*HOT* Tech News And Downloads, I Would Read This Thread And Post Any Good Info

Windows Vista Activation Cracked Yet Again
Brandon Hill (Blog) - December 26, 2006 11:28 AM
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Another day, another Vista activation crack

It was just a week ago that Microsoft's Jim Allchin was talking about Windows Vista security and how the operating system would fend off attacks from malicious code and hackers. Allchin made no mention, however, of the recent successful attempts at cracking Windows Vista's activation scheme.

Earlier this month, pirates found a way to spoof Microsoft's Key Management Service (KMS) server using a VMware image. The software hack allowed pirates to run copies of Windows Vista Business and Enterprise for up to 180 days.

The folks over at Engadget have come across another exploit that allows users to permanently activate Windows Vista using crack files and some registry trickery. The TimeStop Vista cracks only works on 32-bit versions of Windows Vista, so those looking to crack 64-bit versions of the operating system may be out of luck.

The crack effectively stops the countdown times to mandatory Vista activation and freezes the countdown timer at 43,200 minutes (30 days). The countdown timer will not reduce any lower than 30 days.

The makers of the crack note at the bottom of their "instruction manual" that "This article is for educational and informational purpose only." Microsoft likely isn't taking too kindly to this latest activation breach and likely already has a team working to patch up the exploit.

Despite Microsoft’s best efforts to shut down this latest exploit, it does leave us wondering just how secure this new operating system if it can be poked at and prodded this early after release.
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5470

 

AVG ANTI-ROOTKIT.......... The first beta version of the AVG Anti-Rootkit, an advanced utility designed to detect and remove hidden objects known as Rootkits, from your system, is now available for beta testing. Thanks to Major Geeks for the download.....(free).....GO THERE!
http://www.majorgeeks.com/AVG_Anti-Rootkit_d5249.html


AVG Anti-Rootkit 1.0.0.13 Beta
Author: Grisoft
Date: 2006-08-26
Size: 1 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP/2K/2003

The first beta version of the AVG Anti-Rootkit, an advanced utility designed to detect and remove hidden objects known as Rootkits, from your system, is now available for beta testing.

AVG Anti-Rootkit can even remove Trojans and Rootkits that are hiding inside NTFS Alternate Data Streams.

 

FREE BSD LIVE CD..........Live CD featuring the legendary BSD operating system (upon which OSX is based. Can be run straight from CD, no matter what OS you have installed on your hard drive.....(free).....GO THERE!

http://sourceforge.net/projects/livecd/

 

Do you AOL-Yahoo? Maybe you will, if they merge

12/26/2006 6:08:00 PM, by Ken Fisher

AOL and Yahoo are destined to merge, or so said Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen in a note entitled "Is 2007 the year AOL and Yahoo are in play?" that was sent to investors shortly before the Christmas holiday. Both companies have itches in need of much scratching. Yahoo's problems have been quite visible as of late, as noted in the now infamous Peanut Butter Manifesto. To boil it down to an oversimplification that's still technically true, Yahoo is feeling the heat from Google.

AOL, on the other hand, is feeling the heat from, well, the Internet. The marriage of Time Warner and AOL has always been tough to understand (unless you're Steve Case), and Time Warner has flirted with the idea of selling AOL more than once (they're reportedly thinking about it again, after deciding "no" last year). As of late, the company has been plagued by declining revenues from its search program, which makes sense given that the number of users heading to that portal appears to be dropping off. In the wild world of mergers and acquisitions, this means that AOL needs to toughen up or jump ship, and toughening up is often done with a few reps on the Acquisition Trainer 3000.

Why would either AOL or Yahoo consider a merger? AOL's move away from its subscription business (which miraculously is not already dead) has resulted in the company putting far more emphasis on Internet advertising. And what better way to boost advertising than to add a giant cache of eyeballs to your portfolio? On most days, Yahoo is the top destination online, with eyeballs aplenty. And if Yahoo is in trouble (which I don't think it is, yet), AOL may be on the other end of the phone: "You've got salvation!" Or it could swing the other way, with Yahoo taking AOL off Time Warner's hands. Only one thing is really clear: both companies are encountering doubtful investors, and both companies overlap enough in technology and operating costs that a merger should potentially mean more profit. The note suggests that a Yahoo purchase of AOL could bring a positive upswing for Yahoo in as few as two years, even if the acquisition price was $18 billion and only covered AOL's advertising business.

