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Old 12-02-20, 08:21 AM   #1
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Default Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - February 15th, ’20

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February 15th, 2020




SaskTel Sent 30,000 Copyright Notices in Past Year
Regina

In the past year, tens of thousands of people in Saskatchewan were caught downloading Dexter and pirating Paranormal Activity.

SaskTel said it sent out about 30,000 copyright infringement notices in that time.

When a copyright holder detects someone illegally downloading their materials, they can sometimes find the downloader’s IP address and then trace that IP back to the service provider. When a copyright holder contacts SaskTel, the company is legally required to forward the holder’s notice of alleged infringement to the customer.

“We do not provide the name of the customer back to the copyright holder; we simply pass on the copyright holder’s information and that we had received notification. We also provide the customer with direction to remove or delete any unauthorized copies of the infringing property from their computer or other systems,” explained Michelle Englot, a spokesperson with SaskTel.

If SaskTel were to get a court order for the customer’s name, it would have to pass that information on. Englot said the Crown corporation did get a court application in the summer of 2018 but the company didn’t have the records requested anymore.

So at this time, SaskTel hasn’t ever given out customer information to a rights holder.

SaskTel even makes a point of telling customers, at the bottom of those notices, that “no personal information will be provided to copyright holders without a court order,” according to one notice provided to 980 CJME.

Lawsuits against regular people accused of pirating content online aren’t unheard of in Canada. Over the past year, thousands of Canadians have been named in lawsuits over pirating movies, reportedly including suits against 3,400 people recently filed by a law firm in Toronto on behalf of a U.S. production company.

Access Communications didn’t comment in time for this story, but it also forwards copyright notices from rights holders. In those notices, the company said it keeps the incident on file for six months.
https://www.cjme.com/2020/02/11/sask...-in-past-year/





Netflix Dominates Viewing on TVs Over All Other Streaming Services

But YouTube watching on TVs beats out Amazon and Hulu combined in the US, a new Nielsen study says.
Joan E. Solsman

Netflix is big and it's getting bigger. And we're not just watching it on our phones and tablets: That dominance translates to the biggest screen in US homes too, according to a new study Tuesday from TV-measurement giant Nielsen. Netflix gobbles up 31% of streaming to TVs, beating every other service.

In what may come as a surprise, YouTube is a close second. The massive Google video service, most often associated with short clips you watch on your phone, commanded 21% of TV streaming in the last three months of 2019, Nielsen said. Hulu came in third with 12%, followed by Amazon at 8%.

But everything else -- a kitchen-sink grouping that included free, ad-supported options such as Tubi as well as brand new subscription services such as Disney Plus -- represented a 28% chunk of viewership, almost as big as Netflix itself.

Of US video viewing on TVs, streaming makes up 19%, with Netflix the most popular choice.

"Make no mistake, the proliferation of on-demand streaming services is the most profound media disruption of the last half-century," Peter Katsingris, Nielsen's senior vice president of audience insights, said in a "special streaming-wars edition" of its quarterly Total Audience Report.

The so-called streaming wars, a seven-month window when a parade of new big-budget services are launching, are pitting a raft of new streaming services against each other and established video competitors. Apple and Disney were first to enter the fray in November, and three more companies are launching their options, backed by billions of dollars in investment, in the first few months of 2020. The outcomes of these skirmishes will not only shape the future of TV but also affect how you watch and pay for your favorite shows and movies.

The ballooning number of services has raised the spectre of subscription fatigue. Like many studies, Nielsen found that the vast majority of people subscribe to one to three paid streaming services. But as options expand, we aren't showing signs of pulling back: 93% say they'll either increase or keep their existing streaming subscriptions.

Nielsen, like many studies, found the vast majority of consumers subscribe to between one and three paid streaming services.
Nielsen

When adding a new, paid service, more people said they'd simply add on a new one at an additional cost (38%) rather than swapping out one they already have (27%). And 13% say they would "sample" new content by borrowing log-in credentials from someone they know.

When people do cancel a paid service, the majority (42%) say they quit because they felt they weren't using it enough to make the cost worthwhile. People who sign up for just one piece of programming are in the minority, with 16% saying they cancelled a service after viewing the only piece of content, though another 20% said they cancel because they've watched everything they were interested in.

The number of original shows and streaming services we can watch them on is exploding. US consumers had access to 646,152 unique program titles to choose from across linear and streaming services in 2019, up 10% from the previous year. About 9% of them were available exclusively on an subscription video service such as Netflix.

Nielsen projects digital media spending along will top $500 million by 2023. By comparison, that's nearly as much as the $600 million spent on all global media last year.
https://www.cnet.com/news/netflix-do...ming-services/





We're Drowning in Movies and TV Shows, and the Flood has Only Begun

Disney, HBO, Netflix, NBC, and others are all fighting to get your attention, but at what cost?
Edgar Alvarez

As if the video-streaming space wasn’t flooded enough already, here come Peacock, HBO Max, and Quibi. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a firm believer that competition is vital for consumers, as it tends to lead to cheaper prices and more variety of product. But at the same time, the abundance of standalone, on-demand streaming apps that exist today and that will launch soon are creating a problem that could overwhelm consumers.

Do people really have enough time to watch every new (or old) TV show that comes to Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV+, Disney+, or any of the other streaming services? And, when you add up the monthly fees for each of these, how much will you end up spending just to keep up with the latest show to go viral on social media?

