Broadband Video Effort Squashed By Caps DSLreports
Stop The Cap directs our attention to a story in the New Zealand Herald (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=105815110) about the discontinuation of an online video service in New Zealand called Sky Online. The $5 a month “all you can eat” video service was suspended after users kept going over their monthly download quotas, and were being kicked back to dial-up speeds by their ISP. Amusingly, one of Sky’s online video competitors, TVNZ doesn’t complain — since TVNZ’s relationship with state-owned ISP Orcon allows Orcon users to download video without impacting their data caps. Sky’s now in the position of begging local ISPs to exclude them from their data caps — putting Orcon in the position of determining who gets to be competitive — and who doesn’t. [Comment: Copied/pasted in whole]

McAfee false-positive glitch fells PCs worldwide The Register
IT admins across the globe are letting out a collective groan after servers and PCs running McAfee VirusScan were brought down when the anti-virus program attacked their core system files. In some cases, this caused the machines to display the dreaded blue screen of death. Details are still coming in, but forums here and here show that it’s affecting McAfee customers in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere. A UK-based Reg reader, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized by his employer to speak to the press, said the glitch simultaneously leveled half of a customer’s 140 machines after they updated to the latest virus signature file.

UK Scales Back its Broadband ISP Reduction Targets for File Sharing Piracy ISP Review
The UK government`s one year old pledge to reduce Internet music piracy by 70% within two to three years (one year gone already) has been quietly watered down. The changes were revealed in a leaked letter from the Culture Secretary, Ben Bradshaw, which had been sent at the end of June; shortly after the publication of Lord Carter’s final Digital Britain report. Under the plans, as outlined in last month`s Digital Britain report (full details here), all UK ISPs will be required to issue those suspected of illegal downloading with a warning letter. Should that be ignored then a court-based process of identity release and civil action would follow, with the possible imposition of technical measures (e.g reduced speeds) as a last resort – only used if the ISP fails to reduce piracy by 70% within the first year. It’s important not to confuse the ISPs internal 70% target with the government`s overall 70% target, though they are obviously related. So what has changed? The problem is that the Digital Britain proposals have yet to become law and they won’t do so until November`s planned Digital Economy Bill is completed by sometime in 2010, thus making the government`s original target somewhat redundant.

Fox network gets sued for libel The Inquirer
A former Fox News hack who stole a march on competitors by downloading an unofficial copy of the film Wolverine has sued the outfit for defamation. Roger Friedman filed suit against Fox and the News Corporation in New York State Supreme Court because he was fired after watching a fileshared copy of the Fox flick to write his column. He reviewed an unfinished version of the film and thus scored ahead of any other reviewer who had not seen the official release. Friedman, who worked as a gossip columnist for Fox, said that the article was cleared by his editors, who told him not to worry about his job after Rupert Murdoch, the News Corporation chairman, ordered his column to be taken down off the web… In another press story, Friedman has hinted that his firing had nothing to do with his review of Wolverine, but everything to do with a Scientology plot to get rid of him. Apparently Scientology is mentioned once in the lawsuit. [Also see: Celebrity Scientologists Got Me Fired From Fox! http://gawker.com/5290155/roger-friedman-celebrity-scientologists-got-me-fired-from-fox]

Wireless roaming fees in Europe plunge CBC
Europeans can now use their mobile phones in other European Union countries at a much cheaper rate, after price caps on roaming fees took effect Wednesday. “The roaming ripoff is now coming to an end,” Viviane Reding, European Union Telecoms commissioner, said in a statement. Adam Savage, co-host of the U.S. TV show MythBusters, received a $11,000 cellphone bill after surfing the net while in Montreal on vacation. Savage’s wireless carrier, AT & T, dropped the roaming charges after he publicized the case on Twitter. Canada’s telecommunications regulator does not regulate rates, quality of service or business practices of wireless service providers, alleging it isn’t necessary due to sufficient competition in the marketplace.

