Google reluctant to release info in Viacom case CNet News
Google, the search company that uncovers much of the world’s information for its customers, is embroiled in a fight to keep information about itself under wraps for at least a while longer. Viacom has documents that show David Eun, who oversaw Google’s content partnerships until leaving for AOL recently, was opposed to Google acquiring YouTube, sources said. The owner of YouTube, which is defending itself against a $1 billion copyright lawsuit filed by entertainment giant Viacom, has asked a federal court to keep documents filed in the case under seal for another three months. On Friday, Viacom and Google filed for summary judgment, claiming that there’s enough undisputed evidence for the judge to rule in each party’s favor. Supporting documents were also filed. U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton is expected to rule on when the documents are to be unsealed within the next few days.

The Secret Origin of Windows Technologizer
Few people understand Microsoft better than Tandy Trower, who worked at the company from 1981-2009. Trower was the product manager who ultimately shipped Windows 1.0, an endeavor that some advised him was a path toward a ruined career. Four product managers had already tried and failed to ship Windows before him, and he initially thought that he was being assigned an impossible task. In this follow-up to yesterday’s story on the future of Windows, Trower recounts the inside story of his experience in transforming Windows from vaporware into a product that has left an unmistakable imprint on the world, 25 years after it was first released.

Computer games disguised as Excel and Word prove a hit with office workers Telegraph
Computer games disguised as Excel and Word documents which allow office workers to waste time without attracting the attention of their bosses are taking off on the web. In one game, called Leadership, the player must direct a space ship between two lines of a graph. Another involves destroying blocks of the same colour before a wall of bar charts fills the screen, like the cult puzzle game Tetris. A third game Breakdown is derived from the Atari classic Breakout – but with the bricks replaced by dry corporate text. Words in bold and italics must be hit twice to disappear. The Flash games, which launch in plausibly bland pop-up windows, are available to play at the website CantYouSeeImBusy.com which was developed by four programmers in the Netherlands. A tongue-in-cheek counter on the website estimates that the addictive games have already cost the world economy more than €4.5m in lost man hours.

Google incident does not break WTO rules China Daily
Some NGOs are reportedly accusing the Chinese government of being in breach of its WTO obligations in regulating Google China’s search service and urged the Obama administration to take China to WTO to settle the dispute. Few details are available from news reports, but I would elaborate the case from the legal perspective and I believe that these accusations are groundless, as China’s regulations on Google are within the confines of its domestic laws and accords with its promises to the WTO. Google always enjoys market access and national treatment in China As an Internet search provider, the services Google provides fall into the categories of “online information and data processing” and “online information and data searching”, according to WTO rules and Chinese laws and regulations. China set clear restrictions on the above services in its promises when it was admitted into the WTO. To enjoy full national treatment, foreign companies must set up joint ventures in China and owns no more than 50 percent of the capital. Google China did exactly the same.

Lip-reading phones: Sounds of silence CNet News
Still getting used to all those people with Bluetooth headsets walking down the street appearing to talk to themselves? Get ready for the still stranger sight of people talking to themselves–without making any noise. Researchers from Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology are working on a system that converts mouth motions into synthesized speech, thus laying the groundwork for soundless cell phone calls (and ironically making us want to screech loudly in delight).

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March, 2010

Bell-ending, or “ollning”, involves a man touching an object with the end of his penis “and has established itself as a recurring form of practical joke in Sweden”, says the story, quoting the blogger as saying >>>

When the girls had driven around for an hour or so in the bell-ended police car we had a chat with them and revealed our bell-ending exploits.

Now we know what a facial expression of bleak anxiety looks like,” he wrote, ending his post with a smiley face.

Uncle Blue “also wrote in lurid detail about a call-out to a student residence where a mentally unstable young woman allegedly made sexual advances towards both him and his partner”, says the story, adding:

“Further blog posts included details of how he shook hands with a man who had just hanged himself, provoking guffaws from his colleagues. He also claimed it felt ‘damn good’ to punch somebody in the mouth.

A Skåne county police internal investigations unit has launched a probe, says The Local.

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The Local – Police probe cop blogger over furtive glans, March 9, 2010

It’s early days for the net, the first and only true Voice of the People, and it’s equally early days for PP movement. But there’s no doubt it’ll become a major political power on- and offline, one with tremendous clout because of it grassroots base, and the fact the different parties have the potential to collectively formulate and implement common strategies, with all that implies.

Now, “Following in the footsteps of the Swedes and Germans, the Dutch Pirate Party has decided to join the national elections being held this spring”, says TorrentFreak, going on”

“2009 was a breakthrough year for the Pirate Party movement. With more than 7 percent of the vote, the Swedish Pirate Party secured two seats in the European Parliament. A few weeks later, the Pirates in Germany entered the local Parliament after a member of another party switched sides.

“In 2010 the Pirate Parties hope to continue this hot streak, especially during the Swedish national elections later this year. However, Sweden is not the only country where a Pirate Party will end up at the ballot. In the UK the local Pirate Party hopes to compete as well and the Dutch party has now decided to do the same.”

A financial hurdle the party will need to clear before the June 9 election is finding the 12,000 euros (about $16,732 Cdn) it needs as a deposit.

Stay tuned.

PP International list of countries with a Pirate Party, or where one is starting up:

Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Chile
China
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Guatemala
Ireland
Italy
Kazakhstan
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Peru
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Slovakia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Ukraine
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay

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TorrentFreak – Dutch Pirate Party Joins Election Race, March 8, 2010

… deliver every movie ever made in four minutes !

That’ll cause a few entertainment cartel pacemakers to kick in.

Not only but also, the Carrier routing system 3 router, handling up to 322 Terabits per second, has the potential to allow “Every man, woman and child in China can make a video call at the same time,” promises Pankaj Patel, Cisco senior VP and general manager of Cisco’s service provider group.

“It brings the services of cloud to life”, says Cisco president John Chambers.

Both men are quoted in IT World Canada which says Cisco is running user trials with AT&T in its 100 Gigabit per second Ethernet service, scheduled for release later this year.

The story goes on >>>

Cisco has designed CRS 3 to work with its Unified Computing System blade servers, announced a year ago for the enterprise data centre market.

With the CRS 3, only a multi-shelf system with 1152 slots would get 322 Tbps. The four-slot single shelf system has 1.12 Tbps.

Cisco will also sell eight and 16-slot single shelf-systems, with 2.24 Tbps and 4.48 Tbps respectively.

Summarises Yankee Group’s Zeus Kerravala on No Jitter, “while I think the announcement of CRS-3 doesn’t match the crazy amount of hype that has been created for this by Cisco and aided by the media, it is a solid announcement that provides a strong foundation for network operators to build emerging services.

“For those that think the box is just too big and we’ll never use that kind of bandwidth, remember we’ve said that before and we’ve always been wrong … ”

(Cheers, Seth)

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Cisco – Foundation For The Next-Generation Internet, March 9, 2010
IT World Canada – Cisco unveils 322 Terabit router, March 9, 2010
No Jitter – Cisco’s Big Announcement: CRS-3, The Foundation for the Multimedia Internet, March 9, 2010

Jobs Says No Tethering iPad To iPhone Slashdot
Anyone who currently owns an iPhone and was hoping they would be able to use it as a mobile Web access point for a Wi-Fi iPad just got some bad news. Reportedly, Steve Jobs has said this will not happen.

