Western Democracies Continue their Attempts to Filter Google

Google has recently disclosed how many takedown notices the company has got from government agencies. The search engine confessed that it has received over 1,000 requests within 6 months from the governments to take down data from its search results or YouTube video.

Google slammed a so-called alarming trend by governments to try and censor the people. The company published its twice-yearly Transparency Report, saying that the above mentioned requests were aimed at having around 12,000 items overall deleted. This figure was 25% more than during the first 6 months of 2011. This means that the government agencies are getting a taste for censorship.

Google’s senior policy analyst admitted they hoped the rise earlier in 2011 had been a one off, but it appeared that it hadn’t. Plenty of the requests were aimed at silencing political speech. The most interesting part is that they came from Western governments, which are not usually associated with filtering.

Although Google didn’t list anything specific, the search engine still said that it was really surprised by the UK and the US spending most of their time trying to censor websites. The United States was said to be especially bad. The company complained that police prosecutors, courts and other agencies submitted almost 200 requests within the last 6 months of 2011, which doubles the number of the requests submitted in the first 6 months.

Meanwhile, Spain asked Google to take down 270 links to blogs and newspaper articles which criticized public figures, the list including mayors and public prosecutors. However, the search giant said no to that one. In response, a couple months ago the highest court of the country asked the European Court of Justice to find out whether the requests submitted by citizens to removed the links were lawful.

The company admits that in some countries it has no choice but to comply with these requests, because some types of political speech are against the law there. For instance, in Germany Google removed videos from YouTube with Nazi references as those were banned. Another example is Thailand videos that feature the monarch with a seat over his head – they were also removed for being insulting.

Finally, one takedown request came from Canada, where the company was asked by the authorities to remove a YouTube video featuring a citizen having a nintendo on his passport and flushing it down the loo. The search giant said no to this one as well.

Julian Assange Hides in Embassy

WikiLeaks founder seems to have broken his bail conditions and ran to Ecuador’s embassy in London to ask for asylum. In other words, he didn’t actually care about people who raised £200,000 bail for him and legged it when he had the opportunity.

Julian Assange is currently trying to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex crime accusations. He believes that if he is extradited there, the Swedes will hand him over to the United States, where he will face spying charges. Meanwhile, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister announced that his country would weigh the request from Assange. WikiLeaks founder has been fighting extradition to Sweden for a year and a half. He was accused of rape and sexual assault by his two female former volunteers.

It is clear why Assange picked Ecuador – this country has a leftist and anti-Washington president. While Julian might miff the US over the move, he has also embarrassed the UK government and may well have caused his wealthy backers to lose their bail money. In addition, the risk remains that Ecuador might not want to help him – the country invited WikiLeaks founder a few years ago to seek residency, but then it quickly backed away from the proposal, accusing Assange of breaking American laws.

Today Ecuador claims that Julian’s application for protective asylum shouldn’t be regarded as the Government of Ecuador interfering in the judicial processes of either the UK or Sweden.

Although Ecuador has an extradition treaty with the United States, it doesn’t cover political charges, so the country has to satisfy itself that the charges against WikiLeaks founder are political rather than criminal. However, this might appear not that easy, because Assange hasn’t been charged with a political crime. Meanwhile, Assange moaned that his native country of Australia had refused to defend him, though the country promised to continue assisting Assange, since it opposed any extradition of its citizens on charges which carry the death penalty.

WikiLeaks founder fears extradition to the United States, where espionage and treason are punished with the death penalty, while Sweden doesn’t have the death penalty. Moreover, neither Sweden nor the US has even charged him with treason or spying.

As for the attorney of the plaintiffs, Assange’s latest move was no surprise for him, but he expected Ecuador to reject the request.

China Attacked Top American Sites

Insecurity experts have recently detected a series of attacks coming from China and targeting SCADA security organizations, schools and defense contractors. The attacks in question used customized malicious files to entice targeted individuals into running them. Besides, the intruders also used a series of hacked servers working as command-and-control points.

The experts point out that both tactics and instruments used by the attackers show that they are most likely located in China. Digitalbond was targeted first – an outfit providing security services for ICS systems. Then the others followed a similar pattern.

The attack usually started with a spear phishing email sent to the workers of the targeted organization with PDF attachment enclosed. The attachment, when opened, installed a Trojan downloader named spoolsvr.exe. The latter connected to a C&C server at hxxp://hint.happyforever.com to download instructions and a payload from there. It also loaded another file, called tanghi.exe, which can’t be recognized by many anti-malware products. It plays the role of a remote access instrument, which provides the hacker a persistent presence on the infected machine.

Insecurity experts confirm that the users at Carnegie Mellon University, Purdue University and the University of Rhode Island have been targeted by the attackers. Aside from the universities, defense contractors were also targeted, including Chertoff Group, a consultancy governed by an ex-secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and NJVC.

The experts say that the current approach is similar to the Shady Rat attacks, first revealed by McAfee a year ago, and might be the same people. Today the attacks aren’t random – instead, it seems that the targets are selected with care.

১ কোটি ডলার জরিমানা দিলো ফেইসবুক

৫ ইউজারের করা মামলায় ১ কোটি ডলার জরিমানা দিলো সোশাল নেটওয়ার্কিং সাইট ফেইসবুক। সোশাল অ্যাডের মাধ্যমে সদস্যদের অ্যাকাউন্ট এবং ব্যক্তিগত তথ্য রক্ষার অধিকার খণ্ডন করায় মামলাটি করেছিলেন ফেইসবুকের ওই ৫ ইউজার। মামলায় হেরে এখন ১ কোটি ডলার জরিমানা দিতে হচ্ছে সোশাল নেটওয়ার্কিং সাইটটিকে। জনকল্যাণমূলক কাজে ব্যবহার করা হবে এই ১ কোটি ডলারের পুরোটাই। খবর বিবিসির।

ফেইসবুকে ওই সোশাল অ্যাডগুলো ‘স্পনসর্ড স্টোরি’ হিসেবে পরিচিত। আর বিজ্ঞাপনগুলোতে ‘লাইক’ করলেই ব্যবহারকারীর ফেইসবুক বন্ধুদের পেইজে পপআপ হিসেবে দেখা যেতো।

