sport, and social life for the young revolves around the “PC bang,” dim Internet parlors that sit on practically every street corner.

But such ready access to the Web has come at a price as legions of obsessed users find that they cannot tear themselves away from their computer screens.

Compulsive Internet use has been identified as a mental health issue in other countries, including the United States. However, it may be a particularly acute problem in South Korea because of the country’s nearly universal Internet access.

It has become a national issue here in recent years, as users started dropping dead from exhaustion after playing online games for days on end. A growing number of students have skipped school to stay online, shockingly self-destructive behavior in this intensely competitive society.

Up to 30 percent of South Koreans under 18, or about 2.4 million people, are at risk of Internet addiction, said Ahn Dong-hyun, a child psychiatrist at Hanyang University in Seoul who just completed a three-year government-financed survey of the problem.

They spend at least two hours a day online, usually playing games or chatting. Of those, up to a quarter million probably show signs of actual addiction, like an inability to stop themselves from using computers, rising levels of tolerance that drive them to seek ever longer sessions online, and withdrawal symptoms like anger and craving when prevented from logging on.

To address the problem, the government has built a network of 140 Internet-addiction counseling centers, in addition to treatment programs at almost 100 hospitals and, most recently, the Internet Rescue camp, which started this summer. Researchers have developed a checklist for diagnosing the addiction and determining its severity, the K-Scale. (The K is for Korea.)

In September, South Korea held the first international symposium on Internet addiction.

“Korea has been most aggressive in embracing the Internet,” said Koh Young-sam, head of the government-run Internet Addiction Counseling Center. “Now we have to lead in dealing with its consequences.”

Though some health experts here and abroad question whether overuse of the Internet or computers in general is an addiction in the strict medical sense, many agree that obsessive computer use has become a growing problem in many countries.

Doctors in China and Taiwan have begun reporting similar disorders in their youth. In the United States, Dr. Jerald J. Block, a psychiatrist at Oregon Health and Science University, estimates that up to nine million Americans may be at risk for the disorder, which he calls pathological computer use. Only a handful of clinics in the United States specialize in treating it, he said.

“Korea is on the leading edge,” Dr. Block said. “They are ahead in defining and researching the problem, and recognize as a society that they have a major issue.”

The rescue camp, in a forested area about an hour south of Seoul, was created to treat the most severe cases. This year, the camp held its first two 12-day sessions, with 16 to 18 male participants each time. (South Korean researchers say an overwhelming majority of compulsive computer users are male.)

The camp is entirely paid for by the government, making it tuition-free. While it is too early to know whether the camp can wean youths from the Internet, it has been receiving four to five applications for each spot. To meet demand, camp administrators say they will double the number of sessions next year.

During a session, participants live at the camp, where they are denied computer use and allowed only one hour of cellphone calls a day, to prevent them from playing online games via the phone. They also follow a rigorous regimen of physical exercise and group activities, like horseback riding, aimed at building emotional connections to the real world and weakening those with the virtual one.

“It is most important to provide them experience of a lifestyle without the Internet,” said Lee Yun-hee, a counselor. “Young Koreans don’t know what this is like.”

Initially, the camp had problems with participants sneaking away to go online, even during a 10-minute break before lunch, Ms. Lee said. Now, the campers are under constant surveillance, including while asleep, and are kept busy with chores, like washing their clothes and cleaning their rooms.

One participant, Lee Chang-hoon, 15, began using the computer to pass the time while his parents were working and he was home alone. He said he quickly came to prefer the virtual world, where he seemed to enjoy more success and popularity than in the real one.

He spent 17 hours a day online, mostly looking at Japanese comics and playing a combat role-playing game called Sudden Attack. He played all night, and skipped school two or three times a week to catch up on sleep.

When his parents told him he had to go to school, he reacted violently. Desperate, his mother, Kim Soon-yeol, sent him to the camp.

“He didn’t seem to be able to control himself,” said Mrs. Kim, a hairdresser. “He used to be so passionate about his favorite subjects” at school. “Now, he gives up easily and gets even more absorbed in his games.”

Her son was reluctant at first to give up his pastime.

“I don’t have a problem,” Chang-hoon said in an interview three days after starting the camp. “Seventeen hours a day online is fine.” But later that day, he seemed to start changing his mind, if only slightly.

As a drill instructor barked orders, Chang-hoon and 17 other boys marched through a cold autumn rain to the obstacle course. Wet and shivering, Chang-hoon began climbing the first obstacle, a telephone pole with small metal rungs. At the top, he slowly stood up, legs quaking, arms outstretched for balance. Below, the other boys held a safety rope attached to a harness on his chest.

“Do you have anything to tell your mother?” the drill instructor shouted from below.

“No!” he yelled back.

“Tell your mother you love her!” ordered the instructor.

“I love you, my parents!” he replied.

“Then jump!” ordered the instructor. Chang-hoon squatted and leapt to a nearby trapeze, catching it in his hands.

“Fighting!” yelled the other boys, using the English word that in South Korea means the rough equivalent of “Don’t give up!”

After Chang-hoon descended, he said, “That was better than games!”

Was it thrilling enough to wean him from the Internet?

