Report: Yahoo exec apologizes to U.S. lawmakers on China
,----[ Quote ]
| A senior executive at Yahoo has apologized for misleading U.S. lawmakers on
| the company's cooperation with a request by China for details on a journalist
| who was later jailed, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday in its
| online edition.
`----
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6216579.html
Microsoft's policies in China are similar to Yahoo's and they work side by
side. Links below.
Comcast reported to FCC
,----[ Quote ]
| P2P throttling breaks FCC 'net neutrality' policy
|
| [...]
|
| Among the consumer groups who have approached the FCC are the Consumer
| Federation of America, the Consumers Union, the Media Access Project and
| professors at the Internet practices of the Yale, Harvard and Stanford law
| schools.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/11/02/comcast-reported-fcc
The abuse of rights continues. Shut your eyes and be abused for good...
Related:
Yahoo Censors Linux.
Yahoo! Answers is rejecting Open-Source options in answers
,----[ Quote ]
| Someone got a computer from a friend that has some serious problems
| with Windows. S/he has none of the disks (XP or restore) and was
| asking for recommendations.
|
| [...]
|
| How is recommending freely available and legal alternatives abuse?
| ImgBurn is also a perfectly legal program, so are Ubuntu and Kubuntu
| (they're Linux).
`----
http://amandakerik.wordpress.com/2007/04/23/yahoo-answers-is-rejecting-open-source-options-in-answers/
http://tinyurl.com/ywglv7
Yahoo helped China falsely imprison dissident
.----[ Quote ]
| U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-Calif.,
| said on Oct. 16 Yahoo misled his panel at a 2006 hearing about the
| company's role in providing the Chinese government with information
| that sent journalist Shi Tao to jail for a decade.
|
| [...]
|
| "Our committee has established that Yahoo provided false
| information to Congress in early 2006," Lantos said in a statement.
| "We want to clarify how that happened, and to hold the company to
| account for its actions both before and after its testimony proved
| untrue."
`----
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2199220,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594
,----[ Quote ]
| Vista—Microsoft’s latest operating system—may prove to be most
| appropriately named, especially for those seeking evidence of how a
| computer was used.
`----
http://www.abanet.org/journal/ereport/jy13tkjasn.html
Microsoft could be teaching police to hack Vista
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft may begin training the police in ways to break the
| encryption built into its forthcoming Vista operating system.
`----
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2150555/microsoft-teaching-police-hack
UK holds Microsoft security talks
,----[ Quote ]
| "UK officials are talking to Microsoft over fears the new version of
| Windows could make it harder for police to read suspects' computer files."
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4713018.stm
Microsoft sued by Beijing student for privacy infringement
,----[ Quote ]
| Lu argued that Microsoft had violated his legal rights by providing a formal
| contract which had to be accepted in order to proceed with the installation.
`----
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/13/content_6718045.htm
Yahoo!, Microsoft ink web pact with Chinese government
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft and Yahoo! have signed a pact with the Chinese government
| that "encourages" the big name web players to record the identities of
| bloggers and censor content. So says Reporters Without Borders, an
| organization that fights for journalistic rights across the globe.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/24/yahoo_and_microsoft_ink_chinese_blogging_pact/
Microsoft, Yahoo Tailor Ads To Users' Behavior
,----[ Quote ]
| Google will remain on the sidelines — at least for now. But its Web portal
| rivals are stepping up their efforts to use behavioral targeting to make
| display, or banner, ads more relevant to Web site visitors.
`----
http://investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=17&issue=20070823
Microsoft patents the mother of all adware systems
,----[ Quote ]
| The adware framework would leave almost no data untouched in its quest to
| sell you stuff. It would inspect "user document files, user e-mail files,
| user music files, downloaded podcasts, computer settings, computer status
| messages (e.g., a low memory status or low printer ink)," and more. How could
| we have been so blind as to not see the marketing value in computer status
| messages?
`----
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070717-microsoft-patents-the-mother-of-all-adware-systems.html
Will Microsoft Put The Colonel in the Kernel?
,----[ Quote ]
| "The kernel meets The Colonel in a just-published Microsoft patent
| application for an Advertising Services Architecture, which delivers targeted
| advertising as 'part of the OS.'
