University goes on offensive against RIAAAdvises students to stay anonymousBy Nick Farrell: Monday 16 April 2007, 15:11Click here to find out more!NC STATE University is helping its students fight off attacks from the RIAA. The RIAA filed John Doe lawsuits against 23 students who have been identified by their IP addresses.Pam Gerace, the director of Student Legal Services at the University, is fighting the lawsuits for her student clients.Currently she is warning students to remain anonymous because the RIAA has said that it will make sure that their job records are blighted.Since this is so out of proportion to any copyright protection problems, it was dangerous for students to put their hands up and admit anything. She told the Technician Online that this could prove dangerous for the students, as the RIAA could pursue other legal actions or give the names to record companies.She said the RIAA implies that cash must be handed over right away, when this is not true.The outfit has also been changing the number of songs it thinks have been nicked and how much students should pay, which makes it sound like they are making it up as they go along, Gerace said.
Congress protects employers' right to spyDefends rights to DRM tooBy Nick Farrell: Thursday 26 April 2007, 07:08Click here to find out more!THE US CONGRESS has tinkered with a laudable bill about spyware to allow record and software companies to snoop on you with DRM. Employers will be given the legal right to spy on employees.A subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce approved HR 964, the Spy Act, which bans some of the more blatant forms of spyware such as those that hijack computer or log keystrokes.According to Infoworld, while this all seems fair enough the law takes over from other laws which are more aggressive. HR 964 gives so many exceptions for the spyware makers to wriggle out of it is practically useless.Monitoring someone's computer is OK if you are fixing it, monitoring it for security purposes or for the prevention of fraud. Employers will be allowed to sniff employees accounts and read their emails for security purposes. DRM will be permitted to determine whether the user of the computer is authorised to use the software. The company does not have to tell you that is what it is doing either.The bill also prevents ordinary people from taking legal action against spyware makers. If you're victimised by a spyware-like deception and want to sue the perpetrator, you've got to talk the FTC or your state attorney general into taking up your case.
RIAA stamps hard on independent radio stationsInternet radio has nowhere to turnBy Nick Farrell: Monday 30 April 2007, 07:29WHILE INTERNET RADIO starts to go to the wall over copyright, an idea that the stations should play music from non-RIAA members has been kyboshed.The RIAA's collection body Sound Exchange has decided that it has the right to collect money from radio stations even if the artist ia not an RIAA member.According to www.dailykos.com, the RIAA has secured the right to collect royalties on all songs regardless of who controls the copyright. Artists who want the cash Sound Exchange collects will have to join the RIAA to collect it. The kicker is that they will have to pay the RIAA for collecting the fee even if they wanted to be paid directly by the Internet radio station.You will only get royalties if you are not signed to a major record label.According to the Sound Exchange site, most of the money it is collecting is from indie labels which are not members of the RIAA. That means that they cannot get their artists' money. Meanwhile the RIAA sits on the cash.
RIAA dumps another caseWitness on the shelfBy Nick Farrell: Friday 04 May 2007, 07:19Click here to find out more!WHILE THE RIAA is telling world plus dog about how its technology is providing accurate information about who are P2P pirates, it seems to be having a hard time proving it to a court.This week the RIAA dropped another case, presumably before it had the PR nightmare of having another defendant acquitted.Lee Thao was sued in the Eastern District of Wisconsin by BMG Music and other record labels for allegedly sharing files over the Kazaa network.The RIAA said it was certain that Thao was a pirate because it got the data for the case from his cable modem. It got the details of who owned the cable modem from his ISP.The only problem was that Thao was not a subscriber to the ISP at the time of the alleged file-sharing, and therefore did not have possession of the suspect cable modem.Cable modems are usually supplied new by ISPs. It makes you wonder how the RIAA could have been getting evidence from a cable modem which was in a plastic wrapper on a shelf at the time of the so-called offence.
