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17 June 2012
চলে যাচ্ছেন ফেইসবুকের প্রযুক্তি প্রধান
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 Yesterday their account manager Andi Soric wrote about the out-of-date and precarious position of the recording industry’s business model.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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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