Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - October 8th, '11

[JackSpratts]

Since 2002


































"The marginal cost of surveilling one more person is now essentially approaching zero." – Christopher Soghoian


"For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely." – Bill Gates


"Without a doubt, when you think of the Mount Rushmore of the music business – pioneers like Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler, Clive Davis and Jimmy Iovine – Steve Jobs has earned his prominent place." – Bill Werde


"Without Bert Jansch, rock music as it developed in the ’60s and ’70s would have been very different." – Johnny Marr



































October 8th, 2011




Steve Jobs, Apple’s Visionary, Dies at 56
John Markoff

Steven P. Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple who helped usher in the era of personal computers and then led a cultural transformation in the way music, movies and mobile communications were experienced in the digital age, died Wednesday. He was 56.

The death was announced by Apple, the company Mr. Jobs and his high school friend Stephen Wozniak started in 1976 in a suburban California garage.

Mr. Jobs had waged a long and public struggle with cancer, remaining the face of the company even as he underwent treatment. He continued to introduce new products for a global market in his trademark blue jeans even as he grew gaunt and frail.

He underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004, received a liver transplant in 2009 and took three medical leaves of absence as Apple’s chief executive before stepping down in August and turning over the helm to Timothy D. Cook, the chief operating officer. When he left, he was still engaged in the company’s affairs, negotiating with another Silicon Valley executive only weeks earlier.

“I have always said that if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I would be the first to let you know,” Mr. Jobs said in a letter released by the company. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”

By then, having mastered digital technology and capitalized on his intuitive marketing sense, Mr. Jobs had largely come to define the personal computer industry and an array of digital consumer and entertainment businesses centered on the Internet. He had also become a very rich man, worth an estimated $8.3 billion.

Eight years after founding Apple, Mr. Jobs led the team that designed the Macintosh computer, a breakthrough in making personal computers easier to use. After a 12-year separation from the company, prompted by a bitter falling-out with his chief executive, John Sculley, he returned in 1997 to oversee the creation of one innovative digital device after another — the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. These transformed not only product categories like music players and cellphones but also entire industries, like music and mobile communications.

During his years outside Apple, he bought a tiny computer graphics spinoff from the director George Lucas and built a team of computer scientists, artists and animators that became Pixar Animation Studios.

Starting with “Toy Story” in 1995, Pixar produced a string of hit movies, won several Academy Awards for artistic and technological excellence, and made the full-length computer-animated film a mainstream art form enjoyed by children and adults worldwide.

Mr. Jobs was neither a hardware engineer nor a software programmer, nor did he think of himself as a manager. He considered himself a technology leader, choosing the best people possible, encouraging and prodding them, and making the final call on product design.

It was an executive style that had evolved. In his early years at Apple, his meddling in tiny details maddened colleagues, and his criticism could be caustic and even humiliating. But he grew to elicit extraordinary loyalty.

“He was the most passionate leader one could hope for, a motivating force without parallel,” wrote Steven Levy, author of the 1994 book “Insanely Great,” which chronicles the creation of the Mac. “Tom Sawyer could have picked up tricks from Steve Jobs.”

“Toy Story,” for example, took four years to make while Pixar struggled, yet Mr. Jobs never let up on his colleagues. “‘You need a lot more than vision — you need a stubbornness, tenacity, belief and patience to stay the course,” said Edwin Catmull, a computer scientist and a co-founder of Pixar. “In Steve’s case, he pushes right to the edge, to try to make the next big step forward.”

Mr. Jobs was the ultimate arbiter of Apple products, and his standards were exacting. Over the course of a year he tossed out two iPhone prototypes, for example, before approving the third, and began shipping it in June 2007.

To his understanding of technology he brought an immersion in popular culture. In his 20s, he dated Joan Baez; Ella Fitzgerald sang at his 30th birthday party. His worldview was shaped by the ’60s counterculture in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he had grown up, the adopted son of a Silicon Valley machinist. When he graduated from high school in Los Altos in 1972, he said, ”the very strong scent of the 1960s was still there.”

After dropping out of Reed College, a stronghold of liberal thought in Portland, Ore., in 1972, Mr. Jobs led a countercultural lifestyle himself. He told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life. He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand.

Decades later he flew around the world in his own corporate jet, but he maintained emotional ties to the period in which he grew up. He often felt like an outsider in the corporate world, he said. When discussing the Silicon Valley’s lasting contributions to humanity, he mentioned in the same breath the invention of the microchip and “The Whole Earth Catalog,” a 1960s counterculture publication.

Apple’s very name reflected his unconventionality. In an era when engineers and hobbyists tended to describe their machines with model numbers, he chose the name of a fruit, supposedly because of his dietary habits at the time.

Coming on the scene just as computing began to move beyond the walls of research laboratories and corporations in the 1970s, Mr. Jobs saw that computing was becoming personal — that it could do more than crunch numbers and solve scientific and business problems — and that it could even be a force for social and economic change. And at a time when hobbyist computers were boxy wooden affairs with metal chassis, he designed the Apple II as a sleek, low-slung plastic package intended for the den or the kitchen. He was offering not just products but a digital lifestyle.

He put much stock in the notion of “taste,” a word he used frequently. It was a sensibility that shone in products that looked like works of art and delighted users. Great products, he said, were a triumph of taste, of “trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then trying to bring those things into what you are doing.”

Regis McKenna, a longtime Silicon Valley marketing executive to whom Mr. Jobs turned in the late 1970s to help shape the Apple brand, said Mr. Jobs’s genius lay in his ability to simplify complex, highly engineered products, “to strip away the excess layers of business, design and innovation until only the simple, elegant reality remained.”

Mr. Jobs’s own research and intuition, not focus groups, were his guide. When asked what market research went into the iPad, Mr. Jobs replied: “None. It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.”

Early Interests

Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 1955, and put up for adoption by his biological parents, Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali, a graduate student from Syria who became a political science professor. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs.

The elder Mr. Jobs, who worked in finance and real estate before returning to his original trade as a machinist, moved his family down the San Francisco Peninsula to Mountain View and then to Los Altos in the 1960s.

Mr. Jobs developed an early interest in electronics. He was mentored by a neighbor, an electronics hobbyist, who built Heathkit do-it-yourself electronics projects. He was brash from an early age. As an eighth grader, after discovering that a crucial part was missing from a frequency counter he was assembling, he telephoned William Hewlett, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard. Mr. Hewlett spoke with the boy for 20 minutes, prepared a bag of parts for him to pick up and offered him a job as a summer intern.

Mr. Jobs met Mr. Wozniak while attending Homestead High School in neighboring Cupertino. The two took an introductory electronics class there.

The spark that ignited their partnership was provided by Mr. Wozniak’s mother. Mr. Wozniak had graduated from high school and enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, when she sent him an article from the October 1971 issue of Esquire magazine. The article, “Secrets of the Little Blue Box,” by Ron Rosenbaum, detailed an underground hobbyist culture of young men known as phone phreaks who were illicitly exploring the nation’s phone system.

Mr. Wozniak shared the article with Mr. Jobs, and the two set out to track down an elusive figure identified in the article as Captain Crunch. The man had taken the name from his discovery that a whistle that came in boxes of Cap’n Crunch cereal was tuned to a frequency that made it possible to make free long-distance calls simply by blowing the whistle next to a phone handset.

Captain Crunch was John Draper, a former Air Force electronic technician, and finding him took several weeks. Learning that the two young hobbyists were searching for him, Mr. Draper appeared one day in Mr. Wozniak’s Berkeley dormitory room. Mr. Jobs, who was still in high school, had traveled to Berkeley for the meeting. When Mr. Draper arrived, he entered the room saying simply, “It is I!”

Based on information they gleaned from Mr. Draper, Mr. Wozniak and Mr. Jobs later collaborated on building and selling blue boxes, devices that were widely used for making free — and illegal — phone calls. They raised a total of $6,000 from the effort.

After enrolling at Reed College in 1972, Mr. Jobs left after one semester, but remained in Portland for another 18 months auditing classes. In a commencement address given at Stanford in 2005, he said he had decided to leave college because it was consuming all of his parents’ savings.

Leaving school, however, also freed his curiosity to follow his interests. “I didn’t have a dorm room,” he said in his Stanford speech, “so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned Coke bottles for the 5-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.”

He returned to Silicon Valley in 1974 and took a job there as a technician at Atari, the video game manufacturer. Still searching for his calling, he left after several months and traveled to India with a college friend, Daniel Kottke, who would later become an early Apple employee. Mr. Jobs returned to Atari that fall. In 1975, he and Mr. Wozniak, then working as an engineer at H.P., began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club, a hobbyist group that met at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park, Calif. Personal computing had been pioneered at research laboratories adjacent to Stanford, and it was spreading to the outside world.

“What I remember is how intense he looked,” said Lee Felsenstein, a computer designer who was a Homebrew member. “He was everywhere, and he seemed to be trying to hear everything people had to say.”

Mr. Wozniak designed the original Apple I computer simply to show it off to his friends at the Homebrew. It was Mr. Jobs who had the inspiration that it could be a commercial product.

In early 1976, he and Mr. Wozniak, using their own money, began Apple with an initial investment of $1,300; they later gained the backing of a former Intel executive, A. C. Markkula, who lent them $250,000. Mr. Wozniak would be the technical half and Mr. Jobs the marketing half of the original Apple I Computer. Starting out in the Jobs family garage in Los Altos, they moved the company to a small office in Cupertino shortly thereafter.

In April 1977, Mr. Jobs and Mr. Wozniak introduced Apple II at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco. It created a sensation. Faced with a gaggle of small and large competitors in the emerging computer market, Apple, with its Apple II, had figured out a way to straddle the business and consumer markets by building a computer that could be customized for specific applications.

Sales skyrocketed, from $2 million in 1977 to $600 million in 1981, the year the company went public. By 1983 Apple was in the Fortune 500. No company had ever joined the list so quickly.

The Apple III, introduced in May 1980, was intended to dominate the desktop computer market. I.B.M. would not introduce its original personal computer until 1981. But the Apple III had a host of technical problems, and Mr. Jobs shifted his focus to a new and ultimately short-lived project, an office workstation computer code-named Lisa.

An Apocalyptic Moment

By then Mr. Jobs had made his much-chronicled 1979 visit to Xerox’s research center in Palo Alto, where he saw the Alto, an experimental personal computer system that foreshadowed modern desktop computing. The Alto, controlled by a mouse pointing device, was one of the first computers to employ a graphical video display, which presented the user with a view of documents and programs, adopting the metaphor of an office desktop.

“It was one of those sort of apocalyptic moments,” Mr. Jobs said of his visit in a 1995 oral history interview for the Smithsonian Institution. “I remember within 10 minutes of seeing the graphical user interface stuff, just knowing that every computer would work this way someday. It was so obvious once you saw it. It didn’t require tremendous intellect. It was so clear.”

In 1981 he joined a small group of Apple engineers pursuing a separate project, a lower-cost system code-named Macintosh. The machine was introduced in January 1984 and trumpeted during the Super Bowl telecast by a 60-second commercial, directed by Ridley Scott, that linked I.B.M., by then the dominant PC maker, with Orwell’s Big Brother.

A year earlier Mr. Jobs had lured Mr. Sculley to Apple to be its chief executive. A former Pepsi-Cola chief executive, Mr. Sculley was impressed by Mr. Jobs’s pitch: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?”

He went on to help Mr. Jobs introduce a number of new computer models, including an advanced version of the Apple II and later the Lisa and Macintosh desktop computers. Through them Mr. Jobs popularized the graphical user interface, which, based on a mouse pointing device, would become the standard way to control computers.

But when the Lisa failed commercially and early Macintosh sales proved disappointing, the two men became estranged and a power struggle ensued, and Mr. Jobs lost control of the Lisa project. The board ultimately stripped him of his operational role, taking control of the Lisa project away from, and 1,200 Apple employees were laid off. He left Apple in 1985.

“I don’t wear the right kind of pants to run this company,” he told a small gathering of Apple employees before he left, according to a member of the original Macintosh development team. He was barefoot as he spoke, and wearing blue jeans.

That September he announced a new venture, NeXT Inc. The aim was to build a workstation computer for the higher-education market. The next year, the Texas industrialist H. Ross Perot invested $20 million in the effort. But it did not achieve Mr. Jobs’s goals.

Mr. Jobs also established a personal philanthropic foundation after leaving Apple but soon had a change of heart, deciding instead to spend much of his fortune — $10 million — on acquiring Pixar, a struggling graphics supercomputing company owned by the filmmaker George Lucas.

The purchase was a significant gamble; there was little market at the time for computer-animated movies. But that changed in 1995, when the company, with Walt Disney Pictures, released “Toy Story.” That film’s box-office receipts ultimately reached $362 million, and when Pixar went public in a record-breaking offering, Mr. Jobs emerged a billionaire. In 2006, the Walt Disney Company agreed to purchase Pixar for $7.4 billion. The sale made Mr. Jobs Disney’s largest single shareholder, with about 7 percent of the company’s stock.

His personal life also became more public. He had a number of well-publicized romantic relationships, including one with the folk singer Joan Baez, before marrying Laurene Powell. In 1996, a sister, the novelist Mona Simpson, threw a spotlight on her relationship with Mr. Jobs in the novel “A Regular Guy.” The two did not meet until they were adults. The novel centered on a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who bore a close resemblance to Mr. Jobs. It was not an entirely flattering portrait. Mr. Jobs said about a quarter of it was accurate.

“We’re family,” he said of Ms. Simpson in an interview with The New York Times Magazine. “She’s one of my best friends in the world. I call her and talk to her every couple of days.”

His wife and Ms. Simpson survive him, as do his three children with Ms. Powell, his daughters Eve Jobs and Erin Sienna Jobs and a son, Reed; another daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, from a relationship with Chrisann Brennan; and another sister, Patti Jobs.

Return to Apple

Beginning in 1986, Mr. Jobs refocused NeXT from the education to the business market and dropped the hardware part of the company, deciding to sell just an operating system. Although NeXT never became a significant computer industry player, it had a huge impact: a young programmer, Tim Berners-Lee, used a NeXT machine to develop the first version of the World Wide Web at the Swiss physics research center CERN in 1990.

In 1996, after unsuccessful efforts to develop next-generation operating systems, Apple, with Gilbert Amelio now in command, acquired NeXT for $430 million. The next year, Mr. Jobs returned to Apple as an adviser. He became chief executive again in 2000.

Shortly after returning, Mr. Jobs publicly ended Apple’s long feud with its archival Microsoft, which agreed to continue developing its Office software for the Macintosh and invested $150 million in Apple.

Once in control of Apple again, Mr. Jobs set out to reshape the consumer electronics industry. He pushed the company into the digital music business, introducing first iTunes and then the iPod MP3 player. The music arm grew rapidly, reaching almost 50 percent of the company’s revenue by June 2008.

In 2005, Mr. Jobs announced that he would end Apple’s business relationship with I.B.M. and Motorola and build Macintosh computers based on Intel microprocessors.

By then his fight with cancer was publicly known. Apple had announced in 2004 that Mr. Jobs had a rare but curable form of pancreatic cancer and that he had undergone successful surgery. Four years later, questions about his health returned when he appeared at a company event looking gaunt. Afterward, he said he had suffered from a “common bug.” Privately, he said his cancer surgery had created digestive problems but insisted they were not life-threatening.

Apple began selling the iPhone in June 2007. Mr. Jobs’s goal was to sell 10 million of the handsets in 2008, equivalent to 1 percent of the global cellphone market. The company sold 11.6 million.

Although smartphones were already commonplace, the iPhone dispensed with a stylus and pioneered a touch-screen interface that quickly set the standard for the mobile computing market. Rolled out with much anticipation and fanfare, iPhone rocketed to popularity; by end of 2010 the company had sold almost 90 million units.

Although Mr. Jobs took just a nominal $1 salary when he returned to Apple, his compensation became the source of a Silicon Valley scandal in 2006 over the backdating of millions of shares of stock options. But after a company investigation and one by the Securities and Exchange Commission, he was found not to have benefited financially from the backdating and no charges were brought.

The episode did little to taint Mr. Jobs’s standing in the business and technology world. As the gravity of his illness became known, and particularly after he announced he was stepping down, he was increasingly hailed for his genius and true achievement: his ability to blend product design and business market innovation by integrating consumer-oriented software, microelectronic components, industrial design and new business strategies in a way that has not been matched.

If he had a motto, it may have come from “The Whole Earth Catalog,” which he said had deeply influenced him as a young man. The book, he said in his commencement address at Stanford in 2005, ends with the admonition “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

“I have always wished that for myself,” he said.

Steve Lohr contributed reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/b...ies-at-56.html





Belgian ISPs Ordered To Block The Pirate Bay
enigmax

A court has overturned a 2010 ruling which said that blocking The Pirate Bay at the ISP level was “disproportionate”. The Antwerp Court of Appeal sided with the Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation in their quest to force two ISPs to block subscriber access to the world’s most famous torrent site. Belgacom and Telenet must now implement a DNS blockade of the site within 14 days or face fines.

After the founders of The Pirate Bay lost their 2009 trial, the Belgian Anti-Piracy Foundation (BAF) began pushing two ISPs – Belgacom and Telenet – to block subscriber access to the famous torrent site.

After year-long negotiations between the trio broke down, legal action was the inevitable outcome and in July 2010 their first battle came to a conclusion.

The Antwerp Commercial Court decided that neither ISP would have to block TPB and went on to describe the notion of wholesale site blocking as “disproportionate”.

The ISPs said it wasn’t their position to decide which sites can and can not be accessed by their users. BAF accused them of providing a safe-haven to The Pirate Bay and filed an appeal. The decision in that appeal has just been announced.

The Antwerp Court of Appeal has just overruled the decision of the Commercial Court and has ordered Belgacom and Telenet to initiate DNS blockades of 11 domains connected to The Pirate Bay within 14 days or face fines.

A Pirate Bay spokesperson told TorrentFreak that this measure will only have the opposite effect, as there are many ways to circumvent it. “This will just give us more traffic, as always. Thanks for the free advertising.”

NURPA, a nonprofit Belgian advocacy group which promotes and protects digital rights, freedom of expression, privacy and civil liberties, say they are disappointed with the decision.

Spokesman André Loconte, who contacted TorrentFreak with the news this morning, says the ruling could run into difficulties under Human Rights legislation.

“The decision of the Antwerp Court of Appeal in the case against Belgacom BAF / Telenet sets a dangerous precedent for blocking of content by Internet service providers in Belgium. It is incompatible with the doctrine of proportionality advocated by the European Court of Human Rights,” says Loconte.

By imposing a site-wide blockade, Loconte says the Court of Appeal has disproportionately censored all content indexed by the site, including legitimately available material.

Telenet and Belgacom are yet to comment on the ruling.
https://torrentfreak.com/belgian-isp...te-bay-111004/





The Pirate Bay Adds Domain to Bypass Court Order
Ernesto

Showing how futile Internet censorship can be, The Pirate Bay has registered a new domain name to allow Belgian users to access the site and bypass a recent court order. For just a few dollars, The Pirate Bay should now be fully accessible in the future, and the site has already started redirecting Belgian users to their new home.

Yesterday the Antwerp Court of Appeal ordered the Belgian ISPs Belgacom and Telenet to initiate DNS blockades of 11 domains connected to The Pirate Bay within 14 days or face fines.

The local anti-piracy movement applauded the verdict, which they see as a landmark case that will open the doors for further censorship attempts. However, it is questionable that it will have much of an effect.

Earlier today we already reported how the usenet indexing site Newzbin2 updated its anti-censorship client to allow Belgians to keep their access to The Pirate Bay. And a few hours later The Pirate Bay team delivered an even easier solution.

“The Judge obviously has no idea what he’s dealing with, because the verdict of this expensive court battle can be easily undone,” The Pirate Bay team told TorrentFreak.

“Just a few minutes ago we registered a new domain that’s not listed in the order. We have already started pointing users from Belgium to the new address, so they know where to go when their ISPs implement the DNS blockade.”

The new domain name is “depiraatbaai.be,” the literal translation of The Pirate Bay in Dutch. The new domain is already pointing to The Pirate Bay’s servers and people accessing the standard domain from a Belgian IP-address will be redirected to the new home.

“We have to admit that Belgian domain names are not cheap, but we have to make a stand here,” The Pirate Bay team told us.

The above is a clear example that the people judging on these issues don’t have the slightest idea what they’re dealing with. This is supported by the fact that the actual court order only lists the www domains of The Pirate Bay and not the bare addresses (www.thepiratebay.org vs. thepiratebay.org).

The ‘error’ above was pointed out by Maarten Schenk and soon picked up by the mainstream media in Belgium. They point out that if the verdict is taken literally, the ISPs don’t have to block the domains without the www. A massive failure.

“Let’s hope the ISPs are brave enough to put this theory to the test,” The Pirate Bay team notes.

The take home message is, as always, that there are plenty of options for users and site admins to bypass these and other censorship attempts. Or as John Gilmore once said: “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”

For the time being the number of Belgian visitors to The Pirate Bay is only going up.
https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-...-order-111005/





France Continues Mass Processing Of Infringement Accusations: 60 People Get Third Strike Notice... 650,000 Get First Strike
Mike Masnick

The latest stats coming out of France's HADOPI "three strikes" (really three accusations) policy are really quite stunning. Most of the focus is on the fact that 60 ISP account holders have received their third strike, and now await to see if they'll be fined and/or kicked off the internet without ever having actually been convicted of copyright infringement. But, to me, the much more interesting numbers are the first and second strike numbers. An astounding 650,000 people have received "first strike" notices, with 44,000 of those receiving a second strike as well. Those are huge numbers. It makes you wonder, at what point do those in power begin to recognize that if so many people are engaging in this, there must be some sort of better solution.

The entertainment industry loves to call infringement "theft," but I don't think anyone would argue that 650,000 people are running around France stealing things out of stores. And that's because people inherently recognize that there's a massive difference between stealing a physical product, such that there's one less of it, and listening to a song that they like, where nothing is removed for anyone else. When a huge percentage of your population is accused of breaking the law, the problem is not with the people... but with the law.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...t-strike.shtml





U.S. Signs ACTA
David Kravets

The United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement on Saturday, an accord targeting intellectual property piracy.

The European Union, Mexico and Switzerland — the only other governments participating in the accord’s creation — did not sign the deal at a ceremony in Japan but “confirmed their continuing strong support for and preparations to sign the agreement as soon as practical,” the parties said in a joint statement.

The United States applauded the deal.

“As with many of the challenges we face in today’s global economy, no government can single-handedly eliminate the problem of global counterfeiting and piracy. Signing this agreement is therefore an act of shared leadership and determination in the international fight against intellectual property theft,” said Mariam Sapiro, deputy United States trade representative.

The deal, more than three years in the making and open for signing until May 2013, exports on participating nations an intellectual-property enforcement regime resembling the one in the United States.

Rashmi Rangnath, a staff attorney with Public Knowledge in Washington, D.C., said the deal “clearly, is an attempt to foist U.S. law on other countries.”

