Music Industry Planned Massive File-Sharing Shutdowns

After major Internet service providers of the United Kingdom blocked The Pirate Bay under the court order, music labels of the BPI are going to target some other major torrent websites – for instance, H33T, Demonoid, TorrentReactor, and even us.

After the UK regulator (Ofcom) published the Initial Obligations Code for the Digital Economy Act (DEA), the country’s government promised to remove two arguable sections from the bill. According to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, sections 17 and 18 will be removed from the DEA. Both of these provisions emphasized that online services providing access to copyrighted content were to be blocked by Internet service providers.

Apparently, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport realized that these two sections aren’t needed because infringing services can be blocked under the existing law. The best example is well known by everyone who has ever heard of Newzbin2, a Usenet indexing site, and how it was blocked by the British broadband providers.

Music licensing group PPL has sent a letter to its members, saying that not only The Pirate Bay is under their scope, but also other similar BitTorrent services exist that provide facilities through which the web users are able to illegally download copyrighted content and illegally make it available to other online users. The list of such services includes TorrentReactor, Demonoid, Fenopy, Kickass Torrents, H33T, and our Extratorrent as well, of course.

In addition, the PPL recommended that online services that provide legitimate content should contact the BPI’s legal team as soon as possible.

Do you know who Kim Dotcom is?!?

Today a lot of people know who Kim Dotcom is and what followed after American government decided to close down his website and company named MegaUpload. Now Kim Dotcom can say for sure who ordered the demise of MegaUpload.

The founder of MegaUpload admits that he understands who exactly decided to close him down – it was Vice President Joe Biden. The latter appeared to be a close friend with ex-senator Chris Dodd. This person needs no introduction, we guess. Dotcom claims that he knows from a credible source that it was Joe Biden who ordered his lawyer and now state attorney Neil MacBride to shut the cyberlocker down.

In addition, Kim knows that the case was debated a year ago at a White House meeting, which hosted a number of very important figures, including Rich Ross, Michael O’Leary, Brad Grey, Chris Dodd, and Barry Meyer. After this information from an insider was received, they scanned the White House visitor logs for all meetings of Chris Dodd, the head of the MPAA, and studio executives with Joe Biden and Obama, which are publicly available on the White House official site.

An interesting fact was revealed: a man named Mike Ellis of MPA Asia, an extradition expert and ex-superintendent of the Hong Kong police, also met with Chris Dodd, all studio executives and Joe Biden, and later met with the Minister of Justice Simon Power in New Zealand.

We’ll see how and when Dotcom will use this information. Right now he seems to be having a good time with friends, but fun time isn’t his prime concern. In July, his lawyers have to face a Virginia judge in order to have the MegaUpload case dismissed. A paper published on his lawyers’ site says that they will discuss the problems of indictments, among others. The experts believe that they may win, because last week a High Court judge said that New Zealand police used a faulty warrant, which voids the whole case.

Kim Dotcom gains a lot of popularity, admitting that the people of New Zealand have made him feel very welcome, because they realize he has been treated unfairly. The people understand that the New Zealand leadership could do everything to please the US.

By the way, Kim Dotcom donated $50.000 to John Banks during his 2010 campaign for mayor of Auckland. Despite the fact he failed to acquire the position, John Banks called Kim to thank him personally.