Lender putting www.sex.com domain on auction block Reuters
Sex.com, often touted as one of the most valuable Internet domain names, is due to head to the auction block next week. DOM Partners LLC, a New Jersey lender that backed a 2006 purchase of the domain name for a reported $14 million, is foreclosing on the Internet property, and is due to auction it on March 18 at New York law firm Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf LLP, according to legal notices. Bidding for the Internet property, the tumultuous past of which includes several lawsuits and two books, is due to start at $1 million.

Irish police foil plot to kill Swedish cartoonist The Local
Seven Muslims were arrested by Irish police on Tuesday on suspicions of conspiracy to murder a Swedish cartoonist who drew the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog. The four men and three women were arrested in the southern Irish towns of Cork and Waterford following an international operation. A police source confirmed press reports that they were Muslims arrested over an alleged plot to assassinate Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who has a $100,000 bounty on his head from an Al-Qaeda-linked group. “The operation… is part of an investigation into a conspiracy to commit a serious offence (namely, conspiracy to murder an individual in another jurisdiction),” said a statement from Ireland’s national police service. It added that the operation involved law enforcement agencies in the United States and a number of European countries.

Minister: Google must obey laws to stay China Daily
Internet giant Google must obey Chinese law if it still wishes to continue to operate in the country, said Li Yizhong, Minister of Industry and Information Technology. “If Google still plans to continue its operations in China, it must abide by Chinese laws and respect the wills of Chinese Internet users,” the minister told reporters on Monday during a plenary session of the annual legislative meeting at the Great Hall of the People. “On this matter, Google knows it best itself,” the minister said.

Why Oscar didn’t embrace ‘Avatar’ Hollywood Reporter
By the time “The Hurt Locker” won best picture Sunday night, it seemed almost a foregone conclusion since it previously earned honors from the Producer’s Guild, BAFTA, Broadcast Critics, the National Society and critics groups in New York, L.A. and elsewhere. But “Hurt Locker” was anything but a sure thing. In a historical context, its win is surprising. After all, it is the lowest-grossing best picture winner of all time; it was never on more than 535 movie screens; and it beat the highest-grossing movie in modern history, one that has continued to play on thousands of screens for nearly three months. [...] Could it be explained as the ultimate example of the split personality in Hollywood, where movie choices are mostly driven by the need to make large amounts of money but where the people behind the camera still want to be seen as making art? And was it hurt by attacks from the political right on the movie’s plot, which was seen as a dig on America’s Iraq incursion? Or were “Avatar’s” Oscar hopes doomed because it was sci-fi, a genre that rarely has been rewarded by Oscar? After all, there are precedents.

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March, 2010

“My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse,” she said during a speech in Calgary over the weekend, says the Golbe and Nail.

She went on >>>

Believe it or not — this was in the ’60s — we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now.

Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.

“In what was billed as her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska last summer, Ms. Palin’s trademark folksy charm was on full display Saturday night”, the story enthuses, continuing:

“She joked that her distinctive accent means she’s often mistaken for Canadian and that she has two great-grandfathers from Canada, including one from Moose Jaw, Sask.

“ ‘That must be where my love of moose came from,’ she said to laughter and applause.”

Meanwhile, “On the Daily Kos website, one post — entitled Sarah ‘The Death Panel Queen’ Palin Went to Canada for Health Care — called the former Alaskan governor ‘opportunistic’ and ‘hypocritical’,” says the Canwest News Service, adding:

“ ‘It’s good enough for her, but not for the rest of the American people who don’t have easy access to Canada and a system that isn’t based on wage discrimination?’ the post made on the left-leaning political blog stated.

” And Gawker.com also pointed out Palin’s comment, writing that her family put her brother on a train ‘and sent him to Canada for the socialism.’

“Palin has previously claimed Canada should dismantle its public health care system and called the push by U.S. President Barack Obama to nationalize the American system ‘irresponsible,’ suggesting the move would allow ‘death panels’ to choose whether Americans would live or die’.”

Now you know.

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Fux News – Sarah Palin joins Fux News, January 12, 2010
Globe and Mail – Sarah Palin sees eye-to-eye with Albertans in Calgary speech, March 7, 2010
Canwest News Service – Sarah Palin’s Canadian health care link has critics sick, March 9, 2010

• Kids & Kartels, which highlights just a few of the corporate mind-rape practices used on our children; and,
• Advertising – speaks for itself

• Reader’s Writes, when p2pnet readers say what they think about a given topic (or completely out of left field) and which regularly turn up again as posts in their own rights.

With the latter two items in focus, “Got sumpin’ on my mind about … ads that pop up and block the entire text you are trying to read” says voxleo in a Reader’s Write to p2pnet’s post on scummy advertising ploys, sparked by Ars Technica’s decision to blind visitors who didn’t want to look at the site’s ads.

She goes on >>>

I would like to tar and feather the jackass that thought up “in text” ads (kontera is the one that comes to mind, but the other one is mind-bogglingly irritating as well) There aren’t words enough in all languages combined to convey the depth of my hatred for these, as they never behave as they are supposed to, inevitably opening some invariably ASININE, exceptionally USELESS bit of non-info.

Sure, they’re not supposed to open until you “mouse-over” them, but as someone who reads quickly, I often surf with the mouse in hand, making accidental passes far more likely. Also, if it opens when moused-over, why not at least close when moused-away from? These damn things abruptly interrupt my reading in mid-sentence and then i must actually move my mouse away from the scroll bar to close it manually. Then I have to start all over again. And often they don’t even wait for the mouse over, but seem to spawn on a whim.

They are the MOST intrusive, experience souring, bloody awful idea to ever grace the net (only one step ahead of the damn movies that automatically start playing when the page loads- and always at FULL VOLUME, no matter what my settings were previously!) I turn them off and they still come back. I would spit in the face of the person who puts these on their sites, but as I cannot I usually just end up closing the page as soon as these appear. I tell you what, if there were a tin cup graphic that said “If you liked this, please donate a nickel to keep kontera ads off this page” I would be more likely to do that than to stay or revisit a page that contains those.

WHY are the bloody things becoming more popular? Is there a tool that disables THOSE permanently?

But, what happens when you can’t close the page? – I wondered, linking to a couple of earlier p2pnet posts, one of which kicked off with:

“Online advertising companies such as Yahoo, Google, Fa$ebook, NoSpace, and all the rest of them, spend a fortune trying to find ways to make us watch their ads.

“They use spy technologies such as intrusive DPI (Deep Packet Inspection, aka Deep Privacy Invasion) to ferret around in our personal and private data which, they claim they’d never, ever, do anything bad with.”

I went on >>>

No one asks us what we think: it’s like we’re mindless drones waiting complacently to be phked by whoever comes along.

Now “web-like TV advertising has been long-promised, but will Verizon’s FiOS, a relative latecomer to the party, be the first to deliver it?” – asks Advertising Age, with the bland headline, “Verizon Promises Targeted Advertising By End of Year” just as though it’s something everyone is looking forward to.

Shades of what’s to come

“The proposed Google-DoubleClick merger is just one in a recent consolidation wave that includes Microsoft’s purchase of ad serving firm Aquantive and ad exchange AdECN, as well as AOL buying behavioral targeting firm Tacoda and Yahoo buying online ad auction network RightMedia and BlueLithium, an online advertising network,” said CNet News a couple of years back.

