p2pnet headline roundups, June 19, 2008
p2pnet headline roundups | Last of the day
CRTC may probe ‘net neutrality’ – Financial Post
Public hearings on “net neutrality” could reshape how Canadians surf the Internet after the head of the country’s federal regulatory body gave the strongest hint yesterday that such regulations will be reviewed. During a morning keynote address at the Canadian Telecom Summit yesterday, Konrad von Fickenstein, the chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, said that many of the key issues behind providing Internet in Canada could be up for a “major consultation” as a result of the debate over whether utilities are “throttling” bandwidth to Internet providers. “There’s all sorts of other issues underneath [net neutrality], such as … blocking of services or Web sites, preferential treatment for certain content providers, the issue of modification of content and in terms of carriage-related issues, the limitations of what devices can be connected to the network,” Mr. von Fickenstein said to an audience of telecommunication professionals in Toronto. “I see that sooner or later, hopefully later, this is going to evolve into a major consultation … that seems to be inevitable.”
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China’s Internet censorship getting worse: activist – Agence France-Presse
Chinese censorship of the Internet and restrictions on reporting have worsened despite Beijing’s pledge to improve media freedom ahead of the Olympic Games, an activist said Thursday. China has actually tightened control of the Internet as the Olympics approach, said Zhang Yu, a member of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, a branch of International PEN, a writers’ association. “My observation is that during this year the Internet police became much more efficient in terms of surveillance of the Internet activities to suppress freedom of expression,” said Zhang, a Chinese citizen living in Sweden. The number of arrests and convictions of journalists in China peaked in 2003-2004, but the decline since then is not due to increased freedom, Zhang told a press conference in Tokyo.
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Two founders of Flickr to leave Yahoo – Mercury News
Flickr founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield have joined an exodus of senior Yahoo managers, the company confirmed Tuesday. Fake, who led the effort to create Brickhouse, Yahoo’s San Francisco-based start-up incubator, will not be returning from maternity leave. Butterfield, her husband, who served as general manager of Flickr, will depart July 12. The couple, who founded the popular photo-sharing site together and sold it to Yahoo in March 2005 for a reported $30 million, are the latest in a string of high-profile resignations that have coincided with the collapse of Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Yahoo.
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Human rights body to review Internet role – National Post
Faced with a growing controversy over human rights complaints and freedom of speech, the Canadian Human Rights Commission yesterday launched a major independent review of how it deals with hate messages on the Internet. “I’m a free speecher. I’m also a human rightser,” said Jennifer Lynch, chief commissioner of the CHRC. “We have a responsibility to lead the debate on how we can keep our policy up to date to effectively regulate hate on the Internet.”
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No end to cross site scripting holes – Heise Online
The XSSed Project, which detects and discloses cross site scripting holes, recently reported numerous XSS holes in the web sites of Verisign, McAfee and Symantec. A new edition of the German-based Phishmarkt collection of XSS holes has now appeared, this time focusing on US government and government agency pages. Phishmarkt found a total of 47 vulnerabilities on .gov pages. Although the holes were mostly found on minor town and county pages, affected agencies included the CIA and the states of Hawaii and California. The Phishmarkt specialists even found eight holes on .mil pages. Whether XSS holes in pages such as that of the US Army “Training and Doctrine Command” can successfully be exploited for phishing attacks remains open to question, but they demonstrate that the problem isn’t confined to the web pages of third class providers.
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Moldavia: sequestration of personal computers of 12 young people for posting critical comments online – Global Voices
On June 4th, 2008, the Râ?cani District Court from the Moldavian capital of Kishinev has ordered the sequestration of personal computers of about 12 young people who expressed critical opinions against the ruling communist party of the Republic of Moldavia on Internet forums and news portals such as forum.md, torrentsmd.com, desteptarea.info and unimedia.md. According to Curaj.Net. these young people can be charged for making illegal public “calls for the overthrow of the constitutional order” and threatening the ” statality and territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldavia. “We believe that [a Moldavian] IT company gave the IP addresses of its users,” the executive Director of New Media Group, Dumitru Ciorici, told us when asked about how did the police find these young people. “Legally, they have no write to do this because it’s freedom of expression and these actions are to intimidate the citizens. Now, the young people are very scared and don’t want to talk.”
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June 19th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Pirate Party to take Sweden to EU court over new wiretapping law
19 Jun 08 17:38 CET
Sweden’s Pirate Party has said it will take the country to the European Court of Human Rights in a bid to overturn a far-reaching eavesdropping law passed by the Riksdag on Wednesday evening.
link: http://www.thelocal.se/12554/
June 19th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Leonard Cohen is back on the road at 73 to earn his pension after being ripped off by his manager, but he’s not the first
1. Kelley Lynch
It’s bad enough being swindled out of $5 million (£2.5 million) by your former manager. But when your manager is also a one-time lover who robbed you of your retirement fund during the five years you spent at a Buddhist retreat, you could be forgiven for believing the Zen teaching that all life is suffering. Leonard Cohen, 71, is now virtually penniless after the apparently impossible-to-undo swindle by Kelley Lynch, and he has no choice but to get out on the road to perform concerts and — worse of all for the reclusive, principled Canadian — attend awards ceremonies and similar industry events. “It’s enough to put a dent in one’s mood,” Cohen says.
2. Lou Pearlman
The former manager and mastermind of the US teen-pop sensations the Backstreet Boys and ’NSync defrauded friends, family and elderly investors of $315 million by encouraging them to invest in the fictional Trans Con Airlines. At the height of their fame each Backstreet Boy was making only around $12,000, and they also had to put up with inappropriate conduct from “Big Poppa”. Eventually the law caught up with him and he was sentenced to 25 years in jail last month.
3. Don Arden
Sharon Osbourne’s dad certainly showed his band of young mods the Small Faces a good time while their mid-Sixties hits were flowing. He opened accounts for them in Carnaby Street boutiques, installed them in a Pimlico pad and bribed the right DJs to make the debut single Whatcha Gonna Do About It a hit. He also kept the money himself. When the band members’ parents demanded to know where the money had gone, he told them their sons were drug addicts. Arden went on to manage Black Sabbath and the Electric Light Orchestra. Former Small Faces Ronnie Lane and Steve Marriott died penniless.
full article: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article4173242.ece
June 19th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
And this is worse compared to leaked ACTA how?
We might as well call them and say might we join the communist party now.
Seems the so called business men are becoming communists quite rapidly.
And let’s put it in perspective. The USA is about to vote telcom immunity for doing the same thing china does so whats really new.
As far as i see it freedom died when the began this.
In a month or two after ive downloaded all the tv i like and music im turning off all of this , you all can pay into this stupidity.
I am done with it. My grand father fought the nazi’s , he fought the communists in north korea and this is the result of his friends giving there lives ?
Tell me why i should fear terrorism? IF they blow me up they blow me up.
I am not centering my life around the thought nor should you.
If you do the terrorists have won.
When you have to remove your privacy and civil rights , htey have won.
Osama is laughing his ass off.
By the end off the fall this year, there will be no true democracies left on earth.
How Gene Roddenberry just rolled over in his grave and Gary Gygax just saw innovation and fun leave earth for good.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:53 am
As bad as Sweden might seem, this has been policy in the USA for many years.
At least the Swedish government is upfront when they plan to violate people’s privacy. Instead of doing it illegally and then demanding immunity when caught.
This law might have been influenced at least partly by American pressure, which has been cranking up the heat on Sweden over the existence of the Pirate Bay. Let’s face it, the freedom-loving Swedes were making the country an international haven for both pirates and terrorists, or so we’re led to believe.