For its part, the Merrill Lynch note only concludes that this is a strong possibility for 2007, not a foregone conclusion. I bet that's good news for Microsoft. The company's attempt to ramp up its search to compete with either Yahoo or Google looks to have stalled. A Microsoft-Yahoo merger isn't totally out of the realm of possibility, and the Merrill Lynch note even acknowledges this. Microsoft could make another pass at AOL, but that strikes me as a fantastically bad idea, given the "Power of Greyskull" effect of combining the two company's troubled public images (I can see the headlines now: Match made in h ell: Microsoft buys AOL).

The full list of "possible" suitors for AOL includes eBay (considered "not likely" according to the note), Google, Interactive, Microsoft, Comcast (not likely), News Corp. (not likely), Mr. Magoo (just kidding), and NBCU (not likely). Most curious thing about the research note? In running down a list of "cons" relating to the possible merger, "AOL Stigma" is listed for almost all possible suitors except for notably Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061226-8498.html

 

dude i waaaaaaaas goin throjugh withdrawl and ijust smoked tfr lans of my sstad=hg

 

trying to read what ye posted put me through withdrawl
did ddp tell you to use plain english when you post?

 

ji mwan the black kettle sigs

 

its free, A really Powerful & Free Registry Editor
Dec 26, 2006 - 4:04 PM - by Digital Dave
Not for everyone but, if you play around with the registry as much as I do this really will come in handy.

Registrar Lite is a powerful & immensely flexible registry editor for WinXP/2000/NT/ME/9x that offers a horde of necessary features that are totally lacking in the standard registry editor (RegEdit) packaged with Windows. It’s brought to you by Resplendence Software.

Chaos.com Post and Download
http://www.chaos-laboratory.com/2006/12/26/registrar-lite-a-really-powerful-free-registry-editor/



Registrar Lite is a powerful & immensely flexible registry editor for WinXP/2000/NT/ME/9x that offers a horde of necessary features that are totally lacking in the standard registry editor (RegEdit) packaged with Windows. It’s brought to you by Resplendence Software.

Registrar Lite sports a Windows Explorer like two-pane interface with a handy navigation toolbar. The features include…

* Background Search and Replace - which, unlike RegEdit doesn’t stop you from browsing the registry while a search is taking place.
* Clipboard support (which means Cut/Copy/Paste) with drag & drop for registry values and keys.
* A cool Bookmark Editor which allows you to add custom descriptions to the bookmarked keys. This is really useful in organising all those cool registry hacks you learnt from the net.
* An Address Bar similar to Explorer which allows you to type in and access any desired key really quick.
* An advanced registry Key/Value Editor that support all existing registry data types.
* Registry key Import & Export functionality with support for all native registry file types.
* Security Editor (only available in Windows XP/2000/NT) thats allow you to set registry key permissions, auditing and ownership.

Registrar Lite Screenshot

The software is really quick-loading and has a pretty small disk footprint of approx. 3.5MB.

It’s a must have for anyone who dabbles in registry tweaking from time to time. It’s FREE. Grab it from the Resplendence Site.

NOTE: Those who do not want to leave the comfort zone of RegEdit and start using a new software, there’s always RegEdit Extensions - which enhances the standard Windows Registry Editor by adding on a subset of the features mentioned above.

 

XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option
Dec 26, 2006 - 11:59 AM - by Digital Dave
"The Langa" has a step-by-step for those who are seeking the knowledge of how to do this.

Fred Langa shows you how to completely rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation without losing data, and without having to reinstall user software, reformat, or otherwise destructively alter the setup.


Langa Letter: XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option


Fred Langa shows you how to completely rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation without losing data, and without having to reinstall user software, reformat, or otherwise destructively alter the setup.


By Fred Langa
InformationWeek

Jun 19, 2006 12:00 AM (From the June 19, 2006 issue)

Fred LangaIt's one of those software design decisions that makes you scratch your head and wonder, "What were they thinking?"

The "it" in this case is XP's most powerful rebuild/repair option, and yet Microsoft chose to hide it behind seeming dead ends, red herrings, and a recycled interface that makes it hard to find and (at first) somewhat confusing to use.

