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Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

How to block network traffic by country on Linux - Xmodulo - 0 views

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    "Last updated on December 11, 2015 Authored by Dan Nanni 10 Comments As a system admin who maintains production Linux servers, there are circumstances where you need to selectively block or allow network traffic based on geographic locations. For example, you "
Paul Merrell

Ecuador signs deal with Sweden for Assange questioning | Reuters - 0 views

  • Ecuador and Sweden have signed a pact that would allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be questioned by Swedish authorities at Ecuador's embassy in London where he has been holed up for more than three years since facing sexual assault charges, the Quito government said.The legal agreement was signed in the Ecuadorean capital after half a year of negotiations."It is, without doubt, an instrument that strengthens bilateral relations and will facilitate, for example, the fulfillment of judicial matters such as the questioning of Mr. Assange," the foreign ministry said in a weekend statement.Assange, 44, took refuge in the embassy building in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations of sexual assault and rape against two women in 2010. The Australian denies the accusations.
  • Assange says he fears Sweden will extradite him to the United States where he could be put on trial over WikiLeaks' publication of classified military and diplomatic documents five years ago, one of the largest information leaks in U.S. history. Britain, which has accused Ecuador of preventing the course of justice by allowing Assange to remain in its embassy in the upmarket central London area of Knightsbridge, welcomed the agreement."It is for the Swedish Prosecutor to decide how they now proceed with a legal case," a spokeswoman for the British Foreign Office said.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

EU Proposal Bans Netflix-Style Geo Blocking and Restrictions - TorrentFreak - 0 views

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    " Ernesto on December 9, 2015 C: 62 Breaking The European Commission has officially presented its plan to abolish geo-blocking and filtering restrictions across EU member states. The new proposal requires online services to allow users to access their accounts all across Europe, even in countries where it's officially not available yet."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Europe's 'Net Neutrality' Could Allow Torrent and VPN Throttling - TorrentFreak - 0 views

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    " By Ernesto on October 22, 2015 C: 65 News Next week the European Parliament will vote on Europe's new telecoms regulation which includes net neutrality rules. While the legislation is a step forward for many countries, experts and activists warn that it may leave the door open for BitTorrent and VPN throttling if key amendments fail to pass. "
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Startup Leverages DMCA Notices As Artist Marketing Tool - TorrentFreak [# ! Note] - 0 views

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    " Ernesto on January 6, 2016 C: 39 Breaking Every day millions of pirates are being tracked by companies working for the entertainment industries. This data is often used to warn or even sue alleged offenders, but a new startup is taking a different route. Instead of punishing pirates they treat them as fans, allowing artists to use DMCA notices as a marketing tool."
Paul Merrell

It's A-OK for FBI agents to silence web giants, says appeals court * The Register - 1 views

  • Gagging orders in the FBI's National Security Letters are all above board and constitutional, a California court has ruled. These security letters are typically sent to internet giants demanding information on whoever is behind a username or email address. Crucially, these requests include clauses that prevent the organizations from warning specific subscribers that they are under surveillance by the Feds. Cloudflare and Credo Mobile aren't happy with that, and – with the help of rights warriors at the EFF – challenged the gagging orders. Despite earlier successes in their legal battle, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled [PDF] on Monday that the gagging orders do not trample on First Amendment rights.
  • The FBI dishes out thousands of National Security Letters (NSLs) every year; they can simply be issued by a special agent in charge in a bureau field office, and don’t require judicial review. They allow the Feds to obtain the name, address, and records of any services used – but not the contents of conversations – plus billing records of a person, and forbid the hosting company from telling the subject, meaning those under investigation can’t challenge the decision. It used to be the case that companies couldn’t even mention the existence of the NSL system for fear of prosecution. However, in 2013 a US district court in San Francisco ruled that such extreme gagging violated the First Amendment. That decision came after Google, and later others, started publishing the number of NSL orders that had been received, in defiance of the law. In 2015 the Obama administration amended the law to allow companies limited rights to disclose NSL orders, and to set a three-year limit for the gagging order. It also set up a framework for companies to challenge the legitimacy of NSL subpoenas, and it was these changes that caused the appeals court verdict in favor of the government.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Home : Open Source Social Network - 0 views

