The Kremlin is using Russia’s new anti-software-piracy laws to target dissident media outlets and shut them down. This is an eerie echo of the Soviet era, when black marketeering and other universal activities were used as the excuse for arresting dissidents and other inconvenient people. The difference is that this time, the anti-piracy laws were enacted at the behest of the US trade representative, who made stringent patent and copyright enforcement a condition of the recent US-Russia free trade agreement, forcing Russia to take on board stricter laws than those in place in the US. This includes laws that would never pass Constitutional muster stateside, like a scheme for police licensing and inspection of CD and DVD presses — via Boing Boing
Google is undergoing an investigation by the European Union for its $3.1 billion acquisition of internet advertiser DoubleClick. The United States’ Federal Trade Commission has been reviewing the acquisition since May
Hushmail, a longtime provider of encrypted web-based email, markets itself by saying that not even a Hushmail employee with access to our servers can read your encrypted e-mail, since each message is uniquely encoded before it leaves your computer
. But it turns out that statement seems not to apply to individuals targeted by government agencies
US-made censorware is being used to oppress the people in many countries, including Burma. That in itself may not be surprising, but a more interesting point is that according to lawyers it appears to be legal — in spite of all the economic sanctions against the country, and even though people know it will be used to hush up any mention of things like attacks on peaceful protesters — via Slashdot
Canadians may soon pay a small tax on every legal music store download. This fee is the work of a measure proposed by the Copyright Board of Canada. About two cents would be added to every song downloaded, with 1.5 cents being added to album downloads. Streaming services and subscriptions would also be taxed, to the tune of about 6% of the monthly fee. Most interesting — the tax would be retroactively applied to every transaction processed since 1996 — via Slashdot
A California court case is pitting blind users against the retailer Target over the lack of accessibility of Target.com. The case is being brought under a federal statute, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and two California laws that are somewhat broader. Even though Target has made improvements to the site since losing the first phase in court, the judge has just ruled that the case is eligible for class-action status. The end result could be mandated accessibility for for all Web sites reachable by visually impaired users in California — via Slashdot
A hacker’s diversion of traffic from a California county government Web site to a porn purveyor spiraled into IT chaos yesterday after a countermeasure applied from Washington essentially deleted the ca.gov domain
New laws going into effect in the United Kingdom make it a crime to refuse to decrypt almost any encrypted data requested by authorities as part of a criminal or terror investigation. Individuals who are believed to have the cryptographic keys necessary for such decryption will face up to 5 years in prison for failing to comply with police or military orders to hand over either the cryptographic keys, or the data in a decrypted form
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke announced New Zealand’s intention to commit to 90% renewable electricity by 2025. The country already uses 70% renewable electricity, primarily hydro and geothermal power and will continue to increase its use of renewables over the next 20 years
Virginia’s law banning the massive distribution of junk e-mail is an unconstitutional barrier to free speech, a lawyer for a former spammer told the state’s highest court
Indian journalist Amit Varma reports that Mumbai’s police are requiring the city’s 500 Internet cafes to install keystroke loggers, which will capture every keystroke by users and turn that information over to the government — nearly in realtime by the sound of it. Buy things online, and the underpaid Indian police will have your credit card number. Will these end up getting sold in a black market somewhere? Not unlikely
— via Slashdot
US District Judge Victor Marrero ruled in favor of the ACLU and struck down a portion of the revised USA PATRIOT Act this morning, forcing investigators to go through the courts to obtain approval before ordering ISPs to give up information on customers, instead of just sending them a National Security Letter. In the words of Judge Marrero, this use of National Security Letters offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers
— via Slashdot
The UK government has responded to an electronic petition that called on it to ensure the BBC’s iPlayer works on non-Windows PCs. More than 16,000 people have signed the petition since it was created. In its response, the government said the BBC Trust had made it a condition of launching the iPlayer that it worked with other operating systems. The iPlayer on-demand TV service lets people catch up with BBC programmes by downloading them via the net
Members of The Chaser were arrested today after attempting to breach security at the APEC Leaders Conference in Sydney. Chas Licciardello and Julian Morrow were arrested, along with nine crew members (all are now free on bail), just a short distance away from the InterContinental Hotel where President Bush is staying. They had already cleared at least two police checkpoints disguised as a Canadian motorcade. No particular reason we chose Canada,
said Taylor. We just thought they’d be a country who the cops wouldn’t scrutinise too closely, and who feasibly would only have three cars in their motorcade — as opposed to the 20 or so gas guzzlers that Bush has brought with him
— via Slashdot
The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence department, say American officials. The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defence secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack. Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the People’s Liberation Army
Swedish ISPs may soon be required by law to take greater responsibility for unlawful file-sharing. Although rejecting the ludicrous idea of an overarching broadband fee which would be shared out among copyright holders, a government report published on Monday called for internet providers to be bound to contribute to bringing all copyright infringement to an end
. Under the proposal, copyright holders whose material is being shared illegally would be entitled to compensation from ISPs which did not ban users. Needless to say, the country’s ISPs are not happy — via Slashdot
Staff in the Australian prime minister’s department have been accused of editing potentially damaging entries in online encyclopaedia Wikipedia. Workers made 126 edits on subjects such as immigration policy and Treasurer Peter Costello. Amongst the changes was the eloquent Poo bum dicky wee wee
, which gives an idea of the rocket scientists that Howard employees as minions. The details came from a new web site that tracks those who make edits. Staff from the CIA and the BBC among others have also made changes
The Bush administration has confirmed for the first time that American telecommunications companies played a key role in the NSA’s domestic eavesdropping program after asserting for nearly two years that any role played by the companies was a state secret
ISPs will be forced to filter web content at the request of parents, under a $189 million Federal Government crackdown on online bad language, pornography and child sex predators. The Prime Minister, John Howard, said that the Government would increase funding for the federal police online child sex exploitation team by $40 million, helping investigators to track those who prey on children through chat rooms and sites such as MySpace and Facebook. In a separate development, convicted sex offenders in NSW will have to register their email address with police as part of State Government efforts to stop them using the internet to prey on children
Terrorists and other criminals could exploit a newly discovered software flaw to hijack massive computer systems used to control critical infrastructure like oil refineries, power plants and factories. Ganesh Devarajan, a security researcher with TippingPoint, demonstrated the software vulnerability he uncovered to attendees at the Defcon hacker conference on computer security
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