I was invited because I appear on Digital Planet each week to think out loud about the impact of technology on our lives, but this was an internal BBC meeting rather than an open seminar, and the discussion was never intended to be made public.

That didn’t stop one of the other attendees, technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones, from recording a segment of the introductory remarks that Ben Hammersley, the associate editor of Wired UK, made and posting it online via AudioBoo. And it didn’t stop several of us tweeting about our presence, or me posting a photo of the Rory at his end of the table on yfrog.

None of us revealed the substance of the debate, and the online activity was in some ways just a good way of making the point that the world has changed, but we could easily have crossed the line with an ill-considered tweet.

It wasn’t the only time that week that I broke the implicit social rules at an event.

On Tuesday I was one of the fortunate few to have acquired a ticket for Boffoonery, a benefit event for Bletchley Park that featured great comics like Robin Ince and Robert Llewellyn performing for a cause that’s dear to my heart.

During the show I was taking photos, updating my Facebook status and twittering away in a manner that would have got me kicked out of the National Theatre but seemed entirely appropriate for an event that began with geek pinup Simon Singh showing us a real enigma machine.

I did it again the very next day when I spoke conference organised by Nominet, the company that runs the .uk domain name registry. During a lively panel session I tweeted about the event, posted a photo of the ‘panel-eye view’ and even used Google to look up the details of the ENUM service that translates a VOIP telephone number into a domain name so I could answer a question.

At the end of our session the chair, broadcaster Sarah Montague, expressed her surprise that we been checking our mobile phones so openly, and Wendy Hall, Michele Neylon and I all loudly protested that we hadn’t been reading emails but engaging in debate with the audience, although I’m not convinced we persuaded her that we weren’t just being impolite.

Thanks to the easy connectivity provided by smartphones and the growing number of people connecting online through social media sites it is now possible to reach out to the audience at an event or people anywhere in the world while talking on a panel, speaking on stage or sitting in an audience.

The shift in the boundaries was in the news this week for much more serious and sombre reasons. On Friday Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, shot dead 13 people and wounded many others at Fort Hood army base in Texas.  Once the military authorities realised what was happening the base was locked down and information was provided through a US Army spokesperson but one of the soldiers caught inside Fort Hood, Tearah Moore, used her cameraphone to tweet and upload photographs throughout the incident.

Tearah Moore has been widely criticised for doing this. Much of what she said was incorrect, as although she was present she did not actually see much of what was happening, and she seems to have posted without any consideration for the feelings or privacy of those affected.

[ ... ]

One of the most trenchant criticisms of this ’social reporting’ came from Paul Carr [who] notes that: ‘For all the sound and fury, citizen journalism once again did nothing but spread misinformation… and breach the privacy of those who had been killed or wounded. We learned not a single new fact, nor was a single life saved.’

The contrast between me tweeting from a conference panel and the tragic events at Fort Hood is of course enormous, but it shows the range of situations now being affected by the new social media. The challenge posed by easy access to online tools and services affects everything.

Paul Carr doesn’t believe we can or should try to stop this or censor what is published, but thinks that ‘we need to get back to a point as a society where – without thinking – we put our humanity before our ego’. It’s a point echoed by Kathryn Corrick, one of the shrewder observers of the social media scene. In a typically eloquent blog post on ‘the ethics of real-time social reporting’ she points out that ‘gossip and news has always travelled quickly. What’s different is the reach and speed now possible and the wider and deeper impact.’

Our social rules seem to have been overloaded by our mobile phones, netbooks and laptops, because behaviours developed for the industrial age simply cannot cope with the new possibilities for information sharing. We are clearly going to see a lot more inappropriate use of social media before new rules emerge.

Bill Thompson – andfinally.com
[Thompson is a UK-based writer and broadcaster. He has a weekly column on the BBC WebWise site, and contributes both on and off-line to The Guardian, The Register and The New Statesman, among others. His "inappropriately-titled 'billblog' "appears weekly on BBC News Online in the technology news section.]

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

November, 2009

Kurt Greenbaum (right) asked that on the St Louis Post-Dispatch web page under the headline ‘What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever eaten? And did you like it?’

No surprise, he got all kinds of interesting responses.

But, “The headline was practically asking for a juvenile response and, thanks to the anonymity of the internet, that’s exactly what happened.,” says ReadWriteWeb, going on:

“In the comments section of the article, one user posted a single word response referring to a part of a woman’s anatomy. Of course, the site’s moderators quickly deleted the comment but it soon reappeared – obviously this juvenile was intent on having their say.”

I know how that goes.

But this time, the site’s ‘director of social media,’ Greenbaum, “did a little sleuthing,” says the story, going on, “and that’s where this story starts to get interesting”.

Greenbaum tracked down the poster’s IP address and told the school, ReadWriteWeb  says, continuing, “In his defense, he probably thought he was simply tattle-telling on a naughty student who would learn a valuable lesson about internet anonymity and would have to sit through a week’s detention or something of the like.”

But this wasn’t a kid. It was a school employee who, as a direct consequence of Greenbaum’s initiative, lost his job.

