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Audio Watermark Web Spider Starts Crawling 173

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the now-it-just-needs-to-serve-you-papers-automatically dept.
DippityDo writes "A new web tool is scanning the net for signs of copyright infringement. Digimarc's patented system searches video and audio files for special watermarks that would indicate they are not to be shared, then reports back to HQ with the results. It sounds kind of creepy, but has a long way to go before it makes a practical difference. 'For the system to work, players at multiple levels would need to get involved. Broadcasters would need to add identifying watermarks to their broadcast, in cooperation with copyright holders, and both parties would need to register their watermarks with the system. Then, in the event that a user capped a broadcast and uploaded it online, the scanner system would eventually find it and report its location online. Yet the system is not designed to hop on P2P networks or private file sharing hubs, but instead crawls public web sites in search of watermarked material.'"
Security

Submission + - Solaris Telnet Worm

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The previously discovered Solaris telnet vulnerability is now being used by a worm to spread. In addition, the worm opens up a /bin/sh backdoor and has a payload of sending funny system broadcast messages related to security researchers including one that says "Theo deRaadt SUCKS!" in ASCII art.
OS X

Submission + - Using Safari can slow your system down?

Submitted by sandoz
sandoz writes: While how fast a browser can render a web page is certainly an important weapon in the browser war arguments, the difference is usually a matter of seconds at the most. To my mind, a more important measure of speed is how a browser affects the overall speed of your SYSTEM. Macenstein has any interesting article about how running Safari seems to slow down unrelated programs. You can read the article here

Feed 'Fair Use' Bill Returns, Gutted (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
Reps. Boucher and Doolittle try for a third time to tone down the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but a key revision takes the teeth out of the measure. In Listening Post.


XBox (Games)

Submission + - XBOX360 Hypervisor Security Protection hacked

Submitted by
ACTRAiSER
ACTRAiSER writes: "A recent Post on Bugtraq claims the hack of the XBOX360 Security Protection Hypervisor. It includes sample code as well. "We have discovered a vulnerability in the Xbox 360 hypervisor that allows privilege escalation into hypervisor mode. Together with a method to inject data into non-privileged memory areas, this vulnerability allows an attacker with physical access to an Xbox 360 to run arbitrary code such as alternative operating systems with full privileges and full hardware access.""

Patent Office Head Lays Out Reform Strategy 253

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the long-overdue dept.
jeevesbond writes to tell us that Jon Dudas, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the US Patent and Trademark Office has laid out a plan for patent reform. "Speaking at the Tech Policy Summit in San Jose, Dudas said that characterizing the patent system as hurting innovation is a 'fundamentally wrong' way to frame the debate. 'I have traveled around the world, and every nation is thinking how it can model [intellectual property governance] after the U.S,' Dudas said. 'It's a proven system, over 200 years old. The Supreme Court, Congress and policy makers are involved [in cases and legal reforms] not because the system is broken. It's not perfect, and we should be having the debate on how to improve.'"
Education

Submission + - BBC Micro: Britain's First PC Hit

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: North American children grew up with the Apple II. Across the Atlantic, the BBC gave its blessings to the unreleased Acorn Proton (another 6502 micro) and it became the standard in education and home for almost a decade as the BBC Micro, even though there were cheaper, more capable machines on the market. Read about how Acorn won the lucrative contract and slowly disintegrated after their RISC home computer (released in 1987) failed to catch on.
The Internet

Submission + - Wikipedia bureaucrat with bogus PhD

Submitted by keyero
keyero writes: The New Yorker has posted an Editor's note, correcting for a story they published in July about Wikipedia and expertise. In the article, they quoted User:Essjay who is a a bureaucrat, arbitrator, and other roles including checkuser. He was described as "a tenured professor of religion at a private university" with "a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law." Turns out, he is twenty-four and holds no advanced degrees, and that he has never taught. Nonetheless, Jimmy Wales has brushed this aside and recently appointed Essjay to the Arbitration committee. He also hired Essjay to serve as "Community Manager" on Wikia.
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Letter to Presidents

