News for 8/14/12
MPAA / RIAA Want U.S. to Help Quash The Pirate Bay
http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-riaa-want-u-s-to-help-quash-the-pirate-bay-120813/
"The MPAA and RIAA have submitted their policy recommendations to Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel. In a joint submission the groups explain that despite the broad availability of legal content, online piracy is still rampant. The groups say that services including The Pirate Bay, Rapidgator, Turbobit, DepositFiles and PutLocker are piracy havens, and they urge the U.S. Government to help them quash these sites."
WIKILEAKS: Surveillance Cameras Around The Country Are Being Used In A Huge Spy Network
http://www.businessinsider.com/trapwire-everything-you-need-to-know-2012-8#ixzz23UjLDxR9
"Former senior intelligence officials have created a detailed surveillance system more accurate than modern facial recognition technology-and have installed it across the U.S. under the radar of most Americans, according to emails hacked by Anonymous."
You’re innocent only until tracked by surveillance cameras linked to #TrapWire
http://current.com/shows/the-young-turks/videos/youre-innocent-only-until-tracked-by-surveillance-cameras-linked-to-trapwire
"Cenk talks to journalist David Seaman about TrapWire, a software system used to compare “suspicious” patterns of behavior captured by surveillance cameras and assess the potential threat for violence.”
What makes our NDAA lawsuit a struggle to save the US constitution
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/10/ndaa-lawsuit-struggle-us-constitution?fb=optOut
"This past week's hearing was even more terrifying. Government attorneys again, in this hearing, presented no evidence to support their position and brought forth no witnesses. Most incredibly, Obama's attorneys refused to assure the court, when questioned, that the NDAA's section 1021 - the provision that permits reporters and others who have not committed crimes to be detained without trial - has not been applied by the US government anywhere in the world after Judge Forrest's injunction. In other words, they were telling a US federal judge that they could not, or would not, state whether Obama's government had complied with the legal injunction that she had laid down before them."
I Know What You Downloaded On BitTorrent This Summer
http://torrentfreak.com/i-know-what-you-downloaded-on-bittorrent-this-summer-120813/
"Late 2011 a site appeared claiming to have tracked the sharing habits of more than 51 million BitTorrent users. The site, YouHaveDownloaded, went down a storm in the months that followed but is sadly no longer functional. However, what that Russian site did in the winter is now being matched by a Polish site this summer. So what did “you” download during the past few months? ScanEye believes it knows."
Trapwire and data mining: What we know
http://privacysos.org/node/785
"These days every news cycle brings us more thoroughly disturbing reasons to be concerned about pervasive digital monitoring in the United States. This week things got extra interesting with the revelation of an enormous, shadowy surveillance company with deep ties to the CIA: Trapwire exploded on the surveillance scene like a bat out of hell. And people are justifiably freaked out about it."
WIPO's Broadcasting Treaty is back: a treaty to end the public domain, fair use and Creative Commons
http://boingboing.net/2012/08/11/wipos-broadcasting-treaty-is.html
"Under the treaty, broadcasters would have rights over the material they transmitted, separate from copyright, meaning that if you recorded something from TV, the Internet, cable or satellite, you'd need to get permission from the creator and the broadcaster to re-use it. And unlike copyright, the "broadcast right" doesn't expire, so even video that is in the public domain can't be used without permission from the broadcaster who contributed the immense creativity inherent in, you know, pressing the "play" button."
Meet Trapwire's leaders
http://i.imgur.com/8KI00.png
Know your enemy.
uTorrent Becomes Ad-Supported to Rake in Millions
http://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-becomes-ad-supported-to-rake-in-millions-120810/
"With well over 125 million active users a month uTorrent is by far the most used BitTorrent client. Because of its success the software is also the main source of revenue for San Francisco based parent company BitTorrent Inc. It is estimated that the company currently generates between $15 and $20 million in annual revenue but this figure is expected to rise after it was quietly announced that uTorrent will become ad-supported."
TVShack Staff in U.S. Worked With Feds To Nail Richard O’Dwyer
http://torrentfreak.com/tvshack-staff-in-u-s-worked-with-feds-to-nail-richard-odwyer-120811/
"Two individuals who worked with former TVShack admin Richard O’Dwyer on his now-defunct streaming links site helped ICE Homeland Security Investigations to identify him. The dealings of the unnamed individuals, one who did technical work on the site and the other who acted as a moderator, are listed in U.S. court documents obtained by TorrentFreak."
Are Demonoid Users at Risk?
http://torrentfreak.com/are-demonoid-users-at-risk-120809/
The raid on Demonoid’s servers and the reports that a criminal investigation has been started against the site is causing some panic among the site’s users. Was the user data encrypted? Can the authorities see what people have downloaded? Without official comment from Demonoid’s admin these questions are hard to answer, but a massive legal operation aimed at the site’s users seems highly unlikely.
