p2pnet World Headlines – June 2, 2009
UK BT accused of download throttling BBC
Britain’s biggest broadband supplier has been accused of limiting download speeds on its cheapest package without giving users a clear warning. BT Broadband cuts the speed users can watch video services like the BBC iPlayer and YouTube at peak times. A customer who has signed up for an up to 8 megabit per second package can have their speed cut to below 1Mbps. A BT spokesman said the firm managed bandwidth “in order to optimise the experience for all customers”. [Comment: Where have we seen this before? Will we see the "5%" propaganda also?]
Apple Rejects EFF Updates App, Claims Parody Content Is Objectionable EFF
Last month, EFF got an email from software developer Duane Fields of Exact Magic, asking if he could use our logo on an iPhone application that exclusively displays content from EFF’s RSS feed. Sounded like a great idea to us, as long as it was clear that the app wasn’t an EFF-sponsored product. But this morning Apple rejected the app. Why? Because it claims EFF’s content runs afoul of the iTune’s App Store’s policy against “objectionable” content. Apparently, Apple objects to a blog post that linked to a “Downfall” parody video created by EFF Board Chairman Brad Templeton. The parody casts Hitler in the role of entertainment industry executive, ranting about the failure of DRM and the continued popularity of fair use. The parody includes the fleeting appearance of the f-bomb in a subtitle.
Movie Industry Wants Speed Bumps for Pirates TorrentFreak
In just a few weeks the UK government will announce their new anti-piracy legislation that aims to put an end to most illegal file-sharing. The exact nature of the proposals are still unknown, but installing speed bumps for pirates is a good option according to the film industry. [Comment: See the story above by the BBC, heh. Ring a Bell?.]
And the one place in the world barred from the BlackBerry Developers Challenge is… Montreal Gazette
You guessed it. Here’s what is says on the website of the 2009 BlackBerry Developers Challenge: The Challenge is open to developers working on a BlackBerry application. In order to be eligible, developers may be individuals resident, or entities located anywhere (excluding the province of Quebec). Wow. Even Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Myanmar, countries that are normally excluded from such international contests, are allowed.
Newspaper Association Insists That Only Newspapers Can Do Real Reporting TechDirt
An anonymous employee of a decent sized newspaper forwarded me a letter sent out to employees by John Sturm, the head of the Newspaper Assocation of America called The Reality About Newspapers. It’s embedded below:…
Time Magazine May Join Newspapers In Committing Suicide By Charging Online TechDirt
So, say you’re a general news magazine that’s struggling to remain even remotely relevant in an internet era… what do you do? Apparently if you’re Time, you think about charging.
Spy Chips Guiding CIA Drone Strikes, Locals Say Wired
It sounds like a tinfoil hat nightmare, come to life: tiny electronic homing beacons, guiding CIA killer drones to their targets. But local residents and Taliban militants in Pakistan`s tribal wildlands say that`s exactly what`s happening. Tribesman in Waziristan are being paid to plant the electronic devices near militant safehouses, they tell the Guardian. Hours or days later, a drone, guided by the signal from the chip, destroys the building with a salvo of missiles.
Watch Out, Amazon: Google to Start Selling Books Wired
The New York Times reports this morning that Google plans to begin selling electronic books via its search engine. The program would offer book publishers the opportunity to sell their books, if they choose to do so, and the publishers could set their own prices â within limits.
Linksys router ripe for remote takeover The Register
A security researcher has discovered a flaw in a popular Linksys router that could allow attackers to remotely hijack the device using its web management console. The Linksys WAG54G2 fails to properly inspect addresses typed in to browsers accessing the management console, allowing attackers to inject powerful shell commands into the router’s Linux operating system, researcher Michal Sajdak warns here.
Russian Police Make Arrests In First Ever BitTorrent Raid TorrentFreak
Russian police have carried out what is believed to be the first raid against a BitTorrent tracker. Prompted by the MPA, police arrived at the site`s Moscow office and arrested the owners and several staff. As is so often the case, the arrests failed to close the site, which is currently still operating from The Netherlands.
Youth arrested after hit list posted on Facebook Globe & Mail
An 18-year-old male is in custody and facing charges Monday after he gathered an arsenal that included a shotgun and batons and posted a hit list with 117 names 71 of them staff and students at his Vancouver high school on Facebook.
May, 2009
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June 2nd, 2009 at 10:24 am
More on Chalie Angus’ Bill:
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/technology-blog/2009/06/new_net_neutrality_bill_now_sl_1.html
“After a closer look, the new bill, C-398, is almost identical to last year’s offering, with two notable exceptions. One difference, as Michael Geist points out , is that while the first bill gave ISPs the right to “manage the flow of network traffic in a reasonable manner in order to relieve congestion”, the new bill amends that to “extraordinary congestion”, which in essence requires a greater burden of proof on the ISP to show its network is being congested by the activities of its users.
The second change is similar: in the old bill, ISPs could manage their network in order to “prevent any violation of federal or provincial law”, which seemed to leave open the possibility that an ISP could claim a violation (perhaps illegal-file sharing?) to justify its actions.