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    "Opensource-Socialnetwork (OSSN) is a social networking software written in PHP. It allows you to make a social networking website and helps your members build social relationships, with people who share similar professional or personal interests."
Paul Merrell

Huawei launches first product with own operating system - 0 views

  • Chinese telecom giant Huawei, which has been caught in the crossfires of the Washington-Beijing trade war, on Saturday unveiled a new smart television, the first product to use its own operating system.The television will be available from Thursday in China and marks the first use of HarmonyOS, chief executive George Zhao said, adding that it will be marketed by its mid-range brand, Honor.Huawei revealed its highly-anticipated HarmonyOS on Friday as an alternative operating system for phones and other smart devices in the event that looming US sanctions prevent the firm from using Android technology.American companies are theoretically no longer allowed to sell technology products to Huawei, but a three-month exemption period -- which ends next week -- was granted by Washington before the measure came into force.That ban could stop the tech giant from getting hold of key hardware and software, including smartphone chips and elements of the Google Android operating system, which runs the vast majority of smartphones in the world, including Huawei's.Huawei -- considered the world leader in fast fifth-generation or 5G equipment and the world's number two smartphone producer -- has been blacklisted by US President Donald Trump amid suspicions it provides a backdoor for Chinese intelligence services, which the firm denies.
Paul Merrell

AG Barr asks Facebook to postpone encrypted messaging plans - 0 views

  • Attorney General William Barr asks Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to hold off on his plans to encrypt the company’s three messaging services until officials can determine it will not reduce public safety in a letter dated Oct. 4.Barr’s request is backed by officials in the U.K. and Australia. BuzzFeed News first reported the story after obtaining a draft of the open letter on Thursday. The letter, which the DOJ sent to CNBC Thursday, builds on concerns about Facebook’s plans to integrate and encrypt its messaging services across Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. A New York Times investigation published Saturday found that encrypted technology helps predators share child pornography online in a way that makes it much harder for law enforcement to track down.
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    The text of the Attorney General's letter to Zuckerberg is here. Note the strong DoJ concern about child sex abusers. Yes, the same DoJ that let serial pederast Jeffrey Epstein off with a 13-month sentence in a county jail, where he was allowed to leave for 12 hours every day. The same DoJ that frames Muslims who lack mental capacity to resist to charge them as "terrorists." My point being that "child abuse" and "terrorists" are not real concerns for our illustrious leaders. It also bears notice that what government officials are after (without saying so) is the ability to intercept and decode messages en masse as they transit the Internet. With snail mail interception, that requires an individualized search warrant signed by a judge based on probable cause to believe that the mail contains evidence of a crime. But these folks want to read everything transmitted. Might one reasonably suspect that they have no respect for our Constitution?
Paul Merrell

White House, Intel Chiefs Want To Make Digital Spying Law Permanent | HuffPost - 0 views

  • The White House and U.S. intelligence chiefs Wednesday backed making permanent a law that allows for the collection of digital communications of foreigners overseas, escalating a fight in Congress over privacy and security. The law, enshrined in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is due to expire on December 31 unless Congress votes to reauthorize it, but is considered vital by U.S. intelligence agencies. Privacy advocates have criticized the law though for allowing the incidental collection of data belonging to millions of Americans without a search warrant. The push to make the law permanent may lead to a contentious debate over renewal of Section 702 in Congress, where lawmakers in both parties are deeply divided over whether to adopt transparency and oversight reforms
  • Reuters reported in March that the Trump administration supported renewal of Section 702 without any changes, citing an unnamed White House official, but it was not clear at the time whether it wanted the law made permanent.
Jhon Smith

vMix 20 Crack Plus Serial Key Full Download Free LatestOHDady - 0 views

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    vMix Crack is a famous Video Mixing and Switching software. It can use it to utilize the latest advances in PC hardware which will provide live HD video mixing. It also has a function of live streamer which will allow you to publish your live productions directly through the Internet.
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    Please do not post links to off-topic pages. Especially not to warez downloads. I'll have to ban you if you do it again.
Paul Merrell

Google and Facebook fined $240 million for making cookies hard to refuse | Malwarebytes... - 0 views

