p2pnet World Headlines: Nov 30, 2009: #1
Internet activists push for greater democracy Associated Press
The Internet can be a powerful medium for politicians to get their message across but it is also a vital means for civilians to have a say in what politicians do, participants in a political conference say. Andrew Rasiej, founder of the Personal Democracy Forum series, said tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube help people organize “in order to have an impact on the political process and to petition governments to be more responsive to their everyday needs.” Saturday’s conference comes at a time when more and more people are using the Internet to have their say. Examples include simultaneous global protests on climate change, democracy activists using Twitter in Iran and a French campaign against legislation that threatened to cut people’s Internet connection for downloading copyright-protected material.
Splinter Cell hack smells more like publicity stunt The Register
Ubisoft said that the website of its popular video game Splinter Cell had been hacked on Thursday. However circumstantial evidence suggests the hack is more likely to be a publicity stunt than a genuine cyber assault. Visitors to the Splinter Cell website are been greeted by a message in Russian. This is followed a bit.ly link buried in the message, which leads on to a page displaying the ASCII art of a shield with a double-headed eagle, also on the Splinter Cell site. The arty effort looks more like an Easter Egg than the sort of things real cybercrooks typically spray on compromised sites, which usually include rants, abuse, political messages, greetings to other hackers and the like.
IIA snubbed in iiNet case Australian IT
The Federal Court has told Australia’s peak internet lobby group it won’t be allowed to intervene in a landmark copyright trial against internet service provider iiNet. The Internet Industry Association (IIA) sought permission to be heard in the trial earlier this year after a group of 34 music and movie companies sued the Perth ISP for copyright infringement. The group, which is represented by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), sued iiNet after it refused to take action on infringement notices containing allegations and evidence that its customers were using the ISP’s network to share music and movie files illegally. As part of its application, sought under the Federal Court’s amicus curiae or friend of the court provisions, the IIA told the court that it viewed the trial a test case that would guide its members’ future conduct.
EU hearing on Oracle-Sun set for Dec. 10 All Things Digital
Come early December, Oracle will meet with European Commission regulators to urge their approval of its merger with Sun Microsystems. “Two people with knowledge of the matter” tell Reuters that “Oracle has asked for a hearing which has been fixed for December 10.” Should make for an interesting meeting given Oracle’s refusal to take the EC’s concerns about the future of Sun’s MySQL database seriously. Certainly, it’s difficult to imagine Oracle caving to the Commission’s demands when it has criticized the group’s findings as a “profound misunderstanding” of the database market and open source.
French minister wants Europe to take on Google Reuters
European Union members want to create a joint project on the digitization of books, French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said, challenging Google’s plan to create a massive digital library. EU ministers agreed in Brussels on Friday to create a committee of “wise men” to carve out a plan, Mitterrand said in an interview with French newspaper Journal du Dimanche due to be published on Saturday. He also said the digitization of books should not be left to private companies, and governments had to come up with appropriate policies. “The committee will be asked to bring together national views and draw up a joint position,” he told the newspaper.
Redirecting DNS Requests Can Harm the Internet, Says ICANN IDG News Service
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) on Tuesday condemned the practice of redirecting Internet users to a third-party Web site or portal when they misspell a Web address and type a domain name that does not exist. Rather than return an error message for DNS (Domain Name System) requests for nonexistent domains, some DNS operators send back the IP (Internet Protocol) address of another domain, a process known as NXDOMAIN substitution. The target address is often a Web portal or information site. Handling DNS requests this way has a number drawbacks that could lead to the Internet not working properly, according to ICANN.
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November, 2009
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