“Behavioral marketing is also spreading to social networks, including the popular Facebook, which recently announced a new ad system that has members up in arms.”

And “Behavioral targeting technologies work by anonymously monitoring and tracking the content read and sites visted by a designated unique user or IP as that user surfs the Internet,” explained Search Engine Journal in 2o04.

“This is done by serving tracking codes, which are implemented as cookies, on a user`s computer as s/he is served ads from various online advertising networks. Sites visited, content viewed, and length of visit are then all databased and analyzed to predict an online behavioral pattern for such a user, thereby classifying that user by his/her online demographic. Behavioral ad networks then serve targeted advertising related to that user`s behavioral classification, regardless of where s/he then visit.”

In other words, they’re sneakily following us around online, spying on our every move so they can try and figure out how to Shanghai us somewhere along the way.

Cookies embedded in our PCs keep track, letting their owners know what we’re up to online.

And it’s on the way for TV, except now they want to be in your living room, right there with you.

Targetting homes

The pic (above righty) comes from Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 movie of Anthony Burgess’ book A ClockWork Orange.

It, “alludes to the prevention of the main character’s exercise of his free will through the use of a classical conditioning technique,” says the Wikipedia.

If you don’t believe you’re being conditioned, think again.

“Verizon will start targeting advertising on a household level by the end of the year, allowing advertisers to target homes, rather than shows, or to buy specific demographics and behaviors via the set-top box,” says Advertising Age.

Has anyone asked you if you’re OK with that?

The assumptions and presumptions are: you’ll be sitting there with your tongue hanging out just dying to be ‘targeted,’ which is to say they’ll use anything their tiny, devious minds can come up with to not only try and make you believe whatever it is they’re peddling has value, but to force it in front of you, whether you want to see it or not.

For this to be effective, the adco set-top boxes will have to come complete with some kind of spy technology — TV cookies, in effect –  that’ll phone home with precise details of what you’re watching, when you’re watching, how long you watch for, and so on.

Then they’ll know how to “best improve your television viewing experience”.

Online, we can protect ourselves to a very considerable extent with various kinds of ad blockers and cookie killers.

Will we be able to do the same once web-style advertising hits our home TV sets?

“Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, et al, are synonymous with bamboozle”, I said in p2pnet a couple of years ago, adding:

“Aretha Frankly said it best.

“All we want is R – E – S – P – E – C – T.”

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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scummy advertising ploys – Bad Ads Banned Here, March 9, 2010
blind visitors – In defence of the Ars Technica reader blockade, March 8, 2010
p2pnet – Online advertising and the New Consumer, September 2, 2008
Deep Privacy Invasion – Canada Privacy Commission DPI site, April 6, 2009
Advertising Age – Verizon Promises Targeted Advertising By End of Year, April 7, 2009
CNet News – Target me with your ads, please, December 4, 2009
Search Engine Journal – Behavioral Targeting and Contextual Advertising, September 1, 2004

They were “reprimanded” for using “poor judgment” but avoided charges of professional misconduct, according to the Guardian in February.

The two “provided legal cover for the CIA to use torture and other harsh interrogation techniques”, it said going on >>>

The techniques approved by the lawyers included waterboarding, which Barack Obama has described as torture but the former vice-president, Dick Cheney, insisted was not.

In a much-repeated quote, Cheney tried to trivialise it by describing it as a mere “dunk in the water”.

“After five years of heated internal wrangling, the justice department has rejected calls by its own ethics investigators for tougher measures against the two men”, said the Telegraph.

Now, Salon’s Mark Benjamin has written a “stomach-churning account of the waterboarding practiced at Gitmo”, says Boing Boing, going on:

“This fine-tuned torture process repeatedly took its victims to the brink of death (one victim was waterboarded 180+ times) until many of them simply gave up on breathing and tried to allow themselves to drown, only to be revived by unethical medical personnel who collaborated with the war criminals conducting the torture.”

In  Salon’s Waterboarding for dummies, Benjamin says interrogators “pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show”.

He continues >>>

The agency used a gurney “specially designed” to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner’s nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing.

The documents also lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding “session.” Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second “applications” of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee’s nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet.

And >>>

Detainees would be strapped to the gurney for a two-hour “session.” During that session, the continuous flow of water onto a detainee’s face was not supposed to exceed 40 seconds during each pour. Interrogators could perform six separate 40-second pours during each session, for a total of four minutes of pouring. Detainees could be subjected to two of those two-hour sessions during a 24-hour period, which adds up to eight minutes of pouring. But the CIA’s guidelines say interrogators could pour water over the nose and mouth of a detainee for 12 minutes total during each 24-hour period. The documents do not explain the extra four minutes to get to 12.

And >>>

Should a prisoner stop breathing during the procedure, the documents instructed interrogators to rapidly tilt the gurney to an upright position to help expel the saline. “If the detainee is not breathing freely after the cloth is removed from his face, he is immediately moved to a vertical position in order to clear the water from his mouth, nose, and nasopharynx,” Bradbury wrote. “The gurney used for administering this technique is specially designed so that this can be accomplished very quickly if necessary.”

Documents drafted by CIA medical officials in 2003, about a year after the agency started using the waterboard, describe more aggressive procedures to get the water out and the subject breathing. “An unresponsive subject should be righted immediately,” the CIA Office of Medical Services ordered in its Sept. 4, 2003, medical guidelines for interrogations. “The interrogator should then deliver a sub-xyphoid thrust to expel the water.” (That’s a blow below the sternum, similar to the thrust delivered to a chocking victim in the Heimlich maneuver.)

But even those steps might not force the prisoner to resume breathing. Waterboarding, according to the Bradbury memo, could produce “spasms of the larynx” that might keep a prisoner from breathing “even when the application of water is stopped and the detainee is returned to an upright position.” In such cases, Bradbury wrote, “a qualified physician would immediately intervene to address the problem and, if necessary, the intervening physician would perform a tracheotomy.” The agency required that “necessary emergency medical equipment” be kept readily available for that procedure. The documents do not say if doctors ever performed a tracheotomy on a prisoner.

And >>>

One of the weirdest details in the documents is the revelation that the agency placed detainees on liquid diets prior to the use of waterboarding. That’s because during waterboarding, “a detainee might vomit and then aspirate the emesis,” Bradbury wrote. In other words, breathe in his own vomit. The CIA recommended the use of Ensure Plus for the liquid diet.

Concludes Benjamin’s Salon report on Guantanamo Bay waterboard torture:

“The memo also contains a last, little-noticed paragraph that may be the most disturbing of all. It seems to say that the detainees subjected to waterboarding were also guinea pigs. The language is eerily reminiscent of the very reasons the Nuremberg Code was written in the first place. That paragraph reads as follows:

” ‘NOTE: In order to best inform future medical judgments and recommendations, it is important that every application of the waterboard be thoroughly documented: how long each application (and the entire procedure) lasted, how much water was used in the process (realizing that much splashes off), how exactly the water was applied, if a seal was achieved, if the naso- or oropharynx was filled, what sort of volume was expelled, how long was the break between applications, and how the subject looked between each treatment’.”

