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Anti-Piracy Plans Harm the Worldwide Web

2016-10-31T14:51:00.001+06:00

Category: Recent Headlines Involving File Sharing > Current Events
Tags:ISP, Download, BitTorrent, MPAA, RIAA, copyright-infringement, file-sharing, Torrenting

Tech firms urged the US government not to blindly follow the input of the entertainment industry regarding online piracy threats. The representative of Google, Amazon and Verisign warned that it could harm the Internet.

The US Trade Representative received annual “notorious markets” submissions from a number of copyright holder groups, using them in the Special 301 report, which lists the threats to various copyright industries. The report normally includes well-known piracy websites, but now intermediaries are also increasingly added to the mix. For instance, this year domain name registrars were identified as possible piracy facilitators, along with hosting providers and CDN provider Cloudflare.

However, the Internet Infrastructure Coalition believes that the inclusion of these tech firms is a dangerous development and outlines these concerns to the USTR. The Coalition warned that if the anti-piracy associations had their way, the entire web could have been put at risk. The problem is that the anti-piracy agencies “vilify” specific technologies instead of the marketplaces – for instance, MPAA claims that Cloudflare is a service creating “obstacles to enforcement” by helping pirate websites to “hide”, but the IIC says that this is inappropriate, as technologies themselves cannot be bad actors.

Besides, the tech firms also argue that the submissions reveal a misinterpretation of the domain name registrars’ obligations under the Registrar Accreditation Agreement. The entertainment industry groups would like domain registrars to immediately suspend domain names accused of copyright violation, but most of them refuse to do so without a court order. The Coalition says that the vilification of technology and misconstruing of the Agreement are aimed at forcing the web infrastructure companies to act as intermediaries in IP disputes, although this is not the way to fight copyright infringement and not the purpose of the Special 301 process.

The tech firms emphasize that billions of dollars are at stake if the US Government steers policies in the wrong direction, because creating regulatory hurdles to the industry’s progress will impact the overall economy dependent on the Internet infrastructure industry.

Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.
Posted by:QR

Recent DDoS Attack Was Largest Ever

2016-10-31T14:47:00.003+06:00

Recent DDoS Attack Was Largest Ever

Added: Saturday, October 29th, 2016
Category: Recent Headlines Involving File Sharing > Current Events
Tags:ISP, Download, BitTorrent, MPAA, RIAA, copyright-infringement, file-sharing, Torrenting

The cybersecurity experts said that the recent cyberattack responsible for taking down much of the US Internet was caused by Mirai botnet and was estimated as the largest of its kind in history. The botnet targeted the servers of Dyn, a company controlling much of the DNS infrastructure, which consequently affected largest websites including Twitter, Netflix, Reddit, the Guardian, CNN and others in Europe and the United States.

The outage was caused by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, performed by a network of computers infected with malware, which coordinated into bombarding a server with traffic until it is overwhelmed. The Mirai botnet was detected as the “primary source of malicious attack traffic” and differs from other botnets by its structure: instead of being made up of computers, it consists of the so-called “Internet of Things” (web cameras, printers and other web-connected devices).

Due to a huge number of Internet-connected devices, Mirai attacks were much larger than ordinary DDoS attacks. Its extent was estimated as involving 100,000 malicious endpoints, and the attack strength reached 1.2Tbps. The industry experts estimate the attack roughly twice as powerful as any similar attack on record.

The same botnet was used in the attack against the information security blog Krebs, which topped out at 665 Gbps. Security specialists say there is no real strategy to combat cyber insecurity of Internet-connected devices. Apparently, a non-state group exploited the problem on such a significant scale, and a well-resourced state actor could do much more with the botnet, and the consequences are hard to predict.

Posted by: QR

US military prepares for biggest Okinawa land return since 1972

2016-07-31T16:41:00.003+06:00

Osprey military aircraft are seen at the U.S. Futenma airbase in Ginowan, on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, July 26, 2013. Reuters.

The United States military said on Friday it was preparing for the biggest land return in Okinawa since 1972, as it faces a surge in opposition to its presence following the arrest of one its civilian contractors for the murder of a local woman.

