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Piracy

German Court: ISPs Must Hand Over File Sharer Info 136

Posted by Soulskill
from the but-i-thought-sharing-was-caring dept.
itwbennett writes "The German Federal Court of Justice has ruled that ISPs have to turn over to rights-holders the names and addresses of illegal file sharers, but only 'if a judge rules that the file sharer indeed infringed on copyright,' said the court's spokeswoman, Dietlind Weinland. The ruling overturns two previous rulings by regional courts and is significant because the violation doesn't have to happen on a commercial scale, but applies whenever 'it is possible to know who was using an IP address at the time of the infringement,' the court said."

Comment: Re:Obligatory (Score 1) 390

This was my initial reaction too when this drama first started, but after a few minutes I realized, wouldn't a good lawyer be able to turn this internet backlash into some kind of sobstory about victimization for a dumb jury? There is a realistic possibility that Carrean will make Inman bleed badly, maybe enough to bankrupt him, and that scares the crap out of me. What do the lawyers of Slashdot say? Does he have a good case?
Censorship

Backdoor Found In Hacked Version of Anti-Censorship Tool Simurgh 32

Posted by timothy
from the so-how-do-you-trust-the-assurances? dept.
wiredmikey writes "Simurgh, a privacy tool used in Iran and Syria to bypass Internet censorship and governmental monitoring, is being circulated with a backdoor. The compromised version has been offered on P2P networks and via web searches. Research conducted by CitizenLab.org has shown that the malicious version isn't available from the original software source, only through third-party access, so it appears that Simurgh has been repackaged. The troubling aspect of the malicious version is that while it does install the proxy as expected, it then adds a keylogging component, and ships the recorded information off to a server hosted in the U.S. and registered to a person in Saudi Arabia. In response to this attack, the team that develops Simurgh has instituted a check that will warn the user if they are running a compromised version of the software. At present, it is unknown who developed the hijacked version of Simurgh, or why they did so."

Comment: Re:"Not voting" (Score 2) 616

by Soupster (#39815811) Attached to: House Passes CISPA

[Paul] was among the 15 who did not cast a vote. Thanks, Ron.

You know, he did put out a lengthy statement Monday slamming this Act and calling a lot of negative attention to it.

Actions speak louder than words.

The voting day was pushed up by 1 at the very last minute (along with some additional, much worse changes). Ron Paul was in Texas campaigning at the time. I could hardly fault him for not being able to fly across the country to vote at the last minute. Knowing RP, I bet it was logistically impossible for him to get from Tx to Ma in time to vote with the time he was given.

Comment: Re:"Not voting" (Score 5, Informative) 616

by Soupster (#39815643) Attached to: House Passes CISPA

By not voting, the estimable Ron Paul did as much as most people posting about it here on /. have done. So he has a bigger microphone, by not voting on it, he did not do his job.

They pushed the voting day up by one at the last minute. Ron Paul was campaigning in Texas at the time, it was probably logistically impossible for him to get back in time to vote.

Comment: Awesome bar (Score 1) 511

by Soupster (#38243266) Attached to: Chrome Becoming World's Second Most Popular Web Browser
I use Chrome and Firefox equally. I love Chrome's speed, but one thing I've noticed is that the message history / auto complete is far superior in Firefox (I believe they called it an 'awesome' bar). E.g. if I press 's' and slashdot.org pops up automatically. Firefox's system for this is really really good, I almost never have to use bookmarks now. But Chrome is entirely reliant on bookmarks. Once Google fixes that I will probably permanently switch to Chrome.

Comment: Yahoo is still relevent (Score 5, Informative) 124

by Soupster (#38163502) Attached to: Microsoft Just Can't Quit Yahoo
If you look at their quarterly reports Yahoo is quite profitable actually, and they are still the third most used website on the internet. In terms of user minutes they trail only slightly behind Facebook (#1) and Google (#2).

Additionally, their patents have separate value that can be quite powerful if used offensively, as all the smartphone manufacturers are doing now.

Comment: Re:Hypocrites! (Score 4, Interesting) 477

by Soupster (#38093616) Attached to: EU Speaks Out Against US Censorship

Here is a good quote on the subject:

"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."

--Mein kampf, Adolf Hitler.

That quote does not appear anywhere in Mein Kampf. It was made up, probably by some random guy on the internet.

Comment: Are you kidding me? (Score 1) 119

by Soupster (#38040094) Attached to: Universal Buys EMI's Recorded Music Unit For $1.9 Billion
That's it? 1.9 billion? We at Slashdot are used to talking about companies like Google and Microsoft and Apple which have a 200-300 billion USD market cap each, and yet we keep getting bullied by a company that's only worth 1.9 billion? Jesus. Why hasn't Google or Apple shut them down yet?
Patents

+ - The Owner of Yahoo!'s Patents Could Cripple Facebo->

Submitted by Soupster
Soupster writes "Yahoo! (YHOO) has been the subject of countless speculation in the press over the last few months since Carol Bartz was sacked as CEO and Dan Loeb bought a 5% stake in the company. One of the areas which has received next to no coverage from the business media is the value of Yahoo!’s patents.Of all the companies that Yahoo! (or its owner) could go after for violating intellectual property rights, perhaps the most intriguing is Facebook. It appears that a significant amount of that ad revenue will infringe on Yahoo!’s paid search, display ad, and social networking patents."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Re:If neutrino were faster than light... (Score 2) 226

by Soupster (#37728246) Attached to: FTL Neutrinos Explained... Maybe

If neutrinos were faster than c, the neutrinos from SN1987A would have arrived "five years sooner," while they were measured arriving "3 hours before the dying star's light caught up" as expected...

You are making the assumption that the neutrinos from SN1987A were excited to the same or higher energy level by the supernova that the LHC neutrinos were excited to. My bet is this assumption is false.

Comment: Not possible w/ weekends + leave (Score 1) 504

by Soupster (#29589593) Attached to: Porn Surfing Rampant at US Science Foundation
I call BS on this story. How could have spent 331 days at work when their are 104 days of weekend, 4 weeks of annual leave + sick leave? This comes to 134 - 141 days off in a year... The government generally gives a lot of time off for employees.

Unless he spent almost all his time at work...in which case all the porn was probably necessary to keep himself sane. Also I seriously doubt he spent all 8 hours in a day looking up porn, as this article hints at. Most likely this is just more anti-gvmt propaganda by the Washington times.
Censorship

+ - Scientology given direct access to eBay database-> 2

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes "The Church of Scientology can delete auctions from eBay with no supervision under the VeRO program, and has used this to delete all resale of the e-meters Scientologists use. This is to stop members from buying used units from ex-members instead of buying from the official (and very expensive) source. Given Scientology's record of fraud and abuse, should eBay give them this level of trust? Will this set a precedent for other companies who want to stop the aftermarket resale of its products?"
Link to Original Source

Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. - Oscar Wilde

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