Among other things, the accord demands governments make it unlawful to market devices that circumvent copyright, such as devices that copy encrypted DVDs without authorization. That is akin to a feature in the the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the United States, where the law has been used by Hollywood studios to block RealNetworks from marketing DVD-copying technology.

The accord, which the United States says does not require Congressional approval, also calls on participating nations to maintain extensive seizure and forfeiture laws when it comes to counterfeited goods that are trademarked or copyrighted. Most important, countries must carry out a legal system where victims of intellectual property theft may be awarded an undefined amount of monetary damages.

In the United States, for example, the Copyright Act allows for damages of up to $150,000 per infringement. A Boston jury has dinged a college student $675,000 for pilfering 30 tracks on Kazaa, while a Minnesota jury has awarded the Recording Industry Association of America $1.5 million for the purloining of 24 songs online.

A U.S.-backed footnote removed from the document more than a year ago provided for “the termination” of internet accounts for repeat online infringers. U.S. internet service providers and content providers, however, have brokered such a deal toward that goal.

Until European Union authorities began leaking the document’s text, the Obama administration was claiming the accord was a “national security” secret.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...es-signs-acta/





Brazil Drafts An 'Anti-ACTA': A Civil Rights-Based Framework For The Internet
Mike Masnick

One of the striking features of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is that it is mainly being signed by Western/“developed” countries – with a few token players from other parts of the world to provide a fig-leaf of nominal inclusiveness. That's no accident: ACTA is the last-gasp attempt of the US and the EU to preserve their intellectual monopolies – copyright and patents, particularly drug patents – in a world where both are increasingly questioned.

Much of the challenge to the old order is coming from the BRICS group of emerging countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – none of which has been involved in ACTA. Of those, the one in the vanguard of adopting innovative approaches to making knowledge widely accessible in the Internet age is Brazil.

For example, the federal government has actively supported open source software by creating a Public Software Portal. The country has also been at the forefront of open content use: just this week, the city of São Paulo specified that all educational materials produced for it must be released under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA license.

It's true that there have also been some mixed signals recently, notably the re-surfacing of the punitive “cybercrime bill”, which Techdirt reported on a couple of months ago. But here's some positive news coming out of the country, in the shape of a draft of a bill for a civil rights-based framework for the Internet:

The draft bill proposition for a Civil Right’s Based Framework for Internet in Brazil has just reached Congress. The English translation of this version is available here.

It is the result of an initiative from the Brazilian Ministry of Justice, in partnership with the Center for Technology and Society of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (CTS/FGV), to develop a collaborative online/offline consultation process in which all the actors from Brazilian society could identify together the rights and responsibilities that should guide the use of the Internet in Brazil. The process, which resulted in a Bill of Law, is an example of the importance and the great potential of multistakeholder involvement on policy-making.

NGOs, universities, internet service providers (collectively though associations, as well as individually), business companies, law firms, law enforcement agencies, individuals, Brazilian Embassies from all over the world, and many other participants have joined the online public hearing. The participation of several stakeholder groups has promoted the diversity of opinions and the availability of high quality information and expert advise, which have helped the government to draft a balanced bill. The openness and transparency of the process, entirely conducted online, in the public eye, has improved the legitimacy of the bill. Marco Civil was introduced in Congress with the political weight and the legitimacy that the Bill would be expected to have after a complex multistakeholder discussion.

Among its fundamental principles:

I – safeguarding freedom of speech, communication, and manifestation of thought, in the terms of the Constitution;

II – the protection of privacy;

III – the protection of personal data, in accordance to the law;

IV – the preservation and safeguarding of net neutrality, in compliance with further regulation;

And this is *real* net neutrality, not the compromised US kind:

Article 9. The party responsible for the transmission, switching or routing of data has the obligation of granting equal treatment to every data package, with no distinction by content, origin and destination, service, terminal or application; any traffic discrimination or degradation that does not arise out of the technical requirements necessary to the adequate provision of services is prohibited, in accordance to further regulation.

It also comes out strongly in favor of guaranteeing access to the Internet, respect for personal privacy online, and against any kind of “three strikes” laws cutting off users for alleged copyright infringement:

Article 7. Access to the Internet is essential for the exercise of citizenship, and the following rights are secured to its users:

I – the non-violation and secrecy of communications on the Internet, except under judicial order, in the hypotheses and form established by law, for criminal investigations or the gathering of evidence for criminal procedures;

II – the non suspension of Internet connections, except for debts directly related to their use;

It has plenty to say on the vexed issue of keeping users' access logs, including:

Article 10. The storage and disclosure of the connection logs and Internet application access logs regulated by this law must preserve intimacy, private life, the reputation and image of the parties directly or indirectly involved.

§1 The Internet service provider responsible for the storage of logs will only be constrained to disclose the information that allows the identification of the user under a judicial order

Nor is ISP liability overlooked:

Article 14. Internet connection providers shall not be responsible for damage arising from content generated by third parties.

Article 15. Except otherwise established by law, Internet application providers can only be responsible for the damages caused by content generated by third parties if, after receiving a specific judicial order, they do not take action to, in the context of their services and under the established time frame, make unavailable the infringing content.

And the crucial issue of judicial requests for logs is also spelled out in detail:

Article 17. Interested parties may, for the purpose of gathering evidence in civil and criminal proceedings, of either accidental or autonomous nature, request a judge to order the party responsible for storing Internet service access logs, or connection logs, to disclose these logs.

Sole Paragraph. Without prejudice of other legal requirements, the application shall contain, under penalty of not being admissible:

I – solid evidence of the occurrence of an illegal act;

II – a motivated justification for the utility of accessing the requested logs, for the purposes of investigation or the gathering of evidence;

III - the period that the logs refer to.

Article 18. It is the obligation of judges to take the measures necessary to guarantee the secrecy of the information received, and the preservation of the intimacy, private life, honor and image of Internet users. Judges are capable, for that purpose, to constitute the information as secret, including with respect to requests for the storage of logs.

All-in-all, it's a remarkable document, forming in effect an "anti-ACTA" that guarantees many of the protections for Internet users that ACTA seeks to eradicate, and forbids repressive measures that ACTA aims to introduce.

However, two big questions hang over the draft. First, whether it will be passed by the Brazilian Congress in its present form (or at all), and, second, how it can be squared with the harsh penalties proposed in the “cybercrime” bill mentioned above if that too comes into force. But whatever happens, Brazil has already shown leadership by drafting a bill that dares to question and oppose the copyright maximalist orthodoxies underlying ACTA – something signally lacking in other countries.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...internet.shtml





European Greens Want to Legalize File-Sharing, Ban DRM
Ernesto

The European Greens have released a landmark position paper that should guide their policies on copyright in the digital era. The overall theme is a reduction of the copyright monopoly to the benefit of consumers. Among other things the Greens want to legalize file-sharing for personal use, ban DRM entirely and restrict the copyright term to five years.

The Greens / EFA is one of the parliamentary groups in the European Parliament. The group currently hold 57 seats, including one Pirate Party seat held by Christian Engstrom.

This week the Greens released a position paper with their view on copyright in the digital era, which mimics the Pirate Party agenda. The paper goes directly against the current trend of increasing control over copyright, and calls for a society that secures the interests of the public instead of a few multi-million dollar companies.

One of the key proposals is to legalize file-sharing for personal use. “Non commercial sharing between individuals should be allowed, for instance by widening the scope of the existing private copying exception,” the Greens write.

In addition, restrictive technologies such as DRM should be banned entirely, or at least decriminalized.

“It must always be legal to circumvent DRM restrictions, and we should consider introducing a ban in the consumer rights legislation on DRM technologies that restrict legal uses of a work,” the paper reads.

“There is no point in having our parliaments introduce a balanced and reasonable copyright legislation, if at the same time we allow the big multinational corporations to write their own laws, and enforce them through technical means,” it adds.

The Greens also want to reduce the copyright term from 70 to 5 years, with an option for copyright holders to extend it to a maximum of 20 years. The Greens call the current situation “absurd” and argue that society will greatly benefit from a more reasonable copyright term.

“Today’s protection times — life plus 70 years — are absurd. No investor would even look at a business case where the time to pay-back was that long,” they write.

Overall the paper suggests a reduction in the current stranglehold on creativity and a boost for the Internet to allow it to show its full potential. According to the Greens this also means that Net Neutrality should be guaranteed, and that remixes and mashups of copyrighted works for commercial use should be allowed.

Talking to TorrentFreak, Pirate Party MEP Christian Engstrom says that the Greens proposal perfectly resembles what the Pirate Party has been fighting for in recent years.

“I think it’s great,” Engstrom says. “The paper starts off by first going through what the situation is and what the goals are from a Green perspective, and then ends up in the same proposal for copyright reform that the Pirate Party advocates. This makes perfect sense.”

“The idea of copyright reform has existed among Greens before the Pirate Party got involved, but we have helped giving the Greens a push to really put it on the agenda,” he adds.

For Engstrom and all the other Pirate Party employees in Brussels this confirms that they can make a difference, and that the support the Pirate Party got in the 2009 elections was justified.

“I was sent to Brussels by 225,000 Swedish voters who voted for the Pirate Party, with the task to spread the Pirate ideas in the parliament, so that we can one day get the majority for the ideas that we need. This is of course a very big job, but this is a first milestone. It shows that the Pirates can deliver when they get the chance,” Engstrom concludes.

The enthusiasm of the copyright reform paper isn’t limited to Brussels either. Many pirate party members and volunteers will see it as a sign that they can make a difference.

“We know that our ideas are sound for the future, says Rick Falkvinge, founder of the first Pirate Party.

“It is great to see that they are getting larger and larger support. To see one of the seven party groups in the European Parliament adopt our entire perspective as its own is a gigantic leap forward for the civil liberties of the next generation.

“Just like the Green perspective took some time to be fully understood 40 years ago, so will ours. But understanding and endorsement of the pirate perspective keeps growing, and I expect it continue doing so until it is as common sense as acting sustainably,” Falkvinge adds.

The position paper of the Greens can be called revolutionary. However, the group is only a minority in the European Parliament, so there’s a long way to go before it will become law. It’s nonetheless a clear sign that copyright reform is gaining broader acceptance.
https://torrentfreak.com/european-gr...an-drm-111007/





Will Copyright Stifle Hollywood?
Peter Decherney

IN 1998, in a controversial piece of legislation, Congress extended the length of copyright protection in the United States by 20 years, freezing the entrance of works into the public domain. Four years earlier, however, Congress took a less well-known but even more drastic step: it shrank the public domain. With the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreements Act, Congress restored the copyrights of many foreign works that previously had been freely available.

Among the potentially millions of creations that lost their public-domain status were Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf,” Picasso’s “Guernica,” the British films of Alfred Hitchcock, Astrid Lindgren’s earliest Pippi Longstocking books, stories by H. G. Wells, the drawings of M. C. Escher, Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis,” Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless” and Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will.” Artists and others now have to rely on the permission of copyright holders to make use of such works.

In my own field — film — the effects of the 1994 law have been palpable. Distributors of classic foreign films have seen their catalogs diminished. Students can no longer get copies of many films. Archivists have postponed the preservation of important films. And of course filmmakers have lost access to works of literature that they might have adapted and music that might have enhanced soundtracks.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments today in Golan v. Holder, a case challenging the copyright provision of the 1994 act. There are many reasons the justices should conclude that Congress went too far in altering the copyright system.

For one thing, restoring the copyright of works in the public domain is a different and more profound act than the extension of copyright terms. By removing works from the public domain, Congress has destabilized it. If foreign works can have their copyrights restored, why not works made in the United States? Filmmakers, producers and others who regularly rely on the public domain will become wary of using it.

More important, for Hollywood and every other American cultural industry, access to a stable and growing public domain has been essential to innovation. Unfortunately, even representatives of the American film industry don’t always recognize this truth. In a friend of the court brief filed in the Supreme Court case, the Motion Picture Association of America applauds Congress for “reinforcing the United States’ position as a proponent of strong copyright protection throughout the world.” The M.P.A.A. contends that the expansion of copyright is good for its industry.

But history tells a different story. Filmmakers have consistently used public domain works to anchor artistic and technological innovation. In the 1930s, when Walt Disney decided to make one of the first feature-length animated films, he turned to the Brothers Grimm’s version of the tale of Snow White. When asked why he chose that story, Disney explained that “it was well known.” He understood that “Snow White” was a trusted property, and because he knew that at least the story and characters would be familiar to audiences, he could take an artistic risk with the form.

Disney is only the most famous example of a filmmaker who relied on the public domain to expand the art of film. Starting with Thomas Edison in 1910, filmmakers have adapted Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” in movies that have accompanied the transition to feature films, the establishment of the studios, the switch to sound, the introduction of color, the advent of television and the adoption of widescreen aspect ratios.

Most recently, Tim Burton’s 3-D reimagining of “Alice in Wonderland” became one of the 10 highest-grossing films in history amid an otherwise mixed public response to new 3-D technology.

Despite their official position in this case, Hollywood producers have long realized the value of the public domain, and they have taken steps to manage the use of the shared resource. The M.P.A.A. continues to maintain a registry in which its members can claim a limited, industry-designated right to public domain works. The registry allows filmmakers to draw from the cultural storehouse of stories and characters without fear of an immediate challenge from their closest competitors.

Because of Congress’s transformation of the copyright system, filmmakers and producers today do not have the same access to the public domain as their predecessors. Technical, artistic and industrial innovation are at risk. Let’s hope that the Supreme Court restores the public domain to full strength, for Hollywood’s sake.

Peter Decherney, an associate professor of film studies at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of the forthcoming book “Hollywood’s Copyright Wars.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/o...in-public.html





US-Style Mass Piracy Lawsuits Come to Australia
Renai LeMay

Thought AFACT was the only game in town when it came to enforcing copyright in Australia? Think again. Another front has opened up in content holders’ war on file sharing, with a new and separate firm named ‘Movie Rights Group’ proposing to engage in mass legal action against thousands of individual Australians who have allegedly pirated content in the past 12 months.

The company’s existence first came to light today as a result of a blog post published this week by John Linton, the chief executive of national broadband provider Exetel. Linton noted that US film distributor Lightning Entertainment had contacted his company with a list of 150 IP addresses, seeking the details of the equivalent 150 Exetel customers who had allegedly downloaded the film ‘Kill the Irishman’, which was released this year. Exetel’s 150 were just a fraction of the 9,000-odd Australians which the company claimed had pirated Kill the Irishman, and whom it is pursuing.

Following Linton’s post, Delimiter has confirmed that Lightning is being represented in Australia on the matter by a new company called ‘Movie Rights Group’. It is unclear who precisely is behind the company, but it was registered as a Queensland-headquartered private company in November 2010, with its only known executive so far being its vice president of sales and marketing Gordon Walker.

Speaking in an interview this afternoon, Walker said his company had nothing to do with the other prominent group representing film and TV studios in Australia, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, which is currently engaged in controversial legal action with ISP iiNet in the High Court over copyright infringement issues. Movie Rights Group had not been in contact with AFACT, Walker said.

However, like AFACT, Movie Rights Group has started contacting Australian ISPs in respect to the behaviour of their users.

Walker confirmed the company had contacted all major ISPs in Australia seeking information on users who had allegedly infringed copyright online, with Kill the Irishman being just one of the films which the company was tracking and Lightning being just one of the clients which the company is representing locally. The company’s requests appear to be targeting a large number of Australians, with some 9,000 locals alleged to have downloaded Kill the Irishman alone.

Walker said once the company had received information from the ISPs on which user accounts were connected to the IP addresses who had allegedly infringed his clients’ copyright, Movie Rights Group would be sending letters to those users through its law firm, Brisbane-based Lloyds Solicitors, giving them a choice between various options they could pursue.

The executive wouldn’t say what those options were – although he recommended those who received the letters to seek legal advice. In addition, Movie Rights Group’s web site has a prominent notice informing visitors that one of its chief services is settling lawsuits with infringing users. “We intend enforcing our copyright owners’ rights in Australia through the Federal Magistrates’ Court,” said Walker.

If the company is seeking to settle cases of alleged copyright infringement with Australians out of court, it will be one of the first cases where this approach has been taken in Australia. So far in Australia, most legal action aimed at those who infringe copyright has focused on ISPs such as iiNet who provide the mechanism – Internet access – for it to take place.

However, in the US, for example, the practice is widespread, with the Recording Industry Association of America, for example, launching an early settlement program in 2007 which targeted thousands of users with offers to settle cases of copyright infringement. According to Arstechnica, the average amount being settled was about $3,000 at the time.

Walker wouldn’t answer what his company considered the value of damage an individual Internet pirate who downloaded a film for their own personal use was. However, he pointed out that anyone using the BitTorrent protocol, due to the restrictions of the protocol, was simultaneously downloading content as well as uploading it to other users.

It seems inevitable that if Movie Rights Group is successful in persuading – through the courts or otherwise – Australian ISPs to give up information on their users, that copies of its letters to users will be posted on sites such as broadband forum Whirlpool, fully disclosing the company’s approach. However, Walker said if that publication of what he described as confidential material occurred, that was an issue which Movie Rights Group would have to take up with the individual concerned.

And it does seem likely that at least some ISPs will provide the company with the information it needs to target users.

Although Exetel’s Linton has not yet disclosed what his company’s approach to Movie Rights Group’s approach will be, in his blog post this week, the executive noted that his own company’s lawyer had accepted that it was “almost certainly the case under standard commercial Australian law” that Movie Rights Group could legally subpoena the users’ information it needs. “They will review the cited references but their opinion is that, subject to final validation, if a subpoena is issued then no company, Exetel or any other ISP has any option but to comply with it,” wrote Linton.

“The information we’ll have on the downloading activity is 100 percent cogent and unequivocable evidence,” said Walker, noting Movie Rights Group had conducted extensive legal research before commencing its operations.

It is believed that Move Rights Group’s approach to ISPs is deeply informed by the initial judgements in iiNet’s fight against AFACT. Although iiNet successfully defended the trial and its appeal, a number of commenters believed the judgement did open the door for the film industry to achieve more success through approaching ISPs with a modified approach. For example, industry sources said Movie Rights Group will carefully target those it sends letters to — excluding public locations such as schools and libraries from its efforts — and even offer to compensate ISPs for the time it will take them to retrieve user details.

The wider problem

A widely held view in Australia is that the poor availability of legal online content locally – compared with countries such as the US – and the delay it takes for the latest television shows and movies to arrive in Australia is a major contributing factor to the nation’s high degrees of online piracy. The Federal Government seeking to arbitrate an agreement between the content and ISP industries over the matter.

Walker said he wasn’t sure whether Kill the Irishman was available through legal online channels in Australia such as Telstra’s T-Box platform, although he noted you could have seen the film in cinemas, and it was available for rent or purchase on DVD. However, the executive defended Movie Rights Group’s approach by stating that the issue of online copyright infringement was one which hadn’t been dealt with well globally by governments.

“Other jurisdictions around the world have attempted to legislate and police illegal downloading. Has it worked? No,” he said. The UK, Walker pointed out, had set up a parliamentary investigation into the area half a decade ago. “They had a series of meetings and more meetings and sub-committees and what have you,” he said. “The outcome of all of those committees and sub-committees was absolutely nothing. Trying to control the Internet is like trying to control the [Japanese] tsunami which hit those poor people.”

For example, Walker said, in the case of Wikileaks, government attempts to force the maverick organisation to take down its content had simply resulted in many mirror sites popping up instantly all over the world to keep the content available. “Everybody knows that the Internet is the ultimate unkillable beast,” he said.

In this context, Movie Rights Group was “a commercial solution” to what had previously been seen as a legislative problem, Walker said. Service providers themselves weren’t the infringing parties — but merely provided the “road” of the Internet, which most people drove on safely, but there were always some who “wanted to drive up the inside land, drive down the breakdown lane and drive at 200Km/hour.”

“You’ve got to have policemen and women in cars,” Walker said. “This is where we see our role.”

And just who is Movie Rights Group? Walker wouldn’t say who was behind the company, but he did note everyone involved was Australian, although it also had operations and legal representation in the US and Europe. The parties behind the group had been in the Internet business for about 16 years, he said, in areas such as hosting and affiliate marketing programs. The copyright infringement program was “a new direction” for those parties, Walker said.

Ultimately, it remains unclear what the reaction from Australian ISPs and end users will be to Movie Rights Group’s activities. The area in which it is operating is a dynamic one, with the iiNet versus AFACT trial still underway and the Federal Government’s Department of the Attorney-General also very active in discussing the issue with the industry.

However, there appears no doubt that some impact will be felt. “If this group launch 9,000 individual lawsuits against Australian Internet users in the not too distant future I think a lot of attitudes to illegal downloading will change … if only by parents,” wrote Exetel’s John Linton this week.
http://delimiter.com.au/2011/10/01/u...-to-australia/





Politician Violates His Own Two-Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan
Ernesto

A few days ago Siegfried Kauder, Chairman of the Legal Committee of the German Parliament, announced a plan to introduce a two-strikes model for persistent pirates. After two warnings, Internet users would lose their Internet access to protect the interests of copyright holders. However, it now turns out that the politician himself might be the first to be disconnected as his website features copyrighted photos that were lifted without permission.

We see it time and time again. Copyright is a double edged sword, and those who sharpen one side often get cut by the other.

When the German politician Siegfried Kauder introduced a two-strikes model to beat online piracy a few days ago, his own actions with regard to copyright were weighed carefully.

It didn’t take long before people spotted Kauder’s first infringement on his personal website, which was quickly followed by another one.

In what has now been dubbed Kaudergate, the pro-copyright politician was hosting at least two photos on his website which were taken from a photo sharing site without permission.

When blogs and news sites picked up this ‘mistake’ the photos were quickly removed, but by then it was already too late.

Confronted with the blatant copyright infringements, Kauder tried to turn the tables in an attempt to use his failure to support his plans. He told the German news outlet Der Spiegel that this is a perfect example of how effective a two-strikes policy would be.

“I’m grateful that I got the opportunity to show how the warning model works. The use of the two copyright-protected photographs was brought to my attention. The photos were then removed, so the warning model works,” he stated.

An interesting attempt at spinning things around, if it weren’t for the fact that the copyrighted photos are still hosted on the server of Kauder’s website. So even after being outed by hundreds of blogs and the mainstream press two days ago, the politician – who is also a lawyer – continues to infringe copyrights.

Even worse, Kauder claimed in the press that he had somehow “licensed” the photos after he realized his mistake. However, the photographer who owns the rights denies this and commented that the politician hasn’t been in contact at all.

One has to wonder that when a politician who wants to introduce a two-strikes anti-piracy system doesn’t even know how to stop breaking the law, how can he demand that others should?

Needless to say, the public is now demanding that he will be disconnected from the Internet. That would probably set a good example.
https://torrentfreak.com/politician-...y-plan-111001/





Private Anti-Piracy Investigator Spills The Beans
Ernesto

All around the world Hollywood is influencing politics and law enforcement, mainly through local anti-piracy groups. Aside from lobbying, they also employ private investigators to track down and bust copyright infringers. Today, one of them spills the beans. Gavin “Tex” Warren reveals how he was instructed to boost statistics, link piracy to drug trafficking, and manipulate the police in order to secure more interest for the war on piracy.