Okinawa is the US military's key base in Asia where it faces an increasingly assertive China. It hosts 30,000 military personnel on bases that cover a fifth of the island.
"We are respectful of the feelings of Okinawans that our footprint must be reduced,” Lieutenant General Lawrence D. Nicholson, the US commander on the island, said in a press release.
Once new helipads are completed, the US military will hand back 4,000 hectares (40 square kilometers) of land to the Japanese government, which is 17 percent of the area it controls.
The tract is part of the US Marine Corp jungle training camp known as Camp Gonsalves in Northern Okinawa.
Okinawa was under US occupation until 1972.
The return of the land was agreed in 1996, but has been delayed by protesters blocking the construction of the helipads. The Japanese government recently resumed work at the site.
Local resentment over the US military presence surged after an American civilian working at a US base, Kenneth Franklin, was arrested last month in connection with the murder of a local 20-year-old Japanese woman, Rina Shimabukuro.
Nicholson announced a 30-day mourning period after the murder and temporarily banned marines from drinking off base. Washington and Tokyo agreed to limit legal protections and benefits to some US civilians working for the military.
The murder and a subsequent arrest of a US Navy sailor for drunk driving spurred large scale demonstrations and calls, backed by Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga, for Washington to move military personnel off the island.
After the rape of a Japanese schoolgirl by three US servicemen in 1996, the US and Japanese governments agreed to relocate some troops outside Okinawa but said others would be moved to less populated parts of the island.

Home > World WikiLeaks releases hacked Democratic National Committee audio files

2016-07-31T16:37:00.002+06:00

The latest release, which came in the middle of the Democratic National Convention where Hillary Clinton was officially named the party's presidential nominee.
WikiLeaks releases hacked DNC audio filesThe latest release, which came in the middle of the Democratic National Convention where Hillary Clinton was officially named the party's presidential nominee, is the second batch in a series that has deeply rattled the party and prompted the organization's chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to step down.

Google Removed Half Billion Pirate Links in 2016

2016-07-25T09:56:00.004+06:00

Google was asked to remove over 500m allegedly infringing links from its search results in 2016 thus far, which is double the number of DMCA notices received last year. According to copyright owners, the surge was due to a failing system, but Google has its own opinion. It believes that the increase shows that the system is working. According to statistics, it takes Google less than 6 hours to remove infringing content.

In recent years, the number of takedown requests has exploded, with Google recently receiving its 500 millionth takedown request this year. For comparison, in 2015 it took Google almost the entire year to reach the same milestone. With this pace, the search engine will process a billion allegedly infringing links during the whole year.

The company confirmed that almost 98% of the reported links are indeed infringing and being removed. In other words, half a billion links were withdrawn from search results in 2016 alone. At the same time, copyright holders are still not satisfied, claiming that many files simply reappear under new URLs.

A few days ago, Google issued its updated “How Google Fights Piracy” report providing an overview of the measures taken to tackle piracy while countering some of the copyright owners complaints. However, copyright owners still demand a tougher stance from Google in regard to piracy. It looks like the entertainment industry groups and the search engine are not going to reach an agreement in the near future, with the argument going on for years and both sides standing their own grounds. Entertainment industry hopes that the government may eventually intervene, but until this happens the rightsholders continue to report millions of infringing links every day.

Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.

Edward Snowden Presented Phone Case Revealing Spying

2016-07-25T09:55:00.001+06:00

Edward Snowden was one of the designers of a mobile phone case that can show when a device is transmitting data that could be spied on. Snowden and his co-designer Andrew Huang appeared online at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, demonstrating how the device connects to the phone’s radio transmitters and shows its owner when any type of connection is being used to share or receive information.

The prototype of the case shows a small, monochromatic display built into the casing, which shows whether the phone is “idle” or transmitting information. Besides, the case is also able to supply a device with extra battery power and cover the rear-facing camera. Snowden also explained that the item could be developed to act as a kind of “kill switch” that would disconnect a phone’s power supply once detecting that a radio is transmitting information after its owner turned it off.

Although this phone case is just an academic project and is not ready for the mass market, it could still influence how consumers view the “tracking devices” or regular smartphones. The former NSA contractor explained that if you have a phone in your pocket, a long-lived record of your movements is being created, as the smartphone is constantly shouting into the air by means of radio signals. This communication is not only saved by that phone company, but can also be observed by independent third parties.

Even when you turn off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular transmission in airplane mode, it can’t be trusted, because some malware can activate radios without any indication from the user interface.

The project is part of Snowden’s work to inform the public about the surveillance capabilities of the governments. Three years ago, he revealed the truth about mass surveillance programs from the NSA and has since become a recognizable name that can explain these issues in a comprehensible way.

The phone case developers admit the device is likely to remain a mockup, because the project is run largely through volunteer efforts. Apparently, if the proper funding is raised, they could release the device in partnership with the media advocacy group and use it to help protect journalists. So far, the designers are concentrating on working with iPhone, but the device could be modified to work on other models.

YouTube Flooded with Fake Pirate Movies

2016-07-13T12:02:00.000+06:00

YouTube is again under pressure from the copyright owners, but this time with a quite unexpected claim. The video streaming service is under attack for allowing its users to upload videos that send potential pirates to scammy websites.

