French lawmakers voted Tuesday to approve a draft law to filter Internet traffic, a measure the government says is intended to catch child pornographers. The bill will now go on for a second and final reading. Critics of the catch-all Bill on direction and planning for the performance of domestic security
say that filtering won’t stop the spread of child pornography — but could allow the government to censor other materials. The bill, known as Loppsi II in French, was approved by 312 votes to 214 in a vote in the National Assembly on Tuesday. The government has a large majority in the Assembly; two of its deputies abstained, with the others all voting in favour of the bill
According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools’ administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins’s child was disciplined for improper behaviour in his home
and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. The suit is a class action, brought on behalf of all students issued with these machines
An Australian distributor has been ordered to pay Nintendo over half a million dollars for selling video game piracy tool, the R4 mod chip. The Federal Court ordered that RSJ IT Solutions cease to sell the chip through its gadgetgear.com.au site and any other sites it controlled, as well as paying Nintendo $520,000 in damages. The chip allows users to circumvent the technology protection measures Nintendo has built into its DS handheld consoles, enabling illegally pirated games to be downloaded online
A leading privacy group has urged US regulators to investigate Google’s new social networking service Buzz, one week after its launch. The Electronic Privacy Information Centre (Epic) has made its complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It says that Buzz — which is part of Google’s Gmail service — is deceptive
and breaks consumer protection law
Michael Atkinson says his family is more at risk from angry video gamers than outlaw motorcycle gangs. The South Australian Attorney-General revealed in an interview aired last night that a threatening note from a gamer
was placed under his door early one morning
Electronic Frontiers Australia today launched a new campaign against the Rudd Government’s mandatory Internet filtering plan. The Open Internet campaign emphasises that Australians want an Open Internet that is free from an impractical and costly policy of Government imposed mandatory Internet filtering
Iceland could become a journalism haven
if a proposal put forward by some Icelandic MPs aided by whistle-blowing web site Wikileaks succeeds. The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI), calls on the country’s government to adopt laws protecting journalists and their sources. It will be filed with the Althingi — Iceland’s parliament — on 16 February.—If the proposal succeeds it will require the Icelandic government to consider introducing legislation
Google says it will not voluntarily
comply with the government’s request that it censor YouTube videos in accordance with broad refused classification
(RC) content rules. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy referred to Google’s censorship on behalf of the Chinese and Thai governments in making his case for the company to impose censorship locally. Google warns this would lead to the removal of many politically controversial, but harmless, YouTube clips
An internet group has taken down the Australian Parliament House web site and hacked into Kevin Rudd’s web site in a series of coordinated protests against plans to filter the internet. The government’s recently-commissioned Cyber Security Operations Centre discovered Wednesday’s attack was coming on February 5 but still couldn’t stop it entirely. Anonymous, the group responsible, is known for its many attacks against Scientology websites and has recently turned its attention to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and his plan to filter the internet. The attack came in the form of what is known as a denial of service — sites are bombarded with millions more communication requests than can possibly be handled
Following iiNet’s huge win over anti-piracy group AFACT, Aussie ISP Exetel has taken steps to soften its copyright infringement notice procedures and will no longer suspend accounts on mere accusations. Optus said today that although it planned to work with other internet service providers and the government on preventing internet piracy, it did not believe in sending alleged infringement notices to users
Australia’s drive to protect its own population from the horrors of the internet may be starting to have knock-on effects on the surfing habits of its neighbour, New Zealand — some web sites are no longer accessible in NZ via Aussie ISPs
A coalition of Australia’s 12 largest media organisations says journalists and the public should have greater access to cabinet documents. The Right to Know Coalition has told a Senate committee inquiry into proposed new Freedom of Information (FOI) laws that Cabinet secrecy should not be used as a way of preventing access to documents
Speaking in the House of Lords, Lord Lucas took aim at ACS:Law solicitors, a firm that has been used by record companies in Britain to intimidate file-sharers, and that has apparently cause an enormous number of complaints to the Solicitors Regulation Authority
iiNet wins. Case dismissed. AFACT to pay. The Federal Court of Australia has dismissed the film industry’s case against iiNet, finding that Australia’s No.3 internet provider did not authorise copyright infringement on its network. The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft representing the film industry, has been ordered to pay iiNet’s costs. iiNet chief executive Michael Malone estimated that these costs add up to around $4 million. I find that iiNet simply can’t be seen as approving infringement,
said Justice Cowdroy
Libya must stop blocking access to opposition web sites and internet pages such as YouTube, US-based Human Rights Watch has warned. The activists say Tripoli began a crackdown on 24 January, blocking several foreign-based sites reporting on Libya, and the entire YouTube site. The government is returning to the dark days of total media control,
the group said in a statement
The Senate has passed a Bill that will allow network operators — including ISPs — to intercept traffic as part of network protection activities
disregarding the Greens Party efforts to amend it. The Bill, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2009, aims to help network operators to understand what they can and cannot do in terms of interception. It will allow, for example, an ISP network engineer to intercept a customer’s connection when undertaking activities to operate, maintain and protect
their network
The South Australian Government passed a Bill late last year which makes it illegal during election time to post political views on a blog or comment without also including a name and address. The bill came into effect on 6 January, but only governs the weeks after a writ has been issued authorising an election, and only content affecting South Australian politicians. It attempts to stop people from not taking responsibility for posts which could sway public opinions on the election. And it lasted until Attorney-General Michael Atkinson moved to immediately repeal the controversial laws which sparked an outcry over censorship of the internet
It has never been a secret that the majority of files being shared over BitTorrent are movies and music that are likely being shared illegally. Princeton senior Sauhard Sahi confirmed this recently after setting out to survey the content available on BitTorrent and, although there are caveats to his findings, they highlight the relationship DRM has with illegal file sharing. As in: the more DRM there is on the legit versions of the content, the more popular it is on P2P
No more leaks, at least not for a while. The website WikiLeaks, known for breaking numerous news stories — ranging from publishing secret documents on Guantanamo Bay to corruption in Kenya — has shut down due to a lack of funds. In a statement posted on its website, WikiLeaks parent, The Sunshine Press, a non-profit organisation funded by human rights campaigners, investigative journalists and the general public, explained that the site needed $600,000 in order to survive 2010 and pay their employees. Since the December launch of their funding drive, the organisation has managed to raise just $130,000 in donations, far short of the amount required
3 Strikes
is a regime being introduced in various countries around the world to try to deal with illicit file-sharing. Already Taiwan, South Korea and France are putting their versions of the plan into action and other countries have similar proposals under discussion. In one form or another, could the same be coming to the United States?
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