“I’m not thinking about games now, so maybe this will help,” he replied. “From now on, maybe I’ll just spend five hours a day online.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/te...8rehab.html?hp





Online crooks often escape prosecution

Justice Department Declines Nearly Three OF Four Cases
Ryan Blitstein

Even as online crime has mushroomed in the past few years into a multibillion-dollar problem, federal prosecution of Internet crooks nationwide has not kept pace, a Mercury News analysis shows.

In nearly three of four cases, federal prosecutors are choosing not to pursue the computer-fraud allegations that investigators bring them. And whether a case is prosecuted appears to vary widely, depending upon where the crime is committed or who the victims happen to be.

Those conclusions come from an examination of federal prosecutions, based on Justice Department data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, at Syracuse University, as well as more than two dozen interviews with federal authorities and private security consultants. Outside critics question why the Justice Department has not intensified efforts to prosecute the most dangerous cybercriminals, particularly those attacking American citizens from abroad.

"How long are you going to study the disease before you cut out the tumor?" asked Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

The Mercury News "Ghosts in the Browser" series last week documented a dramatic rise in financial cybercrime attacks in recent years, and the failure of businesses, individuals and the U.S. government to respond adequately to the threat. The new analysis identifies one more area where the government has fallen short: in aggressively pursuing criminal cases against the cybercrooks.

From 1995 through 2002, the U.S. government responded aggressively to cybercrime. Prosecutions and convictions for computer fraud, a category that includes such crimes as hacking and phishing, rose dramatically over that time. There were more than 500 percent more convictions and prosecutions in 2002 than in 1995.

In 2002, there were 239 prosecutions and 146 convictions. But even as the threat from cybercrooks became pervasive since then, the number of cases increased far more modestly. Last year, U.S. attorneys prosecuted 265 computer-fraud cases, winning 194 convictions.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said cybercrime has been a "high priority" for a decade, citing an expansion of its Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property program to 200 attorneys. Though she said TRAC's analysis may fail to identify all computer-crime cases, alternate figures the department provided show similarly slow growth in prosecutions.

The Mercury News last week reported that federal investigators have faced many problems in building cases. But the federal data collected by TRAC shows that prosecutors are declining to bring a large number of the cases, even when investigators refer them.

Last year, U.S. prosecutors nationwide declined to prosecute 74 percent of the computer-fraud cases referred to them, according to TRAC - a proportion that has remained relatively constant since 2000. By comparison, U.S. attorneys declined to prosecute 55 percent of all white-collar crime cases that investigators referred.

Where an online crime takes place has a significant bearing on whether the crook will be pursued. The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, which includes the Bay Area, boasts comparatively high rates of prosecuting cybercrime. Buoyed by cooperation from Silicon Valley companies, investigators refer more cases than any other district in the country. The U.S. attorney here brings prosecutions in more than half the cases that are referred, winning convictions in most of them.

Yet Northern California seems to be the exception, not the norm: It's one of six tech-heavy jurisdictions that accounted for more than 40 percent of computer-fraud prosecutions last year. U.S. attorneys in more than a dozen districts - including three states the FBI lists among the top 10 for online fraud victims - failed to bring a single computer fraud case in 2006, TRAC data shows.

U.S. efforts

Prosecutors slow to act, critics say

Even the Justice Department's cyberprosecution successes have been met with derision within the security community.

Azusa "phisher" Jeffrey Goodin became the first person found guilty by a jury under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, a much-ballyhooed law aimed at shutting down criminal spammers. But after Goodin was convicted in January in federal court in Los Angeles of identity theft and credit card fraud, the University of Alabama's Warner noted the prosecution came four years after the law took effect.

"Why spend so much time writing laws we never have any intention of enforcing?" asked Warner, who also serves as an adviser to the U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Alabama.

The June announcement that three "bot-herders" were arrested as a result of Operation BotRoast, a federal investigation to capture cybercriminals launching Internet attacks from remote-controlled "botnet" computers, raised similar concerns.

"They were, in my opinion, slow to the table," said Keith Schwalm, a former Secret Service agent and administration cyber official.

Complex cases

Ex-U.S. attorney cites 'a fear factor'

There are a number of reasons why more prosecutions are not brought.

The cases are complex, and require special understanding. "There's a fear factor," said Kevin Ryan, the former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, about prosecutors' reluctance to learn what they need to successfully bring charges. "It was hard for me to convince folks to go into that area."

Criminals may be difficult to track, and many are based in foreign countries where cooperation is non-existent. In July, for example, a Lithuanian court rejected the extradition of Paulius Kalpokas, a cyberfraud suspect indicted in Nashville in August 2006. Kalpokas is now scheduled to be tried in his home country.

In cyberfraud cases, unlike traditional white-collar crime, authorities often are unable to identify the suspect until very late in the investigation - at which point a promising case may come to an abrupt halt.

"Despite the fact that the criminals don't recognize borders, we do," said Mitch Dembin, the cybercrime prosecutor in California's Southern District. Some countries cooperate, but others "don't even want to work with us," he said. "That's a brick wall."

Several prosecutors cautiously point the finger as well at the lack of investigative resources and shortage of trained agents caused, in part, by Secret Service and FBI rotation policies.

"We have been unable to pursue some cases because of that," said Kathryn Warma, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington.

