Google has updated its terms of service, allowing the company to use your profile information in ads. That means your face, name and personal details will start popping up all over your network.
Your Face and Name Will Appear in Google Ads Starting Today.
So does the British Phonography Industry
RIAA Uses Pirated Code on Its Website Because of Course It Does.
Nortel went bankrupt in 2009. In 2011, it held an auction for its massive patent portfolio. The winners of the auction were Apple, Microsoft, Sony, RIM, and others, who bought the patents for $4.5 billion as a consortium named Rockstar Bidco.
http://m.slashdot.org/story/193739
Great. They want to stop Google from being a search engine. Patents are really good for innovation. Not.
The court has struggled over the issue of allowing the copying of the hard drive. This is a serious invasion of privacy and is certainly not a standard remedy… The tipping point for the court comes from evidence that the defendants – in their own words – are hackers. By labeling themselves this way, they have essentially announced that they have the necessary computer skills and intent to simultaneously release the code publicly and conceal their role in that act. And concealment likely involves the destruction of evidence on the hard drive of Thuen’s computer. For these reasons, the court finds this is one of the very rare cases that justifies seizure and copying of the hard drive.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/23/hacker_loses_4th_amendment_rights_case/
The italics are mine. The definition of a hacker runs more into using things for a purpose they were not originally intended for. This destructive interpretation on the word by the US courts is worrying, because it blankets a huge grouo of people who are furthering technical innovation all over the world.
Given the US track record of handling people they don’t grant rights to, is this the start of an anti-intellectuals pogrom?
Instead of sending suspected terrorists to Guantanamo Bay or secret CIA “black” sites for interrogation, the Obama administration is questioning terrorists for as long as it takes aboard U.S. naval vessels.
Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime.
Not everyone was on board. “This is a sea change in the way that the government interacts with the general public,” Mary Ellen Callahan, chief privacy officer of the Department of Homeland Security, argued in the meeting, according to people familiar with the discussions.
A week later, the attorney general signed the changes into effect.
Wow. They seem to have no oversight at all!
Video – U.S. Terrorism Agency Granted Unprecedented Access to Citizens' Files – WSJ.com.
Exogenous variation comes from the unexpected shutdown of the popular file hosting platform Megaupload.com on January 19, 2012. The estimation strategy is based on a quasi difference-in-differences approach. We compare box office revenues before and after the shutdown to a matched control group of movies unaffected by the shutdown.
We find that the shutdown had a negative, yet insignificant effect on box office revenues
via Piracy and Movie Revenues: Evidence from Megaupload by Christian Peukert, Jörg Claussen :: SSRN.
Evidence has emerged showing the Department of Homeland Security served a search warrant on Mr Dotcom’s file-sharing company Megaupload in 2010 which he claims forced it to preserve pirated movies found in an unrelated piracy investigation.
The 39 files were identified during an investigation into the NinjaVideo website, which had used Megaupload’s cloud storage to store pirated movies.
When the FBI applied to seize the Megaupload site in 2012, it said the company had failed to delete pirated content and cited the earlier search warrant against the continued existence of 36 of the same 39 files.
Dotcom: We've hit the jackpot – National – NZ Herald News.
A customer trying to set up his Razer Naga 2012 mouse couldn’t because he had to register with Razer before he could change the settings. The Razer servers were down because of hurricane Sandy. Why on earth would he need to connect to Razer at all to set up his mouse?!
“Why the hell does this mouse need to connect to the Internet?” | Ars Technica.
The National Counterterrorism Center is now allowed to buy and keep large databases of information on their own nationals, even though they are not suspected of anything. Not only that, but they can share their information with anyone they want.
To top it off, they have no practical form of oversight at all.
The Biggest New Spying Program You’ve Probably Never Heard Of.
Yes, if they can’t get your freedoms one way, they will try another.
Michael Geist – ACTA Lives: How the EU & Canada Are Using CETA as Backdoor Mechanism To Revive ACTA.