Baby Yoda, I’m looking at you. It’s great for people to have options, but would you rather have quality over quantity or vice versa?

That’s not to say shows like The Mandalorian aren’t worth watching. At some point, however, having exclusive series on all these different apps is simply going to become too much — if we’re not at that point already — and it will create content fatigue. Right now, everyone on Twitter seems to be talking about Netflix’s Cheer documentary or its reality show The Circle, but just a few weeks ago people were obsessed with The Mandalorian on Disney+ or Watchmen on HBO. Soon enough, that type of buzzy show could come from HBO Max or Quibi, and you’ll have to pay up if you want to watch them.

With cable or satellite, you typically have to pay a flat fee for access to thousands of TV shows and movies, and you can shell out little more if you want premium channels like HBO or Showtime. In exchange, you get all that programming directly in one place, aka the old-fashioned set-top box. The problem with standalone streaming services is that they’re creating a fragmented ecosystem — one show here, another one there — and there’s not an easy way to manage your watchlists... or your costs.

The Apple TV app.Apple

Apple is trying to solve this with its Apple TV app, which connects to different streaming apps and puts all their content in one place, making it easier to queue shows you’re currently watching or find new ones based on recommendations. That’s a step in the right direction, for sure, but we’re going to need a lot more apps like that in order to keep our video consumption sane. Netflix is expected to premiere 40 original films and series in February alone, while upcoming services such as HBO Max plan to have dozens of shows by 2021.

The problem with Apple's TV app, which isn't necessarily its fault, is that it doesn't work with every service. For instance, content from Netflix doesn't show up on the app, and that's likely because the streaming giant wants to maintain control over the user experience. There are also products like the Caavo Control Center Universal Remote trying to alleviate this issue: it connects to multiple devices, such as an Apple TV and an Xbox One, and uses machine learning to extract video content from them and make it all accessible in a single digital hub. Unfortunately, the Caavo is limited by its HDMI support, and its interface doesn't always work properly.

A natural solution would be for companies like Apple, Disney, Netflix, HBO, and the rest of them to combine efforts for the sake of their viewers, though it's clear not everyone is willing to do that. Imagine if they could build an app that, magically, linked to the streaming services you pay for and made it easy for you to watch the shows or movies you care about most — whether they're from Netflix, Disney+, HBO or any other app. It's the least you should expect considering how much you're spending on each. Here’s a breakdown of what standard streaming plans cost per month:

Netflix: $12.99
Hulu (without ads): $11.99
Amazon Prime Video: $8.99
Disney+: $6.99
Apple TV+: $4.99
HBO Max: $14.99

Show me the money

If you’re paying for every one of these at once (plus the cost of high-speed internet), you’re going to end up with a bill that’s almost as much (if not more) as that from a cable or satellite provider — which is what cord-cutting was supposed to solve. The benefit with these apps is that there are no contracts involved, unlike with Time Warner Cable or DirecTV, but are you really getting your money’s worth from a Netflix subscription if you’re only watching one or two shows a month?

Dan Rayburn, a media streaming technology analyst at Frost & Sullivan, tells Input that because standalone streaming services lack aggregation and there’s no single platform where all the content from them is based, it can create confusion for consumers. Essentially, we’re in a scenario where, he says, consumers just can’t keep up with what show is being shown where — and that’s a major problem. “There's OTT [over-the-top] fragmentation in the market,” he says, “and confusion is going to get worse as more services come out.”

Rayburn says people just need to teach themselves about each of these services, and figure out what it is exactly they want out of a them. “There's no way around it,” he says. “Consumers have to do a lot more self-education of what they want to watch, how do they want to watch it, what platform do they want to see it on, what is the quality they want to see it in, and then what is the business model they want?” That’s a lot of work to ask of people who just want to catch a TV show or movie. Wasn't the future of streaming supposed to be solving these kinds of problems?

Quality or quantity?

As for the idea of content fatigue, that’s nothing new. A cable box tends to lessen that effect because it keeps everything in one place. “Ninety percent of American homes [once] subscribed to cable or satellite, and most were receiving over 100 channels,” says Amanda Lotz, a professor in the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology. “Most consumers don’t care about watching everything, just having enough to watch.” Lotz says that instead of bemoaning the fragmentation of content, consumers should embrace the breadth of choice.

“Have there ever been too many books? Too many albums released? Too many magazines?” she says. “The narrowness of the past was an exception, an abnormality compared with other media industries, created by the limits of analog distribution. Yes, what we are seeing is different, and there are benefits and consequences for industry and audiences. And notably, [almost] every other media industry has been at least this fragmented for decades.”

It's great that there's more content than ever to watch, and that you can do so from your TV at home or your smartphone while you're on the go. But, until there's a more consolidated and straightforward way to manage all the new shows and movies that standalone streaming services are creating, the experience isn't going to get any better for viewers. Just look at what happened with the iconic '90s sitcom Friends, which stopped streaming on Netflix at the beginning of 2020 and won't be on any other app until HBO Max launches in May.

This pull for power is going to get worse as networks and streaming services compete for people's attention, and rather than work together on solutions that will make consumers' life easier, it seems like they're going to do everything they can to make your experience a tedious one. But, hey, it's just business.
https://www.inputmag.com/features/dr...etflix-hbo-nbc





‘Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,’ Many Times Over

The New Beverly Cinema, owned by Quentin Tarantino, is riding a boom in art house theaters.
Brian Raftery

On a crisp Saturday night last month, a hundred movie lovers got into their cars and drove to the New Beverly Cinema, an old theater on Beverly Boulevard, to relive a golden age of Hollywood.