The issue intensified after Sept. 11, 2001, when counterterrorism sucked away prosecution resources. The Southern District of California's cybercrime unit was disbanded in 2002, with several of its members reassigned to prosecute terrorism. It wasn't until April 2005 that the U.S. attorney's office re-established the unit - this time, with a single prosecutor.

Feds' attention

Spam e-mail sent to SEC attorney

The identity of the victim also appears to play a role in whether crimes are prosecuted. Those who suffer large losses in a single event may be more likely to see their crimes prosecuted than victims of "salami attacks" built from many small, individual slices.

And some targets are inherently more likely to attract federal attention.

Darrel Uselton and his uncle Jack Uselton sent millions of spam e-mails through botnets over a two-year period, urging their victims to buy thinly traded penny stocks. When investors pushed up the stock prices by following the foolish advice, the Useltons dumped their holdings, earning about $4.6 million, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC and Texas authorities unraveled the scheme after one of the spam e-mails ended up in the inbox of an SEC attorney.

The lesson: "If you're unlucky, and you catch them on a bad day and they take it personally, then you might get caught," said Richard Clayton, security researcher at University of Cambridge.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci...nclick_check=1





'Virtual Theft' Leads to Arrest

A Dutch teenager has been arrested for allegedly stealing virtual furniture from "rooms" in Habbo Hotel, a 3D social networking website.

The 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4,000 euros (£2,840) worth of virtual furniture, bought with real money.

Five 15-year-olds have also been questioned by police, who were contacted by the website's owners.

The six teenagers are suspected of moving the stolen furniture into their own Habbo rooms.

A spokesman for Sulake, the company that operates Habbo Hotel, said: "The accused lured victims into handing over their Habbo passwords by creating fake Habbo websites.

"In Habbo, as in many other virtual worlds, scamming for other people's personal information such as user names has been problematic for quite a while.

"We have had much of this scamming going on in many countries but this is the first case where the police have taken legal action."

Habbo users can create their own characters, decorate their own rooms and play a number of games, paying with Habbo Credits, which they have to buy with real cash.

"It is a theft because the furniture is paid for with real money. But the only way to be a thief in Habbo is to get people's usernames and passwords and then log in and take the furniture.

"We got involved because of an increasing number of sites which are pretending to be Habbo. People might then try and log in and get their details stolen."

Six million people in more than 30 countries play Habbo Hotel each month.

Virtual theft is a growing issue in virtual worlds; in 2005 a Chinese gamer was stabbed to death in a row over a sword in a game.

Shanghai gamer Qiu Chengwei killed player Zhu Caoyuan when he discovered he had sold a "dragon sabre" he had been loaned.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...gy/7094764.stm





Overly-Broad Copyright Law Has Made USA a "Nation of Infringers"
Nate Anderson

How many copyright violations does an average user commit in a single day? John Tehranian, a law professor at the University of Utah, calculates in a new paper that he rings up $12.45 million in liability over the course of an average day. The gap between what the law allows and what social norms permit is so great now that "we are, technically speaking, a nation of infringers."

Tehranian's paper points out just how pervasive copyright has become in our lives. Simply checking one's e-mail and including the full text in response could be a violation of copyright. So could a tattoo on Tehranian's shoulder of Captain Caveman—and potential damages escalate when Tehranian takes off his shirt at the university pool and engages in public performance of an unauthorized copyrighted work.

Singing "Happy Birthday" at a restaurant (unauthorized public performance) and capturing the event on a video camera (unauthorized reproduction) could increase his liability, and that's to say nothing of the copyrighted artwork hanging on the wall behind the dinner table (also captured without authorization by the camera). Tehranian calculates his yearly liability at $4.5 billion.

And all of this infringement could easily be done without even engaging in "wrong" behaviors like P2P file-sharing. Tehranian wants to make clear how such copyright issues don't simply affect those operating in the grey or black zones of the law; they affect plenty of ordinary people who aren't doing anything that they consider to be illegal, immoral, or even a little bit naughty.

The "vast disparity between copyright law and copyright norms" simply highlights the need for effective copyright reform. Since the 1976 Copyright Act, when all creative works automatically gained copyright protection without the need for registration, our lives have been awash in the copyrighted materials of other people. The advent of digital technology means not only that such works are simpler to use and to share, but that content owners for the first time have a realistic shot at enforcing their maximum rights.

That has led to plenty of bad press for copyright holders, as in the case of the "terminally ill Mexican immigrant on welfare" whose case Tehranian handled when the man was sued by the RIAA for his son's alleged file-swapping. More serious than such isolated cases, though, is the fact that the law currently gives so much power (even if much of it is not used) to content owners that it risks eroding respect for the necessary and even important uses of copyright law.

What better way could there be to create a nation of constant lawbreakers than to instill in that nation a contempt for its own laws? And what better way to instill contempt than to hand out rights so broad that most Americans simply find them absurd?
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...nfringers.html





How to Win the P2P War and Stuff the Content Maffiaa

Decentralise, my son
Charlie Demerjian

THE IMPOTENT LEGAL rampage of the content mafiaa has had a lot of effect lately - people hate them, piracy is way up, and the word is out that they are no longer necessary or relevant. Their legal shenanigans are annoying, but there is a simple thing that someone can write to make them totally irrelevant.

