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Paul Merrell

Internet users raise funds to buy lawmakers' browsing histories in protest | TheHill - 0 views

  • House passes bill undoing Obama internet privacy rule House passes bill undoing Obama internet privacy rule TheHill.com Mesmerizing Slow-Motion Lightning Celebrate #NationalPuppyDay with some adorable puppies on Instagram 5 plants to add to your garden this Spring House passes bill undoing Obama internet privacy rule Inform News. Coming Up... Ed Sheeran responds to his 'baby lookalike' margin: 0px; padding: 0px; borde
  • Great news! The House just voted to pass SJR34. We will finally be able to buy the browser history of all the Congresspeople who voted to sell our data and privacy without our consent!” he wrote on the fundraising page.Another activist from Tennessee has raised more than $152,000 from more than 9,800 people.A bill on its way to President Trump’s desk would allow internet service providers (ISPs) to sell users’ data and Web browsing history. It has not taken effect, which means there is no growing history data yet to purchase.A Washington Post reporter also wrote it would be possible to buy the data “in theory, but probably not in reality.”A former enforcement bureau chief at the Federal Communications Commission told the newspaper that most internet service providers would cover up this information, under their privacy policies. If they did sell any individual's personal data in violation of those policies, a state attorney general could take the ISPs to court.
Paul Merrell

USA Freedom Act Passes House, Codifying Bulk Collection For First Time, Critics Say - T... - 0 views

  • After only one hour of floor debate, and no allowed amendments, the House of Representatives today passed legislation that opponents believe may give brand new authorization to the U.S. government to conduct domestic dragnets. The USA Freedom Act was approved in a 338-88 vote, with approximately equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans voting against. The bill’s supporters say it will disallow bulk collection of domestic telephone metadata, in which the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has regularly ordered phone companies to turn over such data. The Obama administration claims such collection is authorized by Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which is set to expire June 1. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently held that Section 215 does not provide such authorization. Today’s legislation would prevent the government from issuing such orders for bulk collection and instead rely on telephone companies to store all their metadata — some of which the government could then demand using a “specific selection term” related to foreign terrorism. Bill supporters maintain this would prevent indiscriminate collection.
  • However, the legislation may not end bulk surveillance and in fact could codify the ability of the government to conduct dragnet data collection. “We’re taking something that was not permitted under regular section 215 … and now we’re creating a whole apparatus to provide for it,” Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., said on Tuesday night during a House Rules Committee proceeding. “The language does limit the amount of bulk collection, it doesn’t end bulk collection,” Rep. Amash said, arguing that the problematic “specific selection term” allows for “very large data collection, potentially in the hundreds of thousands of people, maybe even millions.” In a statement posted to Facebook ahead of the vote, Rep. Amash said the legislation “falls woefully short of reining in the mass collection of Americans’ data, and it takes us a step in the wrong direction by specifically authorizing such collection in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.”
  • “While I appreciate a number of the reforms in the bill and understand the need for secure counter-espionage and terrorism investigations, I believe our nation is better served by allowing Section 215 to expire completely and replacing it with a measure that finds a better balance between national security interests and protecting the civil liberties of Americans,” Congressman Ted Lieu, D-Calif., said in a statement explaining his vote against the bill.
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  • Not addressed in the bill, however, are a slew of other spying authorities in use by the NSA that either directly or inadvertently target the communications of American citizens. Lawmakers offered several amendments in the days leading up to the vote that would have tackled surveillance activities laid out in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Executive Order 12333 — two authorities intended for foreign surveillance that have been used to collect Americans’ internet data, including online address books and buddy lists. The House Rules Committee, however, prohibited consideration of any amendment to the USA Freedom Act, claiming that any changes to the legislation would have weakened its chances of passage.
  • The measure now goes to the Senate where its future is uncertain. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has declined to schedule the bill for consideration, and is instead pushing for a clean reauthorization of expiring Patriot Act provisions that includes no surveillance reforms. Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., have threated to filibuster any bill that extends the Patriot Act without also reforming the NSA.
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    Surprise, surprise. U.S. "progressive" groups are waging an all-out email lobbying effort to sunset the Patriot Act. https://www.sunsetthepatriotact.com/ Same with civil liberties groups. e.g., https://action.aclu.org/secure/Section215 And a coalition of libertarian organizations. http://docs.techfreedom.org/Coalition_Letter_McConnell_215Reauth_4.27.15.pdf
Gary Edwards

Microsoft's Response to Google Chrome... - Google Docs - 0 views

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    Matt Assay has posted an interesting article arguing the point of view that Google Chrome will have a difficult time catching up Microsoft SharePoint. While everyone is moving to the Web, many will be surprised ot find that Microsoft is already there. Very surprised.
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    Good article from Matt Assay
Paul Merrell