গত বছরের ডিসেম্বর মাসে ক্যালিফোর্নিয়ার স্যান হোজের ফেডারেল কোর্টে ওয়েবসাইটটিতে সোশাল অ্যাডের যথেচ্ছ ব্যবহারের বিরুদ্ধে মামলা করেন ফেইসবুকেরই ৫ ব্যবহারকারী। সম্প্রতি মামলাটির রায়ে ওই ৫ সদস্যের দাবির পক্ষে রায় দিয়ে ফেইসবুককে ১ কোটি ডলার জরিমানা করে বসে আদালত।

মামলার শুনানিতে এই ধরনের বিজ্ঞাপনকে ফেইসবুক প্রতিষ্ঠাতা মার্ক জুকারবার্গ ‘হোলি গ্রেইল অফ অ্যাডভার্টাইজিং’ বলে দাবি করলেও তার এই দাবি আমলে নেয়নি আদালত। মামলার রায়ে জজ লুসি কোহ বলেন, ‘কারো ব্যক্তিগত পছন্দ বা অপছন্দ নিয়ে কোনো তথ্য তার অনুমতি ছাড়া ব্যবহার করা ক্যালিফোর্নিয়ার আইন বিরোধী।’

তবে এ মামলাটির নিষ্পত্তি হলেও আরো বেশ কয়েকটি মামলায় আদালতে লড়ছে ফেইসবুক। শেয়ার মার্কেটে অভিষেকের কিছুদিন পরই জুকারবার্গ এবং ফেইসবুক তাদের সর্বশেষ অর্থনৈতিক তথ্য গোপন করছে এই দাবিতে মামলা করেন শেয়ারহোল্ডাররা। অন্যদিকে ফেইসবুক অনুমতি ছাড়াই ১০টি পেটেন্টের অপব্যবহার করেছে এই অভিযোগে মামলা করেছে আরেক ইন্টারনেট জায়ান্ট ইয়াহু।

Microsoft Apologized for Bad Lyrics

Software giant Microsoft had to say sorry to Norwegian developers who were apparently shocked at the company’s presentation which included dancing girls and obscene song lyrics.

A video of the routine, which was presented at the Norwegian Developers Conference in the country’s capital in order to promote new advances in Azure cloud computing platform, went viral. Apparently, Microsoft decided that before the conference participants get into technical details about the computing system it would be a great idea to warm the crowd up with a couple of dancers and house music.

However, the song’s lyrics that appeared on the screen were so bad that Coldplay could look Shakespearean by comparison. No-one will ever forget the epic line: “The words MICRO and SOFT don't apply to my penis”!

The press reports show that the developers weren’t amused, and hurried to turn to Twitter. One of the programmers wrote “For those not here, we had flashing disco lights, bad lyrics about penis, disco beats and dancing azure girls, so cringeworthy”. Another one tweeted: “This music thing is probably the most embarrassing I’ve ever seen and heard”. Apparently, both of them have never seen an Apple Store team chant…

Meanwhile, the YouTube posting of the Norwegian Developer’s Conference had a Volish statement underneath claiming that the event included a skit with inappropriate and offensive elements and vulgar language. Now the software giant’s top spinners are busy looking into the whole issue of semi-naked dancing girls and foul language. Perhaps, the entire incident just reminded them of one of their sales briefings. In the meantime, the experts are looking forward to the next Microsoft presentation, trying to guess what they will see there.

Skype is Ruined by Advertisements

It seems that the popular P2P calls are no longer free, with the services offered by Skype being plagued by huge display adverts. The company is now bringing in the feature known as “Conversation Ads”, which will pop up within the calling window when you are talking to someone. Perhaps, the Skype marketing department believes that the users will see the ads and start talking about their content to the caller.

Actually, it’s something that advertising people always believe in – that their product is so good that the consumers will want to talk about it. However, in reality the callers will be swearing at the ad.

Skype admitted that the advertisements will be targeted at the consumers based on their location, gender and age. The representatives of the company explained that on a 1:1 audio call, the callers will see material that could spark additional topics of conversation, relevant to the users, as well as “highlight unique and local brand experiences”.

Apparently, people have nothing better to do in a consumption-based capitalism other than discussing the goods randomly flashed on their screens. Meanwhile, Skype marketing department believes that the advertising is a great way for the company to create interactivity between the users’ circle of friends and family and the brands they care about.

The experts suspect that the advertisements won’t be small as well, promising the display ads to be just as big as the picture of someone you are trying to talk to. Another hint the observers have made is that the adverts will pop up during Skype-to-Skype audio calls for Windows users. Nevertheless, only those will be affected who don’t have Skype Credit or subscriptions.

The company claims that there won’t be any degradation of the call quality and that the advertisements will be silent and non-expanding. In addition, the most discontent Skype users will be allowed to opt out of personalized advertisements, though it is a bit tricky to do. If you are one of them, then go to the Privacy menu in Tools and choose Options of Skype for Windows OS. Although you will still get advertisements, those will relate only to your location rather than hit your personal information.

Added: Tuesday, June 19th, 2012 Category: Recent Headlines Involving File Sharing > Ridiculous Criminal Trials Tags:ET, p2p, Torrent, Piracy, Peer To Peer, Network, Hackers, Internet,BitTorrent, Google, utorrent, bitcomet, extratorrent, 2010,www.extrattorrent.com

An American federal grand jury in Los Angeles believes that British justice won’t be enough for a 20-year-old hacker. A Grand jury has indicted Ryan Cleary on charges connected with the numerous attacks by the LulzSec hacktivists, whose victims were the Fox and PBS television networks, as well as Sony’s movie and TV studio.

Now the guy is awaiting prosecution over similar charges in his motherland, the UK. However, the America is worried that he won’t have to suffer from one of its backward trillion year prison sentences, while in the United States he could be locked up for 25 years.

The Grand Jury is the first step to get Cleary to the United States where he would face the music for crimes he’s done over the pond. Ryan is accused of using botnets in order to steal confidential data, deface websites, and attack servers.

The Feds told the press that the UK man is an experienced hacker, who was controlling his own botnet, using various sophisticated methods. Meanwhile, Ryan’s broad geographic scope affected a lot of organizations and individuals.

The charges of the United States are based on the evidence of a super-grass Hector Xavier Monsegur. The latter pleaded guilty to hacking-related charges and disclosed the FBI information on his fellow hackers. The FBI has released an indictment saying that Ryan Cleary and his unnamed accomplices have hacked into the web systems of News Corp (this one is really ironic), as well as of Sony Pictures Entertainment, where they stole confidential user data. Aside from this, Cleary is also charged with defacing the PBS site and starting DDoS attacks against one of the online gaming sites and UK’s Serious Organized Crime Agency.

