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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.'"
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.
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
johnalexwood writes: YouTube, MySpace and Flickr all came from nowhere to become the leading lights of the social-networking generation, and already look to be in an almost unassailable position at the top of the Web 2.0 tree.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/blogs/index.cfm?entryid =735
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.
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.""
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.'"
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.