Judge bothered about Aussie pirate extraditionBad precedentBy Nick Farrell: Monday 07 May 2007, 06:47Click here to find out more!A TOP AUSSIE judge is a little concerned about the recent extradition of a pirate to the United States.According to Associated Press, NSW Chief Judge in Equity, Peter Young is worried that the extradition of Hew Griffiths sets a dangerous precedent.It is not that he is not guilty, even Griffiths admits he was a pirate, it is the fact that he is being tried and sentenced in the US rather than Australia.Griffiths committed his crimes in Oz, and has never been to the US in his life. Yet instead of hauling him before an Australian beak, the US authorities used the extradition process.Justice Young says that while international copyright violations were a great problem, a person should not be removed from their homeland to a foreign country merely because the commercial interests of that foreign country are claimed to have been affected by the person's behaviour in Australia.It is a method that the US could use to impose its legal system over another country, he said.Technically, Griffith's extradition was legal under the Australian law and it was really up to the Australian government to use its powers to force the US to mount a case within its own homeland.Justice Young described as "bizarre" the fact that "people were being extradited to the US to face criminal charges when they have never been to the US and the alleged act occurred wholly outside the US".It means that any Australian who has pirated software worth more than $US1000 could be subject to the same extradition process as Griffiths was.Justice Young said that the Commonwealth Parliament must do more to protect Australians from this procedure.
US Internet snooping allowed from todayWiretapping the netBy Nick Booth: Monday 14 May 2007, 07:32Click here to find out more!TODAY IS the last day for US cable modem companies, DSL providers, broadband over powerline, satellite internet companies and some universities to connect the FBI friendly snooping gear demanded by law.The FCC's expanded interpretation of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act which was passed in 1994 to help FBI eavesdroppers deal with digital telecom technology requires everyone to make their networks easier to wiretap.According to Wired, in the mobile phone business, where CALEA has 100 per cent penetration, it has been credited with boosting the number of court-approved wiretaps a carrier can handle.The Justice Department began lobbying the FCC in 2002 to reinterpret the law as applying to the internet as well and last June a divided federal appeals court upheld the expansion 2-1.Apparently coppers will still have to get a court order to spy on you, but as Wired points out, if it is made easier then Cops are more likely to use spying rather than policing to get a conviction.
Pirating Microsoft Windows will get you a life sentenceKiller application. No taxation without representationBy Nick Farrell: Wednesday 16 May 2007, 07:24THE LAND of the Free is considering bringing in a new thought crime which is thinking about software or music piracy.Details of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007, will criminalise "attempting" to infringe copyright.It means that you can go to prison for one to 10 years for trying to copy a music CD and failing. In another move you could get life in prison for using a pirated copy of Windows on your home PC.It will be possible for the FBI to get a wire tap to see if you are using pirated software. Anyone who uses counterfeit products who "recklessly causes or attempts to cause death" can be sent down for life. The Justice Department says an example of this will be a hospital which uses pirated software instead of paying for it.Homeland Security will be allowed to use its terrorist search powers on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It would notify the RIAA when its sniffers detected "unauthorised fixations of the sounds, or sounds and images, of a live musical performance" are found.Other copyright holders will not get the benefit of this service. According to News.com, it is unclear how these new laws will be received by the Democrats. While you would think the fact that Gonzales is as popular amongst them as the Boston Strangler, they have a lot of chums in the entertainment industry who think that pirates should be sent to the gas chamber.Nice to know that the world's richest country has such a great sense of perspective.
Microsoft develops 'big brother' softwareWe know who you areBy Nick Farrell: Wednesday 23 May 2007, 08:36Click here to find out more!BACKROOM BOFFINS at Microsoft have had a breakthrough in developing software which can accurately guess your name, age, gender and potentially even your location, by analysing patterns in your web browsing history.The big idea is to prevent people from protecting their online identity by telling porkies about their personal details.According to New Scientist, Volish software engineer Jian Hu from Microsoft's research lab in Beijing said that there are strong correlations between the sites that people visit and their personal characteristics. For example, 74 per cent of women seek health and medical information online, while only 58 per cent of men do. And 34 per cent of women surf the internet for information about religion, whereas 25 per cent of men do the same.Another Volish boffin said that Hua-Jun Zeng said software could get its raw information from a new type of "cookie" program that records the pages visited or even your own cache of web pages. So far the software can only guess gender and age with any accuracy, the next stage is to predict your occupation, level of qualifications, and perhaps your location.