However, nobody can explain why exactly Ryan should be charged in an American court with hacking a UK website. The matter is that Cleary is already charged with that in the United Kingdom, so being punished twice for the same offence would be very unfair.

As for the FBI, they magnanimously admitted that the authorities of the United States would “allow the prosecution to take its course” against the hacker overseas prior to deciding whether to seek his extradition to the US. The experts guess that anything less than a British hanging is the request of the US for Cleary to be extradited. 

UK Privacy Outfits Opposed Communications Bill

UK government’s justification of the Communications Bill seems to have angered privacy groups. They claim that the plans will tarnish everyone with the same “guilty” brush.

Theresa May is expected today to push ahead with a draft of the legislation, which suggests to allow police access to people’s social networking and online activity, including emails, gaming and P2P phone calls. When outlining plans to store this data for a year, the Home Secretary claimed that it was necessary to help keep up and target criminals like terrorists and sex offenders.

Nevertheless, privacy groups explained that the legislation in question could violate human rights and tarnish everyone in the United Kingdom with the same “guilty” brush. The Open Rights Group believes that more consideration is necessary to make sure that the law is in line with human rights. As a result, the law could be challenged in a human rights court and pushed back in order to protect the public.

The matter is that the authorities will be able to reveal the identities of whistleblowers, celebrities and journalists. Since it will all be through police will, the industry could be moving into very dangerous territory.

Meanwhile, the privacy campaign outfit Big Brother Watch shared the same concerns, saying that in our free society innocent people shouldn’t justify why the authorities can’t spy on them. In fact, the proposed legislation goes against the Coalition Agreement and Conservative pre-election policy. Moreover, it is called basically illiberal, intrusive and unable to improve national security.

Privacy International points out that in the United Kingdom, the industries have historically operated under the presumption that the authorities had no business peering into the lives of people unless there was good reason to do so. Now, the Communications Bill would reverse that presumption and change the relationship between people and authorities.

Thus far, police and security services are able to access details of online visits and other communications information only if it’s stored by phone or web companies. But the suggested legislation will provide automatic access to the police and many other agencies, including NHS trusts and the Environment Agency. All of them will be able to make a case before Parliament if they want to access this data.

চলে যাচ্ছেন ফেইসবুকের প্রযুক্তি প্রধান

বিশ্বের সবচেয়ে জনপ্রিয় সামাজিক যোগাযোগ ওয়েবসাইট ফেইসবুকের প্রযুক্তি বিষয়ক প্রধান ব্রিট টেইলর জানিয়েছেন, আসছে সপ্তায় তিনি পদত্যাগ করতে যাচ্ছেন। নতুন একটি কোম্পানির কাজ শুরু করার জন্যই তিনি ফেইসবুক ছাড়ছেন বলে বিবিসি জানিয়েছে। ফেইসবুক ছেড়ে যাওয়া প্রসেঙ্গ টেইলর বলেন, “চলে যেতে খুব খারাপ লাগছে, কিন্তু নতুন একটি প্রতিষ্ঠান (কোম্পানি) শুরু করার বিষয়ে আমি ভীষণ রোমাঞ্চিত হয়ে আছি।” তিনি আরো বলেন, “এ ধরনের প্রন্থান কখনোই খুব সহজ নয়। কিন্তু আমি এই দল (ফেইসবুক) এবং তার নেতৃত্বের বিষয়ে অত্যন্ত আত্মবিশ্বাসী।” টেইলরের চলে যাওয়ার ঘোষণার প্রতিক্রিয়ায় ফেইসবুকের প্রতিষ্ঠাতা মার্ক জুকারবার্গ বলেছেন, টেইলরের সঙ্গে কাজ করা অত্যন্ত আনন্দের অভিজ্ঞতা যা তিনি উপভোগ করেছেন। ফেইসবুকের জন্য টেইলর ও তার দল যে অবদান রেখেছেন তার জন্য কৃতজ্ঞতা প্রকাশ করার পাশাপাশি তাদের জন্য গর্ববোধ করার কথাও ব্যক্ত করেছেন জুকারবার্গ। গত মাসে ফেইসবুক তার কোম্পানির শেয়ার ছাড়ে নাসদাক পুঁজিবাজারে। এতে করে কোম্পানিটির অনেক কর্মকর্তাই রাতারাতি মিলিয়নিয়ারে পরিণত হয়েছেন। তখন পর্যবেক্ষকেরা ধারণা করেছিলেন, কেউ না কেউ বিষয়টিকে অন্যদিকে নিয়ে যাবেন। কিছু দিনের মধ্যেই ফেইসবুকের শেয়ারে পতন হয়। ৩৮ ডলারে বাজারে শেয়ার ছাড়ার পর এর বর্তমান মূল্য শেয়ার প্রতি ৩০ ডলারে নেমে এসেছে।

ISP To Challenge Pirate Bay Blocking Order In The Supreme Court

After being ordered to block its subscribers to block from accessing The Pirate Bay, ISP Elisa indicated it would fight the court ruling by taking it to appeal. Yesterday the Court of Appeal delivered an initial blow to the Finnish service provider by upholding the original ruling handed down in 2011. Undeterred, Elisa says it will take its case all the way to the country’s Supreme Court.

During May 2011, the Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre (CIAPC) and the Finnish branch of IFPI announced that they had filed a lawsuit at the District Court in Helsinki.

The action, against Finnish ISP Elisa, required a total blockade of The Pirate Bay and was yet another example of rightsholders attempting to shift the burden for copyright enforcement onto third parties in the technology sector.

But unlike ISPs overseas such as Virgin Media and O2 in the UK, who recently blocked The Pirate Bay without even attempting a fight, Elisa was bullish from the start, describing the censorship strategy as “flawed.”

Elisa’s fight, however, had only just begun. In October 2011, the Helsinki District Courtordered the ISP to block the domain names and IP-addresses of the world’s most-visited torrent site. Elisa immediately announced an appeal, but in the meantime would still have to block The Pirate Bay or face a 100,000 euro fine.

