$1.5m fine for illegal game upload Daily Telegraph
It’s game over for an over-zealous Brisbane player who was fined $1.5m for illegally copying and uploading a pre-release version of a popular game. James Burt, 24, received an early copy of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros Wii and made it available for download from a website, which has since been shut down. As a result of his actions the Federal Court ordered Burt to pay Nintendo $1.5m in damages and also cover the $100,000 in court costs.

Online safety push for five-year-olds BBC
Children as young as five are being targeted in a new online safety campaign backed by the government. The campaign uses cartoons to show five to seven-year-olds that people are not always what they seem. It is thought 80% of children in this age group use the web and one-in-five parents of this age group worry about who their children contact online. Experts say that by raising awareness of web risks at an early age, children will be better protected. The campaign run by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety – a coalition of industry, charity and government groups – is launched as part of EU Internet Safety Day.

Ingrid, 79, declared dead by Swedish tax authorities The Local
79-year-old Ingrid Ståhl of Malmö in southern Sweden found out to her surprise that she had been registered as dead after a mistake by the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket). Ingrid Stål and her husband have now been awarded 40,000 kronor ($5,400) in compensation for the error. It was in March 2009 that an administrator at the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket) was tasked with registering a person as deceased. A mix up in identification numbers meant that Ingrid Ståhl was entered erroneously as having died, while her husband was labelled a widower. The couple only found out about the mishap in April when supermarket chain Ica and state gambling monopoly Svenska Spel got in touch to ask for the return of Ingrid’s charge cards.

Verizon temporarily blocks some 4chan sites CNet News
Verizon temporarily blocked traffic from some Web sites affiliated with the 4chan online forum on Monday after finding that some affiliate sites were apparently launching network attacks. “Our network security system found traffic from some 4Chan Web sites that had strong potential to disrupt the Verizon Wireless network, affecting our customers’ use of their services,” Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson wrote in an e-mail to CNET. “With continuing investigation, and ensuring no current risk of harm, we are giving the green-light to all 4Chan traffic. We will continue to monitor for any possibility of network harm.” He also posted an explanation on Twitter: “Never a block on 4Chan but some of its other sites were launching network attacks.”

Google Cuts Nexus One Termination Fee Mobiledea
Google has reduced by $200 the fee it charges subscribers who cancel a T-Mobile contract for its new Nexus One smartphone, following a federal inquiry investigating unfair charges consumers face when breaking their service early. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company said its “equipment recovery fee” has been lowered to $150 from $350, but consumers that break their service contracts will still have to pay a T-Mobile early termination fee of $200. Subscribers who break the contract after 120 days will not have to pay any fee. Google’s decision to lower the fee comes after the Federal Communications Commission sent a letter asking why Nexus One consumers have to pay fees to both companies if they break a contract.

Gmail, Too, Seeks to Rival Facebook Wall Street Journal
Google Inc. is taking a swipe at Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. with a new feature that makes it easier for users of Gmail to view media and status updates shared online by their friends. Google could announce the new Gmail feature as soon as this week, said people familiar with the matter. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment. The change adds a module to the Gmail screen that will display a stream of updates from individuals a user chooses to connect with, said one of these people. It is a format popularized by Facebook and Twitter.

China Anti-Malware Alliance Set Up In Tianjin China Tech News
Initiated by China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center, the China Anti-Malware Alliance has been launched in Tianjin. Focusing on fighting websites that harbor spammers, spyware and malware, the newly launched alliance aims to fight computer viruses and malware and to promote the construction of a malware monitoring and warning system in China.

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February, 2010

But surely not?

Isn’t that against Olympic committe rules?

Or is Google which, when all is said and done, is nought but a hard-core advertising company, a special case?

“Google said the site was designed to make information about the Games ‘accessible and useful’,” says the Telegraph, going on, “It will include the latest headlines from Vancouver, as well as updated medal tables after each event.

Latest headlines, eh?

Isn’t it already ‘accessible and useful’ given the lamescream press corpse are already there in force?

And as p2pnet said earlier today, Rule 49 of the Olympic Charter clearly states >>>

Only those persons accredited as media may act as journalists, reporters or in any other media capacity.

Gargle has “also mapped parts of Whistler Mountain, where some of the events, including the men’s alpine skiing, are taking place,” says the Telegraph, adding:

“It sent a specially equipped snowmobile up the mountain, kitted out with the latest GPS and photographic equipment, to take slope-level pictures as part of its Street View mapping service.”

Street view is not, of course, a service.

It’s a Gargoyle product.

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Telegraph – Google takes Street View to Winter Olympics,  February 9, 2010
p2pnet – Pirate-free 2010 Olympics?,  February 9, 2010

That’s Jeff Moss, founder of the Black Hat security conference and a member of the US Department of Homeland Security’s advisory council on learning Christopher Tarnovsky (right) had successfully penetrated the Holiest of Holies — an Infineon TPM chip.

Explains the Wikipedia:

“In computing, Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is both the name of a published specification detailing a secure cryptoprocessor that can store cryptographic keys that protect information, as well as the general name of implementations of that specification, often called the “TPM chip” or “TPM Security Device” (as designated in certain Dell BIOS settings. The TPM specification is the work of the Trusted Computing Group.”

The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) followed the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA), “an initiative started by AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft”, says another Wikipedia post.

“Earlier this week, an engineer presented findings at the Black Hat Conference purportedly showing how a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) could be physically compromised to access unencrypted data inside”, says the group on its home page, going on >>>

Turning on and using the TPM chip is one of the single most cost-effective steps for ensuring robust security in the PC. The TPM was designed to enable trusted online computing and prevent software-based attacks-the predominant security threat impacting the IT equipment. At the same time, the TPM also provides a tamper-resistant means to physical security of the PC itself, and has always been billed as such.