Hollywood goes to extremes to protect its interests worldwide. By now it’s public knowledge that MPAA-funded groups are lobbying at the highest political levels, but when it comes to law enforcement they have their ways of being heard too.

In the U.S. the MPAA was the outfit that tipped the authorities off on many of the ‘rogue’ sites that had their domain names seized in the last year. Similarly, in the U.K. the MPAA-funded group FACT carried out most of the investigative work in cases against the operators of the BitTorrent community FileSoup and the streaming site TV-Links.

Today we talk to Gavin “Tex” Warren, a private investigator who worked for the Hollywood backed group AFACT in Australia. While he mostly worked on offline piracy, his inside view allows us to learn more about how the anti-piracy agenda is sold to the outside world.

Warren became a private investigator in 2000, and prior to that he served as a detective in the Australian Federal Police for twelve years. From 2003 until 2008 he worked as an investigator, undercover operative handler and then lead investigator for AFACT. When AFACT moved their priorities from offline piracy to ISPs, they eventually let Warren go.

The Big Score

“Initially AFACT was called the Australasian Film and Video Security Office and was run out of Sydney by Mr Steve Howes,” Warren says, explaining how it all started for him in 2003. “The lead investigator here in Melbourne was another former AFP officer, Greg Hooper.”

“I had an undercover operative who worked for me (name withheld) that I shall refer to as “Short Round”. We were contracted to make purchases of DVDs and back then, VHS tapes of copyright infringing movies. In our first operation which lasted about six months, we had infiltrated a manufacturing “laboratory” and the dodgy sales team at the local trash and treasure market.”

Warren’s team then made so-called ‘trap purchases’ and all the evidence they gathered was then presented to the Victoria Police. The operation resulted in the execution of three simultaneous search warrants, netting about fifteen thousand exhibits, $30,000 cash and a dozen computer towers. It was a great success that was quickly communicated to the media.

“The press were informed and all was tied up in a neat bundle. Column inches were filled, sound bites were created and everyone was happy, except the pirates,” Warren recalls.

“This success ensured that Short Round and I had ongoing work. The AFVSO was subsumed by AFACT soon thereafter. Steve Howes was replaced by Neil Gane, a former British Hong Kong Police Inspector who had been working in Malaysia with the MPAA against piracy.”

Boosting Statistics

“At this time, Short Round and I were trotted out to meet Neil and to show him our equipment and discuss tactics. Mr Gane gave the impression of being very committed to stopping the evil scourge of piracy and was far more media savvy than his predecessor.”

“He was adamant that we needed to boost our statistics to make the media sit up and take notice and that the large numbers would make it easier to get the local Police interested. This was especially difficult to do as local police had no jurisdiction over copyright infringing product and the AFP were desperately short on manpower. We were encouraged to find links to drugs and stolen goods wherever possible.”

“We discussed the formula for extrapolating the potential street value earnings of ‘laboratories’ and we were instructed to count all blank discs in our seizure figures as they were potential product. Mr Gane also explained that the increased loss approximation figures were derived from all forms of impacts on decreasing cinema patronage right through to the farmer who grows the corn for popping.”

Gane understood that the media was an essential tool towards AFACT’s goal of getting tougher copyright legislation in place. And for this purpose, it was a good idea to bend the truth a bit. The results of this recalculation are quite amazing.

“2002 impact estimates were $100 million to today’s figure of $1.36 billion in nine years…. That’s a lot of extrapolating,” Warren says.

Courting the Police

Aside from influencing lawmakers with creative statistics, Warren and his colleagues also had to court the police on a regular basis. AFACT worked with both local law enforcement and the attorney general’s office where they delivered evidence and information to, based on their own investigations.

“Funded solely by MPAA, AFACT lobbies hard for changes to Australian law and enhance the sexiness of their case by making vague references to links to terrorism. Sometimes not so vague. I was instructed to tell police officers that the profit margins were greater than dealing heroin. It was bizarre. A twisted logic that AFACT spewed out with monotonous regularity,” Warren says.

One of the examples Warren gives is that they assumed that all burners and DVD replicators would run 24/7, making these operations appear very lucrative.

“Each burner cranking out ten discs an hour, multiplied by ten dollars per disc is potentially a hundred dollars an hour, multiplied by number of burners by hours in a year gives a yearly potential…. Very pumped up statistics.”

When the local police were convinced about the to need to follow-up on the case, Warren delivered them all the evidence they would need on a silver platter.

“In my time at AFACT we developed relationships with various police officers (detectives) and would work our cases up to a stage where we could present them with enough information, intelligence and evidence that most of the work was done. This is called a ‘walk up start’.”

“Police on the other hand would sometimes find large quantities of copyright infringing material whilst executing warrants, eg: drug warrant executions would invariably turn up some dodgy DVDs and I would get a call to come and identify the product and prepare a brief of evidence for prosecution.”

“It was a matter of educating the police officers what to look for. In this vein, I would regularly deliver half day seminars to police on their training days. It was a good system and had the effect of increasing their prosecutions and my investigations statistics. Collaboration had such a dark overtone. Cooperation is my preferred term,” Warren says.

Like many other private investigators Warren is a former police detective. And although the statistics may have been pumped a little, Warren was always careful to act within the boundaries of the law when it comes to his investigative work.

“The PI license is relatively difficult to obtain and easy to lose, therefore we tend to shy away from any activity that would jeopardize our livelihood. The key to efficient and effective investigations is to know all aspects of the various legislations that cover things such as Surveillance Devices, hidden cameras etc. At no time did I authorize or condone the breaking of any laws or rules.”

“Undercover operations, to be used in evidence, need to be squeaky clean. The last thing any investigator needs is to have evidence thrown out of court because of the breach of legislation, or compromise by way of entrapment,” Warren told TorrentFreak.

Bye Bye PI

At the end of 2007 Warren had a meeting with Neil Gane, who just returned to AFACT after serving as the Australasian Operations Manager for the MPAA for a brief while. Gane told Warren that AFACT would be focusing more on ISPs and online piracy instead of the street work Warren did.

Warren was still welcome to submit a tender for piecemeal work at an hourly rate, instead of daily. However, he later learned that his partner and former friend, Short Round, had undercut him, and was working on an as-needed basis for AFACT.

This ended Warren’s ‘career’ in the anti-piracy business. In the years that followed he continued to monitor what AFACT was up to, and he still can’t help but crack a smile when he reads about the disastrous piracy statistics AFACT tells the media about. And so do we.
https://torrentfreak.com/private-ant...-beans-111003/





20,000+ Defendants Dismissed from Massive “Hurt Locker” Torrent Lawsuit
Jolie O'Dell

More than 20,000 defendants have been dismissed from a lawsuit involving illegal online file-sharing of the movie The Hurt Locker.

The makers of the film brought the suit against a record-breaking 24,583 defendants earlier this year; now, the suing party, Voltage Pictures, has voluntarily let around 90 percent of those defendants off the hook.

According to documents filed with a Washington, DC, district court, all but 2,300 defendants are being “voluntarily dismissed without prejudice.”

Voltage Pictures is still seeking damages from more than 2,300 defendants. However, the company has yet to positively identify most of the defendants due to the fact that it must work with Internet service providers to link IP addresses with allegedly infringing parties.

And since many of the anonymous defendants are filing motions of their own with the ISPs, identifying all the defendants is taking more than the allotted 120 days that Voltage Pictures has to serve them with papers.

According to recent filings, “In circumstances where a Doe [unidentified] defendant has not filed the motion and only sent it to the ISP, most ISPs withhold the identifying information so that the Doe defendant can then file the motion with the court. Further, plaintiff’s counsel has been informed by the ISPs that numerous Doe defendants have recently re-filed their motions or have filed motions for reconsideration of the Court’s prior rulings.”

In other words, in trying to track down and prosecute 24,000 torrenters en masse, Voltage has without question bit off more than they can chew, especially since the alleged infringers are fighting back.

Voltage is seeking more time from the court to identify and serve the remaining 2,300 defendants.
http://venturebeat.com/2011/10/01/hu...rrent-lawsuit/





Judge Makes Company Pay More For Infringement Because The CEO Complained Publicly About The Patent System
Mike Masnick

Matt writes in and summarizes the details of a ridiculous ruling perfectly below, so I'll let him takeover and chime in again at the end:

"On Friday, a Texas federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued an astonishing order. In essence, it fined InnoLux because its CEO stated his belief, in China, that the US sometimes over-enforces patents.

InnoLux admitted infringing some of Mondis's patents in connection with computer monitors. A jury found some of the infringement to be willful. So InnoLux was in a bad place, and was warming up to get skewered on damages. The judge (Judge Ward, who is famous for his scathing opinions) ordered that a 0.75% royalty be paid for all of the infringing monitors sold. But then the judge caught wind of a statement InnoLux's CEO made to a Chinese newspaper, that "patent infringement is 'being taken too seriously sometimes.'" The judge doubled the royalty rate to 1.5%. His basis?

"The court finds that this statement by InnoLux's CEO shows InnoLux's lack of respect for this court and the jury's verdict. It is also an affront to the U.S. patent system - a system of constitutional origin. The court, therefore, finds that this also warrants a strong enhancement because it further reflects the egregiousness of InnoLux's conduct."

This is an astonishing usurpation of authority. The patent law does not require (or permit) damage enhancements based on evidence of a lack of respect for judges or verdicts. Instead, "upon a finding for the claimant the court shall award damages adequate to compensate for the infringement, but in no event less than a reasonable royalty for the use made of the invention by the infringer, together with interest and costs as fixed by the court." This means lost profits or a reasonable royalty or a little of both, but at least a reasonable royalty.

But even if the court had power to set damages at his own discretion, not bounded by a requirement that he award just enough to be "adequate to compensate," this would still be shocking. First, criticizing things that are "constitutional in origin" is the great American pastime, and is certainly not lawfully restricted by a court. American courts may only enforce Congressional laws (since Erie v. Tompkins, there is no federal common law). So whatever authority the court thinks it has to spank someone for something non-damaging that they have said must come from the court's interpretation of a Congressional enactment. But since Congress shall make no law restricting the freedom of speech, any interpretation that provides for a damage enhancement on the basis of non-damaging speech must be incorrect. In any event, the First Amendment amended the document containing the IP clause, and therefore supercedes it.

Should I be worried if I criticize a regime that permits states to sell booze? While Constitutional in origin, it seems to make liquor a publicly owned and distributed good. Do we want to be a country of socialized inebriation? Must we tolerate bourbon lines? What's next, gin stamps?

The fact that the Framers missed the boat on patents does not, and should not, mean we cannot criticize their miss. Even if they got it right in their first outing, if it is being misapplied now given modern circumstances (it is) we should be free to point that out however and wherever we want without fear of government intrusion or repercussion.

Judge Ward, of course, is the judge who put Eastern Texas on the map as the place to go for patent lawsuits, so it's no surprise that he seems to think saying something bad about the US patent system opens you up to greater damages. But it seems like a pretty serious First Amendment issue when the judge is, quite clearly, punishing someone for their speech. What's really scary is that this could create a significant chilling effect on the people who need to speak out most: those attacked over questionable infringement claims. If they now know that they can face even higher damages merely for complaining about the patent system that put them in this mess in the first place, isn't that a huge problem?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...t-system.shtml





Supreme Court Declines Music Download Case
David Kravets

The Supreme Court is declining to decide whether downloading a song is a public performance requiring artists to get paid additional royalties.

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, known as ASCAP, asked the justices to review a lower court decision that said downloading songs from iTunes, Amazon, eMusic or even music-sharing services do not count as public performances, and hence additional royalties are unwarranted. On Monday, the court let stand that decision without comment.

The group, with 400,000 members, maintained in its petition to the justices that the Copyright Act demanded the extra royalties, which could amount to tens of millions of dollars in extra revenue annually. The appeals court said that downloading a music file is more aptly characterized as “reproducing” that file, and not subject to performance rights.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of appeals, ruling against ASCAP, said “perform,” as outlined in Section 101 of the Copyright Act, means to “recite, render, play, dance or act it either directly or by means of any device or process.”

ASCAP licenses the right to perform publicly the musical works of its members to a diverse array of music users, including internet and network-based sites and services, television and radio stations, restaurants, hotels and sports arenas.

The artists, represented by Theodore Olson, a former U.S. solicitor general, told the justices in their petition that the case was of “vital importance.”

“If the Second Circuit’s decision stands, songwriters and music publishers across the nation will be denied their statutory right to receive royalties for public performances when their works are downloaded over the internet — which is already one of the most prevalent means for the dissemination of copyrighted musical works,” Olson wrote.

The government, backed by Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., a former Recording Industry Association of America attorney, urged the justices to reject ASCAP’s petition.

“Because the download itself involves no dancing, acting, reciting, rendering, or playing of the musical work encoded in the digital transmission, it is not a performance of that work,” the government wrote the justices.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...-royalty-flap/





Napster’s Undoing: Company-Wide Layoffs Coming Dec. 16
Janko Roettgers

Rhapsody’s purchase of Napster from Best Buy looks more and more like a glorified funeral. Sure, Rhapsody gains a few hundred thousand new subscribers — even though it’s unclear how many will actually stay around — and the company may even get a few interesting patents as a sugar coating.

But for Napster, the deal pretty much means game over. Here are some of the grim details I was able to gather by talking to sources and going through reports:

• Napster’s two offices in Los Angeles and San Diego will close, leaving an estimated 120 people without work. A few may get rehired by Rhapsody, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
• The official last day for Napster’s employees is Dec. 16, according to a reliable source close to the company. A Rhapsody spokesperson didn’t want to comment on the specific date, but said a few people may stay longer than others to help with the transition.
• Reports put the number of current Napster subscribers at less than 400,000, which is down from around 700,000 to 800,000 when Best Buy bought Napster in 2008.
• Rhapsody didn’t pay a single dollar in cash for the Napster assets, but gave Best Buy a minority share in its company. Rhapsody President Jon Irving confirmed yesterday that this was an “all-equity deal.”
• The cat will cease to exist. The iconic Napster name and logo won’t be used by Rhapsody, at least not in the U.S.
• What about Napster’s services abroad? “Business in Canada, the U.K. and Germany isn’t affected and will continue like before,” I was told by Napster VP Sales & Marketing Europe Thorsten Schliesche. However, it’s unclear for how long. A Rhapsody spokesperson explained that Napster’s foreign operations aren’t part of the deal announced this week, but Rhapsody is looking to buy these services through a separate transaction. At that point, all foreign subscribers will be rolled over to the Rhapsody service, but it may continue to be Napster-branded abroad.

Of course, this could all be seen as a necessary consolidation in an industry that’s bracing for new competitors like Spotify. However, browsing LinkedIn profiles of current Napster employees last night, I not only got the sense that there are a lot of people who’ve been working at the company for close to a decade, only to suddenly find themselves without a job now.

I also have to wonder: Why wasn’t it possible to turn this hugely popular brand into an opportunity to make online music pay?
http://gigaom.com/2011/10/04/napster...rhapsody-deal/





Bert Jansch, an Influential Folk Guitarist, Is Dead at 67
William Grimes

Bert Jansch, a guitarist whose blend of classical, jazz, blues and traditional British folk music inspired a long list of folk and rock guitarists in the 1960s and ’70s, including Donovan, Jimmy Page, Neil Young and Paul Simon, died on Wednesday in London. He was 67.

The cause was lung cancer, The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Jansch caused an immediate sensation with his first album, “Bert Jansch,” released in 1965. He was a mostly self-taught musician. And his idiosyncratic style, with its intricate finger work and bent notes, as well as his bold reinterpretations of traditional material, exerted a powerful influence on a generation of young guitarists. A founder of the progressive British folk group Pentangle, he remains an almost talismanic figure for today’s young artists like Beth Orton and Devendra Banhart.

“With the release of his first album in 1965 he completely reinvented guitar playing and set a standard that is still unequaled today,” Johnny Marr, the former guitarist for the Smiths, wrote in a foreword to the paperback reissue of the 2000 book “Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival,” by Colin Harper. “Without Bert Jansch, rock music as it developed in the ’60s and ’70s would have been very different.”

Mr. Jansch (the name rhymes with blanch) became obsessed with the guitar after a teacher in his elementary school in Edinburgh brought one in for a demonstration. His parents could not afford to pay for more than a few lessons, so he tried to construct his own instrument. “The second one I made was even playable, and I learned to chord a D on it,” he told Frets magazine in 1980.

After buying a guitar at age 15, he began listening to records by Woody Guthrie, Big Bill Broonzy, Brownie McGhee and Lead Belly. Gradually he incorporated influences from classical music, jazz and traditional Celtic and British folk songs. He was particularly influenced by Davy Graham, another seminal guitarist, whose composition “Angi” (also spelled “Angie” and “Anji”) became the centerpiece of Mr. Jansch’s first album.

Mr. Jansch remained reserved about describing his style and how it evolved. “Everyone asks that but I’m sorry, it’s a mystery to me how it developed like this,” he told the newspaper Scotland on Sunday in 2004.

Neil Young, who included Mr. Jansch on his American tour last year, once called him the acoustic equivalent of Jimi Hendrix as an influence on guitar players. Donovan recorded a cover version of Mr. Jansch’s protest song “Do You Hear Me Now” on his “Universal Soldier” album and paid tribute to him with “Bert’s Blues” on the album “Sunshine Superman” and “House of Jansch” on “Mellow Yellow.”

Mr. Page, who succumbed to the spell of Mr. Jansch’s first album when it came out, did his own instrumental version of “Blackwaterside,” a traditional song from Mr. Jansch’s third solo album, “Jack Orion” (1966). Retitled “Black Mountain Side,” it appeared on Led Zeppelin’s debut album.

Herbert Jansch was born on Nov. 3, 1943, in Glasgow and grew up in Edinburgh. After leaving school at 15, he became a fixture at the Howff, a local folk club. Two of the club’s regulars, Clive Palmer and Robin Williamson, future members of the Incredible String Band, encouraged him to break out of the narrow Edinburgh scene.

He made his way to London and performed on the streets and in small clubs. After recording “Bert Jansch” on a reel-to-reel tape deck, he teamed up with the singer and guitarist John Renbourn, his second guitarist on “It Don’t Bother Me” and “Jack Orion” and his duet partner on the influential album “Bert and John” (1966).

He and Mr. Renbourn began performing at the Horseshoe Hotel on Tottenham Court Road with the future members of Pentangle: the singer Jacqui McShee, the acoustic bassist Danny Thompson and the drummer Terry Cox.

The group made its debut in a sold-out performance at the Royal Festival Hall on May 27, 1967, and went on to become one of the most dominant folk groups in Britain. It was known for its innovative and eclectic style, which had a marked jazz influence, and for the complex intertwined guitar parts in the “folk baroque” style.

The group’s first album, “Pentangle,” was released in 1968, followed by “Sweet Child,” “Basket of Light,” “Cruel Sister,” “Reflection” and “Solomon’s Seal.”

On New Year’s Day 1973, Mr. Jansch left the group, whose members were buckling under the strain of five world tours. Retreating to a farm in Wales, he returned to a solo career and recorded the album “A Rare Conundrum.” In the late 1970s joined with the fiddler Martin Jenkins to form a duo, Jansch and Jenkins, which became Conundrum after adding the bassist Nigel Smith. For a time Mr. Jansch performed and recorded with various revived versions of Pentangle.

Drinking problems derailed his career for a time, but he rebounded in the 1990s with the album “When the Circus Comes to Town.” He later recorded two critically praised albums, “Crimson Moon” and “The Black Swan,” featuring younger folk-influenced artists.

Mr. Jansch’s first two marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, Loren Auerbach, and two sons, Kieron and Adam.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/a...ead-at-67.html





Belgian Music Label Tracks Tweets in Hunt for Hits

A Belgian record label that gets fans to fund its bands and identifies future stars by tracking Facebook and Twitter, has scored three number one hits in the past year.
Reuters

"If you look at how music is getting distributed nowadays, it's a lot of people talking about their favorite bands on Twitter and Facebook, so we turned the model around," said Bart Becks, a former chief executive of a Belgian internet company, who co-founded SonicAngel.

"We have a platform that scans the networks that we want, in general it's always going to be YouTube, Twitter and Facebook," said Becks, 39, in an interview in Brussels.

Unlike other fan-funded websites, Brussels-based SonicAngel actively selects its artists before fans get the chance to chip in and help pay for them to launch an album.

"The most important difference with SonicAngel is that we do like an A&R, so we choose the artists and don't allow every artist on the platform," said co-founder Maurice Engelen, who is also the frontman of electronic band Lords of Acid.

"It's the same way that you would be a supporter of a football club, and you know that they have a great coach and a great talent scout, and you can invest in the football club," said Engelen, 52.

SonicAngel, founded a year-and-a-half ago, has had three number one hits in Belgium in the past year, a number three and a number seven hit in France, and 20 artists currently being funded.

It has a separate online system where musicians can upload their tracks and try to get votes from fans. As well as collecting votes, SonicAngel tracks the buzz around these bands by looking at social media.

Becks and Engelen decided to set up a label after Engelen coached a contestant on Belgium's version of X-Factor, Tom Dice, who failed to get a record deal.

"When I was in X-Factor and I saw this one contestant that was extremely good, when the contest was finished he didn't get a record deal, there was not one single record company that was interested," said Engelen.

"We said there are a couple of problems with the current record industry and let's try to solve them," added Becks.

Through SonicAngel, fans can buy a share in a band for 10 euros each and then they get a payout when a band starts making money.

It pays out every six months, so for Tom Dice, the first artist they launched, they paid back 26 euros per 10 euros share for the first semester and 6.8 euros for the second semester.

Now they are working with the University of Ghent and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a new project which could scan the entire web for the top-trending bands, they said.

"Ideally you could have a scan of popular bands across the entire web, but that's still in the future, that's something we're working on with universities," said Becks.

(Reporting By Ben Deighton, editing by Paul Casciato)
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011...onicangel.html





Citi Sets October 5 Deadline For EMI Bids
FMQB

Citigroup has reportedly set an October 5 deadline for bids on EMI, according to the Los Angeles Times. Bidders are expected to submit their best offers for the music company by next Wednesday, according to sources familiar with the sale.

Warner Music Group and its new owner Access Industries are reportedly interested in purchasing EMI as a whole, while Sony and BMG are aiming for EMI's publishing division. Meanwhile, Universal Music Group is looking at EMI's recorded music arm.

The Times notes that while EMI's publishing unit is smaller than the recorded music side, it has been more profitable. Overall, EMI could be sold for over $3 billion and possibly bring in upwards of $3.5 billion, according to the paper's sources.

Last week, it was reported that Napster co-founder Sean Parker and billionaire investor Ron Burkle are reportedly teaming up to make a bid for EMI.
http://www.fmqb.com/article.asp?id=2295957





Citigroup Questions if US Spectrum Shortage Exists

The U.S. has plenty of spectrum for mobile broadband, it's just in the wrong hands, analysts say
Grant Gross

For more than two years, the U.S. mobile industry has warned of an upcoming spectrum shortage, but two analysts at Citigroup don't buy it.