In recent months, YouTube has become a battleground over the DMCA and the copyright owners’ war with Google. The record labels were the most active complainers, and the MPAA has just added pressure on YouTube, this time by linking to an article published by moviemaker and anti-piracy advocate Ellen Seidler, which criticizes the streaming service for allowing Internet users to upload fake movies leading others to scammy websites. Such fake movies can be found on YouTube by searching for the name of any mainstream movie adding “full movie”. Such videos usually instruct users to “click the link” below the video to access the full film, but instead lead to scammy websites.

The anti-piracy advocate noted that such fakes pollute YouTube’s results and make the anti-piracy work much harder, because the copyright owners now have to filter the fake movies. But consider for a moment the tremendous negative effect on pirates: earlier, people were able to search for a movie on YouTube, filter out all clips less than 20 minutes long and get a decent copy of the film. But now YouTube’s search results are a horrible place to do so.

If you think that Hollywood must be grateful for someone else infecting potential pirates with malware, which is piracy deterrence, then you are wrong – instead, they urge YouTube to clean up its site, suggesting to do so by detecting and removing these fakes with ContentID.

Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.

5% of UK Users Branded as “Hardcore Pirates”

2016-07-10T12:50:00.001+06:00

The local Intellectual Property Office has revealed that about 25% of all UK media consumers pirated at least once during a recent 3-month period. The same report showed that infringement of video content was up this year, but music has shown a significant decrease.

In fact, the statistics showed that about 15% of Internet users consumed infringing content during the above said period, which is about 6.7 million people. But the study considered only users who had actually consumed content online rather than all Internet users, so the number of infringers increased to 25%.

The use of P2P networks has declined from 12% to 10% among all Internet users and from 26% to 23% among infringers. So far, uTorrent has been the most popular client used for infringing, but its usage has also declined from 17% of infringers in 2015 to 12% this year. 11% of them use The Pirate Bay for content downloading. As for infringement levels, they also vary across content formats, with the highest levels relating to music: 8% of all Internet users obtain it from unauthorized sources. 7% of users admit obtaining TV shows from illegal sources, 6% infringed movies. At the same time, consumption of legitimate content has gone up.

More interesting was people’s motivation to obtain illegal content: because it is free (49%), convenient (45%) and quick (42%). As a result, about 25% of infringers say that cheaper prices would make them pirate less, while 20% say that availability of legal sources would help.

Nevertheless, there are relatively few hardcore pirates in the United Kingdom: only 5% of all Internet users in the country admitted to exclusively obtaining content from illegal sources.

Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.

10m Android Devices Infected with New Malware@@

2016-07-10T05:49:00.001+06:00

More than 10m devices running Google’s Android OS have been infected with HummingBad – a new piece of malware that is able to take over a smartphone or tablet, steal and sell on user data, including banking information and other data for identify theft. It is also able to download unauthorized apps and tap on advertising.

Security firms have been tracking the malware for the past few months. According to their statistics, after a spike in infections in May, HummingBad has now passed the 10 million mark. Security experts explain that it can infect an Android device if the user browses the infected website, in so-called “drive-by-download” attacks. After this, the malware tries to gain access to the underlying Android system by using “root access” to take full control. If it fails, it attempts to trick the user into giving almost full control via a fake update alert.

Once HummingBad has control of the Android smartphone or tablet, it can force it to download apps and tap on adverts in order to generate fraudulent advertising revenue without the device owner’s knowledge. Besides, the hackers could sell access to the device or the user’s data. Infected devices have been detected all over the world with 1.6m devices in China, 1.35m in India, 288,000 in the US and 100,000 in the UK and Australia. Google admits it has been aware of that malware and is constantly improving Android, actively blocking installations of infected apps.

Nowadays, smartphones are increasingly popular, so malware targeting both Android and iOS has increased in volume and effectiveness. In response, the platform developers made further moves to protect devices from such malware. However, in this case Apple has had more success in getting users to upgrade to the latest and most secure versions of its operating systems thanks to its control of both hardware and software. As for Android updates, it can take months if not years, because Google does not directly control most of the devices.

Google has recently separated security patches from the rest of the operating system, and now security updates are pushed out on a monthly basis for its own mobile devices. At the same time, other Android manufacturers like Samsung and LG promised to do the same. However, many other manufacturers are slow to release updates to user phones, which leaves users exposed.

If your device is infected with HummingBad, a factory reset might be the only recourse. Moreover, even then it could remain.