Yesterday, Elisa received yet another blow. The Court of Appeal rejected the ISP’s application and upheld the District Court’s ruling from October 26 2011. The Pirate Bay will remain blocked to all Elisa customers, at least for now, but the road doesn’t end here. The ISP has announced that will take its case all the way to the country’s Supreme Court.

“It is legally very complex and difficult, so it is necessary to receive a preliminary ruling from the Supreme Court,” Elisa Business Director Henri Korpi said in a statement.

“We attach importance to intellectual property rights and the players should focus on measures that can truly reduce piracy in practice by distributing content on the web at a reasonable price and at the same time as the rest of their distribution.”

Elisa’s attitude of getting to the root of the problem rather than blocking it is shared by UK business ISP Fluidata. Yesterday their account manager Andi Soric wrote about the out-of-date and precarious position of the recording industry’s business model.

“Self-made artists can now upload audio and use media platforms such as YouTube and MySpace to broadcast their talent to millions of people at virtually no cost,” Soric wrote. “In my view, this can only be positive for music and society as a whole and makes you wonder how many stars have been missed in the last 50 years due to the costs attached to recording and distributing music.”

But even though systems like BitTorrent have driven distribution costs down to virtually nil, artists hoping to use torrent sites like The Pirate Bay as a springboard are increasingly finding their paths blocked by the recording and movie industries. That negative position will only get worse in the months to come.

Intelligent Cyber War Is on the Way

Last week, NATO's Cyber Defense Center held its 4rth annual conference, where it provided security experts with the unique chance to scare the bejesus out of military experts.

According to cyber experts’ reports, the rapid advances in digital war technology might result in a new generation of “intelligent cyber weapons”. Meanwhile, these new weapons can appear all but unstoppable. Enn Tyugu, the NATO IT expert, thinks that such new weapons won’t only be hard to stop, but also hard to be controlled by the users. As such, they may start living their own lives and that’s where fiction becomes reality. Nevertheless, the expert is talking not about Skynet, but about virus attacks like Stuxnet.

The experts explained that such malware is quite autonomous, and is able to operate independently in an unfriendly environment and may sometimes become almost impossible to control. That can result in cyber conflict launched by these agents themselves.

Ilmar Tamm, the head of the NATO Cyber Defense Center, emphasized that Stuxnet and Flame have indicated another form of cyber threats that is expected to bring many challenges to all security experts. In addition, the number of cyber conflicts is currently increasing and it’s important to understand how to classify events and participants.

Nevertheless, American cyber defense expert Kenneth Geers claimed during the conference that the most powerful cyber weapon today is a little bit more down to earth. In fact, it’s just good old propaganda, which can ruin the world just as super new cyber weapons.

MPAA vs. Google on Their Opening Celebration

The search giant Google was celebrating the opening of the first drive-in movie theater around seventy-nine years ago with one of its animated signatures. Of course, it became a perfect opportunity for the MPAA’s CEO to pick on Google again.

In his recent blog post, the MPAA’s chairman said that he applauds the tribute, but the search giant’s “love” for the entertainment industry should extend beyond doodles. Therefore, Google’s anti-piracy policies should be stricter. In other words, he didn’t say anything new to us. He claimed that every day the industry and search engine aren’t working toward a shared solution is just another day that the hard work and ingenuity of people working in the US movie and TV community is being ripped off by the criminals around over globe. In other words, it is just another day that the US ideas aren’t being protected.

The attempts of the MPAA’s head to protect intellectual property are named SOPA and PIPA – two bills that were strongly boycotted by many online giants, including Facebook, Google, and Wikipedia. The Internet corporations argued that the measures of both acts would definitely have a negative impact on free speech.

Ever since, the MPAA admitted that both suggested bills were “dead”, but still insisted that it would continue its efforts to improve the relationship between the largest studios and Silicon Valley. In his blog post, the outfit’s chairman cited Ari Emanuel who recently said that the search engine should be more serious about filtering illegal material. As Emanuel’s beloved on-screen alter-ego Ari Gold, who was brought to life by exactly the hard-working US citizens they aim to protect, would say: “let’s hug it out”.

thanks to TorrentFreak for the source of the article

Experts Warned of Cloud Complexity

One of the Yale researchers has warned that cloud-based systems might melt down with the systems becoming more and more complex.

Bryan Ford has written a paper, which he is going to present to the USENIX HotCloud 2012 conference soon. The paper says that with the use of cloud computing now becoming more mainstream, major operational “meltdowns” might arise. The matter is that everything will get quite complex, and complexity will cause an accident.

Ford explained that as diverse cloud services share more fluidly and aggressively multiplexed hardware resource pools, the probability arises that unexpected things will happen, including unpredictable interactions between load-balancing and other reactive mechanisms. This may result in dynamic instabilities, also known as “meltdowns”.

According to the experts report, it was a little like the intertwining, complex relationships and structures which could promote global financial crisis. He pointed out that new cloud services may emerge, which actually resell, trade, or speculate on complex “'derivatives” like financial trading industries.

Such components will be maintained and deployed by different companies, which, due competition, won’t share details (if possible) about the internal operation of its services. As a result, the cloud industry might face speculative bubbles. The experts predict occasional large-scale failures due to composite cloud services which have weaknesses that do not reveal until those bubbles burst.

Meanwhile, there’s no solution to the problem. The only advice that the experts can give is that providers should release detailed data about their system dependencies to some special 3rd party that offers cloud reliability analysis services.

Flame and Stuxnet Worms Were Brothers

According to Kaspersky’s security labs, the Flame and Stuxnet worms, both developed to tear apart critical IT infrastructure in the countries opposed to American interests, shared the same platform,at least once, in the early stages.

Kaspersky’s research discovered that Flame and Stuxnet worms were actually related. Although it is unclear whether they were separated brothers or distant cousins, they definitely originated from the same source in the early stages.

Kaspersky discovered that a module from an early version of Stuxnet warm (Resource 207) was a Flame plugin – an encrypted DLL file with an executable file similar to Flame's code. Then the Duqu Trojan emerged in reports, though it was developed as a backdoor rather than to hack infrastructure. Kaspersky noted similarities between Duqu and Stuxnet and concluded that they were both made with the same attack platform – the Tilded.

In other words, when Stuxnet was created in 2009, Flame already existed, and at least one of its modules was used in Stuxnet – the one designed to spread the infection by USB. Kaspersky confirmed that it was identical in both viruses. However, the plugin module in question was later removed from the worm and replaced by the one exploiting different vulnerabilities. This proves that there were two development teams working independently, but some experts believe that the cooperation could have continued.

