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Comment Re:Identity Authenticity (Score 2, Informative) 537

by westlake (#29777619) Attached to: Kaspersky CEO Wants End To Online Anonymity

there is not much you can do if that person is at the other side of the globe. Yes you can call police, but they will seldom do something.

Don't count on it:

The federal government can extradite a man to face a first-degree murder trial in the United States on charges of killing his wife, even though the evidence presented against him does not meet the test for the same charge in Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled. Top court okays U.S. extradition [Oct 16]

A Briton accused of hacking into secret military and Nasa computers has had his extradition to the US put on hold as new psychiatric evidence is considered. Hacker's extradition put on hold

This is Gary McKinnon pitching his last-ditch "Asperger's defense" to the Home Office.

The Swiss Justice Ministry rejected on Tuesday film director Roman Polanski's appeal for an immediate release from custody. Polanski was arrested September 26 upon arriving in Zürich, Switzerland, to attend a film festival and has remained in prison ever since, awaiting possible extradition to the United States. Roman Polanski denied bail in Switzerland

Comedian and talk-show host Whoopi Goldberg had on The View on September 29 tried to defend his actions.
"It wasn't rape-rape," she had said.
The next day, Debra Tate, sister of Polanski's murdered wife, Sharon, argued on the Today show that it was consensual sex even though the victim was 13.
"There's rape, and then there's rape," she said.

Shannon Gilreath, Wake Forest University Law Professor for Interdisciplinary Study and a nationally recognized scholar on issues of equality, sexual minorities, and constitutional interpretation, believes there are really two perspectives involved in the case. "One is the perspective of people who look for any reason imaginable to excuse the victimization of women and girls that is rampant: it happened long ago, she was mature for her age-she wanted it," he explained. On the other side of this are those of us who are saying that every victim matters, even those victimized by people rich enough to evade jurisdiction for many years."

But Gilreath says that statutory rape is a clear offense under the law, and at the age of 13, the girl was underage. Polanski defenders 'define' rape

Comment Re:wii is fail (Score 1) 119

i don't own a single game console. the only game i play is spring rts which is a brillant free rts.

What do you do when you have friends over and you want to play a round of video games? Or do all your friends own laptops and carry them everywhere?

3rd parties are the only way you'll get fresh air in that stale room

There are games for Wii published by third-party major labels. It's just that third parties do an absolutely fecal job of promoting them to players.
The Courts

Re-Vote Likely After E-Vote Data Mishandling 172

Posted by samzenpus from the technology-makes-life-easier dept.
davecb writes "A California judge is likely to order a Berkeley city initiative back on the ballot because of local officials' mishandling of electronic voting machine data. A recount was not possible because the city failed to share necessary voting records, a violation of election laws. In a preliminary ruling Thursday, Judge Winifred Smith of the Alameda County Superior Court indicated she would nullify the defeat of a medical marijuana proposal in Berkeley in 2004 and order the measure put back on the ballot in a later election."
Privacy

Submission + - Web-based Anonymizer Discontinued

Submitted by
RobertB-DC
RobertB-DC writes: "With no fanfare, and apparently no outcry from the privacy community, Anonymizer Inc. discontinued its web-based Private Surfing service effective June 20, 2007. No reason was given, either on the Anonymizer web site or on founder Lance Cottrell's privacy blog. Private Surfing customers are now required to download a anonymizing client that handles all TCP traffic, but the program is Windows-only (with Vista support still a work-in-progress). And of course it's closed-source, which means it has few advantages over several other alternatives."
Businesses

eBay Bargains Soon To Be A Thing Of The Past? 488

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the capitalists-attacking-capitalism dept.
ScaredOfTheMan writes to mention that, as expected, companies are utilizing the decision in Leegin Creative Leater Products v. PSKS to force the take-down of auctions on eBay because auctions are priced too low or even stating the auction itself is an infringement of their intellectual property rights.
Media