CRTC Sets Requirements for Digital TV Transition Michael Geist
The CRTC has released a decision that sets the requires for the over-the-air transition from analog to digital. The Commission has ruled that conventional broadcasters are expected to convert to digital transmitters in all major markets, which it defines as “the Commission determines that major markets shall include the national capital and all provincial and territorial capital cities, as well as markets either served by multiple originating stations (including CBC stations) or with populations greater than 300,000.” The policy excludes Kelowna, Abbotsford, Sudbury, Kingston, and Thunder Bay (among many others). The complete list of mandatory markets includes:… [Comment: see story Below]

[Canadian TV] CRTC Re-Opens Door to Fee-For-Carriage Michael Geist
The CRTC has again opened the door to fee-for-carriage, saying that “is now of the view that a negotiated solution for compensation for the free market value of local conventional television signals is also appropriate. [Comment: See story above and below]

TV firms score victory in fight over fees Globe and Mail
Television broadcasters have won concessions from Ottawa that will help pay for programming, in a move that escalates their long-running battle with the cable and satellite companies that carry their signals. The CRTC opened the door for the system of payments from cable companies to broadcasters, known as fee-for-carriage, as part of a review of licensing and conventional television it announced Monday. But rather than approve a fee outright, the regulator wants the broadcasters and cable carriers to negotiate what the payment should be, and if the two sides can’t reach a deal, they would go to arbitration. – I’m fighting mad. We’ll explore all avenues to contest the move, said Phil Lind, vice-chairman of Rogers Communications Inc. – BCE Inc. BCE-T , which runs satellite broadcasts, said it was extremely disappointed with the day’s rulings. – It’s ironic that the cable companies want to be a champion of the consumer, because cable and consumer don’t go in the same sentence, CTV’s Mr. Sparkes said.

iPhone hacker reveals SMS vulnerability SC-magazine
A security researcher on Thursday unveiled a new iPhone SMS vulnerability, according to reports out of the SyScan Conference in Singapore. Presenting at the show, Charlie Miller, a well-known Mac hacker who works for Baltimore-based Independent Security Evaluators, released only minor details about the flaw, which reportedly can be used by an attacker to take control of the device to perform actions such as eavesdropping on conversations or tracking down a user’s location through the phone’s GPS capability.

Cybersecurity Plan to Involve NSA, Telecoms Washington Post
The Obama administration will proceed with a Bush-era plan to use National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer traffic on private-sector networks, with AT&T as the likely test site, according to three current and former government officials. President Obama said in May that government efforts to protect computer systems from attack would not involve “monitoring private-sector networks or Internet traffic,” and Department of Homeland Security officials say the new program will scrutinize only data going to or from government systems… “To be clear, Einstein 3 development is proceeding,” DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said. “We are moving forward in a way that protects privacy and civil liberties.” [Found via DSLreports: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Obama-Using-NSA-ATT-For-New-Snooping-Project-103259]

New NSA center unveiled in budget documents The Salt Lake Tribune
The National Security Agency was so confident that its nearly $2 billion plan for a new data center in Utah would be approved by Congress that it began designing the facility last November… The secretive agency released a statement Thursday acknowledging the selection of Camp Williams as a site for the new center and describing it as “a specialized facility that houses computer systems and supporting equipment.” Budget documents provide a more detailed picture of the facility and its mission. The supercomputers in the center will be part of the NSA’s signal intelligence program, which seeks to “gain a decisive information advantage for the nation and our allies under all circumstances” according to the documents. The agency is set up to collect intelligence on foreign threats, but it has been accused of also participating in the unwarranted monitoring of the communications of U.S. citizens. A similar center is being constructed in San Antonio, Texas, and NSA documents indicate that the agency is also expanding its existing intelligence collection facilities in North Yorkshire, England, and Fort Meade, Md. The agency has been seeking to decentralize its operations in an effort to protect assets and find areas with the capacity to satiate the energy appetites of its enormous computer caches. [Found via DSLreports: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Obama-Using-NSA-ATT-For-New-Snooping-Project-103259]

Cogeco Tells Us They’re Working On Meter Problems DSLreports
Canadian cable operator Cogeco was supposed to start billing customers in June after they implemented a new metered billing model. However, as we noted last week, many users found Cogeco’s meters didn’t accurately reflect usage. Customers have complained that Cogeco’s daily usage portal seems broken, and that automatic warning e-mail alerts don’t match the portal. Cogeco reached out to us to note that they’re working on the problems, while at the same time downplaying the breadth of the issues… The company did confirm that they wouldn’t start billing customers until the company has “completed any required fine tuning of the metering and notification tools.” [Comment: Meanwhile the same thing is occuring with Bell Canada and they are charging people, and have been for many, many months. In the above link the comment by "bitwise" sums the "spin" up up nicely. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r22649360-Spin-it-girl]

Quebec court fines ex-boyfriend $40,000 for publishing sex videos on Internet Canoe
A Quebec judge has fined a man more than $40,000 for publishing photos and videos online of himself and his ex-girlfriend engaging in sexual acts. Superior Court Justice Sylviane Borenstein says in her ruling the man’s actions were vile and the court was outraged. Borenstein says she understands why the 20-year-old woman would feel betrayed and humiliated by her ex-boyfriend’s actions.