(Cheers, RW)

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Guardian – Inquiry clears US lawyers who approved torture at Guantánamo Bay, February 20, 2010
Telegraph – Waterboarding memo lawyers will not be disciplined, February 20, 2010
Boing Boing – Stomach-churning details of CIA waterboarding crimes, March 8, 2010
Salon – Waterboarding for dummies, March 9, 2010

“In the 21st digital century, they use the net and given that most of them are far more technically adept than their parents, finding feelthy pictures is no big deal.

“Bing dishes up porn on a silver platter. Moreover, its search functions are far more efficient than Google’s.”

The sentences above are clipped from p2pnet’s post on the fact it’s child’s play — literally –  for anyone to turn off the anti-porn youngster protection (presumably) function in the image search part of Bing, Microsoft’s answer to Google.

But a January test of a Bing version “tailored for users in Arab countries” showed it “filtered Arab and English words for sexually explicit content”, says news.com.au.

“It also censored queries related to gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender material, said the Open Net Initiative”, according to the story. Searches for this kind of material prompted, “Your country or region requires a strict Bing SafeSearch setting, which filters out results that might return adult content.”

The message “seemed at odds with the fact that while political censorship is widespread in the Middle East, not all countries there mandate filtering of sex, nudity, homosexuality and other such ’social content’,”  it has ONI saying. “Microsoft has signalled its willingness to be at the forefront in protecting freedom of expression around the world”, says the story.

Huh! What? When was this?

“Bing didn’t impose search settings based on IP addresses indicating where computers are located, so users can get around filters by choosing versions of the engine crafted for other countries”, says ONI.

Microsoft “did not return a request for comment”, news.com.au adds.

The Open Net Initiative is a collaboration including the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto; Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School; the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) at University of Oxford; and, The SecDev Group which took over from the Advanced Network Research Group at the Cambridge Security Programme, University of Cambridge.

(Cheers, Andrew aka Comeoncomecast)

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child’s play – Microsoft Bing: major porn search engine, January 2, 2010
news.com.au -

March, 2010

I need to take a break so starting tomorrow, for the next week or so, I’m going to take a bit of time off. That’ll mean more roundups, fewer stories and later than usual starts. And maybe a day or two with no posts at all.

But normal service will be resumed from Tuesday, March 16, onwards.

Cheers! And thanks …
Jon
______________________________

‘The fight goes on’ – the EU’s only woman president Mercedes Bresso marks International Women’s Day with a new call for change – EU
The number of women in public office at local and regional level across Europe is still far short of parity with men and more needs to be done to ensure a more equitable representation of both genders at every level of governance, Mercedes Bresso, president of the Committee of the Regions, said on International Women’s Day on 8 March. “That I am the first woman to be elected Committee of the Regions president is, I believe, proof that the CoR has started to achieve normality. The real anomaly is, however, the fact that I am currently the only woman president of a European Union institution. I hope that my election will help to correct this anomaly to some extent. I hope that it might serve to encourage the women of Europe to play a more active role in public life and show that excellence and being a woman are perfectly compatible.”

US eases Cuba, Iran, Sudan sanctions to allow freer web BBC
The US treasury department has eased sanctions on Iran, Cuba and Sudan to help further the use of web services and support opposition groups. US technology firms will now be allowed to export online services such as instant messaging and social networks. Companies had not offered such services for fear of violating sanctions. Opposition supporters in Iran used social networking sites and services to organise protests after the country’s disputed presidential poll last year. The US Treasury said exports would be allowed of services related to web browsing, blogging, e-mail, instant messaging, chat, social networking and photo- and movie-sharing.

Ubisoft says sorry for DRM lock outs Digital Spy
Ubisoft says sorry for DRM lock outs Ubisoft has apologised to PC gamers who were frozen out of playing sessions over the weekend due to the firm’s controversial digital rights management system. Yesterday, some players were locked out of Assassin’s Creed II and Silent Hunter 5 following an attack on Ubisoft’s servers. “Ubisoft would like to apologise to anyone who could not play ACII or SH5 yesterday,” said the publisher in a statement. “Servers were attacked and while the servers did not go down, service was limited from 2.30pm to 9pm Paris time [1.30pm - 8pm GMT]. 95% of players were not affected, but a small group of players attempting to open a game session did receive denial of service errors. All players with an open session during the attack were not affected. “We also confirm that, at this time, no valid cracked version of either Silent Hunter 5 or Assassin’s Creed II are available.”

Police get Webcam pictures in school spy case CNet News
Two IT employees at Pennsylvania’s Lower Merion School District have been put on administrative leave, and pictures taken from Webcams on school-issued computers have been turned over to the local police department, according to the attorney of one of the employees now on leave. Attorney Charles Mandracchia, who represents school district information coordinator Carol Cafiero, told Philadelphia TV station Fox 29 that that “they had a private Web site for some of these pictures for the Lower Marion Police Department to view and they were the only ones who could view it.” In February, the family of Blake Robbins, a 15-year-old student at Harriton High School filed a civil complaint in federal court against the district for allegedly using the Webcam on his school-issued laptop to take a photo of the student while he was at home. The district contends that cameras were only activated if a laptop had been reported lost or stolen. The district has since stopped using the tracking software to activate Webcams.

Courts finally catching up to texting jurors Associated Press
Enough with the tweets, the blogs, the Internet searches. That’s the message being communicated by courts across the country as jurors using their portable electronic devices continue to cause mistrials, overturned convictions and chaotic delays in court proceedings. Last year a San Francisco Superior Court judge dismissed 600 potential jurors after several acknowledged going online to research the criminal case before them. Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon challenged her misdemeanor embezzlement conviction after discovering five jurors “friended” one another on Facebook during the trial. And a federal judge in Florida declared a mistrial after eight jurors admitted Web surfing about a drug case. But the rules for jury service in state and federal courts alike are evolving to grapple with this 21st century issue. New jury instructions are being adopted and electronics are being banned from courtrooms.

China to punish hackers, says no Google complaint Reuters
China has pledged to punish hackers who attacked Google if there is evidence to prove it, but said it has yet to receive any complaint from the world’s top search engine. Google sent shockwaves across business and political circles in January when it declared it would stop censoring Chinese search results, and threatened to pull out of China — the world’s largest online community with 384 million users at the end of last year — over hacking and censorship concerns. Google had never filed a report to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology over the cyber attacks or sought negotiations, Vice Minister Miao Wei was quoted as saying by state news agency Xinhua late on Saturday.

3D Images–Without Glasses! PC World
Developers are showing a new breed of screen at the giant European tech show CeBit that projects a 3D image directly at the viewer and doesn’t require glasses. This can be achieved either with a panel that overlays a traditional screen, by using cameras to target a specific viewer, or by using cylindrical lenslets.

Billions in benefits paid out in error The Local
The Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) estimates that it paid out 16.4 billion kronor ($2.3 billion) too much in various benefits in 2009, according to a new analysis. “Yes, it can sound like a massive amount,” said Ulrika Larsson at the agency to the Dagens Nyheter newspaper. The newspaper reports that the high level of erroneous payments are for the most part accounted for by accidental errors from applicants, but that deliberate cheating and fraud have also made a significant contribution.

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March, 2010

I’ve had a couple of apologetic emails from readers saying, guiltily, they use apps such as Dragos Ognean’s Ad blocker,  but they won’t do it any more.

No worries, folks! Carry on!

Ad blocker doesn’t affect p2pnet ads and anyway, p2pnet advertisers are as much p2pnet supporters as anything else.

