In the mid-1980s, journalist Joel Sappell and a colleague began a five-year examination of the Church of Scientology that would ultimately produce a 24-article series. It would also change Sappell’s life in ways both mystifying? and unnerving. Decades later the one-time investigative reporter investigates what happened to him — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare has announced a root and branch
overhaul of Customs after eight people were charged in connection to an alleged drug ring working out of Sydney airport.
A joint investigation by ABC’s 7.30 and Fairfax has revealed that a cell of suspected corrupt Customs officers has allegedly helped smuggle drugs through Australia’s biggest airport.
This morning Mr Clare announced that eight people, including two Customs employees and a quarantine officer, had been arrested and charged over the importation of drugs following a secret two-year investigation into corruption — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A German privacy regulator ordered Facebook to stop enforcing its real name policy because it violates a German law that gives users the right to use nicknames online.
Facebook refused to permit the use of pseudonyms on its platform as required by the German Telemedia Act, Thilo Weichert, privacy commissioner and head of the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ULD) Schleswig-Holstein said on Monday. The ULD issued a decree forcing Facebook to start allowing pseudonyms immediately, he said.
This decree is binding,
said Weichert, who added that it is unacceptable that a US portal like Facebook keeps violating German data protection law. To ensure users’ rights and comply with data protection law in general, the real name obligation must be immediately abandoned by Facebook, the ULD said.
The orders were issued on Friday against Facebook USA and Facebook Ireland, which is responsible for all Facebook’s activities outside of the US and Canada — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Watch out, Rupert Murdoch. The Guardian, which has led the way exposing the phone-hacking scandal in the Murdoch empire, is expanding in his own backyard, with a Guardian Australia news operation.
Glamorous deputy editor Katherine Viner, seen as a frontrunner to succeed editor Alan Rusbridger, is set to go to Oz to lead the team — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Wal-Mart longed to build in Elda Pineda’s alfalfa field. It was an ideal location, just off this town’s bustling main entrance and barely a mile from its ancient pyramids, which draw tourists from around the world. With its usual precision, Wal-Mart calculated it would attract 250 customers an hour if only it could put a store in Mrs Pineda’s field.
One major obstacle stood in Wal-Mart’s way.
After years of study, the town’s elected leaders had just approved a new zoning map. The leaders wanted to limit growth near the pyramids, and they considered the town’s main entrance too congested already. As a result, the 2003 zoning map prohibited commercial development on Mrs Pineda’s field, seemingly dooming Wal-Mart’s hopes.
But 30 miles away in Mexico City, at the headquarters of Wal-Mart de Mexico, executives were not about to be thwarted by an unfavourable zoning decision. Instead, records and interviews show, they decided to undo the damage with one well-placed $52,000 bribe.
The plan was simple. The zoning map would not become law until it was published in a government newspaper. So Wal-Mart de Mexico arranged to bribe an official to change the map before it was sent to the newspaper, records and interviews show. Sure enough, when the map was published, the zoning for Mrs Pineda’s field was redrawn to allow Wal-Mart’s store.
Problem solved — via redwolf.newsvine.com
When you start questioning the copyright monopoly, many middlemen and other has-beens start acting offended — as if you have somehow questioned a natural birthright. Nothing is farther from the truth.
The copyright monopoly is not a natural right. It is a government-sanctioned private monopoly, granted under the assumption that no culture would get created if there’s not a profit motive behind it, and that this profit motive can only be realised in a monopolised setting.
Yet, when you question this assumption and this monopoly, some people react with unmitigated angry and fury — as though you have questioned their very right to life. This is puzzling, and it indicates a lack of understanding of what the monopoly is and why it exists.
(People who like liberal capitalism should baulk at government-sanctioned monopoly
. People who lean towards labour values should baulk at private monopoly
. Still, it’s factually true) — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A scheme to help Hollywood movie studios catch online copyright infringers is on the verge of collapse after iiNet, the nation’s third-largest telco, abandoned plans to trial the new system.
The trial — which had been devised in consultation with Australia’s three largest telcos, Telstra, Optus and iiNet, and representatives from Hollywood’s major movie studios — would have seen internet service providers pass on notices of alleged online copyright infringement to their customers.
