The RCMP announced that it will stop targeting people who download copyrighted material for personal use [Google translation]. Their priority will be to focus on organized crime and copyright theft that affects the health and safety of consumers, such as copyright violations related to medicine and electrical appliances, instead of the cash flow of large corporations. Around the same time that the CRIA successfully took Demonoid offline, the RCMP made clear that Demonoid’s users don’t have to worry about getting prosecuted, at least not in Canada. Piracy for personal use is no longer targeted,
Noël St-Hilaire, head of copyright theft investigations of the RCMP, said in an interview. It is too easy to copy these days and we do not know how to stop it
— via Slashdot
Customers aren’t the only ones frustrated with the high-definition format wars — Sony CEO Howard Stringer is reaching the end of his rope as well. Blu-ray, which is backed by Sony, was doing well up until recently and winning the war based on merits, Stringer said at an event in New York. That is, up until movie studio Paramount decided to change sides
and go exclusively HD DVD in August. Things have apparently become more difficult since then, and the high-profile CEO is showing signs of wear
DRM-free music sells at a much higher rate online than protected music, according to UK-based digital music store 7 Digital. In fact, customers buy it four times as often as they do DRMed music. As a result, almost 80 percent of the store’s sales are of DRM-free content. 7 Digital may not sound familiar to some, but it carries over 3 million songs and has many selections from major artists in addition to independent labels
It looks as though the next meeting of the UN’s Internet Governance Forum is about to descend into another heated debate about US control of key Internet systems. Although the initial purpose of this year’s summit was to cover such issues as spam, free speech and cheaper access, it appears that nations such as China, Iran, and Russia, among others, would rather discuss US control of the Internet. In meetings leading to up to the second annual meeting of the IGF in Rio de Janiero on Monday, these nations won the right to hold an opening-day panel devoted to critical Internet resources
. While a number of countries wanting to internationalise Internet control simply want to have more say over policies such as creating domain names in languages other than English, we can only speculate what additional motives might be driving nations that heavily censor the Internet and lock down the flow of information across it — via Slashdot
In Los Angeles criminal court, security consultant John Schiefer, 26, has admitted infecting the systems of his clients with viruses to form a botnet containing a maximum of 250,000 systems. Schiefer used his zombies to steal users’ PayPal usernames and passwords to make unauthorised purchases, as well as to install adware on their computers without their consent. Schiefer agreed to plead guilty to four felony charges of accessing protected computers to commit fraud, disclosing illegally intercepted electronic communications, wire fraud and bank fraud. He will be sentenced 3 December and faces up to 60 years in prison and a fine of $1.75 million
Nissan is developing a paramagnetic iron oxide paint polymer. Using an electrical charge, the arrangement of iron oxide crystals can be tweaked, adjusting the car’s colour. Nissan claims to have the technology on the market extremely soon, by 2010 if possible. However, there’s a catch. A small amount of current is always needed to maintain the arrangement of iron oxide (your custom car colour). So when you leave your car parked/off, the car turns white
Paul Barford, a computer scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wants to build a new line of defence against malicious traffic which has become today a billion-dollar shadow industry
. As one of the most menacing aspects of botnets is that they can go largely undetected
by a PC owner, he developed a new computer security technique for detecting network intrusions. His system has a 99.9% detection rate of malicious signatures, roughly equivalent to some of the best commercial systems. But it has zero false positives when commercial systems have high numbers. This new system could soon be available commercially
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
A new range of Fujitsu Siemens monitors don’t draw power during standby. The technology uses capacitors and relays to avoid drawing power when no video signal is present. With political parties all over Europe calling for a ban on standby, this small development could end up as one of the most significant advances in recent times. The British Government estimates eight percent of all domestic electricity is consumed by devices in standby
NASA and its Applied Sciences Program will be using 14 satellites to watch the Earth’s environment and help predict and prevent infectious disease outbreaks around the world. Through orbiting satellites, data is collected daily to monitor environmental changes. That information is then passed on to agencies such as the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Defense who then apply the data to predict and track disease outbreaks and assist in making public health policy decisions. The use of remote sensing technology helps scientists predict the outbreak of some of the most common and deadly infectious diseases such as Ebola, West Nile virus and Rift Valley Fever
Alcor has released the source for Quicksilver as a Google Code project. While Quicksilver has always had a highly extensible plugin system, this is great news for the code monkeys out there who can now really dig into the application
Thousands of PC users have been duped into surrendering sensitive information and installing malicious software after falling victim to a complex scam that continues to plague well-known web sites. The scam is the latest to piggyback on banner ads that are fed to high-traffic destinations. Malicious code hardwired into the ads prompts a pop-up that warns of a bogus security threat on the visitor’s machine. It offers to fix the problem in exchange for a fee and for credit card information. The ad then attempts to install a back door on the victim’s machine
The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee excoriated two top executives of Web firm Yahoo, for the firm’s role in aiding China’s totalitarian regime crack down on a Chinese journalist
It took investigators two years to infiltrate and bring down UK-based OiNK, an invite-only music sharing site that was much loved by its smallish community. As we reported at the time, the IFPI and the BPI lauded the takedown as a major victory against piracy. After the echoes of OiNK’s final snort dissipated, one could hear the virtual rumbling of a new stampede: the post-OiNK explosion. The closure of OiNK has led directly or indirectly to the establishment of nearly half a dozen new file-sharing sites
Phoenix Technologies, a developer of BIOS software, is working on a new technology called Hyperspace that will allow you to instantly load certain applications like email, web browser and media player, without loading windows. It could even lead to tailoring of computers to even more specific demographics, like a student laptop preloaded with word processor, email and an IM all available at the press of a button
The Google Phone has arrived, sort of, but not in the long-rumoured embodiment that many had expected. Google announced this morning that it has developed a new mobile OS called Android
— a result of its acquisition of a mobile software company of the same name in 2005 — that will allow the company to get Google’s mobile apps into as many hands as possible starting in mid-2008. Android is Linux-based and open source, and aspects of the platform will be made available to handset manufacturers for free under the Apache license
I am now the proud owner of an RFID passport, complete with a very thick page that says “do not stamp… gadgetry inside”. Apparently this will get me through customs faster, but I’ll still have to shave my beard off if I don’t want my shoes to be randomly selected for chemical swabbing yet again.
Next up, biometrics and DNA samples.
John Papandriopoulos, a Research Fellow with the ARC Special Research Centre for Ultra-Broadband Information Networks (CUBIN) has developed a method to reduce crosstalk interference in ADSL technologies to bring speeds up the theoretical maxima possible. With an Australian Federal election due in a few weeks, and both parties promising improved broadband speeds and access, this is a welcome development, hopefully enabling higher speeds without huge expenses — via Slashdot
Because of the malware now hidden in the attachment, this round of PDF
spam is significantly more malicious than the flood that hit in
August
The synergy between batteries and capacitors — two of the sturdiest and oldest components of electrical engineering — has been growing, to the point where ultracapacitors may soon be almost as indispensable to portable electricity as batteries are now. Some researchers expect to soon create capacitors capable of storing 50% as much energy as a lithium ion battery of the same size. Such capacitors could revolutionize many areas possibly from mobile computing (no worries about battery memory), electricity-powered vehicles, and more — via Slashdot
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