Meanwhile, IMHO, the kind of advertisers who are getting blocked deserve all they get.

Pop-ups you can’t get rid of? Ads that float across the screen obscuring the text, or obliterating it altogether? Movies playing right alongside the stories you’re trying to read?  That kind of stuff?

Does Ars have these kinds of infuriating items?

I don’t know. I hardly ever go there and anyway, I use Ad blocker and until advertisers wake up and stop trying to force-feed us, I’ll keep on using it.

Smart advertisers will see this as a challenge — part of connecting efficiently with people.

They’ll come up with cool, amusing, relevant ads which are appropriate to the net, not magazines, and sites will educate the companies that want to advertise with them, not attack their readers.

It’s all part of the shake-out process the net is forcing everyone to undergo.

And it’s all good.

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Ars Techica ‘experiment’ – In defence of the Ars Technica reader blockade, March 8, 2010

Everyone is happy. The music lover has his/her music and the artist has been paid.

And online, it’s much the same, except the music is exposed to potentially millions of people.

That’s the way it should be, anway. But thanks to the Big 4 middlemen, France’s Vivendi Universal, the fattest and richest, the other three being Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US, but controlled by a Canadian), that’s the way it isn’t.

Ovum, however, has the answer. In a ’study’ paid for by Universal and called “Is There A Commercial Argument For ISP Music Services” [it forgot the question mark] it says >>>

Ovum has interviewed more than a dozen ISPs, platform enablers and web-based operators providing digital music services in the European markets, with the full range of revenue and costs models for the provision of digital music services represented in the sample.

This includes advertising-funded, premium subscription streaming and hybrid streaming and download-to-own services.

The revenue forecasts assume adoption of a recommended best-practice strategy of a low cost, £6.49 per month service, delivering premium streaming with limited download allocation, and a defined additional retail target per user per month.  It is a medium-level service adoption scenario.

It is assumed that the music offerings themselves would be ‘tethered’ to the broadband service as part of a bundle.  The revenue forecasts do not include income from standalone music download or subscription services already in the marketplace, which Ovum estimate to be around £250m.

“Ovum interviewed several digital music service providers, content platform producers and ISPs offering digital music services today to examine the economic case for the provision of on-demand digital services by ISPs” says the ’study’, offered up for general consumption by the Big 4’s BPI (British Phonographic Industry).  “Their report concluded that ISPs are a critical channel for the provision of future digital music services”, it says.

With that under its belt “Ovum considers the blueprint for success is for ISPs to pursue a strategy based around a subscription streaming service incorporating bundled download-to-own tracks and additional recommendation-driven retail”, it says.  “This would fulfil a strategic objective for ISPs — implementing value-added services to their product portfolios, creating a sustainable way to participate in the demand for rich digital media.”

Apparently, Ovum doesn’t understand how the net works, and hasn’t been told there’s no such thing as streaming.

Nor did its ’study’ ask online music lovers if they’d go for any of this twaddle. As always, it’s ‘assumed’ they will.

Not a bad idea from the labels’ points of view, though.

As well as forcing them to act as copyright cops against their own customers, they’d also be distributing corporate  copyright crap, at the same time gaining access to all kinds of priceless ‘consumer’ data.

Nice one.

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no such thing – There’s no such thing as ’streaming’: Part II, December 7, 2009
BPI – Digital Music Services Could Earn UK ISPs £100m By 2013, 8 March 2010, March 8, 2010

The announcement came just days after the Dutch leak that identified the specific countries opposed to a transparent approach.  The revelations appear to have had a significant impact as all European Union countries are now said to support release of the ACTA text.

This week the issue hits the European Parliament that includes an ACTA debate on Tuesday, followed by a landmark resolution that will be on the table on Wednesday.

At the moment, there are two competing resolutions.

One resolution promoted by an alliance of the Liberal and Green Party, includes the following:

1.  Expresses its utmost concern over the lack of a transparent process in the conduct of the ACTA negotiations, which contradicts the letter and the spirit of the TFEU;

2.  Is of the opinion that legitimate arguments for non-disclosure do not exist with regard to international negotiations on the enforcement of intellectual property rights or similar issues, which are legislative in character and have an impact on fundamental rights; maintains that the negotiating position of the EU or other negotiating parties is not circumscribed if information about the negotiations is available to the European Parliament and the general public;

3.  Regrets the calculated choice of the parties not to negotiate through well-established international bodies, such as the WIPO and WTO, which have established frameworks of public information and consultations;

4.  Calls on the Commission to grant Parliament access to all primary texts relating to ACTA, in particular the ACTA negotiation mandate by the Council, the minutes of ACTA negotiation meetings, the draft chapters of ACTA, and the comments of ACTA participants on the draft chapters;

5.  Acknowledges that, in addition to the clear legal obligation to inform Parliament, the ACTA documents should also be available to the general public in the EU and in the other countries participating in the negotiations; understands the wide public criticism of the secrecy of the ACTA negotiations as a clear signal of the political unsustainability of the negotiation procedure chosen;

6.  Calls on the Commission to engage proactively with ACTA negotiation partners to cancel any previous formal or informal internal agreements on the confidential nature of the conduct of the negotiations and to inform Parliament about its initiatives in this regard in due course; expects the Commission to make proposals prior to the next negotiation round in New Zealand in April 2010 and to demand that the issue of transparency is put on the agenda of that meeting;

7.  Reminds the Commission that if it does not provide Parliament with immediate and full information about the negotiations in accordance with Art. 218 TFEU before the next round of negotiations in April, Parliament will have no choice but to bring an action in accordance with Art. 263 TFEU for infringement of the Treaties to the Court of Justice of the European Union;

8.  Calls on the Commission to conduct an impact assessment of the implementation of ACTA with regard to fundamental rights and data protection, ongoing EU efforts to harmonise IPR enforcement measures, e-commerce and the possible impact of ACTA on fundamental rights and the rule of law in third – especially developing – countries, prior to any EU agreement on a consolidated ACTA treaty text, and to consult with Parliament in a timely manner about the results of this assessment;

9.  Welcomes affirmations by the Commission that any ACTA agreement will be limited to the enforcement of existing IPRs, with no prejudice for the development of substantive IP law in the European Union; makes any possible assent to the ACTA agreement conditional to the full respect of this affirmation;

10.  Urges the Commission to ensure that the enforcement of ACTA provisions – especially those on copyright enforcement procedures in the digital environment – are fully in line with the letter and the spirit of the acquis communautaire and do not imply ‘self-regulatory’ measures being imposed by private companies outside the scope of democratic decision-making processes; considers that Internet service providers should not bear liability for the data they transmit or host through their services to an extent that would imply prior surveillance or filtering of such data;

11.  Emphasises that privacy and data protection are core values of the European Union, recognised in Article 8 ECHR and Articles 7 and 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which must be respected in all the policies and rules adopted by the EU pursuant to Article 16 of the TFEU;

12.  Points out that any measure aimed at strengthening powers for cross-border inspection and seizures of goods should not harm global access to legal, affordable and safe medicines;

13.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council and the governments and parliaments of countries participating in ACTA negotiations.