But Hollywood’s hopes that the proposed notice system would be up and running in the new year have now been dashed, after iiNet withdrew from the trial following its landmark defence of a High Court legal battle with 34 of Hollywood’s biggest movie and television studios earlier this year.
iiNet has informed the Communications Alliance, the government and the other ISPs involved in the discussions that it does not intend to participate in an industry-led trial, as currently envisaged, designed to test methods to deter online copyright infringement,
Communications Alliance chief executive John Stanton told The Australian — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The corruption to which I am referring is the phenomenon of money in politics.
Lawrence Lessig’s Republic, Lost, details many of the distortions that occur as a result of all the money sloshing around in the political system: how elected representatives are being forced to spend an ever-increasing amount of their time chasing donors for funds, for example, as opposed to chasing citizens for votes. Former congressman and CIA director Leon Panetta described it as legalised bribery,/q>; something which has just
become part of the culture of how this place operates
.
But of all the negative impacts this phenomenon has had, it’s the devastating impact it has on US competitiveness that should be most concerning.
One of the prime drivers of economic growth inside America over the past century has been disruptive innovation; yet the phenomenon that Lessig describes is increasingly being used by large incumbent firms as a mechanism to stave off the process. Given how hard it can be to survive a disruptive challenge, and how effective lobbying has proven in stopping it, it’s no wonder that incumbent firms take this route so often — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Australia’s largest pay TV provider, Foxtel, has told the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) that Australia should follow the UK and block sites that offer copyright infringing content, such as The Pirate Bay.
Foxtel, the pay TV network that is owned by Telstra and News Limited, said in its submission (PDF) to the ALRC’s review of copyright law that the film studios should be able to go to court and force internet service providers (ISPs) to block specific websites that host infringing content.
We submit that parliament should provide the courts with the power to order ISPs to block specific sites. This power would be exercised after application by a rights holder and result in the issuing of an injunction that applies to all ISPs,
Foxtel said. This legislation would be similar to that used in the UK to block piracy sites, such as The Pirate Bay
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Google has acquired Canadian startup Bufferbox for an undisclosed sum.
The self-serve parcel pick-up station outfit, which started life at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, announced it had been scooped up by the advertising giant on Friday.
As online shopping becomes a bigger part of how you buy products, we look forward to playing a part in bringing that experience to the next level. We are happy to share that it will be business as usual for our users and we are looking forward to continuing to build out the service,
Bufferbox said in a blog post on its website.
It claims to make rage-inspiring missed deliveries a thing of the past
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Australia’s copyright law and the alleged draft text from the Intellectual Property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement limit the ability of internet service providers (ISPs) to cache content locally, according to iiNet.
iiNet’s comments came in a submission (PDF) to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) review of the Copyright Act.
The company estimated that 70 percent of the traffic it delivers to its customers comes from overseas, and, as such, in order to reduce the cost of transmission from the US and other countries to Australia, caching content locally is a vital necessity. iiNet estimated that caching can reduce transmission overheads to 1 percent of what they would otherwise be.
Despite its necessity, iiNet said that caching is not currently allowed under Australian law — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Joe Lueken spent 46 years becoming a successful grocer and community benefactor here. Finally, at 70, he’s ready to sell the business, travel the world with his wife, Janice, and reap some of what they’ve sown.
So when he strides into his south Bemidji supermarket and 2 1/2-year employee Maria Svare smiles broadly and asks him, How do you like my store today?
it might sound like a joke.
But it’s not. And that’s part of why hundreds of Bemidji residents are thankful this holiday season for Joe Lueken.
On 1 January, Lueken’s Village Foods, with two supermarkets in Bemidji and another in Wahpeton, North Dakota, will begin transferring ownership to its approximately 400 employees through an Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP) — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Fabergé, the luxury jeweller famed for its encrusted eggs, is being taken over by London-listed miner Gemfields in a deal that values it at $142m (£89m).
Ian Harebottle, chief executive of Gemfields, said: This is a deal which will turn us into the leading coloured gemstones company in the world. By putting together our output of the highest-quality ethical gemstones with the Fabergé heritage and design skills, we can carve out a much larger and grander market space
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Lotus Notes is no more and will henceforth be known as … drumroll please … IBM Notes.
