Why DRM Sucks: Ubisoft goes downYup, this is what happens to DRM servers: they go down and you can’t play your game, listen to your music, or really do anything with the product you bought.
Ubisoft’s game servers have been down for longer than 10 hours, well done!
The Escapist : News : Ubisoft DRM Authentication Servers Go Down.
DMCA Amendment Proposed For UKShowing that the LibDems in the UK are now the lapdogs of major industry, they have proposed an amendment allowing copyright owners to force ISPs to take content offline without any proof that the copyright belongs to them.
“During today's debate in the UK's House of Lords on the much-criticized Digital Economy Bill the unpopular Clause 17 (that would have allowed the government to alter copyright law much more easily than it currently can) was voted out in favor of a DMCA-style take-down system for websites and ISPs. The new amendment known as 120A sets up a system whereby a copyright owner could force an ISP to block certain websites who allegedly host or link to infringing material or face being taken before the High Court and made to pay the copyright owner's legal fees. This amendment was tabled by the Liberal Democrat party who had so far been seen as the defenders of the internet and with the Conservative party supporting them. The UK's Pirate Party and Open Rights Group have both strongly criticized this new amendment.”
via Slashdot Your Rights Online Story | DMCA Amendment Proposed For UK.
Texas DSHS secretly collects babies blood for DNAAnd then puts them into a database accessible by… who? and why? This started in 2002 and has been going on without your knowledge ever since…
Newborns’ blood used to build secret DNA database – Short Sharp Science – New Scientist.
Music organisations only protect their own pocketsThe RIAA, the PRS, BUMA/STEMRA – all organisations claiming to exist for the benefit of musicians (who never see the money collected) are now showing – yet again – how self serving they are: The STEMRA decided they wanted to grant a pan-European musical license to beatport.com, so they wouldn’t have to go through each individual country. The PRS (British RIAA) went ballistic and sued STEMRA. Higher courts have denied the STEMRA. So instead of being able to easily pay for the rights of the artists so that they could be heard all over Europe on the web, the PRS has shot its’ artists in the foot and told them NO WAY do they want people to listen to them all over Europe… Unless, of course, the PRS gets some of the action. Instead of the artists, through another organisation.
Does that sound like mafia to you?
Emerce – Business nieuws: Voorlopig geen Pan-Europese muzieklicentie.
Don’t work for an internet company in ItalyThe Italians will sue your sorry arse for things you never did, didn’t know of and tried to fix as soon as you did know of them!
In late 2006, students at a school in Turin, Italy filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police. We also worked with the local police to help identify the person responsible for uploading it and she was subsequently sentenced to 10 months community service by a court in Turin, as were several other classmates who were also involved. In these rare but unpleasant cases, that's where our involvement would normally end.
But in this instance, a public prosecutor in Milan decided to indict four Google employees —David Drummond, Arvind Desikan, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes who left the company in 2008. The charges brought against them were criminal defamation and a failure to comply with the Italian privacy code. To be clear, none of the four Googlers charged had anything to do with this video. They did not appear in it, film it, upload it or review it. None of them know the people involved or were even aware of the video's existence until after it was removed.
via Official Google Blog: Serious threat to the web in Italy.
Climategate admitted – sort ofProfessor Jones [NB the guy who sent all the wierd emails that were uncovered revealing that data was spurious and that he'd hammer into the ground all global warming sceptic scientists] also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.
Defects in e-passports allow real-time trackingYet another problem in a string of RFID related problems. Yes, your privacy is at risk.
Defects in e-passports allow real-time tracking • The Register.
the Failure of Full-Body ScannersWell, they have tested the full body scanner on TV and the guy carrying bomb parts wasn’t stopped. And it’s not like he tried really hard to hide them either – they weren’t particularly small bomb parts and the only cavity he used was his mouth.
Basically they’re just a huge invasion of privacy, an excuse to see you naked. They don’t work.
Schneier on Security: German TV on the Failure of Full-Body Scanners.
Full body scanners – worse than you thinkIt turns out that not only can they store and send the images they make, if you invert the colours of the scan in photoshop, you get a proper colour image of the body scanned.
US airport body scanners can store and export images • The Register.
Google Plans to Alter Street View RealityThey have applied for a patent to change billboards in Street View to whatever Google advertisers want, instead of the real content of the billboard.
Oh dear – More Climategate!Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.
The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.
The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.
On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.
UK – defend your home, get put in jailIf your family is kidnapped and tied up in your own home and you manage to escape, would you beat the living shit out of the guy who did it?
This guy did and he’s just been sentenced to 30 months jail time, whilst the kidnapper gets off completely free!
The UK is going to pot quickly, but these kind of rulings are ridiculous, even by their standards.
Why sex offender lists are a bad ideaNot only do they indicate that as a government you think the punitive system you have in place (prison) doesn’t work as a reformation aid, it also says the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Worst of all, there are allways borderline cases, such as this one, where a 17 year old got put on the registry for having admitted consensual sex with his 15 year old girlfriend due to a spiteful mother. Now even the mother doesn’t agree with the amount of hassle and persecution this guy has to put up with due to the stigma of being on this list.
Young Pittsfield Township man struggles with sex offender label – AnnArbor.com.