Let's back up to what they are doing. Their lawsuits against the handicapped, aged and non-computer users have pretty much run their course. In the meantime, piracy has gone up by hundreds of times. The new legal tactics like trying to hold colleges' feet to the fire are going to have about the same effect, a lot of innocent people will suffer and the few remaining people that haven't heard will hear about Piracy: The Better Choice(TM)(R)(C).

In short, pirates couldn't ask for a better PR machine than the content mafiaa's legal team. It would be impossible to get the word out as to how easy and effective piracy is without them. The problem is that their stupidities do have an effect, it hurts my ability to find and download legal materials via P2P.

When I want to get the latest Fedora Core build or check out Vuse, I can't without something or someone causing me slowdowns or getting on someone's radar. Tracker sites are getting nailed one by one for the most dubious reasons and, in general, precedents are being set unfairly on the backs of those who can't afford to defend themselves.

There is one way to stop this litigious, greedy game of whack-a-mole, and it is the same way that P2P services themselves evolved from a single target to an unstoppable hydra. Someone needs to write a torrent tracker site construction kit (TTSCK).

Think about it: the way the mafiaa stopped Napster was by suing a central authority. They went after the database and killed it. Legal dubiousnesses aside, there was a single point of failure, and the legal vultures put a stake in it.

The result was pretty obvious, P2P protocols became disaggregated, first eDonkey/eMule, then on to BitTorrent, each became more and more decentralised and content - in this case the metadata, not the files - became redundant. Killing the messenger in this case became impossible, and the mafiaa lost by winning. The people adapted better, faster and smarter than they could be reacted to.

Torrents are now unassailable, in addition to being the method of choice for distribution for just about every major open source project out there, there are just to many nodes out there for all the lawyers in the world working 24/7 to put a dent in. The cat is out of the bag.

So the mafiaa, in its myopic rage, attacked the tracker aggregation sites one by one. These sites contain absolutely nothing illegal, if you download a .torrent file and open it in a text editor, you will see it is nothing more than a list of files and a location. Try and tell me a directory listing of files you don't have on hand is infringing on someone's copyright. If you can prove this in court, short Amazon stock because they list such things - track listings and chapter titles are just as infringing.
What effect has this attack on tracker sites had? Well, to use the example of Oink, it has been entirely negative for the mafiaa. I didn't know what Oink was, as I had never heard of it, until it was busted. I now do know the names of the two successor sites now based on news reports of what happened after Oink went to piggy heaven. Should I ever care, I now know where to go for illegal torrents. The Week in Review is edited and published by Jack Spratts. I suspect there are several million more like me who were handed a roadmap by just about every IT news site out there, along with the news that absolutely zero people using the site were busted along with the ops. Can you say own goal?

Getting back to the point of what you and I can do to distract the mafiaa while defanging them, the idea is simple: decentralise the tracker sites. Make them self-replicating, encrypted from start to finish, and multi-homed.

How do you do this? Someone needs to write a TTSCK so any idiot with the barest minimum knowledge of setting up a site can put up a tracker site node. I assume there aren't more than a few dozen tracker sites that matter, and every time one gets killed, a few more spring up. With thousands, they become impervious to attack.

If you get a cease and desist letter, legal or not, don't fight it, take the site down. Get a new ISP, and put it up again and join the swarm again. Some sites will be more popular than others, some will have no purpose other than to keep the database alive and replicated. You could even put in 'dark' nodes where there is no outside access, just a supernode that replicates the databases of torrents. Try swatting one of those under legal pretenses if there are no users downloading from it.

The TTSCK needs a few key attributes. First, it must be 100 per cent free, legal and open source. You must be able to get it for nothing, set it up for nothing, and improve on it openly. Second, it must be very easy to set up, scripted with ample help files, taking nothing more than Azareus to run. Third, to join the swarm, you must be able to do it from any point on the swarm, that is, any site should allow any other site to join with the click of a link.

On the more technical side, all traffic must be encrypted 100 per cent of the time, and must pass over ports commonly used by net protocols, HTTP, ICMP, POP, and SSH to name a few. Lets see how far the ISPs get when they try and filter HTML off the backbones, especially encrypted traffic on port 443. Also, each new node must not only connect to the node it joined from, but also at least a dozen others, preferably randomly selected.

If you want to be really snarky, writers of the TTSCK can put in a nice EULA that determines who and what is allowed to be on the network. Preclude common methods of poisoning and spying on the network. If the mafiaa does either of those things, the comedy of them arguing EULAs are invalid is worth the price paid to do it. In fact, it might be worth it to let them set a precedent that EULAs are invalid. That will send a few corporate lawyers into twitching fits, which side do they weigh in on?

In the end, what needs to be done is take the tracker aggregators out of the attack loop. The method is simple, distribute the infrastructure and make it easy to set up. This isn't rocket science, nor does it do anything other than rehash pieces of what is there already. Someone need to package it ASAP, and then the war, not just a battle, with the content mafiaa will be won.
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...re-win-p2p-war





TOR Anonymisation Network Phished, part 2

By publishing his TOR hack, Swedish researcher Dan Egerstadt recently provided users with a timely reminder that The Onion Router (TOR) anonymisation network should be enjoyed with caution. By setting up five exit-nodes, Egerstad sniffed out large amounts of e-mail access data from embassies and government agencies and published some of this data on the internet. Since a user cannot know who operates the individual exit-node through which his traffic passes,

TOR users are advised to always make use of additional encryption.