Dell Inc. could be fined US$758,000 over online errors, says Taiwan official Canoe
A Taiwanese official said Tuesday that U.S. computer maker Dell Inc. (NYSE:DELL) could be fined up to US$758,000 if the company’s handling of recent online pricing errors violated the law. On June 25, Dell’s Taiwanese Web site labelled its 19-inch LCD monitors at NT$500 ($15.16) and 20-inch LCD monitors at NT$999 ($30.29), Taiwan media reported. In each case, that’s about NT$7,000, or $210, less than the real retail price. Again on July 5, Dell priced its Latitude E4300 notebook at NT$18,558 ($562), only to correct it later to NT$60,900 ($1,850), the local media reports said. In each incident, Texas-based Dell refused to honour the reported hundreds of thousands of orders placed online by consumers but instead offered a NT$1,000 ($30) discount for the LCD monitors, and a NT$20,000 ($600) deduction for the laptop. Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission Deputy Chairman Wu Hsiu-ming said authorities will determine whether Dell has violated the Fair Trade Law by failing to deliver orders as advertised.

Chinese go online to vent ire at Xinjiang unrest Reuters
Chinese are venting their anger online after ethnic unrest in the Muslim region of Xinjiang left at least 156 dead but are playing a cat-and-mouse game with censors who appear to be removing some posts and blogs…. One person, called “zfc883919″ and writing on Xinjiang portal www.tianya.cn, said he did not understand how the police could have let the death toll rise so high. “What on earth were you doing? That was 156 living beings. I hope relevant authorities really learn a lesson, so that this kind of tragedy is not repeated.” Yet authorities have been working fast to remove comments about the violence, apparently to prevent ethnic hatred from spreading or Internet users questioning government policies toward regions populated by ethnic minorities. [Comment: See story below]

Independent reports about Xinjiang rioting censored in China Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders condemns the Chinese government`s filtering of online information about the rioting in the Urumqi, the capital of the western province of Xinjiang, in which hundreds of people have been killed or injured. More than 50 Uyghur-language Internet forums were closed yesterday and communications were cut in the city. Urumqi is currently cut off from the rest of the world, Reporters Without Borders said. Once again, the Chinese government has chosen to cut communications in order to prevent the free flow of information. We firmly condemn this behaviour, which is serious violation of Uyghur freedom of expression and an unacceptable act of discrimination. [Comment: See story above]

Canada’s first online movie streaming service unveiled IT Business
Canadians will soon be able to legally download movies and TV shows over the Internet, thanks to a new offering from Zip.ca. The service will offer many benefits over traditional DVD movie rentals. But certain obstacles need to be overcome before it takes off, says a Canadian analyst.

Judge Says Blogs Not Legitimate News Source; No Shield Protections TechDirt
Back in May we wrote about a lawsuit questioning whether or not a blogger could use journalism shield laws to protect a source who sent her info she used for a blog post. The company the info was about is suing her for slander (which is odd, since slander is usually spoken, while libel is written). The woman, Shellee Hale tried to claim that she was protected under New Jersey’s shield law, which allows a journalist to protect sources. In writing about this case originally, we pointed out that the judge in question clearly did not know much about the internet, and via his questions seemed positively perplexed that anyone would blog at all: “Why would a guy put all this stuff on a blog? Does he have nothing better to do?” Thus, it should come as no surprise that the judge has now ruled that Hale is not protected by shield laws because she has “no connection to any legitimate news publication.”

CompuServe signs off The Register
AOL shutters classic dial-up provider – CompuServe, the first commercially successful online and email provider in America, has been shut down by AOL after 30 years of service.