Big Blue quietly let it be known the Lotus brand will disappear in the forthcoming version 9.0 of Notes and Domino, products that back in 1995 were so desirable it wrote a cheque for $US.3.52bn to acquire them.
That acquisition was literally a hold the front page event, as a price tag of $US.3.52bn was all-but-unheard-of in those far-off days, when Notes was the clear leader in a product category known as groupware
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
A US district judge has approved a request for class action in a lawsuit against pizza maker Papa John’s International for allegedly sending hundreds of thousands of text spam messages.
Seattle law firm Heyrich Kalish McGuigan, representing three Papa John’s customers, alleged that the pizza delivery service has sent 500,000 unwanted text messages to customers. If the court finds that Papa John’s violated the US Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the pizza maker could have to pay damages of $500 per text message, or US$250 million, one of the largest damage awards under the 1991 law, the law firm said.
Many customers complained to Papa John’s that they wanted the text messages to stop, and yet thousands of spam text messages were sent week after week,
Donald Heyrich, attorney for the plaintiffs said in a statement. This should be a wake-up call to advertisers. Consumers do not want spam on their cell phones
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Soft drink rivals AG Barr and Britvic have agreed the terms of a merger which creates one of Europe’s largest soft drinks companies.
Irn Bru maker AG Barr and Tango producer Britvic opened discussions about a merger in September.
The new combined company will be called Barr Britvic Soft Drinks plc and will have annual sales of more than £1.5bn.
The merger is likely to see about 500 jobs cut from combined headcount of just over 4,000 people — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A high court judge has ruled that companies do not have a general claim of ownership of the content contained in staff emails.
The decision creates a potential legal minefield for the terms of staff contracts and an administrative nightmare for IT teams running email servers, back up and storage.
The judge ruled businesses do not have an enforceable proprietary claim
to staff email content unless that content can be considered to be confidential information belonging to a business, unless business copyright applies to the content, or unless the business has a contractual right of ownership over the content — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Singapore now has its first commercial vertical farm, which means more local options for vegetables.
The technique uses aluminium towers that are as tall as nine metres, and vegetables are grown in troughs at multiple levels.
The technique utilises space better — an advantage for land-scarce Singapore.
Sky Greens farm first started working on the prototype in 2009, and has opened a 3.65-hectare farm in Lim Chu Kang.
It produces three types of vegetables which are currently available only at FairPrice Finest supermarkets.
They cost 10 to 20 cents more than vegetables from other sources.
Despite the higher prices, the greens have been flying off supermarket shelves — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Despite self-interested claims from companies and governments, identity theft is extremely rare and the costs of cybercrime are significantly lower than claimed, new polling by Essential Research shows.
Crikey has previously examined overhyped reports from computer security companies aimed at generating additional sales for their products, hyping the Australian government has happily joined in. According to Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, identity fraud is one of Australia’s fastest growing crimes and one in four Australians had been a victim or had known someone who had been a victim of identity theft
.
The key to overhyping cybercrime is to conflate a variety of different crimes under one broad description. But now Essential has disentangled commonly-conflated crimes and asked people to estimate how much they actually cost. And the evidence comprehensively debunks the claims made about cybercrime.
According to Essential, just 1% of Australians report ever being the victim of identity theft. If identity theft is Australia’s fastest growing crime
as Nicola Roxon, the AFP and many media reports insists, then it must have been coming off a positively microscopic base.
Moreover, 43% of identity theft victims said they suffered no financial loss from the incident. Just over a third? — ?36% — ?said their loss was between $100 and $500; another 14% said it was between $500-1000. In fact, identity theft was the least expensive crime, averaging a cost of $230, well below the overall average cost of $330.
So, identity theft that actually costs people money has happened to 0.57% of Australians — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A decade after George Lucas said Star Wars
was finished on the big screen, a new trilogy is destined for theatres as The Walt Disney Co announced Tuesday that it was buying Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion.
The seventh movie, with a working title of Episode 7
, is set for release in 2015. Episodes 8 and 9 will follow. The new trilogy will carry the story of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia beyond Return of the Jedi
, the third film released and the sixth in the saga. After that, Disney plans a new Star Wars
movie every two or three years. Lucas will serve as creative consultant in the new movies — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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