But, it  hastens to stress, “The Trusted Computing Group has never claimed that a physical attack-given enough time, specialized equipment, know-how and money-was impossible.”

It points out that, unlike a software attack, this kind of hack calls for the physical possession of the PC and, not only but also, “it was conducted by someone with extensive skills in reverse engineering, intricate knowledge of semiconductors and access to specialized equipment.”

“In addition, breaking a single TPM in this manner grants access to one machine – a one-time hack that would need to be physically replicated for every machine, offering no further advantage in accessing the rest of the 300 million TPM chips on PCs around the world”, it adds.

‘Your secrets aren’t that safe’

The quote in the intro comes from a New Zealand Herald post on Tarnovsky’s hack, and it has him saying, “You’ve trusted this chip to hold your secrets, but your secrets aren’t that safe.”

Tarnovsky, 38, runs Flylogic security in California and the chip he hacked “is a flagship model from Infineon Technologies AG, the top maker of TPM chips”, says the story, quoting Tarnovsky as saying the technique would work on the entire family of Infineon chips based on the same design.

And, “That includes non-TPM chips used in satellite TV equipment, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game console and smart phones,” it says, stating >>>

That means his attack could be used to pirate satellite TV signals or make Xbox peripherals, such as handheld controllers, without paying Microsoft a licensing fee, Tarnovsky said. Microsoft confirmed its Xbox 360 uses Infineon chips, but would only say that “unauthorised accessories that circumvent security protocols are not certified to meet our safety and compliance standards.”

The technique can also be used to tap text messages and email belonging to the user of a lost or stolen phone. Tarnovsky said he can’t be sure, however, whether his attack would work on TPM chips made by companies other than Infineon.

He “needed six months to figure out his attack, which requires skill in modifying the tiny parts of the chip without destroying it”, says the NZ Herald, adding:.

“Joe Grand, a hardware hacker and president of product- and security-research firm Grand Idea Studio, saw Tarnovsky’s presentation and said it represented a huge advancement that chip companies should take seriously, because it shows that presumptions about security ought to be reconsidered.

“His work is the next generation of hardware hacking,” he says in the story.

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New Zealand Herald – Supergeek pulls off ‘near impossible’ crypto chip hack, February 9, 2010

The company, which has just received European Commission approval to buy German ISP Hansenet, figures Google, et al, “use a lot of network bandwidth for free, something which was good for them but not for Telefonica,” says the Associated Press.

Telefonica president Cesar Alierta (right) “says his company, which operates in Spain and across Latin America, provides the network, product sale, customer care, installation and maintenance to search engine companies that profit from using them,” according to the story.

Things have to change, he declared.

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European Commission approval – Hansenet, Telefónica O2 merger, January 29, 2010
Associated Press – Spain’s Telefonica considers charging Google, Yahoo, February 8, 2010

It was used in a reserves Super Bowl recruitment commercial which was hurriedly taken down following a statement from the band on the Third Man Records web page, to wit >>>

We believe our song was re-recorded and used without permission of the White Stripes, our publishers, label or management.

The White Stripes take strong insult and objection to the Air Force Reserve presenting this advertisement with the implication that we licensed one of our songs to encourage recruitment during a war that we do not support.

The White Stripes support this nation’s military, at home and during times when our country needs and depends on them. We simply don’t want to be a cog in the wheel of the current conflict, and hope for a safe and speedy return home for our troops.

We have not licensed this song to the Air Force Reserve and plan to take strong action to stop the ad containing this music.

“This is un-American and the White Stripes should be flogged without mercy, even if one of them is a girl”, says RIAA boss Mitch Bainwol.

[Note - he didn't really say that. But he could've ]

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February, 2010

“We as readers know what the site is. Who runs it and what is to be expected of it. If you enjoy reading the site, like it for what it says or stands up for then donate if you can. If you are unable to donate cash, then how about telling other people to come here and check out this site. Maybe they would donate. Or maybe they would tell other people … etc etc.”

The story discusses a new advertiser I’d hoped would bring in some readies to help keep p2pnet online. It turned out to be a(nother) disappointment and in the comment posts which followed, the subject of subscriptions came up, as did discussions of whether or not I should be paid for publishing p2pnet, and writing for it, at all.

As I say in the post, “I’ve been providing  p2pnet as a free service since 2002, but last December virtually all of my income disappeared at the same time. So I asked for help from p2pnet readers.”

Help can come on more than one form, and musician friends of mine (and/or p2pnet ) have donated music people can download for free. Or they can pay whatever they can afford. Their choice. Click the p2pnet music downloads bar on the right to hear what’s available.

But before you do that, check out these music donations from Steve Bazzocchi, including his remix of my …

Bush Baby – 4:36

Steve’s Bush Baby Mix 5:52 Steve Bazzocchi

Devious Lifeform – June (in the depths mix) 8:35 Steve Bazzocchi

In the depths vs Devious Lifeform – Lost in the Wind 4:30 Steve Bazzocchi

Mysty Morning 6:45 Steve Bazzocchi

Here what Stephan says about himself >>>

I think I started when I was around 16 but more than likely earlier.  Had an old Atari 800xl, which was a nightmare to work with, to do anything. But it had an awesome sound chip and made all sorts of insane 8bit sounds.  Took 2 years of classical guitar around that time, but it didn’t seem enough.  It did help fuel the passion for music.

