Brein, the NL anti-download people self-charged with finding and destroying file sharers, is using highly dubious methods with which to do this.
FTD: Brein uploadt wél illegale bestanden | Webwereld.
It’s throwing out the month old SWIFT (Financial) data mining agreement and has decided it not only wants to track and keep ALL financial data going in or out of the country, but also any encrypted data needs to be fitted with a master key, so that they can read your facebook passwords, blackberry emails, etc. Privacy? Don’t think so. At least the EU is getting pissed off about it.
US demands right to snoop the world • The Register.
The freedoms we rapidly lose 🙁
The Netherlands now has it’s own blacklist of websites that it forces on providers to block. The list is confidential, the methods of enforcing the block are confidential, and just like ACTA – they’re trying to put it through without releasing any details, promising transparency ‘later’.
The problem is this: if we allow any government to decide what it is what we can and can’t read, we’re on the slippery slope of censorship. Now it’s paedophelia (the example they trot out worryingly often when they limit your freedoms), next it’ll be weapon making, then it’ll be anything containing a contrary political ideology. Our freedom of expression is a very serious thing indeed to take away from someone, especially if you’re being secretive about what exactly it is that you’re taking away and how you’re doing it, but sticking a generalistic post-it explanations ‘child porn’ [that should be good enough for anybody, right?] over it is completely unacceptable.
Openheid over kinderpornofilter, achteraf | Webwereld.
Not only do you get to feel like a criminal upon entering the US, but your private information is also shared with other governmental agencies for no apparent reason. And if you come from the EU, you get to pay for the privelige on entry too.
VS belast verplicht afgeven Nederlandse privédata | Webwereld.
Well, there’s a surprise: airport full body scanners not only get peeked at by their collegues and turn into full colour pictures when you put a negative filter on them in photoshop, but they’ve been storing the images for ages.
For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.”
Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.
This follows an earlier disclosure by the TSA that it requires all airport body scanners it purchases to be able to store and transmit images for “testing, training, and evaluation purposes.” The agency says, however, that those capabilities are not normally activated when the devices are installed at airports.
via Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images | Privacy Inc. – CNET News.
Which basically means that the arm of the law becomes the arbiter of the law, instead of just carrying out the aims of the law. As this concerns freedom of speech and expression, these decisions need to be made by judges.
Hosters furieus over ‘censuurplan’ Justitie | Webwereld.
Why don’t people get it? Centralised databases are dreadfull things! The CIOT (Centraal Informatiepunt Onderzoek Telecommunicatie) database, which contains IP addresses, email addresses and name and address data, is accessed around 3m times a year. Apparently only 1% of these accesses is legal. Not only that, but users freely trade logins to the database, meaning that there are loads of people accessing the database who shouldn’t have any access to it at all!
Ophef over gebrekkige controle telecomdatabase CIOT | Webwereld.
So anyone with a friend in the Greek police force (and by friend I mean name and bank account number) can find out allll kinds of stuff about anyone in the database – which will soon be everyone. Sounds secure. Not.
Vingerafdruk Nederlanders in 2011 Europees gedeeld | Webwereld.
Apple claims that allthough it the new privacy policy enables them to gather and share this information, the information is anonymised and is currently not being shared with anyone. The information is sent in batches every 12 hours and the collection can be turned off by changing the setting on locational services to off.
So… does anyone have a firewall that can block these packets then?
Reactie Apple op vragen congresleden VS.
In a growning and disconcerting trend among hardware manufacturers, TI has released a new version of it’s OS for the TI-Nspire series, that blocks off a whole load of its’ user base from using the machine the way they want to.
I guess Apple, Android, TI, et al are afraid that the community will program something so awesome for their hardware that they’ll never upgrade again?
Nspire 2.1 out, don’t install it!.
So, Lucas is still making money off Star Wars and defending his copyright left right and centre (see also the lightsabre article), but the actor who played the body of Darth Vader is cut out completely.
Because DMCA protects the artists, right?
Darth Vader Actor Banned From STAR WARS Convention.
The EU is going to discuss whether or not to force ISPs to save the searches you make in online search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, whatever. Apart from the privacy implications, who is going to pay the ISPs for the massive extra storage capacity they’ll need, but more importantly: what defines a ‘search’ – what about if you’re looking through a job site, or a housing site or a forum? Why not force ISPs to store any and every bit of information passed through a form? Creepy stuff.
Emerce – Technologie nieuws: Bewaarplicht mogelijk uitgebreid met zoekopdrachten.
Apple updated its privacy policy today with an important and dare we say creepy new paragraph about location information. If you agree to the changes which you must do in order to download anything via the iTunes store you agree to let Apple collect store and share “precise location data including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device.”
Apple says that the data is “collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you ” but for some reason we don t find this very comforting at all. There appears to be no way to opt-out of this data collection without giving up the ability to download apps.
via Privacy Change: Apple Knows Where Your Phone Is And Is Telling People – The Consumerist.
The US are at it again: if you tape the police, they consider you dangerous. If the judge decides in the favour of the police, any tape you bring into court showing police malpractice will be inadmissible.
These laws were made in the 1970s, before even VHS was out!
Traffic stop video on YouTube sparks debate on police use of Md. wiretap laws.