The second resolution, supported by Conservative Members of the European Parliament, includes:

1.  Is aware that the ACTA negotiations, owing to their particular nature, require a high level of confidentiality in order not to undermine the legitimate interests of the stakeholders and the participating States; considers, however, that a more transparent process should be ensured in order to provide appropriate information, as repeatedly requested by the European Parliament;

2.  Welcomes the fact that the Commission has been briefing members of Parliament’s Committee on International Trade (INTA), despite the confidential character of the multilateral negotiations, using the format of regular exchanges of views with the Director-General of DG Trade at open meetings of INTA coordinators;

3.  Calls on the Commission to grant Parliament access to documentation of ACTA negotiating texts in order to permit it to be up to date with the state of play of the negotiations; acknowledges that certain information might require confidentiality and should be provided in an appropriate form;

4.  Calls on the Commission also to actively engage with the other ACTA negotiating partners prior to the next negotiating round in New Zealand in April 2010, in order formally to place the issue of transparency on the agenda for that meeting, and to report to Parliament’s specialised committee on the outcome of that round immediately after its conclusion;

5.  Calls on the Commission to continue the negotiations on ACTA in order to improve the effectiveness of the IPR enforcement system against counterfeiting;

6.  Calls on the Commission to conduct an assessment of the impact of ACTA’s implementation on fundamental rights and data protection, on the ongoing EU efforts to harmonise IPR enforcement measures and on E-Commerce, with a view to an EU agreement on a consolidated ACTA text, and to consult with Parliament about the results of this assessment in due course;

7.  Welcomes the Commission’s statements to the effect that any ACTA agreement will be limited to the enforcement of existing IPRs, without prejudice to the development of substantive IP law in the European Union;

8.  Urges the Commission to ensure that the enforcement of ACTA provisions – especially those on copyright enforcement procedures in the digital environment – are fully in line with the acquis communautaire and that no personal searches are undertaken at EU borders;

9.  Considers that, in order to comply with fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression and the right to privacy, with full respect for subsidiarity, the proposed agreement should not impose the so-called ‘three strikes’ procedure;

10.  Emphasises that privacy and data protection are core values of the European Union, as recognised in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Articles 7 and 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which must be respected in all the policies and rules adopted by the EU pursuant to Article 16 of the TFEU;

11.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the governments and parliaments of the states party to the ACTA negotiations.

Over the next couple of days there will efforts to merge the two documents.  If adopted, the resulting document will be the strongest statement from an elected body on the need for dramatic change to the current ACTA process.

On top of these resolutions, there is also a written declaration supported by four MEPs (Françoise Castex, Zuzana Roithová, Alexander Alvaro, Stavros Lambrinidis).

Michael Geist – Michael Geist’s Blog

[Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at mgeist @ uottawa dot ca]
_______________________________________________________________

p2pnet posted on February 24 >>>

Help the European Parliament fight ACTA

Four Members of the European Parliament have submitted a written declaration opposing ACTA, says La Quadrature du Net.

They are >>>

• Zuzana Roithova (CZ, EPP)
• Stavros Lambrinidis (GR, S&D)
• Alexander Alvaro (DE, ALDE)
• Françoise Castex (FR, S&D)-

“There are now three months to obtain the signatures of the majority of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) for the declaration to be formally adopted by the Parliament”, it says, quoting La Quadrature du Net spokesman Jérémie Zimmermann  as saying:

“This written declaration rightly expresses concerns about democratic circumvention and the risks that ACTA represents for fundamental freedoms. It is a strong platform for citizens to act against ACTA and help protect the Internet.

“Every European citizen who loves the Net must contact the MEPs from his country and urge them to sign this written declaration.”

To find lists of MEPs by country, and contact information, go to Political Memory.

Here’s the declaration “on the lack of a transparent process and potentially objectionable content concerning the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)” >>>

The European Parliament, having regard to Rule 123 of its Rules of Procedure,

A. Whereas the ongoing negotiations concerning the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
B. Whereas the co-decision role of the European Parliament in commercial matters and its access to negotiation documents guaranteed by the Lisbon Treaty,

1. Considers that the proposed agreement should not indirectly impose harmonisation of EU copyright, patent or trademark law. The principle of subsidiarity should be respected,
2. Declares that the Commission should immediately make all documents related to the ongoing negotiations publicly available.
3. Takes the view that the proposed agreement should not force limitations upon judicial due process nor weaken fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and the right to privacy.
4. Stresses that the evaluation of economic and innovation risks must take place prior to introducing criminal sanctions where civil measures are already in place.
5. Considers that Internet service providers should not bear liability for the data they transmit or host through their services to an extent that would imply prior surveillance or filtering of such data.
6. Points out that any measure aimed at strengthening powers for cross-border inspection and seizures of goods should not harm global access to legal, affordable and safe medicines.
7. Instructs its President to forward this declaration, together with the names of the signatories, to the Commission, the Council and the parliaments of the Member States.

Stay tuned.

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March, 2010

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Help the European Parliament fight ACTA

p2pnet view P2P | Politics:- Four Members of the European Parliament have submitted a written declaration opposing ACTA, says La Quadrature du Net.

They are >>>

• Zuzana Roithova (CZ, EPP)
• Stavros Lambrinidis (GR, S&D)
• Alexander Alvaro (DE, ALDE)
• Françoise Castex (FR, S&D)-

“There are now three months to obtain the signatures of the majority of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) for the declaration to be formally adopted by the Parliament”, it says, quoting La Quadrature du Net spokesman Jérémie Zimmermann  as saying:

“This written declaration rightly expresses concerns about democratic circumvention and the risks that ACTA represents for fundamental freedoms. It is a strong platform for citizens to act against ACTA and help protect the Internet.

“Every European citizen who loves the Net must contact the MEPs from his country and urge them to sign this written declaration.”

To find lists of MEPs by country, and contact information, go to Political Memory.

Here’s the declaration “on the lack of a transparent process and potentially objectionable content concerning the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)” >>>

The European Parliament, having regard to Rule 123 of its Rules of Procedure,

A. Whereas the ongoing negotiations concerning the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
B. Whereas the co-decision role of the European Parliament in commercial matters and its access to negotiation documents guaranteed by the Lisbon Treaty,

1. Considers that the proposed agreement should not indirectly impose harmonisation of EU copyright, patent or trademark law. The principle of subsidiarity should be respected,
2. Declares that the Commission should immediately make all documents related to the ongoing negotiations publicly available.
3. Takes the view that the proposed agreement should not force limitations upon judicial due process nor weaken fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and the right to privacy.
4. Stresses that the evaluation of economic and innovation risks must take place prior to introducing criminal sanctions where civil measures are already in place.
5. Considers that Internet service providers should not bear liability for the data they transmit or host through their services to an extent that would imply prior surveillance or filtering of such data.
6. Points out that any measure aimed at strengthening powers for cross-border inspection and seizures of goods should not harm global access to legal, affordable and safe medicines.
7. Instructs its President to forward this declaration, together with the names of the signatories, to the Commission, the Council and the parliaments of the Member States.

Stay tuned.

That’s the belief of Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

He is, however, incorrect. It already is the most powerful source of enlightenment ever created: there’s nothing potential about it.

His views come in a BBC story which says almost four in five people around the world believe online access is a fundamental right.

A BBC World Service survey of more than 27,000 adults in 26 countries “found strong support for net access on both sides of the digital divide”, says the story.

Now governments must “regard the internet as basic infrastructure – just like roads, waste and water”, says Toure. “We have entered the knowledge society and everyone must have access to participate.”

The concept is of course an anathema to the government and media powers that used to be.