Fast forward several years to the mid 90s. Was writing cheesy mod files using impulse tracker, taking part in a local activist group based out of the University of Winnipeg, known as RALLY.  Trying to find myself after a breakup of a relationship that shaped who I was to become, I was exposed to the underground electronic music scene of the time, and met my partner in crime/co-performer/all around good guy/and one of my closest friends Daniel Hood (DJ Phosphor/DJ Phaxis).  We went on to be a Live PA Act called Modulo-2 (live pa in our crowd is an artist/group of artists that perform ‘rave’ music live on synths, drum machines, computers, and even sometimes utilizing live instruments).

The music I was writing at that time was very aggressive (180bpm+) and noisy as hell with a bit of happy overtones to it.  It wasn’t till about 2000 I started finding my own sound and writing for myself and not for a type of music or style.  This led to the birth of Devious Lifeform and alter ego In The Depths.  Each persona has its own sound and style, and from time to time seep into each other’s tracks. Ranges from everything from minimal electronic and ambient soundscapes, to break beat, to house, to trance, to hardcore, to classic style acid techno.  About the only description of what it is really, is that the track represents what I was feeling at that point in time when I sat down to write it. Whatever emotion, thought, feeling or idea is running thru my head, which in my opinion is what all music should be.  Not something to make money with, but something to help other people gain a better perspective on the person who is writing it.

I have performed many times at quite a few of the local Winnipeg haunts that embraced electronic music and its culture, have thrown a couple of raves back in the day, even went as far as running the weekly electornica night at the legendary Wellington’s Nightclub in downtown Winnipeg.  Influences would have to be everything around me, from the way the sun shines thru my curtains of my studio, the dust bunnies inside my computer case, or just sitting here hitting a random pattern of keys on the keyboards.

Musical influences? There are far too many to mention, I hear elements of every song I have ever heard in my music, but that’s all that music is, isn’t it? A means to convey an idea, emotion and thought. OK well all music but commercial North American top 40, that I can do without.

For today, Steve’s music is available only from this page, but I’ll be adding it to the downloads section tomorrow.

So, Steve, thanks. I really appreciate your help.

Cheers!
Jon

February, 2010

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February, 2010

Defending the settlement, “it notes that it could have fought the lawsuit to the end, but that it might have lost,” he says, continuing >>>

In fact, this is why I supported the idea that Google should have fought on, because it seemed like Google had a strong fair use case — something the Authors Guild admits.

Even though the Authors Guild says that it disagrees that the book scanning project was fair use, an awful lot of copyright legal scholars seemed to believe that it was, in fact, fair use.

But the more interesting point is that the Authors Guild noted that even if it did win the lawsuit, that could actually make things worse, and it pointed to the RIAA’s Pyrrhic victories over file sharing systems:

Our settlement negotiations went on with full knowledge of what happened to the music industry. The RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America) won victory after victory, defeating Napster and Grokster with ground-breaking legal rulings. The RIAA also went after countless individuals, chasing down infringement wherever they could track it down.

It didn’t work. The infringement just moved elsewhere, in unpredictable ways. Nothing seems to drive innovation among copyright pirates as much as a defeat in the courts. That innovation didn’t truly abate until Apple came along with its iPod/iTunes model, making music easily and legally available at a reasonable price. By then, the music industry was devastated.

While I applaud the Authors Guild for recognizing that suing (and even winning) don’t help you innovate and can backfire massively in driving innovation underground, it does still feel like the Authors Guild got the wrong message out of this.

Despite what it claims above, the “innovation among copyright [infringers]” did not really “abate” with the introduction of the iPod/iTunes.

“While the Authors Guild is correct that offering a legal solution is better than offering nothing or fighting innovation, it feels like it’s overestimating how much of the market transformation its facing is due to infringement vs. how much is due to economic forces that will occur even without infringement in the market”, adds Techdirt.

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Techdirt – Author’s Guild Didn’t Want To ‘Pull An RIAA’ But Still Misses The Point, February 8, 2010

A jury “heard evidence demonstrating that Tenenbaum willfully infringed Plaintiffs’ copyrights in thirty sound recordings by downloading them and distributing them to millions of other users on KaZaA, that he downloaded and distributed thousands of additional sound recordings — many of them belonging to Plaintiffs — on multiple P2P networks, that he intentionally seeded these networks with new copies of works, that he engaged in this conduct for nearly ten years with full knowledge that it was illegal and despite repeated warnings to stop, that he continued to infringe even during the course of the lawsuit, and that he perjured himself and concealed material evidence of his infringement” say Oppenheim et al.

They say $22,500 per song is therefore “more than” justified.

$22,500 per song !!!!!!!!

Joel recently filed for a new trial, said p2pnet recently, going on >>>

And the US Department of Justice [read the RIAA] doesn’t like it.

In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v Tenenbaum, the DoJ has filed a brief opposing Joel’s motion to set aside the verdict on constitutional grounds, says Recording Industry vs The People.

The DoJ now boasts and eye-popping number of people who worked for, and/or are directly connected with, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA.

If there was any justice, the motion would be kicked out on that basis alone.

But …

The DoJ clearly agrees with Big Music that the songs below are worth a  grand  total of $675,000.

Now, in Sony BMG Music Entertainment v Tenenbaum, “the RIAA has filed its opposition papers”, says Beckerman in Recording Industry vs The People, adding:

“As is their habit, and as their friends at the Department of Justice did as well, the RIAA’s lawyers have ignored

• (a) all but one of the leading cases,
• (b) all of the leading law review articles and other scholarship, and
• (c) the actual contents of the Supreme Court’s decisions.

“Fortunately these are contained in the amicus curiae brief we filed last year on behalf of the Free Software Foundation.”