Doug Mahugh : Miscellaneous links for 12-09-2008 - 0 views

  • If you've been at one of the recent DII workshops, you may recall that some of us from Microsoft have been talking about an upcoming converter interface that will allow you to add support for other formats to Office. I'm pleased to report that we've now published the documentation on MSDN for the External File Converter for SP2. The basic concept is that you convert incoming files to the Open XML format, and on save you convert Open XML to your format. Using this API, you can extend Office to support any format you'd like. The details are not for the faint of heart, but there is sample C++ source code available to help you get started.
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    So now we learn some details about the new MS Office API(s) for unsupported file formats Microsoft promised a few months ago. Surprise, surprise! They're not for native file support. They're external process tools for converting to and from OOXML. That makes it sound as though Microsoft has no intention of coughing up the documentation for the native file support APIs despite its claim that it would document all APIs for Office (also required by U.S. v. Microsoft). The extra conversion step also practically guarantees more conversion artifacts. Do the new APIs provide interop for embedded scripts, etc.? My guess is no. There has to be a reason Microsoft chose to externalize the process rather than documenting the existing APIs. Limiting features available is still the most plausible scenario.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Director Wants His Film on The Pirate Bay, Pirates Deliver... | TorrentFreak - 0 views

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    " Ernesto on July 24, 2014 C: 38 News A few days ago a Dutch movie director asked people to upload a copy of one of his older films onto The Pirate Bay. The filmmaker had become fed up with the fact that copyright issues made his work completely unavailable through legal channels. To his surprise, pirates were quick to deliver. suzyDutch movie director Martin Koolhoven sent out an unusual request on Twitter a few days ago. "
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    " Ernesto on July 24, 2014 C: 38 News A few days ago a Dutch movie director asked people to upload a copy of one of his older films onto The Pirate Bay. The filmmaker had become fed up with the fact that copyright issues made his work completely unavailable through legal channels. To his surprise, pirates were quick to deliver. suzyDutch movie director Martin Koolhoven sent out an unusual request on Twitter a few days ago. "
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    " Ernesto on July 24, 2014 C: 38 News A few days ago a Dutch movie director asked people to upload a copy of one of his older films onto The Pirate Bay. The filmmaker had become fed up with the fact that copyright issues made his work completely unavailable through legal channels. To his surprise, pirates were quick to deliver. suzyDutch movie director Martin Koolhoven sent out an unusual request on Twitter a few days ago. "
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Exploring the Legal Basis for the New 'Pirate' Proxy War | TorrentFreak - 1 views

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    " Andy on August 9, 2014 C: 50 Opinion This week, police took unprecedented action by shutting down proxies facilitating access to torrent sites blocked in the UK. With the surprise arrest of the sites' alleged operator leaving people scratching heads, "
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    " Andy on August 9, 2014 C: 50 Opinion This week, police took unprecedented action by shutting down proxies facilitating access to torrent sites blocked in the UK. With the surprise arrest of the sites' alleged operator leaving people scratching heads, "
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Pirates Fail to Prevent American Sniper's Box Office Record | TorrentFreak - 0 views

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    " Ernesto on January 19, 2015 C: 0 Opinion American Sniper grossed record numbers at the U.S. box office this weekend. A surprising result, not least because a high quality leak was widely available prior to the premiere, resulting in millions of pirate downloads and streams. How can this be?" # ! sharing boosts sales.
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    " Ernesto on January 19, 2015 C: 0 Opinion American Sniper grossed record numbers at the U.S. box office this weekend. A surprising result, not least because a high quality leak was widely available prior to the premiere, resulting in millions of pirate downloads and streams. How can this be?" # ! sharing boosts sales. [Welcome, dear customers: You Are Stupid.]
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Why did Microsoft join the Linux Foundation's AllSeen Alliance? | ITworld - 0 views

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    "By Jim Lynch, ITworld | Open Source, Linux, Microsoft July 03, 2014, 10:56 AM - When people think of open source they don't usually associate Microsoft with it. But the company recently surprised many when it joined the Linux Foundation's open source AllSeen Alliance. The AllSeen Alliance's mission is to create a standard for device communications. "
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    "By Jim Lynch, ITworld | Open Source, Linux, Microsoft July 03, 2014, 10:56 AM - When people think of open source they don't usually associate Microsoft with it. But the company recently surprised many when it joined the Linux Foundation's open source AllSeen Alliance. The AllSeen Alliance's mission is to create a standard for device communications. "
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Surprise! Adobe Flash has a security flaw on Windows, Mac and Linux - 0 views

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    "Well, it's been a week since we've heard about a security vulnerability in Adobe Flash -- that's like a lifetime in terms of this program. While the application is slowly receding, it's far from dead and that means users have reason for worry."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Who's Afraid of P2P? : The Corbett Report - 1 views