  • French privacy watchdog, the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), has hit Google with a 150 million euro fine and Facebook with a 60 million euro fine, because their websites—google.fr, youtube.com, and facebook.com—don’t make refusing cookies as easy as accepting them. The CNIL carried out an online investigation after receiving complaints from users about the way cookies were handled on these sites. It found that while the sites offered buttons for allowing immediate acceptance of cookies, the sites didn’t implement an equivalent solution to let users refuse them. Several clicks were required to refuse all cookies, against a single one to accept them. In addition to the fines, the companies have been given three months to provide Internet users in France with a way to refuse cookies that’s as simple as accepting them. If they don’t, the companies will have to pay a penalty of 100,000 euros for each day they delay.
  • EU data protection regulators’ powers have increased significantly since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect in May 2018. This EU law allows watchdogs to levy penalties of as much as 4% of a company’s annual global sales. The restricted committee, the body in charge of sanctions, considered that the process regarding cookies affects the freedom of consent of Internet users and constitutes an infringement of the French Data Protection Act, which demands that it should be as easy to refuse cookies as to accept them. Since March 31, 2021, when the deadline set for websites and mobile applications to comply with the new rules on cookies expired, the CNIL has adopted nearly 100 corrective measures (orders and sanctions) related to non-compliance with the legislation on cookies.
Paul Merrell

Ohio's attorney general wants Google to be declared a public utility. - The New York Times - 2 views

  • Ohio’s attorney general, Dave Yost, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in pursuit of a novel effort to have Google declared a public utility and subject to government regulation.The lawsuit, which was filed in a Delaware County, Ohio court, seeks to use a law that’s over a century old to regulate Google by applying a legal designation historically used for railroads, electricity and the telephone to the search engine.“When you own the railroad or the electric company or the cellphone tower, you have to treat everyone the same and give everybody access,” Mr. Yost, a Republican, said in a statement. He added that Ohio was the first state to bring such a lawsuit against Google.If Google were declared a so-called common carrier like a utility company, it would prevent the company from prioritizing its own products, services and websites in search results.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyGoogle said it had none of the attributes of a common carrier that usually provide a standardized service for a fee using public assets, such as rights of way.The “lawsuit would make Google Search results worse and make it harder for small businesses to connect directly with customers,” José Castañeda, a Google spokesman, said in a statement. “Ohioans simply don’t want the government to run Google like a gas or electric company. This lawsuit has no basis in fact or law and we’ll defend ourselves against it in court.”Though the Ohio lawsuit is a stretch, there is a long history of government control of certain kinds of companies, said Andrew Schwartzman, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. “Think of ‘The Canterbury Tales.’ Travelers needed a place to stay and eat on long road treks, and innkeepers were not allowed to deny them accommodations or rip them off,” he said.
  • After a series of federal lawsuits filed against Google last year, Ohio’s lawsuit is part of a next wave of state actions aimed at regulating and curtailing the power of Big Tech. Also on Tuesday, Colorado’s legislature passed a data privacy law that would allow consumers to opt out of data collection.On Monday, New York’s Senate passed antitrust legislation that would make it easier for plaintiffs to sue dominant platforms for abuse of power. After years of inaction in Congress with tech legislation, states are beginning to fill the regulatory vacuum.Editors’ PicksThe Abandoned Houses of Instagram21 Easy Summer Dinners You’ll Cook (or Throw Together) on Repeat‘King Richard’ Finds Fresh Drama in WatergateAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOhio was also one of 38 states that filed an antitrust lawsuit in December accusing Google of being a monopoly and using its dominant position in internet search to squeeze out smaller rivals.
Paul Merrell

Tell FCC: Don't Back Down On Nation-Wide Free WiFi! - 2 views

  • The Federal Communications Commission's plan to create free public WiFi networks across the nation is rallying the open internet troops -- and seriously rattling the $178 billion wireless industry. When free WiFi first appeared, it generated an explosion of innovation that helped level the playing field for the underprivileged and change the face of modern technology.But a further expansion of free WiFi would also allow us to make calls or surf the Internet without paying a cell carrier for the privilege -- which is why companies like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless are doing their best to take it down.
  • Facts are facts: by breaking the wireless provider monopoly on wireless access, we have a chance to expand Internet use to the poor, bolster innovation and help create a more vibrant online community. Help us take WiFi from carrier-centric to user-centric: Write the FCC to show your support now!MESSAGE FOR FCC CHAIRMAN JULIUS GENACHOWSKI: We stand with your quest to provide nationwide free public WiFi over the next several years, and urge you not to back down when facing threats to innovation from carriers like Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T.
Paul Merrell