This kind of thing can’t happen on p2pnet, though. Even if we wanted to rat someone out, which we’d never do under any circumstance, we couldn’t.

We’ve always treasured freedom of speech and for that reason, we’ve never logged IP addresses.

In other words, anonymous comments on p2pnet really are anonymous.

Was Greenbaum doing the right thing? No way.

I see this kind of thing every now and then.

I just delete it.

End of story.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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St Louis Post-Dispatch – What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever eaten? And did you like it, November 13, 2009
ReadWriteWeb – Leaving a Vulgar Comment Online Might Cost You Your Job, November 18, 2009

When you take an industry that has 4 big costs — recording, manufacture, distribution, promotion — and remove 3 of them, that changes everything.

Costs have been removed from the picture, but this only represents a loss in revenue to the publishing corporations — not to artists. Artists can now take advantage of this all being done for free — instead of signing to a label in order pay them their rates that were inflated in the first place.

Both ends were overcharged. The fan was overcharged for a copy, and the artist was overcharged for for the label to produce, promote, distribute, and retail their art.

Now that the extortionate costs have been removed, what will happen when both ends meet directly?

Advertising is completely broken. Recording tech is better and cheaper than it has ever been, fans are more and more willing to talk about and share your music, and far more happy to buy physical product from you than from a third party. Website merch is easy to do, either in short run, big order or even one-offs.

The record industry before the internet was built on the assumption that to have a chance of making it ‘big’, you needed to have deep pockets to risk the kind of gambling collateral needed to have a shot at being in the 0.1% who ended up rich.

The labels funded their gambling by owning the services they were charging you for, by keeping you in debt so they didn’t have to pay you, by keeping product prices artificially high, and by perpetuating myths about what it was that we all wanted and needed, as both artists and consumers.

Everything has changed. If you look at the current possibilities as an incremental change to the industry – that is, if you see the infrastructure as still being the same, and see MP3s as ‘invisible CDs’, you are truly truly screwed. It’s awful. That’s why the industry says ‘the sky is falling’. They aren’t willing to let go of that old infrastructure.

If you see the real changes, throw all the cards in the air, and realise that instead of hundreds of artists making millions of pounds, we can how have millions of artists making hundreds of pounds (and a straight, shallow line on the curve up from there), we’re all in good shape.”

Crosbie says he’s researching and developing revenue mechanisms and business models for producers of digital art and in the process, ‘has discovered copyright is not only an ineffective anachronism, but is unethical and unconstitutional‘.]

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Digital Productions – Making Both Ends Meet, November 16, 2009

It’s decided trackers are passé and that “magnet links”are where’s at.

Magnets, invented by Gordon Mohr, allow websites to link to content on p2p networks, p2pnet posted in 2004, going on:

“If you’ve installed a p2p app that works with Magnets, clicking a link will trigger a download within the application and it’ll start automatically.”

uTorrent and Vuze are examples.

With Magnet links, “The nice thing is you can get super fast downloads from multiple sources of a file and the bandwidth cost to the website operator is zero,” LimeWire’s then CTO Greg Bildson told p2pnet.

“Content creators of all kinds can produce and distribute their creations very affordably. For example, a low budget movie could be distributed this way. A lot of artists that are held back by the economics of expensive web servers and bandwidth can be freed of that and just concentrate on creating great art.”

Says TPB blog »»»

Now that the decentralized system for finding peers is so well developed, TPB has decided that there is no need to run a tracker anymore, so it will remain down! It’s the end of an era, but the era is no longer up2date. We have put a server in a museum already, and now the tracking can be put there as well.

By moving to a more decentralized system of handling tracking (DHT+PEX) and distributions of torrent files (Magnet Links), BitTorrent will become less vulnerable to downtime and outages:

• With decentralized peer acquisition, there is no central tracker that can be down.
• With decentralized fetching of metadata (torrents) we don’t need to rely on a single server that stores and distributes torrent files.

(Before you tech geeks out there start complaining about the info_hash in the magnet links being in HEX (”isn’t it supposed to be in base32?”) – No! According to the BitTorrent specification it should be in HEX but the client may choose to also support the old base32 encoding. If your client doesn’t support the HEX encoding, please upgrade to the latest version of you client! If it still doesn’t work, send an email to the developers of your client and ask them to add support for it.)

This is the future. And the present.

And the past, of course.

For an excellent chapter-and-verse description of P2P magnets, go to FileShare Freaks’s ‘Magnet Links’ which  kicks off »»»

A magnet link is a unique link to a specific file, typically on a P2P file sharing network.

Magnet Links allow users to directly download files into a P2P file sharing application. Through the support of magnet links, users can follow links to find specific files quickly and accurately. In short, getting the file is as easy as following a link – the magnet points to a specific file and launches the P2P program, adding the file to the user’s download list.

Magnet Links are an extension of a greater group of URIs/URNs (not to be confused with ‘URL’) – whereas a URL will point to a specific website; a URI will point to the specific contents, or, location of a file. Read the technical jargon for Magnet Links on Wikipedia.