According to Kaspersky’s chief security expert, they are confident that Flame and Tilded were different platforms used to create multiple cyber weapons. Despite the fact that they had different architectures, the teams are believed to share source code in the early stages of development. The Democrats were strangely enthusiastic to admit Stuxnet’s responsibility, but Israeli officials claimed that Israeli intelligence started a cyber campaign several years earlier, in order to damage Iran’s nuclear program.

Meanwhile, the press pointed out that its sources understood the sensitivity and the timing of the matter, perhaps giving a nod to the election campaign. Therefore, no-one from the researchers and reporters isn’t going to be dragged into a battle over taking credit.

Subtitles Might Be Illegal

One may be very surprised when asked whether the movie subtitles may be illegal, but the industry now sees a new debate here. The matter is that an individual operating a subtitle file-sharing portal was scoped by the law a while ago.

Norsub.com is a website which used to provide subtitles for films and TV shows. However, a Norwegian court of law believes that the website comes in conflict with copyright legislation.

The court ruled that the site operator has to close down the website and pay $2,500 for copyright violation, according to industry report. This precedent can show how the United States treat film and music studios subtitles as well. For some reason, the American entertainment industries subtitles are also falling under copyright legislation, because they are regarded as film scripts. As you might know, film subtitles in the file-sharing community usually come in the form of text files.

Worse still, these user-generated movie subtitles are regarded as the ones that infringe the copyrighted material, like any type of BitTorrent material today. In other words, if someone has decided somehow to translate a film in a language which is not currently available, he or she will be treated as a pirate and might face a lawsuit. Nevertheless, such cases were reported to be very rare until now.

By the way, a similar case actually reached the courts of the United States. This means that you should better think twice before translating a movie and create subtitles to help other nations understand the movie you like. Unfortunately, the courts seem to lack common sense.

thanks to TorrentFreak for the source of the article

Download Site Founder Receives 4.5 Year Jail Sentence, Forfeits $4.7m

The founder of one of Europe’s former leading illicit movie streaming portals has been convicted. The man, known as Dirk B, received a reduced sentence after giving a full confession and apology for this activities on Kino.to, the site hit by a massive international police operation in 2011. Despite his overtures, Dirk B received a 4.5 year jail sentence and was ordered to forfeit $4.7m of the claimed $8m he earned from the site.

In June 2011, the biggest ever operation aimed at tackling online movie piracy took place in Europe. The target for police in Germany, Spain, France, and the Netherlands was movie-streaming portal Kino.to and its affiliates.

More than a dozen people were arrested and since then various individuals have been brought to justice. The latest to face punishment is the site’s founder.

Known only as Dirk B due to German privacy laws which protect the identities of suspected criminals, the 39-year-old faced an extended stay in prison after prosecutors requested an 11 year sentence.

Download Site Founder Receives 4.5 Year Jail Sentence, Forfeits $4.7m

• enigmax
• June 15, 2012
• 74
• Kino.to
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The founder of one of Europe’s former leading illicit movie streaming portals has been convicted. The man, known as Dirk B, received a reduced sentence after giving a full confession and apology for this activities on Kino.to, the site hit by a massive international police operation in 2011. Despite his overtures, Dirk B received a 4.5 year jail sentence and was ordered to forfeit $4.7m of the claimed $8m he earned from the site.

In June 2011, the biggest ever operation aimed at tackling online movie piracy took place in Europe. The target for police in Germany, Spain, France, and the Netherlands was movie-streaming portal Kino.to and its affiliates.

More than a dozen people were arrested and since then various individuals have been brought to justice. The latest to face punishment is the site’s founder.

Known only as Dirk B due to German privacy laws which protect the identities of suspected criminals, the 39-year-old faced an extended stay in prison after prosecutors requested an 11 year sentence.

However, after cooperating with authorities and confessing to a sample 1.1 million instances of copyright infringement and being responsible for a file-hosting service linked to Kino.to, the court decided to hand down a much reduced sentence.

According to Deutsche Welle, District Court judge Karsten Nickel described the case as the “most serious” copyright breach ever to come before the courts in Germany. He went on to hand Dirk B a 4.5 year jail sentence.

The prosecution said that the operators of Kino.to generated huge profits through advertising and so-called “subscription trap” schemes. As part of his plea bargain, Dirk B agreed to hand over around $4.7m of the claimed $8m he made in revenue through his Spanish advertising company.

Dirk B is the 6th person to be sentenced in the Kino.to case.

In December 2011, 33-year-old web designer Marcus V. was handed 2.5 years in prison for his role in the site. A week later 27-year-old Martin S. – reportedly the main admin of Kino.to and brother-in-law of Dirk B. – received a 3 year sentence.

Later in December an unemployed IT assistant received 1 year 9 months probation after he confessed to uploading pirate movies and TV shows to Kino.to servers between June 2009 to July 2011.

A week later a 47-year-old server operator was sentenced to 3 years and 5 months in prison after being found guilty of storing more than 10,700 movies for paid subscription access.

In April this year, Kino.to’s 29-year-old lead programmer was sentenced to three years and ten months in prison.

Napster Founders Created New Service

Two of the US developers of the file-sharing platform known as Napster, Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning, have recently reunited and started a new service for friends to video chat online.

Founders of Napster now created a new service called AirTime at the event featuring such Hollywood stars as Jim Carrey, talk show host Jimmy Fallon, and TV star Joel McHale. Rapper Snoop Dogg and actress Olivia Munn also made an appearance as live video chats.

Because of the technical difficulties, video chats between the celebrities could only last 10 minutes, and the creators were trying to fix the problems during the event. Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning plan to overcome such difficulties as soon as possible, because their new service will be implemented by Facebook soon. Therefore, only Facebook users will be able to use AirTime.

Meanwhile, Sean Parker explained that AirTime isn’t going to rival established social networks, but instead act like a separate social network itself. They want to make the online space a fun place to visit, with your friends being able to video chat with each other online, while allowing them remain anonymous. The new company will ensure users’ safety, because it became one of the prime concerns of the modern Internet users. Sean Parker explained that the new service founders are trying to restore serendipity to the web, and pointed out that there’s never been an environment like AirTime’s for live online performance.