But it's worth exploring because this option lets you completely and nondestructively rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation while leaving already-installed software alone (no reinstallation needed!). It also leaves user accounts, names, and passwords untouched and takes only a fraction of the time a full, from-scratch reinstall does. And unlike a traditional full reinstall, this option doesn't leave you with two copies of XP on your hard drive. Instead, you end up with just the original installation, but repaired, refreshed, and ready to go.

We've saved this technique for last in our discussion of the various XP repair/rebuild options because the fixes we've previously discussed are like first aid--the things you try first. For instance, see this discussion on removing limitations on XP's Recovery Console, turning it into a more complete repair tool; or this discussion on the Recovery Console's little-known "Rebuild" command that can cure many boot-related problems. (There's also lots more on the Recovery Console here.

But when the Recovery Console techniques don't work, and you're facing the prospects of a total reformat/reinstall, stop! Try the no-reformat reinstall technique we're about to illustrate, and you just may get your XP setup running again in a fraction of the time and with a fraction of the hassle of a grand mal wipe-and-restore.

The First Fork In The Road
The no-reformat reinstall operation starts with a normal boot from an XP setup CD. Ideally, to save time, use a setup CD that's been "slipstreamed" to include the SP1 and SP2 patches and upgrades. (Need info on slipstreaming? See "How To Save An Hour (Or More) On XP Installs" and also this third-party site.

Start your PC with the setup CD in a drive, and hit a key when you see the following screen:

If instead of booting to the CD your PC boots from the hard drive, you may need to modify your PC's "boot order." It's easy and only takes a minute to make the change so that the PC will check for a bootable CD before trying to boot from the hard drive. See this for more information.

Once your PC starts to boot from the CD, you'll see something like what's shown in Screen 2:


Information Week.com Post
now go here to read the rest
http://www.informationweek.com/news/189400897

 

Good morning all hope you had happy holidays. Now that I feel among the living again after a day of recuperation from the family gathering I am catching up on my reading. As ever Ireland lots of good informational stuff. Thanks for the thread

 

Afternoon all

Ireland, thanks for the update on AVG Anti-rootkit, I was still running an inferior version. Since BlackLight by F-Secure turned shareware; this will have to do, it does a good job.

 

RIAA dredges up old/new 'expert'

p2pnet.net News:- Demanding access to RIAA victims' computers is now routine, but the Big 4 Organized Music cartel members have, "escalated their demands to include, 'production of '[a]ny and all computers and/or music listening devices including iPods and MP3 players'," p2pnet posted, writing about the latest Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG attack on the Lindor family in New York.


Now they've added a 'doctor' with a 26-page CV to their arsenal as they attempt to both gain control of online distribution and terrorize their customers around the world into buying Big 4 product and only Big 4 product.

New York home health aide Marie Lindor is helping to ruin the multi-billion-dollar corporate music industry, they profess through their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). She's distributing Big 4 'product' online, they say, even though she's a complete computer illiterate.

"Having wrung the cloth dry with Lindor herself," the RIAA came up with, "a refinement to another old ploy - trying to access victims' hard drives, a trick they'd tried on Lindor," p2pnet said, going on, "It's SOP to initially target parents such as Lindor, who's expertise in the areas of computing and computers is zero, knowing full well the cases have absolutely no merit."

Another New York mother, Patti Santangelo knows all about that. Warner, et al, tried, and failed, to target her as a "massive online distributor". They knew it would never swing, but part of the exercise was to enable them to generate spurious mainstream media reports, as well as to force her into 'settling' out of court.

Patti flatly refused and just before Christmas, the RIAA gave up on her, turning on two of her children, who were the real targets.

Marie Lindor's son, Woody, is in the same boat and somehow, some way, the RIAA must prove he's an online distributor of copyrighted music.

Doug Jacobson is doctor the RIAA has hired, "in further support of its motion to compel Ms. Lindor's son to turn over his personal computer and listening devices in UMG v. Lindor," says Recording Industry vs The People.

The implication is that Jacobson is an impartial, independent consultant. But his 26-page CV notwithstanding, he can hardly be said to be that. In fact, his company and Audible Magic, an anti-p2p firm with a long history with the RIAA, are partners.