QR;~)

ICTs for a Sustainable World

2016-03-23T10:34:00.005+06:00

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets will stimulate action over the next fifteen years in areas of critical importance for humanity and the planet. Please click on the icons at the bottom of the page to learn how ICTs can help achieve each of the SDGs:

People: We are determined to end poverty and hunger, in all their forms and dimensions, and to ensure that all human beings can fulfil their potential in dignity and equality and in a healthy environment.
Planet: We are determined to protect the planet from degradation, including through sustainable consumption and production, sustainably managing its natural resources and taking urgent action on climate change, so that it can support the needs of the present and future generations.
Prosperity: We are determined to ensure that all human beings can enjoy prosperous and fulfilling lives and that economic, social and technological progress occurs in harmony with nature.
Peace: We are determined to foster peaceful, just and inclusive societies which are free from fear and violence. There can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development.
Partnership: We are determined to mobilize the means required to implement this Agenda through a revitalised Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, based on a spirit of strengthened global solidarity, focused in particular on the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable and with the participation of all countries, all stakeholders and all people.

All three pillars of sustainable development – economic development, social inclusion and environmental protection – need ICTs as key catalysts, and ICTs will be absolutely crucial for achieving the SDGs. Please click on the icons below to learn more about how ICTs can help achieve each of the SDGs

Google Offered Legal Help to YouTube Users

2015-11-25T12:19:00.001+06:00

Google is helping to defend YouTube users who find themselves on the wrong side of a copyright claim, following a series of skirmishes with established media and others.

This was done after privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) successfully defended a woman whose video of her son dancing to Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy had been removed from YouTube due to “copyright infringement”: the music label issued a DMCA notice ordering to take it down.

Google announced that with approval of the video creators, the company would keep such videos live on YouTube in the United States and feature them in the YouTube Copyright Center as examples of fair use. The company promised to cover the cost of any copyright lawsuits brought against them. Of course, Google won’t cover the court costs of every user on its streaming service, but the aim of the company is to demystify the process by which users could wield the law as effectively as representatives of the entertainment industry. Google has compiled a playlist of videos about which it has received complaints that it says it is going to defend in court.

Since tech firms rely on user-generated content and don’t want to deal with a potential flood of costly lawsuits from corporate rights holders, abuse of the DMCA is rampant and often used as a tool for political reprisal. The EFF can provide examples of creative uses of the takedown process – from a restaurant seeking to corner the market on a particular dessert recipe (by demanding to take down every recipe) to the Church of Scientology.

On the other hand, the industry observers say that tech firms were generally “evasive and unconcerned about even the most fundamental rights of Internet users”.

2015-11-25T12:11:00.002+06:00

The well-known hacking collective Anonymous announced itself “at war” with the Islamic State following the attacks in Paris, expanding its “#OpISIS” online campaign. The continuation of operation was announced on 15 November via one of the major Anonymous twitter accounts, @GroupAnon.

The group has published a video (originally in French), where a figure wearing Anonymous’ iconic Guy Fawkes mask addressed the terror group and promised to hunt them down. In the meantime, a loosely related group of hackivists named BinarySec has also confirmed its online stance against Isis.

The industry watchers confirm that opposition to Isis is nothing new amongst hacktivist communities. For example, both BinarySec and Anonymous, more broadly, have been disrupting jihadi online communications for a while now. Their operation began early in 2015 as #OpCharlieHebdo, where Anonymous devoted themselves to rooting out the social media accounts of Isis supporters.

The hackers declared a partial victory in #OpISIS already in February, after they managed to seize control of about 100 Twitter accounts associated with the group. Since February, Anonymous have made use of various tools to hinder Isis on the Internet. They seized social media accounts by guessing passwords or abusing reset emails or flagged them to either Twitter or Facebook to be shut down.

Besides, the hacking group has been using such tools as DDoS attacks, which are designed to overwhelm a destination website with traffic, in order to bring down public Islamic State sites. According to statistics, the hackers have had success, bringing down almost 150 websites, flagging over 100,000 Twitter accounts and reporting about 5,000 propaganda videos.

by,
QR

China Stocks Tumble; Other Asian Markets Start to Find Footing

2015-08-25T09:58:00.000+06:00

Chinese stocks tumbled on Tuesday, bringing two-day losses to nearly 12%, but other markets in Asia rebounded after a big global selloff, a signal that China’s effect on stocks was waning.

QR

2015-08-18T23:44:00.003+06:00

http://m.bdnews24.com/en/detail/tech/1010632

Kali Linux 2.0 Released — Most Powerful OS for #Security Researchers and Hackers

2015-08-14T01:30:00.002+06:00

Offensive Security, the creators of Swiss army knife for Security researchers, Penetration testers and Hackers have finally released the much awaited and most powerful version of Kali Linux 2.0.