Members of the Teamfurry community got curious and took a look at the advertised configurations of a few randomly selected TOR exit-nodes. They stumbled on some extremely interesting results. There are, for example, exit-nodes which only forward unencrypted versions of certain protocols. One such node only accepts unencrypted IMAP and POP connections (TCP ports 143 and 110) and only forwards messenger connections from AIM, Yahoo IM and MSN Messenger if they are received on ports on which traffic is handled as plain text. The same procedure is applied to Telnet and VNC connections, used for remote access to systems. Further, there are systems which are only interested in specific destinations and, for example, exclusively forward HTTP packets bound for MySpace and Google. HTTPS traffic to these destinations is, however, blocked.

These peculiar configurations invite speculation as to why they are set up in this way. The Teamfurry blog declines to go so far as to impute nefarious motives to these nodes. Nevertheless, the report does raise the question of whether users should route personal data via such nodes. It is certainly generally believed that Chinese, Russian and American government agencies operate TOR exit-nodes. Large companies and illegal hacker groups are also thought to operate exit-nodes. Looking through the list of TOR exit-nodes, it is striking that the number of exit-nodes in China and the US has increased disproportionately over the last year.

Employing channel encryption may also be of little help. The Teamfurry blog reports the existence of an exit-node in Germany which apparently attempts to hitch itself into an SSL connection using a man-in-the-middle attack. A certificate forwarded via an SSL connection running through this node is returned as a fake, self-signed certificate. This generally produces an error message, but users will often ignore this. This 'phishing node' has since disappeared from the network.

Into exactly whose hands any stolen data has fallen is not known. However, Dan Egerstad last week found out what happens if you publish such data on the internet, when he received a visit from Swedish law enforcement agencies. Following a complaint, they turned his apartment upside down and interrogated him for several hours. The source of the complaint is not known, but it is thought it may have come from a foreign government agency whose e-mail details had been published by Egerstad.
http://www.heise-security.co.uk/news/99333





Going to the UK? You'll Have No Secrets

Have a spotty record? The only London Bridge you'll ever see is this one in Lake Havasu, Arizona
Stephan Wilkinson

Disabuse yourself of any notion that those nice people who wrote the Magna Carta are any more concerned about personal freedoms and privacy than are U. S. border collies. Whether it's to show us that anything we can do they can do better or simply creeping authoritarianism, the British government is putting into effect a hugely expensive plan ($2.5 billion over the next 10 years, the cost to be passed on to travelers) to collect a wide variety of data on every traveler daring to enter or leave those sceptered isles, whether by air, sea or ground (the Chunnel).

How wide? Well, everything from name, rank and serial number to your rap sheet, FBI file, automobile license plate and credit card number. And who knows, probably your FaceBook page and that New Year's-party video your neighbor posted on YouTube. Up to 53 different pieces of information, which will be recorded when you buy a ticket to or from the UK. And the Brits will keep the information for as long as they please.

Got an outstanding traffic ticket or any other court fine? Go back home or pay it. You were once arrested for peeing beer in a dark parking lot and it got turned into a sex-offense charge? Don?t even bother to pack. Involved in a messy child-support case that hasn't been settled? Stay home. Somebody has a file on you because you were thrown out of a Bush rally? Go to France instead.

Oh wait, the French might do it too.

The European Union's Justice Commissioner, one Franco Frattini, last week came up with a plan to collect and store such data on anyone flying into or out of the entire European Union, thus creating a vast no-fly list. Though as one opponent of the expense pointed out, "political activities like opposing the Iraq war lead to people getting on no-fly lists [in the U. S.]." There you go.

Granted, the offenses and penalties I listed before the jump are far-fetched, and initially, at least, the plan will only ding travelers who raise the usual border-crossing red flags -- narcotics arrests, military awols and the like -- but we're getting used to seeing the outer limits of personal freedoms and civil rights pushed, extended and ignored.

The United Kingdom plan is called Project Semaphore, and it involves the creation of an "e-border" ringing the UK -- e for electronic. The people patrolling that electric fence say that "all data that we are currently legally able to obtain when a passenger enters the UK will be collected," and that the data will be "captured prior to the passenger's arrival."

Identifying potential terrorists is a valid pursuit. But somehow, using that intent to also target every other variety of malfeasance bothers me. "Data searches have already led to the tracing of persons wanted for murder and other serious crimes," the UK's Border and Immigration Agency says. "[It] has identified several sex offenders. Alerts have led to the seizure of large quantities of cocaine, cannabis and tobacco [and] have led to the identification of persons traveling on forged documents, suspected asylum abuse and facilitators. Successful trials of the new system have already led to more than 1,000 criminals being caught and more than 15,000 people of concern being checked out by customs, immigration or the police."

Yes, but what's next?
http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/...to-the-uk.html





Japan Fingerprints Foreigners as Anti - Terror Move

Japan began fingerprinting foreigners entering the country on Tuesday in an anti-terrorism policy that has sparked complaints from human right activists, business travelers and long-term residents.

"At a time when terrorism is occurring throughout the world, we want foreigners entering Japan to cooperate, and to understand that it is better for them as well that Japan be safe," said Hisashi Toshioka, head of the Immigration Bureau at Narita airport, the main international airport serving Tokyo.