Jacobson runs Palisade Systems, a company which, like others, is trying to use the Big 4's sue 'em all terror campaign against innocent men, women and children to swell its bank balance, and which also uses the RIAA attack on schools to similarly enrich itself with its PacketHound application,outlined in the RIAA - Educause Request for Information, Palisade Systems, Inc, here.

He also gave testimony for a 2003 US Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearing when he supported the RIAA's specious 'p2p file sharing is responsible for Net pornography' stand.

"Companies like Palisade Systems in conjunction with research universities like Iowa State University will continue to develop new technologies to combat the evolution of peer-to-peer networks," he declared.

Palisade is, "the first network equipment vendor to license Audible Magic’s CopySense technology, adding content sensing capabilities to their products. Audible Magic and Palisade have cross-licensed technologies and have jointly developed the first network appliances that identify copyrighted works 'on the fly' combined with the ability to block individual P2P file trades," boasts Audible Magic.

Way back, when Audible Magic was still trying to hard to prove it was a viable defender of The Truth according to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, RIAA boss Mitch Bainwol personally touted it around the US congress, trying to sell it as The Answer.

"During early 2004, RIAA executives helped guide Audible Magic CEO Vance Ikezoye around federal government offices, advocating the song-blocking technology as a tool for stopping copyright infringement on file-swapping networks," said CNET News.

Palisade's version of the Audible Magic technology, "sits inside a network, rather than inside a file-swapping program," said CNET. "If installed in a university, for example, it could look inside students' e-mails, instant messages and peer-to-peer transfers, seeking audio 'fingerprints' that could be compared with information in Audible Magic's database."

Meanwhile, Recording Industry vs The People's Ray Bckerman, who's defending Mrs Lindor, says Jacobson has been raised by the RIAA, "despite the facts that the papers were due last week, that Ms. Lindor's son's attorney has objected to the use of expert testimony at all, and that the RIAA has never turned over a hard drive report to Ms. Lindor's attorneys."

Stay tuned.
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you're Chinese and you're looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

Also See:
gain control - Us, Them, p2p and file sharing, December 9, 2006
helping to ruin - RIAA victim wants case dismissed, October 25, 2006
wrung the cloth dry - RIAA attacks Marie Lindor's son, November 22, 2006
flatly refused - Xmas letter from Patti Santangelo, December 24, 2006
the real targets - RIAA goes after Santangelo kids, November 2, 2006
in the same boat - RIAA attacks Marie Lindor's son, November 22, 2006
Recording Industry vs The People - RIAA Submits 26-Page Curriculum Vitae for Its "Expert", December 26, 2006
like others - RIAA: trying it on with MediaSentry, December 17, 2006
defender of The Truth - Vaunted RIAA p2p 'filter' software, June 2, 2004
CNET News - New tool designed to block song swaps, April 21, 2004
(Wednesday 27th December 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10845?PHPSESSID=0ef5a644a7e31db553178f60099990d8

 

VISTA START MENU ..........An alternative to the Windows XP Start menu. .....(free).....GO THERE!
http://www.vistastartmenu.com/index.html


Download a freeware version (953 KB)
http://www.vistastartmenu.com/VistaStartMenu_Setup_freeware_en.exe

 

GIMPSHOP.......... GIMPShop is a free graphics editor for Mac, Linux, and Windows. It's easy to pick up and learn, especially if you already know Photoshop.....(free).....GO THERE!

Welcome to GIMPShop dot Net

Welcome to GIMPShop dot Net. Your one-stop-shop for all the news, downloads, and tips for GIMPShop. GIMPShop is a free graphics editor for Mac, Linux, and Windows. It's easy to pick up and learn, especially if you already know Photoshop. Check back often for the latest!


GIMPShop is a free Open Source image editor that is similar to the popular Adobe Photoshop. Specifically GIMPShop is a version of the GIMP that has been edited to be more user-friendly for Photoshop users.

GIMPShop was created by Attack of the Show's Scott Moschella. The menu structure and terminology are adapted to to look and feel more like Photoshop, and other adjustments were made to make the GIMP more usable. In the Windows version, the Deweirdifyer Plugin has been used to place all of the various windows into one nesting window, so it will act more like a single program that multiple little programs.. Also the menu structure and terminology are adapted to to look and feel more like Photoshop.

GIMPShop was orginally developed for Mac OS X, but has been ported to Windows, Linux, and Solaris.