Submitted by
JM
JM writes: "The RIAA Letter

RIAA
February 28, 2007
Dear University President:
This week the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), on behalf of its member
labels, is initiating a new process for lawsuits against computer users who engage in illegal
file-trafficking of copyrighted content on peer-to-peer (P2P) systems. In the current round
of such lawsuits, four hundred of these legal actions are directed at college and university
students around the country.
Why have we felt compelled to escalate our deterrence and education efforts? For three
years, we have gone to extraordinary lengths to address the problem of online music theft on
campuses. We have met personally with many university administrators. We have provided
both instructional material and educational resources, including an orientation video
(campusdownloading.com) to help deter illegal downloading. We have worked
collaboratively and productively through organizations like the Joint Committee of the
Higher Education and Entertainment Communities. Our member companies have
transformed how they do business — licensing innovative services that provide free or
heavily discounted legal music to college fans. We have informed schools of effective
network technologies and partnership opportunities with legitimate services. We have
stepped up our notice program to alert schools and students of infringing activity. And, of
course, we have as a last resort brought suit against individual file-traffickers.
All of this has yielded noteworthy progress and we are grateful for the proactive work of
many institutions. Unfortunately, the piracy problem on campuses remains extensive and
unacceptable, and compromises the music industry's ability to invest in new music.
We do not take this step lightly and wish it were not necessary. We will continue to do all
we can to encourage our fans to enjoy music legally, both on campus and more broadly by
the general public.
There is a reasonable role that campus administrators can play:
  facilitate our new deterrence program by forwarding pre-lawsuit letters so that
students and others with access to the network can settle claims at a lower cost and
before they turn into lawsuits of public record; and
  implement programs and technological solutions that significantly reduce piracy and
therefore the likelihood that students will be sued or receive DMCA notices.
2
A concerted, comprehensive and complementary approach CAN make a difference and
advance everyone's interests.
We are attaching a summary of the important role that universities and colleges play in our
new deterrence program and a summary of the proactive steps schools can take to minimize
students' exposure to lawsuits and DMCA notices. Given the number of people at your
university who may be involved in this issue, we would greatly appreciate your passing this
letter on to the appropriate parties, including such officials as the General Counsel, the Chief
Information Officer, and the Dean of Student Affairs.
Thank you in advance for any help you can give us in addressing the problem of copyright
piracy on college campuses. Your support is critical.
Sincerely,
Cary Sherman
President
3
New Litigation Process For
Forwarding Pre-Litigation Settlement Letters to Students
Our new litigation process will allow individuals we find illegally uploading or downloading
copyrighted works on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network the opportunity to settle claims before
we file a "Doe" suit against them. We have heard repeatedly that individuals who have been
sued want the ability to settle prior to being named in federal court. To accommodate this
interest, we are instituting a new pre-lawsuit settlement option that will allow infringers to
settle at a discounted rate if they do so prior to our filing of a "Doe" suit.
To assist you in extending this option to your students and other subscribers to your school's
Internet service, we will e-mail to you a letter for you to forward to the subscriber. Our email
will also request that you maintain the log files for the relevant individuals while we
attempt to settle the matter with them. The letter to the subscriber will explain that the
subscriber has been identified as illegally distributing copyrighted sound recordings and that
he or she has the opportunity, in advance of a lawsuit being filed, to contact us to resolve the
claims. Whether they want to contact us at that time will be entirely up to them, but, if they
do not, they will not be eligible for a discounted settlement rate. The subscriber will have
only twenty days from the date we send the letter to you to take advantage of the early
settlement option before we initiate a "Doe" lawsuit, so please forward the letters as
expeditiously as possible.
We are hopeful that, by providing early notification to subscribers that have been identified
as infringers, we can greatly diminish the need for litigation. We are also hopeful that the
initiatives we are taking will facilitate a clear process for your subscribers who may be
targeted. Holme Roberts & Owen LLP will continue to serve as our national counsel for
these cases. Your primary contact there, Katheryn Coggon, will also continue to serve in
that role. Should you have any questions about the program or this letter, feel free to contact
Ms. Coggon directly at 303-866-0408 or katheryn.coggon@hro.com.
To avoid any unintended relay of misinformation, the following details may be of
assistance:
  The record companies' representatives can be reached at 913-234-8181 or
info@SettlementInformationLine.com.
  The RIAA has established a website with information about the copyright lawsuits
that should facilitate early settlement. That website is located at
www.p2plawsuits.com.
4
Ways to Prevent/Reduce
Student Exposure to Lawsuits and DMCA Notices
Implement a network technical solution. Products like Red Lambda's cGrid are
promising as effective and comprehensive solutions that maintain the integrity, security, and
legal use of school computing systems without threatening student privacy. Some schools
have used these products to block the use of P2P entirely, realizing that the overwhelming, if
not sole, use of these applications on campus is to illegally download and distribute
copyrighted works. For schools that do not wish to prohibit entirely access to P2P
applications, products such as Audible Magic's CopySense can be used to filter illegal P2P
traffic, again, without impinging on student privacy.
Offer a legitimate online service to give students an inexpensive alternative to stealing.
In fact one such service, Ruckus, is funded through advertising and completely free to users.
When schools increasingly provide their students with amenities like cable TV, there is
simply no reason not to offer them cheap or free legal access to the music they crave.
Take appropriate disciplinary action when students are found to be engaging in
infringing conduct online. This includes stopping and punishing such activity in dorms
and on all Local Area Networks throughout a school's computing system.
Educate students about the do's and don'ts of downloading and copying music and
other copyrighted works. The music industry offers a free campus educational video
available for order at www.campusdownloading.com.