"The biggest objective is to prevent terrorism."

Critics, however, say the new procedures reflect a deeply entrenched view in Japan of foreigners as more likely to commit crimes and plays down the possibility of home-grown terrorism.

"In Japan, fingerprinting has been limited to those arrested for crimes, so treating foreigners the same way is a serious human rights violation," said Mitsuru Namba, a lawyer at the Japan Federation of Lawyers Associations.

"The government says the aim is to prevent terrorism, but in the background is discrimination linking foreigners with crime and overstaying visas," Namba said, noting the data would be kept even after a visitor was deemed not to be a terrorist suspect.

Some foreign visitors arriving at Narita were unfazed by the new procedures, which involve electronic scanning of both index fingers as well as taking a digital facial photo.

The data is compared with international and domestic lists and anyone considered to be a terrorist -- or refusing to cooperate -- will be denied entry and deported.

"It didn't bother me at all. It was pretty uninvasive," said Jake Heinrich, 33, an Australian who works at a language school.

"These days, it probably makes you feel a little safer."

The measures are similar to the "U.S. Visit" system introduced in the United States after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

In a nod to historical sensitivities, "special" permanent residents of Korean and Chinese origin -- many born in Japan and descended from those brought as forced labor before and during World War Two -- are exempt, as are diplomats and children under 16.
Global Business

Fingerprinting of such residents was abolished in 1992 after a lengthy campaign, while fingerprinting of all foreign residents ended in 2000.

"Japanese will get the message that foreigners are incipient criminals," said Choi Sun-ae, a Korean resident of Japan who campaigned to abolish fingerprinting and on Tuesday took part in a protest outside the Justice Ministry in Tokyo.

Unlike the United States, Japan requires resident foreigners as well as visitors to be fingerprinted and photographed every time they re-enter the country, although if they pre-register they can go through a fast-track line.

That has angered many resident foreigners, who have until now been able to line up with Japanese for faster processing.

"My husband is Japanese. I have two Japanese adult children working in Tokyo. I feel slightly insulted," said Briton Jennifer Ukawa, 69, who has lived in Japan off and on since 1969 and also took part in Tuesday's protest.

Britain this month began requiring people applying for UK visas to have their fingerprints scanned and photographs taken digitally.

Some worry that longer lines at points of entry could discourage tourists and business travelers, even as Japan tries to polish its image as a tourist destination and global financial centre.

"Suddenly grouping long-term residents and taxpayers in Japan with occasional visitors risks creating excessive delays for frequent business travelers and imposing unacceptable costs on businesses," said the European Business Council in Japan and the Australian and New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in Japan in a letter to the Justice Ministry.

Immigration officials said the procedures went smoothly on Tuesday morning except for a glitch with one machine and that the average wait was 20 minutes.

(Additional reporting by Linda Sieg and Olivier Fabre, Editing by Michael Watson)
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world...rprinting.html





Moussaoui Judge Questions Government
Matthew Barakat

A federal judge expressed frustration Tuesday that the government provided incorrect information about evidence in the prosecution of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and raised the possibility of ordering a new trial in another high-profile terrorism case.

At a post-trial hearing Tuesday for Ali al-Timimi, a Muslim cleric from Virginia sentenced to life in prison in 2004 for soliciting treason, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said she can no longer trust the CIA and other government agencies on how they represent classified evidence in terror cases.

Attorneys for al-Timimi have been seeking access to documents. They also want to depose government witnesses to determine whether the government improperly failed to disclose the existence of certain evidence.

The prosecutors have asked her to dismiss the defense request. The government has denied the allegations but has done so in secret pleadings to the judge that defense lawyers are not allowed to see. Even the lead prosecutors in the al-Timimi case have not had access to the information; they have relied on the representations of other government lawyers.

After the hearing, the judge issued an order that said she would not rule on the prosecutors' motion until the government grants needed security clearances to al-Timimi's defense lawyer, Jonathan Turley, and the lead trial prosecutor so they can review the secret pleadings.

Brinkema said she no longer feels confident relying on the government briefs, particularly since prosecutors admitted last week that similar representations made in the Moussaoui case were false.

In a letter made public Nov. 13, prosecutors in the Moussaoui case admitted to Brinkema that the CIA had wrongly assured her that no videotapes or audiotapes existed of interrogations of certain high-profile terrorism detainees. In fact, two such videotapes and one audio tape existed.

Moussaoui, who had pleaded guilty to terrorism charges, was sentenced to life in prison last year. Because Moussaoui admitted his guilt, it is unlikely that the disclosures of new evidence would result in his conviction being overturned.

Turley, al-Timimi's defense lawyer, praised Brinkema for taking a skeptical view of the government's assertions in addressing al-Timimi's case.

"We believe a new trial is warranted," he said in a phone interview. "We are entirely confident that there are communications that were not turned over to the defense. These are very serious allegations."

Al-Timimi challenged his conviction in 2005 after revelations that President Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to conduct certain types of domestic surveillance without a search warrant. Turley contends that the program is illegal and that any evidence obtained from such surveillance should have been turned over to defense lawyers.

He is confident that al-Timimi, a prominent U.S. Muslim cleric who was known to keep close ties with radical Saudi clerics would have been a target of the surveillance program.