As a 1960s radio broadcast played overhead, ticket holders walked past a lobby filled with vintage artifacts like a “Make Love Not War” banner and “Green Hornet” poster before taking their seats.

“You open the doors and it’s 1969,” said Brian Quinn, a theater manager, who took the stage at 7:30 p.m. to introduce the night’s main attraction: “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, who also owns the New Beverly.
The audience gasped, laughed and applauded as they followed the tale of a fading TV star (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), his loyal stuntman (Brad Pitt) and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), set in the final days before Charles Manson upended Hollywood’s collective psyche.

Such cinematic time capsules have been a fixture at the New Beverly, a 225-seat, single-screen theater that is emblematic of an art house revival in Los Angeles and beyond. The theater shows studio classics and cult films, including many movies by Mr. Tarantino. And last July, when “Once Upon a Time” was released, it was added to the lineup, selling out more than 50 consecutive screenings.

“I saw it at the New Bev on opening night, and Tarantino was actually in the theater,” said Kevin Vasquez, 31, an assistant at an entertainment management company. “He was laughing and watching his movie, along with everybody else.”

The film, which is nominated for 10 Academy Awards including for best picture and best director, still draws hundreds of moviegoers every weekend, even though it has been available for streaming since November.

For Tarantino fans like Jackie Greed, who works at Amoeba Music nearby, there is no better place to obsess over the movie’s details. “I’m never bored with this movie,” said Ms. Greed, 50, who went three times that first month. “I still find little things to take in and pick up on. I don’t think I’ve reached my limit.”

Cinematic ‘Time Machine’

Nostalgia remains one of the theater’s biggest draws. “It’s the closest thing to a time machine I’ll ever see in my lifetime,” said Alison Martino, 49, a journalist and historian who has seen the film at the New Beverly 11 times.

When Ms. Martino first saw the scene in which Sharon Tate visits the Fox Bruin Theater on Broxton Avenue (which still stands), she recalled her weekend nights there as a teenager in the 1980s. “I cried, because so much of my childhood was there,” said Ms. Martino, who runs the Facebook page Vintage Los Angeles.

For those who weren’t around during those years, the theater offers a sense of camaraderie so often lost in the age of at-home streaming. “It’s a good escape,” said Mr. Vasquez, who has seen the film at least a dozen times at the New Beverly. “There’s no plot to the movie, really. But I just like to hang out with these characters, and be in that world.”

The theater has even become a hangout for some of the actors in the film, including Clu Gulager, 91, a veteran TV and film actor who appears briefly as a bookseller. On a recent visit, he lingered under the marquee to greet friends and fans, before taking a seat in the front row.

One of his favorite scenes is when Mr. Pitt’s character cruises through Los Angeles at night with his radio blasting, unburdened by traffic. “To me, that scene represents the state of mind of Hollywood,” Mr. Gulager said. “It goes down so easy, this movie.”

Art Houses Everywhere

The New Beverly is one of several old theaters in Los Angeles that have been revived as modern art house cinemas. The Nuart Theater on Santa Monica Boulevard, which dates back to around 1930, underwent a major renovation in 2006 and is a jewel in the Landmark Theater chain.

The Egyptian Theater, built in 1922 in the style of a pharaoh’s temple, remains one of Hollywood’s beloved movie palaces. Netflix is in talks to buy the theater for red-carpet premieres and other events. (Netflix recently signed a long-term lease on the Paris Theater in Manhattan, saving the last single-screen theater in New York City.)

The Fairfax Cinema, the former site of the Silent Movie Theater from 1942, opened last Christmas with a bookstore, outdoor patio, cafe, gallery and 163-seat theater.

In New York City, several art house cinemas, including the Film Forum and Quad Cinema, have undergone renovations. New indie cinemas have opened, too, including Metrograph, a two-screen theater that opened in 2016 on the Lower East Side with a bar, restaurant and bookstore, and is frequently rented out for premieres.

“A generation of people who have only seen movies at home now want to see them” in theaters, said Jake Perlin, 44, the artistic director at Metrograph. “They’re realizing that nothing is greater than watching something like ‘Bells Are Ringing’ with another couple hundred people.”

“I’ve been going to the movies pretty much daily for about 25 years now,” Mr. Perlin added, “and this is probably the best time I can remember.”

When the Saturday night screening of “Once Upon a Time” ended, the crowd broke into sustained applause. Many stayed in their seats to savor the credits sequence featuring Mr. DiCaprio.

Next month, the “Once Upon a Time” screenings will move to the midnight slot, though like all of Mr. Tarantino’s films, it will likely be added to the theater’s rotation. (Mr. Tarantino, who helps curate the theater’s programming, declined to be interviewed.)

That’s good news for repeat viewers like Aaron Araki, 35, an Amoeba Music employee who was standing outside the theater, where “Once Upon a Time” T-shirts were being sold.

“What makes a movie really rewatchable is if it has a lot of personality, and character, and a really good sense of place,” Mr. Araki said. “This movie gives them that, and they just want to be keep coming back and be in that place again.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/08/s...hollywood.html





Sales Dying, Little Rock's R.A.O Video to Shut

Owner’s son blames pirating’s rise; buyer sought for building
Noel Oman

Victor Oliver said pirating killed the video store.