Internet Archive Starts Seeding 1,398,635 Torrents
http://torrentfreak.com/internet-archive-starts-seeding-1398635-torrents-120807/
"The Internet Archive has just enriched the BitTorrent ecosystem with well over a million torrent files, and that’s just the start of “universal access to all knowledge.” The torrents link to almost a petabyte of data and all files are being seeded by the Archive’s servers. Founder Brewster Kahle told TorrentFreak that turning BitTorrent into a distributed preservation system for the Internet is the next step."
http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-riaa-want-u-s-to-help-quash-the-pirate-bay-120813/
"The MPAA and RIAA have submitted their policy recommendations to Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel. In a joint submission the groups explain that despite the broad availability of legal content, online piracy is still rampant. The groups say that services including The Pirate Bay, Rapidgator, Turbobit, DepositFiles and PutLocker are piracy havens, and they urge the U.S. Government to help them quash these sites."
WIKILEAKS: Surveillance Cameras Around The Country Are Being Used In A Huge Spy Network
http://www.businessinsider.com/trapwire-everything-you-need-to-know-2012-8#ixzz23UjLDxR9
"Former senior intelligence officials have created a detailed surveillance system more accurate than modern facial recognition technology-and have installed it across the U.S. under the radar of most Americans, according to emails hacked by Anonymous."
You’re innocent only until tracked by surveillance cameras linked to #TrapWire
http://current.com/shows/the-young-turks/videos/youre-innocent-only-until-tracked-by-surveillance-cameras-linked-to-trapwire
"Cenk talks to journalist David Seaman about TrapWire, a software system used to compare “suspicious” patterns of behavior captured by surveillance cameras and assess the potential threat for violence.”
What makes our NDAA lawsuit a struggle to save the US constitution
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/10/ndaa-lawsuit-struggle-us-constitution?fb=optOut
"This past week's hearing was even more terrifying. Government attorneys again, in this hearing, presented no evidence to support their position and brought forth no witnesses. Most incredibly, Obama's attorneys refused to assure the court, when questioned, that the NDAA's section 1021 - the provision that permits reporters and others who have not committed crimes to be detained without trial - has not been applied by the US government anywhere in the world after Judge Forrest's injunction. In other words, they were telling a US federal judge that they could not, or would not, state whether Obama's government had complied with the legal injunction that she had laid down before them."
I Know What You Downloaded On BitTorrent This Summer
http://torrentfreak.com/i-know-what-you-downloaded-on-bittorrent-this-summer-120813/
"Late 2011 a site appeared claiming to have tracked the sharing habits of more than 51 million BitTorrent users. The site, YouHaveDownloaded, went down a storm in the months that followed but is sadly no longer functional. However, what that Russian site did in the winter is now being matched by a Polish site this summer. So what did “you” download during the past few months? ScanEye believes it knows."
Trapwire and data mining: What we know
http://privacysos.org/node/785
"These days every news cycle brings us more thoroughly disturbing reasons to be concerned about pervasive digital monitoring in the United States. This week things got extra interesting with the revelation of an enormous, shadowy surveillance company with deep ties to the CIA: Trapwire exploded on the surveillance scene like a bat out of hell. And people are justifiably freaked out about it."
WIPO's Broadcasting Treaty is back: a treaty to end the public domain, fair use and Creative Commons
http://boingboing.net/2012/08/11/wipos-broadcasting-treaty-is.html
"Under the treaty, broadcasters would have rights over the material they transmitted, separate from copyright, meaning that if you recorded something from TV, the Internet, cable or satellite, you'd need to get permission from the creator and the broadcaster to re-use it. And unlike copyright, the "broadcast right" doesn't expire, so even video that is in the public domain can't be used without permission from the broadcaster who contributed the immense creativity inherent in, you know, pressing the "play" button."
Meet Trapwire's leaders
http://i.imgur.com/8KI00.png
Know your enemy.
uTorrent Becomes Ad-Supported to Rake in Millions
http://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-becomes-ad-supported-to-rake-in-millions-120810/
"With well over 125 million active users a month uTorrent is by far the most used BitTorrent client. Because of its success the software is also the main source of revenue for San Francisco based parent company BitTorrent Inc. It is estimated that the company currently generates between $15 and $20 million in annual revenue but this figure is expected to rise after it was quietly announced that uTorrent will become ad-supported."
TVShack Staff in U.S. Worked With Feds To Nail Richard O’Dwyer
http://torrentfreak.com/tvshack-staff-in-u-s-worked-with-feds-to-nail-richard-odwyer-120811/
"Two individuals who worked with former TVShack admin Richard O’Dwyer on his now-defunct streaming links site helped ICE Homeland Security Investigations to identify him. The dealings of the unnamed individuals, one who did technical work on the site and the other who acted as a moderator, are listed in U.S. court documents obtained by TorrentFreak."
Are Demonoid Users at Risk?
http://torrentfreak.com/are-demonoid-users-at-risk-120809/
The raid on Demonoid’s servers and the reports that a criminal investigation has been started against the site is causing some panic among the site’s users. Was the user data encrypted? Can the authorities see what people have downloaded? Without official comment from Demonoid’s admin these questions are hard to answer, but a massive legal operation aimed at the site’s users seems highly unlikely.
Internet Archive Starts Seeding 1,398,635 Torrents
http://torrentfreak.com/internet-archive-starts-seeding-1398635-torrents-120807/
"The Internet Archive has just enriched the BitTorrent ecosystem with well over a million torrent files, and that’s just the start of “universal access to all knowledge.” The torrents link to almost a petabyte of data and all files are being seeded by the Archive’s servers. Founder Brewster Kahle told TorrentFreak that turning BitTorrent into a distributed preservation system for the Internet is the next step."