'Terror suspect' records life in pictures for FBISaving Big Brother the botherBy Nick Farrell: Thursday 24 May 2007, 08:45A MAN WHO was arrested by the FBI which believed that he was a terrorist is photographing every aspect of his life and posting it on his website.Hasan Elahi has taken 20,000 images over the last three years recording his whereabouts and the people he met.The 35 year-old artist and Rutgers professor also posts copies of every debit card transaction, so you can see what he bought, where, and when. A GPS device in his pocket reports his real-time physical location on a map. According to Wired, the Bangladeshi-born American says the US government mistakenly listed him on its terrorist watch list. Once you're on, it's hard to get off and every time he flies anywhere he has to tell the FBI first.In a bid to convince the Feds of his innocence, Elahi has made his life an open book. What is amusing is that the American government is so paranoid that they really have been visiting his site to check up on him. His server logs show hits from the Pentagon, the Secretary of Defense, and the Executive Office of the President.Elahi says that the advantage of self monitoring is that if you let the government do it they get things wrong. You can monitor yourself much more accurately.He works on the basis that if you flood Big Brother with information it will choke and die. µ
US Internet tax debatedAnd so it goesBy Nick Farrell: Friday 25 May 2007, 08:34Click here to find out more!A MORATORIUM restricting state governments from taxing Internet access is set to expire and the US House of Representatives have started debating whether the ban should be made permanent or allowed to lapse.Making the ban permanent has the backing of a large number of ruling democrats who see it like taxing someone for using a library.But State and local government lobby groups are against a ban saying it could deprive states indefinitely of vital revenue sources.They argue that the original purpose of boosting the Internet economy has been accomplished. News.com seems to think that instead of making the ban permanent, politicians will opt for another temporary ban.
Contact Information For 50 Politicians Who Take Campaign Money From The RIAA 56,818 Viewsrippedwashington.jpgWhen you voted the RIAA the worst company in America you gave us an assignment. But how can we improve the customer service of a recording industry trade group? It's not an easy task. Couldn't you have voted for Home Depot? U-Haul? Anyway...One of the ways the RIAA operates is by donating money to politicians who then enact favorable legislation on their behalf. Don't let the optimist in you believe that this doesn't work. It does.But wait, aren't these representatives supposed to work for you? Sure. That's why we've compiled a list of 50 congresspeople who took campaign contributions from the RIAA in the last election cycle. We've linked their contact information so that you, as their constituents, can inform them that they're taking money from the "Worst Company in America," and that's going to cost them your vote.If your congressperson isn't on the list, try writing Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, both of whom are running for President and have national interest.Don't be afraid to tell your representatives how you feel. How else are they going to know? Good luck.
FBI rapped for reading emailsSnoops snoop too farBy Nick Farrell: Tuesday 19 June 2007, 10:10THE FBI overstepped US constitutional bounds by searching stored e-mails without a warrant, a federal appeals court has ruled.A three-judge panel of the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals found that e-mail users should be allowed a reasonable expectation of privacy.Surveillance of e-mails when they are being transmitted is restricted under wiretapping laws, but the government believed that emails stored on an ISP server could be snatched without a warrant.Not so, said the robed but not wigged ones. The three judges said that e-mail was an ever-increasing mode of private communication. Protecting shared communications through this medium is as important to Fourth Amendment principles today as protecting telephone conversations has been in past, the court ruled.
