In a recent announcement on the Whirlpool front page, it appears that accounting software maker 2clix is suing the founder of the forums as the founder allowed statements relating to the Plaintiff and its software product that are both false and malicious
to be published on the Whirlpool forums — via Slashdot
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
A police operation to covertly follow a Central Otago man came to an abrupt halt this week when the man found tracking devices planted in his car, ripped them out and listed them for sale on Trade Me. Police have neither confirmed nor denied they placed the devices, yet they demanded Trade Me yank the auctions
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
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
Amazon will probably launch its DRM-free music store in the next few weeks, joining Wal-Mart and others in posing the first real threat to the iTunes Music hegemony. Amazon honcho Jeff Bezos adopted an MP3-only strategy so that the music Amazon sells can play on iPods any device
. Trouble is, it may be a half-assed music store, with Sony and Warner still mum on the subject of stripped DRM
After recent setbacks in the RIAA’s lawsuits, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) has decided to try a different approach in Australia — they want ISPs to do their dirty work for them. Australian ISPs, though, have soundly rejected calls from AFACT to slow down or terminate user accounts that AFACT has determined are being used to distribute copyrighted works. Telstra had this to say: We do not believe it is up to the ISPs to be judge, jury and executioner in relation to the issue when the content owners have any number of legal avenues to pursue infringements
— via Slashdot
Building off the design mandates of CALEA, the FBI has constructed a point-and-click surveillance system that creates instant wiretaps on almost any communications device. A thousand pages of restricted documents released under the Freedom of Information Act were required to determine the veracity of this clandestine project. Called the Digital Collection System Network, it connects FBI wiretapping rooms to switches controlled by traditional land-line operators, internet-telephony providers and cellular companies. It is intricately woven into the nation’s telecom infrastructure — via Slashdot
The internet should not be used as a scapegoat for society’s ills, said Vint Cerf, Google’s net evangelist and a founding father of the network. He said the net was just a reflection of the society in which we live. Anyone regulating beyond what was clearly illegal put themselves on a slippery slope
that could limit freedom of expression, he said. If it’s not illegal, it raises a rather interesting question about where you do draw the line
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
Protesters are accusing police of using undercover agents to provoke violent confrontations at the North American leaders’ summit in Montebello, Quebec. Such accusations have been made before after similar demonstrations but this time the alleged agents provocateurs
have been caught on camera. A video, posted on YouTube, shows three young men, their faces masked by bandannas, mingling Monday with protesters in front of a line of police in riot gear. At least one of the masked men is holding a rock in his hand. Late Tuesday, photographs taken by another protester surfaced, showing the trio lying prone on the ground. The photos show the soles of their boots adorned by yellow triangles. A police officer kneeling beside the men has an identical yellow triangle on the sole of his boot. Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protests — via Boing Boing
Wal-Mart has hopped on the DRM-free bandwagon with the announcement that it will be participating in Universal’s DRM-free sales pilot. The quality looks good: 256Kbps MP3 for 94 cents apiece, but customers are likely to be turned off by the retail chain’s continued censorship — via Slashdot
John Stottlemire found a way to print duplicate coupons from Coupons.com by deleting some files and registry entires on his PC. Now he’s being sued for a DMCA violation. He says, All I did was erase files or registry keys.
Says a lawyer: [The DMCA] may cover this. I think it does give companies a lot of leverage and a lot of power.
So now the copyright cartels are saying that not only can we not copy things on our computers, but we can’t delete things on our computers? — Slashdot
Four journalists and one of their family members are suing Hewlett-Packard for obtaining their personal phone records. The journalists filed lawsuits in California this week. They claim that HP invaded their privacy. HP acknowledged in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing last year that it investigated journalists in order to find out who, inside the company, had been leaking information to the press. The actions of HP board members and contractors led to congressional hearings about pretexting, the use of deception to obtain confidential and detailed phone records. They also led to the resignations of Board Chairperson Patricia Dunn and lawyer and ethics chief Kevin Hunsaker
Amnesty International has confirmed its controversial decision to back abortion in some circumstances, replacing its previous policy of neutrality. The human rights group will campaign for woman to have access to abortion in cases including rape and incest. The initial decision was taken in April, but Amnesty delegates meeting in Mexico gave it overwhelming support. Christian organisations, including the Roman Catholic Church, have threatened to withdraw support from the group
A Russian court has found the former boss of www.allofmp3.com not guilty of breaching copyright, in a case considered a crucial test of Russia’s commitment to fighting piracy. The allofmp3.com web site angered Western music companies by undercutting the price of downloads in deals they said breached copyright law. Denis Kvasov, head of MediaServices which owned the site, was put on trial after entertainment companies EMI Group, NBC Universal and Time Warner pressed for a prosecution
Federal district judge Dale Kimball issued a ruling on Friday declaring that Novell owns the UNIX copyrights. Kimball’s ruling means that the end is near for SCO’s protracted litigation trainwreck, an epic assortment of lawsuits that have achieved infamy in the tech industry. Judge Kimball finds that Novell never transferred ownership of the UNIX copyrights to SCO during or after a 1995 agreement between the two companies
The NSA wants automatic surveillance capabilities in telephone switches. But once such capabilities are built in, others could use them to intercept communications. Within ten0 years this could render the US vulnerable to attacks from terrorist groups across the globe, as well as from the military establishments of other nations. Such threats are not theoretical: In April 2004, phones belonging to members of the Greek government, including the prime minister, were spied on with wiretapping software that was misused — via Slashdot
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
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