Stay tuned.

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‘The Dentist’ – RIAA’s Matt Oppenheim: the bad penny?, November 14, 2007
filed for a new trial – Joel Tenenbaum files for new trial, January 4, 2010
p2pnet – DoJ opposes Tenenbaum bid for new trial, January 19, 2010
Recording Industry vs The People – Dept of Justice files brief opposing motion to set aside verdict in Tenenbaum, , January 19, 2010
Recording Industry vs The People – RIAA opposes Tenenbaum’s motion for remittitur, February 8, 2010

“The consortium planned to buy a stake of between 30 and 40 percent in Bus Online for more than $100 million via a purchase of old and new shares to be issued by the company in private placements,”  says the story.

“Disney wants to be a strategic partner not just a financial investor in Bus Online as Disney is going to do many things in China – for example, the theme park to be opened in Shanghai,” it has an unidentified source saying, going on:

“To Disney, the deal is not just about sharing in the growth of China’s advertising market but more about the promotion of Disney, the brand itself, and this is strategically important to Disney in China.”

Disney has already made a “breakthrough deal” to build a theme park in Shanghai, “marking a major advance for Western media and entertainment companies seeking to crack the tough Chinese market”, says China Daily, adding:

“Senior executives of Disney are expected to fly to Beijing to meet Chinese media regulators to discuss Disney’s long-term development plan in China including the Bus Online deal, said another source.”

But “no agreement had been signed yet”.

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China Daily – Disney, Google eye stake in China bus media firm, February 9, 2010

He had a congenital heart condition and yesterday I learned he’d died from it at the age of 28 .

Dan and I were planning on bringing another kind of music to the net — online jamming.

He was going to “code the site so we’ll have a series of ‘jams’ in which up to five musicians at a time will be able to launch their own project and collaborate with each other”, I said.

“They’ll be the only ones who’ll be able create tracks for the final composition in each jam. But visitors will be able to follow their progress and make suggestions for improvements. Or otherwise.

“That’s the idea, anyway. Music live and in action, P2P style.”

Now, “My biggest wish is that everyone who knew him lives their life in a way that would make him proud,” says his girlfriend, Rachel Ward.

“He lived life with no restraint, and while I frequently run out of energy when he would have carried on, I want to do what I can to make sure his time on earth was not wasted.”

Of our project, which we were calling Global Midi Jam, “If you can, do make it happen,” Rae told me.

I’ll try, Rae.

So if there’s anyone out there who’d like to step in with the programming and help me put the Global Midi Jam together in Dan’s memory, if nothing else, please get in touch via p2pnet @ shaw dot ca.

Dan, rest in peace, mate.

Cheers! And thanks …
Jon

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a series of ‘jams’ – Global MidiJam. Sharing music, February 11, 2010

“The man is being prosecuted in Copenhagen City Court for ‘grooming’, where he allegedly used the online computer game ‘World of Warcraft’ to get the 12-16 year-old boys to transmit pictures or film clips to him”, says the Copenhagen Post.

The man had a “significant amount of ‘gold’ in the game, which can be used to upgrade a player’s strength or abilities,” says the story, adding:

“Prosecutors say the man had around 10,000 illegal pictures and 1200 videos of naked underage boys on his computer at the time of the arrest. It is not yet known how many of the subjects are Danish.

“The man chatted with the boys on the World of Warcraft website and also via MSN Messenger, where more private exchanges could take place.”

A court decision  is expected by Friday, the story adds.

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Copenhagen Post – Man ‘grooms’ boys to send naked pics, February 5, 2010

As p2pnet pointed out, aside from the fact SafeNet’s MediaSentry had proved  beneficial only for shareholders and the entertainment cartels, “Olympics will be televised around the world – what’s the point of MediaSentry securing the online portion?” – asked Billy in a Reader’s Write.

“Maybe I’m missing something,” he said, “but locking down a small piece of the event while free-airing around the world most of the same content seems more like a political showing than a practical exercise.”

Now it’s Olympics time in BC, Canada — the Winter Olympics, that is. Kinda. And NBCU is already worried unprincipled pirates will snag its broadcasts.

What to do !? What to do !?

It’s “de-emphasizing its focus on streaming the games live on the Web in favor of short highlight clips,” says MediaWeek. And it’s “doing its damnedest to make sure that fans can’t find unauthorized or illegally posted live footage of any events”, says the story.

Blogging news is already banned.

“Rule 49 of the Olympic Charter states “Only those persons accredited as media may act as journalists, reporters or in any other media capacity”, p2pnet last year.

Now, “One of the things we learned in Beijing is that people really go to the Web for highlights,” MediaWeek has Perkins Miller, NBC digital media guy saying.

Oh, really?

“NBC is planning to actively police the Web during the games, using  tools to crawl the Web and block content automatically whenever possible (NBC commonly utilizes YouTube’s Content ID tools to do this),” says the story, going on >>>

NBC is also issuing rapid takedown notices when needed.

“Our aim is to make access to pirated material inconvenient, low quality and hard to find,” said Rick Cotton, NBC’s evp and general counsel. In terms of Web piracy, “you are never going to go to zero. But there has been a sea change in terms of recognition of the problem.”

Hmmm. Rick Cotton, Rick Cotton. Where have we seen that name before?

Oh Yeh! He’s the clueless twit who once said on behalf of Hollywood, “In the absence of movie piracy, video retailers would sell and rent more titles. Movie theatres would sell more tickets and popcorn. Corn growers would earn greater profits and buy more farm equipment.”

Meanwhile, it’s an unseasonably mild in the Vancouver area of BC and as things stand, defeating Olympics piracy may be the least of concerns.