However, when asked how Napster changed everything a decade ago, its founders claimed that they had no idea of the impact this would have. All they realized was that the product was big, but they dramatically underestimated the scale.

How Long Before VPNs Become Illegal?

Across the world initiatives are appearing with an aim to increase Internet monitoring. In the U.S. file-sharers will soon be monitored and reported on behalf of the MPAA and RIAA, and in the UK there are plans to monitor and store all Internet communications. Countering this increased surveillance people are turning en masse to VPN services to ensure their privacy. This begs the question; how long before VPNs become illegal?

In the coming decade there will be an avalanche of initiatives to regulate and monitor the Internet.

The freedom, privacy and relative anonymity that people experience today will only be short-lived if the copyright lobby and intelligence agencies have their way.

In the U.S. there is CISPA, a bill that would put an end to people’s privacy on the Internet by allowing companies to spy on Internet users. Despite fierce opposition from the online community, the bill was approved by the House of Representatives in April.

Another example of increased monitoring in the US is the “six-strikes” anti-piracy agreement, in which alleged ‘pirates’ will be tracked down and punished as part of an agreement ISPs signed with the MPAA and RIAA.

In the U.K. there are similar developments. Not only are there plans to monitor and warn file-sharers, a draft of the ‘Communications Data Bill’ that was posted yesterday shows that the U.K. government wants to monitor and store the Internet activity of its citizens.

A scary prospect for many, but as always there are plenty of ways to circumvent these spying efforts.

Privacy conscious Internet users could simply switch to one of the many VPN providers and bypass all of the above. Since VPN providers in the U.S. and many other countries are not required to log any user information (some do), these users can’t be easily monitored.

But for how long?

Research has shown that people are increasingly turning to these anonymity services, partly in response to new surveillance initiatives. Millions already hide behind VPNs when they go online and this number will only increase in the coming years.

Intelligence agencies and the copyright lobby are not happy with this development, and it would come as no surprise if they began lobbying for a ban on VPN usage. After all, these pesky VPN users are obstructing the law.

“If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear,” they’ll say, adding that your car also requires a readable license plate.

While a ban on VPNs might sound rigorous, it’s by no means unthinkable. In Iran, where a quarter of all Internet subscribers use VPNs, the government has already announced a crackdown on privacy-enhancing tools that bypass local law.

Luckily for privacy advocates, however, not all is lost. The architecture of the Internet is flexible so even in the event VPNs were banned there would still be alternatives to guarantee people’s privacy. But there is little doubt that there will be a huge fight over these issues in the years to come.

So for now, enjoy your privacy for as long as it lasts.

Intelligent Cyber War Is on the Way

Last week, NATO's Cyber Defense Center held its 4rth annual conference, where it provided security experts with the unique chance to scare the bejesus out of military experts.

According to cyber experts’ reports, the rapid advances in digital war technology might result in a new generation of “intelligent cyber weapons”. Meanwhile, these new weapons can appear all but unstoppable. Enn Tyugu, the NATO IT expert, thinks that such new weapons won’t only be hard to stop, but also hard to be controlled by the users. As such, they may start living their own lives and that’s where fiction becomes reality. Nevertheless, the expert is talking not about Skynet, but about virus attacks like Stuxnet.

The experts explained that such malware is quite autonomous, and is able to operate independently in an unfriendly environment and may sometimes become almost impossible to control. That can result in cyber conflict launched by these agents themselves.

Ilmar Tamm, the head of the NATO Cyber Defense Center, emphasized that Stuxnet and Flame have indicated another form of cyber threats that is expected to bring many challenges to all security experts. In addition, the number of cyber conflicts is currently increasing and it’s important to understand how to classify events and participants.

Nevertheless, American cyber defense expert Kenneth Geers claimed during the conference that the most powerful cyber weapon today is a little bit more down to earth. In fact, it’s just good old propaganda, which can ruin the world just as super new cyber weapons.

The Pirate Bay Responded to RIAA Search Censorship

The world’s largest BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay has graciously welcomed the recommendation of the Recording Industry Association of America that search engines ban websites like TPB. The tracker claimed that instead of deterring people, it would attract more traffic to the site.

Recently RIAA’s head Cary Sherman told the Congress that they need to do more to stop Internet piracy. Sherman took to the stage at the Future of Audio hearing and recommended that all search engines, including Google, took responsibility in curbing Internet piracy by censoring services like the Pirate Bay and IsoHunt, while offering legal music services to the users.

The Pirate Bay is of course against censorship, and reacted by releasing the statement saying that the RIAA was trying to ensure that the competing search engines have to stop linking back to the TPB, which is just wonderful. The Pirate Bay also pointed out that about 10% of its traffic comes from competing search engines.

In other words, after implementation of that ban, the TPB’s traffic numbers probably will increase, because users would go directly to The Pirate Bay and use its search instead. This will provide the service a chance to grow even more massive – although it’s undoubtedly hard to compete with Google, if they aren’t able to index media search engines like the TPB, the latter will become the dominant player in the end.

Nevertheless, users in the United Kingdom might be out of luck, depending on their Internet service provider, and some already have to adhere to orders from the British courts to block direct access to The Pirate Bay. The first ISP to do so was Virgin Media, whose users now face a page saying that the ISP has received an order to prevent access to The Pirate Bay in order to protect copyright.

Another ISP, Be Broadband (an O2 subsidiary), was also reported to block the website, but The Pirate Bay proved to be still accessible. Like other major ISPs, Be admitted it will have to bow down to pressure from the court and comply with the demand to block access to TPB. The broadband provider claimed that its hands were tied and it had no other choice but to comply. Meanwhile, despite the best efforts of the entertainment industry, mirror services and proxies are still available everywhere and easy enough to find.

Facebook Advertising Proved Useless

According to the recent poll, 80% of Facebook users have never bought anything advertised on the social network. In fact, the survey states the obvious: people aren’t using Facebook to buy something or get informed, they are rather killing time. There’s also another phenomenon revealed: Facebook fatigue. Around 34% of Facebook users admitted to spending, or wasting less time on Facebook than 6 months ago.

Meanwhile, Facebook’s controversial IPO didn’t go down well with its users either, because 44% claimed it made them less favorable toward the social network, says Reuters. So, all of this doesn’t bode well for the network, because it tries to find out how to translate its huge user base into actual profits. The fact is that people aren’t spending on Facebook, and don’t care about advertisements or comments, which means that Facebook has yet to develop a revenue generating model in the mobile space.