Well, the store he runs for his father, R.A.O. Video, a fixture on Main Street in downtown Little Rock since its founding 43 years ago, will be dead once a buyer is found for the building it has occupied since 2001.

The elder Oliver, Robert, founded the video store as a kiosk on Main Street in 1977 after reading an article in The Wall Street Journal about the new cutting-edge technology at the time, videocassettes.

The store moved up and down a three-block section of Main before settling in 2001 at 609 Main, between the Arkansas Repertory Theatre and what is now Three Fold restaurant.

Along the way, it converted its titles to DVD and Blu-ray as well as diversifying. But it wasn't enough.

"Pirating killed the movie industry," Victor Oliver said. "It continues to. Illegal downloads, illegal streaming, illegal copying.

"Every time a video store closes down, they want to blame it on Netflix, Amazon and that stuff. But I can tell you that being here for 40 years and watching the change, it is pirating."

The evidence is everywhere if anyone is paying attention, he said.

"I can't tell you how many comes in on a Tuesday when I just get a new movie in. They say, 'What have you got new?' I say I got this one. 'Oh, I watched that on my Fire [TV] Stick two weeks ago.' I mean it's just blatant."

Someone can rent a title at R.A.O. and the next day sell 30 or 40 copies of it from his car, Victor Oliver said.

He had taken to purchasing new titles at Walmart.

"Instead of getting 10, I get one or two," he said. "It's cheaper to buy them at Walmart. Plus when I bought them wholesale, I'd have to pick them out two or three months in advance and I wouldn't know the demand for them at that time. So now I just wait and see what people want that day or that week."

Diversifying hasn't worked out well, either. The Olivers, for example, opened a vaping section in the store about five years ago.

"But with all the media scare and misinformation out there, that business is really tough," Victor Oliver said. "Big tobacco is doing everything they can to shut that down."

The Olivers thought about leasing the building but when a buyer approached, they were willing to listen. The prospective buyers wanted to invest up to $4 million to convert the building into a multiuse development -- a restaurant on the ground floor and 16 apartments on the upper two floors.

The buyers evaluated the building for 90 days.

"They didn't find anything wrong with the building, but after they ran the numbers on the build-out that they wanted to do, it was going to be too costly for them," Victor Oliver said.

Two other prospective buyers have expressed interest in the building, he said. If both fall through, he plans to list the building.

Historically, it is known as the Fulk-Haverty Building, but it is considered a noncontributing building in the Little Rock Main Street National Historic District, according to Patricia Blick, executive director of the Quapaw Quarter Association, which promotes preserving historic structures, especially in the downtown area.

"It is by architect Charles Thompson, 1916, but the original Thompson facade is obscured by the panels, I believe installed in 1960s," Blick said in an email. "It could be restored to its original appearance."

R.A.O. will be closing down, a few DVD sales at a time.

"I probably sold 55, 56 movies this morning," including 47 to one customer, Victor Oliver said.

Roy Marshall purchased three DVDs a few minutes later.

Marshall, 58, of Conway and a former longtime Little Rock resident, said he has been a customer since 1986.

"I wish it wouldn't close," he said. "It's the best video store I've ever been in."

Marshall said options such as Red Box don't have the old titles that R.A.O. carries.

When the store closes, "I don't know what I'm going to do," he said.
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/...t-2020/?latest





The World’s Biggest Phone Show has been Canceled Due to Coronavirus Concerns

MWC 2020 is no more
Tom Warren

The world’s biggest phone show, Mobile World Congress, is no longer taking place this year. After coronavirus threatened to throw MWC into chaos, the GSM Association (GSMA), which organizes the show, has now canceled it. It comes after more than a week of exhibitors and companies pulling out of MWC.

In a statement, GSMA CEO John Hoffman said the coronavirus outbreak has made it “impossible” to hold the event. MWC was scheduled to take place in Barcelona between February 24th and the 27th.

“With due regard to the safe and healthy environment in Barcelona and the host country today, the GSMA has cancelled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern and other circumstances, make it impossible for the GSMA to hold the event. The Host City Parties respect and understand this decision. The GSMA and the Host City Parties will continue to be working in unison and supporting each other for MWC Barcelona 2021 and future editions. Our sympathies at this time are with those affected in China, and all around the world.”

Coronavirus infections have exceeded 42,000 with the total number of deaths at more than 1,000. Most infections and deaths have been reported in Wuhan and the surrounding Hubei Province in China, but at least 25 countries have now reported cases. The GSMA had tried to allay fears with increased disinfection measures on site, recommending attendees don’t shake hands and even ban on visitors traveling from the province in China where coronavirus was first discovered.

The GSMA is an industry trade body that represents more than 1,200 companies across the mobile ecosystem, and MWC is the chance for thousands to gather for partnerships, deals, and product launches. MWC is usually held annually in Barcelona, and it has a big economic impact of 492 million euros, and also generates 14,100 part-time jobs.

