Bill would give president emergency control of Internet Cnet
Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet. They`re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

Telco lobby helped block cellphone cost calculator The Star
After spending tens of thousands of dollars creating and testing an online calculator designed to help consumers select their ideal wireless plan, Industry Minister Tony Clement killed the project weeks before it was scheduled to launch. Government records suggest intense lobbying this spring by Canada`s wireless companies, who feared the service would promote lower-cost plans, played a key role in the decision . According to lobbyist registration records, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and Bell Canada met with officials from Clement`s office on April 8, with the association listing telecommunications regulation and consumer issues as the topics of discussion. Two weeks later, Telus also met with the same officials to discuss consumer issues. The carriers were apparently concerned that the tool only covered voice services and was geared toward lower-priced plans. Sensing that Clement was facing pressure to block the calculator, Canadian consumer groups wrote to the minister, urging him to stick with it. Despite months of preparation, thousands of dollars in taxpayer expense, the creation of an effective tool and the obvious benefits for lower-income Canadians, Clement nevertheless killed the project.

Gmail subpoena for the identities of journalists running the corruption busting TCI Journal 28 Aug 2009 WikiLeaks
Summary – See Gmail may hand over IP addresses of journalists for futher information. Subpoena proper (PDF) follows this cover letter. [Comment; TCI JOurnal can be found here: http://www.tcijournal.com/]

Suppressed Texas Instruments cryptographic signing keys 28 Aug 2009 WikiLeaks
Summary – Texas Instruments, a large US electronics company, is the market leader for sophisticated programable calculators used by millions of students and engineers. Recently, TI has served internet publishers with DMCA legal threats for distributing cryptographic keys that permit owners of TI calculators to install third-party system software on TI calculators — an anti-competitive, and arguably unethical act by TI. The file here presents the Operating System signing keys for different Texas Instruments calculators. The key for the TI-83 calculator was first published by someone at the unitedti.org forum. He or she needed several months to crack it. The other keys were found after a few weeks by the unitedti.org community through a distributed computing project. The keys make it possible for people to create new OS software to be used on Texas Instruments calculators. Texas Instruments contacted several people with DMCA notices to take down the keys from their websites. Some of the websites which got a DMCA notice are: unitedti.org, brandonw.net and reddit.com. One of these DCMA notices can be found here: http://brandonw.net/calcstuff/DMCA_notice.txt]

Michigan State University: Serious Student Complaints Spam Huffingtonpost
Today, as part of a national ad campaign, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education placed a half-page ad in Michigan State University`s student newspaper criticizing the university`s absurdly overbroad spam policy: [Comment: See the picture in the above link] The ad refers to the case of Kara Spencer, a student who, after sending a respectful and serious e-mail to select members of the faculty about the university`s decision to reduce the school year by several days, was brought up on charges of spamming.

Fashion blogger`s Google suit seen as weak SFgate
The blogger who anonymously tarred a fashion model as a skank before being outed by Google Inc. under court order generated considerable public outrage when she announced plans to sue the company for $15 million, but few lawyers other than her own believe she has a case.

Microsoft pulls plug on BCE partnership Various-Links
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/bell-microsoft-to-end-online-partnership/article1268524/
http://www.canada.com/business/fp/Microsoft+pulls+plug+partnership/1941073/story.html
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=1942346
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/story.html?id=1942346
[Comment: Adios. Now prepare for Bells web redirect, and forced redirect to "Bing" and services Bell sells for added costs]