`----
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/14/043200
New software can identify you from your online habits
,----[ Quote ]
| That is the spectre raised by new research conducted by Microsoft.
| The computing giant is developing software that could accurately
| guess your name, age, gender and potentially even your location,
| by analysing telltale patterns in your web browsing history. But
| experts say the idea is a clear threat to privacy - and may be
| illegal in some places.
`----
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=mg19426046.400&feedId=being-human_rss20
http://tinyurl.com/2lrazk
Yahoo in China human rights case
,----[ Quote ]
| A human rights group in the US is suing Yahoo for alleged complicity in
| rights abuses and acts of torture in China.
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6966116.stm
Chinese Internet dissident committed to mental hospital
,----[ Quote ]
| "It is not acceptable that Chinese authorities use such methods to silence
| citizens who have merely peacefully voiced their opinions", expressed the
| organisation in an announcement. Apparently authorities have not abandoned
| the practice of punishing those who have exposed the abuse of power and
| defied censorship by compulsorily committing them to mental institutions.
`----
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/94864/from/rss09
Comcast's "We Don't Throttle BitTorrent" Internal Talking Points Memo
http://consumerist.com/consumer/leaks/comcasts-we-dont-throttle-bittorrent-internal-talking-points-memo-315791.php
Comcast Isn’t Net Neutral; Are They Liars, Too?
,----[ Quote ]
| Following reports that Comcast isn’t net neutral, Consumerist blog has
| acquired several leaks from Comcast insiders, claiming that they do indeed
| use Sandvine for packet shaping, and that customer service representatives
| are being told nothing about how the network technology works,
`----
http://mashable.com/2007/10/26/comcast-isnt-net-neutral-are-they-liars-too/
Senators want probe of Comcast's BitTorrent 'discrimination'
,----[ Quote ]
| The senators suggested the incidents indicate "Congress should consider
| adopting targeted regulations to protect consumers and ensure a vibrant and
| open communications platform."
`----
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9805308-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Congressman to Comcast: Stop interfering with BitTorrent
,----[ Quote ]
| While a class action lawsuit is definitely one way to get Comcast to behave,
| another perhaps more productive way to do so is to have politicians step in
| and regulate.
|
| On Tuesday, I discussed the issue of Comcast's anti-BitTorrent "network
| management" with Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., who is a strong supporter of
| consumer rights and has led the battle to undo the damage caused by the
| Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.
`----
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9804158-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
OiNK Down, Norwegian BitTorrent Trackers Next
,----[ Quote ]
| With the BitTorrent world spinning on its heels after the shock takedown of
| the huge OiNK tracker, there are now indications that the shutdowns may
| continue. According to the lawyer who lost against ‘DVD Jon’, next stop is
| Norway and raids are imminent.
`----
http://torrentfreak.com/oink-down-norwegian-bittorrent-trackers-next-071024/
TorrentSpy Traffic Plunges After US Ban
,----[ Quote ]
| The MPAA has caused TorrentSpy, once the most popular BitTorrent site, some
| serious headaches. After a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to log all user
| data stored in RAM, they decided to block access to US users, consequently
| their traffic dropped significantly.
`----
http://torrentfreak.com/torrentspy-traffic-plunges-after-us-ban-071006/
BitTorrent Admin Monitored by US Government, Forced to Dump Linux
,----[ Quote ]
| Sk0t, an ex-administrator of the EliteTorrents BitTorrent tracker is to have
| his internet connection forcibly monitored by the US Government. If that
| wasn’t bad enough, the monitoring software is Windows based - which means he
| is being forced to ditch Linux - or face being barred from the internet.
`----
http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-admin-monitored-by-us-government-forced-to-dump-linux/
Is Comcast's BitTorrent filtering violating the law?
,----[ Quote ]
| Assuming that the SYN packet goes through, the three-way handshake is allowed
| to happen, then the two hosts will be able to begin communicating. Your ISP
| can still kill the connection later, should they wish to, merely by blocking
| the transmission of future packets.
|
| According to Torrent Freak, Comcast is not doing this. They are instead
| sending a reset (or RST) packet to the Comcast customer, pretending to be
| from the host at the end of the BitTorrent connection.
`----
http://www.cnet.com/8301-13739_1-9769645-46.html
Comcast Cuts Off Heavy Internet Users
,----[ Quote ]
| Customers complain bandwidth limits are secret.