Moreover, the growth is slowing down and it has to, like mobile phone penetration in the developed world a decade ago. There are just not enough people to target with advertising, because more and more of them are now from the 3rd world. Meanwhile, the social network refused to comment on the poll results, but pointed to previous reports saying that Facebook advertising campaigns were successful earlier.

After the IPO, the company’s business model came under even more scrutiny, though it would have been a right way to scrutinize the model before small investors pour their retirement savings in Facebook stock, hoping that they are investing in the next Google or Apple. In the meantime, the notion that Facebook would eventually cash in on what actually amounts to the biggest information mining operation worldwide seems to be wearing off.

Although targeted ads may sound like a good idea, they can also backfire, because Internet users aren’t that keen to see personalized advertisements on their page, in some cases with awkward or downright embarrassing material. Instead, it can be regarded as a tricky balancing act between delivering proper targeted advertising and bad taste. Thus far, the largest social network in the world doesn’t seem to be making this work. So, Zuckerberg has something to consider…

The Pirate Bay Responded to RIAA Search Censorship

The world’s largest BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay has graciously welcomed the recommendation of the Recording Industry Association of America that search engines ban websites like TPB. The tracker claimed that instead of deterring people, it would attract more traffic to the site.

Recently RIAA’s head Cary Sherman told the Congress that they need to do more to stop Internet piracy. Sherman took to the stage at the Future of Audio hearing and recommended that all search engines, including Google, took responsibility in curbing Internet piracy by censoring services like the Pirate Bay and IsoHunt, while offering legal music services to the users.

The Pirate Bay is of course against censorship, and reacted by releasing the statement saying that the RIAA was trying to ensure that the competing search engines have to stop linking back to the TPB, which is just wonderful. The Pirate Bay also pointed out that about 10% of its traffic comes from competing search engines.

In other words, after implementation of that ban, the TPB’s traffic numbers probably will increase, because users would go directly to The Pirate Bay and use its search instead. This will provide the service a chance to grow even more massive – although it’s undoubtedly hard to compete with Google, if they aren’t able to index media search engines like the TPB, the latter will become the dominant player in the end.

Nevertheless, users in the United Kingdom might be out of luck, depending on their Internet service provider, and some already have to adhere to orders from the British courts to block direct access to The Pirate Bay. The first ISP to do so was Virgin Media, whose users now face a page saying that the ISP has received an order to prevent access to The Pirate Bay in order to protect copyright.

Another ISP, Be Broadband (an O2 subsidiary), was also reported to block the website, but The Pirate Bay proved to be still accessible. Like other major ISPs, Be admitted it will have to bow down to pressure from the court and comply with the demand to block access to TPB. The broadband provider claimed that its hands were tied and it had no other choice but to comply. Meanwhile, despite the best efforts of the entertainment industry, mirror services and proxies are still available everywhere and easy enough to find.

Iran Enlisted Hackers and Blogger

Some cyber intelligence expert revealed that Iran is stepping up its use of the Internet propaganda, hacking and other sophisticated tools some use on the Internet. It was claimed that the authorities of the country are using a number of paramilitary outfits in the effort.

There are a few interesting facts revealed, one of them being that the efforts of the Iranian government aren’t intended to take on enemies of the regime by direct actions, but instead to promote the ideals of the Islamic revolution. Their main focus is believed to preserve the philosophic foundation of the revolution and to decrease western influences on their local culture.

The experts insisted that the Revolutionary Guard has been paying bloggers $7 per hour to promote their agenda on such online resources as Facebook and forums. That may seem a pretty sweet gig for many, because the official average monthly salary in the country was estimated at about $500. For instance, an Israeli think-tank claims the running rate is $4.3 per hour.

Three years ago, the Rand Corporation also published a report which said that the IRCG played a role in monitoring online communications in the country, trying to “mitigate the influx of corrupting foreign ideals”.

Despite the fact that local propaganda campaigns might seem crude, you shouldn’t forget the Soviet approach was both “subtle” and intelligent, while many still believe in conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, Western propagandists aren’t much better, because they would have people believe in things like Iranians’ intention to put a nuclear warhead and so on.

MegaUpload Battle Continues

MegaUpload’s founder Kim Dotcom and his attorneys keep fighting back the criminal charges brought against them by the American authorities.

Dotcom’s attorneys have recently asked the Virginia Federal Court to drop the charges against the company founder and his colleagues, because the US violated MegaUpload’s 5th amendment right to due process when the country’s authorities shut down the file-sharing service. In case the court agrees to drop the case, this decision would bring one of the largest criminal copyright cases filed by the United States to an end.

In their desperate attempts to shut down Dotcom’s multi-billion dollar business, the authorities of the United States didn’t just seize the website’s domain names and servers, but also took away Kim’s personal belongings. Then, trying to extradite Dotcom and his colleagues, the US law enforcement had asked help from foreign authorities.

Since the moment of their arrest, Kim Dotcom and his colleagues have battled American authorities in order to escape extradition, and their efforts seem to be successful, at least partly.

In addition, Dotcom’s attorney, Ira Rothken, continues insisting that the file-sharing service can’t be served outside the jurisdiction of the United States. That’s why, if the Virginia Federal Court decides to drop the case of MegaUpload, it would clearly represent a deadly blow to the American government, which would eventually be sued itself.

MegaUpload hosting service was closed this past January, and since then the case has been holding the attention of the industry observers all over the world, who are now waiting for the court decision to see what’s going to happen.

Methods to Circumvent American 6-Strikes Law

1st of July 2012 is when the largest effort of the US to fight piracy – the six-strike regime – will start. The system represents the collaboration between the largest country’s Internet service providers and the entertainment industry, represented by the MPAA and RIAA.

The list of participating ISPs includes Time Warner Cable, Comcast, AT&T, Cablevision, and Verizon. The 6-strike system mainly focuses on copyrighted content located on BitTorrent networks.

However, there’s something that raises not just morality questions, but also the legal ones. The matter is that the entertainment industry in cooperation with ISPs is planning to be the judge of all digital material without letting anyone to check on them.

In addition, they believe that the BitTorrent network is facilitating the infringement of copyrighted content, which seems to be one of the most ridiculous ideas to many. However, instead of pinning every drawback of the graduated response regime, we may offer you four convenient ways to circumvent it.