The main reason for the conception of magnet links is for increased authenticity (and less redundancy) of files being shared via P2P programs. For example, if you conduct a search for something specific in a filesharing program (such as Limewire), you’ll notice “multiple sources” for some of the results. We don’t have to tell you that ‘multiple source’ files offer the best availability, in terms of transfer speeds and chances for a successful ‘working’ download. All of the sources use the same hash link (that points to the exact same file).

Stay tuned.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

p2pnet – Steve Winwood on MagnetMix, June 16, 2004

November, 2009

The demand came  Davenport Lyons, hired by ‘protection’ companies in Europe, and which also fronts for DigiProtect’s in Britain.

Davenport Lyons was fired by Atari after making a gross mistake by targeting a completely innocent UK husband-and-wife.

And British consumer rights lobby Which? filed an official complaint against Davenport Lyons for its, “campaign of letters alleging illegal filesharing,” said The Register.

Now, “German news-outlet gulli.com has received information from inside DigiProtect/Davenport Lyons about so called ‘Cease&Desist’ letters, says WikiLeaks, going on »»»

“The most likely audience will be filesharers, who received a cease & desist letter by Davenport Lyons, ACS:Law, Kanzlei Kornmeier or any other lawyer, who works together with DigiProtect & Davenport Lyons. The leak happened through an unknown source from within DigiProtect / DavenportLyons.

The documents are the basis of the latest stories on gulli.com about Davenport Lyons/DigiProtect.

In this document, you can see correspondence of german lawyer Dr. Udo Kornmeier with Brian Miller from Davenport Lyons. The content of this fax is focused on managing: money. Who gets it, how much, and how is it all handled.

And in German »»»

(de) Das deutsche News-Portal gulli.com hat einige Information aus den Reihen von DigiProtect/Davenport Lyons in Bezug zu P2P-Abmahnungen erhalten. Sie ist am interessantesten fuer Filesharer, die ebenfalls von Davenport Lyons, ACS:Law, der Kanzlei Kornmeier oder jeden anderen Kanzlei, die mit DigiProtect zusammenarbeitet, abgemahnt wurden. Der Leak geschah durch eine unbekannte Quelle innerhalb DigiProtect / DavenportLyons.

Die Dokumente bilden die Grundlage der Artikelserie zu Davenport Lyons/DigiProtect auf gulli.com.

In diesem Dokument sieht man Korrespondenz zwischen dem deutschen Anwalt Dr. Udo Kornmeier sowie Brian Miller von Davenport Lyons. Der Hauptdiskussionspunkt des Faxes ist Geld. Wer bekommt es, wie viel und wie wird alles verrechnet.

Well done, Gulli.

(Cheers, Firebird77)

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fronts for DigiProtect – Davenport Lyons attacks Wikileaks, February 19, 2009
Davenport Lyons – UK attack lawyers Davenport Lyons sued, December 10, 2008
The Register – Regulator to probe Davenport Lyons’ P2P porn cash demands, December 10, 2008
Davenport Lyons, ACS:Law – ACS:Law — copyright breakers, May 29, 2009
WikiLeaks – Davenport Lyons and Kornmeier Monetary and Working Correspondence, 19 Mar 2008, November 14, 2009

“But only if it satisfies the RIAA.”

Many (most?) p2pnet readers were, well, just a little skeptical.

Observed Spike »»»

The OpenNap protocol was never shut down, contrary to what the “revival” states. Some OpenNap/SlavaNap servers still exist, look for them on http://gotnap.com
I still connect to a certain OpenNap server to speak to all my oldtime online friends (known for 10+ years to this day).

This “revival” looks to be some kind of joke, its as if some idiot got access to the original OpenNap sourceforge account somehow.

“Looks like utter bullshit to me, especially the removal of former packages,” said another comment. “Anyway, there are plenty of copies on ftp servers all around the world, and there’s still an updated fork of OpenNap at http://opennap-ng.sourceforge.net/.”

Said Biff »»»

Here they say “Original downloads of the OpenNap protcol have been removed and destroyed to comply with the RIAA legal challenge. No attempt will be made to use the original code.” Yet on the revamped page at opennap.sourceforge.net, they say “We also wish to acknowledge the work of DrScholl. He was the original programmer and developer of the original OpenNap. Without this work we couldn’t proceed on a new version.” Not using the original code?

Be sure to go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/opennap/ and leave a nice, cheesy honest review!

Quartz said he had, “archived copies of opennap software and src’s from 3 years ago when I decided no “’midnight bureaucrat’ was going to steal anything from me in terms of big brother style historical reworkings and disappearing software, continuing »»»

This has more the look of a hijacked page than any real substance to it it , the grammar is poor and as for the protocol if they are changing it then its not opennap its a cheap knock off, I know hundreds of opennap users and they are probably lauging at this lame attempt to hijack the name of the network they use by some group of riaa suck-ups.
For those who don’t understand what open nap is its whats called a centralised network because all the indexing is done by a single users machine and thus such networks have fallen out of favour after a few folks where sued for being the server operator some years ago, its still alive as a semi-underground network and using the slavanap software folk have been able to lock their servers together to create a bigger network, however in legal terms they are a liability as the server operator is directly facilitating infringement and a court can be shown he is able to see who s downloading what and when so if there is some effort to improve that aspect I,m all for it but then be sure we shouldn’t call it opennap and nor should it be centralised in the current fashion.