AT&T, trade group CTIA and even officials with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission have talked frequently about a coming spectrum crunch, as mobile customers move to data-sucking smartphones and tablets. Smartphones use 24 times the spectrum compared to standard mobile phones, and tablets use 120 times the spectrum, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a speech on Tuesday.

"The spectrum crunch is the single biggest threat to one of the most promising parts of our economy," Genachowski said.

But Citigroup analysts Jason Bazinet and Michael Rollins questioned what has become the convention wisdom in the mobile industry. The U.S. has plenty of spectrum for mobile broadband, but much of it is in the wrong hands, they said.

U.S. carriers have 538 MHz of spectrum dedicated to mobile data and voice and are only using 192 MHz, the two analysts said in a report released Sept. 22. Major carriers control 422 MHz of spectrum, Bazinet and Rollins estimated.

"Too much spectrum is controlled by companies that are not planning on rolling out services or face business and financial challenges," the report said. "And, larger carriers cannot readily convert a substantial portion of their spectrum to 4G services, because most existing spectrum provides 2G-3.5G services to current users."

Some large U.S. carriers may face a spectrum shortage down the road, but much of the U.S. spectrum available for mobile broadband is in the hands of companies slow to move forward with business plans, Rollins said. "It's the control of spectrum, not the availability, that's the real constraint," he said.

Cash-strapped Clearwire has 133 MHz of spectrum, but provides 4G service to markets covering only about 42 percent of the U.S. population. Startup LightSquared controls 59 MHz of spectrum, but its plans to build a nationwide 4G and satellite network are stalled because of interference concerns raised by GPS users.

Dish Network controls 47 MHz of undeveloped spectrum, with the company asking the FCC in August if they can use it to offer LTE (Long Term Evolution) service. The Citigroup report counts the Dish holdings as spectrum available in the future, not currently available spectrum.

In addition, some U.S. carriers have significant amounts of spectrum tied up in 2G and 3G services, Rollins said. He and Bazinet estimated that 147 MHz of the 192 MHz of spectrum now in use for mobile services is currently dedicated to 2G and 3G services.
"Their pace to 4G is dampened by the needs of converting spectrum over to 4G," Rollins said. "Because there's so many [2G and 3G] users on that, they need extra space, they need extra room, to be able to manage this conversion. That's where some specific players could use more spectrum, but there's a lot already licensed in the industry, so it's a question of how they get it."

CTIA officials disputed the Citigroup report's numbers, saying Bazinet and Rollins appear to be using information from 2010. More spectrum has gone into service this year, CTIA said, with Verizon Wireless, for example, launching 4G service on the 700 MHz band of spectrum to more than half the country since late 2010. Verizon won 22 MHz of spectrum in the C block of the 700 MHz band in an FCC auction that ended in early 2008.

The report uses numbers that are foreign to CTIA, said Chris Guttman-McCabe, the trade group's vice president for regulatory affairs. "I dispute each of the elements of it," he said. "Where did they get the 500 MHz, and where did they get the 190? I would dispute each of their numbers."

Guttman-McCabe questioned why the report included LightSquared spectrum, when it is tied up in regulatory limbo. He also disputed Citigroup's description of 194 MHz available in the Broadband Radio Service (BRS) and Educational Broadband Service (EBS) bands between 2.4 and 2.7 GHz, when an FCC decision in 2008 found only 55.5 MHz available for mobile broadband in those bands.

The U.S. mobile carriers use their spectrum more efficiently than carriers in any other nation, CTIA officials said, yet several other developed nations are in the process of making more spectrum available, or are looking for more spectrum.

"Every other country out there is bringing hundreds and hundreds of megahertz to market," Guttman-McCabe said. "What's the magic secret in the sauce that Citigroup knows that no one else does?"

Rollins defended the report's methodology. He and Bazinet started with 2010 numbers, but updated them, he said. The two used averages to come up with spectrum use estimates; if a carrier has a 10 MHz nationwide block, but is only delivering service to half the U.S. population, the report considers that 5 MHz of used spectrum, Rollins said.

The numbers are based on ongoing research, including discussions with carriers and information from the FCC, Rollins said. Citigroup did not give an explanation of the BRS and EBS numbers it used in the report.

CTIA also questioned why the National Association of Broadcasters sent the report to journalists. The NAB has concerns about an FCC plan to take back 120 MHz of spectrum from U.S. TV stations, with the stations that volunteer to give up spectrum sharing in the auction proceeds. The NAB pointed to the Citigroup report as evidence the broadcast spectrum isn't needed.

But the report reaches its conclusion about spectrum needs based in part on the FCC's plan to make available 300 MHz of "high-value" spectrum for mobile broadband, including 120 MHz from TV stations, over the next 10 years. The FCC's national broadband plan, released in early 2010, calls for a total of 500 MHz to be made available in 10 years, with 300 MHz suitable for mobile broadband.

"If [the report's] conclusion is, if we bring 300 MHz to market, and there's not a short-term spectrum shortage, I wouldn't be that troubled by that, especially if we can get that in the next couple of years," Guttman-McCabe said.
https://www.networkworld.com/news/20...um-251472.html





Volunteers Wanted for Europe-Wide Study to Boost Broadband Speeds

Broadband subscribers are being urged to volunteer for a study that aims to measure and boost internet access throughout Europe.
Gianluca Mezzofiore

The European Commission and the SamKnows broadband website are seeking 10,000 volunteers for the study, which will see download speeds and other measures of performance monitored via a small device on each line.

The project, which is similar to ongoing monitoring of British broadband performance by Samknows on behalf of Ofcom, will extend to 30 countries.

As well as reporting to researchers, the "Whitebox" device will provide regular data to consumers to help them understand the service they are receiving from their ISP. It is hoped the results will help enhance services across the continent by providing a full and accurate picture of broadband provision and performance.

“We are working to provide ISPs, regulators and, most importantly, consumers with the information they need to push for improved broadband services,” said Alex Salter, SamKnows’ CEO.

“The people who volunteer to take part will not only get access to our technology for free, but will be champions for better broadband across Europe as they help us to develop a picture of connectivity across Europe.”

As well as in Britain, SamKnows is recruiting volunteers in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden, with additional volunteers sought in Croatia, Iceland and Norway

The Whitebox measures performance via a series of simulations and automated test, which it runs while the broadband line is not in use.

SamKnows assure consumers that the device does not monitor their activity on the internet or record any personal information. To take part and apply for a free Whitebox visit www.samknows.eu.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...nd-speeds.html





Verizon Appeals FCC’s Net-Neutrality Rules
Gautham Nagesh

Verizon filed an appeal in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday arguing the Federal Communications Commission lacks the statutory authority to impose net-neutrality regulations.

“Verizon is fully committed to an open Internet,” Verizon Deputy General Counsel Michael Glover said in a news release. “We are deeply concerned by the FCC’s assertion of broad authority to impose potentially sweeping and unneeded regulations on broadband networks and services and on the Internet itself.

“We believe this assertion of authority is inconsistent with the statute and will create uncertainty for the communications industry, innovators, investors and consumers.”

In its court filing, Verizon cites the court’s decision to reject the FCC’s previous attempt at enforcing net neutrality last year and argues the commission has overstepped its legal authority in attempting to prevent Internet service providers from discriminating between similar sources of content.

“We are pleased that, since its adoption, the Commission’s Open Internet framework has brought certainty and predictability, stimulating increased innovation and investment across the broadband economy, including mobile networks and apps,” an FCC spokesman said in response to the appeal.

“We will vigorously oppose any effort to disrupt or unsettle that certainty, which ensures that the Internet remains an engine for job creation, innovation and economic growth.”

A federal court threw out Verizon’s previous challenge to the net-neutrality regulations in April, arguing the challenge was premature. Verizon on Friday followed through on its pledge to revisit the issue. The rules are scheduled to take effect Nov. 20.

Since the rules were published in the Federal Register last week, there have already been four challenges from proponents arguing the rules don’t go far enough and should apply to wireless firms. Verizon’s challenge is different in that it argues the rules go too far and should be struck down.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski decided against reclassifying broadband Internet access as an information service before the commission approved the rules in December, but left that docket open. The commission could presumably still reclassify broadband service if the court rules in favor of Verizon.
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-va...utrality-rules





FCC Moves to Dismiss Verizon's Net Neutrality Suit
Eric M. Zeman

The Federal Communications Commission has moved to dismiss Verizon Wireless's notice of appeal in its lawsuit against the FCC for lack of jurisdiction.

Verizon is seeking to block the implementation and enforcement of the FCC's net neutrality rules, which go into effect on November 20. Verizon believes the FCC has overstepped its bounds in creating the rules. The FCC argues otherwise, saying statutes exist that give it the authority to create and enforce such rules.

The FCC explained, "Verizon's theory of jurisdiction is that the FCC modified its radio licenses within [certain statutes] because the Open Internet Order cited the agency’s authority to modify licenses, among numerous other statutory bases of authority."

Verizon's attempt to appeal the rules on a statutory basis, "however, applies only when this Court is asked to review an FCC order that modifies specific individual licenses. It does not apply to review of generally applicable Commission orders that, like the Open Internet Order, regulate a broad group of licensees as a class. ... Verizon's notice of appeal ... should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction."
http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/article.php?a=9011





FCC Chairman: End Telephone Subsidies, Build Broadband
Grant Gross

The overhaul of an "outdated" U.S. Federal Communications Commission program that subsidizes telephone service in rural areas will lead to universally available broadband service in the U.S. by the end of the decade, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said.

Genachowski's proposal to revamp the Universal Service Fund (USF), unveiled Thursday, would transition the fund away from subsidies for traditional telephone service and toward broadband. The fund, with an annual budget of about US$8 billion, would start paying for broadband deployment to areas now unserved in 2012, under Genachowski's plan.

Genachowski called the current USF system "unfair" and "broken" and scheduled a vote on his proposal for later this month. In some cases, USF is paying telephone carriers $20,000 a year to provide service to a single customer, and the system pays subsidies to multiple carriers in some areas, he said.

Instead, the FCC needs to take action to deliver broadband to an estimated 18 million U.S. residents who don't now have access to it, Genachowski said. About half of those residents could have access to broadband within five years under the plan.

"Harm from not having broadband -- the costs of digital exclusion -- already high, are growing every day," Genachowski said. "The costs of this broadband gap are measured in jobs not created, existing job openings not filled, and our nation's competitiveness not advanced. The broadband divide means economic opportunities denied for ordinary consumers who lack broadband access; educational opportunities diminished; health care access reduced; and public safety compromised."

Genachowski's plan, short on details Thursday, includes reform of the FCC's intercarrier compensation system, the complex set of fees telecom carriers charge for carrying each others' traffic. The universal service portion of the plan would transition money from the USF's $4.5 billion-a-year high-cost fund to broadband, through the new Connect America Fund, and to a mobile broadband Mobility Fund.

If the FCC adopts the proposal, hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents would gain access to broadband in 2012, Genachowski said. The Mobility Fund would bring mobile service to 100,000 miles of roads across the U.S., he said.

The proposal would also cap the Connect America Fund. U.S. consumers, now paying a tax of about 15 percent on long-distance phone service could save "hundreds of millions of dollars" because of the cap, Genachowski said.

The FCC has been heading toward USF reform for a year and a half, and several members of Congress have pushed for changes in the system for years. The FCC's national broadband plan, released in early 2010, contained the basic elements of the plan Genachowski laid out Thursday, and the FCC launched a notice of proposed rulemaking on USF reform in February.

Genachowski's plan would also phase down intercarrier compensation payments, he said. The plan would close loopholes that lead some rural carriers to engage in so-called traffic pumping schemes. In some cases, rural carriers take advantage of high access fees they charge to larger carriers by driving traffic to their networks through partnerships with adult chat lines and conference calling services.

The plan would also seek to end the practice by some carriers of diverting wireline traffic to mobile networks to avoid paying the charges, he said.

The plan is not a "rubber stamp" of USF proposals by outside groups, Genachowski said. In July, a group of carriers, including AT&T, Frontier Communications and the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, proposed their own USF reforms, but some small carriers have opposed that plan.

Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance (ITTA), representing mid-size carriers, applauded Genachowski's proposal, although the group noted many details aren't yet available.

"ITTA ... is delighted that the Federal Communications Commission appears poised to adopt comprehensive universal service fund and intercarrier compensation reform," said Genevieve Morelli, ITTA's president. "ITTA has been championing meaningful USF reform for many years and is encouraged that such reform may now be imminent."

Genachowski's plan will bring big changes to the telecom industry, said George Foote, head of regulatory law at the Dorsey and Whitney law firm in Washington, D.C.

The proposal will rearrange "winners and losers in the telecom industry," he said in an email. "The companies that deliver broadband and mobile service will see new revenues. Traditional wireline-oriented business practices are going the way of the telegraph."
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2413...broadband.html





BT Promises 300Mbps FTTP by 2012

Openreach opens up its FTTP services to other providers, pledging 300Mbps downstream speeds by spring 2012.
Tom Brewster

BT Openreach has launched its Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) product, pledging it will offer downstream speeds of 300Mbps by spring next year.

At present, the service can hit 110Mbps downstream speeds and will be available in just six locations from the end of October.

More locations will be added and speeds will rise, however, with a 1Gbps service currently being trialled in Kesgrave, Suffolk.

The six initial locations which will enjoy FTTP services are Ashford in Middlesex, Bradwell Abbey in Milton Keynes, Highams Park in North London, Chester South, St Austell and York.

“These are significant announcements and good news for the UK. High-speed broadband is essential for economic growth, which is why we want the UK to have the best superfast broadband in Europe by 2015,” said communications minister Ed Vaizey.

“Improving the UK’s broadband infrastructure will help our high-tech, digital industries grow. It will ensure the UK is an attractive place to start-up and base the businesses of tomorrow.”

BT is looking for public funds to expand its fibre reach beyond the two-thirds it has pledged to cover.

“As always, we want to go further and faster and so our journey doesn’t end here,” said Olivia Garfield, CEO of Openreach.

“We can turn up the dial should there be demand and so we can look to the future with confidence.”

Other service providers will be able to rent Openreach’s FTTP lines and offer their own services, although there has been industry in-fighting over BT’s pricing of its fibre products.

Earlier this year, telecoms companies including Virgin and TalkTalk sent a letter to the Government complaining about BT’s pricing. BT responded by saying it was offering prices below the European average.

The war of words continued last month, as TalkTalk raised concerns over a potential monopolising of the fibre market. BT responded by saying it was listening to other providers as the roll-out progressed.

For the new FTTP services at 100Mbps downstream speeds and 30Mbps upstream speeds, BT is charging providers £436.32 a year for those with an existing wholesale line rental (WLR) or metallic path facility (MPF - essentially the copper a service provider pays for) service. Those wanting to pay for the same services without WLR or MPF deals will have to pay £537 a year.

Meanwhile, BT said it is improving its FTTC service and has been given permission to roughly double speeds at some point in 2012.

Despite the emphasis BT is placing on fibre, the majority of its customer base will be on copper for at least the next few years.
http://www.itpro.co.uk/636547/bt-pro...s-fttp-by-2012





ISPs "Exaggerate the Cost of Data"
Barry Collins

ISPs are over-egging the costs of meeting the ever-increasing demand for data, according to a new report.

Both fixed and mobile providers have claimed that increased internet traffic has resulted in "ballooning" costs for networks. Some ISPs have argued that content providers should pay them to help meet the cost of supplying bandwidth-intensive services such as the BBC iPlayer.

However, a new report commissioned by content providers - including the BBC, Channel 4 and Skype - claims the costs of delivering additional internet traffic have been wildly exaggerated by the ISPs.

"Traffic-related costs are a small percentage of the total connectivity revenue, and despite traffic growth, this percentage is expected to stay constant or decline," claims the report, written by telecoms experts Plum Consulting.

The report claims the cost of delivering additional gigabytes of data are mere pennies. "Studies in Canada and in the UK... put the incremental cost of fixed network traffic at around €0.01-0.03 per GB."

The report concedes that the cost of adding capacity on mobile networks "are significantly higher than they are for fixed networks" because "the radio-access network is shared by users".

However, it claims forthcoming 4G technologies will significantly reduce those costs. "Forward-looking estimates which take account of the transition to LTE [Long Term Evolution], additional spectrum and traffic subscriber growth... puts the cost to the mobile network operators at under €1 per GB," Plum Consulting claims.

As the report states, that cost is "well below existing smartphone data tariffs of around €10 per GB".

Describing claims of ballooning costs as a "myth", the report concludes that "for fixed networks, traffic-related costs are low, falling on a unit basis and likely to fall overall given declines in traffic growth and on-going cost-reducing technical progress".

Mobile network data costs are also "declining on a unit cost basis".

"Rubbish" figures

ISP representatives claim the figures quoted in the report are inaccurate. "The reality is bandwidth is shooting up," said Trefor Davies, CTO of communications provider Timico and a member of the board at the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA). "Bandwidth is by far the greatest proportion of cost for an ISP."

Davies said this is especially the case for smaller ISPs who rent lines on a wholesale basis from BT. "It's very much you pay for what you use," he said. "If you use twice as much bandwidth, you're going to be paying twice as much."

Even for ISPs running their own network, such as BT, Davies claims the figures of €0.01-0.03 per GB are "rubbish". "It's an order of magnitude greater than that," he claimed.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/broadban...e-cost-of-data





Tightening Your Data Belt Can Save You Money
Peter Wayner

The economics of an all-you-can-eat buffet are pretty easy to figure out. The restaurant makes money as long as most of the diners don’t have big appetites and enormous capacity for engorgement.

It hasn’t taken Internet service providers very long to conclude that their all-you-can-eat pricing isn’t as profitable as charging those who use more bandwidth streaming videos and music more money than those who pop on for a quick Facebook chat. Many are adopting flat-rate pricing or pricing tiers. The more you use, the more you pay. Many are even imposing limits on their customers.

Comcast, for instance, limits its customers to 250 gigabytes a month, a threshold that it estimates affects no more than a few percent of its customers. The limits are much lower for wireless data providers like the cellphone companies. Verizon, for instance, offers plans with limits of 2, 5 or 10 gigabytes a month.

Complain all you want about the new plans, but there are only two ways around the problem: Use less or pay more.

Much of the advice on how to use less bandwidth will sound a lot like what you’d hear from any dietician who catches you at the smorgasbord: eat less or at least eat the healthy foods. It’s not an emotionally satisfying answer, but when it comes to broadband, it is either that or pay more.

Like any diet plan, there are a few tips for making that easier.

¶ Watch the meter. All of the I.S.P.’s with the new limits provide mechanisms for tracking your consumption on their Web site. Comcast, for instance, has a data usage meter in the customer service section of its Web site. If you end up near the limit, you can throttle back a little more — or get a second job.

¶ Install bandwidth meter software on your computer. This will only measure how much you consume from that computer, not every computer sharing your connection, but that can still be useful. The new caps are inspiring a wide range of new packages that count how much information goes in and out of your machine and there are a number of excellent programs. Two that are well-regarded are DU Meter for the PC and iStat Menus for the Mac.

¶ Cut back on video. Video files are by far the largest blocks of data delivered to the average person. One hour of a high-definition movie might be as much as 2.3 gigabytes. The text for this article is probably about 7,200 bytes plus some overhead for advertisements. That’s about one-300,000th of the movie’s size.

¶ Decrease the resolution. Netflix lets users choose among “good,” “better” and “best” quality; the merely "good” quality may be one-seventh the size of the best quality. Smart algorithms reduce detail by replacing complicated patches with one average color. YouTube and Hulu also let users choose the resolution for some videos.

¶ Take control of ambush video. Some Web sites include video ads that start playing immediately. A number of extensions for Web browsers can temporarily block Flash content, a common form used to embed videos in Web pages. ClickToFlash for Safari, for instance, replaces the content with a button that you can push if you want to watch it. Firefox users can get Flashblock, which does the same thing.

¶ Avoid constant home surveillance. Some home video security systems stream a constant image of your house in case you want to check for damage. Others upload new images only when something moves. Being careful with the amount of surveillance can save a large amount of data.

¶ Restrict your online backups. If you use an automatic backup service that uploads your data to a remote server, think twice about which files and folders you back up. Text documents for work will generally be small and put little load on the system, but if you’re filming every moment of a new baby’s life and saving it to disk, the backups will be large. Saving multiple versions of a PowerPoint presentation filled with video can also raise consumption because the backup program will dutifully ship copies of all of them across the Internet.

¶ Think twice about cloud music services. If you listen frequently to streaming music services, consider buying the music you listen to frequently and storing it locally.

¶ Share photos in moderation. Your friends may like seeing as many megapixels of your children as possible but full-size images from digital cameras can be quite large. Many image-sorting tools like iPhoto can produce lower-resolution images perfect for e-mailing. This compression helps both you and the recipient stay under your limit.

¶ Update your operating system with care. Many operating systems offer automated updates, a nice feature that mixes essential security fixes with less important bug fixes and cosmetic changes. If you turn off the automation, you can decide to download only the updates that are important. Most software companies include a short description of the changes and the size. Often the title of important fixes will begin with words like “Security Update.”

¶ Avoid e-mail attachments. Some people think nothing of sending their friends a large video file showing a cat doing something endearing. Others send big work files to large mailing lists even if only a few need the documents. Some of this can be avoided by not downloading attachments. Web-based e-mail services usually won’t deliver the attachments unless you request them. Good e-mail readers like Outlook can be configured to download only e-mail attachments smaller than a certain size.

¶ Turn off e-mail images. Most image files are too small to make a difference unless the bandwidth cap is very low, but if you get many marketing messages, the image files can add up. Many Web-based e-mail packages allow you to control image loading.

¶ Browse e-mail subject lines. Many smartphone e-mail clients download only the subjects and senders’ names, not the actual content. Many Web-based services, like Gmail, download the content only when you open the message.

¶ Run antivirus software. Malware can take over your computer and use your bandwidth. Keep your computer clean.

¶ Explore nondigital activities. There are many old-fashioned ways to spend an evening without consuming bandwidth. Consider board games, reading things printed on paper, walks in the park or quiet dinners without settling arguments by checking Wikipedia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/t...data-belt.html





The Internet Isn’t Just Another TV Pipe
Ben Decker

As everyone knows, Facebook schooled the web last week, and expanded its territorial ambitions to the world of media. Launching with partners in print, music, and video, Facebook’s latest update pushes toward a world where consumption’s default has been switched to sharing, and social discovery sits not on the periphery of the media experience, but permeates it.

Zuckerberg presents this as a new model for media industries, one where you “discover so many songs (or movies, or articles) that you end up buying even more content than you ever would have otherwise.” Indeed, bringing users into the media discovery process is an important step. Ultimately though, it’s just a beginning, for it touches only the marketing component of the traditional model (consumers still passively consume content; they just get to tell people about it now). The media revolution that’s coming will go further, fundamentally restructuring the relationship between media producers and consumers and often blurring the line between the two.

In my industry, television, everyone is scrambling to figure out the impact of Internet distribution. How will it impact broadcast, for first-run airs and repeats? What’s online’s relation to DVR and VOD? How do its CPMs and sellout rates compare to other channels? Questions like these, however, fail to capture the full opportunity inherent in the new medium.