The survey “also revealed divisions on the question of government oversight of some aspects of the net”, says the story, continuing >>>

The finding comes as the UK government tries to push through its controversial Digital Economy Bill.

As well as promising to deliver universal broadband in the UK by 2012, the bill could also see a so-called “three strikes rule” become law.

This rule would give regulators new powers to disconnect or slow down the net connections of persistent illegal file-sharers. Other countries, such as France, are also considering similar laws.

Recently, the EU adopted an internet freedom provision, stating that any measures taken by member states that may affect citizen’s access to or use of the internet “must respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens”.

In particular, it states that EU citizens are entitled to a “fair and impartial procedure” before any measures can be taken to limit their net access.

Some 87% of internet users felt net access should be the “fundamental right of all people”, says the BBC, adding:

“More than 70% of non-users felt that they should have access to the net.

“Overall, almost 79% of those questioned said they either strongly agreed or somewhat agreed with the description of the internet as a fundamental right – whether they currently had access or not.”

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BBC – Internet access is ‘a fundamental right’, March 8, 2010

“The government deserves credit for pushing through a proposal that is not a votewinner”, the Guardian has a ’senior industry source’ saying.

“They recognise that the creative industries are a huge asset for the country.”

The ’source’ sounds like Geoff Taylor, mouthperson for Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s BPI (British Phonographic Industry).

“The digital economy bill will become law before Parliament is dissolved at the beginning of April ahead of a likely general election in May, senior media industry figures believe”, says the story, continuing >>>

That will usher in controversial laws enabling rights owners to cut off or restrict internet access for users who download films and music illegally.

The bill contains measures designed to combat piracy. If it becomes law it will compel internet service providers … to pass on information about persistent offenders to rights holders.

It is currently in the House of Lords and about to get its third reading …

One of the “most contentious” elements was voted down by the  Lords “only to be replaced by a clause that campaigners say is even more draconian”, says the story.

It’s referring to a Liberal Democrat amendment to the bill’s notorious clause 17.

“Lib Dem peers are seeking to amend the Digital Economy Bill to allow site blocking for copyright infringement”, p2pnet quoted Open Rights Group’s Jim Killock as saying last Thursday, going on:

“This could lead to unwanted blocking of sites accused of copyright infringement, including sites like Youtube, and a massive chilling effect as any site with user generated content could easily fall foul of provisions like this.”

ISPA (Internet Service Providers Association) said it was “outraged” by the House of Lords decision to approve Amendment 120A which would allow the High Court to grant an injunction calling for ISPs to block sites with a “substantial proportion” of content alleged to infringe copyrights.

“This would open the door to a massive imbalance of power in favour of large copyright holding companies,” Killock warned in the Telegraph.

Individuals and small businesses “would be open to massive ‘copyright attacks’ that could shut them down, just by the threat of action”, he states.

It “continues to boggle the mind how a group of venal and corrupt commercial operations are able to control the mainstream media and a number of weak-kneed federal government in their concerted efforts to gain control of the Internet as their exclusive marketing and distribution vehicle, using spurrious claims that they’re being ‘devastated’ as the lever”, said p2pnet recently, adding:

“Corporate entertainment industry three strikes ‘actions’ are taking place in various countries around the world. And yet as far as one can see, no major print media news outlet has ever pointed out that far from being individual, isolated ‘initiatives’ on the part of the governments concerned, each Three Strikes proposal is no more than an element in a massive international campaign.

“With the lamescream press corpse as their willing helpers, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music and Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures tout their self-interest ‘copyright protection’ schemes as though they’re of any benefit to anyone but themselves.”

Says the Guardian:

“After the Lords, the bill will then go the House of Commons in a fortnight’s time. If it proceeds to its second reading by early April, when an election is widely expected to be called, it could enter the statute book before parliament rises.”

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Guardian – Digital economy bill likely to be pushed through before election, March 5, 2010
p2pnet – ISPs ‘outraged’ over new copyright threat, March 4, 2010
Open Rights Group – Lib Dems seek web blocking: ask them to stop, March 2, 2010
ISPA – ISPA Outraged by Amendment on Network Level Blocking to Digital Economy Bill, March 3, 2010
Telegraph – YouTube ‘under threat’ from Digital Economy Bill changes, March 4, 2010
p2pnet – ‘Mandy’ Mandelson: official UK copyright cop, February 24, 2010

Apple is developing an electronic iKey to open all doors, says the Telegraph.

You’d just wave it at your car, front door, office, whatever, and Voila! – it’d open!

“The iKey uses a similar principal to the technology employed by card access entry systems commonly used in many workplaces and the Oyster Card, used on public transport in London”, says the story, going on >>>

According to the patent, Apple hopes to replace these cards and keyfobs by allowing the iPhone to be used instead to unlock doors to buildings and cars.

It would exploit a technology known as Near Field Communication, which allows electronic devices to transmit information between each other when in proximity.

In a home, householders would need to install electronic, computer controlled locks to their doors.

The iPhone would need to be registered with the locks so that they could communicate with each other.

Would you want an eminently hackable iPhone to be in charge of everything you own?

Not only but also, you’d have tech savvy crooks finding ways to generate Open Sesame commands, and there’d be a crime-wave of stolen iPhones. And what about spurious signals?

Meanwhile, “The technology is revealed in a newly published patent application, which has generated speculation that the next model of the iPhone will contain this feature” says the Telegraph, adding:

“Apple filed the application with the US Patent Office. It states: ‘The device can communicate with an external device to open a lock. By way of example, the electronic device may be a model of an iPhone. ‘The external device may be any suitable electronic device such as a portable media player, personal data assistant or electronic lock that may be used to access a door, car, house or other physical area’.”

Meanwhile, as is often (usually?) the case with Apple, it’s modifying an idea  someone else came up with long ago.

“Lost tickets could soon be a thing of the past for passengers in Hanau, a city near Frankfurt, Germany”, said p2pnet in 2004, continuing:

“Beginning early next year, anyone riding RMV (Rhein-Main Verkehrsverbund) buses, there, will be able to use Nokia 3220 phones to pay their fare, says eBCVG IT Security.

“Nokia, Royal Philips Electronics and RMV have announced a joint project to trial a Near Field Communication (NFC) ticketing system that uses mobile phones to access an existing contactless smart card ticketing infrastructure, they say.”

And more recently, “It’s well known that anyone aged 50 or more is mentally impaired and has one foot in the grave”, said p2pnet, quoting another Telegraph story.

“Now meet the Sagem Cosy phone”, it said. “The device, which has a large keypad with separated buttons, uses Near Field Communication technology to make it easier for older users to call or text friends and family without having to scroll through menus.

“Instead it uses cards, which can be customised with a photo or other information and pre-programmed with the number of the doctor’s surgery, or a friend or relative. To make a call, the user simply ‘waves’ their phone over that card to speak to that person or send a text message.”

Stay tuned.