MWC 2020 was set to feature a big Chinese phone maker presence, with all of the country’s major smartphone brands set to appear at the show. LG pulled out of MWC earlier this month, and ZTE canceled a planned press event over coronavirus fears. Ericsson, one of the largest exhibitors at MWC, also withdrew from the show, before Nvidia, Intel, Vivo, Sony, Amazon, and NTT Docomo all followed and canceled appearances. Cisco, Nokia, BT, and HMD also canceled appearances this week.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/2...gsma-statement





Judge Is Said to Rule for T-Mobile Merger With Sprint

A last-ditch attempt by a coalition of state attorneys general is said to have failed to halt T-Mobile’s purchase of a smaller rival.
Edmund Lee and Andrew Ross Sorkin

The judge in a contentious lawsuit that tried to stop the long-in-the-works merger between T-Mobile and Sprint is planning to rule in favor of the deal, according to three people briefed on the matter.

The verdict, expected Tuesday, will come at the end of an unusual suit filed in June by attorneys general from 13 states and the District of Columbia. The challenge came after federal regulators gave their blessing to the deal, which would combine the nation’s third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers and create a new telecommunications giant to take on the two largest, AT&T and Verizon. The states argued that the combination of T-Mobile and Sprint would reduce competition in the telecommunications industry, lead to higher cellphone bills and place a financial burden on lower-income customers.

Judge Victor Marrero of United States District Court in Manhattan presided over the case. Final arguments took place last month.

None of the parties have read the ruling yet, the three people said, leaving open the possibility that the decision includes conditions or restrictions. Both companies are planning to make announcements on Tuesday, the people said. Shares in Sprint shot up more than 60 percent and T-Mobile stock rose about 10 percent in aftermarket trading.

The lawsuit was the final roadblock to the merger, which made steady progress through the approval process since it was announced in April 2018. If the judge’s ruling goes in favor of the two companies, the deal will create a new telecommunications giant, called T-Mobile, that will have more than 100 million customers.

T-Mobile and Sprint have long said the merger was crucial to their futures in an industry challenged by pricing wars that have undercut profits and stalled growth. By combining with Sprint, T-Mobile has said it would be able to accelerate its development of 5G, the next generation of cellular networks.

The deal is also important to Sprint, which has bled cash and subscribers in recent years. SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate the controls Sprint, has been looking to raise cash for its newest tech investing fund.

The new company will be led by Mike Sievert, a T-Mobile executive who will take over for John Legere, the face of the company whose contract is up in April.

Mr. Legere, the flamboyant, social-media-savvy chief executive of T-Mobile since 2012, helped drive the merger, which won the approval of the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission last year. To get the nod from the government, T-Mobile and Sprint agreed to sell off significant portions of their businesses to the pay-television operator Dish Network as part of a plan to create a potential new major wireless company.

Marcelo Claure, the executive chairman of Sprint, became a close ally of Mr. Legere’s throughout the campaign to secure approval for the deal. Mr. Legere made numerous visits to both the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department. Mr. Claure hosted a fund-raiser for Representative Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican who was eventually elected to the Senate in November 2018.

Several lawmakers expressed misgivings over Mr. Legere’s Washington visits, noting the dozens of times that he and other T-Mobile executives stayed at the Trump International Hotel there. The companies have denied doing anything inappropriate to curry favor with federal officials.

The deal also represents a victory for Masayoshi Son, the billionaire entrepreneur and outspoken leader of SoftBank, which has recently come under pressure from the activist investor Elliott Management. SoftBank’s outsize investments in tech start-ups, including WeWork, have failed to deliver for investors, and Mr. Son has struggled to raise more cash for a new investment fund. He has been trying to unload Sprint for years.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/b...le-merger.html





The T-Mobile + Sprint Deal is Good for You if You Like Paying More for Your Wireless Plan

Competition among the four big wireless carriers kept prices low for years. Now the Trump administration, along with a federal judge, approved a plan to shrink that number to three.
Peter Kafka

A federal judge blessed a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile on Friday, which would reduce the number of big wireless carriers in the US from four to three. The Department of Justice says that it will be good for consumers.

The key to that confusing argument: The deal is supposed to create another big wireless carrier, more or less from scratch, which would bring the number of competitors back to four.

And if that logic confuses you — why build a new company to create competition when you could just keep the ones you have and let them continue to compete? — then you are not alone. A group of state attorneys general had sued to block the merger.

This is a deal that T-Mobile and Sprint have tried to put together for years, but have continually been blocked because of antitrust concerns. Now they’re almost there, though they still need the blessing of the California Public Utilities Commission.

If the deal does go through, it will be meaningful to you, a person who uses wireless services every day.
Who wins and who loses

Sprint and T-Mobile — which are owned by Japan’s SoftBank and Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, respectively — have been trying to make this combination happen forever. But they’re not the only ones who want the deal: Everyone from AT&T to Verizon to wireless investors and analysts has been rooting for the merger.

That’s because growth in the wireless business has been slowing for years, and wireless service is more or less a commodity. With some exceptions, the big carriers all deliver the same basic service, which means they have to compete on price, or by throwing in freebies like Netflix subscriptions, which T-Mobile has done.

Here’s an ugly but effective chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index, which shows you what’s been happening to wireless pricing over the past decade:

If you’re a wireless operator or someone who owns a wireless operator, you would like less competition and less incentive for the carriers to undercut each other, and for the trendline of that chart to stop drooping. In other words: That would be good for them and bad for you.

That’s why the Obama administration blocked an earlier version of this deal, and why President Trump’s Department of Justice also initially objected to it, as it noted last year: “The combination of T-Mobile and Sprint would eliminate head-to-head competition between the companies and threaten the benefits that customers have realized from that competition in the form of lower prices and better service.”