The Internet isn’t just another pipe. The Internet is an open distribution platform available to anyone, a fundamental change to the business landscape in which we operate. And the Internet is bidirectional, which should fundamentally change the product we offer. This first characteristic opens our business inevitably to the chaos and disintermediation that has plagued the print and music industries. It this second characteristic, however, that I believe gives the TV industry a ladder out, and provides the opportunity for a dynamic, more sustainable, and ultimately more profitable business model.

In the past, a small number of companies held exclusive control over the TV distribution infrastructure. Today though, the Internet has opened up distribution to anyone, with production and marketing tools following suit, breeding an entirely new class of potential creators. The Internet meanwhile is also making it easier to find and work with these creators, which is making the traditional model of publishing unsustainable. It is no longer possible, competitively or practically, to keep our grip over everything, controlling the full production and distribution process internally, to push a monolithic product on a passive consumer we have no relationship with.

The problem of the web’s openness is fragmentation. On the web, instead of a couple companies trying to assemble full packages of finished content, everybody throws everything out there, from individuals with camcorders to well-financed independent studios. Most of it’s of course crap. But the best can be quite great, even better than ‘professional’ content. And more importantly, individual pieces tend often to be better, at least for a particular person, at a particular point in time. The aggregate of the network—the best, most personally relevant piece of content from anyone, anywhere on the planet—becomes difficult to compete with. There will always be a market for high-end, quality-assured content. But as low-end tools move ever up market, as professional input resources become ever less exclusive, and as discovery mechanisms become ever better, that premium pie the big guys fight over will become ever smaller. It’s the basic innovator’s dilemma.

You see it in the obvious trends plaguing television’s business model. Monetization has always been about control . . . about setting up checkpoints, sites where people have to come to us if they want the services we provide. In the broadcast era, we had no way to ask this of consumers, so we turned to advertisers, for whom we could gate and sell access to our audiences. In the cable era, we found a way to establish a retail model, controlling the flow of content through pipes and selling access to consumers directly.

With the Internet though, these models break. As we lose control over distribution, consumers gain the option of alternate content paths, both legal and illegal, rather than waiting at our checkpoints. And as the world fragments, we lose our ability to aggregate audiences. Of course, this latter point matters less and less, as businesses gain the ability to speak to consumers directly (first through web sites and now more effectively through social networks), and then even they get disintermediated, with consumers shifting their reliance from ‘push’ brand messaging toward ‘pull’ recommendations from their peers and reputation systems (think Amazon star ratings, and now Facebook).

I believe there’s a solution, one which doesn’t run from, but instead embraces the openness and interactivity of the web. I believe television, and all traditional media industries, must shift to a collaborative model, where we use our premium resources as a vacuum to suck in value creation from partners and users, the way digital firms like Apple, Google, and Facebook do. We should take advantage of external capabilities where they’re preferable to our own (eg distribution), and release our own differentiated resources to open innovation (eg content and ad sales capabilities). The job of the media company will shift from producing and distributing content alone to orchestrating production and distribution ecosystems.

In all our interactions—with suppliers, but most critically with the audience—we must also shift from one-off transactions to ongoing relationships. No longer can we simply push our products to people and call it a day—sell them a DVD and that’s that. Me must shift to a services model, where we build ongoing communities of interest around our content and the service we sell becomes access to that content. To this end, we must work harder to foster user contributions and user-curation around our shows; create second screen and social experiences that deepen the engagement of our viewers; offer games, gamification and, other forms of interactivity. We must personalize media experiences and offer recommendations.

The opportunity here is extensive: continual subscription revenue streams, a secure distribution model (services are harder to steal than goods), a sustainable advertising model (based on deep user knowledge and a recurrent opportunity for persuasion), customized and continually evolving products, and the chance to capture free labor, knowledge, and creativity from our customers. It’s what Blizzard and Zynga did with games, Netflix with video, Zipcar with vehicles, and down the line as all business gradually join ‘the mesh.’

As Netflix has demonstrated, disrupting one’s own business is perilous work. But it’s been done. Facing crises, companies like Cisco, IBM, and P&G have taken tens of billions of dollar restructuring paths to come out fundamentally different, vastly more successful companies. Firms like AOL and Best Buy are in the midst of trying. Of course, the alternative is the long slow fade to irrelevancy of a Yahoo, Borders, EMI, Tribune, or Blockbuster.

At television networks, digital divisions are creating innovative interactive experiences that take the audience beyond mere consumption into active participation. But all of us in traditional media companies must realize that these digital products aren’t just dinky marketing vehicles for their on-air counterparts. They aren’t cannibalistic substitutes, replacing analog dollars with digital pennies. They are our gateway to a new world.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/01/the...other-tv-pipe/





More Than Half Of Netflix’s Streams Are TV Shows, Not Films
Stuart Dredge

Netflix’s background in DVDs-by-mail means it is often seen as mainly a movies service. However, the balance has tipped more towards TV shows in its streaming operation.

“50 percent and sometimes 60 percent of viewing is TV episodes now,” said Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos, during a joint keynote at the Mipcom conference in Cannes with Miramax CEO Mike Lang.

This is the key factor behind Netflix’s high-profile deal to stream episodes of Mad Men, and also its decision to ink an exclusive deal for David Fincher’s new remake of BBC drama House of Cards.

“That can be mis-perceived as Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) giving up on movies, which it’s not. It’s just consumers saying what they want,” said Sarandos during his keynote. He also announced a new exclusive deal for a TV series called Lilyhammer, starring actor/musician Steven Van Zandt.

Sarandos said that Netflix intends to use its recommendation algorithms to seed the show with users who are most likely to enjoy it. “We really think we can use these same algorithms to launch a show very rapidly, and put it in the hands of the people who’ll love it the most,” he said, citing the previous example of Starz’ Spartacus show being promoted to Netflix users who had enjoyed the film 300.

Miramax is one of Netflix’s key partners, with Lang having joined as CEO in December 2010 with the ambition of striking a series of digital distribution deals. He previously worked as executive vice president of business development and strategy at Fox (NSDQ: NWS) Entertainment, where he was closely involved in the acquisition of Myspace and the creation of online TV service Hulu.

“In a way I’d like to believe our company is a bit more Silicon Valley than Hollywood,” said Lang during the keynote, while outlining Miramax’s strategy of working with traditional TV partners, new services like Netflix and Hulu, and launching its own direct-to-consumer offering on Facebook, iPad and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) TV.

“We believe that cross-platform is key to growing the digital transactions business,” he said. “We believe that all these different platforms can be complementary and co-exist together. We think everything starts with the consumer. They’re not focused on windows or on what schedule they can watch something or on which device.”

Lang also said that when he joined Miramax, the studio was “basically closed for business”, despite having a library of more than 700 films. “It was a case of innovate or die,” he said, before outlining why this means he loses little sleep worrying about piracy.

“Piracy really is not the bigger issue for our company or for our library. It’s been lack of exploitation, just not getting it out there,” said Lang. “Most consumers at some point in their life don’t want to pirate. The way to then react to that is to offer legitimate, great services for them.”

Lang noted that there is still a “robust market” for ownership of films, even in the physical world, citing the upcoming Blu-ray release of Pulp Fiction with a raft of extra content as a good example.

He also drew on his experience of the music industry when launching Myspace Music to suggest a key lesson that the film and TV industries need to learn.

“Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is the strongest company in the music industry, and because there was not enough competition, and still to this day is not enough competition, as an industry it can’t then influence, packaging, merchandising… all the things that are vital,” said Lang.

“As the movie business we have to be very cogniscant of that. That’s why we did our deal with Netflix, and why we also did our deal with Hulu. We want multiple players to be successful… Our goal as an industry should be to have as many as possible, ad may the best service win.”
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-m...how-not-films/





Who Needs Netflix? Paramount Streams Latest 'Transformers' Directly to Consumers

'A little toe-dip' in new distribution method for Paramount and Viacom
Jason Del Rey

Paramount Pictures has quietly introduced an online streaming option for "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," taking home viewing straight to consumers without the need for middlemen such as Netflix, Facebook, Blockbuster Movie Pass, Vudu, a cable company or a satellite provider.

Consumers can visit vod.transformersmovie.com to stream an HD version of the movie for $4.99 or an standard version for $3.99. Users have 48 hours to watch the movie from the time of signup.

The site says it is operated by Zukor, a unit of Paramount parent Viacom. Paramount publicized the site on Friday with an email blast to consumers from MTV Networks, another Viacom sibling.

The offer will last through the end of February, marking the first extended direct-to-consumer online streaming rental offered by Paramount, according to Amy Powell, exec VP-interactive marketing and film production. The studio warmed up for the effort by selling streams of the first two "Transformers" movies directly to consumers over two weeks in June.

"We're testing the waters and interested to see consumer feedback," said Ms. Powell. "It's just a little toe-dip to move in the direction we believe will be one of the future distribution means for content."

Paramount previously made its "Jackass" movies available for rent on Facebook, a platform that continues to absorb more users and more time. So why go around the middlemen? "Paramount wants to offer as many choices as possible when it comes to consumers enjoying its content," Ms. Powell said.

Tony Wible, media and entertainment analyst at Janney Capital Markets, said the direct-to-consumer approach isn't likely to be a long-term solution for studios, given the head start for platforms like Netflix and Facebook. The more interesting frontier in video revolves around so-called UltraViolet video, which lets consumers access video content on any device or service platform, Mr. Wible said. Some retailers plan to sponsor DVD trade-in programs, in which DVDs will be converted to digital video available for streaming from the cloud for a nominal fee.

"I don't think it will save the DVD business," he said, "but it should slow that decline."
http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/...sumers/230191/





Buy This Movie Or Legally Download It For Free: Your Call
Jon Orlin

PressPausePlay, an award-winning documentary about our new digital culture, premiered at SXSW earlier this year. It is playing at film festivals and you can buy it on iTunes, Amazon, and other digital pay sites. If you don’t want to pay for it, you can now download it via a torrent for free. This free option was essential to the filmmakers. As Seth Godin says in the film, ideas that are free spread faster.

The movie examines the impact of today’s technology advances on our culture and the digital artists, musicians, and filmmakers who create it. In the film, Godin says “there has never been a better time to be an artist.” Taking a completely different view, technology pessimist, Andrew Keen, host of TechCrunch TV’s “Keen On“, says “we may well be on the verge of a new dark age… where the creative world is destroyed.”

Watching parts of the movie, I thought I was watching an Apple promotional video, showing the power of what a Mac can do. The music and videos that can be produced on computers, almost exclusively Apple computers in this film, is simply amazing. As the musician Moby says, because of software, “now any kid … in about 5 minutes can do what took 6 months or years, 20 years ago.”

But that doesn’t mean it’s any good. See Rebecca Black. Moby adds “If everyone is a musician and everyone is making mediocre music, eventually the world is just covered with mediocracy.”

As the filmmakers say, “the digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent of people in an unprecedented way, unleashing unlimited creative opportunities.” But, Keen questions whether a young Hitchcock or Scorsese would make it today, as they “slap up their early stuff on Facebook, on YouTube, it would get lost in the ocean of garbage.”

The movie also addresses the troubling dichotomy that the same technology artists use to create their work also allows for easy pirating and destroys existing business models. The documentary doesn’t provide any easy answers, but it raises important questions about the impact to our culture.

You can find the free download options at presspauseplay.com, including an interactive Adobe Air version with deleted scenes and additional and longer interview clips. For the standard downloads, you get a .torrent file and use a free software like BitTorrent to get the movie file. So far, there have been 4,000 downloads.

Why have both a free version (with even more interactive content) and paid version at the same time, with links just inches away from each other? When the filmmakers signed their distribution deal, they say it was always their intention to eventually give the film away for free online. The goal was never to make money, but instead make a film people would share and think about.

Andrew Keen was interviewed for the film, but he got to turn the cameras around on the filmmakers in Austin. Here’s the interview Keen did with the Swedish co-directors David Dworsky and Victor Kohler, at SXSW:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/01/buy...ree-your-call/





Judge Suggests DMCA Allows DVD Ripping if You Own the DVD
Timothy B. Lee

A Monday ruling suggests that educational institutions are entitled to stream legally purchased DVDs on campus without the permission of copyright holders. A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit charging UCLA with violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other provisions of copyright law by ripping DVDs and streaming them to students.

"UCLA is pleased that the court dismissed the plaintiffs' lawsuit challenging UCLA's practice of streaming previously purchased video content for educational purposes," said Scott Waugh, UCLA executive vice chancellor and provost. "The court ruling acknowledges what UCLA has long believed, that streaming licensed DVDs related to coursework to UCLA students over UCLA's secure network is an appropriate educational use."

The lawsuit was brought by a trade association of educational video publishers called the Association for Information Media and Equipment (AIME), and one of its members, Ambrose Video Publishing. The plaintiffs allege that around January 2006, UCLA purchased video streaming software that included a DVD-ripping capability, and began streaming DVDs it had purchased—including some belonging to Ambrose—to members of the UCLA community.

Ambrose and AIME sued in December 2010, alleging copyright infringement, breach of contract, and other harms. They argued that UCLA violated the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA when it ripped Ambrose's copy-protected DVDs. They also argued that its DVDs are sold under a licensing agreement that prohibits rebroadcast and public display. And they noted that Ambrose was just one of many copyright holders whose works were included in UCLA's 2,500-work streaming library.

UCLA countered that copyright's fair use doctrine gives educators broad latitude to publicly perform copyrighted works as part of their instructional activities. They also noted that Ambrose's own catalog states that "All purchases by schools and libraries include public performance rights." As for the DMCA claim, UCLA argued that because the school was the lawful owner of the DVDs at issue, it had a right to access the DVDs and therefore could not have run afoul of the ban on circumventing access-control measures.

Judge Consuelo B. Marshall sided with UCLA. She noted that the plaintiffs conceded that UCLA had the right to show its DVDs in the classroom, and ruled that UCLA's streaming service was functionally equivalent. "The type of access that students and/or faculty may have, whether overseas or at a coffee shop, does not take the viewing of the DVD out of the educational context," she wrote. Marshall also ruled that UCLA's copies of the DVDs were incidental to its lawful streaming service, and was therefore fair use.

The DMCA has (at least) two distinct provisions: a prohibition on circumventing copy protection that controls access to a work, and a ban on "trafficking" in circumvention tools. Judge Marshall seems to have accepted UCLA's argument that its lawful purchase of the DVD meant it couldn't have run afoul of the circumvention provision, but she didn't spell out her reasoning. She then ruled that merely purchasing DVD-ripping software didn't constitute "trafficking" in the software.

Judge Marshall's ruling represents a dramatic departure from the traditional understanding of the DMCA, and could have dramatic effects if it is upheld on appeal. After all, the goal of DRM is to prevent even legal purchasers of copyrighted works from making unauthorized copies of the works. If lawful ownership of a DVD precludes a finding of unlawful circumvention, it would render a major provision of the DMCA toothless, and effectively legalize the use (though perhaps not "trafficking") of grey-market DVD-ripping tools like Handbrake.

We've never liked the DMCA's anti-circumvention language, so we'd be delighted to see the rest of the judiciary agree with Judge Marshall. However, her entire discussion of the DMCA is less than a page long, with only three sentences devoted to the circumvention question. The perfunctory nature of Judge Marshall's analysis makes her seem less like a hardcore DMCA reformer than a judge who didn't do her homework.

The decision is likely to be appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. That court has prior experience with DMCA circumvention cases, and will likely engage in a deeper legal analysis. UCLA is a sympathetic and deep-pocketed defendant, so it might prevail. But it faces an uphill fight.

Update: As several readers have pointed out, Handbrake no longer supports native ripping of copy-protected DVDs. Users must obtain a DVD-ripping library separately.

Update: New York Law School's James Grimmelmann emails to suggest an alternative explanation or the shortness of the judge's DMCA analysis. He notes that the plaintiffs focused their arguments on the trafficking provisions of the DMCA, but ignored the circumvention provisions. Since the plaintiffs didn't raise the circumvention issue, Judge Marshall didn't need to address it. She dismissed the lawsuit without prejudice, so Ambrose can amend its complaint and try again.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...wn-the-dvd.ars





uTorrent Plus: BitTorrent Goes Freemium, Review and Beta Invite Giveaway
Sebastian Anthony

uTorrent Plus experience

How do you improve the fastest and most popular BitTorrent client in the world? This is a question that BitTorrent, the company, has been tackling with its uTorrent client over the last couple of years. The ability to rate and comment on torrents, drag-and-drop sharing, remote management via uTorrent Remote, the App Studio, and addition of many independent and creative commons content partners have all made uTorrent an excellent and free tool that goes well beyond straight-up, pedal-to-the-metal torrenting. uTorrent now has over 100 million monthly users as a result.

Now, however, BitTorrent is taking an interesting turn: it’s going freemium. The new freemium app is called uTorrent Plus, it has all of the usual uTorrent features, but it also bakes in a slew of very desirable perks: virus protection, integrated video playback, video and audio transcoding for any connected smartphones, tablets, and consoles, and a supercharged uTorrent Remote that can access your downloaded files from anywhere in the world. The price, when it emerges from beta testing in the next few months, will be $25 per year.

For the last week, we’ve been playing with uTorrent Plus here in the ET bunker. Read on for some hands-on impressions, but bear in mind that this is a pre-alpha version where a lot of features are broken, and a lot of functionality will change.

At the end of the review, we have 500 uTorrent Plus early-access, one-year subscriptions to give away.

Virus protection

If you do most of your downloading through uTorrent, wouldn’t it make sense to build a virus scanner into the program itself, rather than running a resident-in-memory, puts-a-sizable-dent-in-your-FPS virus scanner like AVG or McAfee? BitTorrent has teamed up with BitDefender (similar names, eh?) to provide built-in Virus Guard protection. If you’ve downloaded Virus Guard from the uTorrent App Studio, it’s the same deal, only the uTorrent Plus version has a larger virus definition database and the ability to actually clean up any malware that it finds.

In practice, this works exactly as you’d expect; you’re notified when a file has a virus and given the option to clean it, and when a file is clean you get a nice, reassuring green checkmark.

Integrated audio and video playback

This one’s a no-brainer: instead of opening movies and TV shows in an external program, uTorrent Plus now includes an integrated media player. For now this seems to be hardcoded to use Windows Media Player, but we’re told that you’ll probably be able to choose your own media player in a later beta or the final build. This feature will also let you watch media as it downloads, streaming-style, as long as the torrent has a high enough availability.

In practice, this works quite well — and it’s certainly good for checking whether a media file is real or not — but you can’t escape the fact that you are stuck within uTorrent. You can still go full-screen, but if you click any other part of the uTorrent UI, the media player stops immediately. Worse, you can’t tab back to the media player: you have to navigate back to the torrent, click Play, then scan through the file. Hopefully by the time the final build rolls around the media player will work in the background.

And now for the two juiciest features: automatic transcoding and worldwide access to your files

This is the stand-out feature in uTorrent Plus — and unfortunately, the pre-alpha build that we reviewed didn’t work very well. In theory, you will plug in an Android or Apple device over USB, or video game console over the network, and uTorrent will then automatically transcode any media that you download for that device. The idea is that you can set up a download over night — your favorite TV show, for example — and in the morning there’ll be a steaming-hot, low-res, transcoded-for-your-phone AVI waiting for you.

At the moment this feature is very much in flux. We’re told that the list of devices is final — Apple or Android, Xbox or PS3 — but the list of codecs and “device profiles” are still being worked on. H.264, Theora, and WebM will probably be supported video-wise, and MP3, AAC, and AC-3 for audio.

This feature is also a perfect complement to the next…

uTorrent Remote file transfer

If you’ve used uTorrent 3.0 you have hopefully used uTorrent Remote, an awesome web-based control panel that lets you control your desktop uTorrent installation running at home from anywhere in the world. You don’t have to play your firewall settings, and it’s completely secure.

With uTorrent Plus, Remote gains the ability to transfer files. You can log in from the office, check on your torrents, and then transfer an episode for your lunch break. If you forget to copy over that freshly-transcoded file to your phone in the morning, just stream or download it from uTorrent Remote while you’re on the train.

Again, though, this is in theory — in our testing, uTorrent Remote had not yet been updated with this feature.

Giveaway

Finally, the bit you’ve all been waiting for! We have 500 year-long $25 subscriptions to uTorrent Plus to give away. All you have to do is click the link below, pray that you are one of the first 500, and sign up. A new version of uTorrent Plus should be released today, too, so hopefully most of the new features will actually work.

Click here to win a uTorrent Plus beta invite!

Or if you’re not one of the first 500, and you’re not already using uTorrent, download version 3.0; it’s awesome.
http://www.extremetech.com/computing...nvite-giveaway





Miramax CEO Says Apple a Bigger Threat to Movie Industry than Piracy
Mikey Campbell

Apple's domination of the digital media marketplace is more of a threat to movie companies than piracy, according to Miramax CEO Mike Lang.

Lang argued at the MIPCOM entertainment media event in Cannes this week that in order for movie companies to survive, there must be parity in the digital distribution marketplace, adding that iTunes is hurting competition.

"Piracy really is not the bigger issue for our company or for our library," Lang said. "It's been a lack of exploitation, just not getting it out there."

With Apple's domination of media distribution through its iTunes online store, Lang said the electronics maker is hindering movie companies from distributing their catalogs to a wider audience. The Miramax chief believes that more competition is healthy for both creators of media and the end consumer, as it drives prices down and allows for more content to be available in more places.

Lang also pointed out that the movie industry as a whole needs to not let iTunes dominate distribution as it does with the music industry. While music companies were fighting piracy battles in court, Apple slowly amassed an overwhelming presence in the digital music market and now has the largest online catalog with up to 20 million tracks.

"Apple is the strongest company in the music industry, and because there was not enough competition, and still to this day is not enough competition, as an industry it can't then influence packaging, merchandising, all the things that are vital," Lang said. "As the movie business we have to be very cognizant of that."

He thinks the film industry needs to take note of the lessons learned by the music industry and try to foster cross-platform competition instead of focusing on one channel of distribution.

"That's why we did our deal with Netflix, and why we also did our deal with Hulu," he said. "We want multiple players to be successful."

Miramax inked a deal with Netflix in May, that allows the movie rental company to stream "several hundred" of the studio's movies through its service. The company also signed with online video streaming site Hulu in June to allow streaming of hundreds of commercial-free movies on Hulu Plus, as well as 15 commercial-sponsored videos that are rotated every month.

"It's really important as an industry that we try to allow multiple players in markets around the world," Lang said.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles... n_piracy.html





Your Worst Nightmare? Not Anymore
Dave Itzkoff

WHEN the Dutch filmmaker Tom Six learned that his horror movie “The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)” had been rejected by the British Board of Film Classification, he said that two conjoined reactions came to mind.

On the one hand, Mr. Six was disappointed when the board, Britain’s equivalent of the Motion Picture Association of America, announced on June 6 that it would give no rating at all to his film, which it called “sexually violent, and potentially obscene,” adding that it “poses a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk” of harming its viewers. This assessment, which the board said no amount of editing could undo, means the movie cannot legally be shown or sold anywhere in Britain.