Kali Linux 2.0 (Codename ‘Kali Sana’), an open-source penetration testing platform brings hundreds of Penetration Testing, Forensics, Hacking and Reverse Engineering tools together into a Debian-based Linux distribution.

Kali Linux 2.0 offers a redesigned user interface for streamlined work experience, along with a new multi-level menus and tool categories options.

Kali Linux 2.0 is now a rolling distribution, means users will receive tools and core system updates frequently.

Kali Linux 2.0 Features:

Runs on Linux kernel 4.0,
use full Gnome 3 Desktop instead of gnome-fallback,
improved hardware and wireless driver coverage,
support for a variety of Desktop Environments,
updated desktop environment and tools,
Featuring new cutting-edge wireless penetration tools,
Kali Linux now added desktop notifications, so that you do not miss anything,
Support Ruby 2.0, which will make Metasploit will load much faster,
Kali 2.0 added inbuilt screencasting tool so that you can record desktop.

Sadly, Kali team has removed the Metasploit Community and Pro packages. Instead, now just offers open-source Metasploit-framework package pre-installed.

Video Teaser:

Upgrade to Kali 2.0

Kali Linux users can upgrade their Kali 1.x to Kali 2.0 without reinstalling whole operating system from scratch. To do this, you will need to edit your source.list entries, and run a dist-upgrade as shown below.

cat << EOF > /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://http.kali.org/kali sana main non-free contrib
deb http://security.kali.org/kali-security/ sana/updates main contrib non-free
EOF

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade # get a coffee, or 10.
reboot

Download Kali 2.0 Penetration Testing Platform

Kali Linux 2.0 is available to download in following flavors...

Kali Linux 64 bit
Kali Linux 32 bit
Kali Linux VMWare or VirtualBox images
Kali 2.0 for ARM architecture

…from the official website. You can download it either from direct download link or using Torrents.

A New Company Called Alphabet Now Owns Google; Sundar Pichai Becomes New CEO

2015-08-14T01:22:00.002+06:00

Well, this was a very unexpected move by Google.

Google Co-Founder Larry Page announced a restructuring of the whole company, revealing the creation of the umbrella "Alphabet" corporation.

But, don’t worry… Google isn’t dead! Rather, Google will become part of Alphabet.

Why Google Rebrands As ‘Alphabet’

Over time, Google, the Mountain View company has become a lot more than just a Search Engine.

Google created and acquired a large number of other popular Internet services, including Android, YouTube and Gmail, that makes too much difficult for a single company to manage all of them effectively.

According to Google Founders, it’s time, when different projects require different leaders, different company cultures, and different types of resources.

"Our model is to have a strong CEO, who runs each business, with Sergey and me in service to them as needed," Page wrote.

So the founders decided to create an all new parental brand that will manage both Google as well as its other far-flung projects — called ‘Alphabet’, going to be the biggest tech company most people have never heard of.

As a part of the new structure, Alphabet will manage Google and all of its other products, including:

Google

Calico, an anti-aging biotech Research Division
Nest, Google's Smart-Home project
Sidewalk, a company, focused on Smart Cities
Fiber, Company for High-speed Internet services
Investment arms, such as Google Capital and Google Ventures
R&D unit, such as Google X, developing Self-driving cars and Drones.

Alphabet Inc. will replace Google Inc. as the publicly traded company on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, and shareholders will get one Alphabet share for every Google share they previously owned.

G is for 'Google' and 'Sundar Pichai 'is New CEO

Google’s senior vice president Sundar Pichai (Pichai Sundararajan), currently senior vice president of products, will be the new CEO of the Search Engine.

Google is now a more coherent company than it was previous. Google will now include the company's core businesses, including:

Search Engine
Advertising, Adwords, and Adsense
Google Maps
YouTube, the Video Service
Android, Mobile operating system
Chrome operating system
related technical infrastructure.

And the current CEO Larry Page will become Alphabet’s CEO. Co-founder Sergey Brin will be its president, and Eric Schmidt will be the executive chairman of Alphabet.

"It is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google," Larry Page wrote in the open letter announcing the creation of Alphabet.

"Google itself is also making all sorts of new products and I know Sundar will always be focused on innovation—continuing to stretch boundaries. I know he deeply cares that we can continue to make big strides on our core mission to organize the world's information."

The 43-year-old Sundar Pichai rose quickly at Google, from working with the Chrome team to lead both the team as well as Android as senior vice president of Products.

The Launch of Alphabet Inc. will not affect you at all, but Good news… the company’s shares jumped 6 percent after hours, adding tens of billions of dollars to its value.