Officials are desperately flying and trucking in snow, and padding sites with bales of hay to provide bulk underneath it

Says China Daily >>>

As Olympians arrive by the day, the Winter Games seem to be missing something. Namely, winter.

Vancouver Olympic officials have touted these as “The Green Games,” but Mother Nature might be taking that to an extreme. Some Vancouverites are now referring to them as “The Brown Games,” given the muddy conditions at Cypress Mountain.

“When I got off the airplane it was like, ‘What’s this green grass doing here? This is the Winter Olympics,”‘ United States speedskater Trevor Marsicano said Sunday, recalling his reaction after flying in last week from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “For me it’s nice, because I’m used to, like, zero degrees. This is awesome.”

If the warm weather continues …

Stay tuned.

(Cheers, BC Bud)

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disgraced RIAA ‘investigator’ – MediaSentry scandal continues, November 7, 2009
p2pnet – Beijing Olympics pirate radio broadcast, August 8, 2008
MediaWeek – NBCU Fights Olympics Piracy, February 7, 2010
p2pnet – Olympic blogs OK for Vancouver, May 15, 2009
clueless twit – Hollywood plan to save corn farmers, June 27, 2007
China Daily – areWinter missing in Vancouver as Games approach, February 8, 2010

As Olympians arrive by the day, the Winter Games seem to be missing something. Namely, winter.

Members of Estonia’s cross country team check out the course at Whistler Olympic Park during a free practice session for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler, British Columbia February 6, 2010. Picture is taken with a tilt and shift lense.  [Photo/Agencies]

Vancouver Olympic officials have touted these as “The Green Games,” but Mother Nature might be taking that to an extreme. Some Vancouverites are now referring to them as “The Brown Games,” given the muddy conditions at Cypress Mountain.

“When I got off the airplane it was like, ‘What’s this green grass doing here? This is the Winter Olympics,”‘ United States speedskater Trevor Marsicano said Sunday, recalling his reaction after flying in last week from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “For me it’s nice, because I’m used to, like, zero degrees. This is awesome.”

Google Spanner — instamatic redundancy for 10 million servers? The Register
Google’s massively global infrastructure now employs a proprietary system that automatically moves and replicates loads between its mega data centers when traffic and hardware issues arise. The distributed technology was first hinted at — in classically coy Google fashion — during a conference this summer, and Google fellow Jeff Dean has now confirmed its existence in a presentation (PDF) delivered at a symposium earlier this month. The platform is known as Spanner. Dean’s presentation calls it a ’storage and computation system that spans all our data centers [and that] automatically moves and adds replicas of data and computation based on constraints and usage patterns.’ This includes constraints related to bandwidth, packet loss, power, resources, and ‘failure modes’.

China to crack down on ‘thriving’ online gambling Xinhua
China will conduct a nationwide crackdown on online gambling from February to August, an industry the country’s security ministry has described as “thriving.” According to a statement from the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) released Monday, the campaign will target “major and severe cases, arrest domestic and foreign groups that organize online gambling and severely punish criminals.” The campaign will also focus on underground banks and third-party payment platforms that provide banking services for the gambling groups. Website operators offering connection to the services will also be targeted. Online gambling has caused large amounts of money to flow out of China and disturbed the country’s social and economic order, the statement said. The ministry said illegal online gambling has continued to thrive despite authorities’ crackdowns.

Indie cinemas battle for Berlin’s spotlight The Local
Indie cinemas are a dying breed the world over… except in Berlin, home to nearly 60 small arthouse and neighbourhood venues. The fight for survival is brutal. But as Exberliner magazine’s Alice Harrison reports, some of them are even getting the red carpet treatment at the Berlin International Film Festival.

British Library to offer free ebook downloads Times Online
More than 65,000 19th-century works of fiction from the British Library’s collection are to be made available for free downloads by the public from this spring. Owners of the Amazon Kindle, an ebook reader device, will be able to view well known works by writers such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, as well as works by thousands of less famous authors. The library’s ebook publishing project, funded by Microsoft, the computer giant, is the latest move in the mounting online battle over the future of books.

Symantec hit with class-action lawsuit over auto-renewals Computerworld
A New York man has sued security software maker Symantec for automatically renewing his subscription to Norton Antivirus, alleging that the company did not notify him before charging $76 to his credit card. The lawsuit comes seven months after the New York Attorney General’s office fined Symantec $375,000 for the practice and ordered it to give notice before renewing any subscription.

The Fight Over Who Sets Prices at the Online Mall New York Times
On some pages of e-commerce sites selling products like televisions, digital cameras and jewelry, a critical piece of information is conspicuously missing: the price tag. To see how much these items cost, shoppers must add the merchandise to their shopping carts — in effect, taking it up to the virtual register for a price check. The missing prices are part of a larger battle sweeping the world of e-commerce. Wary of the Internet’s tendency to relentlessly drive down prices, major brands and manufacturers — and now, book publishers — are striking back, deploying a variety of tactics and tools to control how their products are presented and priced online.

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February, 2010

“Does she believe it was right for Apple and Pepsi to hold her and her friends up to be falsely accused by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA as criminals in front of hundreds of millions of people in a warped iPod commercial?” – I asked, going on:

“The iTunes /RIAA / Pepsi advertising connection has been forgotten by most people. But the RIAA is still trotting out kids and their parents as thieves.

“And it’s still getting away with it.”

The occasion was the 2004 Super Bowl and it’s that time again — but without the deeply perverted Apple – RIAA – Pepsi campaign.