“How can it be,” Mr. Six, a 38-year-old writer and director, said recently by phone from Amsterdam, “that in 2011 people can’t see a film and judge for themselves whether to watch it or not? That’s really something from a dinosaur era.”

However, a second idea occurred to him: “I thought, my God, this is brilliant for the marketing.”

The film, a sequel to Mr. Six’s cult hit “The Human Centipede (First Sequence)” that IFC Films will release in the United States on Friday, is an unlikely entry in a longstanding debate about censorship and free speech, and what limits, if any, should be placed on what cinema can depict.

In a tradition of horror films that have been banned in countries around the world, from the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” to the “Hostel” series, “The Human Centipede 2” is fascinated by the contents of the human body and unflinching in its depictions of them. And like “A Clockwork Orange,” withdrawn from release in Britain by its studio and its director, Stanley Kubrick, amid fears that it was spawning copycat crimes and worries about Kubrick’s safety, Mr. Six’s film is concerned with how on-screen violence can lead to imitations in real life.

But most fundamentally “The Human Centipede 2” is, like its predecessor, about a man who kidnaps people and stitches them together, mouth to anus.

Mr. Six does not deny that his movie was designed to provoke, and is happy to capitalize on anything that burnishes its reputation for over-the-top grotesquery. “I like to make controversial films,” he said. “I would hate it if I would make a film and people wonder what to have for dinner when the film is over.”

Among horror-movie filmmakers and fans Mr. Six is celebrated, not shunned, for his brazen calculation. The giddy, nervous excitement for his new movie is evidence that he created — by design or by accident — something unique with the original “Human Centipede”: a pop-culture phenomenon and a film that cannot be measured by traditional criteria.

“For the first 20 minutes, half-hour, you think, ‘Is this a really bad film or a really good film?’ ” Laurence R. Harvey, who plays the central character in “The Human Centipede 2,” said of the first movie. “Is it meant to be a comedy? Whilst you’re still wondering this, it’s already gripped you.”

Made for about $1.5 million, the original “Human Centipede” was a taut if totally deranged thriller about a scientist (played by the German actor Dieter Laser) who surgically fuses three hostages (Ashlynn Yennie, Akihiro Kitamura and Ashley C. Williams) in an experiment to create an organism with a single digestive tract.

Reviewing the film for The New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis called it a “must-see for coprophiliacs and spanking enthusiasts” and wondered if it was “the year’s first mainstream fetish movie.”

“The Human Centipede” was released in the United States in 2010 without an M.P.A.A. rating and grossed $181,467 in theaters, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. IFC declined to give a total dollar amount, but Jonathan Sehring, president of Sundance Selects and IFC Films, said the movie was among his company’s “20 most profitable films, maybe 10 most profitable films,” on a roster that includes independent hits like “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and “Y Tu Mamá También.” At least 50 percent of its revenue, Mr. Sehring said, came from video-on-demand services (which offer total privacy without pesky ticket takers snickering at your cinematic tastes).

Whether it was because of Mr. Laser’s stark performance or the film’s thoroughly unnerving premise, “The Human Centipede” burrowed its way into the American cultural consciousness, earning references from mainstream comedy shows like “30 Rock” and “The Colbert Report,” a pornographic parody called “The Human Sexipede” and an episode-length tribute on “South Park,” in which characters are sewn together in an Apple product called the HumancentiPad.

Horror filmmakers who do not necessarily count themselves as fans of “The Human Centipede” have nonetheless endorsed Mr. Six’s right to break boundaries. Asked if Mr. Six struck him as a provocateur, John Landis, director of “An American Werewolf in London,” said: “That’s like saying: ‘P. T. Barnum strikes me as an exaggerator. Alfred Hitchcock strikes me as a droll man who’s creating a franchise of his own persona.’ ”

Mr. Landis added: “This kind of grotesquery is traditional — it’s circus, it’s carnival, it’s exploitation.” Pointing to a lineage of filmmakers from Fellini to Quentin Tarantino to Mr. Six, he said: “These guys, they’re not naïve. They do it to call attention to their product, and they want you to see it. Listen, if the product is good, more power to them.”

Eli Roth, a “Human Centipede” devotee whose own films include “Hostel” and “Cabin Fever,” said the British ban on Mr. Six’s film “has nothing to do with the movie and everything to do with the climate of the culture.”

Pointing to the wave of rioting in London this past summer, Mr. Roth said: “No one’s going to say, ‘Well, maybe these people didn’t like something like the royal wedding, and this display of wealth that was shoved down their throats.’ People need a scapegoat for violence in culture.”

Even so, Mr. Roth said that Mr. Six may have invited the film board’s wrath with a teaser trailer that promised “Human Centipede 2” would be “the sickest movie of all time.” “You want to be a provocateur,” Mr. Roth said. “But it’s best to be a provocateur after you’ve secured your rating.”

As Mr. Six toured international film festivals with the first “Human Centipede,” he said some viewers couldn’t look him in the eye, and others sent him death threats over the Internet. “I said, ‘It’s just make-believe,’ ” Mr. Six said in an almost apologetic tone. “ ‘It’s all fun, and the actors had fun, and it’s not real.’ ”

One persistent concern, Mr. Six said, was fear that “Human Centipede” could inspire authentic violence. “They said, ‘What if some maniac out there tries to copy your idea?’ ”

“And then I knew, that’s exactly the idea I must pursue.”

Filmed in black-and-white, “The Human Centipede 2” opens with the closing minutes of the first film, until the camera pulls back to reveal that we are watching the original movie on someone’s DVD player. Its owner, we learn, is a deranged parking-garage attendant named Martin (Mr. Harvey), a squat, uncommunicative man with googly eyes and a disturbing tendency to lick his fingers. Molested by his father, bullied by his mother and disregarded by the world, Martin sets about creating his own human centipede with victims he kidnaps, including a pregnant woman and Ms. Yennie, who plays an oblivious actress named Ashlynn Yennie.

(As a veteran of the “Human Centipede” films, Ms. Yennie said she dispensed advice to newcomers on Mr. Six’s sequel. “I was like, ‘Make sure you create a fan page on Facebook, because you’ll get, like, 8,000 people wanting to be your friends, and I don’t want people knowing who my mom is,’ ” she said.)

Mr. Six, who described himself as “a victim of a very happy childhood,” grew up just outside Amsterdam, and after making a handful of harshly reviewed films intended for Dutch audiences, has focused on his “Human Centipede” movies, which are produced by his sister, Ilona. (She declined to comment for this article, but Mr. Six said she’s “just as crazy as I am.”)

For him the “Human Centipede” films are simultaneously a lark and a serious endeavor, an attempt to push people’s buttons and to push past the ax-wielding lunatics and repetitive sequels of conventional horror movies. If his movies are pejoratively labeled “torture porn,” Mr. Six said he didn’t mind. “I see porno films, of course, and I like them,” he said. And horror films, he said, are “all torture and misery.”

“I think my film is a torture porn with European art sauce or something,” Mr. Six said.

In rejecting “The Human Centipede 2,” the British film board drew sharp distinctions between the sequel and the original, which it had approved for viewers 18 and older. While the first film “was undoubtedly tasteless and disgusting, it was a relatively traditional and conventional horror film,” the board said.

In the sequel, the board said, “there is little attempt to portray any of the victims in the film as anything other than objects to be brutalized, degraded and mutilated for the amusement and arousal of the central character, as well as for the pleasure of the audience.”

Mr. Six rejected the notion that horror movies could compel audiences to duplicate their violence, or that filmmakers should exercise restraint because of such concerns. But he did not disguise a certain glee that the British ban on “Human Centipede 2” would enhance its outrageous standing.

“If people walk away crying, I like it,” he said. “And if people are laughing, I love it. I want a reaction.”

For the American release of the film Mr. Six has made concessions, removing a scene in which Martin wraps his penis in barbed wire before raping a woman at the end of the centipede. (Mr. Sehring of IFC Films said: “We really worked with Tom to come up with what we felt would be the most commercial version of the movie. Did I think it was necessary, or did we think it was necessary to tell the story? No.”)

Mr. Six said he was hopeful that an unedited version of “Human Centipede 2” would also be released, and is already planning a third and final installment. “In the end,” he said, “all three films can be literally connected as one film of four and a half hours.”

Speaking like someone bracing for the challenge of a lifetime, Mr. Six said, “I have one more film to show some more crazy ideas.”

“But then,” he added, “I am fed up with ‘Human Centipede,’ so I don’t want to do it anymore.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/m...r-tom-six.html





GOP Targeting NPR Budget Once Again
FMQB

Congressional Republicans have targeted National Public Radio once again as a way to cut government spending, as a new proposed budget suggests ending the funding of NPR through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The newest budget proposal from the House Appropriations Committee includes a provision to stop NPR funding via the CPB, and requests a report from the Corporation on how to slowly remove NPR from government funding by the year 2014.

However, the budget proposal is sure to be controversial and face opposition from Democrats in Congress, keeping its fate up in the air for months. The budget also includes cuts to federal Pell grants for college, the volunteer program AmeriCorps, education programs and much more.

NPR already faced a controversial battle over its budget earlier this year. In April, a budget compromise was reached that essentially left the CPB and NPR alone, after months of threatening to cuts its funding.

TheWrap.com notes that the CPB is set to receive $445 million in federal funding in the upcoming year, with just a fraction of that going to NPR. Roughly two percent of NPR's annual budget comes from grants via the CPB.
http://www.fmqb.com/article.asp?id=2299187





Did A Reporter Just Solve A Bitcoin Mystery?
Jacob Goldstein

In 2009, a programmer who called himself "Satoshi Nakamoto" created bitcoin. The virtual currency took off, but Satoshi's identity has remained a mystery.

The journalist Joshua Davis tries to track down Satoshi in an article (subscription req'd) in this week's New Yorker.

Whoever created bitcoin, it's clear that he (or she, or they) is/are a very clever coder with a deep understanding of cryptography.

An expert tells the New Yorker writer that someone with Satoshi's skills would probably be at Crypto2011, the most important cryptography conference. The writer also notes that Satoshi typically uses British (rather than American) spellings.

So he narrows the field to people from the UK at Crypto2011. He finds one compelling candidate: A guy named Michael Clear.

After I read the article this morning, I called Gavin Andresen, a programmer who has done a lot of work on bitcoin, and who we talked to at length when we did a bitcoin story earlier this year.

I asked Gavin if Michael Clear is Satoshi.

"I have no idea," Gavin told me. "It could be."

Clear was named the top computer-science undergrad at Trinity College in Dublin in 2008. He worked for Allied Irish Banks to improve its currency-trading software in 2009. Also that year, he co-wrote a paper on peer-to-peer technology. (Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer system.)

So Davis, the author of the New Yorker story, emails Clear.

"I like to keep a low profile," Clear replies. "I'm curious to know how you found me."

Davis eventually cuts to the chase:

Finally, I asked, "Are you Satoshi?"

He laughed, but didn't respond. There was an awkward silence.

"If you like, I'd be happy to review the design for you," he offered instead. "I could let you know what I think."

"Sure," I said hesitantly. "Do you need me to send you a link to the code?"

"I think I can find it," he said.

In the end, Clear says he's not the guy — but his denial leaves the door open just a crack:

"I'm not Satoshi," Clear said. "But even if I was I wouldn't tell you."

One other interesting detail: Clear says the bitcoin code is good, but there are some weaknesses. Users store their bitcoins in virtual wallets; the system should automatically provide encryption software to secure those virtual wallets, Clear says.

I didn't bring this detail up when I talked to Gavin today. But when I asked him about news from the bitcoin world, he told me that the latest version of the bitcoin software includes wallet encryption.
https://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011...itcoin-mystery





HP Investigates Android TouchPads

Developers say that HP is obligated under open-source licensing terms to share the code
Nancy Gohring

HP is investigating how several TouchPads reportedly shipped to end users running Android, instead of webOS.

Shortly after HP announced it would stop selling TouchPads and began offering the remaining tablets for US$99, reports surfaced from a few users who say they received TouchPads that run Android instead of HP's webOS software. At the same time, developers have been working on porting Android to the TouchPad, since it's uncertain how much support and development HP will dedicate to webOS in the future.

In an email to developers, HP said it never authorized the distribution of any version of Android on the TouchPad and that after a review of its manufacturing process, it believes no TouchPads were shipped by HP with Android, even by mistake. The developers reached out to HP because they believe that HP is obligated under open-source licensing terms to share the Android distribution that shipped on the TouchPads.

The email, signed by Phil Robb, director of HP's open-source program office, was posted on a developer discussion group online. HP confirmed that the email is accurate.

"We presently believe that some person or persons unknown may have facilitated the delivery of these Android-based units strictly against the policy and authorization of HP," Robb wrote.

He asked the developers for any information they could offer that would help HP track down who provided the Android TouchPads.

The developers also say they've emailed Qualcomm with a request to release the code since some versions of the Android tablets flash a QuIC logo. QuIC, or Qualcomm Innovation Center, is a Qualcomm engineering subsidiary that works on optimizing open-source software on Qualcomm products. But in an email the developers posted online, Qualcomm said the device was not manufactured or distributed by QuIC.

Qualcomm did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

HP's Robb declined to share the source code for running Android on the TouchPad but didn't appear to deny that it exists. "Regarding your specific request for source code below, I must decline at the present time. HP has never authorized the distribution of any binaries for Android in association with the HP Touchpad. Therefore, HP is not under any license obligation to provide any corresponding Android source code to you," he wrote.

The developers are continuing to try to track down where each of the Android TouchPads came from to try to determine where and by whom Android was loaded onto the tablets.

HP declined to comment further than Robb's email.
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/...oid_touchpads/





Facebook Re-Enables Controversial Tracking Cookie
Nik Cubrilovic

In May of this year the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook like buttons and other website widgets were setting cookies on visiting browsers. This cookie could then be read later and used to track the user across different web properties and back to the Facebook site. The cookie was being set even if the user had never been to the Facebook site, and even if they didn't click a 'like' or 'share' button.

As a result of that report, Ashkan Soltani filed a bug with Facebook, which was fixed, and the cookie in question - datr - was removed and was no longer being set for logged in or logged out users when they visited a page integrating Facebook.

Today, that cookie is back. It is being set by all the third-party sites that we tested.

The datr cookie also came up in my previous post about the Facebook logout issue. You can see it in the table published accompanying that post.

The purpose of the datr cookie is, per Facebook:

We set the ‘datr’ cookie when a web browser accesses facebook.com (except social plugin iframes), and the cookie helps us identify suspicious login activity and keep users safe. For instance, we use it to flag questionable activity like failed login attempts and attempts to create multiple spam accounts.

Note that the response from the previous post mentions that the cookie is not set for social plugins. This is not the case right now.

It is the first cookie that is set, for all users of Facebook, and right now is being set for everybody on any Facebook integrated site - logged in or not logged in.

The recent EU vs Facebook revelations about the data that Facebook stores for each users gave an interesting insight into the datr cookie. Below is a screenshot of some data from a user who retrieved their information using Europe vs Facebook. It shows machine ID's that were used to access that account, and the other accounts associated with that machine id.

We believe that the identifier used to associate each user with the machine ID is the datr cookie (highlited). The cookie referred to in the user data matches the format and the length of the datr cookie.

Ashkan has again submitted a bug report to Facebook about the datr cookie. We hope it is disabled again promptly. If this cookie was re-enabled accidently, it would be good to know how such a thing can happen. If it was enabled intentionally, despite all previous statements about third-party cookies being set, then a statement on why would be appropriate.

Facebook on Datr

In Facebook's response to a questions from Norway's Data Inspectorate they state:

For Facebook users, we obtain the consent for the use of a range of cookies when they sign up to our service. Our Privacy Policy makes it clear that these cookies may be accessed both on facebook.com and when they are visiting other websites with Facebook social plugins.

There is no mention of the datr cookie or collecting information on non-Facebook users. A user who never visits Facebook and is not a user will still have Facebook users set on their computer whenever they visit an integrating site (currently one-third of the top 1000 sites on the web).

Tracking

In the WSJ article, Bret Taylor, the CTO of Facebook said about the datr and other cookies:

"We don't use them for tracking and they're not intended for tracking," he says.

There were similar responses in my previous posts from Facebook when asked about tracking:

Generally, unlike other major Internet companies, we have no interest in tracking people. We don’t have an ad network and we don’t sell people’s information. As we state in our help center:, “We do not share or sell the information we see when you visit a website with a Facebook social plugin to third parties and we do not use it to deliver ads to you.”

Facebook keep the data collected for up to 90 days and then delete it. I believe them when they say this and that they are not hiding anything, but I also believe that our definitions of tracking differ. If you set a cookie on a users machine from one website, and then read that cookie from that persons machine from another website, that is tracking.

Facebook can't help but to track, since they are being sent the cookie by the browser on subsequent requests. They read the cookie, which means that they know it is the same visitor. In my mind it doesn't matter if they do nothing with this data and then delete it after three months, it is still tracking and still has the potential to violate the privacy of users simply by being collected.

At a minimum they are tracking by reading the cookies, and if you look further into some of the patents that Facebook has filed, as well as their business model (advertising), it is not a big leap to make to conclude that Facebook are tracking users and analyzing that data.

Thanks to @jonathanmayer on Twitter who first noticed the cookies again and reported the issue. Also, all credit for the Facebook patent find should go to Bill Slawski who did the leg work and wrote the original post. There have been a few other posts that didn't credit Slawski with the find.
https://nikcub.appspot.com/facebook-...racking-cookie





Internet Firms Co-Opted for Surveillance: Experts
Georgina Prodhan

Internet companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook are increasingly co-opted for surveillance work as the information they gather proves irresistible to law enforcement agencies, Web experts said this week.

Although such companies try to keep their users' information private, their business models depend on exploiting it to sell targeted advertising, and when governments demand they hand it over, they have little choice but to comply.

Suggestions that BlackBerry maker RIM might give user data to British police after its messenger service was used to coordinate riots this summer caused outrage -- as has the spying on social media users by more oppressive governments.

But the vast amount of personal information that companies like Google collect to run their businesses has become simply too valuable for police and governments to ignore, delegates to the Internet Governance Forum in Nairobi said.

"When the possibility exists for information to be obtained that wasn't possible before, it's entirely understandable that law enforcement is interested," Google's Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf told Reuters in an interview.

"Then the issue would be, what's the right policy? And that, or course, engenders a lot of debate," said Cerf, who is recognized as one of the "fathers of the Internet" for his early work in areas including communications protocols and email.

Demands from governments for Internet companies to hand over user information have become routine, according to online privacy researcher and activist Christopher Soghoian, who makes extensive use of freedom-of-information requests in his work.

"Every decent-sized U.S. telecoms and Internet company has a team that does nothing but respond to requests for information," Soghoian told Reuters in an interview.

Soghoian estimates that U.S. Internet and telecoms companies may receive about 300,000 such requests in connection with law enforcement each year -- but public information is scarce.

While U.S. courts are obliged to publish reports on wire-tapping of telephone lines, no similar information is required to be made public with respect to the Internet -- which grew up after the laws on electronic communications were passed.

Google does voluntarily publish a transparency report every six months in which it details the number of requests it receives from governments around the world to remove content from its services or hand over user data.

But the numbers do not reveal how many users are affected by each request -- only trends country by country (www.google.com/transparencyreport).

Some governments are requiring Internet companies to collect more data and keep it for longer, said Katarzyna Szymielewicz, executive director of Poland's Panoptykon Foundation, which campaigns for human rights in light of modern surveillance.

"Government agencies throughout the world are pushing companies to collect even more data than is needed for their business purposes," she told the conference.

"For example, we have a very controversial data retention regime which is currently under review. This requires people to store data for a period up to two years so it can easily be accessed by law enforcement agencies."

The ease and cost of surveillance are at an all-time low, Soghoian said, with Google charging an administrative fee of $25 to hand over data, Yahoo charging $20, and Microsoft and Facebook providing data for free.

"Now, one police officer from the comfort of their desk can track 20, 30, 50 people all through Web interfaces provided by mobile companies and cloud computing companies," he said.

"The marginal cost of surveilling one more person is now essentially approaching zero."

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Will Waterman)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...78T2GY20110930





Chaos Computer Club Analyzes Government Malware
admin

The largest European hacker club, "Chaos Computer Club" (CCC), has reverse engineered and analyzed a "lawful interception" malware program used by German police forces. It has been found in the wild and submitted to the CCC anonymously. The malware can not only siphon away intimate data but also offers a remote control or backdoor functionality for uploading and executing arbitrary other programs. Significant design and implementation flaws make all of the functionality available to anyone on the internet.
Even before the German constitutional court ("Bundesverfassungsgericht") on February 27 2008 forbade the use of malware to manipulate German citizen's PCs, the German government introduced a less conspicuous newspeak variant of the term spy software: "Quellen-TKÜ" (the term means "source wiretapping" or lawful interception at the source). This Quellen-TKÜ can by definition only be used for wiretapping internet telephony. The court also said that this has to be enforced through technical and legal means.

The CCC now published the extracted binary files [0] of the government malware that was used for "Quellen-TKÜ", together with a report about the functionality found and our conclusions about these findings [1]. During this analysis, the CCC wrote its own remote control software for the trojan.

The CCC analysis reveals functionality in the "Bundestrojaner light" (Bundestrojaner meaning "federal trojan" and is the colloquial German term for the original government malware concept) concealed as "Quellen-TKÜ" that go much further than to just observe and intercept internet based telecommunication, and thus violates the terms set by the constitutional court. The trojan can, for example, receive uploads of arbitrary programs from the Internet and execute them remotely. This means, an "upgrade path" from Quellen-TKÜ to the full Bundestrojaner's functionality is built-in right from the start. Activation of the computer's hardware like microphone or camera can be used for room surveillance.

The analysis concludes, that the trojan's developers never even tried to put in technical safeguards to make sure the malware can exclusively be used for wiretapping internet telephony, as set forth by the constitution court. On the contrary, the design included functionality to clandestinely add more components over the network right from the start, making it a bridge-head to further infiltrate the computer.

"This refutes the claim that an effective separation of just wiretapping internet telephony and a full-blown trojan is possible in practice – or even desired," commented a CCC speaker. "Our analysis revealed once again that law enforcement agencies will overstep their authority if not watched carefully. In this case functions clearly intended for breaking the law were implemented in this malware: they were meant for uploading and executing arbitrary code on the targeted system."

The government malware can, unchecked by a judge, load extensions by remote control, to use the trojan for other functions, including but not limited to eavesdropping. This complete control over the infected PC – owing to the poor craftsmanship that went into this trojan – is open not just to the agency that put it there, but to everyone. It could even be used to upload falsified "evidence" against the PC's owner, or to delete files, which puts the whole rationale for this method of investigation into question.

But the trojan's built-in functions are scary enough, even without extending it by new moduls. For the analysis, the CCC wrote it's own control terminal software, that can be used to remotely control infected PCs over the internet. With its help it is possible to watch screenshots of the web browser on the infected PC – including private notices, emails or texts in web based cloud services.