Submission + - BBC bans all phone in competitions

Submitted by kooky45
kooky45 writes: The BBC has been caught cheating viewers out of thousands of pounds by faking phone-in competitions across a wide variety of its programs, including flagship charity events like Children in Need. In response they have banned all phone in competitions on their TV and radio channels, and will be pulling competitions from online services very soon. This latest embarrassment follows last week when the BBC was fined £50,000 for faking another phone-in on Blue Peter, their most popular children's show. This is just the most public revelation in a scandal that is going to get bigger in TV media.
The Courts

Submission + - Revote likey because Diebold recount impossible

Submitted by Aidtopia
Aidtopia writes: A judge in Berkeley, California, has ordered a re-vote in a 2004 medical marijuana measure which had lost by fewer than 200 votes. A group supporting the measure requested a recount, which was meaningless since the Diebold electronic voting machines didn't produce physical ballots. The group petitioned for audit logs and other supporting documentation. The Registrar initially gave them the run-around, and, with a lawsuit pending, shipped the machines back to the manufacturer where 96% of the stored votes were erased. The ruling is tentative. The revote, if it happens, will be in the 2008 general election, using different electronic voting machines that produce a paper trail.
Software

Submission + - Open Standards Threatened in Europe (lwn.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From Open Standards: 'On June 29 2007, the European Commission agency IDABC published a document revising the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) and the Architecture Guidelines (AG). This second version wants to 'update' the previous version of the EIF but, contrary to the first version, it threatens explictely the good process of more open standards that had been a long time push of IDABC. "EIF v2.0 should facilitate the most profitable business model(s) of cost versus public value, under proper recognition of intellectual property rights, if any. The support for multiple standards allows a migration towards open standards when appropriate in the long run." There are unacceptable drawbacks from the previous "EIF 2004" that promoted the use of open standards as defined in this European definition, the use of free and open source softwares as well as XML.'

Who also reads 'Microsoft and OOXML out again to find some weak spot' between the lines? Help signing the campaign and sending complaining emails in the request for comments.
The Courts

Submission + - Army Sergeant in Tennessee Sues RIAA

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "A 33-year old Army Sergeant stationed at Fort Campbell, in Tennessee, has counterclaimed against the record company palintiffs, in Warner v. Paternoster. His counterclaim seeks forfeiture of the plaintiffs' copyrights, and other relief, against Warner, BMG, Arista, Virgin,, and UMG, based on his claim (pdf) that they had colluded together in violation of the antitrust laws, had deliberately padded their court filing with embarrassing material in order to "shame" the defendant into paying a settlement for actions he did not commit, and "conspired together on other activities ...including: (1) bringing, without investigation sufficient to establish that the allegations ... have evidentiary support, lawsuits against persons who are not specifically known to have infringed copyrights, including persons who are deceased, disabled or who lack knowledge of how to use computers or download files from the internet; (2) making false and unsupported allegations ... by making the unwarranted and technologically erroneous assumption that an Internet Protocol address is a unique identifier of a computer or an individual; (3) using a corporation as their agent to make extortionate threats to take criminal action and to defame defendants' names and credit, in order to force defendants to pay sums which have no relation to plaintiffs' actual damages, if any, and by delivering releases to settling defendants (few of whom are represented by counsel) which are fraudulent in that they do not constitute true releases of all claims by putative plaintiffs, thereby misleading settling defendants into erroneously believing that they cannot be sued again; (4) jointly agreeing upon exorbitant settlement amounts which are nonnegotiable and are arbitrarily increased at set intervals thereby depriving the defendants in these actions of any reasonable opportunity to negotiate a settlement; (5) commencing ex parte "John Doe" lawsuits which they have no intention of pursuing, but by means of which they are able to communicate with District Judges, Magistrate Judges, and other judicial officials on a daily basis, without providing defendants with notice or opportunity to be heard, in violation of attorneys' ethical obligations as officers of the Courts; (6) invading the privacy of these "John Doe" defendants by then serving subpoenas on Internet Service Providers without notice to the putative defendants; (7)withdrawing such actions upon being challenged and thereby preventing defendants from obtaining relief for having to defend them; and (8) engaging in other unconscionable conduct.....[They] have commenced tens of thousands of actions in the District Courts of the United States in the past five years, the overwhelming majority of which have resulted either in default judgments or extortionate settlements far in excess of any actual damages incurred by Counter-Defendants... Such actions represent an attempt by Counter-Defendants to secure for themselves rights far exceeding those provided by copyright laws....""
Google