Telus pulling a Bell CBC
Telus Corp. has drawn the ire of wireless customers by cancelling one of its unlimited data plans and dropping some subscribers for abusing its network. The plan had cost $75 plus other charges and offered unlimited downloading, but Telus is now urging customers to move onto a $65 service that provides only one gigabyte of data per month, with each extra gigabyte costing $10. Online message boards have been abuzz with customers reporting they are being cancelled or pressured by Telus to switch plans for downloading too much. One subscriber reported he had been contacted by Telus and urged to move to the $65 service because he was abusing the terms of service after downloading 12GB and for using the aircard for multimedia streaming. In the last 30 days I`ve used 12GB, not abusive for an `unlimited` account, in my estimation, the user wrote. I mentioned I didn`t see YouTube as a streaming service The way the internet is now, it`s almost impossible to avoid multimedia. A small number of customers — or 0.1 per cent — were being cancelled, he said, because their heavy usage was slowing the company`s wireless network and affecting speeds for the vast majority of users. [Comment: DAMN THOSE 0.01%!! They ruined the wireless internet! Now Telus has to charge people almost the same price for 1-million percent less. No choice]

Yet Another Study Shows File Sharers Buy More Media TechDirt
Yet another study has shown that people who are more active in unauthorized file sharing, also tend to spend more on authorized entertainment purchases. Now, to be fair, the study was paid for by a file sharing provider — so, take it with a rather large grain of salt.

More Than Half of All 12-Year-Olds Have Cell Phones Xchangemag
The next time your 12-year-old wails that everybody else is getting a cell phone, you might have to reluctantly agree. For the first time, more than half of the 12-year-olds in the United States have a cell phone of their very own, and their ranks are growing like lines at a Hannah Montana concert. [Comment: Children ripe for the pickings, see: `Get kids to nag parents` - Bell Canada http://www.p2pnet.net/story/22694]

AT&T: We Don`t Stalk Online, We Promise Xchangemag
AT&T Inc. says it didn`t lie to Congress about its privacy policies, after conflicting information surfaced regarding its activities in the behavioral advertising space. It`s all just a misunderstanding, the company said. … But it soon came to light that AT&T has a relationship with a company called AudienceScience, which describes itself as offering the most powerful and flexible targeting platform for digital media worldwide and their leading behavioral targeting platform” AT&T was identified on AudienceScience’s site as an advertising partner. This prompted follow-up questioning by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who sent a letter to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson asking the company to explain.

Cell Phone, Cancer Link Claimed PCWorld
A group of international scientists released a report last week that again raises concerns about cell phone usage and brain tumors, noting that one recent Swedish study saw a 400% increased risk for teenage cell phone users.

Norway’s Knut Storberget tells ISPs to deploy secret censorship lists 29 Aug 2008 WikiLeaks
Summary – The file contains a letter from the Norwegian Minister for Justice, Knut Storberget, asking all Norwegian Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to create a nation wide censorship system on a “voluntary basis” or face the passage of laws compelling them to do so. The letter was sent to internet providers in Norway. It was leaked because such a move should be debated in the Parliament rather than implemented without debate behind closed doors. It has been leaked because secret censorship lists are inherently unjust and undemocratic. And it has been leaked because other countries with blacklists such as Australia (mandatory, unimplemented), Thailand (mandatory, implemented), Finland (voluntary, implemented) and Denmark (voluntary, implemented) have been exposed including material on their lists that they promised not to. See also Norwegian secret internet censorship blacklist, 3518 domains, 18 Mar 2009

UK DCMS informs Public Prosecutor about unenforcability of UK Video Recording Act, advises to suppress information from public 24 Aug 2009 WikiLeaks
Summary – The PDF file presents a letter sent from UK Parliament Under Secretary Barbara Follett MP to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC. The letter is dated 24th of August 2009 and is informing Public Prosecutions of “an issue that has risen in relation to the Video Recordings Act 1984″, which appears to be that “offences under the Act are unenforcable”, and existing investigations “should not be continued”. The Video Recording Act requires any commercial video recording to be classified by the UK Home Office. The issue with the Act is related to a missing formal notification of the Act as a technical regulation to the EU, according to EEC Standards Directive 83/189/EEC. After explaining the situation, Follett in an obvious attempt to surpress a spreading public knowledge about this issue asks DPP to “consider carefully what reasons are given to the court in relation to any discontinuations”, fearing the market could be flooded with “unclassified DVDs”.