Thanks to TorrentFreak for the source of the article

Declaration of Internet Freedom

A few days ago, online leaders, including the EFF, Public Knowledge, Free Press, and the Mozilla Foundation, have issued a document titled “Declaration of Internet Freedom”.
The declaration stands for a free and open web and calls not to censor the Internet. Although the document doesn’t propose any specific policy, it hopes to put a line in the sand about what things should look like. Meanwhile, its principles were designed to be accepted by the political arena.The document was mainly sustained by liberal groups like the Free Press, but the declaration was also supported by a couple political figures, who encouraged Republicans to vote against SOPA and similar bills.In the meantime, not everyone is happy with this move – for instance, a coalition of right-of-center outfits delivered their own version with various sets of principles, which included “humility” and “the rule of law” – the list includes TechFreedom, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the National Taxpayers Union. They argued that the original document contained an “ambiguity which could pave the way for more government intervention”.However, if you take a closer look on both versions of the document, you would notice that they both highlight the importance of free expression, privacy and innovation. The question is how to apply those ideas. In fact, the real issue is the ambiguity of the documents, a feature which may prove fatal to the outfits’ plans. In addition, the Congress doesn’t seem to be going to vote against free speech or creativity, but it is less likely to support vague principles.So, to make a change the initiators must have a good plan focused on the political sector. You can recall Demand Progress’ campaign, which emphasized that the MegaUpload case had set a precedent, and pointed out that now such portals like Gmail and Flickr might be in danger as well.Demand Progress also filed an amicus brief (with more than 50,000 signatures) with a Virginia judge who managed the MegaUpload case. The matter is that solving the cyberlocker’s problem (and other troubles that may appear soon) would demand the legislation be modified, especially the 2008’s PRO-IP Act, because it enables federal government to seize domains, servers, and everything else they may need in a copyright violation case.

Advertising Sustains Online Piracy

Search giant Google, in co-operation with PRS for Music, has carried out a study titled “The 6 Business Models For Copyright Infringement”. So, what did they find out?

The report revealed that a key source of revenues for the services “believed by the largest copyright owners to be massively facilitating copyright violation” is advertising. However, this will surely start a heated debate instead of calming things down.

The study was based on a research made by Detica and the information offered by the Premier League, FACT, UKIE and The Publishers Associations. The report classifies piracy portals into six groups: live TV gateways, embedded streaming, peer-to-peer groups, music transaction, subscription groups, and rewarded freemium.

Meanwhile, there are a couple of interesting discoveries about the music sector. One of them emphasizes the importance of advertising (funding 86% of P2P community portals). Another one reveals the importance of search engines for music transaction services, which means that their users usually find out about the portal through a search engine.

The study in question indicates that there are a lot of various business models for Internet infringement that can be tackled if the industries co-operate. The collected evidence suggests that one of the most efficient ways to do so is to follow the money, looking for those advertisers who prefer to earn money from such services and working with payment providers in order to make sure they realize how their services are used.

The head of the PRS for Music hopes the result of the study will reach the government of the United Kingdom and other countries. He says that the portals involved in copyright violation are mainly businesses with real costs and revenue sources, which receive subscription and advertising revenue. On the other hand, those services have to pay their server or hosting costs. The only problem is that they don’t pay the creators of the material on which their businesses depend.

As you can see, the business models of the copyright infringers are different, and the authorities now have the evidence to realize which policy levers they need to apply to solve the problem of piracy and deal with those strategies efficiently.

The Chinese Hacked Indian Navy Systems

According to the latest security reports, India has left contemplating its naval, as the Chinese hackers managed to take out the computer system on the National Navy’s Eastern Command.

The intruders managed to plant malware on the targeted system based near the city of Visakhaptnam. The malware in question sent sensitive information to specific IP addresses in China. Local media reported how the country’s first nuclear missile submarine, named INS Arihant, had been running trials at the facility and might have got the bug.

The malware was said to work the following way: it had created a hidden folder where it copied specific files and documents based on the keywords it had been programmed to identify. The folder remained hidden on the pen drives until those were put in the machines connected to the web. That’s when the bug silently sent the collected files to the specific IP addresses in China.

Thus far, it is unclear how much was stolen in the hacking raid. The experts also can’t say whether the malware in question operated like Stuxnet and needed to be installed within the system by a spook first. Meanwhile, India has already arrested six officers for procedural lapses that caused the breach. The authorities do not reveal whether any of the officers can later face spying charges.