The official claim of a strict separation of lawful interception of internet telephony and the digital sphere of privacy has no basis in reality. [NB: The German constitutional court ruled that there is a sphere of privacy that is afforded total protection and can never be breached, no matter for what reason, for example keeping a diary or husband and wife talking in the bedroom. Government officials in Germany argued that it is possible to avoid listening in on this part but still eavesdrop electronically. The constitutional court has created the concept of "Kernbereich privater Lebensgestaltung", core area of private life. The CCC is basically arguing that nowadays a person's laptop is intrinsically part of this core area because people put private notes there and keep a diary on it] The fact that a judge has to sign the warrant does not protect the privacy, because the data are being taken directly from the core area of private life.

The legislator should put an end to the ever growing expansion of computer spying that has been getting out of hand in recent years, and finally come up with an unambiguous definition for the digital privacy sphere and with a way to protect it effectively. Unfortunately, for too long the legislator has been guided by demands for technical surveillance, not by values like freedom or the question of how to protect our values in a digital world. It is now obvious that he is no longer able to oversee the technology, let alone control it.

The analysis also revealed serious security holes that the trojan is tearing into infected systems. The screenshots and audio files it sends out are encrypted in an incompetent way, the commands from the control software to the trojan are even completely unencrypted. Neither the commands to the trojan nor its replies are authenticated or have their integrity protected. Not only can unauthorized third parties assume control of the infected system, but even attackers of mediocre skill level can connect to the authorities, claim to be a specific instance of the trojan, and upload fake data. It is even conceivable that the law enforcement agencies's IT infrastructure could be attacked through this channel. The CCC has not yet performed a penetration test on the server side of the trojan infrastructure.

"We were surprised and shocked by the lack of even elementary security in the code. Any attacker could assume control of a computer infiltrated by the German law enforcement authorities", commented a speaker of the CCC. "The security level this trojan leaves the infected systems in is comparable to it setting all passwords to '1234'".

To avoid revealing the location of the command and control server, all data is redirected through a rented dedicated server in a data center in the USA. The control of this malware is only partially within the borders of its jurisdiction. The instrument could therefore violate the fundamental principle of national sovereignty. Considering the incompetent encryption and the missing digital signatures on the command channel, this poses an unacceptable and incalculable risk. It also poses the question how a citizen is supposed to get their right of legal redress in the case the wiretapping data get lost outside Germany, or the command channel is misused.

According to our hacker ethics and to avoid tipping off criminals who are being investigated, the CCC has informed the German ministry of the interior. They have had enough time to activate the existing self destruct function of the trojan.

When arguing about the government authorized infiltration of computers and secretly scanning suspects' hard drives, the former minister of the interior Wolfgang Schäuble and Jörg Ziercke, BKA's president (BKA, German federal policy agency), have always claimed that the population should not worry because there would only be "a handful" of cases where the trojan would be used at all. Either almost the complete set of government malware has found their way in brown envelopes to the CCC's mailbox, or the truth has been leapfrogged once again by the reality of eavesdropping and "lawful interception".

The other promises made by the officials also are not basis in reality. In 2008 the CCC was told that all versions of the "Quellen-TKÜ" software would manually be hand-crafted for the specifics of each case. The CCC now has access to several software versions of the trojan, and they all use the same hard-coded cryptographic key and do not look hand-crafted at all. Another promise has been that the trojan would be subject to exceptionally strict quality control to make sure the rules set forth by the constitutional court would not be violated. In reality this exceptionally strict quality control has neither found that the key is hard coded, nor that the "encryption" is uni-directional only, nor that there is a back door for uploading and executing further malware. The CCC expressed hope that this farce is not representative for exceptionally strict quality control in federal agencies.

The CCC demands: The clandestine infiltration of IT systems by government agencies must stop. At the same time we would like to call on all hackers and people interested in technology to further analyze the malware, so that at least some benefit can be reaped from this embarrassing eavesdropping attempt. Also, we will gladly continue to receive copies of other versions of government malware off your hands. [4]
http://ccc.de/en/updates/2011/staatstrojaner





Japan Eyes Private Firms Help on Cyber Attacks: Report

Japan plans to work more closely with private companies by sharing information on cyber attacks after defense contractor Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was hacked, Nikkei business daily reported Sunday.

The government also aims to ratify an international treaty on online crimes, the Nikkei said without citing a source.

The United States has recently pressured Japan to take more action against cyber attacks after Mitsubishi Heavy, which works closely with Boeing, said in September network information such as IP addresses may have been leaked.

Tokyo is considering asking private companies including utilities, railway operators, defense contractors, automakers and electronics to sign an agreement with public bodies to share information on cyber attacks, the Nikkei said.

Once the agreement is in place, the government and the public bodies would then widely share information on such attacks without identifying which firms were targeted, the Nikkei said.

But Tokyo will not establish a new law requiring firms to report online breaches to the government as this would be too difficult, the Nikkei reported.

The government also plans to ratify the Convention on Cybercrime, a treaty dealing with network security breaches and other online crimes by establishing an international network to provide help to investigators globally, the Nikkei said.

Japan, which in 2001 signed the treaty initiated by the Council of Europe, is among the nearly 50 countries that have signed or ratified the treaty, but it has yet to bring this into force.

The government will hold a meeting Friday to boost information security, the Nikkei reported.

Mitsubishi Heavy has said it so far had not confirmed any leaks on its products or technologies. An outside contractor is now checking whether any sensitive data had been breached.

Rivals IHI Corp and Kawasaki Heavy Industries have also said they have received suspicious e-mails. It is unclear who was responsible for the attacks.

(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Sugita Katyal)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...79106V20111002





Government Simulates Cyber Attack for Training
Tabassum Zakaria

The lights went out. Hackers had infiltrated the chemical company's computer network. The firm's own experts ran around from computer to computer trying to fight back and regain control.

"We're flying blind," the chief executive of the fictitious ACME chemical company said.

The cyber attack exercise was part of a weeklong training program that the Department of Homeland Security offers to industries to help them learn how to deal with intrusions into their computer networks.

The exercise is carried out in Idaho Falls where the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has programs focused on cybersecurity for industries, in partnership with the Idaho National Laboratory, which conducts nuclear research and also has expertise in the technology used by many industries.

The city with a population of about 55,000 is surrounded by potato farms, has an airport with one baggage carousel, and a dairy that still delivers milk to homes.

DHS is concerned about growing cyber threats to industries and conducts the training exercise about once a month. The sessions, aimed at raising awareness about how to deal with a real cyber attack, have been attended by representatives of the energy, oil and gas, and transportation sectors, among others.

What is usually a 12-hour exercise was compressed into two hours in a demonstration for reporters attending a two-day media event that ended Friday.

The scenario was one of industrial espionage. ACME had built a new chemical product and the Barney Advanced Domestic (BAD) Chemical Co was trying to steal its "secret sauce" and disrupt operations to put the competitor out of business.

The BAD hacker penetrated ACME's firewall through a typical "phishing" attack by sending an email to the CEO that said "click here" to go to a website.

When the CEO clicks on the link, malicious software opens a tunnel for the hacker to get into the computer system and find the CEO's password.

The man playing the hacker in real life works for the Idaho National Laboratory where his job has been to hack into its computer systems to discover vulnerabilities.

Game Of Strategy

Each team racks up points and can use them to buy devices either to help protect the network or pierce it.

"This is a game of strategy in how to best implement your defenses in an industrial control environment," said Marty Edwards, director of the DHS Control Systems Security Program. "This isn't all about technology, it's about people."

Some of the most successful teams defending their firm against hackers are the ones that had leaders who delegated responsibilities and had clear policies about how the company would respond if a cyber attack happened, he said.

The ACME CEO, whose actions allowed the hackers into the network in the first place, said he clicked on the emailed link because "it looked like something I should click on, it said click here."

As a result of the breach the chemicals being mixed spilled out of white vats into a metal basin underneath.

Greg Schaffer, a senior official at the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate, said as adversaries evolve their methods, cybersecurity must also evolve.

"They figure out ways to get around the defenses that you deploy, and because they are changing their methodologies, we need to evolve and change ours on a regular basis. And I don't see that that's going to end," he said.

Schaffer said cybersecurity issues have a lot of focus in the U.S. government and are likely to be less affected by cuts than other parts of the budget.

But, he said, it was important to make sure that areas of the government not focused on cybersecurity as their main mission keep it as a priority when determining cost cuts.

"As budgets becoming tighter, prioritizing taking action for cybersecurity within other parts of the government is something we have to be vigilant about advocating for," he said.

(Editing by Vicki Allen)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...78T08B20111001





Bank of America Under Hacker Attack?

Bank of America’s homepage is suffering serious disruption for a third consecutive business day.

The nation’s largest bank by deposits, with 12 percent of Americans’ bank accounts and over a trillion dollars in deposits, told ABC News “the cause is still under review, but we have ruled out hacking, malware, or any link to the debit fee. We have not said the issues were due to volume either.”

The outages, which includes the bank’s hobbled home page as well as delays and difficulty in accessing online banking, began Friday morning, a day after the bank announced it would charge a $5 monthly fee for account holders using their debit cards.

Despite repeated requests from ABC News, the bank has refused to explain the source of these now chronic service problems.

Cyber-security experts say the only explanation for outages on four of five consecutive days is a so-called denial of service attack.

“The only reasonable conclusion is that they are under attack,” says Steve Gibson, an Internet security expert. "A site of that size should be expected to handle huge volume with no trouble at all…the only time we ever see anything like this is when some major site has upset a group of hackers.”

Denial of service attacks occur when a site is inundated with an enormous number of apparently legitimate requests. It explains why the site’s homepage alone seems to be suffering the brunt of the disruptions.

“What’s scary,” says Gibson, “is that it only takes the whim of a teenager to take a site like this off line,” explaining that denial of service attacks are relatively simple to engineer.

Still, the timing of the situation -- coming after customer outrage over the new debit card fee -- is raising eyebrows.

Bank of America says it would waive that fee for those with “Premium” accounts – which require a minimum monthly balance of $5000.

And the latest to join the bonanza of fee hikes is Citibank, which last week vowed to ABC News it “has absolutely no intention of charging our customers for debit cards.” It is now telling some customers it will charge them $15 monthly for checking accounts unless they maintain a balance of at least $6,000.
http://abcnewsradioonline.com/busine...er-attack.html





The FBI Again Thwarts its Own Terror Plot
Glenn Greenwald

The FBI has received substantial criticism over the past decade — much of it valid — but nobody can deny its record of excellence in thwarting its own Terrorist plots. Time and again, the FBI concocts a Terrorist attack, infiltrates Muslim communities in order to find recruits, persuades them to perpetrate the attack, supplies them with the money, weapons and know-how they need to carry it out — only to heroically jump in at the last moment, arrest the would-be perpetrators whom the FBI converted, and save a grateful nation from the plot manufactured by the FBI.

Last year, the FBI subjected 19-year-old Somali-American Mohamed Osman Mohamud to months of encouragement, support and money and convinced him to detonate a bomb at a crowded Christmas event in Portland, Oregon, only to arrest him at the last moment and then issue a Press Release boasting of its success. In late 2009, the FBI persuaded and enabled Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year old Jordanian citizen, to place a fake bomb at a Dallas skyscraper and separately convinced Farooque Ahmed, a 34-year-old naturalized American citizen born in Pakistan, to bomb the Washington Metro. And now, the FBI has yet again saved us all from its own Terrorist plot by arresting 26-year-old American citizen Rezwan Ferdaus after having spent months providing him with the plans and materials to attack the Pentagon, American troops in Iraq, and possibly the Capitol Building using “remote-controlled” model airplanes carrying explosives.

None of these cases entail the FBI’s learning of an actual plot and then infiltrating it to stop it. They all involve the FBI’s purposely seeking out Muslims (typically young and impressionable ones) whom they think harbor animosity toward the U.S. and who therefore can be induced to launch an attack despite having never taken even a single step toward doing so before the FBI targeted them. Each time the FBI announces it has disrupted its own plot, press coverage is predictably hysterical (new Homegrown Terrorist caught!), fear levels predictably rise, and new security measures are often implemented in response (the FBI’s Terror plot aimed at the D.C. Metro, for instance, led to the Metro Police announcing a new policy of random searches of passengers’ bags). I have several observations and questions about these matters:

(1) The bulk of this latest FBI plot entailed attacks on military targets: the Pentagon, U.S. troops in Iraq, and possibly military bases. The U.S. is — as it has continuously announced to the world — a Nation at War. The Pentagon is the military headquarters for this war, and its troops abroad are the soldiers fighting it. In what conceivable sense can attacks on those purely military and war targets be labeled “Terrorism” or even illegitimate? The U.S. has continuously attacked exactly those kinds of targets in multiple nations around the world; it expressly tried to kill Saddam and Gadaffi in the wars against their countries (it even knowingly blew up an entire suburban apartment building to get Saddam, who wasn’t actually there). What possible definition of “Terrorism” excludes those attacks by the U.S. while including this proposed one on the Pentagon and other military targets (or, for that matter, Nidal Hasan’s attack on Fort Hood where soldiers deploy to war zones)?

(2) With regard to the targeted building that is not purely a military target — the Capitol Building — is that a legitimate war target under the radically broad standards the U.S. and its allies have promulgated for itself? The American “shock and awe” assault on Baghdad destroyed “several government buildings and palaces built by Saddam Hussein”; on just the third day of that war, “U.S. bombs turn[ed] key government buildings in Baghdad into rubble.” In Libya, NATO repeatedly bombed non-military government buildings. In Gaza, Israeli war planes targeted a police station filled with police recruits on the stated theory that a valid target “ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding and human resources” to Hamas.

Obviously, there is a wide range of views regarding the justifiability of each war, but isn’t the U.S. Congress — which funds, oversees, and regulates America’s wars — a legitimate war target under the (inadvisedly) broad definitions the U.S. and its allies have imposed when attacking others? If the political leaders and even functionaries of other countries with which the U.S. is at war are legitimate targets, then doesn’t that necessarily mean that Pentagon officials and, arguably, those in the Congress are as well?

(3) The irony that this plot featured “remote-controlled aircraft filled with plastic explosives” is too glaring to merit comment; the only question worth asking is whether the U.S. Government can sue Ferdaus for infringing its drone patents. Glaring though that irony is, there is no shortage of expressions of disgust today, pondering what kind of Terrorist monster does it take to want to attack buildings with remote-controlled mini-aircraft.

(4) Wouldn’t the FBI’s resources be better spent on detecting and breaking up actual Terrorist plots — if there are any — rather than manufacturing ones so that they can stop those? Harboring hatred for the U.S. and wanting to harm it (or any country) is not actually a crime; at most, it’s a Thought Crime. It doesn’t become a crime until steps are taken to attempt to transform that desire into reality. There are millions and millions of people who at some point harbor a desire to impose violent harm on others who never do so: perhaps that’s true of a majority of human beings. Many of them will never act in the absence of the type of highly sophisticated, expert push of which the FBI is uniquely capable. Is manufacturing criminals — as opposed to finding and stopping actual criminals — really a prudent law enforcement activity?

(5) Does the FBI devote any comparable resources to infiltrating non-Muslim communities in order to persuade and induce those extremists to become Terrorists so that they can arrest them? Are they out in the anti-abortion world, or the world of radical Christianity, or right-wing anti-government radicals, trying to recruit them into manufactured Terrorist plots?

(6) As usual, most media coverage of the FBI’s plots is as uncritical as it is sensationalistic. The first paragraph of The New York Times article on this story described the plot as one “to blow up the Pentagon and the United States Capitol.” But the FBI’s charging Affidavit (reproduced below) makes clear that Ferdaus’ plan was to send a single model airplane (at most 1/10 the size of an actual U.S. jet) to the Capitol and two of them to the Pentagon, each packed with “5 pounds” of explosives (para. 70); the Capitol was to be attacked at its dome for “psychological effect” (para 34). The U.S. routinely drops 500-pound or 1,000-pound bombs from actual fighter jets; this plot — even if it were carried out by someone other than a hapless loner with no experience and it worked perfectly — could not remotely “blow up” the Pentagon or the Capitol.

(7) As is now found in almost every case of would-be Terrorist plots against the U.S. — especially “homegrown Terrorists” — the motive is unbridled fury over (and a desire to avenge) contintuous U.S violence against Muslim civilians. Infused throughout the charging Affidavit here are such references to Ferdaus’ motives, including his happiness over the prospect of killing U.S. troops in Iraq; his proclamation that he’s “interested in traveling to Afghanistan” to aid insurgents; his statement that “he wanted to ‘decapitate’ the U.S. government’s ‘military center’ and to severely disrupt . . . the head and heart of the snake” (para 12) and to “essentially decapitate the entire empire” (para 34) (compare that language to how the U.S. described what it tried to do in Baghdad). At least according to the FBI, this is how Feradus replied when expressly asked why he wanted to attack the U.S.:

Cause that would be a huge scare . . . the point is you want to scare them so they know not to mess with you . . . They have . . . . have killed from us, our innocents, our men, women and children, they are all enemies (para 19).

If the FBI’s allegations are accurate, then it’s clear Ferdaus has become hardened in his hatred; he talks about a willingness to kill American civilians because they have become part of the enemy, and claims that he fantasized about such attacks before the FBI informant spoke to him.

But whatever else is true, it’s simply unrealistic in the extreme to expect to run around for a full decade screaming WE ARE AT WAR!! — and dropping bombs and attacking with drones and shooting up families in multiple Muslim countries (and occupying, interfering in and killing large numbers before that) – and not produce many Rezwan Ferdauses. In fact, the only surprising thing is that these seem to be so few of them actually willing and able to attack back that — in order to justify this Endless War on civil liberties (and Terror) — the FBI has to search for ones they can recruit, convince, and direct to carry out plots.
http://politics.salon.com/2011/09/29...ror/singleton/





FBI to Launch Nationwide Facial Recognition Service
Aliya Sternstein

The FBI by mid-January will activate a nationwide facial recognition service in select states that will allow local police to identify unknown subjects in photos, bureau officials told Nextgov.

The federal government is embarking on a multiyear, $1 billion dollar overhaul of the FBI's existing fingerprint database to more quickly and accurately identify suspects, partly through applying other biometric markers, such as iris scans and voice recordings.

Often law enforcement authorities will "have a photo of a person and for whatever reason they just don't know who it is [but they know] this is clearly the missing link to our case," said Nick Megna, a unit chief at the FBI's criminal justice information services division. The new facial recognition service can help provide that missing link by retrieving a list of mug shots ranked in order of similarity to the features of the subject in the photo.

Today, an agent would have to already know the name of an individual to pull up the suspect's mug shot from among the 10 million shots stored in the bureau's existing Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Using the new Next-Generation Identification system that is under development, law enforcement analysts will be able to upload a photo of an unknown person; choose a desired number of results from two to 50 mug shots; and, within 15 minutes, receive identified mugs to inspect for potential matches. Users typically will request 20 candidates, Megna said. The service does not provide a direct match.

Michigan, Washington, Florida and North Carolina will participate in a test of the new search tool this winter before it is offered to criminal justice professionals across the country in 2014 as part of NGI. The project, which was awarded to Lockheed Martin Corp. in 2008, already has upgraded the FBI's fingerprint matching service.

Local authorities have the choice to file mug shots with the FBI as part of the booking process. The bureau expects its collection of shots to rival its repository of 70 million fingerprints once more officers are aware of the facial search's capabilities.

Thomas E. Bush III, who helped develop NGI's system requirements when he served as assistant director of the CJIS division between 2005 and 2009, said, "The idea was to be able to plug and play with these identifiers and biometrics." Law enforcement personnel saw value in facial recognition and the technology was maturing, said the 33-year FBI veteran who now serves as a private consultant.

NGI's incremental construction seems to align with the White House's push to deploy new information technology in phases so features can be scrapped if they don't meet expectations or run over budget.

But immigrant rights groups have raised concerns that the Homeland Security Department, which exchanges digital prints with the FBI, will abuse the new facial recognition component. Currently, a controversial DHS immigrant fingerprinting program called Secure Communities runs FBI prints from booked offenders against the department's IDENT biometric database to check whether they are in the country illegally. Homeland Security officials say they extradite only the most dangerous aliens, including convicted murderers and rapists. But critics say the FBI-DHS print swapping ensnares as many foreigners as possible, including those whose charges are minor or are ultimately dismissed.

Megna said Homeland Security is not part of the facial recognition pilot. But, Bush said in the future NGI's data, including the photos, will be accessible by Homeland Security's IDENT.

The planned addition of facial searches worries Sunita Patel, a staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, who said, "Any database of personal identity information is bound to have mistakes. And with the most personal immutable traits like our facial features and fingerprints, the public can't afford a mistake."

In addition, Patel said she is concerned about the involvement of local police in information sharing for federal immigration enforcement purposes. "The federal government is using local cops to create a massive surveillance system," she said.

Bush said, "We do have the capability to search against each other's systems," but added, "if you don't come to the attention of law enforcement you don't have anything to fear from these systems."

Other civil liberties advocates questioned whether the facial recognition application would retrieve mug shots of those who have simply been arrested. "It might be appropriate to have nonconvicted people out of that system," said Jim Harper, director of information policy at the libertarian Cato Institute. FBI officials declined to comment on the recommendation.

Harper also noted large-scale searches may generate a lot of false positives, or incorrect matches. Facial recognition "is more accurate with a Google or a Facebook, because they will have anywhere from a half-dozen to a dozen pictures of an individual, whereas I imagine the FBI has one or two mug shots," he said.

FBI officials would not disclose the name of the search product or the vendor, but said they gained insights on the technique's accuracy by studying research from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

In responding to concerns about the creation of a Big Brother database for tracking innocent Americans, Megna said the system will not alter the FBI's authorities or the way it conducts business. "This doesn't change or create any new exchanges of data," he said. "It only provides [law enforcement] with a new service to determine what photos are of interest to them."

In 2008, the FBI released a privacy impact assessment summarizing its appraisal of controls in place to ensure compliance with federal privacy regulations. Megna said that, during meetings with the CJIS Advisory Policy Board and the National Crime Prevention and Privacy Compact Council, "we haven't gotten a whole lot of pushback on the photo capability."

The FBI has an elaborate system of checks and balances to guard fingerprints, palm prints, mug shots and all manner of criminal history data, he said.

"This is not something where we want to collect a bunch of surveillance film" and enter it in the system, Megna said. "That would be useless to us. It would be useless to our users."
http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20...?oref=topstory





Finger Scan Devices Coming to Washington County School Buses

Chipley- The Washington County School District is adding finger scan devices to all of its school buses to keep a better track of student attendance.
Bryan Anderson

Chipley- Roll call is a thing of the past in Washington County Schools. Students now check in with finger scanning devices.

School Superintendent Sandra Cook said the old method just wasn't cutting it.

"We got to talking about attendance in our district and how it was inconsistent," said Cook.

The systems have been up and running for two months inside the schools, but since the majority of students ride the bus every day, district officials decided to move the devices there.