`----
http://consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/08/comcast_ban.html?imw=Y
Torrentspy Disables Searching For US IPs
,----[ Quote
| Torrent indexing site Torrentspy.com appears to have disabled torrent
| searches for IPs that originate in the United States.
`----
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/27/1541244&from=rss
Comcast Throttles BitTorrent Traffic, Seeding Impossible
,----[ Quote ]
| Over the past weeks more and more Comcast users started to notice that their
| BitTorrent transfers were cut off. Most users report a significant decrease
| in download speeds, and even worse, they are unable to seed their downloads.
| A nightmare for people who want to keep up a positive ratio at private
| trackers and for the speed of BitTorrent transfers in general.
|
| [...]
|
| Last year we had a discussion whether traffic shaping is good or bad, and
| ISPs made it pretty clear that they do not like P2P applications like
| BitTorrent. One of the ISPs that joined our discussions said: “The fact is,
| P2P is (from my point of view) a plague - a cancer, that will consume all the
| bandwidth that I can provide. It’s an insatiable appetite.”, and another one
| stated: “P2P applications can cripple a network, they’re like leaches. Just
| because you pay 49.99 for a 1.5-3.0mbps connection doesn’t mean your entitled
| to use whatever protocols you wish on your ISP’s network without them
| provisioning it to make the network experience good for all users involved.”
`----
http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-throttles-bittorrent-traffic-seeding-impossible/
Anti-Piracy Company Wants to Sell Patents to Protect P2P
,----[ Quote ]
| Recently we reported that anti-piracy company Viralg is selling the patents
| to its technology on eBay for $1,000,000. Most people didn’t think it was
| value for money but Viralg have been in touch and they have a new idea -
| selling the patents to P2P’ers to help prevent some future anti-P2P
| technology.
`----
http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-company-wants-to-sell-patents-to-protect-p2p-070927/
Studies: music industry overstating threat of P2P piracy
,----[ Quote ]
| Or perhaps it's not all that amazing. A more likely explanation is
| that the numbers aren't even right. As Canadian law professor Michael
| Geist showed a few weeks ago, claims about piracy rates can be wildly
| variable and downright fictional. High numbers are often used to
| support legal threats or calls for Congressional action, as in the
| MRT case. MRT has a lot to gain by overstating the threat of
| streamripping and, so far, has not showed its numbers. Both MRT
| and NPD agree, though, that P2P is hardly the music industry's
| biggest problem.
`----
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070531-studies-music-industry-overstating-threat-of-p2p-piracy.html
File sharing could threaten personal and national security
,----[ Quote ]
| A recent government report says that the old adage "buyer beware" now
| even applies to those who are not technically buying anything at all.
| Despite the reputation of "free" downloads, much of the illegal file
| sharing done on the internet comes at a steep price: personal and
| national security.
`----
http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6424471&partner=eb&spacedesc=news
The European Parliament approves new, stricter anti-piracy directive
,----[ Quote ]
| The European Parliament voted yes on the new controversial directive
| Ipred 2 which concludes that all kinds of infringement of the
| intellectual copyrights will be considered criminal. The directive
| is actually stricter than that and even criminalizes attempts of
| infringing on copyrights. In theory this means that basically all
| video sites, P2P developers and other services used to spread
| material around the web is criminal.
`----
http://www.nordichardware.com/news,6197.html
Russian music site down, sister site up
,----[ Quote ]
| Allofmp3 has been cast as the epitome of Russia's shoddy copyright
| enforcement and repeatedly held up by U.S. trade negotiators as
| imperiling Moscow's WTO bid.
|
| But a sister site has quietly emerged from the wings.
`----
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070703/ap_on_hi_te/russia_music_downloads
AllOfMP3 Shut Down by Russian Government
,----[ Quote ]
| AllOfMp3, the popular online music store, has been shut down by the
| Russian government. Pressure from the United States, and a refusal
| to enter the World Trade Organisation (WTO) convinced the Kremlin to
| take the website down for good.
`----
http://torrentfreak.com/allofmp3-shut-down-by-russian-government/
File-sharing 'graveyard' still filling up
,----[ Quote ]
| Now a new battle is heating up. The search engine TorrentSpy is accused
| in a lawsuit filed last year by the Motion Picture Association of
| America (MPAA) of allegedly helping users locate pirated movies online.
`----
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6194001.html
|
|