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Telegraph – Introducing the iKey – Apple’s answer to the humble door key, March 6, 2010
p2pnet – Cellphones as bus tickets, November 2, 2004
p2pnet – Cosy phone for ‘older users’, February 16, 2010
Telegraph – ‘CosyPhone’ aimed at over-50s, February 16, 2010

The video “has since been removed from ‘Ellen Bennett’s’ channel due to embarrassment and since then uploaded to several others”, says the item, going on >>>

She … filed a DCMA to remove them all and of course being of the spineless “guilty until proven innocent” angle removed them.  Let’s see them try and attack The Pirate Bay.

http://altreligion.net/?p=1982

http://www.reddit.com/r/scientology/comments/b9der/scientology_vm_in_haiti_talks_about_finding_water/

In Gosh-Golly tones, the ‘volunteer minister’ describes a huge stack of water bags as tall as her (’And I’m five-five for the record’) saying proudly “we just started delivering massive amounts of water to everybody – everybody!”

Water is “probably the most effective radiation shield of all”, says a post in the Aerospace Digital Library.

The volunteers’ intentions were good, no question, but was the radiation lab water they distributed so freely dangerously contaminated?

We’ve also stashed a copy here just in case.

(Cheers, catflap)

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The Pirate Bay – Scientology volunteer minister steals radiation shields in Haiti, March 3, 2010

A two-year Business Insider investigation  into the origins of Facebook  alleges Zuckerberg “used inside information taken from an early version of Facebook to access emails between student journalists”, says news.com.au, going on:

“The incident was alleged to occur after the Harvard Crimson planned to write a story about rival social media website ConnectU in 2004. The accusation came from an anonymous source and the journalists involved did not comment.”

However, instead of issuing a flat, unequivocal denial, “We’re not going to debate the disgruntled litigants and anonymous sources who seek to rewrite Facebook’s early history or embarrass Mark Zuckerberg with dated allegations,” it says, according to the story.

“The unquestioned fact is that since leaving Harvard for Silicon Valley nearly six years ago, Mark has led Facebook’s growth from a college website to a global service playing an important role in the lives of over 400 million people”, the statement adds …

… which of course has absolutely nothing to do  with whether or not Zuckerberg broke into the accounts.

The two journalists concerned are keeping silent, says news.com.au.

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news.com.au – Zuckerberg broke into emails, says magazine, March 8, 2010

“NewTeeVee asked us to rank the nominees by number of downloads and the results are finally in.”

And (”if every download on BitTorrent counted as a vote”) the winnah is — District 9.

But, says the story, “We have to note that comparing the downloads of each of the nominees is not really fair since some films have been available online for more than a year already, while others only leaked a few weeks ago. Avatar, which is second in the list with 11,326,000 downloads, became available in DVD-quality a month ago, while District 9 was already widely available last September.”

For District 9 2,948 unique torrent files were counted, says TorrentFreak, adding, “but the majority of these are inactive or have very few downloaders. Avatar beats District 9 in terms of availability with 4,280 torrent files.

“The data for this list is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all the large BitTorrent trackers. All release formats, including cammed versions, are counted. Afterwards, the data was carefully checked and possible inaccuracies were systematically corrected.”

1  – District 9 – 12,639,000
2 – Avatar – 11,326,000
3 – The Hurt Locker – 7,930,000
4 – Up – 5,437,000
5 – Inglourious Basterds – 5,376,000
6 – Precious – 4,922,000
7 – Up In The Air – 4,855,000
8 – A Serious Man – 3,836,000
9 – The Blind Side – 1,845,000
10 – An Education – 683,000

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TorrentFreak – And BitTorrent’s Oscar Goes To…. District 9, March 7, 2010

Calling it a test the tech site, started in 1998 by Ken Fisher, among others, ostracised readers who were ostracising its ads.

Ars is a Conde Naste publication and like all publishers, it tends to become a little worried when its revenue shows signs of not being all it could be,  particularly during these economic hard times.

If readers were blocking ads, all they saw was — nothing.

“Ars screwed up that initial ‘test’, and they’ve owned that, repeatedly”, says Chris, a doctoral student at Victoria University on Vancouver Island in BC.

“That said, they’re reliant on a 3rd party ad group because they’re with Conde Naste, and they usually have pretty reasonable ads for the site” he says, going on >>>

Also, if you hate ads (I do) and find high value in their original content reporting (again, I do), pay them a $50/year or (as of next month) the monthly subscription to get rid of ads + some other perks. This is, I will point out, similar to what Jon is trying to do here, save that he hasn’t blocked content to people using ad blockers (something Ars recognized was a not-good move on their part).

I’ve been in conversations with people complaining about everything from an extra few seconds load time (in FF, see a change in load from about 2sec with ABP to 5-6sec w/o ABP), ‘bad business models’, ‘bad content’, etc etc. There are a lot of strong writers with Ars, and Ars *isn’t* a personal site. It’s a professional news and content generation environment. Given the high number of technically inclined people who visit on a regular basis, one can expect that ABP is more heavily used by that audience than, say, the audience of CNN by percentages. They’re just asking those same people to think about the possible implications of enabling ABP for sites that they visit (Ars, in particular) on a regular basis.

If you look at traffic patterns, Ars generates a *lot* of traffic. They’re not going to ‘win’ a fight with ad blockers, and I don’t think they want to. What they also don’t want to do is lay off additional employees, like they did last year. Good people were let go, and the people work like dogs to get articles out. The website is designed so that all ads load in iFrame – the content will load quickly regardless, though you may need to wait for a ‘full page load’ as they are forced to rely on 3rd party ad servers.

There are a lot of places that do really, really terrible advertising and if you look at them I don’t think you can reasonably count Ars amongst them. They avoid garish ads, do target their ecosystem, and have options to pay to drop the advertising. This latter option is often pushed by people; ‘why not offer a model whereby if we toss you some cash, we don’t see ads’ (something, I will note, that comes up here on a regular basis when Jon notes he’s short on money) – if you value their content (and hence think their continued operation is important), then why not follow through on the last option?

Note: none of this is meant as an ‘attack’ or anything of the sort. If you read any anger/annoyance in this comment, it’s frustration at what seems (to me!) to be a disconnect between valuing content, and recognizing that for the content to keep coming content producers need some kind of income, which often comes through advertising. I hate advertising, but if I need to suffer through it so a few favoured sites continue, then I’ll swallow my annoyance to let people like Jon and Ars capture a bit of revenue from my page impressions.

Good arguments, but I’m not asking readers to keep p2pnet afloat through subscriptions — although I admit, it’d solve my problems if they did. Instead, I’m A) trying to develop offline sources of income to help keep the site (and me and my family ) going; and, B) talking to someone with decades of business experience about him turning p2pnet from a personal site with no consistent  means of support into a self-sustaining alternate news source.

I also agree with Devil’s Advocate who comments:

“There’s a shitload of reasons why an increasing number of people want to limit what is really a questionable, unsolicited 3rd-party connection. No matter how much you trust the site itself, you have no idea most of the time what 3rd parties are operating through it, and what those 3rd parties might be doing. And, though you may really like a site, you can’t excuse that site for any ‘bad behaviour’ its practices enable.

“The bottom line is, they’re not suppose to be insisting, suggesting, implying, or even hinting that the users are wrong in protecting themselves.”

Because, lest we forget,  readers aren’t  merely blocking intrusive advertising; more importantly, they’re also blocking companies, and there are many of them, which use their ads to scoop data about visitors for behavioural targeting  and  other dodgy purposes.

As DA says in an earlier post, “You don’t ask for people to cooperate with your business model … you design your business model to harmonize with the people.”

To do otherwise is to court disaster. Ask the entertainment industry.

Stay tuned.

Jon Newton - p2pnet

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p2pnet -

March, 2010