But now the DOJ says it has an answer: It has gotten Dish Networks, the satellite TV service, to agree to build a new wireless service, using some assets and subscribers from T-Mobile and Sprint — if you use Sprint’s “prepaid” wireless plans and brands, like Boost, you will eventually become a Dish subscriber instead — as well as wireless spectrum Dish has been stockpiling for years.

In theory, adding Dish to the mix will mean that competition won’t be reduced even if T-Mobile and Sprint merge. The agreement also includes other items meant to ensure that consumers won’t get screwed: While Dish will take years to build its own service, it will be able to resell T-Mobile’s service under its own name for seven years. And T-Mobile has agreed not to raise prices for the customers of the combined T-Mobile/Sprint for three years.

But there is a lot of skepticism that Dish can really build its own wireless service, or even that it wants to: As wireless analyst Craig Moffett notes, for years, Wall Street has been valuing Dish solely because of its spectrum, with the hope that another company would buy it for those assets. (While Dish has 12 million subscribers to its TV and digital video services, those numbers have been shrinking, and the conventional wisdom is that Dish will throw in the towel on that pursuit eventually.)

The idea that Dish will be able or willing to build its own effective wireless competitor — which would require many billions of dollars to get off the ground and billions more each year to maintain — “is not credible,” Moffett wrote in a note this week.

What politicians are doing about it

More cause for skepticism: Like recent federal regulatory actions affecting tech and media companies, this one looks, at least, like it has been influenced by politics.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, while both Democratic and Republican state attorneys general had initially opposed the deal, Republicans eventually agreed to support the merger, while Democrats challenged it in court.

Parties that want to see the merger go through have been strategic about managing their relationships with Trump and his administration since he took office.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, who owns Sprint, has made a point of courting Trump, most notably by playing up plans for SoftBank to invest in the US.

Before he was elected, Trump did once feud (on Twitter, obviously) with T-Mobile CEO John Legere:

But since Legere and his executives announced the most recent merger, they have spent a lot of time at Trump’s International Hotel in Washington, booking 52 nights at Trump’s property and spending some $200,000 there. T-Mobile says its hotel choices have nothing to do with the deal.

Last year, the DOJ’s approval of the Sprint and T-Mobile’s deal came at the same time that the Federal Trade Commission split along party lines about a decision to punish Facebook for privacy violations: Republicans approved a $5 billion fine, while Democrats wanted something much bigger, plus significant structural changes to the way Facebook operates. And it came after Trump’s regulators approved Rupert Murdoch’s deal to sell many of his Fox assets to Disney but tried unsuccessfully to prevent AT&T from buying Time Warner, whose assets include CNN, a favorite Trump target.
https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/7/26...es-competition





Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives is Free After Four Years in Jail

Court holds that jail time to force decryption can't last more than 18 months.
Timothy B. Lee

A Philadelphia man has been freed after a federal appeals court ruled that his continued detention was violating federal law. Francis Rawls, a former police officer, had been in jail since 2015, when a federal judge held him in contempt for failing to decrypt two hard drives taken from his home. The government believes they contain child pornography.

In 2015, law enforcement raided Rawls' home and seized two smartphones, a Mac laptop, and two hard drives. Prosecutors were able to gain access to the laptop, and police say forensic analysis showed Rawls downloading child pornography and saving it to the external hard drives. But the drives themselves were encrypted, preventing the police from accessing the downloaded files.

A judge ordered Rawls to decrypt the hard drives. In its recent ruling, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals described what happened next. Rawls "stated that he could not remember the passwords necessary to decrypt the hard drives and entered several incorrect passwords during the forensic examination."

The judge held Rawls in contempt and ordered him imprisoned. Rawls challenged his imprisonment, arguing that it violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. But in 2017, the 3rd Circuit rejected his argument.

The Fifth Amendment gives witnesses a right not to testify against themselves. Rawls argued that producing a password for the hard drives would amount to an admission that he owned the hard drives. But the 3rd Circuit rejected that argument. It held that the government already had ample evidence that Rawls owned the hard drives and knew the passwords required to decrypt them. So ordering Rawls to decrypt the drives wouldn't give the government any information it didn't already have. Of course, the contents of the hard drive might incriminate Rawls, but the contents of the hard drive are not considered testimony for Fifth Amendment purposes.

An 18-month limit?

After losing that appeal, Rawls raised another challenge: the federal statute that allows judges to hold witnesses in contempt for refusing to testify, passed in 1970, states that "in no event shall such confinement exceed eighteen months."

The government argued that this provision didn't apply to Rawls because he was a suspect, not a witness. Also, the rule applies to a "proceeding before or ancillary to any court or grand jury." But because the government hadn't formally charged Rawls with a crime, the government argued, there was no court proceeding under way.

Last week, a three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit rejected this argument in a 2-1 vote. The court's two-judge majority held that Congress had intended for the 18-month limitation to apply broadly to any legal proceeding, not just a formal trial. And while Rawls was a suspect in the case, he was also a witness.

The practical result is that, at least in federal court, someone can only be imprisoned for 18 months for refusing to open an encrypted device. That's probably a harsh-enough penalty to induce most people to comply with decryption orders. But suspects in child-pornography cases might be tempted to "forget" the passwords on their encrypted device if doing so could save them from a conviction and a much longer prison term.