Ad industry threatens Firefox users with more ads if Mozilla moves on tracking plans | ... - 0 views

  • The online ad industry has attacked Mozilla over its decision to block third-party cookies in a future release of Firefox, calling the move "dangerous and highly disturbing," and claiming that it will result in more ads shown to users. The fierce reaction came from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Association of National Advertisers (ANA), both of which laid out positions in blog posts on March 14.
  • In their blogs, the two groups lambasted Mozilla, predicting dire consequences, including the shuttering of small businesses and small websites, fewer choices for online users, and more ads in Firefox. "If Mozilla follows through on its plan ... the disruption will disenfranchise every single Internet user," said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB, in his post. "All of us will lose the freedom to choose our own online experiences; we will lose the opportunity to monitor and protect our privacy; and we will lose the chance to benefit from independent sites ... because thousands of small businesses that make up the diversity of content and services online will be forced to close their doors."
  • What raised the IAB's and ANA's hackles was Mozilla's decision last month to automatically block all third-party tracking cookies in a future version of Firefox, perhaps as soon as June with the release of Firefox 22. Cookies are used by online advertisers to track users' Web movements, then deliver targeted ads, a practice labeled "online behavioral advertising," or OBA, by the ad industry. The new Firefox policy will allow cookies presented from domains that users actually visit -- dubbed a "first-party" site -- but will automatically block those generated by a third-party domain unless the user had previously visited the cookie's site-of-origin.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Robert McDowell: The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom - WSJ.com - 5 views

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    [Top-down, international regulation is antithetical to the Net, which has flourished under its current governance model. ...]
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    Trying to fix what ain't broken ...
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    I wish it were a matter to "fix" anything... The issue is trying to Control something that comes working fine without such 'control'...
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    You're right. The desire to censor is the real driving force here, I think.
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    A further thought: There is binding and enforceable international law on the subject of freedom of speech and access to information in a treaty that has been ratified by all nations other than China, which has signed but not yet ratified the treaty. That treaty's terms might provide a rallying point for at least limiting the ITU's desire to grab power over the Internet. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ("ICCRR") Article 19 provides: "1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference. "2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice. "3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary: (a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others; (b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals." http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm The last exception is broader than what I would prefer. However, while the rights created by by the ICCRR transcend national boundaries, the quoted provision unquestionably stands for the proposition that exception (b) applies only to nations and not to a U.N. body itself. Therefore, there is a very strong argument that content-based both content-based restrictions and changes in the internet's functioning to facilitate such restrictions are beyond the legal jurisdiction of the ITU. I.e., changes in the internet's functioning to facilitate content-based restrictions require consideration of the content types to be restricted. The treaty permits only national level restrictions and arguably, it thereb
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    *Oh, we got -even from before- The Art 27 of The THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS https://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a27 [(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. ...] And, as 'NOBODY' (Repeat 'NOBODY') has demonstrated that sharing affects negatively to creators (more yet, all the contrary), saying that SHARING (in any way the technology allows) is an EXCELLENT way to "participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits." is The Ultimate Truth. http://www.p2pnet.net/story/7566 *'Authorities only want to control the Information Flow... ...Nothing related with the "Defence" of Anything... but their own craving of control.
Paul Merrell

BitTorrent Sync creates private, peer-to-peer Dropbox, no cloud required | Ars Technica - 6 views