Responded OpenNap Devel

First I wish to address that we are aware of problems on the page. There are problems yes. Is there going to be a rewrite, yes.

We have not hijacked the domain. We are members of sourceforge and wanted to do something about an application which was not updated in a long time. There are going to be problems along the way.

If there are still systems using it then we want to know about it so that we can post it on our page. We also want to contribute updates for those programs using it. Over the weekend we have made some changes which may appease some of you. While we recognize that we cannot appease everyone, we will do what we can to make sure that everyone knows our real intent.

In the next few weeks we will be releasing updated versions of the OpenNap program. Beginning with version 0.44.1 which we took apart and cleaned it up. We made it more compatible with today’s compilers and made it a bit faster. We have no plans right now to include anything new until we start development on version 0.50. For reference purposes we have 0.44 still on the code and have restored the original link.

There’s also complaints that we didn’t recognize DRScholls work. We did and have such have made it clear that his name must be associated with any updates as well as documentation.

We will also merge it with OpenNap NG. We don’t know if it’s still being updated but if it is we can and will use it. From there we will proceed with the updates.

All of us take this project seriously. This is not a “LAME JOKE” to use this name and have it mean something else. We want to do this and make it work for everyone. If you wish to help out on this project then help out.

And then, on Thursday, “”As of November 26, OpenNap will be shut down,” said OpenNap Devel, adding:

” You win but in a way we all lose. I’ve taken the liberty of removing all technical information from the page as well as the source code. While the code is still circulating out there, the original page housing it will be taken down.

“Sorry you think it was a joke but then again, I guess we have the last laugh afterall.”

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

p2pet – OpenNap P2P file sharing returns …, November 4, 2009

Now the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL.net), and “other international copyright experts” have launched Copyright Watch to “centralize resources on national copyright laws at www.copyright-watch.org“.

It’s the first comprehensive and up-to-date online repository of national copyright laws, says the EFF.

“To find links to national and regional copyright laws, users can choose a continent or search using a country name,” it says adding:

“The site will be updated over time to include proposed amendments to laws, as well as commentary and context from national copyright experts. Copyright Watch will help document how legislators around the world are coping with the challenges of new technology and new business models.”

Funding to create Copyright Watch was provided by the Open Society Institute, it says.

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EFF – International Activists Launch New Website to Gather and Share Copyright Knowledge, November 13, 2009

So that means the RIAA finally got to it.

Right?

It went offline  in November, 2007, thanks to RIAA clone the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America).

But it came back in April last year under new management and now, “There are some rumors about the site shutting down for good and we starting a new tracker next year,” says the site.

The “rumors are of course, lies,” it states, going on »»»

There are no plans of shutting down or creating another site.

And there is NO official twitter/facebook/any other web community page for Demonoid. There are a few around that were created by fans and have no link to the site or staff.

The parts of the site code that got deleted are being rewritten and should be ready soon. We are also working to try and minimise the data loss as much as possible.

Thanks for your patience.

The site will return as soon as possible, but there was a problem that caused data loss and the person who can help us get the data back is not able to help at this moment.

The site will return when we can get his help

“A loss of a some months worth of activity including registered users and torrent submissions is to be expected because the backup we are hoping to get back is not up to date, so please be prepared for it,” it adds.

Stay tuned.

(Cheers, YKW)

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

November, 2009

But, “No, it’s too easy to obtain free content elsewhere on the Web,” says Clay Shirky, an associate new-media professor in the graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University.

The two are pitted  against each other in What Matters, “a new direction for McKinsey Publishing”.

At the conclusion of the debate (read the whole thing) “Journalism Online assumes that publishers’ failure to retain pricing power online is a readily reversible accident,” says Shirky, adding »»»

Were this true, any publication could start charging tomorrow, as JO’s technical solutions aren’t rocket science. Publishers can’t start charging tomorrow, of course, because their problem isn’t technology—it’s new and brutal competition. JO’s real offering isn’t tools, but collusion.

Adding fees online inhibits use while rewarding disloyalty. Deciding to aggravate only your most faithful users, alumni, or expats limits this trade-off but doesn’t change it. It’s no accident that the Big Three fee-for-content services—the FT, the Economist, and the WSJ –  all reach price-insensitive audiences. The sad fact for most publishers is that there is no cartel large enough to make the average reader similarly price insensitive, and no user revenues that can offset competition from ad-supported and nonprofit publishers.