QUOTE
Hi! Thanks for stopping by! This site is dedicated to one of the coolest apps on the web, GIMPShop. My little site is a gateway to tons of information about GIMPShop, The GIMP, and other open source programs. I want to make clear, I am not Scott Moschella, creator of GIMPShop, nor have I done anything related to the making of GIMPShop. I'm just a fan. I don't know how many "fan sites" there are to programs out there, but this is one of them. I hope this site will be useful in your quest for more knowledge about GIMPShop.

- Enjoy!

GO HERE

http://www.gimpshop.net/

 

Why piracy is still more common than legal video downloads

12/27/2006 9:27:38 AM, by Ryan Paul

A recent study conducted by consumer and retail analysis group NPD claims that peer-to-peer (P2P) video downloads (which in the study are synonymous with illegal downloads) are outpacing purchases from legitimate video download services five to one. The study, which was performed with NPD's VideoWatch tracking software on "the home computers of more than 12,500 U.S. households," states that 8 percent of Internet-using households downloaded video content from P2P services, whereas 2 percent paid to download video content from legitimate providers. The study also indicates that nearly 60 percent of video files downloaded from P2P sites were adult-film content, while 20 percent was TV show content and 5 percent was mainstream movie content.
Avast, matey! Opt-in!

The opt-in methodology used by NPD could lead to significant under-reporting of P2P downloading since those who are voluntarily tracked by NPD's software are probably going to be less inclined to violate copyright law. Chances are that the ratio of "legal" to "illegal" downloading is further tipped in piracy's favor than NPD's study indicates. Nevertheless, assuming that NPD's study approximates reality, one could attribute the strength of piracy and the limited adoption of commercial and P2P-based video downloading to several factors.

First, legal movie download services are still relatively new, and the movie industry's trepidation has prevented a diverse body of content from becoming commercially available. I still don't know of any legal video download service that offers my favorite episodes of Babylon 5, for instance. If the new digital economy is all about the so-called "Long Tail," then online video stores are missing a major opportunity by not playing their cards and rapidly expanding their selection. This is doubly true since the "selection" of content available on the P2P networks is truly impressive. P2P wins the the selection category hands down. This is doubly true when you consider that NPD found that 60 percent of P2P downloads were pornographic in nature.

Another obvious factor is Content Restriction Annulment and Protection (CRAP) technologies, more commonly known as DRM. Consumers who pay for digital video downloads want to be able to play those videos with the software of their choice, without a lot of trouble or the imposition of additional limitations. Consumers also want to be able to convert legitimately downloaded content to other formats so that it can be played on mobile devices. Pervasive DRM and high prices make legal video downloading much less appealing to the average consumer.

Consider this one seemingly small molehill that is truly a mountain: burning to DVD. I have my TV connected to my main desktop computer, so getting content onto DVD isn't a big deal for me. Yet that's the exception, not the rule. If you want to be able to burn content to a disc, the P2P networks will serve you better because you can do anything you want with that content since it has no DRM. This means that if you want to burn a DVD or transform a video for use on a mobile device, legit options will leave you disappointed. P2P wins the freedom of use category.

Let's not forget about quality. Maybe Joe Public doesn't lust after HD content or high-bitrate audio, but the P2P world does. Experienced P2P users can find movies and audio whose quality blows away that which is offered online. P2P isn't a panacea in this regard, but when you're trying to convert people away from piracy, charging $11.99 for a low-quality DRM-laden movie when an HD version is a P2P network away, and free... well, are the statistics really that surprising? P2P wins in the quality category, because experienced users can almost always find what they want. There are some real duds out there on P2P, of course, but not enough that it seems to be driving people away from P2P.

Last but not least, there's the pricing. It's hard to compete with "free," but the rise of legitimate services show that people are willing to pay. P2P clearly gives you more bang for your buck, but of course, your usage might also be illegal. More important for this story is the fact that pricing is a moving target. Matters related to increased selection, quality, and the removal of DRM should all affect pricing. What's clear is that current offerings aren't exactly putting the P2P networks on the endangered species list. The download services need to take note, adjust features, and start experimenting with pricing.
STBs to the rescue?