Submission + - Google Should NOT Protect Copyright Thieves 3

Submitted by DKC
DKC writes: Plagiarism and copyright infringement have always been a problem for writers all over the world. The Internet only made it easier, and more profitable. Unfortunately, Blogspot and Google are not only aware of this problem, they seem to be throwing obstacles in the path of those who seek justice. Why can't they think about protecting the real authors, instead of their bloggers? Where's the corporate responsibility and leadership we have come to expect from Google? Are we supposed to sit still and watch these thieves take credit and payment for our hard work?
Privacy

FBI Remotely Installs Spyware to Trace Bomb Threat 325

Posted by CmdrTaco from the hey-wait-a-minute dept.
cnet-declan writes "There have been rumors for years about the FBI remotely installing spyware via e-mail or by exploiting an operating system vulnerability from afar — and now there's confirmation. Last month, the FBI obtained a federal court order to remotely install spyware called CIPAV (Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier) to find out who was behind a MySpace account linked to bomb threats sent to a high school near Olympia, Wash. News.com has posted a PDF of the FBI affidavit, which makes for interesting reading, and a summary of the CIPAV results that the FBI submitted to a magistrate judge. It seems as though CIPAV was installed via e-mail, as an article back in 2004 hinted was the case. In addition to reporting the computer's IP address, MAC address, and registry information, it also gave the FBI updates on which IP addresses the user(s) visited. But how did the FBI get the spyware activated and past anti-virus defenses? Two obvious ways are for the Feds to find and exploit their own operating system backdoors, or to compromise security vendors..."
Censorship

Submission + - Save Net Radio (savenetradio.org)

Submitted by
Peter
Peter writes: "Many internet radio stations may have to shut down for good if something is not done soon. In light of this threat, many internet radio stations are airing a day of silence today. Participaing sites include Yahoo!, Pandora, MTV, Rhapsody,and Live 365 among many many others. If you enjoy internet radio Contact your Senators and Representatives!!!"
Microsoft

Google Calls For More Limits On Microsoft 270

Posted by kdawson from the keeping-watch-a-while-longer dept.
teh_commodore writes "Scientific American is reporting that Google is now asking a Federal judge to extend the government's anti-trust oversight of Microsoft, specifically with regard to desktop search software. Microsoft had already agreed to modify Vista to allow rival desktop search engines, but Google says that this remedy will come too late — specifically, after (most of) the anti-trust agreement expires in November. What makes this political maneuver interesting is that Google went over the heads of the Department of Justice and US state regulators, who had found Microsoft's compromise acceptable, to appeal directly to the Federal judge overseeing the anti-trust settlement." Update: 06/26 17:20 GMT by KD : The judge is unwilling to play along with Google; she said she will likely defer to an agreement on desktop search forged between Microsoft and the plaintiffs in the case: i.e. Justice and the states.
The Courts

RIAA, Safenet Sued For Malicious Prosecution 337

Posted by kdawson from the what-goes-around dept.
DaveAtFraud writes "Tanya Anderson, the single mother from Oregon previously sued by the RIAA — which dropped the case just before losing a summary judgement — is now suing the RIAA and their hired snoop Safenet for malicious prosecution. (Safenet was formerly known as MediaSentry.) Anderson is asserting claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act. A reader at Groklaw has already picked up that she is seeking to have the RIAA forfeit the copyrights in question as part of the settlement (search the page for '18.6-7')."

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