But the transition hasn't been easy. One of the biggest challenges they've faced is where to put the devices on the buses. State safety codes require the isles to be kept completely clear, so one of the ideas they've discussed is to put a laptop on one side of the steering wheel and the finger scan system on the other.

The school district plans to test the equipment in a handful of buses in the next week and hopes to have each one operational by November or December at the latest.

"When it's all said and done, we're going to find that this is going to be one of the most monumental things that Washington County has ever done," said Cook.

The finger scan device costs the school district about $30 per student each year. Parents can still opt for their children to sign in the traditional way.
http://www.wjhg.com/home/headlines/F...131175898.html





Calif. Appeals Court Approves Cell Phone Searches During Traffic Stops
Buck Sexton

In a case explicitly decided to set a precedent, the California Appellate court has determined police officers can rifle through your cellphone during a traffic violation stop.

This is not the first time such a law has been under scrutiny. In April, the Blaze told you about the extraction devices police were using in Michigan to download the entire contents of your phone.

Florida and Georgia are among the states that give no protection to a phone during a search. In particular, Florida law treats a smartphone as a “container” for the purposes of a search, similar to say a cardboard box open on the passenger seat, despite the thousands of personal emails, contacts, and photos a phone can carry stretching back years.

But after initially striking down cell phone snooping, California has now joined the list of states that allow cops to go through your phone without a warrant.

It all began with a traffic stop, and a driver with some gun photos on his phone.

Here are the facts of California vs. Nattoli as presented by the newspaper.com.

On December 6, 2009 Reid Nottoli was pulled over for speeding by Santa Cruz County Deputy Sheriff Steven Ryan. Sheriff Ryan then suspected after pulling Nottoli over that the 25-year-old was under the influence of drugs.

As Nottoli’s license was also expired, the Sheriff decided to impound the vehicle. Nottoli requested to leave his car parked on the side of the road. Sheriff Ryan refused, and decided to conduct an “inventory” search prior to the towing.

Sheriff Ryan later testified that Nottoli was not driving erratically, nor was he arrested for driving under the influence. But the case took a turn that has brought up major privacy concerns when Sheriff Ryan searched Nottoli’s vehicle. The Deputy found:
“A fully legal Glock 20 pistol with a Guncrafter Industries 50 GI conversion that should have been stored in the trunk of the vehicle. He also noticed Nottoli’s Blackberry Curve which, after it was turned on, displayed a photograph of a mask-wearing man holding two AR-15 rifles akimbo.”

Apparently, the photo of the AR-15 rifles peaked the sheriff’s interest, and another deputy went through all the contents on Nattoli’s phone. It was not until later that Sheriff Ryan obtained a search warrant for it.

Based on the information from the Blackberry, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team exercised a search warrant of the Natoli home ten days later. The SWAT team found and confiscated a cache of weapons, marijuana-growing paraphernalia, and $15,000 in cash.

Nattoli‘s lawyers argued at trial that the Sheriff Deputy’s search through the cell phone was a violation of the 4th Amendment, and that all evidence found in the car should be excluded under “fruit of the poisoned tree” doctrine. The judge agreed and ordered the information suppressed at trial.

The appellate court overturned that ruling, however, on the grounds that the search of the cellphone was part of the inventory check needed to process an impounded car.

Furthermore, the judge ruled that the examination of the cell phone was legal because police were allowed to survey the impounded car for their own safety, and to preserve evidence.

This decision was released solely to create a precedent for future cases, as Nattoli died on September 4th. So the most important outcome of the case is the appellate court’s decision, written by Franklin Elia, which read in part:

“The deputies had unqualified authority under Gant to search the passenger compartment of the vehicle and any container found therein, including Reid’s cell phone. It is up to the US Supreme Court to impose any greater limits on officers’ authority to search incident to arrest.”

We may well see this case head to the Supreme Court, as it appears anytime you are pulled over in the state of California, your entire cell phone is now fair game.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/cali...traffic-stops/





Wikipedia Shuts Down Italian Site In Response To Berlusconi's New Wiretap Act
Adam Taylor

Due to the prospect of a new law in Italy that would give those writing on the internet just 48 hours to remove a post or face a €12,000 fine, the Italian homepage for Wikipedia is now redirecting to a statement specifically opposing the proposed legislation.

The proposed law is known as the "DDL intercettazioni" (Wiretapping Act), and critics see it as an attempt by Berlusconi's government to censor bloggers.

The Wikipedia statement, signed "The users of Wikipedia", threatens to shut down the Italian site as the rule will contradict Wikipedia's mission:

With this announcement, we want to warn our readers against the risks arising from leaving to the arbitrary will of any party to enforce the alleged protection of its image and its reputation. Under such provisions, web users would be most probably led to cease dealing with certain topics or people, just to "avoid troubles".

We want to be able to keep a free and open-to-all encyclopedia, because our articles are also your articles - Wikipedia is already neutral, why neutralize it?

As Alex Roe of Italian Chronicles notes, Italian freedom of speech is guaranteed by Article 21 of their constitution. It's not the first time such a move has been proposed by Berlusconi's government.
http://www.businessinsider.com/italy...apping-2011-10





FCC Wants GPS In Every Phone By 2018
Jordan Crook

After years of having a GPS-equipped phone, the idea of not having GPS is a little crazy. Even with smartphone adoption rates dramatically increasing, there are still plenty of folks out there with maps and awesome memories. But come 2018, all of our directionally gifted friends will have GPS on their phones like it or not.

The FCC has ruled that all telephone service providers — including VOiP services — must offer only GPS-capable handsets by 2018 to better aid in pin-pointing the location of 911 calls.

According to Courthouse News Service, it’s still unclear what the sunset deadline is for use of phones not equipped with GPS. 911 calls from phones without GPS require the carrier to triangulate the caller’s location from cell towers, which is less efficient than the phone’s GPS simply relaying location data back to emergency services.

Either way, the FCC estimates that with or without the new rules, 85 percent of cell phone owners will have GPS-equipped devices by 2018. Hopefully the leftover 15 percent gets with the program before anything that requires a call to 911 goes down.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/04/fcc...phone-by-2018/





GPS Inventor Urges Supreme Court to Reject Warrantless Tracking
David Kravets

The principal inventor of the Global Positioning System is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to renounce the Obama administration’s position that it may affix GPS devices to vehicles and track their every move without a court warrant.

Roger L. Easton, awarded the National Medal of Technology in 2006, joined the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other academics in a friend-of-the-court brief lodged Monday in one of the biggest Fourth Amendment cases in a decade — one weighing the collision of privacy, technology and the Constitution. The justices are scheduled to argue the case Nov. 9.

Easton, now 90 and the principal inventor and developer of the Timation Satellite Navigation System at the Naval Research Laboratory more than five decades ago, and the others are telling the high court that its precedent on the topic is outdated, and the government’s reliance on it should be rejected.

One of the Obama administration’s main arguments in support of warrantless GPS tracking is the high court’s 1983 decision in United States v. Knotts, in which the justices said it was OK for the government to use beepers known as “bird dogs” to track a suspect’s vehicle without a warrant. Unlike beeper-assisted surveillance, which requires human “visual” surveillance, “GPS tracking is an automated process wholly divorced from human observation,” the amicus brief said.

A beeper enhances the effectiveness of real-time visual surveillance by enabling police officers to confirm that the vehicle that they see is the vehicle being tracked and providing a means of re-establishing visual surveillance. If officers become separated from the vehicle by more than a few miles, however, they must criss-cross the area until they pick up the beeper signal again. GPS tracking, by contrast, does not require any visual surveillance by police officers after the receiver has been installed. Instead, the receiver automatically calculates its location once every ten seconds. A police computer receiving that information through a cell phone connection then uses a mapping program to plot the receiver’s — and therefore the vehicle’s — location. The technology enables the police to monitor and record the vehicle’s location without ever observing or following the car themselves.

Beeper-assisted surveillance, the brief continues, “requires a police officer to follow the targeted vehicle, for the duration of the surveillance, in order to ascertain the vehicle’s location. That is because the beeper and receiver function only as directional finders, indicating the vehicle’s direction relative to the receiver, and thereby aiding in visual surveillance by pointing the police in the direction of the vehicle. The vehicle’s actual location can be determined only through the police officer’s observations.”

What’s more, “a beeper’s signal could be monitored from a distance of two to four miles on an open road and up to twenty miles in the air. In congested urban areas, the range could drop to about two blocks.” However, GPS pinpoints targets within “centimeters,” the brief said.

Among other arguments, the government told the justices that “Knotts, like this case, involved the use of a tracking device to monitor the movements of a vehicle on public roads. The tracking device in that case — a beeper — enabled officers to maintain surveillance of the vehicle’s movements when visual observations failed.”

The friend-of-the-court brief, written by Jeffrey Meyer of the Yale Law School Supreme Court Clinic and and Andrew Pincus and Charles Rothfeld of the law firm Mayer Brown in Washington, D.C., goes into great detail about how beepers and GPS devices work.

The (GPS) receiver calculates its latitude, longitude, and altitude based on transmissions from the four nearest satellites using a process called trilateration. This process is best illustrated by imagining a GPS receiver located on the ground and four satellites (Satellites A, B, C, and D) located in the sky. The GPS receiver calculates that it is 10 miles away from Satellite A. Therefore, the receiver knows it is located somewhere on the surface of a sphere with a 10-mile radius, with the center of the sphere being Satellite A. Next, the receiver calculates it is located 15 miles away from Satellite B, which again means that it is located somewhere on the surface of a sphere with a 15-mile radius, centered on Satellite B. By repeating these calculations with Satellites C and D, the receiver can calculate where all four spheres intersect with each other, which will be one discrete point on the Earth’s surface. A GPS receiver also can compute its speed and the direction it is traveling with the data it receives from the satellites.

Ten years ago, the justices ruled that the authorities must obtain search warrants to employ thermal-imaging devices to detect indoor marijuana-growing operations, saying the imaging devices carry the potential to “shrink the realm of guaranteed privacy.”

In the case now before the justices, the Obama administration is demanding the high court reinstate the conviction and life sentence of a cocaine dealer whose vehicle was tracked via GPS for a month without a court warrant. A federal appeals court had reversed the conviction, saying such monitoring amounted to an illegal search of defendant Antoine Jones in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The conviction was based on court warrants to search and find drugs in the locations where Jones had traveled.

The justices accepted the government’s petition to hear the case to clear conflicting lower-court rulings on when warrants are required for GPS tracking. The government told the justices that GPS devices have become a common tool in crime fighting.

Easton declined comment.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...-surveillance/





Iran Blocks VPN Communication on the Internet

Considering the major role the internet and social media played in flaring up popular protests in the Middle East and North Africa since the rigged presidential elections in Iran back in 2009, dictators in the region are now attempting more and more to block access to open internet by their citizens.

Heavy control of communication lines by governments and usage of internet filtering systems, and also the usage of internet surfers’ profiles and access history to find and arrest dissidents has led many Iranians and other citizens of countries in the region have started using a technology known as Virtual Private Network or VPN to cloak themselves from the government eyes.

Using the technology, surfers in Iran could sign in to a server in the United States for example and pretend that they are actually located in the US and not Iran. This way they circumvent the Iranian government’s installed filters and Iran’s information agents will not easily know which websites they visited.

The latest information indicate that now Syria is also following China and Iran in blocking VPN ports on the internet to limit user access.

In Syria access to major ports for VPN protocols have been blocked and others have been greatly slowed.

It seems the only three countries in the world that have taken such measures to prevent user access are in fact Iran, Syria and China

Iran’s communication minister, Reza Tagipour, told reporters yesterday that, “VPN and its usage is against the law.”

“All countries have their own specific rules for using internet,” said Tagipour to reporters.

According to Iranian websites and reports, VPN usage was blocked from Thursday in Iran and all services have stopped since then.

Some internal sources speculate that blocking of VPN access is for preparations of the new Iranian national internet. But Tagipour rejected the notion and said the two have no relations to each other.

Tagipour said that in Iran the filtering part of the internet is enforced by special institutions and there is a group effort involved.

VPN is used all over the world but not specifically for the same reason as Iranian and Syrian users do. Its main benefit is for security of information and prevention of eavesdropping on the internet.

VPN not only diverts a connection on the net it can also encrypt sent information.

Iranian officials consider activities of Iranian dissidents on the internet to be a ‘soft war’ against the Islamic Republic to overthrow the government.

For the past two years the government of Iran has been trying to initiate a ‘Clean Internet’ and a national search engine has already started work in this country.

Currently most websites are filtered in Iran and users need VPN to view them.
http://www.stopfundamentalism.com/in...d=1207&Itemid=





NY State Senators Say We've Got Too Much Free Speech; Introduce Bill To Fix That
Mike Masnick

We've been pointing out a variety of attempts to push back on the First Amendment lately. One fertile ground for such attacks are local politicians carrying the "cyberbullying" banner, in various attempts to magically outlaw being a "jerk" online, usually by making it illegal to offend someone online. Of course, making someone's action illegal based on how someone else feels about it is all kinds of crazy. It also would seem to violate the very principles of the First Amendment, which bar Congress (and local governments) from passing any laws that take away one's right to free speech.

In the past, lawmakers pushing these laws have tended to simply ignore the First Amendment issue, and focus on screaming "protect the children!" as loudly as possible (never mind the fact that kids seem much less concerned about "bullying" than all these adults seem to think). However, it appears that some state Senators in NY are trying a new line of attack: going directly after the First Amendment and suggesting that current interpretations are way too broad, and it's not really meant to protect any sort of free speech right. In fact, it sounds as though they're trying to redefine the right to free speech into a privilege that can be taken away. Seriously:

“Proponents of a more refined First Amendment argue that this freedom should be treated not as a right but as a privilege — a special entitlement granted by the state on a conditional basis that can be revoked if it is ever abused or maltreated.”

Yes, that totally flips the First Amendment on its head. It is not a "more refined First Amendment." It's the anti-First Amendment. It suggests, by its very nature, that the government possesses the right to grant the "privilege" of free speech to citizens... and thus the right to revoke it. That's an astonishingly dangerous path, and one that should not be taken seriously. Of course, given their right to speak freely, state senators Jeff Klein, Diane Savino, David Carlucci and David Valesky have every right to put forth that argument -- but similarly, it allows others to point out their rather scary beliefs.

If you'd like to see the full report (pdf), I warn you that it is almost entirely written IN ALL CAPS (for no clear reason, there are a few chunks that revert to normal capitalization -- including a big chunk in the middle, that starts mid-section). I have no idea why so much of the paper is in ALL CAPS, but I'm kind of offended by it. Can we please remove their "privilege" to put out such things until they've learned to not maltreat capital letters?

The paper attempts to list out various examples of types of cyberstalking and cyberbullying -- some of which seem pretty ridiculous:

LEAVING IMPROPER MESSAGES ON ONLINE MESSAGE BOARDS OR SENDING HURTFUL AND DAMAGING MESSAGES TO OTHERS;

"Improper"? Seem a little broad to you? Does that mean the next person who comments here about something off-topic is a cyberbully?

“FLAMING” (HURTFUL, CRUEL, AND OFTENTIMES INTIMIDATING MESSAGES INTENDED TO INFLAME, INSIGHT, OR ENRAGE);

Whoo boy. An awful lot of you in the comments better watch out...

“HAPPY SLAPPING” (RECORDING PHYSICAL ASSAULTS ON MOBILE PHONES OR DIGITAL CAMERAS, THEN DISTRIBUTING THEM TO OTHERS);

Holy crap. 2005 wants its silly "crazy children" meme back. Yes, there were a few instances of this extremely brief "fad" that came and went in like a month half a decade ago. Then the next internet meme came along.

"TROLLING” (DELIBERATELY AND DECEITFULLY POSTING INFORMATION TO ENTICE GENUINELY HELPFUL PEOPLE TO RESPOND (OFTEN EMOTIONALLY), OFTEN DONE TO PROVOKE OTHERS);

Ooh, once again. Commenters beware.

EXCLUSION (INTENTIONALLY AND CRUELLY EXCLUDING SOMEONE FROM AN ONLINE GROUP).

Seriously? If we don't let you into the club, it's now a form of cyberbullying? It makes you wonder what happened to these particular Senators when they were kids.

The paper also attacks "anonymity," again ignoring how anonymity can often be extremely helpful to kids who wish to discuss things and ask questions without revealing who they are.

As for where they're going with this? Well, you guessed it: they're planning to introduce new laws to deal with cyberbullying (even though NY already has such a law). The plan is to extend two existing areas of law: "stalking in the third degree" will now include cyberbullying, and "manslaughter in the second degree" will be expanded to "include the emerging problem of bullycide."

This is basically a "Lori Drew" law. And it's ridiculous. If I say something to someone and they then go commit suicide, should I be guilty of manslaughter? Do the folks behind this not realize that this doesn't help prevent suicides, but it encourages them in giving people who are upset by something someone said extra incentive to kill themselves to "get back" at the person who was mean to them.

The cyberstalking part is no less ridiculous. It's ridiculously broad. It does not require that the person accused of cyberstalking initiate the activity, it does not require intent to harm or frighten, and a single message can be a cause of action. Think about that for a second. Someone could send you a message, you could do a single reply with no ill will or bad intent... and be guilty of the crime of cyberstalking. Damn. Do the folks writing this bill not realize how widely this will be abused?

Hopefully no one is so offended in reading such a dangerous proposal that they go out and commit suicide. At least be comforted in knowing that it won't allow for the authors to be accused of manslaughter until after the bill passes.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...fix-that.shtml





Florida Eases Penalties for Teen Sexting

• New Florida law eases penalties for teens engaged in "sexting"
• Previously, they could have been charged with a felony, forced to register as a sex offender
• Law provides for range of penalties, from fine to felony charge

Before Saturday, a Florida teenager who sent or received nude photos or video could have been charged with a felony and forced to register as a sex offender.

But a new law, recognizing the proliferation of cell phones and computers, eases the penalties for "sexting" infractions.

A first offense is punishable by eight hours of community service or a $60 fine; the second is a misdemeanor and the third is a felony.

State Rep. Joseph Abruzzo, D-Wellington, sponsored the legislation, which was approved in June.

"When our child pornography laws were written, they failed to take into account advances in technology, such as cell phones," Abruzzo said in a statement published on the website of CNN affiliate WPBF in West Palm Beach. "(This bill) modernizes these laws to ensure that children's lives are not ruined due to youthful indiscretion. This reform will let our youth know that such behavior is wrong without labeling them sex offenders for the rest of their lives."

CNN could not immediately reach Abruzzo for comment Saturday.

Under House Bill 75, teens who receive explicit images won't be charged if they took reasonable steps to report it, did not solicit the image and did not send it to someone.

A recent Associated Press/MTV poll of Internet behavior found one of three teen and young adult respondents said they've taken part in "sexting," which includes sending sexually charged texts. The survey is part of MTV's "A Thin Line" campaign, a multi-year effort to stamp out digital abuse.

Seventy-one percent of the survey's respondents said that "sexting" is a problem for Web users their age.

Ten percent of respondents who said they'd exchanged sexual messages said they'd done so with people they know only online -- a steep drop from the 29 percent who said they'd done so in 2009.

"There's probably a lot of kids who don't realize how this (sexting) could impact their life," Karl Bergstrom of Fort Myers told CNN affiliate WINK.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/01/us/florida-sexting/





Minn. DA: Teen Stole to Support Her Porn Addiction
AP

A Minnesota teen with an alleged porn addiction is accused of robbing her neighbor's home by squeezing through a doggy door.

Eighteen-year-old Amanda Rose Owens of East Bethel was charged Wednesday with second-degree burglary.

Authorities say the neighbor set up a surveillance camera after he noticed items missing, including a camera and $300. The criminal complaint says footage revealed Owens squeezing through the pet door.

Owens told investigators she broke into the house three times, always through the pet door.

She told them she stole items she thought she could pawn to help support her porn addiction. A St. Paul Pioneer Press report (http://bit.ly/oXEskf ) says the teen needed to pay for 20 to 30 porn DVDs she recently bought.

A phone number for Owens couldn't immediately be found Saturday.
http://www.newstimes.com/news/articl...on-2209115.php





He Pushed a Reluctant Industry Toward Digital Music
Ben Sisario



Digital music is now perhaps the biggest priority in the music industry. It is the future model looked to by struggling record labels and the foundation of big-thinking start-up companies that, by at least one count, have raised more than $400 million in investment so far this year.

But when Steven P. Jobs began to put together the plan for Apple’s iTunes music store, which opened in 2003, the major powers in the music industry looked at digital music as a losing game. Napster, which opened in 1999, unleashed the menace of piracy that still ravages the business, and the alternatives licensed by the major labels had limited catalogs and set awkward restrictions on users. The major labels sued ordinary fans who downloaded music without authorization, a move that may have temporarily scared some people into acquiring music legitimately but proved to be a disastrous public relations move.

Mr. Jobs has been worshiped and feared in the music industry ever since because of the way he broke through its institutional resistance and got the record companies and music publishers to license their songs to iTunes.

“Steve Jobs came into the music industry at a time when the incumbents had given up on their own fans,” said Eric Garland, chief executive of the media tracking firm BigChampagne. “Virtually all the leaders in the industry retrenched and began to focus on a scheme of locks and braces on music. Steve Jobs recognized that people on the Internet were not thieves. They were fans – rabid fans.”

Stories about Mr. Jobs’s efforts to persuade the leaders of the industry to his side are legion. He remained stubbornly, victoriously inflexible about matters like pricing. He personally demonstrated iTunes to figures like Bono of U2 and Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M, wowing them in much the same way he did crowds of software developers, journalists and consumers at the company’s regular product introductions. For years he doggedly pursued the Beatles, one of the last major holdouts to digital music, and last November finally closed the deal with the band’s company, Apple Corps, and its label, EMI. The Beatles sold 5 million songs in the first two months on iTunes.

When the iTunes store opened, the music industry’s revenue from digital sales was negligible, but by last year it had grown to $4.6 billion around the world, representing 29 percent of all revenue from recorded music. This week at Apple’s unveiling of the iPhone 4S, it noted that the store has sold 16 billion songs in its eight and a half years operation. And iTunes remains the only place where you can download Beatles songs.

Mr. Jobs’s relationship with the industry was complicated by competing forces — the wariness it held for what he might do to the business model, and the admiration it had for his vision. “Today, the music business has a complex relationship with Apple, which has become yet another entity that built an enormous business atop the rights of music companies, much like radio and MTV before it,” Bill Werde, editorial director at Billboard, said in a statement. “But I think you’d be hard-pressed to find one music executive worth his or her salt who wouldn’t agree that Jobs’ vision and tenacity blazed a trail for digital music as we know it today. Without a doubt, when you think of the Mount Rushmore of the music business – pioneers like Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler, Clive Davis and Jimmy Iovine – Steve Jobs has earned his prominent place.”
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.co...digital-music/

















Until next week,

- js.



















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Jack Spratts' Week In Review is published every Friday. Submit letters, articles, press releases, comments, questions etc. in plain text English to jackspratts (at) lycos (dot) com. Submission deadlines are Thursdays @ 1400 UTC. Please include contact info. The right to publish all remarks is reserved.


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