Right now, the current leader in the video download market is Apple, which boasts nine out of every ten digital movies sold in the NPD study. I'm inclined to believe that the market for commercial video downloads will be pushed into the mainstream by set-top devices that provide integrated downloading services that go beyond current "on demand" services by carrying more selection and offering "download-to-own" videos. Such products insulate users from some of the frustrations of DRM while solving the problem of getting the content to a television screen. Apple's upcoming iTV product is a good example of set-top box (STB) hardware with an integrated video download service. Microsoft's increasingly popular Xbox Live Video service is also a great example. I'd like to see NPD perform a similar study in a year or two comparing adoption of set-top-based video downloads with computer-based video downloads so we can see how products like the Xbox 360 and the iTV impact the market.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061227-8500.html

 

Apple Quietly Fixes iPod Shuffle No-Play Problem
Dec 27, 2006 - 12:33 PM - by Digital Dave
If you're a proud owner of an iPod shuffle, you might want to look into this.

Apple Computer has updated a utility meant to be a last-ditch move by iPod shuffle users who recently bought tracks on iTunes but couldn't get the music to play.

News.com Post

Apple Computer has updated a utility meant to be a last-ditch move by iPod shuffle users who recently bought tracks on iTunes but couldn't get the music to play.

The "iPod shuffle Reset Utility" version 1.0.1 is an upgrade from an October release that was designed to fix first-generation iPod shuffles that wouldn't play music, synchronize with the iTunes music store, or be recognized as legitimate USB devices by Windows or Mac
OS X operating systems. That month, Apple tacitly acknowledged that an iTunes update caused the problems with some iPod shuffle players, and recommended that users upgrade to iTunes 7.0.2 and restore the player using the utility.

Although Apple was officially mum about the reason it updated the utility to 1.0.1, iPod shuffle users reported that it fixed a flaw that prevented the device from playing tracks bought on iTunes or caused it to skip purchased songs. "Just posting back to confirm that the [new] version works and resolves the problem I and everyone else had with the first generation shuffles skipping/not playing iTunes music store-purchased music," wrote a user identified as "iBook fan."

The iPod shuffle-iTunes problem first cropped up in November, according to a blog titled "The Unfriendly Shuffle."

"Around November 2006 something very annoying happened: most of the newest releases (from November to now) on the iTunes store, although working with iTunes, are not shuffle-compatible," an entry from last week read.

The first-generation iPod shuffle -- which was sold in 512 Mbyte- and 1 Gbyte-capacity models -- debuted nearly two years ago, but has been replaced by the much smaller 1 Gbyte clip-on second-generation shuffle.

The 1.0.1 version of the shuffle reset utility can be downloaded in versions for Windows or Mac from the Apple Web site.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20061227/tc_cmp/1967

 

. GOOGLE TALK........... We recommend this highly! Every Saturday for the last 6 weeks we've spent 4 or more hours on Google Talk with a friend in Australia working on a project. No lost connections, great sound quality. Beats every other internet phone service we've seen.....(free).....GO THERE!
http://www.google.com/talk/



hey say talk is cheap. With Google Talk, it’s free--and fast.

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Google Talk is in beta and requires a Gmail or Google Account username and password. If you don't have a Google Account or have not enabled your Google Account for Google Talk, sign up here.

Google Talk's voicemail and Gmail notification features are only available if you signed in using your Gmail username and password.

 

Big 4 record labels attack Germany

p2pnet.net News:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, members of the Big 4 Organized Music cartel, have instructed their IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) to significantly increase the number of attacks on their customers in Germany in 2007.

"IFPI Germany CEO Peter Zombik told reporters that his association has sued 20,000 file sharing users since early 2004. Next year the plan to sue 1,000 P2P users per month," says P2P Blog, going on:

"The German music industry has been very aggressive in pursuing P2P users. Criminal lawsuits are used as a tool to reveal the identity of suscpected file sharers. Once the industry knows their names, file sharers get slapped by an additional civil suit, which usually ends with an out of court settlement. The average settlement amount is 3000 Euro (about 4000 US dollars)."

But, "The mass persecution doesn't seem to have any lasting impact on the popularity of file sharing in Germany," says the story, adding:

"Traffic management company Ipoque estimates that at nighttime 70 percent of overall internet traffic is caused by P2P applications. About 53 percent of that traffic is caused by Bittorrent. Emule, which has been traditionally strong in Germany, accounts for 43 percent."