The interesting part of the story is that the national navy stores sensitive information only in standalone machines that are never connected to the Internet. Moreover, these computers also can’t have any ports or access points to use flash drives or external storage devices. How the malware got into machines should be a mystery for the Indians…

Within its fight with digital piracy, the content industry has learned much about their enemy, and therefore decided to adopt a different approach to deal with copyright violation.

The CCI (Center for Copyright Information) is the result of the cooperation between the MPAA, the RIAA and 5 of the most established ISPs in the United States – AT&T, Verizon, Cablevision, Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The goal of CCI is to build a system able to handle digital copyright violation. The suggested system will work according to the common scheme: once the rights owner pin-points a pirate, they will send the pirate’s broadband provider a notice saying that the IP address is involved into illegal activity. The ISP will then send the pirate an e-mail, warning him or her about the alleged copyright violation and directing towards legal alternatives of procuring films or music.
The CCI says it’s a kind of a new model of collaboration with the film and music companies to identify allegedly infringed files and send those notices on the broadband providers. If the suggested system, dubbed “six-strikes”, works right, it won’t be seen as punitive but as helpful.

When the user receives 2 strikes, they will get a warning e-mail. After the next two strikes, the user will have to confirm the receipt of the notice. Finally, the mitigation measures will kick start only after the 5th strike, which means that the broadband provider is able to tamper with the download and upload speeds for a few days, while also forcing the infringer to watch educational videos or make them call their office to explain what happens.
In case you received copyright violation notices while realizing that you never downloaded anything copyrighted, you will have to pay $35 to an independent board which will take interest into your claims, but this fee will be refunded if you win.
Instead of simply rapping people on the hands, the content industry wants to try and give them information they need to get to content in legal, accessible, and cost-effective way.
According to official statistics, inline piracy is on the fall in the United States, decreasing from 16% in 2007 to 9% in 2010. Nevertheless, it’s still unclear whether this is due to industry’s efforts or thanks to the legitimate alternatives like iTunes, Rhapsody or Spotify.

London Olympics Face Cyber Attack Threat

Jonathan Evans, MI5 head, has warned about the astonishing level of threat posed by hacker attacks on business and government infrastructure in the United Kingdom. During his speech, he emphasized the increase in hacking activity which was carried out on an “industrial scale”, and usually committed by nation states.

It was pointed out that hybrid private-public partnerships have been sniffing out important intellectual property and leaking commercial secrets. In fact, every single Fortune 500 company was suspected to be under threat. Jonathan Evans explained that the threat is now reaching greater prominence, as a number of high-profile attacks increases, with both businesses and authorities being attacked aggressively.

Meanwhile, Evans points out that it’s not just about the government secrets, but also about the safety and security of the country’s infrastructure. For instance, one of the major London listed companies was fleeced for £800 million in result of a state-sponsored hacker attack. This intrusion caused intellectual property loss and a commercial disadvantage, with leaking the company’s corporate secrets, and the experts predict that they won’t be the only corporate victim of these problems.

Indeed, as the world moves into the connected web of things, it automatically increases opportunities for cyber criminals, which could lead to the risk of real world damage, not only information loss. Ahead of the London Olympic Games, the fears are that even if terrorists don’t succeed in hacker attacks, they are undoubtedly aware of the potential to do so.

Security experts at Sophos confirm that the signs of increased hacker threats are evident for a while now. This is a real threat, no matter if it’s financially motivated cyber crime or Anonymous groups, or a real state-sponsored cyber crime. Of course, the authorities should be on high alert for such attacks at the costly Olympics.

Meanwhile, political hacktivists are now regarded as the biggest threat which causes havoc at the event, so there should be protective measures in place if the United Kingdom wants to avoid a disaster. The experts say that more needs to be done in order to mitigate the threat of such actions, otherwise the country will surely see not just the private sector, but also government and military outfits put at risk, which would cause devastating impact on the British companies.

হিগস-বোসন কণা মিললো আমেরিকায়!