This time around, “YouTube delivered on its promise to upload all the Super Bowl Ads as soon as they aired today, with users voting to choose which one will grace the YouTube front page on Thursday,” says Mashable, adding:

“The tech and web ads were a mixed bunch: Both the established GoDaddy ‘Too Hot for TV’ schtick and Motorola’s decision to put Megan Fox in a bathtub stuck to the ’sex sells’ mantra, while Monster.com returned with a ‘Fiddling Beaver.’ Intel went for a quirky ‘lunch room’ ad while Vizio chose star power in its Beyonce (beyonce) commercial. We don’t know what inspired Boost Mobile’s ad, meanwhile, but the humor appears to miss the mark.”

Mashable has them all — except, for some reason, the beer ads.

Not that it didn’t try. But “This video has ben removed by users”, say the GooTube embeds.

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

p2pnet – Apple, Pepsi and the RIAA SuperBowl scandal, July 5, 2009
Mashable – Super Bowl Ads 2010, February 8, 2010

The computer giant responded that the online contract governing the initial purchase required him to resolve the dispute by arbitration.

Andrews recognized this was not a realistic approach, later stating that, as a university student, he was not in a financial position to retain counsel to support an arbitration claim. Instead, he chose a different course of action, suing the company as part of a class-action lawsuit that brought together thousands of consumers experiencing similar problems.

Dell challenged the class-action suit, but last month the Ontario Court of Appeal sided with Andrews, ruling that it could proceed.

The case raised a wide range of legal issues, from the impartiality of the proposed arbitration provider (a U.S. firm that had ceased accepting new consumer arbitrations after allegations of “serious impropriety”) to the applicability of an Ontario consumer-protection statute. But the heart of the case was whether consumers can click away their class-action rights when they agree to online contracts mandating that disputes be resolved by arbitration.

The use of such clauses has been commonplace among many businesses that are willing to trade the higher costs associated with a handful of individual arbitrations for the threat of a big payout in a class-action suit. From businesses’ perspective, the math makes sense: class actions hold the prospect of bringing together thousands of aggrieved consumers who may individually receive less, but collectively could cost the company far more.

Although quite common, contracting out of class-action rights has long been a source of frustration for consumers and consumer advocates. Conventional contract analysis posits that businesses and consumers have an equal opportunity to negotiate a satisfactory contract. Yet, the practical reality is that online contracts are rarely, if ever, the product of actual negotiation. Rather, businesses present the lengthy terms and conditions – often buried behind a link or unreadable fine print – and consumers have little choice but to accept if they want the product or service.

The Ontario government recognized the inequity of the business-consumer relationship in 2002, when it enacted the Consumer Protection Act, which outlawed mandatory arbitration clauses in consumer contracts.

The reasoning was simple: individual consumer disputes are rarely financially viable as independent legal actions and only make sense if aggregated as a class action.

Applying the law to Andrews’ situation and those similarly facing the Dell arbitration clause, the unanimous court was clearly persuaded that arbitration was not an option, concluding “the choice is not between arbitration and class proceeding; the real choice is between clothing Dell with immunity from liability for defective goods sold to nonconsumers and giving those purchasers the same day in court afforded to consumers by way of the class proceeding.”

This latest case represents a major win for Canadian consumer groups, who have tangled with Dell before in a case that ultimately went to the Supreme Court of Canada. Businesses operating online may understandably prefer to limit their likely liability through arbitration, but the resounding response from the Ontario legislature and courts indicates that it should not be possible to force consumers to click away their class-action rights.

Michael Geist - Michael Geist’s Blog
[Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at mgeist @ uottawa dot ca]

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

February, 2010

Yeh? Yup.

“In other words, it’s bigger than AOL, Apple.com,red or the BBC,” says The Register.

By an amazing coincidence, almost exactly four years ago, “It seems Google, the world ’s largest advertising company, was “lusting for its own personal and private global internet,” said p2pnet, going on to quote Times Online as saying >>>

“Last month, Google placed job advertisements in America and the British national press for ‘Strategic Negotiator candidates with experience in…identification, selection, and negotiation of dark fibre contracts both in metropolitan areas and over long distances as part of development of a global backbone network’.

“Dark fibre is the remnants of late 1990s internet boom where American web companies laid down fibre optic cables in preparation for high speed internet delivery. Following the downturn in the technology sector during the early 2000s, the installation process for many of these networks was left incomplete. This has resulted in a usable network of cables spread across the United States that have never been switched on. By purchasing the dark fibre, Google would in effect be able to acquire a ready made internet network that they could control.”

Google already owns a large telecom interconnection facility in New York and “it’s believed from there, ‘Google plans to link up and power the dark fibre system and turn it into a working internet network of its own’,” we said, adding:

“It was also reported in November that Google was buying shipping containers and building data centres within them, possibly with the aim of using them at significant nodes within the worldwide cable network.”

Sebastian Stadil, founder of the Silicon Valley Cloud Computing Group, note “1e100.net translates to ‘Google Network’ – the ever-growing Google private infrastructure that spans nearly forty custom-built data centers worldwide”, says The Register, adding:”

“According to a recent company presentation, Google intends to expand this private interweb to between one million and 10 million servers, spanning ‘100s to 1000s’ of global locations.”

‘ … all that information could be made available to the authorities’

“If you’re worried about giant online advertising company Google getting your personal data,  you must be doing something you shouldn’t be doing, reckons Google boss Eric Schmidt,” said p2pnet a while back when Schmidt announced >>>

If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.

Then we posted Part II of Google Sneak Views in which we point out your privacy is just another ‘product’ hook for Google.