Granted, copyright is a fussy subject which stifles innovation and freedom, but copyright holders are entitled to at least /some/ protection, at least for some time!
The UK government is considering a proposal to allow anyone to digitise anything and use the data for commercial purposes unless the creator of the content ‘opts out’ from this proces somehow. The digitiser only has to pay a ‘nominal fee’ (next to nothing) in order to be able to use the content if there is protest.
A deep critique in the link below.
Hargreaves Review: Extended Collective Licensing and Orphan Works « Action on Authors' Rights.
Apparently they profile tourists and then force them to open their email on their own PC (which means basically you’re giving them your email login through a keylogger) and they look into it.
If you disagree you’re hiding something and not allowed into the country.
Besides using profiling, which is innefective, it’s a huge invasion of privacy. Not even the USA goes this far.
Israel steps up email border checks | The Australian.
Wait – what? It BROKE an insulin pump? And it’s supposed to be safe for people to go in? Really?
Have they gone nuts? They say that as code isn’t something physical, it can’t have been stolen. So it’s OK to take as much sources from a previous employer and do whatever you want with it.
“He argues that: [1] the source code was not1a “stolen” “good” within the meaning of the National Stolen2Property Act, and [2] the source code was not “related” to a3product “produced for or placed in interstate or foreign4commerce” within the meaning of the Economic Espionage Act.5The judgment of the district court is reversed. Judge6Calabresi concurs in the opinion and has filed an additional7concurring opinion.”
But taking a photograph of a classified document does constitute espionage? Or is that also OK now?
U.S. vs. Sergey Aleynikov, former Goldman Sachs programmer.
In the US of course. And of course, if you say “no” you don’t get a job. As an alternative they want you to friend a HR worker. Aside from a bizarre wish to pry their noses into people’s private lives, the US government should put a stop to this.
Job seekers getting asked for Facebook passwords – WTOP.com.
Since 2000 the US has cracked down hard on cryptography information sharing and it’s hard to find any information on it since around 2001.
There are still a few good sources around.
Piracy.com: International Cryptography Freedom.
Cryptography links outside of North America
It’s incredible how research in cryptography seems to have been wiped out.
This report concludes that ACTA’s harm greatly exceeds its potential benefits. Given ACTA’s corrosive effect on transparency in international negotiations, the damage to international intellectual property institutions, the exclusion of the majority of the developing world from the ambit of the agreement, the potentially dangerous substantive provisions, and the uncertain benefits in countering counterfeiting, there are ample reasons for the public and politicians to reject the agreement in its current form. In doing so, governments would help restore confidence in the global intellectual property system and open the door to a new round of negotiations premised on transparency, inclusion, and evidence-based policy-making
Michael Geist – Assessing ACTA: My Appearance Before the European Parliament INTA Workshop on ACTA.
Collusion is an experimental add-on for Firefox and allows you, for the first time, to see all the third parties that are tracking your movements across the Web. It will show, in real time, how that data creates a spider-web of interaction between companies and other trackers.
New Mozilla Browser Add-On Visualizes Who Is Tracking You Online.
The European digital rights organisation has launched a website with 5 one page flyers explaining in a nutshell what’s wrong with ACTA.
It looks pretty complete to me, even though it’s only 5 pages out of whole essays one could write about what’s wrong with ACTA.
What's Wrong with ACTA Week | EDRI.
Ziggo and XS4ALL, two ISP’s in NL, have been forced by the courts to dissallow users to get to the pirate bay. Of course, users will still be able to get there using VPNs so it’s not very effective, but more worrying is that the Dutch courts seem to think that not only do they have the right to filter content viewed by Dutch web surfers, but also that the ISP is the right body to act as an internet cop.
Of course, this does set precedence, so expect to see politics and the courts follow their own agenda’s soon and revoke our freedoms for loads of other websites.
EU looks like it will ratify US totalitarian ACTA anti copyright agreement driven solely by the big patent trolling businesses lobby. While we’re in a recession, let’s also completely kill innovation.
Europees ja tegen ondertekening ACTA | Webwereld.