p2pnet headline roundups | Last of 2007
p2pnet headline roundups | Last of 2007
Hackers Run Wild Spending BitTorrent Tracker’s Donations – TorrentFreak
The SuperTorrents BitTorrent tracker has been the subject of a major security breach, with hackers gaining access to private accounts from which they donated all the site`s money to a religious group. The hackers even went as far as contacting the site’s host and canceled all of their seedboxes. Earlier this year, the anti-piracy company MediaDefender was torn apart when its email system was compromised and hackers laid the company’s secrets bare for the world to see. Some months later, the SuperTorrents (ST) BitTorrent tracker has been the victim of hackers. According to a so-called ’scene notice’ circulating at the moment, the 35,000 member site was compromised when the hackers discovered that the admin of ST used the same password on a lot of other sites, as he does on other accounts – email etc. This is the same mistake that MediaDefender made.
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In the Fight Over Piracy, a Rare Stand for Privacy – New York Times
The record industry got a surprise when it subpoenaed the University of Oregon in September, asking it to identify 17 students who had made available songs from Journey, the Cars, Dire Straits, Sting and Madonna on a file-sharing network. The surprise was not that 20-year-olds listen to Sting. It was that the university fought back.
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Digital album packaging should improve in 2008 – Billboard
There is a reason people still buy CDs more than they do digital albums. Actually there are several, but viruses that come along with music via peer-to-peer sites (P2P) and a concern over digital rights management (DRM) aren’t the only culprits. Digital music files just don’t provide the same amount of content that a CD package does. That includes liner notes, extended album art and lyrics. Buy a digital album today and all you get are a list of tracks and (maybe) a thumbnail image of the album cover that you can’t even read.
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Australia Joins China In Censoring The Internet – TechCrunch
The Australian Government has announced that they will be joining China as one of the few countries globally that broadly censor the internet. The Labor Party`s policy was announced prior to the Australian Election in November (release here) and was justified on the basis that the previous Government’s policy of providing free copies of NetNanny to all Australian households who wanted it didn`t adequately protect children.
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Privacy rights ‘fragile’ in 2007 – BBC
Threats to personal privacy got more severe in 2007, a report has claimed. Compiled by Privacy International and the Electronic Privacy Information Center the report details global trends in privacy protection and surveillance. It found that in 2007 more nations than ever ranked as places where surveillance had become “endemic”. The move toward greater surveillance had left the fundamental right to a private life “fragile and exposed”, the report said.
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Why (And How) I Just Canceled All My Music Subscriptions – Wired
Now that three of the four major labels have decided to sell music without DRM, I’ve finally decided to drop it too. I’ve subscribed to Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, and other music services over the years, but I canceled them all on Thursday as a sort of preemptive new year’s resolution. For much of the time I’ve covered online music, it was necessary to subscribe to these services, but the digital music scene has largely evolved past DRM. Services that use it are simply not where the action is. I may consider buying (and advising people to buy) un-DRMed music downloads from these services, but paying for a monthly subscription – even though I can expense or write off the fees – just doesn’t seem as worthwhile as it did on the other end of 2007.
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Internet booze ban could be axed – The Local
Sweden should allow people to buy alcohol abroad, for instance on foreign websites, and have it delivered home, an official inquiry into the country’s alcohol laws is to propose, according to Sveriges Radio. “It should be allowed for a private individual to import spirits, wine and beer from within the EU, as long as he or she is over 20,” commission chairwoman Anita Werner said. Public Health Minister Maria Larsson set up the inquiry in September. She commissioned Werner to come up with proposals for a change in the law to make it legal to import alcohol for personal use.
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