Google remaps interwebs real estate listings The Register
Google has juiced its efforts to bypass Craigslist and other real estate classifieds sites, adding a new property-listings search contraption to Google Maps. This morning, with a down-under blog post, Google announced the addition of direct real estate listings to the Australian incarnation of Google Maps, and a similar service is available in the States as well. [Comment: Canadians will allow their homes captured by the "free" google street-view and used in googles real estate program and like it. No choice. No opt out. No opt in]

Ubisoft gets millions to move to Toronto The Inquirer
For $263 million I would move to Canada – [Quebec based] GAME PUBLISHER Ubisoft has been given a $263 million sweetener to set up shop in Toronto. The move is supposed to create 800 jobs and offset some of the losses in the province’s manufacturing sector… Government money is coming in the form of a huge tax-credit and is part of the province’s plan to attract tech-based, creative industries to offset the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs.

RIAA Seeks Web Removal of Courtroom Audio SlashDot
suraj.sun writes to tell us that the RIAA has asked a federal judge to order the removal of what they are calling “unauthorized and illegal recordings” by Harvard University’s Charles Nesson of pretrial hearings and depositions in a file-sharing lawsuit. …the RIAA, on Monday cited a series of examples in which they accuse Nesson of violating court orders and privacy laws by posting audio to his blog or to the Berkman site.”

Antitrust review of wireless carriers is urged Chicago Tribune
Reporting from Washington – Cellphone customers have long complained about exclusive deals between handset makers and wireless carriers — many, for instance, won’t buy the iPhone because it runs only on the AT&T network — and federal authorities now are being prodded to take action. Concerns have mounted that the power that major carriers have amassed is stifling consumer choice and, perhaps, improperly propping up prices.

Justice Department Said to Eye Telecom Inquiry New York Times
The U.S. Justice Department has begun looking at big telecom companies such as AT&T and Verizon Communications to try to determine if they have abused their market power, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter, said the Antitrust Division`s review was in its very early stages and was not yet a formal probe of any specific company.

New Zealand teen sells nude pictures of mum online News AU
A New Zealand teenager tried to sell sexy photos of his mother in her underwear online to make some quick cash. While most 18-year-olds would balk at the thought of their parents naked, Auckland student Michael appeared comfortable with the concept, twice listing nude and semi-clothed images of his 44-year-old mother Jennifer. The first time he auctioned “five naked photos of my mum” to annoy her after the pair had an argument, he told the Herald on Sunday newspaper. When TradeMe removed the listing the following day he relisted a second series of “glamour photos” with her permission…. “There’s nothing dodgy about them. They were taken by a family friend about eight years ago,” Jennifer told the newspaper. “I wanted 50 per cent of the sale but more than that, I miss the nice comments.” The photos were viewed 11,000 times before they were pulled by the website’s management, citing “inappropriateness”. “We don’t really want to be the place where people list photos of their mums in their underwear,” TradeMe spokesman Jon Macdonald said. [Comment: Parants, don't piss off todays kids... ;p Heaven forbid we see Jon in his underwear going for 100$!]

Kenyan AIDS Patients Seek To Overturn Anti-Counterfeiting Law As Unconstitutional IP-Watch
Three HIV/AIDS patients in Kenya announced Tuesday they will petition the country`s Constitutional Court to declare a new anti-counterfeiting act illegal because it could deny them access to generic medicines. The move, which has the support of public health groups across the country, seeks to have the 2008 Anti-Counterfeiting Act made unconstitutional on the grounds that it could rob them of their right to life.

NJ man charged with stealing Goldman Sachs data Associated Press
Federal authorities have charged a computer programmer in New Jersey with stealing trade secrets from his former employer, Goldman Sachs. The FBI says the Russian-born Sergey Aleynikov (SUR’-gay uh-LAY’-nih-kawf) of North Caldwell downloaded software and sent computer codes to an Internet account in Germany. The FBI arrested the 39-year-old Aleynikov on Friday at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Social Security number code cracked, study claims Associated Press
For all the concern about identity theft, researchers say there’s a surprisingly easy way for the technology-savvy to figure out the precious nine digits of Americans’ Social Security numbers. “It’s good that we found it before the bad guys,” Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh said of the method for predicting the numbers. Acquisti and Ralph Gross report in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they were able to make the predictions using data available in public records as well as information such as birthdates cheerfully provided on social networks such as Facebook. For people born after 1988 – when the government began issuing numbers at birth – the researchers were able to identify, in a single attempt, the first five Social Security digits for 44 percent of individuals. And they got all nine digits for 8.5 percent of those people in fewer than 1,000 attempts. For smaller states their accuracy was considerably higher than in larger ones.