New Android Bug Called “Heartbleed for Mobile”

2015-08-05T10:24:00.001+06:00

New security vulnerability in Android allows hackers to take control of a smartphone by sending a text message. The worst part is that for the vast majority of Android users, there’s no fix yet. The researcher who detected the vulnerability claims that even the small number of people using Google’s own smartphones Nexus are vulnerable to some of the effects of the flaw.

The bug affects a part of the Android OS called Stagefright. The latter allows smartphones and tablets display media content. So, a malicious video can deliver a software which will run on the phone and potentially allow an attacker to obtain access to data on the phone and spy on the owner through camera and microphone.

The problem is that Google’s messaging app Hangouts automatically pre-processes received videos, so if the malicious video is sent as an MMS message, it will immediately take over the device before you even know about it, because in this case the user doesn’t actually have to play the video to be hacked. In respond, Google announced that the newer versions of Android protect users from the worst effects of the vulnerability. Security experts called the bug “Heartbleed for mobile”, referring to the flaw that put thousands of websites at risk a year ago.

The researcher who discovered the problem revealed its details to Google a few months ago and even provided patches for the errors. He set a condition of a 3-month embargo before he went public, giving Google enough time to fix the flaw. But this discovery highlighted another security problem with Android: the speed with which fixes are received by end users. Google, the developer of Android, cannot push patches to most of Android devices produced by other companies, and the manufacturers often have to negotiate with mobile network operators to send patches to end users.

Pakistan Tried to Tap Worldwide Web Traffic

2015-08-05T10:21:00.001+06:00

According to recent reports, Pakistani intelligence was trying to tap international web traffic via underwater cables. Apparently, this could give the country a digital espionage capacity to rival the United States.

It is claimed that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency hired third parties to acquire spying tool kits from abroad for domestic surveillance. The same reports claim that the agency sought access to tap data from “landing sites” passing through the country’s port city of Karachi. If succeeded, this would have effectively given it access to web traffic all over the world.

The country was known to negotiate with a European company two years ago to acquire the technology, but it is unknown whether the deal went through. The cables in question route data through various countries and regions – from Europe to Africa and all the way to south-east Asia, including traffic from North America and India.

It is suggested that the data collection sought in the agency’s proposal could rival some of the world’s most powerful surveillance programs (like those of the United States and the United Kingdom).

Back in June 2015, Pakistani rights campaigners and opposition lawmakers called for Islamabad to protect the privacy of its citizens after leaked documents revealed that the UK intelligence had obtained access to almost all of the Pakistani Internet users. The country is currently in the process of discussing its own cyber-crime law, which may threaten to curtail freedom of expression and privacy if not amended.

Finally, the local rights groups also expressed concern over a provision in the bill that allows the government to share collected data with foreign spy agencies, including the US NSA.

MtGox Founder Arrested in Japan over lost Bitcoins

2015-08-05T10:09:00.003+06:00

Mark Karpeles, 30, the ex-boss of the now defunct popular Bitcoin exchange MtGox, was arrested in Japan over the disappearance of millions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency.

The French-born Mark Karpeles was accused of falsifying information on the outstanding balance of the Bitcoin exchange, which used to be the world’s largest hub for trading cryptocurrency. According to Japanese news reports, officials from the Tokyo metropolitan police claimed that Mark Karpeles allegedly manipulated the exchange computer system to inflate its assets.

After media reports emerged about his arrest, Mark Karpeles claimed that the allegations were “false” and he would “of course deny” them. When the exchange filed for bankruptcy last year, Karpeles explained that 750,000 customer Bitcoins and another 100,000 Bitcoins that belonged to MtGox disappeared due to a software security bug. At the time of the bankruptcy filing, these 850,000 Bitcoins were worth $480m. The cryptocurrency exchange also said that over $27m was missing from its Japanese bank accounts.

Mark Karpeles blamed hackers for the loss and later announced that he was never going to hide from justice and managed to recover 200,000 of the lost Bitcoins. He was known as a self-proclaimed geek saying he was uncomfortable in his native country and hadn’t been back in years. The MtGox founder became interested in Bitcoin when one of the clients of his web-hosting services offered to pay in cryptocurrency.

After a while, MtGox was dominating global trade in Bitcoin. However, back in 2012, employees at the Tokyo-based exchange have already challenged the founder on issues including client money being used to cover costs.

Google Receives 18 DMCA Requests Every Second

2015-08-05T09:51:00.002+06:00

Rights owners send Google more and more copyright takedown requests. The statistics said that the search engine is required to remove 18 links to "pirate" pages every second, and this number continues to grow. Rights owners can be understood – by sending takedown notices, they hope to steer prospective customers away from pirate portals.