  • BitTorrent today released folder syncing software that replicates files across multiple computers using the same peer-to-peer file sharing technology that powers BitTorrent clients. The free BitTorrent Sync application is labeled as being in the alpha stage, so it's not necessarily ready for prime-time, but it is publicly available for download and working as advertised on my home network. BitTorrent, Inc. (yes, there is a legitimate company behind BitTorrent) took to its blog to announce the move from a pre-alpha, private program to the publicly available alpha. Additions since the private alpha include one-way synchronization, one-time secrets for sharing files with a friend or colleague, and the ability to exclude specific files and directories.
  • BitTorrent Sync provides "unlimited, secure file-syncing," the company said. "You can use it for remote backup. Or, you can use it to transfer large folders of personal media between users and machines; editors and collaborators. It’s simple. It’s free. It’s the awesome power of P2P, applied to file-syncing." File transfers are encrypted, with private information never being stored on an external server or in the "cloud." "Since Sync is based on P2P and doesn’t require a pit-stop in the cloud, you can transfer files at the maximum speed supported by your network," BitTorrent said. "BitTorrent Sync is specifically designed to handle large files, so you can sync original, high quality, uncompressed files."
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    Direct P2P encrypted file syncing, no cloud intermediate, which should translate to far more secure exchange of files, with less opportunity for snooping by governments or others, than with cloud-based services. 
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    Hey Paul, is there an open source document management system that I could hook the BitTorrent Sync to?
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    More detail please. What do you want to do with the doc management system? Platform? Server-side or stand-alone? Industrial strength and highly configurable or lightweight and simple? What do you mean by "hook?" Not that I would be able to answer anyway. I really know very little about BitTorrent Sync. In fact, as far as I'd gone before your question was to look at the FAQ. It's linked from . But there's a link to a forum on the same page. Giving the first page a quick scan confirms that this really is alpha-state software. But that would probably be a better place to ask. (Just give them more specific information of what you'd like to do.) There are other projects out there working on getting around the surveillance problem. I2P is one that is a farther along than BitTorrent Sync and quite a bit more flexible. See . (But I haven't used it, so caveat emptor.)
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    There is a great list of PRISM Proof software at http://prism-break.org/. Includes a link to I2P. I want to replace gmail though, but would like another Web based system since I need multi device access. Of course, I need to replace my Google Apps / Google Docs system. That's why I asked about a PRISM Proof sync-share-store DMS. My guess is that there are many users similarly seeking a PRISM Proof platform of communications, content and collaborative computing systems. BusinessIndiser.com is crushed with articles about Google struggling to squirm out from under the NSA PRISM boot-on-the-back-of-their-neck situation. As if blaming the NSA makes up for the dragnet that they consented/allowed/conceded to cover their entire platform. Perhaps we should be watching Germany? There must be tons of startup operations underway, all seeking to replace Google, Amazon, FaceBook, Microsoft, Skype and so many others. It's a great day for Libertyware :)
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    Is the NSA involvement the "Kiss of Death"? Google seems to think so. I'm wondering what the impact would be if ZOHO were to announce a PRISM Proof productivity platform?
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    It is indeed. The E.U. has far more protective digital privacy rights than we do (none). If you're looking for a Dropbox replacement (you should be), for a cloud-based solution take a look at . Unlike Dropbox, all of the encryption/decryption happens on your local machine; Wuala never sees your files unencrypted. Dropbox folks have admitted that there's no technical barrier to them looking at your files. Their encrypt/decrypt operations are done in the cloud (if they actually bother) and they have the key. Which makes it more chilling that the PRISM docs Snowden link make reference to Dropbox being the next cloud service NSA plans to add to their collection. Wuala also is located (as are its servers) in Switzerland, which also has far stronger digital data privacy laws than the U.S. Plus the Swiss are well along the path to E.U. membership; they've ratified many of the E.U. treaties including the treaty on Human Rights, which as I recall is where the digital privacy sections are. I've begun to migrate from Dropbox to Wuala. It seems to be neck and neck with Dropbox on features and supported platforms, with the advantage of a far more secure approach and 5 GB free. But I'd also love to see more approaches akin to IP2 and Bittorrent Sync that provide the means to bypass the cloud. Don't depend on government to ensure digital privacy, route around the government voyeurs. Hmmm ... I wonder if the NSA has the computer capacity to handle millions of people switching to encrypted communication? :-) Thanks for the link to the software list.
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    Re: Google. I don't know if it's the 'kiss of death" but they're definitely going to take a hit, particularly outside the U.S. BTW, I'm remembering from a few years back when the ODF Foundation was still kicking. I did a fair bit of research on the bureaucratic forces in the E.U. that were pushing for the Open Document Exchange Formats. That grew out of a then-ongoing push to get all of the E.U. nations connected via a network that is not dependent on the Internet. It was fairly complete at the time down to the national level and was branching out to the local level and the plan from there was to push connections to business and then to Joe Sixpack and wife. Interop was key, hence ODEF. The E.U. might not be that far away from an ability to sever the digital connections with the U.S. Say a bunch of daisy-chained proxy anonymizers for communications with the U.S. Of course they'd have to block the UK from the network and treat it like it is the U.S. There's a formal signals intelligence service collaboration/integration dating back to WW 2, as I recall, among the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Don't remember its name. But it's the same group of nations that were collaborating on Echelon. So the E.U. wouldn't want to let the UK fox inside their new chicken coop. Ah, it's just a fantasy. The U.S. and the E.U. are too interdependent. I have no idea hard it would be for the Zoho folk to come up with desktop/side encryption/decryption. And I don't know whether their servers are located outside the reach of a U.S. court's search warrant. But I think Google is going to have to move in that direction fast if it wants to minimize the damage. Or get way out in front of the hounds chomping at the NSA's ankles and reduce the NSA to compost. OTOH, Google might be a government covert op. for all I know. :-) I'm really enjoying watching the NSA show. Who knows what facet of their Big Brother operation gets revealed next?
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    ZOHO is an Indian company with USA marketing offices. No idea where the server farm is located, but they were not on the NSA list. I've known Raju Vegesna for years, mostly from the old Web 2.0 and Office 2.0 Conferences. Raju runs the USA offices in Santa Clara. I'll try to catch up with him on Thursday. How he could miss this once in a lifetime moment to clean out Google, Microsoft and SalesForce.com is something I'd like to find out about. Thanks for the Wuala tip. You sent me that years ago, when i was working on research and design for the SurDocs project. Incredible that all our notes, research, designs and correspondence was left to rot in Google Wave! Too too funny. I recall telling Alex from SurDocs that he had to use a USA host, like Amazon, that could be trusted by USA customers to keep their docs safe and secure. Now look what i've done! I've tossed his entire company information set into the laps of the NSA and their cabal of connected corporatists :)
Paul Merrell

