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Censorship

UK ISPs Are Censoring Wikipedia 668

Posted by Soulskill from the how-not-to-accomplish-something dept.
Concerned Wikipedian writes "Starting December 4th, Wikipedia administrators noticed a surge of edits from certain IP addresses. These IPs turned out to be the proxies for the content filters of at least 6 major UK ISPs. After some research by Wikipedians, it appears that the image of the 1970s LP cover art of the Scorpions' 'Virgin Killer' album has been blocked because it was judged to be 'child pornography,' and all other attempts to access Wikimedia foundation sites from these ISPs are being proxied to only a few IP addresses. This is causing many problems for Wikipedia administrators, because much of the UK vandalism now comes from a single IP, which, when blocked, affects potentially hundreds of thousands of anonymous users who intend no harm and are utterly confused as to why they are no longer able to edit. The image was flagged by the the Internet Watch Foundation, which is funded by the EU and the UK government, and has the support of many ISPs and online institutions in the UK. The filter is fairly easy to circumvent simply by viewing the article in some other languages, or by logging in on the secure version of Wikipedia."
Government

Finnish E-Voting System Loses 2% of Votes 366

Posted by Soulskill from the in-america-we-call-that-the-margin-of-error dept.
kaip writes "Finland piloted a fully electronic voting system in municipal elections last weekend. Due to a usability glitch, 232 votes, or about 2% of all electronic votes were lost. The results of the election may have been affected, because the seats in municipal assemblies are often decided by margins of a few votes. Unfortunately, nobody knows for sure, because the Ministry of Justice didn't see any need to implement a voter-verified paper record. The ministry was, of course, duly warned about a fully electronic voting system, but the critique was debunked as 'science fiction.' There is now discussion about re-arranging the affected elections. Thanks go to the voting system providers, Scytl and TietoEnator, for the experience."
The Courts

EU Court Says File Sharers Don't Have To Be Named 52

Posted by kdawson from the my-name-is-nemo dept.
Stony Stevenson writes "European Union countries can refuse to disclose names of file sharers on the Internet in civil cases, the EU's top court said. The European Court of Justice has ruled on a dispute between Spanish music rights holders association Promusicae and Spain's top telecoms operator Telefonica over Telefonica's Internet clients who shared copyright material on the Web. Telefonica argued that, under a national law based on EU rules, it only had to disclose the name of an Internet subscriber for criminal actions, not civil ones. But the court said: 'Community law does not require the member states, in order to ensure the effective protection of copyright, to lay down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings.' I wonder if this ruling will have any effect on other cases in other countries."
Microsoft

Submission + - Vista named year's most dissapointing product (pcworld.com)

Submitted by Shadow7789
Shadow7789 writes: No surprise here, but to complete its humiliation, PC Magazine has named Windows Vista the most disappointing product of 2007. From the article:
'Five years in the making and this is the best Microsoft could do?...No wonder so many users are clinging to XP like shipwrecked sailors to a life raft, while others who made the upgrade are switching back. And when the fastest Vista notebook PC World has ever tested is an Apple MacBook Pro, there's something deeply wrong with the universe.'
The Media

Submission + - YouTube link to deadly school shootings (cnn.com)

Submitted by
mytrip
mytrip writes: "At least eight people were killed when an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at a school in Finland Wednesday, according to Finnish police. The shooting appeared to have been planned out in graphic videos posted on Internet file-sharing site YouTube.

YouTube appeared to have removed 89 videos linked to his account, many of them featuring Nazi imagery, shortly after the incident.

Finnish media reported someone posted a message two weeks ago on the Web site, warning of a bloodbath at the school."
Communications

Submission + - RIAA Launches Attack on Usenet (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "The major record labels have launched a copyright infringement lawsuit against Usenet.com. The complaint filed in the federal District Court in New York accuses Usenet.com of providing access to millions of copyright infringing files and slams it for touting its service as a "haven for those seeking pirated content" Usenet.com has been putting up a fight against the RIAA, refusing to block access to alleged 'copyright infringing groups' Game On"
Privacy

Interpol Unscrambles Doctored Photo In Manhunt 370

Posted by kdawson from the blur-schmlur dept.
jackpot777 writes in with an AP story out of Paris reporting that Interpol has distributed photos of a man suspected of sexually exploiting children. The images were recovered from pictures taken off the Internet in which the man's face had been blurred using something like Photoshop's Filter > Distort > Twirl tool. German police were able to recover recognizable images of the man, whose identity and nationality are not known. Interpol would not discuss the techniques used to recover the images. jackpot777 writes: "It does show one interesting facet of internet privacy that has also been noted with topics ranging from reading blurred check numbers in images to Google's plan to blur out license plate and face data for Street View. And that is: blurring is not the same as completely obscuring. As computers become more adept at extrapolating data of different types, your identity isn't safe unless you completely cover all those identifying features."

Feed Techdirt: France Making It Super Easy To Report Spammers (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
We tend to be skeptical of most government involvement in technology matters, but the French government is trying an interesting experiment that could be worth following. In an effort to stop the flow of spam, it's funded an open-source spam reporting toolbar for both Outlook and Thunderbird that makes reporting spam exceptionally easy. There are already commercial products that do this for the sake of building filters and such -- but this is the first time we're aware of one (though it certainly could be true of others) that automatically forwards the spam to the government. In this case, the system does a few other interesting things. One of the problems with these types of easy-report tools is that people start using it to report emails they don't like -- even if they signed up for it. However, if someone does that with this French service, it will automatically send you back info on how to unsubscribe (assuming the marketer in question has registered). Of course, on the downside, this service will only work for spam that originates in France. If it originates outside the country (meaning: most spam), the system will simply ignore it. It will be worth watching to see how well this works. Certainly, over the last few years, private efforts at filters have gotten much better -- but many still believe that gov't intervention is needed in tracking down the worst spam offenders.
Technology (Apple)

Submission + - Class-Action Lawsuit Over iPhone Locking?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: InfoWeek blogger Alex Wolfe reports that some iPhone users are mad as heck at Apple for bricking up their device in response to non-Apple-authorized software downloaded., and they're talking about filing a class action lawsuit. In a discussion thread on Apple's own iPhone forum, one user posts that he's "Seeking respondents for possible class action lawsuit against Apple Inc. relating to refusal to service iPhones and related accessories under warranty." He's talking about users who've had their phones bricked up by Apple after they've unlocked them or installed third-party apps. Some who've replied to the post agree that Apple is being unbelievably arrogant and is ripe for legal action. But others say Cupertino is well within its rights to control its own device. What do you think? Does this mean if you don't like what Apple does you're forced to buy a Treo?

Feed Engadget: Nokia's next internet tablet hits the FCC (feedburner.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Handhelds, Wireless

For all you Nokia fanatics waiting for the next-gen follow up to the beloved N800 internet tablet, your journey may be at its end. According to reports dot-dashed into the Engadget offices via a morse-code squawking carrier pigeon, the latest and greatest as-yet-unnamed (but for now called LJPRX-44) non-phone, non-computer device may be heading into your sweaty hands before long. There's not much to glean from the multifarious FCC filings, unless you're a glutton for punishment or an extremely determined wavelength-modulation-test-fan, save that the device will have both WiFi and Bluetooth, and should be the same general size and shape as the N800. Feast your eyes on the labeling above, and if you're really jonesing for some good-old FCC fun, hit the read link.

[Via TabletBlog]

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