লার্জ হেড্রন কোলাইডার নয় বরং হিগস-বোসন পার্টিকালের অস্তিত্ত্বের জোড়ালো প্রমাণ আবিষ্কারের দাবি করলেন মার্কিন যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের ডিপার্টমেন্ট অফ এনার্জির ফার্মিল্যাব-এর বিজ্ঞানীরা। শিকাগোতে ফার্মিল্যাবের টেভাট্রন অ্যাটম স্ম্যাশার থেকে পাওয়া তথ্যের মধ্যেই লুকিয়ে আছে গড পার্টিকল বা হিগস-বোসন পার্টিকলের অস্তিত্ত্বের প্রমাণ বলে জানিয়েছেন পদার্থবিজ্ঞানীরা। খবর এবিসি নিউজের।

২০১১ সালে টেভাট্রন অ্যাটম স্ম্যাশারটি বন্ধ করে দেয়ার পর অ্যাটম স্ম্যাশারটি থেকে পাওয়া আগের তথ্য নিয়েই গবেষণায় ব্যস্ত ছিলেন ফার্মিল্যাবের পদার্থবিজ্ঞানীরা। সেই তথ্যের মধ্যেই হিগস-বোসন পার্টিকলের অস্তিত্তে¡র প্রমাণ খুঁজে পেয়েছেন বলে দাবি করছেন গবেষকরা।

নিজেদের আবিষ্কারের পাশাপাশি লার্জ হেড্রন কোলাইডার থেকে সার্ন বিজ্ঞানীদের তথ্যও হিগস বোসন পার্টিকালের অস্তিত্ব প্রমাণ করবে, এমনটাই বিশ্বাস ফার্মিল্যাব বিজ্ঞানীদের।

এ ব্যাপারে ফার্মিল্যাব ফিজিসিস্ট রব রোসার বলেন, ‘হিগস বোসন পার্টিকলের অস্তিত্ত্ব যদি সত্যি হয়, তবে একাধিক পন্থায় এটি আত্মপ্রকাশ করবে। তাই আমরা এই মৌল কণাটি খুঁজে পেয়েছি বলার আগে এটির চারিত্রিক বৈশিষ্টগুলো নিশ্চিত হওয়া খুবই জরুরি।

হিগস-বোসন পার্টিকলকে বিজ্ঞানীরা বলেন গড পার্টিকল। পুরো মহাবিশ্ব সৃষ্টির রহস্য এই মৌল কণাটির মধ্যে লুকিয়ে আছে বলে মনে করেন পদার্থবিজ্ঞানীরা। এখন পর্যন্ত মৌল কণাটির অস্তিত্ত্বের কোনো নির্ভরযোগ্য প্রমাণ দিতে না পারলেও পদার্থবিজ্ঞানীরা এই গড পার্টিকলের খোঁজে অক্লান্ত পরিশ্রম করছেন।

সাইবার আক্রমণ ঠেকাতে তৈরি অলিম্পিক ২০১২

সাইবার অ্যাটাক থেকে নিজেদের রক্ষা করতে রীতিমতো যুদ্ধের প্রস্তুতি নিয়েছে লন্ডন অলিম্পিক গেইমস ২০১২ কর্তৃপক্ষ। গত সপ্তাহে ২ লাখ ঘণ্টারও বেশি সময় ধরে পুরো অলিম্পিক গেইমসের ইন্টারনেট সিকিউরিটি ব্যবস্থা পরীক্ষা করে দেখেছে গেইমসের সাইবার সিকিউরিটির দায়িত্বে থাকা টেকনোলজি কোম্পানি অ্যাটোস। খবর ইয়াহু নিউজ-এর।