Judge halts RIAA 'illegal' activity Campus campaign stalls in New MexicoBy Nick Farrell: Thursday 21 June 2007, 09:18 THE RIAA'S CAMPAIGN against students in New Mexico has been stalled after a federal judge forbade the anti-piracy body from getting private data from university networks. The RIAA had put up a case against 16 people it claimed were file sharing. It wanted to use the court's powers to get the university to provide the names and addresses of the file sharers so that it could threaten the students' careers if they didn't cough up several hundreds times more than it is alleged they stole. This strategy has stood the RIAA in good stead for ages, but Judge Lorenzo Garcia is not having any of it. Garcia said that the approach is an abuse of the legal process, as the would-be defendant never gets an opportunity to answer during the John Doe lawsuits or fight the RIAA's subpoenas. The RIAA claimed it would suffer irreparable harm unless immediate discovery was allowed. Judge Garcia said that while the Court does not dispute that infringement of a copyright results in harm, it requires a Coleridgian 'suspension of disbelief' to accept that the harm is irreparable. The RIAA claims that monetary damages can cure any alleged violation which probably means it was pretty repairable after all. Meanwhile the getting the university to hand over a student's data to the RIAA definitely would be harmful to them. Mostly because the RIAA is making the threat to damage their future lives with the data, the Judge said. The judge has ordered the record labels and the University of New Mexico to work out an "appropriate process" to ensure that individual knows a subpoena has been issued and allows those targeted will be able to respond to such requests to protect their own interests. Ars Technica points out that, while it will not stop RIAA prosecutions, the ruling, if adopted elsewhere, could cost the recording industry a bomb. The litigation process will become a lot more expensive and time-consuming for the RIAA, as the John Doe lawsuits would no longer be simple open-and-shut cases. µ
FBI wants students to stop travellingFears technology lossBy Nick Farrell: Monday 25 June 2007, 07:50THE FBI IS visiting the nation's top technical universities in a bid to stop students taking their holidays outside the country.MIT, Boston College, and the University of Massachusetts, have all had a visit from the spooks to warn them about the dangers of foreign spies and terrorists stealing sensitive academic research.The FBI wants the universities to impose rules that will stop US university students from working late at the campus, travelling abroad, showing an interest in their colleagues' work, or have friends outside the United States, engaging in independent research, or making extra money without the prior consent of the authorities.The rules are part of guidelines given to administrators by the FBI.The Feds are convinced that if you are doing any of these things you are likely to be a foreign agent who is nicking technology for foreign powers.Following rules which have been abandoned in Eastern Europe, faculty, staff and students are encouraged to spy on their colleagues for signs of suspicious behaviour and report any concerns to the FBI or the military.There is no indication yet that the universities will follow this advice.
Torrentspy caves, begins content filteringCopyrights, copywrongsBy Wily Ferret: Tuesday 26 June 2007, 08:58AS THE legal case brought against it by movie studios toils onwards, Torrentspy has finally caved to the pressure and started rolling out a content filtering algorithm to reduce the amount of illegal content indexed by the service.Dubbed File Rights, it works by hashing file names and content, rather than trying to recognise video or anything like that. It seems that whilst the move comes too late to affect the adverse judgment against it in the movie studio's court case, this could be a mitigating circumstance when it comes to a judge deciding how to proceed.There's no official news on the Torrentspy site, but Cnet has spoken to the owners and confirmed the filtering installation.Of course, the irony is that Torrentspy doesn't actually host any copyrighted content itself, it merely indexes it - think of it as the Google of Torrents. An adverse legal decision could hh ave some worrying implications for the search engine business at large.A search on the site this morning for copyrighted movies and TV didn't turn up a shortage of content, including Spiderman 3, the latest US episode of Studio 60 and the last season of Scrubs zipped up nicely. Evidently, the boys at the site aren't trying too hard just yet. µ
University promises to be the RIAA's enforcersNo protection from usBy Nick Farrell: Wednesday 27 June 2007, 07:41THE UNIVERSITY of Washington has decided that if the music industry identifies IP addresses of students who are carrying out illegal file sharing it will track them down and serve them the legal papers.According to the News Tribune, the UW will forward notices of pending lawsuits from the Recording Industry Association of America to students who engage in illegal downloading on the university’s computer network.Eric Godfrey, vice provost for student life at the UW Seattle campus, said that while the university will not pass the students’ names to the RIAA, but it will use its server to identify them and inform them of their settlement options before they get stuck with a lawsuit.He said it was not a matter of the university cooperating with the recording industry. It concluded that to not pass these along to our students would be unacceptable and more costly to them.However student president Tyler Dockins said the vagueness of the University's position was disturbing and there was no indication if the situation was retroactive or not.
accused of using illegal investigatorsHurricane Rita survivor's claimBy Nick Farrell: Wednesday 04 July 2007, 07:13HURRICANE RITA survivor and gran Rhonda Crain is taking the RIAA to court for using illegal unlicensed investigators.Crain, who claims she is not a P2P user, was told that she needed to pay the RIAA huge amounts of cash because they said she was file sharing and it must be true.She claimed that the RIAA use unlicensed Media Sentry investigators to handle her case. When she threatened to counter-sue the outfit for extortion the RIAA they even tracked down and called her new landlord in a bid to dig up some personal dirt on her for the court case.Crain, lives in Beaumont, Texas, and was one of those who had to flee New Orleans during Hurricane Rita. She is demanding a trial by jury.