Now that more and more police brutality is being exposed using camera’s, the police are now going after people who use their camera’s. What’s worse, the courts are standing behind them.
They’re using the two party consent sureveillance law to cover their arses, even in locations where there is no expectation of privacy.
Showing you how much governments care about free speech, Julian Assange, who moves around every few weeks, has had his passport confiscated for looking worn. They’re not giving him a new one, it seems, which means it’ll be easy to keep close tabs on him. This makes it very difficult for people to give him documentation exposing governments the world over anonymously.
WikiLeaks founder has his passport confiscated – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
The cameras, which combine number plate reading technology with a global positioning satellite receiver, are similar to those used in roadworks.
The AA said it believed the new system could cover a network of streets as opposed to a straight line, and was “probably geared up to zones in residential areas.”
The Home Office is testing the cameras at two sites, one in Southwark, London, and the other A374 between Antony and Torpoint in Cornwall.
The `SpeedSpike’ system, which calculates average speed between any two points in the network, has been developed by PIPS Technology Ltd, an American-owned company with a base in Hampshire.
via New speed cameras trap motorists from space – Telegraph.
It’s unbelievable the amount of money it must cost to design and launch this system. The revenue must be huge, because the problem they’re designed to solve (speeding) doesn’t lead to many deaths or accidents.
Using the Google maps tool, you can see how many requests have been fielded by each government, as well as what kind of requests they have made.
Government requests directed to Google and YouTube.
That’s how these misused things always start – anti-terrorlaws, jew extermination: no, we just want to do this one little thing. Once the mechanism is in there, well we might just as well increase its functionalities just a little bit – it’s there anyway!
Anyway, the EC wants to implement a technically totally unviable kiddy porn filter over the internet, globally please. Who’s to say it won’t stop midget porn (hey – if you dig it, whatever!) and then get used to stop, say, sites with liberal ideas?
EC stelt Europabreed kinderpornofilter voor | Webwereld.
Opinion piece by a former CIA operative on its current lack of operational capability,
On December 30, in one of the deadliest attacks in CIA history, an Al Qaeda double agent schemed his way onto a U.S. base in Afghanistan and blew himself into the next life, taking seven Americans with him. How could this have happened? Agency veteran Robert Baer explains, offering chilling new details about the attack and a plea to save the dying art of espionage
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/politics/201004/dagger-to-the-cia
Yup, this is what happens to DRM servers: they go down and you can’t play your game, listen to your music, or really do anything with the product you bought.
Ubisoft’s game servers have been down for longer than 10 hours, well done!
The Escapist : News : Ubisoft DRM Authentication Servers Go Down.
Showing that the LibDems in the UK are now the lapdogs of major industry, they have proposed an amendment allowing copyright owners to force ISPs to take content offline without any proof that the copyright belongs to them.
“During today's debate in the UK's House of Lords on the much-criticized Digital Economy Bill the unpopular Clause 17 (that would have allowed the government to alter copyright law much more easily than it currently can) was voted out in favor of a DMCA-style take-down system for websites and ISPs. The new amendment known as 120A sets up a system whereby a copyright owner could force an ISP to block certain websites who allegedly host or link to infringing material or face being taken before the High Court and made to pay the copyright owner's legal fees. This amendment was tabled by the Liberal Democrat party who had so far been seen as the defenders of the internet and with the Conservative party supporting them. The UK's Pirate Party and Open Rights Group have both strongly criticized this new amendment.”
via Slashdot Your Rights Online Story | DMCA Amendment Proposed For UK.
And then puts them into a database accessible by… who? and why? This started in 2002 and has been going on without your knowledge ever since…
Newborns’ blood used to build secret DNA database – Short Sharp Science – New Scientist.
The RIAA, the PRS, BUMA/STEMRA – all organisations claiming to exist for the benefit of musicians (who never see the money collected) are now showing – yet again – how self serving they are: The STEMRA decided they wanted to grant a pan-European musical license to beatport.com, so they wouldn’t have to go through each individual country. The PRS (British RIAA) went ballistic and sued STEMRA. Higher courts have denied the STEMRA. So instead of being able to easily pay for the rights of the artists so that they could be heard all over Europe on the web, the PRS has shot its’ artists in the foot and told them NO WAY do they want people to listen to them all over Europe… Unless, of course, the PRS gets some of the action. Instead of the artists, through another organisation.
Does that sound like mafia to you?
Emerce – Business nieuws: Voorlopig geen Pan-Europese muzieklicentie.
The Italians will sue your sorry arse for things you never did, didn’t know of and tried to fix as soon as you did know of them!
In late 2006, students at a school in Turin, Italy filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police. We also worked with the local police to help identify the person responsible for uploading it and she was subsequently sentenced to 10 months community service by a court in Turin, as were several other classmates who were also involved. In these rare but unpleasant cases, that's where our involvement would normally end.
But in this instance, a public prosecutor in Milan decided to indict four Google employees —David Drummond, Arvind Desikan, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes who left the company in 2008. The charges brought against them were criminal defamation and a failure to comply with the Italian privacy code. To be clear, none of the four Googlers charged had anything to do with this video. They did not appear in it, film it, upload it or review it. None of them know the people involved or were even aware of the video's existence until after it was removed.
via Official Google Blog: Serious threat to the web in Italy.