The number of DMCA notices has increased dramatically over the years – while 7 years ago Google received only a few dozen requests per year, now the same number is reached in a few seconds. For example, over the past month, copyright holders submitted about 47 million notices, which makes it 18 links per second. As for the last week, the company got a staggering 12.5m reported links, which proves that the surge in notices is still ongoing.

The largest number of requests comes from the BPI and RIAA – they have sent notices for 5.5 million URLs over the past month (12% of all notices). However, the outfits are topped by takedown agencies Rivendell and Degban, who account for reporting 7.7 and 6.3 million links respectively.

Overall, within the past month, over 2,600 rights owners submitted takedown notices targeting 77,500 separate domain names. The top targets include the relatively unknown MP3 search engine myfreemp3.re and a number of The Pirate Bay related domains.

Usually, Google removes all of the reported URLs, but sometimes takedown notices also include duplicate or non-infringing links, and in this case the company takes no action. Even despite such a huge number of processed requests, many copyright holders are still not happy with the search engine’s take on the piracy problem. For example, such Hollywood representatives as the RIAA and MPAA have repeatedly stressed that Google does not do enough to remove pirated content from the top search results.

In respond, the company has gradually altered its search algorithms. In October 2014, Google introduced the most significant change yet, downranking websites that often link to pirated content.

Still, the entertainment industry continues to urge the company to completely de-list infringing domains and boost the rankings of legal alternatives. Apparently, until Google agrees to comply, the number of reported links wouldn’t decrease.

আসছে আরও টাইজেন স্মার্টফোন@ Aii tuo SUZog@@@

2015-07-01T10:34:00.002+06:00

এক প্রতিবেদনে সংবাদ সংস্থা রয়টার্স জানিয়েছে, স্যামসাংয়ের আসন্ন পরিকল্পনা সম্পর্কে জানালেও ‘বিষয়টির সংবেদনশীলতার কারণে’ তথ্যদাতা নিজ পরিচয় প্রকাশে রাজি হননি।
বছরের শেষ দিকে স্যামসাংয়ের, বিভিন্ন মূল্যের টাইজেন স্মার্টফোন বাজারজাত করার পরিকল্পনা রয়েছে বলেই জানিয়েছেন তিনি। কিন্তু ফোনগুলোর স্পেসিফিকেশন কী হতে পারে, সে ব্যাপারে সূত্র বাড়তি কোনো তথ্য দেননি।
অন্যদিকে স্যামসাংয়ের মুখপাত্রের সঙ্গে প্রতিষ্ঠানটির আসন্ন এ পরিকল্পনা প্রসঙ্গে যোগাযোগ করা হলে, তিনি এ ব্যাপারে কোনো মন্তব্য করতে রাজি হননি বলে জানিয়েছে রয়টার্স।
২০১৫ সালের জানুয়ারিতে প্রতিষ্ঠানটি তাদের প্রথম টাইজেন স্মার্টফোন জেড১ বাংলাদেশ, ভারত ও শ্রীলংকার বাজারে নিয়ে আসে। স্মার্টফোন নির্মাতা হিসেবে বর্তমানে বিশ্বে তৃতীয় স্থানে থাকা স্যামসাংয়ের প্রায় দশ লাখ টাইজেন স্মার্টফোন ভারতে বিক্রি হলেও, গবেষণা সংস্থা কাউন্টারপয়েন্টের মে মাসের প্রতিবেদনের তথ্য অনুযায়ী, জানুয়ারি থেকে মার্চ সময়সীমার মধ্যে সবচেয়ে বেশি টাইজেন স্মার্টফোন বিক্রি হয়েছে বাংলাদেশে।
টাইজেন অপারেটিং সিস্টেমের মাধ্যমে স্মার্টওয়াচ, প্রিমিয়াম টেলিভিশন সেট ও অন্যান্য ডিভাইসের নিজস্ব প্ল্যাটফর্ম গড়ে তুলতে চাইছে স্যামসাং। কিন্তু সেজন্য প্রতিষ্ঠানটির টাইজেন অপারেটিং সিস্টেমচালিত স্মার্টফোনের বাজার সম্প্রসারিত করা, এর ব্যবহারকারী ও থার্ড-পার্টি ডেভলপার বাড়ানো প্রয়োজন বলেই জানিয়েছেন বিশ্লেষকরা।

17 May: ITU’s 150th Anniversary Celebrations

2015-05-17T11:13:00.001+06:00

German Court Shut Down Popular Torrent Trackers

2015-05-17T10:47:00.004+06:00

A court in Hamburg has recently ruled that a hosting company has to identify the owners of 3 popular BitTorrent trackers, which coordinate dozens of millions of transfers every day. The court order was delivered following a complaint from German music group BVMI, which also claimed responsibility for the shutdown of the torrent trackers that went offline earlier this year.