How Canadian lawyer unearthed U.S. torture documents The Star
One of the key figures behind the cascade of documents detailing torture and abuse within America’s global “war on terror” happens to be a Canadian-born graduate of Toronto’s Upper Canada College. … Six years later, more than 130,000 pages of previously classified evidence has trickled out; much of it has been seized upon by critics of America’s seemingly unending global war on terrorism. … “In general, I think our position is that national security is increasingly used as a pretext to suppress information that would embarrass government officials and information related to criminal activity,” Jaffer told the Star. “And we think that the abuse of national security for those ends is something that, in the end, jeopardizes not just security but democracy as well, and that’s really what motivates a lot of these cases.”

Whistleblower releases Skype snooping code The Register
The source code for a Windows Trojan capable of recording Skype calls as MP3 files has been released in a move that spells bad news for VoIP confidentiality.

Porn flakes: Breakfast cereal freebie CD dishes up hard-core smut The Register
Swedish woman in porn flakes shocker – A Swedish woman has described herself as “shaken” and somewhat “disappointed” that a freebie fitness CD from a packet of Nestlé Fitness cereal dished up hard-core porn in addition to the healthy benefits of a dance-based workout. Ida Riedel Palmer, 23, popped the “Body Jam” disc into her computer and was immediately directed to a eye-opening smut website. Palmer explained: “It was not soft porn. It was definitely what I would categorize as unpleasant porn – not that I know much about it.”

Canadian, U.S pilots seek ban on lithium batteries in planes IT World Canada
Citing several incidents of onboard fire involving lithium batteries, an airline pilots union is demanding a temporary ban on lithium battery shipments. The proposed ban, however, would also stop airline passengers from carrying devices using lithium batteries [Comment: Is the laptop a weapon of mass destruction?]

IT bid-rigging saga continues with conflict of interest twist IT World Canada
As last February`s Ottawa area bid-rigging scandal works its way through the courts, one of the accused companies says the Crown prosecutor in charge of the case is in a conflict of interest. One of the Ottawa area IT firms charged in February with bid-rigging several government contracts has launched a conflict of interest complaint to the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. TPG Technology Consulting Ltd. filed a formal complaint earlier this week, alleging that Crown prosecutor Denis Pilon history`s as a Conservative candidate during the 1997 federal election and $10,000 in donations to the political party constitutes a conflict of interest.

Digital Library Europeana Said To Be Europe`s Answer to Google Books Settlement IP-Watch
Google`s settlement in the United States of copyright infringement claims by authors and book publishers faces strong opposition from European publishers. The deal does not apply to books outside the US and one Google official has suggested the need for a similar service in Europe. Could digital library Europeana be the solution? A 28 August European Commission policy statement addressed that concern and others.

Microsoft slams $290 million patent verdict as `miscarriage of justice` IT Business
A miscarriage of justice is how Microsoft describes the verdict that awarded Toronto-based i4i nearly $300 million in damages and prohibited Redmond from selling current versions of Word 2003 and Word 2007 in the U.S. after Oct. 10.

Brazil court rejects appeal by crime-show host accused of ordering killings to boost ratings CBC
The investigation will continue against a TV crime-show host suspected of commissioning several killings to boost his audience ratings after a procedural appeal was rejected by a Brazilian court. TV host Wallace Souza must continue responding to charges of drug trafficking, gang formation and weapons possession, the country`s highest appellate court for non-constitutional issues said in a statement posted Friday night on its Web site. The charges stem from an investigation into allegations by prosecutors that Souza ordered at least five people killed to improve television ratings.

Carleton U launches electronic alert system CBC
If an armed gunman is ever spotted on campus, Carleton University will use a new system to send emails and text messages to students and staff and flash messages on campus computer screens. The $350,000 Emergency Notification System was unveiled by the university Thursday and announced in a news release.

August, 2009

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