It’s scary, we went on,  and, “Am I the only one that’s not eating the ‘Blue Pill’?” asked Gubatron.com, continuing >>>

If you’re not scared it’s my intention to shake you up a little bit. Let’s see what Google has done and what it’s trying to do.

Google controls over %70 of the Web Search Traffic, and over 57% of all advertising on the internet

Google started as a Search company and they’re supposedly great at it (until someone else can show us better) so everyone uses their search and that means Google knows what everyone wants on the internet, therefore giving it one hell of an advantage over everyone else when it comes to decision making of any kind. What technologies to build, What websites are successful (which services should they buy or compete against). They know about all trends of all kinds. From lottery ticket search, to medicine search, to what new website is being searched for.

Their great search capabilities made them hit gold when they started advertising next to search results. They made so much money that they were able to buy lots of ad networks including very powerful ones like DoubleClick ($3 billion, April 13 2007) which together with Adsense control 57% of the market share of Internet advertising.

Just know that pretty much almost every ad printed on the web puts money in Google’s Pockets, the company that controls search. I wonder if their PageRank algorithm also includes the eCPM of the ads shown on the target sites, if not, it’s a direct consequence of being on the top search results that you’ll get more visitors thus making your CPM pay higher… it’s all a little fucked up the amount of control they have.

And let’s not to forget that the little publisher on Adsense Gets Pwned with probably less than 10% of the cost of the click (Google gets $2 a click, you get less than $0.20 for that click), a percentage that is never shown to the publisher, a percentage that Google can adjust to their liking however they want. If you can sell your own ads, do so (and then tell me how).

On top of that, there’s tons of money to make on statistics for all of that search data.

You may want to read about a company called DemandMedia.com, in short they buy a lot of search engine data (probably Google’s included in there) so that they can generate a list of the things people want to know about every day, then they match that data to marketing databases (to see what the highest priced keywords are, data which may come from Google Adsense statistics) and they make a list of about 4,000 video titles, which they shoot and distribute EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Internet Video

YouTube… owned by Google, gets close to 100 million unique visitors every month. They’re the most influential video service on the internet. There are companies that exist and thrive (making millions a year) only because youtube is there (think again if you believe youtube is not making money). Oh and they know what you’re watching.

Privacy Stuff

Let’s forget about Search and Ad Monopoly, that’s their money maker, let’s start thinking about the creepier stuff, power.

GMail alone as of July 2009 had an approximate of 146 million unique users during one month. That’s a lot of conversations being tracked in one way or the other. Can’t imagine all the money they make on Gmail alone, since it’s one of the applications that people keep open most of the day, and that’s a lot of contextual ads right there, plus a lot of tracking on clicks to external sites linked inside the emails you read.

So they did Email great, you gotta give them that, but then they also have Groups, GTalk (instant messaging) and more recently they were talking about redefining email with Google Wave (which has been in my perspective a total failure, nobody is ever logged in or replying to the waves, it needs to integrate with email in order to replace it, maybe that’ll be the key and since they’re smart they should know this but they’re waiting for the right time…)

This year Google has gotten super scary with all the announcements they’ve made, one of the scariest is Google Public DNS, the service that converts a domain name like “google.com”, into an IP address so that your computer can connect to it.

Boasting on their excellence and good performance they’re trying to convince system administrators to switch over to Google Public DNS.

What do we know if already our local ISPs have turned off their own DNS servers and just redirected all requests to 8.8.8.8 (Google’s DNS) to save on costs and to have one less thing to manage?.

This is pretty scary because Google now would know where you go, even if you don’t use Google.com

Another really scary thing is having this company also build for you the web browser. Not only they control all the traffic, but they want to control the application that you use to browse the web.

They already own Firefox (a nice +$50 million dollar/year tax deduction) whose default search is, you guessed it… Google, and now they even want to make an Operating System that runs only their browser with the purpose of having you log in with your Google Account every time you turn on your computer (currently aimed at Netbooks, please install Ubuntu Netbook Remix and be safe)

If their plans go accordingly, they’d be controlling everything, from every request that comes out of your internet connection (DNS), to the kernel and browser in your computer, to your email, to your documents (Google Apps), to where you go (Google Maps), to where you are (Google Latitude).

And if that’s not enough, they want to give you a phone number (Google Voice) and transcribe your conversations and voice messages… but wait I forgot they’ve also built an operating system for your phone, Android, and next month they will sell their own phone.

Are you scared yet?

Other Services:
Google Healthcare (They want your medical records too)
Google URL Shortener (They want to track all the clicks inside Twitter and Facebook, they couldn’t let other companies deal with this, bit.ly FTW!)
Google Finance (They also know what stock quotes a lot of people are looking for)
Google Reader (They know what news and feeds you’re reading)
Google News (They want to control what news are read)
Google Blogger (They know what you write about, and bank on you)
Picassa (They want your pictures)
Google Maps and Driving Directions on Android (They want to know where you’re going)
Google Product Search (They wanna know what you’re shopping for)
Google Checkout (Do they have your credit card number yet?)
GMail (They know your contact list, who you talk to, who you do business with, what you want, what you hate, everything)

And so many other scary things… they must be so pissed they don’t own Facebook. Way to go Mark.

The scariest part however is that everyone is just looking at how convenient all this free services are, praising Google but not thinking if there’s a hidden agenda, it’s like nobody could ever suspect the real intentions.

At least with Microsoft you knew what to expect.

Doesn’t it all sound like an internet monopoly? It’s becoming impossible to compete with such a big monster… however like a friend said “History repeats, all Giants fall eventually”

Google wants every byte coming in and out of you, they own every major piece of the action, it’s all becoming like big media and newspapers, like the food industry which is controlled by only a handful of corporations and we really have no choice in what we eat because everything is so cheap and convenient.