Google book-scanning project legal, says U.S. appeals court | Reuters - 0 views

  • A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that Google's massive effort to scan millions of books for an online library does not violate copyright law, rejecting claims from a group of authors that the project illegally deprives them of revenue.The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York rejected infringement claims from the Authors Guild and several individual writers, and found that the project provides a public service without violating intellectual property law.
  • Google argued that the effort would actually boost book sales by making it easier for readers to find works, while introducing them to books they might not otherwise have seen.A lawyer for the authors did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Google had said it could face billions of dollars in potential damages if the authors prevailed. Circuit Judge Denny Chin, who oversaw the case at the lower court level, dismissed the litigation in 2013, prompting the authors' appeal.Chin found Google's scanning of tens of millions of books and posting "snippets" online constituted "fair use" under U.S. copyright law.A unanimous three-judge appeals panel said the case "tests the boundaries of fair use," but found Google's practices were ultimately allowed under the law. "Google’s division of the page into tiny snippets is designed to show the searcher just enough context surrounding the searched term to help her evaluate whether the book falls within the scope of her interest (without revealing so much as to threaten the author’s copyright interests)," Circuit Judge Pierre Leval wrote for the court.
  • The 2nd Circuit had previously rejected a similar lawsuit from the Authors Guild in June 2014 against a consortium of universities and research libraries that built a searchable online database of millions of scanned works.The case is Authors Guild v. Google Inc, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 13-4829.
Paul Merrell

ACLU Demands Secret Court Hand Over Crucial Rulings On Surveillance Law - 0 views