PC Invader Costs Ky. County $415,000 Washington Post
Cyber criminals based in Ukraine stole $415,000 from the coffers of Bullitt County, Kentucky this week. The crooks were aided by more than two dozen co-conspirators in the United States, as well as a strain of malicious software capable of defeating online security measures put in place by many banks. Bullitt County Attorney Walt Sholar said the trouble began on June 22, when someone started making unauthorized wire transfers of $10,000 or less from the county’s payroll to accounts belonging to at least 25 individuals around the country (some individuals received multiple payments). On June 29, the county’s bank realized something was wrong, and began requesting that the banks receiving those transfers start reversing them, Sholar said.

Google ordered to disclose GMAIL user details Copyright
The Jerusalem Magistrates’ Court ordered Google to disclose the details of a GMAIL user. The case concerned a defamation claim filed by a person who learned that a small local newspaper wrote libel about him. Upon searching for the people who were running the newspaper, it transpired that most of the contact details appearing in the newspaper (including names of people and a phone number) were false, and that the only detail which remained to be investigated was a GMAIL e-mail address. The person filed a claim for libel against an unknown company which was indicated in the newspaper, and petitioned the court in an interim motion to order Google to disclose any details (including IP addresses) it has on the owner of the GMAIL account (after Google refused to do so voluntarily). The court granted the motion, holding that there is no “right” to privacy for such GMAIL account holder,…

Higher Education Quarterly removed paper: Perspectives of UK Vice-Chancellors in a Knowlege-Based Economy, 2009 WikiLeaks
This paper appeared briefly on the web site of the journal Higher Education Quarterly[1]. It is Perspectives of UK Vice-Chancellors on Leading Universities in a Knowledge-Based Economy by Lynn Bosetti, University of Calgary, and Keith Walker, University of Saskatchewan. The paper quotes ten different university vice-chancellors (presidents) of UK universities. Some of the comments caused quite a stir when they were quoted anonymously in an article of the Times Higher Education[2]. But the paper soon vanished and still has not reappeared.

UK charity Novas Scarman go after WikiLeaks to suppress corruption report, 6 Jul 2009 WikiLeaks
It seems that embroiled UK charity Novas Scarman is not keen on having its dirty laundry aired. On June 23, 2009, WikiLeaks released “UK charity Novas Scarman Group looted, confidential auditors report, 15 Dec 2008″. Although the UK press have so far missed the ball on this doozy of a report, Novas Scarman management was alerted to it by an investigative journalist. Apparently wanting to make sure the report disappears before more reporters get wind of it, the charity threatened to sue WikiLeaks. Novas Scarmand demanded that the report be removed, claiming it was obtained “in breach of confidence”. However, WikiLeaks will not remove the report. The file here presents the legal threat sent to WikiLeaks.

Mozilla Aims To Centralize All Open Web Tools In One Directory TechCrunch
Mozilla says there`s no central index for tools built to help web developers do their jobs (and/or hobby projects) better, so it set out to build one of its own. Located at tools.mozilla.com and dubbed the Open Web Tools Directory, the organization is taking a swing at building the most extensive and comprehensible index of tools that modern-day web developers can use.

Angry phone-company execs address councillors over VoIP contract CanWest
The first of two city council decisions, possibly resulting in legal action regardless of what happens, on a controversial telephone technology procurement process is expected to come Tuesday. City council’s economic-affairs committee is hearing from city staff and advisers and angry phone-company officials involved in a $6-million-to-$7-million contract to supply voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) technology to the city. Mitel lost out on the contract to a bid from Bell and Cisco, but alleges the process the city ran was so unfair that it might sue. Bell and Cisco`s lawyers have said the companies expect to get the contracts, and they could sue if they don`t get it…. The contract process has been on hold since early April due to Mitel’s various efforts to grab the contract, but, after review, city staff rejected Mitel’s positions and recommended giving the contract to Bell and Cisco Systems immediately.

Internet reunites parts of oldest Bible The Star
The Internet has done what decades of theologians and scholars could not: brought together the books of the oldest known copy of the Christian Bible. The 1,600-year-old Codex Sinaiticus, possibly the last surviving copy of 50 Bibles commissioned by Roman Emperor Constantine after his conversion to Christianity in the 4th century, is now available in its entirety at codexsinaiticus.org.

Marc – p2pnet

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