Says Brill »»»

This exchange demonstrates how last year the either/or debate has become. In fact, I agree completely with Clay’s analysis, so this isn’t much of a debate. We’re against the same pay walls he is. What we’re all about is providing our multidial Reader Revenue Platform™ to enable publishers to charge only their most engaged, addicted customers only for that which is, as Clay puts it so well, “necessary and irreplaceable.” As for his point about readers being able to share, he’s right, and we have a plan for that too.

And that  is … ?

“Space constraints don’t allow me to describe it here in detail, but it has a lot to do with our sampling and viral marketing strategies,” he says.

Ahhhh. Viral marketing.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

get for free – Google vs Murdoch, Twitter and Facebook, November 11, 2009

What Matters – The Debate Zone: Will people pay for content online?, November 8that: “Rolando Webern’s on a victim’s is in disposing of, 2009

“Covert surveillance is an intrusive act and if there are other means to resolve a dispute, we believe they should be explored first,” assistant commissioner Elizabeth Denham has told the Canwest News Service.

But lawyer Norman Groot, speaking for the Canadian Association of Private Investigators, says PIs needn’t be “deterred” by her views.

Privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddardt is “fending off a legal challenge” from State Farm Insurance, the largest property and casualty insurer in North America, “questioning her jurisdiction over investigations in the first place,” says Canwest.

The company wants the federal court to rule “personal information collected during these investigations, including copies of covert video surveillance reports and tapes, falls outside the scope of Canada’s private sector privacy law,” says the story, going on »»»

Following an investigation into the covert surveillance practices of a private investigation firm working on behalf of an insurance company, the privacy commissioner determined the complaint was well-founded and recommended the firm depersonalize or remove third parties caught on video without their consent.

In this case, a mother and daughter were videotaped during covert surveillance of the mother’s sister, who had begun legal proceedings against her insurer over her benefits following a car accident.

The privacy commissioner also found that the collection, use or disclosure of personal information about third parties without their consent is only acceptable in certain, specific situations — for example, when the information is relevant to the purpose of the collection of information about the subject of the surveillance.

The privacy commissioner declined to bring an application to Federal Court to enforce the recommendations even though the firm refused to implement the recommendations.

And that, Canwest has Groot saying, is worth remembering.

(Cheers, Chris)

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Canwest News Service – Insurance firms tell privacy commissioner to butt out, November 10, 2009

In April the UK government said a new law would have applied to more than 30,000 sex offenders on the register, says the Guardian, going in failure to comply “would have carried up to five years’ imprisonment”.

However, the Home Office has been “forced to climb down amid concerns that the plan is incompatible with the right to privacy,” says the story, continuing »»»

There are fears that any move by the police to share the personal details and email addresses of registered sex offenders with the social networking sites would be open to legal challenges. The decision to shelve the new law followed a ruling by the Court of Appeal earlier this year.

But the government hasn’t given up.

“We’re seeking leave to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court,” the Guardian has a Home Office spokesman stating.

“Concerns about paedophiles using networking sites to approach children are growing,” says the story, adding:

“In its annual report, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre noted there had been a marked increase in the use of webcams linked to instant messaging technology to incite a child to perform or to witness a sexual act.”

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Big Brother data base – UK Big Brother plan ‘kicked into the long grass’, November 10, 2009
Guardian – Bid to block paedophiles from Facebook fails, November 8, 2009

A reporter for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer wanted to Twitter updates from the corruption trial of local attorney Mark Shelnutt “directly from the courtroom to his newspaper’s ‘Twitter’ website, says the Volokh Conspiracy.

But, “Defendant objects to this request,” says a court document.

Land wrote

The Court finds that the term “broadcasting” in Rule 53 includes sending electronic messages from a courtroom that contemporaneously describe the trial proceedings and are instantaneously available for public viewing. Although “broadcasting” is typically associated with the dissemination of information via television or radio, its plain meaning is broader than that. The definition of “broadcast” includes “casting or scattering in all directions” and “the act of making widely known.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (Unabridged) 280 (1993). It cannot be reasonably disputed that “twittering,” as previously described, would result in casting to the general public and thus making widely known the trial proceedings. Moreover, it appears clear that the drafters of Rule 53 intended to extend the Rule’s reach beyond the transmission of trial proceedings via television and radio.

Explains the court document

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that invites its users to answer the question: “What are you doing?” Twitter’s users can send and read electronic messages known as “tweets.” A tweet is a short text post (up to 140 characters) delivered through Internet or phone-based text systems to the author’s subscribers. Users can send and receive tweets in several ways, including via the Twitter website.

Now you know.

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Volokh Conspiracy – Federal Rules Interpreted as Barring Twitter Coverage of Trial from Inside Courtroom, November 0, 2009

Good one. heh

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

November, 2009

The bioinformatics community has developed a strong tradition of open development, code sharing, and cross-platform support, and a number of language-specific bioinformatics toolkits are now available. These toolkits serve as valuable nucleation points for the community, promoting the sharing of code and establishing de facto standards.