Israel’s biometric database – haven’t they learned anything?You’d have thought that Isreal of all countries would have learned of the problems involved in having too much useless information in a centralised database from the Dutch in WWII – which had ethnic information such as: “are you jewish?” in there, enabling the Germans to export the most jews per capita from the Netherlands. But no – they want a compulsory database of every citizen in Israel containing two fingerprints and a picture. Idiots.
Woman arrested for piracy – 3 minutes of tapeAfter taping a birthday party, a woman managed to get 3 whole minutes of Twiligh New Moon footage on her tape, was arrested and is now facing up to 3 years of jail time!
Copyright cops going nuts…
Sprint Makes Goverment Tracking of GPS Data EasyIf you have a cellphone, it turns out that Sprint keeps 24 months of your location data and turns it over to law enforcement regularly. 8 million requests were made over the last year. Requests can be made every 3 minutes for up to 60 days.
Sprint isn’t the only one who tracks this data: Yahoo and Verizon are also culprits but they’re not disclosing the amount of times they’ve given away this kind of data to the government.
Yup, they know where you are and where you’ve been. It’s a brave new world indeed!
Sprint Makes Goverment Tracking of GPS Data Easy – PC World.
US gets EU Swift dataAll your banking details will be given to the Americans, who can then also pass it on to third parties as they so wish. The EU will not be able to sift through US banking data. Why the EU gave away our private data is a totaly mystery. Privacy rights? Whatever.
EU to approve more banking data for US spooks • The Register.
Dutch KM system doesn’t invade privacy?!The Dutch have a crazy plan to charge people per km they drive. How will they monitor this? By placing little black GPS boxes in every car. If you don’t have a working box in your car, you will face up to four (!) years in jail – more than most other forms of crime.
Now the economics minister is saying that the ideas of an invasion of privacy are indian stories and nonsense. I ask, how much more can you invade someone’s privacy than following someone’s car everywhere (s)he goes and putting all that information in a huge database?!
EZ: privacybezwaar km-heffing is indianenverhaal (video) | Webwereld.
UK Internet Law governed by media industryBasically it’s all about the movie and music industry being able to kick you off the net and subject you to huge fines without any proof – just an accusation of filesharing is enough. It’s also about giving the business secretary the power to make up penalties and enforcements at whim.
It’s not about stimulating creativity, new business, ensuring that everyone has broadband, etc.
Looks like labour has it’s pockets filled with copyright holders hands!
Oops – global warming researchers hackedAnd allthough the authenticity of the 1079 emails and 72 documents hasn’t been verified, it shows that the researchers have manipulated the data to fit their models, can’t explain the lack of global warming and have plans set up to destroy the credibility of any scientist doubting their stance.
Michelle Malkin » The global warming scandal of the century.
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Gazprom CEO’s palace removed from Google MapsThe head of Gazprom is building a most luxurious palace in the style of the XVIII century worth $ 50 million
Design documentation for anticipated future residence of the head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, who looks like a huge palace in the style of the XVIII century.
Impressive, very similar to the mansion in Peterhof, suddenly brought up on the shore of the Istra reservoir palace initially caused a lot of noise in the blogs.
But officially the head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, who recorded in the real owners of the palace, that he has the attitude toward him, not admitted.
“Our company has no relation to the” Istra Manor “- the spokesman said Gazprom” Sergei Kupriyanov. But at the same time, membership
mansion Miller refused to comment, that is neither confirmed nor denied.
English fail via Google Translate, but you get the idea. Check out the Google Maps images at the bottom of the fishki link.
Booming business, steal and sell to governmentsAn interesting article – if you have bank customer information, which you’ve stolen from a bank, governments will pay you for that information.
If you’re a spy you’d be shot for it. It’s not right that the Dutch government is using tax payers money on criminally attained information to find people who have foreign cash assets. In a court of law, evidence obtained this way is also not allowed and for good reason.
Booming business, steal and sell to governments « Frederik Van Lierde.
Dutch Gov’t Has No Idea How To Delete Tapped Calls“The law in the Netherlands says that intercepted phone calls between attorneys and their clients must be destroyed. But the Dutch government has been keeping under wraps for years that no one has the foggiest clue how to delete them Google translation. Now, an email PDF from the National Police Services Agency KLPD has surfaced, revealing that the working of the technology in question is a NetApp trade secret. The Dutch police are now trying to get their Israeli supplier Verint to tell them how to delete tapped calls and comply with the law. Meanwhile, attorneys in the Netherlands remain afraid to use their phones.
via Slashdot Your Rights Online Story | Dutch Gov’t Has No Idea How To Delete Tapped Calls.
Cops DNA boy for throwing tiny ketchup pot at McDonald’sSo, son, you defended your woman by throwing some ketchup? That’s you on file – fingerprinted and DNA’d at the copshop. I’m sure it’s making the UK safer, this kind of discipline.
Cops DNA boy for throwing tiny ketchup pot at McDonald’s | The Sun |News.
Buma/Stemra blockerThe Dutch RIAA: Buma / Stemra has decided it wants all users that link in a Youtube video into their page, to pat EUR. 150,- for up to 6 videos or songs. Fucking arseholes.
So – people are putting out plugins to block Buma / Stemra IPs.