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    " Who's Afraid of P2P? Corbett * 12/10/2015 * 10 Comments Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed Wired has allegedly found elusive Bitcoin creator "Satoshi Nakamoto" in Australia…and less than 24 hours later he's being raided by the Australian Federal Police. Sadly, given the attempts by the MSM and governments around the world to link the P2P economy to terror, mayhem and criminality, this is hardly surprising."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Purchasing music no longer means ownership - Collegiate Times : Columnists - 0 views

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    "Posted: Tuesday, September 11, 2012 12:00 am Marcus Williams | 0 comments For the vast majority of us who have never read the iTunes Terms of Service Agreement after downloading - for what seems like the 100th update - it may come as a surprise that we do not, in fact, own any of this "purchased" music."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

EUROPA - PRESS RELEASES - Press release - Lack of choice driving demand for film downloads - 0 views

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    "Lack of choice driving demand for film downloads Nearly 70% of Europeans download or stream films for free, whether legally or illegally, according to a new European Commission study on audience behaviour. It also finds that 40% of smartphone owners and more than 60% of tablet owners watch films on their devices. The study finds that this is not surprising because, while the public takes a lot of interest in films as a whole, the nearest cinema is often some distance from them and the choice on screen is frequently rather limited. It suggests that the European film industry can increase revenues by exploiting different types of profit-making online platforms to increase the availability of films and reach new audiences. The audience behaviour study is based on research, analysis and interviews with audiences in 10 Member States - the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Croatia, Romania, Lithuania and Denmark. Nearly 5 000 people aged from 4-50 were asked about their film habits and preferences."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

| Opensource.com - 0 views

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    LinuxCon North America Highlights: Day 3 "On the final day of LinuxCon North America 2015, Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin welcomed a "surprise" guest, Linus Torvalds, to the stage for a brief Q&A session."
Gary Edwards

ptsefton » OpenOffice.org is bad for the planet - 0 views

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    ptsefton continues his rant that OpenOffice does not support the Open Web. He's been on this rant for so long, i'm wondering if he really thinks there's a chance the lords of ODF and the OpenOffice source code are listening? In this post he describes how useless it is to submit his findings and frustrations with OOo in a bug report. Pretty funny stuff even if you do end up joining the Michael Meeks trek along this trail of tears. Maybe there's another way?

    What would happen if pt moved from targeting the not so open OpenOffice, to target governments and enterprises trying to set future information system requirements?

    NY State is next up on this endless list. Most likely they will follow the lessons of exhaustive pilot studies conducted by Massachusetts, California, Belgium, Denmark and England, and end up mandating the use of both open standard "XML" formats, ODF and OOXML.

    The pilots concluded that there was a need for both XML formats; depending on the needs of different departments and workgroups. The pilot studies scream out a general rule of thumb; if your department has day-to-day business processes bound to MSOffice workgroups, then it makes sense to use MSOffice OOXML going forward. If there is no legacy MSOffice bound workgroup or workflow, it makes sense to move to OpenOffice ODF.

    One thing the pilots make clear is that it is prohibitively costly and disruptive to try to replace MSOffice bound workgroups.

    What NY State might consider is that the Web is going to be an important part of their informations systems future. What a surprise. Every pilot recognized and indeed, emphasized this fact. Yet, they fell short of the obvious conclusion; mandating that desktop applications provide native support for Open Web formats, protocols and interfaces!

    What's wrong with insisting that desktop applciations and office suites support the rapidly advancing HTML+ technologies as well as the applicat
Paul Merrell