The Microsoft Biology Foundation (MBF) is a language-neutral bioinformatics toolkit built as an extension to the Microsoft .NET Framework. Currently it implements a range of parsers for common bioinformatics file formats; a range of algorithms for manipulating DNA, RNA, and protein sequences; and a set of connectors to biological Web services such as NCBI BLAST. MBF is available under an open source license, and executables, source code, demo applications, and documentation are freely downloadable from the link below.

Gotta love the segue from “strong tradition of open development, code sharing and cross-platform support” to “here, take these patent-encumbered .NET Framework toys to play with”.

The point being, of course, that once you have dutifully installed the .NET framework, with all the patents that Microsoft claims on it, and become locked into it through use and habit, you are part of the Microsoft-controlled ecosystem.

And there you are likely to stay, since Microsoft doesn’t even pretend any of this stuff will be ported to other platforms.

For, under the misleading heading “Cross-platform and interoperability” it says:

MBF works well on the Windows operating system and with a range of Microsoft technologies.

Yeah? And what about non-Microsoft operating systems and technologies?

We plan to work with the developer community to take advantage of the extensibility of MBF and support an increasing range of Microsoft and non-Microsoft tools as the project develops.

Well, that’s a complete irrelevance to being cross-platform: it just says it’ll work with other stuff — big deal.

“If I were a biologist I’d be insulted at this thinly-disguised attempt to implant such patent-encumbered software into the bioinformatics community, which has a long and glorious tradition of supporting free software that is truly free and truly cross-platform, and thus to enclose one of the most flourishing and vibrant software commons,” Moody adds.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Open – Microsoft’s Biological Implants, November 6, 2009

A court ruling states Telenor and other ISPs in Norway, “cannot be held liable for copyright violations that arise from illegal downloads and that a decision to block websites is better taken by the Norwegian authorities,” says The Local, going on »»»

Last year, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) convinced judges in Denmark to force Swedish internet service provider Tele2, to shut access to The Pirate Bay.

But Telenor argued that Norwegian legislation could not be applied in the same way as Danish law.

“You can not sue a ladder manufacturer because someone used one of his ladders to commit a burglary,”  Telenor spokesperson Atle Lessum told Verdens Gang before the hearing, says The Local.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

The Local – Norway court rejects calls to block Pirate Bay, November 7, 2009

Bought by SafeNet for cash and stock worth $20 million in 2005 and then sold to rival MediaDefender at a knock-down, flea-market price of $136,000 in cash and a promise of another $800,000, it reappeared in Canada and Australia.

“I wanted to give you a heads-up that MediaSentry (yes the very same discredited a**holes!) are still up to their old tricks here in Canada  — Ontario at least!” — said a p2pnet reader, who included a copy of a threatening email s/he’d received.

The email also doubled as a promotional item for Apple’s iTunes,which isn’t surprising given Apple’s penchant for using victims of the Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music sue ‘em all campaign in  its advertising material.

“Rogers Cable (Rogers) has received a notice stating that activities associated with your IP address are infringing copyright in material(s) owned or exclusively licensed by others,” it said, quoting a MediaSentry document,  which went »»»

Dear Rogers High-Speed Internet:

On behalf of the rights holder for the content listed below, we are writing this letter to state that we have a good faith belief that the unauthorized sharing (distribution) and downloading of this content has occurred by an individual making use of the IP address below at the date and time referenced at the end of this notice.

The Tales of Beedle The Bard (Document)

We also state, under penalty of perjury, that the information in this notice is accurate and that we are authorized to act on behalf of the rights owner.  Since you own this IP address, we request that you inform the individual who engaged in this conduct of the following:

Unauthorized file sharing is illegal.  However, we truly appreciate your interest in The Tales of Beedle The Bard (Document).  We are making every attempt to provide this wonderful content to you in a host of legitimate ways, one of which is through the following website:

http://www.apple.com/itunes

If you believe you have received this notice in error, please contact us at CLCopyright@mediasentry.com, and kindly include this identification number xxxxxxxxx, also noted above, in the subject line.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Respectfully,

A Kempe
MediaSentry Operations

There’ve been other instances of the company’s presence in Canada, but we haven’t heard anything lately.

However, the same can’t be said of Australia, as p2pnet said yesterday in a post highlighting continuing threats, with ISP TPG Internet  as the chosen method of delivery.

And this is in spite of the fact it apparently has no authority to be operating there.

“ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) is apparently ignoring the fact a foreign corporation, MediaSentry, instructed via email an Australian educational institution to terminate an Australian contract between the user of a service and the service provider,” said Australian economist and p2pnet contributor Tom Koltai in May.

This refers to the fact an Australian student was kicked out of his dormitory after Sony used MediaSentry to complain of alleged copyright infringements.

“We get these bullshit MediaSentry spambot email across a wide variety of jurisdictions — targeted at our VPN customers,” said CultureGhost’s Fausty in a Reader’s Write yesterday, going on »»»

“Over the years, I’ve responded to hundreds of them on behalf of our company. Not once have we received so much as an automated spambot response, much less an actual human response… much less the threatened “legal action.”