The ruling might not help Rawls very much, however. The government says it has piles of other evidence suggesting that Rawls possessed child pornography. For example, last week's ruling notes that Rawls' own sister testified that "Rawls had shown her hundreds of images of child pornography on the encrypted external hard drives, which included videos of children who were nude and engaged in sex acts with other children." Rawls' smartphone also contained "approximately twenty photographs focusing on the genitals of Rawls' six-year-old niece."

So prosecutors may be able to piece together enough evidence to convict him, even without access to his encrypted hard drives. One of the two judges who formed the 3rd Circuit's majority urged the trial court judge to consider the four years of imprisonment Rawls has already served if he eventually has to sentence Rawls after a child pornography conviction.

Dissent

One judge, Jane Richards Roth, dissented from last week's appeals-court ruling. Roth argued that Rawls wasn't being asked to testify at all—and hence that the 18-month limit didn't apply. She argued that Rawls was merely being asked to comply with a search warrant.

The government's ability to execute search warrants—and a judge's ability to hold people in contempt for ignoring them—can be traced back to a 1789 law called the All Writs Act. Roth argued that this law, not the 1970 law about compelled testimony, should govern the Rawls case. And that act doesn't impose a time limit on persons being held for contempt.

"It is not clear that Congress intended the provisions of that statute to limit the power of courts to hold individuals such as Rawls, the recipient of a valid search warrant, in civil contempt," Roth wrote. "Rawls is not a 'witness,' as his contempt relates only to the decryption order replying that he comply with the government's search warrant by producing his devices in a fully unencrypted state."
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...years-in-jail/





UK Police Deny Responsibility for Poster Urging Parents to Report Kids for Using Kali Linux

Using Discord, too, is apparently a warning sign that your child is turning into a naughty hacker.
Charlie Osborne

The UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) has publicly said it has nothing to do with a misleading poster designed to put fear into the hearts of parents and urge them to call the police if their children are using Kali Linux.

The poster, made public by Twitter user @G_IW, has reportedly been distributed by local authorities on behalf of the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit (WMROCU).

It appears the creators of the poster are aiming to inform parents of what dubious software to look out for if they suspect their children are up to no good on the computer. While a good and reasonable intention, the disinformation on the poster, as described by @G_IW, is "staggering."

Virtual machines, the Tor Browser, Kali Linux, WiFi Pineapple, Discord, and Metasploit are all deemed terrible finds and the poster urges parents to call the cops "so we can give advice and engage them into positive diversions."

In reality, virtual machines (VMs) are a safe, perfectly legitimate way to run different operating systems and to test software without risking core computer systems. They can come in handy, for example, if software or games are designed for one operating system but are not compatible with another -- such as playing a Windows game on a macOS machine or vice versa.

The Tor Browser is open source software developed by the Tor Project designed to protect your privacy and is especially useful for those in surveillance and censorship-based states, civil rights groups, activists, and journalists.

Developed by Offensive Security, Kali Linux is a valuable OS used to learn penetration testing. The operating system is used by security professionals worldwide in white-hat security roles, as is the Metasploit tool, and WiFi Pineapple is hardware that is also used for penetration testing -- but considering a price tag of a few hundred dollars, it is unlikely many kids have one of these stashed away.

The mention of Discord as a platform to "share hacking tips" is laughable, as you are more likely to come across gaming enthusiasts and meme-sharers than hacking communities.

Naturally, the poster has drawn the ire of many in the cybersecurity industry and as both the WMROCU and NCA logos were included, the NCA has been forced to publicly distance itself from the advisory.

In response, the NCA said the agency "was not involved in the production or release of this poster."

"There are many tools which tech-savvy children use, some of which can be used for both legal & illegal purposes, so it is vital that parents & children know how these tools can be used safely," the NCA added.

The team from Kali Linux might have enjoyed the marketing, though, given their light-hearted response to the poster:

The police force eventually responded, blaming a third-party:

"The poster -- produced by a third party -- was created as an aide memoire to assist teachers with safeguarding in schools. It was taken from wider information on cyber tools which could be used to commit cyberattacks, but equally have a legitimate purpose."

Make of that what you will. But it should be noted that we should be encouraging a healthy interest in cybersecurity as there are plenty of roles, both current and emerging, which require skilled, white-hat professionals, and we should not be trying to frighten parents, teachers, and children away from tools that not only protect our privacy but can also pave the way for successful future career paths.

Speaking to ZDNet, Jim O'Gorman, the Chief Content & Strategy Officer for Offensive Security commented:

"I think that the whole situation reminds me of the generational scares that happen with rock music, video games, and so on. Hopefully no parent would take it seriously and feel like they have to call the police on their own children if they find them using Kali or chatting with others on Discord, as that's pretty ludicrous.

These are all awesome opportunities for parents to engage with their children, find common interests, and spend time together while helping the child learn skills that will help them later in life.

If you don't understand something your child is into, instead of freaking out about it just ask the kid and learn from them. In the end, none of this entire issue has anything to do with Kali or any of the other tools called out in the poster, instead it just has to do with how to be a good engaged parent and some people's misunderstanding of what that means."

ZDNet has reached out to WMROCU with additional queries and will update when we hear back.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/uk-pol...ng-kali-linux/





Windows 10 Warning: Anger At Microsoft Rises With Serious New Failure
Gordon Kelly

Windows 10 may now be essential but users new and old have had a rough ride in recent weeks. And it has just gotten a lot worse after a new, high-profile Windows 10 failure has left more questions than answers and some seriously angry users.