  • The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a motion to reveal the secret court opinions with “novel or significant interpretations” of surveillance law, in a renewed push for government transparency. The motion, filed Wednesday by the ACLU and Yale Law School’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, asks the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court, which rules on intelligence gathering activities in secret, to release 23 classified decisions it made between 9/11 and the passage of the USA Freedom Act in June 2015. As ACLU National Security Project staff attorney Patrick Toomey explains, the opinions are part of a “much larger collection of hidden rulings on all sorts of government surveillance activities that affect the privacy rights of Americans.” Among them is the court order that the government used to direct Yahoo to secretly scanits users’ emails for “a specific set of characters.” Toomey writes: These court rulings are essential for the public to understand how federal laws are being construed and implemented. They also show how constitutional protections for personal privacy and expressive activities are being enforced by the courts. In other words, access to these opinions is necessary for the public to properly oversee their government.
  • Although the USA Freedom Act requires the release of novel FISA court opinions on surveillance law, the government maintains that the rule does not apply retroactively—thereby protecting the panel from publishing many of its post-9/11 opinions, which helped create an “unprecedented buildup” of secret surveillance laws. Even after National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the scope of mass surveillance in 2013, sparking widespread outcry, dozens of rulings on spying operations remain hidden from the public eye, which stymies efforts to keep the government accountable, civil liberties advocates say. “These rulings are necessary to inform the public about the scope of the government’s surveillance powers today,” the ACLU’s motion states.
  • Toomey writes that the rulings helped influence a number of novel spying activities, including: The government’s use of malware, which it calls “Network Investigative Techniques” The government’s efforts to compel technology companies to weaken or circumvent their own encryption protocols The government’s efforts to compel technology companies to disclose their source code so that it can identify vulnerabilities The government’s use of “cybersignatures” to search through internet communications for evidence of computer intrusions The government’s use of stingray cell-phone tracking devices under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) The government’s warrantless surveillance of Americans under FISA Section 702—a controversial authority scheduled to expire in December 2017 The bulk collection of financial records by the CIA and FBI under Section 215 of the Patriot Act Without these rulings being made public, “it simply isn’t possible to understand the government’s claimed authority to conduct surveillance,” Toomey writes. As he told The Intercept on Wednesday, “The people of this country can’t hold the government accountable for its surveillance activities unless they know what our laws allow. These secret court opinions define the limits of the government’s spying powers. Their disclosure is essential for meaningful public oversight in our democracy.”
Paul Merrell

M of A - Assad Says The "Boy In The Ambulance" Is Fake - This Proves It - 0 views

  • Re: Major net hack - its not necessarily off topic. .gov is herding web sites into it's own little DNS animal farms so it can properly protect the public from that dangerous 'information' stuff in time of emergency. CloudFlare is the biggest abattoir... er, animal farm. CloudFlare is kind of like a protection racket. If you pay their outrageous fees, you will be 'protected' from DDoS attacks. Since CloudFlare is the preferred covert .gov tool of censorship and content control (when things go south), they are trying to drive as many sites as possible into their digital panopticons. Who the hell is Cloudflare? ISUCKER: BIG BROTHER INTERNET CULTURE On top of that, CloudFlare’s CEO Matthew Prince made a weird, glib admission that he decided to start the company only after the Department of Homeland Security gave him a call in 2007 and suggested he take the technology behind Project Honey Pot one step further… And that makes CloudFlare a whole different story: People who sign up for the service are allowing CloudFlare to monitor, observe and scrutinize all of their site’s traffic, which makes it much easier for intel or law enforcement agencies to collect info on websites and without having to hack or request the logs from each hosting company separately. But there’s more. Because CloudFlare doesn’t just passively monitor internet traffic but works like a dynamic firewall to selectively block traffic from sources it deems to be “hostile,” website operators are giving it a whole lotta power over who gets to see their content. The whole point of CloudFlare is to restrict access to websites from specific locations/IP addresses on the fly, without notifying or bothering the website owner with the details. It’s all boils down to a question of trust, as in: do you trust a shady company with known intel/law enforcement connections to make that decision?
  • And here is an added bonus for the paranoid: Because CloudFlare partially caches websites and delivers them to web surfers via its own servers, the company also has the power to serve up redacted versions of the content to specific users. CloudFlare is perfect: it can implement censorship on the fly, without anyone getting wise to it! Right now CloudFlare says it monitors nearly 1/5 of all Internet visits. [<-- this] An astounding claim for a company most people haven’t even heard of. And techie bloggers seem very excited about getting as much Internet traffic routed through them as possible! See? Plausable deniability. A couple of degrees of separation. Yet when the Borg Queen wants to start WWIII next year, she can order the DHS Stazi to order outfits like CloudFlare to do the proper 'shaping' of internet traffic to filter out unwanted information. How far is any expose of propaganda like Dusty Boy going to happen if nobody can get to sites like MoA? You'll be able to get to all kinds of tweets and NGO sites crying about Dusty Boy 2.0, but you won't see a tweet or a web site calling them out on their lies. Will you even know they interviewed Assad? Will you know the activist 'photographer' is a paid NGO shill or that he's pals with al Zenki? Nope, not if .gov can help it.
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