২০০২ সাল থেকে অলিম্পিক গেইমসের ইন্টারনেট সিকিউরিটির দায়িত্বে আছে অ্যাটোস। পুরো ইংল্যান্ডের ১১,৫০০-এরও বেশি কম্পিউটারের নিরাপত্তা রক্ষার দায়িত্বে আছে টেকনোলজি কোম্পানিটি। লন্ডন অলিম্পিক ২০১২-এর সাইবার নিরাপত্তা ব্যবস্থা নিশ্চিত করতে যেনো যুদ্ধের প্রস্তুতি নিয়েছে তারা। সম্ভাব্য সাইবার আক্রমণ কিভাবে হতে পারে এবং তা ঠেকাতে কি পদক্ষেপ নেয়া প্রয়োজন তা নিশ্চিত করতে, হ্যাকারদেরও অলিম্পিক গেইমসের ইন্টারনেট সিকিউরিটি সিস্টেম হ্যাক করার আমন্ত্রণ জানিয়েছিলো অ্যাটোস।

নিজেদের ইন্টারনেট ব্যবস্থা পরীক্ষা করে দেখার জন্য হ্যাকারদের আমন্ত্রণ জানানোর কথা নিশ্চিত করেন অ্যাটোসের চিফ ইন্টিগ্রেটর মিশেল হায়রন। তিনি বলেন, ‘আমাদের কর্মীরা ছাড়াও আমাদের সঙ্গে কাজ করছেন সৎ এবং নীতিবান কিছু হ্যাকার। তাদের মূল কাজ হচ্ছে, সিস্টেমটির কোনো ক্ষতি না করে এটির ক্ষমতা পরীক্ষা করে দেখা।’

এর আগে বেইজিং অলিম্পিকে প্রতিদিন ১ কোটি ২০ লাখ সাইবার অ্যাটাকের শিকার হতে হয়েছিলো অলিম্পিক কর্তৃপক্ষকে। লন্ডন অলিম্পক ২০১২-তে প্রতিদিন ১ কোটি ২০ লাখ থেকে ১ কোটি ৪০ লাখ সাইবার অ্যাটাক হবে ধরে প্রস্তুতি নিচ্ছে অ্যাটোস এবং অলিম্পিক কর্তৃপক্ষ।

১৬ হাজার প্রসেসর দিয়ে কৃত্রিম মস্তিস্ক বানালো গুগল

১৬ হাজার প্রসেসর ব্যবহার করে গুগল এক্স এর ‘ব্লু স্কাই মিডিয়া’ ল্যাবে আর্টিফিশিয়াল ব্রেইন তৈরি করলেন জেফ ডিন-এর নেতৃত্বে একদল বিজ্ঞানী। ইউটিউবের ১ কোটি ভিডিও থেকে এলোমেলোভাবে সংগ্রহ বিভিন্ন ফটো আর্টিফিশিয়াল ব্রেইনটিতে লোড করেন সেটাকে নিজে নিজেই শিখতে শুরু করার জন্য। খবর টেকট্রির।

মজার ব্যপার হচ্ছে বিজ্ঞানীদের তৈরি মেশিনটির বেশি মনযোগ বিড়ালের প্রতি। এ ব্যাপারে ডিন বলেন, ‘আমরা মেশিনটির প্রশিক্ষণের সময় কখনোই বিড়াল চিনিয়ে দেইনি। মেশিনটি নিজেই বিড়ালকে চিনে নিয়েছে।

বিজ্ঞানীদের দলটি তাদের রিপোর্টে বলেন, ‘আমাদের এই পরীক্ষামূলক প্রজেক্টের ফলাফলে আমরা ধারণা করছি, মেশিনটির ডেটাবেজের ছবিগুলোতে কোনোকিছুকে চিহ্নিত করে দেয়া না থাকলেও এটি নিজে থেকে তা চিহ্নিত করতে পারবে। নেটওয়ার্কটিকে এমনভাবে প্রশিক্ষণ দেয়া হয়েছে যে, এটি প্রায় শতকরা প্রায় ১৫ দশমিক ৮ ভাগ নির্ভূলভাবে ২০ হাজার বস্তু আলাদাভাবে চিনতে পারে।