Brinkema made no rulings during the brief, 20-minute hearing in Alexandria, but her displeasure at the government was apparent. Prosecutors did not have the opportunity to speak during the hearing, except to note their appearance for the record.

Al-Timimi, a born U.S. citizen from Fairfax, was convicted after prosecutors portrayed him as the spiritual leader of a group of young Muslim men from the Washington area who played paintball games in 2000 and 2001 as a means of preparing for holy war around the globe.

After Sept. 11, they said, al-Timimi told his followers that the attacks were a harbinger of a final apocalyptic battle between Muslims and nonbelievers and exhorted them to travel to Afghanistan and join the Taliban to fight U.S. troops.

Several of his followers admitted that they traveled to Pakistan and received training from a militant Pakistani group called Lashkar-e-Taiba, but none actually joined the Taliban.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria declined to comment Tuesday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071120/...rror_paintball





Cops lied about “restricted” airspace

Local 2 Investigates Police Secrecy Behind Unmanned Aircraft Test
Stephen Dean

Houston police started testing unmanned aircraft and the event was shrouded in secrecy, but it was captured on tape by Local 2 Investigates.

Neighbors in rural Waller County said they thought a top-secret military venture was under way among the farmland and ranches, some 70 miles northwest of Houston. KPRC Local 2 Investigates had four hidden cameras aimed at a row of mysterious black trucks. Satellite dishes and a swirling radar added to the neighbors' suspense.

Then, cameras were rolling as an unmanned aircraft was launched into the sky and operated by remote control.

Houston police cars were surrounding the land with a roadblock in place to check each of the dignitaries arriving for the invitation-only event. The invitation spelled out, "NO MEDIA ALLOWED."

HPD Chief Harold Hurtt attended, along with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and dozens of officers from various police agencies in the Houston area. Few of the guests would comment as they left the test site.

News Chopper 2 had a Local 2 Investigates team following the aircraft for more than one hour as it circled overhead. Its wings spanned 10 feet and it circled at an altitude of 1,500 feet. Operators from a private firm called Insitu, Inc. manned remote controls from inside the fleet of black trucks as the guests watched a live feed from the high-powered camera aboard the 40-pound aircraft.

"I wasn't ready to publicize this," Executive Assistant Police Chief Martha Montalvo said. She and other department leaders hastily organized a news conference when they realized Local 2 Investigates had captured the entire event on camera.

"We still haven't even decided how we were going to go forward on this task, so it seemed premature to me to announce this to the media," Montalvo said. "But since, obviously, the media found out about it, then I don't see any reason why just not go forward with what we have so far."

Montalvo told reporters the unmanned aircraft would be used for "mobility" or traffic issues, evacuations during storms, homeland security, search and rescue, and also "tactical." She admitted that could include covert police actions and she said she was not ruling out someday using the drones for writing traffic tickets.

A large number of the officers at the test site were assigned to the department's ticket-writing Radar Task Force. Capt. Tom Runyan insisted they were only there to provide "site security," even though KPRC cameras spotted those officers heavily participating in the test flight.

Houston police contacted KPRC from the test site, claiming the entire airspace was restricted by the Federal Aviation Administration. Police even threatened action from the FAA if the Local 2 helicopter remained in the area. However, KPRC reported it had already checked with the FAA on numerous occasions and found no flight restrictions around the site, a point conceded by Montalvo.

HPD leaders said they would address privacy and unlawful search questions later.

South Texas College of Law professor Rocky Rhodes, who teaches the constitution and privacy issues, said, "One issue is going to be law enforcement using this and when, by using these drones, are they conducting a search in which they'd need probable cause or a warrant. If the drones are being used to get into private spaces and be able to view where the government cannot otherwise go, and to collect information that would not otherwise be able to collect, that's concerning to me."

HPD Assistant Chief Vickie King said of the unmanned aircraft, "It's interesting that privacy doesn't occur or searches aren't an issue when you have a helicopter pilot over you and it would not be used in airspace other than what our helicopters are used in already."

She admitted that police helicopters are not equipped with cameras nearly as powerful as the unmanned aircraft, but she downplayed any privacy concerns, saying news helicopters have powerful cameras as well.

HPD stressed it is working with the FAA on reviewing the technical specifications, the airworthiness and hazards of flying unmanned aircraft in an urban setting. Future test flights are planned.

The price tag for an unmanned aircraft ranges from $30,000 to $1 million each and HPD is hoping to begin law enforcement from the air by June of 2008 with these new aircraft.
http://www.click2houston.com/investi...66/detail.html





Cops are Such Funny People. A Real Laugh Riot.
CLS

Cops are funny people -- a real laugh riot. They should be given their own comedy series they are so funny.

Police officer Joseph Vega, of the Tinley Park police force, dropped in to order some pizza at Guardi’s Pizza. The owner, Alexanader Mendez and his wife, were working the counter. Officer Vega ordered the pizza and Mendez went to the cooler to get it and prepare it.

While he was gone Office Vega asked Mrs. Mendez if she wanted to see him scare her husband. She told him she wasn’t interested. But this jokester had a hilarious prank up his sleeve and couldn’t wait to show it off.