OpenBitTorrent, PublicBT and Istole.it were popular torrent trackers that coordinate the downloads of 30 million people at a time. In order words, each of these non-profit websites, powered by the open source Opentracker software, handled 3bn connections per day. However, the services went offline almost 4 months ago, and now the German music industry group BVMI takes credit for the shutdowns. It explained that the hosting company took the tracker offline after it was ordered to identify its operators.

It also admitted that the host was fighting against the shutdown, initially refusing to disclose the personal details of the site operators. Now it is obliged to do so in accordance with the court injunction. This court ruling follows a complaint from the German music industry group BVMI and is recognized as the first against the so-called standalone BitTorrent trackers, which don’t actually host or process any infringing content themselves, but are just a neutral part of the BitTorrent ecosystem.

The entertainment industry admitted that they had to target standalone trackers, because they make it possible for those who offer and seek unauthorized content to make the first connection. The only problem is that these trackers are also used by legal torrents to coordinate connections.

Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.

Kim Dotcom Got Back Some of His Money

2015-05-17T10:46:00.004+06:00

The founder of MegaUpload was allowed to get more of his seized funds in New Zealand. Kim Dotcom will receive millions to pay his legal expenses and extra $128,000 per month to pay mansion rent, buy grocery cover staff, security and other expenses.

In February 2015, Kim Dotcom came to court to ask for money to cover living expenses and pay his legal fees. Previously, Kim Dotcom was given about $15,000 per month to live on, but this was not enough for him. So, the recent ruling is largely good news for Kim Dotcom, with the judge also reviewing objections by authorities that he has funds in a trust that he could use. The judge ruled that the major asset of Dotcom's trust was its shareholding in Mega Ltd, but he couldn’t sell those shares until the planned listing of Mega. As a result, the judge decided that Dotcom does not have the ability to meet his legal and reasonable living expenses. Taking into consideration that Dotcom still owes his lawyers about $1.5m, the judge decided that Dotcom would need between $1.5m and $3m to fight against extradition. This money will be granted to him from currently restrained government bonds.

The judge also considered Kim’s needs to cover family’s accommodation costs ($60,000 per month) and his claims for such items as security, staff wages and other general expenses. Kim Dotcom currently has 8 staff in his mansion, but the judge ruled that 5 people would be enough and granted $19,000 per month for staff. He will also get $11,000 for grocery.

Overall, Kim Dotcom was awarded his legal fees and $128,000 per month to cover living expenses pending the expiry of the lease on his mansion (2016). Apparently, the position will be reviewed afterwards.

Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.

Companies Still Fail to Monetize Piracy

2015-05-17T10:45:00.004+06:00

Financial results of Rightscorp, a piracy monetization company, show that monetizing piracy isn't as easy as it expected. Rightscorp did a great job by protecting more copyrights, attracting more Internet service providers to cooperation and settling more court cases, but it still ended up with an operating loss of almost $930,000.

Rightscorp’s mission is to turn piracy into profit: they cooperate with copyright owners, track file-sharers and send them a settlement offer to avoid lawsuits. There are a lot of copyright trolls out there, but Rightscorp only asks for $20 per case of violation, which is a relatively cheap deal in comparison to others. The only problem is that Rightscorp still can’t make its operation profitable: back in 2014, it lost $3.4 million, and the most recent results don’t seem much better.
As for the fundamentals, Rightscorp currently has 1.5 million in its authorized copyright catalog, but only 256,000 are in its full system. 233 Internet service providers cooperate in the scheme at the moment, and the company has access to 15% of all homes in the US. As a result, Rightscorp has closed 200,000 cases of copyright infringement in the past two years.
Reported revenue for Q1 2015 was a little over $300,000, but reported loss was almost $930,000 due to the costs, including fees it pays to rightsowners (half of revenues), wages and legal costs. Aside from the usual advice required for company operation, Rightscorp is being sued over the methods employed to extort cash from alleged pirates.
It remains unclear whether Rightscorp will eventually be able to monetize piracy – perhaps, increased volumes and economies of scale can help.
Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.

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আসছে আরও টাইজেন স্মার্টফোন@ Aii tuo SUZog@@@

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17 May: ITU’s 150th Anniversary Celebrations

German Court Shut Down Popular Torrent Trackers

Kim Dotcom Got Back Some of His Money

Companies Still Fail to Monetize Piracy

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