However, assuming that MediaSentry is being paid to actually bring lawsuits — or do much of anything beyond churn out the spambot emails – actually misses the actual manner in which they achieve censorship. You see, 99% of ISPs are either too lazy or too badly educated to recognize that the spambot emails are toothless wonders. So, the ISPs themselves — in order to “protect themselves from liability” — demand that their customers “do something” to address the putative “abuse.” If you tell your ISP, or hosting company, that you will “do” nothing based on an illegal spam email they will likely disable your account, cancel your hosting service, or unplug your server.

So, MediaSentry does a great job of illegally conspiring to cause censorship via the lazy/dumb behavior of ISPs around the globe. By “sounding genuine,” these emails scare ISPs – they aren’t intended to actually scare end-users, nor to actually result in legal action.

We’ve documented this process in hundreds and hundreds of these spambot emails, spread over several dozen various ISPs and hosting companies across a broad swath of legal jurisdictions.

It’s worth nothing that, under the CAN-SPAM act in the USA, these kinds of automated, unsolicited emails are absolutely illegal. That’s “illegal” as in criminal – not the putative “illegal” that the media cartels always misrepresent non-commercial filesharing to be. The people who engage in these illegal unsolicited email programs are, by the letter of the law, supposed to be prosecuted by the federal criminal system and sent to federal prison if convicted. There are spammers sitting in federal prison in the USA, right now, who were prosecuted under CAN-SPAM; it’s not a newly-created law.

So, who is this A. Kempe who shows up in Canada and Australia, at the very least?

According to his Linkedin entry, he’s only been at it for eight months under the new regime. But he’s been around MediaSentry for far longer than that.

He’s the »»»

Manager, Technical Account Services at MediaDefender and lives in the “Dayton, Ohio Area”.

Current* Manager, Technical Account Services at Peer Media Technologies

Past

* Manager, Technical Account Services at SafeNet, Inc.
* Manager, Technical Account Services at MediaSentry
* Customer Service Manager at Allegro / Mail.com / EasyLink

Education * Cedarville University

Kempe’s summary of himself »»»

I am reliable, detail-oriented, and motivated, and have 9 years of experience in the IT field.

My experience ranges from customer support, to account management, to software QA, to managing employees.

I have been successful at all of the positions I’ve held in the past 9 years, and have been a valuable contributor to the organizations I’ve been a part of throughout my career.

Meanwhile, in May, “I can categorically state that Media Sentry are NOT authorised to operate within Australia nor to Intercept communications within Australia no matter what they state in the email,” said G.Thompson, a digital forensics consultant, programmer, lecturer, researcher in a Reader’s Write, continung:

” In fact stating they can and making published allegations against a specific user with identifiers attached so that the user is made known to other organisations ie: an Australian ISP, Educational Institution, and Rental Accommodation Manager(s) could result in action on defamatory grounds being taken against them if the publication of the information causes damage (which in this case seems likely that it has).

“And thinking they are immune since they are outside Australian jurisdiction would be a folly on their behalf and I kindly draw their attention to “Dow Jones and Company Inc v Gutnick [2002] HCA 56″ (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2002/56.html).”

Stay tuned.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

fired by the RIAA – MediaSentry and RIAA: government probe?, April 5, 2009
SafeNet – Acquisition Expands SafeNet Digital Rights Management Business into Managed Services and Anti-Piracy for the Entertainment Industry,June 2, 2005
$20 million – SafeNet to buy MediaSentry, June 2, 2009
same discredited a**holes! – MediaSentry phuks up in Canada, July 2, 2009
penchant for using victims – Apple, Pepsi and the RIAA SuperBowl scandal, July 5, 2009
ignoring the fact – MediaSentry in Australia: Part V, May 25, 2009
alleged copyright infringements – MediaSentry, Sony: nailed in Australia, May 4, 2009

November, 2009

But it is — just like some quack medical practitioner or snakeoil salesman who simply moves on somewhere else every time he’s found to be a fake.

Fired by the RIAA, it showed up in Australia where, thanks to its ‘evidence,’ a Brisbane student was thrown out of his dormitory.

And it’s still there, and still being paid to cause trouble.

We’ve seen numerous examples of threats, but we’ve never heard of any actual follow-up legal actions.

Meanwhile, “I received smiliar email from TPG,” said a Reader’s Write yesterday, going on, “this was my reply thanks to G Thompson [NOTE - an ever-helpful Australian p2net reader]   »»»

Hi:

I can categorically state that Media Sentry are NOT authorised to operate within Australia nor to Intercept communications within Australia no matter what they state in the email. In fact stating they can and making published allegations against a specific user with identifiers attached so that the user is made known to other organisations ie: an Australian ISP, Educational Institution, and Rental Accommodation Manager(s) could result in action on defamatory grounds being taken against them if the publication of the information causes damage (which in this case seems likely that it has).

And thinking they are immune since they are outside Australian jurisdiction would be a folly on their behalf and I kindly draw their attention to “Dow Jones and Company Inc v Gutnick [2002] HCA 56? (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2002/56.htmlsure yet they bought the tickets are)

My understanding is that MediaSentry is covertly monitoring telecommunications without authorisation from an Australian court. Not only has MediaSentry defamed us to an ISP, I believe they’re risking charges of illegal surveillance.