He pulled out his Taser weapon and pointed it toward Mendez as he was coming out of the cooler. And then for a really funny punchline he pulled the trigger. Wait! It gets even funnier.

Mr. Mendez was hit in the head and the shoulder by the barbs and, of course, shocked by the electric charge. I hope you are sitting down because this prank will have you in stitches -- no doubt it had Mr. Mendez in stitches. After he was hit Mendez falls to the ground and goes into convulsions that causes him to bite off part of his tonque. Now isn’t that a slide splitter?

Vega rushes over and pulls out the barbs which causes profuse bleeding. And he calls the local cops to come and provide assistance. They get there and grab the bloody towels, they take Mr. Mendez’s glasses which were covered in blood. And they confiscate the restaurants surveillance camera which recorded the entire event.

As funny as that is you should hear the cop’s version of the events. According to them the officer didn’t stop in to order a pizza he was conduct “a routine check on the business” -- the thoughtful man. And he just happened to notice that his Taser had its safety deactivated. And being a diligent, fine, upstanding servant of the people he took it out in order to put the safety back on since we all know cops are so very reluctant to Taser people. And for some unknown reason the Taser just shot off and hit poor Mr. Mendez entirely accidentally since we are dealing with a diligent, concerned police officer with nothing more than the safety of the public his main concern.

The Tinley Park police department immediately announced that the Taser was obviously defective since defective cops are so very rare. So they sent all their Tasers backs to the factory to be diligently checked. All of them, including the one that shot Mr. Mendez were sent back and certified to be in perfect working order.

The local town officials refuse to speak about the matter on advise of their attorneys. A law suit has been filed against the city by the poor man and his wife.

Speaking of fine, upstanding servants of the people do you remember the story we did about the ticket trap of St. George, Missouri. It was here that office Sgt. James Kuehnlein walked up to a parked car and started threatening the young drive. The officer told him that he could invent charges against the man and have him arrested. He went ballistic acting in what can only be described as a unprofessional manner, if you like understatment. He was unhinged.

Well, the rot in St. George seems rather pervasive. We next discovered that the police chief, Scott Uhrig, was a sexual predator who used his previous job as a police officer in another town to try and force a teenaged girl into having sex with him. He was disciplined for this by the state but that was no barrier to getting hired in St. George.

Of course the top of the chain of command was the mayor, Harold Goodman. Mr. Goodman was arrested for having pot. He said it was for medicinal purposes. The pot was found while police were searching the mayor’s home. At the time they wouldn’t say why. Apparently the reason for the raid was that the good mayor was somehow involved with child pornography and he was later arrested on those charges as well.
http://freestudents.blogspot.com/200...eal-laugh.html





Atlanta Police Overhaul Raid Procedures
UPI

To mark the anniversary of a botched drug raid that killed an elderly woman, Atlanta police announced new policies and a procedural overhaul.

At a news conference with Mayor Shirley Franklin by his side, Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington announced changes to prevent a recurrence of the Nov. 21, 2006, shooting of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnson in her home.

Police smashed into her home using flawed information from an informant without warning, and she fired a shot at them and missed. She was shot multiple times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said.

Among the changes Pennington disclosed were that "no-knock" search warrants must be approved by a major and officers conducting raids will wear special uniforms, not street clothes.

The chief said all 15 officers on the narcotics squad have been replaced, and the number of officers doubled to 30.

Wednesday, lawyers for Johnston's family reportedly were set to file a lawsuit against the chief, the mayor, the city and the police officers involved in the shooting, the newspaper said.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_New...ocedures/3947/





Man’s Conviction for Standing on Sidewalk Is Overturned
Sewell Chan

The Court of Appeals, New York State’s highest court, threw out the conviction today of a man who was arrested for standing and not moving on a Times Square corner in June 2004.

As Nicholas Confessore has reported on City Room and in The Times’s print edition, the man, Matthew Jones, was on corner of 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue in the early morning of June 12, 2004, chatting with friends as other pedestrians tried to get by.

As a result of Mr. Jones’s behavior, “numerous pedestrians in the area had to walk around” him and his friends, the arresting officer, Momen Attia, wrote. Mr. Jones refused to move when asked, Officer Attia later wrote, then tried to run away. Mr. Jones was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. After spending the night in jail, the next day, June 13, he sought to have the charges dismissed, but his motion was rejected. He then agreed to plead guilty to one count of disorderly conduct and was sentenced to time served. But he immediately filed an appeal.

The conviction was upheld by an appellate court, but today, the Court of Appeals unanimously reversed that decision. Writing for the court, Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick concluded that the allegations in the document used to charge Mr. Jones did not meet the burden of factual proof required.

“Nothing in the information indicates how the defendant, when he stood in the middle of a sidewalk at 2:01 a.m., had the intent to or recklessly created a risk of causing ‘public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm,’” Judge Ciparick wrote.

She later added: “Something more than a mere inconvenience of pedestrians is required to support the charge. Otherwise, any person who happens to stop on a sidewalk — whether to greet another, to seek directions or simply to regain one’s bearings — would be subject to prosecution under this statute.”
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20.../index.html?hp

















The first copy of the Week in Review was posted here on November 22nd, 2002. Thanks to all the writers and editors who have made each succeeding issue possible over these last five years. Happy Thanksgiving everyone and a happy fifth birthday to the Week in Review!

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