The "mass persecution" isn't making any kind of difference anywhere else, either, statements to the contrary from Big Music mouthieces notwithstanding.
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you're Chinese and you're looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

Also See:
P2P Blog - German music industry wants to sue 1000 P2P users per month, December 27, 2006
any kind of difference - P2p file sharing escalates, July 3, 2006

p2pnet newsfeeds for your site | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

(Thursday 28th December 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10850?PHPSESSID=51b1bd722769eb47aaecc525b655f085

 

AllofMP3: RIAA lawsuit is "unjustified"

12/28/2006 8:13:17 PM, by Nate Anderson

After being sued in US federal court last week by the RIAA, AllofMP3 has made clear that it has no intention of buckling under the mounting international pressure. In a statement sent to Ars Technica, the company said, "This suit is unjustified as AllofMP3.com does not operate in New York. Certainly the labels are free to file any suit they wish, despite knowing full well that AllofMP3.com operates legally in Russia. In the mean time, AllofMP3.com plans to continue to operate legally and comply with all Russian laws."

The statement still doesn't answer the important question of whether AllofMP3 and its parent company Mediaservices have decided to commit their resources to a full-scale US court battle. Such a move could run to millions of dollars, but failure to appear could lead to a default judgment against them, as Spamhaus recently learned.

Should AllofMP3 show up in court, the case is unlikely to turn on the issue of the service's legality in Russia. Though the AllofMP3 statement made it sound like that was the key issue, it was not raised by the RIAA court filing. The trade group appears to have abandoned its efforts to use the Russian legal system to shut down AllofMP3, instead opting for pressure in the form of trade agreements and federal lawsuits back in the US, where it has more leverage.

The RIAA actually claims that the service is illegal in the US and that AllofMP3 has made a deliberate attempt to target its service at the American market, not the Russian one. The situation is analagous to that of offshore or British-based gambling sites that actually make most of their money from US punters. Though the services are legal in their own localities, the operators have routinely faced arrest if they set foot in the US, and the government has tried to restrict their revenues from leaving the US.

For now, AllofMP3 execs might want to stay out of New York.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061228-8515.html

 

Parent-activated game locks

p2pnet.net News:- Most of the major game boxes which turned up under the Christmas trees around the world this year arrived with a little something extra ---

--- parent-activated game locks. DRM so mothers and fathers can manage what their kids see and do.

Because, "Tucked into the interface of each are content-filtering software tools designed to give parents control over whether their children can play violent video games," says The Washington Post, going on:

"Microsoft's Xbox 360, released last year, features the same sort of functionality. Like the PS3, the Xbox 360 is a multimedia device that allows users access to the Web and the ability to watch movies. So the designers of those two devices included software that users can activate to make sure their children cannot watch R-rated movies or chat with strangers online."

Sony PlayStation 3 owners can set rating thresholds for video games and DVD and Blu-Ray movies. "These settings are locked in with a four-digit PIN code," says the story. "The system digitally detects both ratings for movies and the separate ratings that video games are given by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, a group the gaming industry formed to decide which games are violent or have profanity."

Nintendo Wii has a four digit PIN code that must be entered to play or download games with ratings such as "M" or "T" and the Wi-Fi enabledWii, "also lets parents control whether their kids can go online with the system or receive messages from other Wii owners," the Post states.

Parents wose kids now have Microsoft Xbox 360, "can set the device so that it does not play movies or games with certain ratings. Parents also can control whether their kids are able to talk to people via the system's online 'chat' features. Owners can adjust these settings via the Web or directly on the console."

Meanwhile, "At one forum at Nintendo's Web site, where users converge to talk about the new system, one Wii owner asked last month if anybody had tried setting up a parental-control security code. Among the dozens who replied, none had. But one young correspondent said that he (or she) might use the feature preemptively," says The Washington Post.

But, "Now that I think of it, I might go set the code . . . so that my parents can't randomly decide to set them one day. Even though I doubt they will or know of [the codes'] existence," it has the poster saying.
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you're Chinese and you're looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

Also See:
The Washington Post - A Computer Game's Quiet Little Extra: Parental Control Softwar, December 23, 2006

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(Friday 29th December 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10855?PHPSESSID=c30ea41012957a77b62d9c5efc760d4a