Please let me know your action steps

Should it be not favorable, I may see fit to change to a more suitable ISP

your thoughts guys?

Stay tuned.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

discredited so many times – MediaSentry and RIAA: government probe?, April 5, 2009
thrown out - MediaSentry operates in Australia: confirmed, May 23, 2009

November, 2009

“In photographs shown to China Daily, Deng’s body is pictured with bruises and his face is covered in blood,” says the story.

Now a “front-line advocate of treating Internet addiction” says “net addicts” should be taken to “qualified health institutions rather than rehab camps,” says China state news agency Xinhua.

China’s Ministry of Health has been soliciting public opinions on a draft guidance to juveniles on Internet use, says the story, which has Tao Ran, “initiator of the definition on Internet addiction and director of the country’s first Internet addiction clinic under the Beijing Military Command General Hospital,” stating:

“Internet addiction is a disease, which can not be cured by military training or physical punishment.”

According to Tao, the health ministry has”adopted the expression of ‘inappropriate use of Internet’ instead of ‘Internet addiction, saying that its precise definition had not been settled yet, and going on:

“The guidance is a strong signal that the ministry has recognized Internet addiction as a mental disease, even it doesn’t call it ‘Internet addiction’ in a straight way.

“It’s dangerous that the treatment market is in a total mess. We need standards and guidelines.”

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p2pnet – Teen dies in China net addiction camp, August 27, 2009
China Daily – Camp closed, 13 detained over death of teenage Net addict, August 10, 2009
Xinhua – Expert calls for standardized treatment for Net addicts, November 5, 2009

Music industry pressure buried it in 2001. But soon after, it was disinterred as a pale facsimile of its former self and is today owned by Best Buy which, after spending $121 million to buy what amounts to little more than a name, is determined to become the first concern to actually make money out of the file sharing app that started it all.

But it’s too late for Napster to become anything more than just another overpriced, understocked download ’service’.

Meanwhile, “OpenNap is a peer-to-peer service server,” explains the Wikipedia.

“It was created as an open source Napster server, extending the Napster protocol to allow sharing of any media type, and adds the ability to link servers together,” it says, going on OpenNap suffered the same fate as Napster, closing shop after being threatened by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA.

It’s now being brought back to life as OpenNap 2.0 and is  slated to start development next year.

But only if it satisfies the RIAA.

“We feel that it was time to allow sharing but have it setup so that copyrights were protected,” say the developers on the OpenNap revival site.  ”

The current release is under development, says the team going on »»»

We have plans to release this protocol in 2010.  Right now we’re still developing certain aspects of the project.

OpenNap is being developed for the following Operating Systems:

• POSIX systems: Linux, MAC OSX, UNIX, OpenSolari

Napster Clients

As of 2009, all clones using the original OpenNap protocol have been removed and discontinued.  We’re not supporting the old protocol due to violations of the RIAA.  Any attempt to download the old protocol will result as being non-supported.

We encourage development of new generation clients to use this protocol and to improve upon the work done here.

Downloads

Original downloads of the OpenNap protcol have been removed and destroyed to comply with the RIAA legal challenge. No attempt will be made to use the original code.

And Oh Yes – “We will if needed shut down this project if it doesn’t satisfy the RIAA requirements.”

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

$121 million – Best Buy — new Napster owner, September 15, 2008

November, 2009

“The girls, identified only by initials, were part of a sleepover last summer attended by other students from Churubusco High School,” says the Whitley County Top News Examiner, going on:

“At the event, they took pictures of themselves ‘pretending to kiss or lick a large multi-colored novelty phallus-shaped lollipop.’ In other photos they were dressed in lingerie with dollar bills tucked into their clothing. They posted the photos on their MySpace pages, which can be accessed only by the friends they select.”

Someone told school principal, Austin Couch (right), and, “Citing a student handbook provision that gives him authority to bar student-athletes from participation if their conduct ‘in or out of school reflects discredit upon Churubusco High School … or creates a disruptive influence on the discipline, good order, moral or educational environment’,” he suspended the girls from “all athletic and extracurricular activities for the year,” says the story, going on:

“When their parents appealed the decision, he gave the students the option to reduce their punishment by 25 percent if they would submit to three counseling sessions and apologize individually to the Athletic Board, made up of coaches for the varsity teams, all of whom are men. The girls submitted to the counseling sessions, and the reports were turned over to the principal.

“The forced counseling was humiliating to the plaintiffs, and being forced to appear before the coaches to apologize for their intended humorous photographs .. was profoundly embarrassing,” according to the Fort Wayne Gazette which adds the ACLU wants the Smith-Green schools prohibited from “continuing to punish the two students and from interpreting the conduct policy to allow such punishment, as well as expunging all references to the matter from their records, according to court documents”.

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Whitley County Top News Examiner – ACLU lawsuit over teens’ racy pics on MySpace shakes up sleepy town, October 31, 2009