In the second version, that’s been changed to not limiting the ISPs when it comes to acting “in accordance with federal and provincial law.”
Geist said the new language is “a bit tighter on the compliance with the law.”
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:44 am
^^
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/22539
Cheers!
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:22 am
Found via Dr. Geists site:
A Pod Cast (mp3) interview with the president of the Conference Board of Canada (the ones who put out the BS report stating Canada was the file-sharing, copyright infringing capitol of the world… that was recalled):
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Its laughable.
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:27 am
Montreal Trademark owner puts the brakes on iPhone app
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Trademark+owner+puts+brakes+iPhone/1641267/story.html
Citing copyright infringement, Stationnement de Montréal has ordered a local Web developer to pull an iPhone application that pinpoints where Bixi bikes are available to online users. Bixi, the new public-use bicycles docked at stations that dot the downtown core, is a registered trademark with Stationnement de Montréal, a subsidiary of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, which oversees operations of the city’s parking lots, meters and new bike system. The Web company, Sparko, launched its free application Sunday. On Tuesday, it was served with a formal legal notice from Stationnement de Montréal advising that it has until tonight to shut down its service. “That’s pretty sad. We did the project on the weekend and launched it on Sunday morning; a lot of people have been using it each day,” said David Grégoire, co-founder of Sparko. “I tried to call Stationnement (de Montréal) twice to get their permission. They didn’t call us back, so we decided to put it online for free. “We thought we were advertising their product in the end, promoting the use of it, so we decided to take the risk and put it online,” Grégoire said. Stationnement de Montréal’s director of communications and marketing, Michel Philibert, said he realizes that Sparko was trying to offer a service, but said it had no right to appropriate the Bixi name. “They used our copyright without our authorization, it’s illegal and we cannot accept this,” Philibert said. More troubling for Sparko is Stationnement de Montréal’s demand that the company hand over the code and dominion [Domain?] name for the application.
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:47 am
In the comments to Michael Geist’s post, regarding the controversial reports by the Conference Board of Canada ( O RLY?)
Quote in full: ”
Curtis Cook said: Caught in the Conference Board’s drama
I have waited a week for the Conference Board to remove my name from its controversial intellectual property publications. On May 27 I wrote to Anne Golden to:
1) Remove my name as an author from the publications (since I have not worked for the Conference Board for almost a year); and
2) Publicly acknowledge that I was not responsible for the plagiarized content.
On June 1, I finally received a call from Anne Golden who did not address any of my concerns and abruptly ended the call by disconnecting. Here is what I know:
â¢I was a full-time employee with the Conference Board between September 2007 and July 2008. I resigned almost a year ago to take a fulfilling job with a non-profit in British Columbia.
â¢I submitted draft research to my former supervisor for the IP reports in mid-August 2008. I finished the research after I moved even though I was neither on salary nor on contract with the Board..
â¢The research I submitted did NOT include the controversial passages or plagiarized content.
â¢I worked with three contract researchers on this project between April 2008 and June 2008, including Jeremy deBeer, whose work I integrated into the draft. These researchers did not submit research that included the controversial/plagiarized content.
â¢I had no involvement in any content changes and did not see these papers after I submitted them in August.
â¢My new work was interrupted in mid-September by my former supervisor at the Conference Board to tell me there had been âpush backâ from one of the funding clients about the research and inclusion of Mr. deBeerâs contribution. I had quit almost two months earlier so this was of no concern to me.
â¢Around the same time, my new work was also interrupted by a call from one of the funding clients who expressed similar concerns. Again, I informed him that I no longer had anything to do with these reports.
â¢I received news of its publication on May 26, 2009, ten months after my resignation. I downloaded and read the research after I was informed of the controversy and was alarmed to see the direction it had taken.
â¢I sent my letter to Anne Golden the following day.
â¢The VP of Public Policy e-mailed me on May 29th to ask for my assistance in finding both researchers who could âfixâ the reports, as well as external reviewers who would be impartial in reviewing the new work. His message stated that âI trust your judgment, experience and knowledge and would value your help.â
The Conference Board wants my help to fix reports that were published 10 months after my departure. It wants me to help fix publications that were re-written (and plagiarized) months after my departure and after they discarded the research I compiled and submitted. The Conference Board asks for my help but wonât acknowledge that it was wrong to put my name on reports that bear little resemblance to the original research I submitted, were substantially reworked, and were published ten months after I resigned. After Anne Golden laid blame on contract researchers and supervisors late last week, I noticed two of the authors who still were listed on the organizationâs web site were no longer on the staff list.
I am not prepared to wait for Anne Golden to conduct the review she promises because I have a pretty good sense of what happened, even though my involvement with the Conference Board and these reports ended with the submission of credible research 10 months ago. I am curious to see if my account results in some form of backlash, if the Conference Board is prepared to dig a deeper hole for itself or if more fiction will surface.
”
End quote.
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:30 am
And here is the same thing in its own post:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4025/125/
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:17 am
Yup I spotted that also!
Its getting more and more amazing.
The forces at work in the CBoC literally destroyed genuine research reports for their own agenda.
Someone needs to get a hold of the other writters before they are bought off.