Rapid - Press Releases - EUROPA - 0 views

  • MEMO/09/15 Brussels, 17th January 2009
  • The European Commission can confirm that it has sent a Statement of Objections (SO) to Microsoft on 15th January 2009. The SO outlines the Commission’s preliminary view that Microsoft’s tying of its web browser Internet Explorer to its dominant client PC operating system Windows infringes the EC Treaty rules on abuse of a dominant position (Article 82).
  • In the SO, the Commission sets out evidence and outlines its preliminary conclusion that Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice. The SO is based on the legal and economic principles established in the judgment of the Court of First Instance of 17 September 2007 (case T-201/04), in which the Court of First Instance upheld the Commission's decision of March 2004 (see IP/04/382), finding that Microsoft had abused its dominant position in the PC operating system market by tying Windows Media Player to its Windows PC operating system (see MEMO/07/359).
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  • The evidence gathered during the investigation leads the Commission to believe that the tying of Internet Explorer with Windows, which makes Internet Explorer available on 90% of the world's PCs, distorts competition on the merits between competing web browsers insofar as it provides Internet Explorer with an artificial distribution advantage which other web browsers are unable to match. The Commission is concerned that through the tying, Microsoft shields Internet Explorer from head to head competition with other browsers which is detrimental to the pace of product innovation and to the quality of products which consumers ultimately obtain. In addition, the Commission is concerned that the ubiquity of Internet Explorer creates artificial incentives for content providers and software developers to design websites or software primarily for Internet Explorer which ultimately risks undermining competition and innovation in the provision of services to consumers.
  • Microsoft has 8 weeks to reply the SO, and will then have the right to be heard in an Oral Hearing should it wish to do so. If the preliminary views expressed in the SO are confirmed, the Commission may impose a fine on Microsoft, require Microsoft to cease the abuse and impose a remedy that would restore genuine consumer choice and enable competition on the merits.
  • A Statement of Objections is a formal step in Commission antitrust investigations in which the Commission informs the parties concerned in writing of the objections raised against them. The addressee of a Statement of Objections can reply in writing to the Statement of Objections, setting out all facts known to it which are relevant to its defence against the objections raised by the Commission. The party may also request an oral hearing to present its comments on the case. The Commission may then take a decision on whether conduct addressed in the Statement of Objections is compatible or not with the EC Treaty’s antitrust rules. Sending a Statement of Objections does not prejudge the final outcome of the procedure. In the March 2004 Decision the Commission ordered Microsoft to offer to PC manufacturers a version of its Windows client PC operating system without Windows Media Player. Microsoft, however, retained the right to also offer a version with Windows Media Player (see IP/04/382).
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    It's official, hot off the presses (wasn't there a few minutes ago). We're now into a process where DG Competition will revisit its previous order requiring Microsoft to market two versions of Windows, one with Media Player and one without. DG Competition staff were considerably outraged that Microsoft took advantage of a bit of under-specification in the previous order and sold the two versions at the same price. That detail will not be neglected this time around. Moreover, given the ineffectiveness of the previous order in restoring competition among media players, don't be surprised if this results in an outright ban on bundling MSIE with Windows.
Gary Edwards

Write once, REALLY run everywhere | Capping IT Off | Capgemini | Consulting, - 0 views

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    WebKit everywhere! Remember Sun's slogan for Java: write once, run everywhere? Because of the platform independency of Java, a Java application will indeed run on many platforms without any rewrite or recompile. Java is mostly used on the server side of things but it is hardly used on the desktop. I doubt that JavaFX will change that. On the other hand, Java is huge on mobile devices (Symbian). All in all, Sun has done an impressive job at keeping their promise. Interestingly however, Java is quickly loosing field in this respect from a surprising enemy: Javascript. An open source HTML rendering kit that has become hugely popular in a small period of time deserves the credit for this: Webkit.
Gary Edwards

The Next-Gen Web: HTML5 - Will We Ever See A Real Standard? - 0 views

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    "...some browsers and plug-ins were adopting storage-related API's that are a part of the new HTML5 draft specification. While Gears, Opera and Webkit have implemented structured storage API's, the remainder of the HTML5 spec currently remains mostly unimplemented and also in a state of flux. HTML5 is a super-sized effort to bring all the browsers under a single, standard markup language and set of API's - but with Microsoft, Adobe and others racing ahead with their own next-gen web technologies, will we ever see a real HTML5 standard?" This article was posted in August of 2008, before the surprise release of the WebKit based "Google Chrome" .... the WebKit RiA alternative to Adobe AiR and Microsoft Silverlight
sakkkka khail

Motorola DROID X ME811 | Mobile Prices - 0 views

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    Upcoming Any chance we ll see our processor speed similarly increased in a future update, here in the states? I mean, if the Droid X headed to China can do 1.2Ghz with the same processor, why can t our US Droid X do so as well? This would be an awesome surprise if it came with the Android 2.3 update. Speaking of which, any timeline on when we ca
Maluvia Haseltine

Google uncloaks once-secret server | Business Tech - CNET News - 0 views

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    Really interesting article. with some surprising and innovative approaches to dealing with the issues of huge data centers, energy efficiency, speed and security
Gary Edwards

RDFa, Drupal and a Practical Semantic Web - 1 views

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    CMSWire has a brief explanation of RDFa and why it's important. RDFa is also finding it's way into the Drupal CMS, which could be a game changer. Timothy Berners-Lee vision of a "Semantic Web" where the meaning of content is understood by both humans and machines depends on the emergence of capable information systems that make it transparently easy to add semantic markup. I'm not surprised that Drupal is jumping with both feet.

    "... In the march toward creating the semantic web, web content management systems such as Drupal (news, site) and many proprietary vendors struggle with the goal of emitting structured information that other sites and tools can usefully consume. There's a balance to be struck between human and machine utility, not to mention simplicity of instrumentation.

    With RDFa (see W3C proposal),  software and web developers have the specification they need to know how to structure data in order to lend meaning both to machines and to humans, all in a single file. And from what we've seen recently, the Drupal community is making the best of it.
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