For the PDF: http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home &TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=20643"
The Internet

Submission + - Using Web 2.0 Tools to Drive Traffic - Comparison

Submitted by
Jettero Heller
Jettero Heller writes: "Every day, it seems, I'm coming upon new Web 2.0 tools that can be used to drive visitors to your site or blog. At first, I tried to do justice to this with a blog post here and there, attempting to catalog some of these. My list has since grown out of control, though, so I'm writing this blog post as much to inform, as to organize my own thoughts on this. I am a Scientologist, I have a message I want to get out on my blog, and as such would want people to see it and find out about Scientology. It's the same problem that someone trying to sell bicycles has, or someone trying to peddle on-line pet care products or washing machine catapults.

Here's what I've found has been successful, in varying degrees, to get people to come to my Blogs:

http://jetteroheller.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/how- do-you-use-web-20-tools-to-drive-traffic-to-your-s ite/"
Privacy

Submission + - DHS Abandons RFID

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The Department of Homeland Security has abandoned plans to embed RFID chips in arrival and departure forms carried by foreign nations in the U.S. The decision comes shortly after a General Accounting Office report found that the chips often were not properly scanned by sensors, and that they provided no additional assurance that the person arriving in the country was the same as the person leaving the country. Privacy groups had criticized the plan to embed the chips out of fear that they would allow people on the street to be scanned for forms that would identify them as non-citizens.
Movies

Submission + - Making 300 Interview

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Surprisingly, FHM Online has an interesting interview with visual effects supervisor Chris Watts about the making of 300. From the article: "What does it take to film Frank Miller's legendary graphic novel about the ancient Spartan army? Spears, loincloths and over 1300 visual effects — including a series that gave life to a military-enlisted rhinoceros. Here, 300's visual effects supervisor, Chris Watts, breaks down every step that went into creating that sweet-assed rhino scene." http://www.fhmonline.com/articles-3866.asp?cnl_id= 3&stn_id=12&idx_id=3866

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