Google at this pace will own the internet, or should we call it The Googlenet.

By way of a kind of footnote, in Google Sneak Views: p2pnet, Part II, “Google used to be a ‘good beats evil’ business,” we quoted Umair Haque, director of the Havas Media Lab, in Harvard Business, as saying, going on:

“But that was yesterday. Today, ‘increasingly, Google is an “evil subsidizes good” business,’ says  Haque. ‘It’s not so different from Coke. The historic, globe-spanning bad stuff Coke does — selling toxic sugar-water to kids and the poor — subsidizes a threadbare patch of good stuff: a handful of spare change for charitable giving and public partnerships.

“Increasingly, the evil stuff Google does — supporting censorship, selling more and more toxic ads, squeezing suppliers and turning a blind eye — subsidizes a shrinking green patch of good stuff, like investing in the Mozilla Foundation.”

Stay tuned.

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The Register – Google doppelgänger casts riddle over interwebs, February 8, 2010
p2pnet – Google wants its very own Net, February 3, 2006
Times Online – Rumours mount over Google’s internet plan, February 3, 2006
a while back – Only wrong-doers worry about online privacy, December 8, 2009
‘product’ hook – Google Sneak Views: p2pnet, Part II, December 14, 2009
Gubatron.com – The Internet is becoming The Googlenet, December 14, 2009

The words are p2pnet regular Monkey D. Luffy’s, and they appear on his new site — Monkey House, billed as the “ugliest p2p news site!

Monkey says he was mulling over the shortager of dedicated pro-p2p news site so, “I decided to roll out Monkey House”, he says, going on >>>

I figured considering how hostile the main stream media has been towards p2p, one more site representing the other side can’t be a bad thing.

Nope. Can’t be bad.

His first two post centre on Jammie Thomas-Rasset and ACTA.

Good luck — and all the best, Monkey.

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

February, 2010

Founded in 1964 in Hamilton, Ontario, the company merged with Wendy’s International in 1995, but its “biggest drawing card remains its legendary Tim Hortons coffee”, it boasts.

However, decaffeinated coffee served at an outlet in St Andrews, New Brunswick, “was like brown, burnt water,” according to devotee Jimmy Craig.

“I almost, you know, got sick in the sink”, the CBC has him saying.

So Craig isn’t welcome there any more. He’s also been banned from the Tim Hortons in nearby St Stephen, says the story, going on, “Craig said he voiced his concerns to the store manager and corporate office, then got a meeting with the owner, Edwin Dow.

“That’s when Dow served Craig with a letter banning him under the province’s trespass act.”

Now, “he can only return to the Tim Hortons if he’s on the job as a paramedic, responding to a medical emergency”, the story adds.

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CBC – Tim Hortons bans complaining customer, February 8, 2010

The site “taught hacking techniques and provided malicious software downloads for its 12,000 members in exchange for a fee, says the Wuhan Evening News newspaper, quoted by Blogtactic.

Hacking from China is on the front burner, thanks to Google, which said it was pulling out of the country following hack attacks.

“The website was shut in late November and three of its members arrested on suspicion of criminal activity, the newspaper reported, without saying why the news was only released now,” says the story, going on >>>

Wuhan happens to be home to the Communication Command Academy, which trains hackers, according to U.S. congressional testimony by cyber expert James Mulvenon in 2008.

The popularity of hacking in China, and hackers’ use of multiple addresses and servers, in Taiwan and elsewhere, makes it hard to prove how or by whom they are coordinated.

Would-be hackers in China don’t have to look far to “figure out how to do it, thanks to a healthy hacking industry and sites such as Black Hawk Safety Net (www.3800hk.com), which was unavailable on Monday”, Blogtactic adds.

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Blogtactic – Black Hawk Safety Net Shutdown by China, February 7, 2010
hack attacks – Google’s China about-face, January 19, 2010

“Criticism of the iPad centred on the following features – or lack of them,” said Britain’s Daily Mail recently, ie:

• No multitasking
• No camera
• No Flash
• Touch keyboard
• Lack of input
• Closed applications
• Small screen

Not only but also, “Some female bloggers wryly commented probably didn’t have any women on its marketing team and ‘iTampon’ quickly became a cheeky trending topic on the micro-blogging site Twitter,” said the story, adding:

“A YouTube clip from 2006, now enjoying a fresh surge of popularity, shows the term ‘iPad’ has been ridiculed for years. In the comedy skit shown on the Fox TV channel, two women discuss an Apple period-maintenance device called the iPad.”

Now, a follow-up Retrevo Pulse study “indicates a failure to convince any new buyers to consider the iPad,” says the Retrevo blog, continuing Apple failed to “convince new buyers” and may also “have lost many potential buyers who now say they don’t think they need an Apple tablet computer”.

Say it ain’t SO !!!

Retrevo “asked consumers whether or not they had heard about the tablet before the tablet was introduced and again after the announcement,” it says, going on:

“The word definitely got out as the number of respondents saying they had heard about the tablet rose from 48% shortly before the announcement to over 80% after the media frenzy on January 27th.

“Unfortunately for Apple, the number if respondents saying they had heard about the tablet but were not interested in buying one, doubled from 25% before the announcement to over 50% following the announcement.”

Could the famed Jobs Reality Distortion Field be failing?

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taking a hammering – The Wonder that is iPad!, February 1, 2010
Daily Mail – You cannot be serious!, January 29, 2010
Retrevo Pulse – Apple iPad Hoopla Fails to Convince Buyers, February 5, 2010
Reality Distortion Field – The Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field, May 12, 2009