The drama began yesterday as Windows 10 users suddenly found that Search was broken with a black bar showing where search results should be, even for those who tried to perform a local search of their files. Breaking with tradition (1,2,3,4,5), Microsoft was fast to act blaming “a temporary server-side issue”. But the explanation instead kicked a hornet’s nest. First, the fix doesn’t work for everyone. Second, and more worryingly, Microsoft’s explanation doesn’t add up and it has prompted serious questions to be asked about how the operating system works and what personal data it is sharing.

02/08 Update: With tensions running high, Windows Latest has today spotted a further act by Microsoft which will not help matters. Missed by many, Microsoft's release notes for Windows 10 20H1 Build 19035 reveal it has decided to delay plans to roll out its widely-praised Optional Update changes. The improvements, which would have given users greater control over the installation of driver updates (so frequently the source of Windows 10 problems) is now in limbo with Microsoft simply stating: "We’ve completed the experiment related to how we deliver driver updates through Windows Update. Devices that were involved in the experiment will no longer see the Optional Updates link under Settings > Windows Update." Hope will now build that Microsoft will restore this lost functionality in its Windows 10 20H2 update but, even then, that would see it pushed to October or November. I have contacted Microsoft and asked for an explanation why the feature (which seemed to work well) was unceremoniously pulled.

02/09 Update: Windows 10 users need to brace themselves for further disruption as another Microsoft update is now causing significant problems for a number of users. Picked up by Windows Latest, KB4532695 (which already has some track history) is reported to be causing multiple problems including boot failures, broken sound, knocking out WiFi and Bluebooth adapters and the infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). Ironically, another of its problems is a failure to install for some Windows 10 users who should count their blessings. Not helping matters is Microsoft's official KB4532695 support page where the company continues to claim it "is not currently aware of any issues with this update." Bear careful out there Windows 10 users.

Popular Microsoft pundit Woody Leonard led the charge, writing: “If you believe that yesterday’s worldwide crash of Windows 10 Search was caused by a bad third-party fiber provider, I have a bridge to sell you.”

In an open letter to new Windows head Panos Panay, Susan ‘Patch Lady’ Bradley was similarly sceptical, noting that today “we all found out that our local search boxes are somehow dependent on some service working at Microsoft.” She attacked the company for a lack of transparency and gave it a maximum ‘Pinocchio score’ for a lack of trust.

“Microsoft has been working to unify search experience across Windows, Bing, and Office 365 products...Microsoft’s efforts to supercharge the search box has many advantages, but such problems are ruining the company’s reputation,” said Windows Latest, in a stark warning.

Similarly, Engadget writer Richard Lawler revealed that users were now trying to hack the Windows 10 registry to disconnect their local file searches from Microsoft servers (more below) “and I can't say I blame them after this episode. Microsoft owes users a better explanation than this and should make sure it's impossible for offline features to get taken out when the cloud is having an issue.”

“That’s Microsoft’s underlying tactics all along: sneak questionable mechanics into Windows with updates, backtrack only if someone noticed them, reported them and if that creates a big enough public outcry,” commented one user.

Windows 10's broken search bar has raised serious questions about Microsoft's transparency Twitter

On top of this, Microsoft’s supposed fix is a long way from being a slam dunk:

“Wow. This is still broken for me. Been broken all day. Even after reboot. This is f****** nuts, Microsoft. This should not be a thing,” - source

“I have rebooted like five times in the past hour and still have the same issue until now.” - source

“#windows10 #search still down for me, and yes I've restarted.” - source

Consequently, the aforementioned Windows 10 registry hack appears to be the only 100% fix for this issue and it also disconnects Bing and Cortana online services from Windows 10 search. As detailed on Reddit, you need to perform the following steps:

• Run Regedit.exe
• Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Search
• Look for ‘BingSearchEnabled’, if you don't see it you will need to create it (right-click in a blank area, pick ‘New DWORD’ 32 bit. Type in ‘BingSearchEnabled’
• Open BingSearchEnabled, set it to 0, press OK.
• Look for ‘CortanaConsent’, again create it if you don’t have it using the method above. Also set it to 0.
• Reboot.

All of which leaves Microsoft with some explaining to do. As Bradley concludes: “Your customers, those of us that have to trust you with our data, our businesses, our future endeavors deserve better behavior than this.”

Your move, Microsoft.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonk...ons-and-anger/





Windows 12 Lite is Here, and it Doesn’t have Any Built-In Ads
Surur

We’ve joked on occasion that Microsoft is now so immersed in the open-source world that they might as well use Linux as their next kernel.

Now it seems some distro developers did just that, releasing Windows 12 Lite into the world.

Being sold at computer fairs, and spotted by redditor hexsayeed, Windows 12 Lite is a Linux distro based on LiteOS with a Windows 10 wallpaper and is being touted as the perfect software for Windows 7 users who need to upgrade.

Touted as being secure, free from viruses and ransomware, and being 3 times faster than Windows they note that the OS contains no adverts and has a great support forum.

We suspect Microsoft may have some words with them regarding the software shipping with the default Windows 10 wallpaper, however.

Read more about Windows 12 Lite before Microsoft’s ban hammer strikes, at their website here.
https://mspoweruser.com/windows-12-l...-built-in-ads/

















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