1. VPN services. When the entertainment industry is scanning open P2P networks, your IP address is both vulnerable and easy to track. You can mask your IP address by subscribing to a VPN (Virtual Private Network) – this will hide your real IP from all public view. Moreover, VPNs don’t keep logs, so there won’t be any trail to track.
2. Proxy services. They are quite similar to VPNs, but they do not re-route online traffic through a number of remote servers, which simply hide specific programs and protocols.
3. Seedbox services. In case you want to be 100% secure, check out a seedbox, which provides anonymity by downloading torrent files to some remote machine not attached to your IP address. When the download is ready, the content will be transferred to the user’s PC without BitTorrent’s involvement. Such seedboxes offer fast connection speeds.
4. Private networks. As it was said above, the entertainment industry will scan open P2P networks, including servicers like The Pirate Bay. However, aside from open networks, you can also find private trackers staying under the radar and keeping you safe.

Other alternatives include obsolete utilities like the Internet relay chat (IRC), Usenet, Freenet Project, and digital storage lockers.

স্পাই টেলিস্কোপ উপহার পেল নাসা

মার্কিন যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের গোপন স্পাই এজেন্সি ন্যাশনাল রিকনেইসেন্স অফিস (এনআরও)-এর কাছ থেকে দু’টি স্পেস টেলিস্কোপ উপহার পেয়েছে মহাকাশ গবেষণা প্রতিষ্ঠান নাসা। আদতে মহাকাশ থেকে পৃথিবীর ওপর গুপ্তচরবৃত্তির উদ্দেশ্যে তৈরি হলেও হঠাৎ করেই নাসাকে এই টেলিস্কোপ দুটি এনআরও উপহার দেয়ায় সৃষ্টি হয়েছে নানা প্রশ্নের। খবর ডেইলি মেইল-এর।

জানা গেছে, এনআরও-এর তৈরি টেলিস্কোপ দু’টি দেখতে নাসার হাবল টেলিস্কোপের মতো হলেও অনেক বেশি শক্তিশালী। এটি তৈরিতেও এনআরও ব্যবহার করেছে নাসার চেয়ে উন্নত প্রযুক্তি।

অন্যদিকে একসঙ্গে দুটি স্পেস টেলিস্কোপের মালিকানা পেলেও টেলিস্কোপ দু’টি মহাকাশে পাঠানোর মতো অর্থ নেই দীর্ঘদীন ধরে বাজেট সংকটে ভুগতে থাকা নাসার। শুধু তাই নয়, টেলিস্কোপ দু’টি মহাকাশে পাঠানোর মতো অর্থ নাসা জোগাড় করতে পারলেও এখনো মহাকাশ যাত্রার জন্য পুরোপুরি উপযুক্ত হয়নি টেলিস্কোপ দু’টি।

হাবল টেলিস্কোপের চেয়ে প্রায় ১শ’ গুণ শক্তিশালী নতুন এই টেলিস্কোপ দু’টি এনআরও তৈরি করেছিলো গুপ্তচরবৃত্তির উদ্দেশ্যে। তাই এতে নেই মহাকাশ গবেষণার উপযুক্ত যন্ত্রপাতি। ওয়াশিংটনের রচেস্টার-এ পড়ে থাকা এই টেলিস্কোপ দু’টি মহাকাশ যাত্রা এবং মহাকাশ গবেষণার জন্য আপগ্রেড করতে হলে নাসার খরচ হবে কমকরে ১ বিলিয়ন ডলার, যা কিনা বর্তমানে নাসার সাধ্যের বাইরে। এখন থেকেই টেলিস্কোপ দু’টি নিয়ে কাজ শুরু করলেও ২০২৪ সালের আগে এগুলোর মহাকাশে পৌঁছানোর কোনো সম্ভাবনাই নেই বলেই মনে করছেন নাসার অ্যাস্ট্রোফিজিক্স-এর একজন ডিরেক্টর পল হার্টজ।

তবে নাসার বিজ্ঞানীরা আশা করছেন, দেরি করে হলেও মহাকাশের ডার্ক ম্যাটার নিয়ে গবেষণার কাজে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ ভূমিকা রাখতে পারবে নতুন এই টেলিস্কোপ দু’টি। কিন্তু তারপরেও এনআরও-র এই টেলিস্কোপ দু’টি তৈরির পেছনে মূল উদ্দেশ্য কি ছিল এবং কেনই বা হঠাৎ করে নাসাকে উপহার দেয়া হলো, এই প্রশ্নগুলো থেকেই যায় বলে মন্তব্য করেছে মেইল।

Farmers Won’t Get Internet

It seems that the Labour Party knows less about farming than about technology, as one of the MPs hit the headlines last week with his suggestions that rural broadband funding should be spent to other places – indeed, farming has existed without the web forever!

The MP suggested that public funding for faster broadband in rural Lancashire is better to be spent in industrial areas, because the benefits will be far greater. Meanwhile, Lancashire County Council and LEP were already spending around $50 million on faster rural broadband. However, it was still difficult to see how these investments would create jobs.

The MP claimed that demographics show that getting faster broadband won’t create jobs, the geography does too. Broadband is called to be only useful for new businesses, which are media intensive, don’t shift product and don’t meet customers. The only question is how many would fit that category.

In other words, rural people weren’t going to get better broadband. Both mobile devices and 4G were considered being of greater significance than landline fast rural broadband. Although the same argument could be applied to the government as well, few would answer the question of how many politicians have been sticking their paws up for free iPads. Instead, this is regarded by the MP as a class thing – as such, Lancashire’s rural population becomes a playground for the wealthy.

In response, the Countryside Alliance issued a statement, where it described the MP’s comments as “criminal”. In our digital era, fast and reliable broadband connection is as important as gas, electricity or water. For some reason, the MP didn’t understand how 2 decades ago farmers were among the first to get their businesses on the Internet and now they have about 90% of their administration online.

Twenty years ago, the National Farmers Union established an Internet service provider for farmers and spent a lot of efforts and money to make sure they realized that requiring 4 RAM to run wasn’t really a livestock requirement.

By the way, after the comments appeared in the news, the MP’s post has mysteriously disappeared. The suggestions are that the Labour Party Central office still hopes that the countryside voters could get hacked off that the Tory party is taking them out of the European Union, and away from their salary meal tickets.