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

FastStone Image Viewer 2.9 Freeware 2007-01-18


[Rated 5 Stars at Download.com]
A fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments. Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touches the four edges of the screen. Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram and much more.

FastStone Capture 5.3 Freeware 2007-02-12
[Rated 5 Stars at SnapFiles]
A powerful, flexible and intuitive screen-capture utility. It allows you to capture anything on the screen including windows, objects, full screen, rectangle / freehand-selected regions and scrolling windows/web pages.

FastStone MaxView 2.0 Freeware 2006-12-08
A tiny, very fast and innovative image viewer that supports all major graphic formats. Its intuitive layout and commands allow everyone, from beginners to professionals, to view and manipulate images quickly and efficiently.

FastStone Photo Resizer 2.4 Freeware 2007-01-08
An image converter / resizer intended to enable users to convert, rename, resize, crop, rotate, change color depth, add text and watermark to images in a quick and easy BATCH mode.


DOWNLOAD HERE
http://www.faststone.org/download.htm

 

Firefox hands out cookies from strangers
Be careful, kids
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco → More by this author
Published Thursday 15th February 2007 02:08 GMT

Firefox suffers from a flaw that allows attackers to manipulate the authentication cookies of virtually any website, a vulnerability Bugzilla has deemed severe. It's the second major security lapse for the open-source browser in as many days.

The defect, which stems from the way Firefox writes to the "location.hostname" property of the document object model, can be exploited by a specially doctored script that sets variables that normally wouldn't be accepted when parsing a regular URL, according to researcher Michal Zalewski, who uncovered Monday's vulnerability as well.

By injecting text string that includes "\x00," normal safeguards can be bypassed, allowing the browser to be fooled about the origin of a domain trying to set or modify a cookie. The sleight of hand makes a victim's browser appear to be talking to trustedbank.com when in fact it is receiving data from evilhackers.com.

The attacker would also be able to change the document.domain accordingly. A demonstration of the vulnerability, which has been tested on version 2.0.0.1, is available here.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/15/firefox_vuln/

 

Belarc Advisor 7.2.10.2
Author: Belarc, Inc.
Date: 2007-02-14
Size: 1.03 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
Downloaded: 190484 Times

The Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server.

Limitations: Free for personal use.

download here
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download1385.html

 

The end of anonymity on the Internet?

www As the joke goes, on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog. But although anonymity has been part of Internet culture since the first browser, it's also a major obstacle to making the Web a safe place to conduct business: Internet fraud and identity theft cost consumers and merchants several billion dollars last year. And many of the other more troubling aspects of the Internet, from spam emails to sexual predators, also have their roots in the ease of masking one’s identity in the online world.

Change, however, is on the way. Already over 20 million PCs worldwide are equipped with a tiny security chip called the Trusted Platform Module, although it is as yet rarely activated. But once merchants and other online services begin to use it, the TPM will do something never before seen on the Internet: provide virtually fool-proof verification that you are who you say you are. Practical Futurist: The end of online anonymity - The Practical Futurist - MSNBC.com Linked by shanmuga Wednesday, 14th February 2007 9:24PM


Let’s see some ID, please
The end of anonymity on the Internet?

By Michael Rogers
Columnist
Special to MSNBC
Updated: 4:53 a.m. PT Dec 13, 2005


As the joke goes, on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog. But although anonymity has been part of Internet culture since the first browser, it’s also a major obstacle to making the Web a safe place to conduct business: Internet fraud and identity theft cost consumers and merchants several billion dollars last year. And many of the other more troubling aspects of the Internet, from spam emails to sexual predators, also have their roots in the ease of masking one’s identity in the online world.

Change, however, is on the way. Already over 20 million PCs worldwide are equipped with a tiny security chip called the Trusted Platform Module, although it is as yet rarely activated. But once merchants and other online services begin to use it, the TPM will do something never before seen on the Internet: provide virtually fool-proof verification that you are who you say you are.
Story continues below ↓ advertisement

Some critics say that the chip will change the free-wheeling Web into a police state, while others argue that it’s needed to create a safe public space. But the train has already left the station: by the end of this decade, a TPM will almost certainly be part of your desktop, laptop and even cell phone.

The TPM chip was created by a coalition of over one hundred hardware and software companies, led by AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft and Sun. The chip permanently assigns a unique and permanent identifier to every computer before it leaves the factory and that identifier can’t subsequently be changed.

It also checks the software running on the computer to make sure it hasn’t been altered to act malevolently when it connects to other machines: that it can, in short, be trusted. For now, TPM-equipped computers are primarily sold to big corporations for securing their networks, but starting next year TPMs will be installed in many consumer models as well.


With a TPM onboard, each time your computer starts, you prove your identity to the machine using something as simple as a PIN number or, preferably, a more secure system such as a fingerprint reader. Then if your bank has TPM software, when you log into their Web site, the bank’s site also “reads” the TPM chip in your computer to determine that it’s really you. Thus, even if someone steals your username and password, they won’t be able to get into your account unless they also use your computer and log in with your fingerprint. (In fact, with TPM, your bank wouldn’t even need to ask for your username and password — it would know you simply by the identification on your machine.)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10441443/

 

Keeping secrets from web spies

keys "Hackers today will often use a dictionary style attack. This means they can very quickly use all of the words in the dictionary as well as common celebrity or sports names," explained McAfee security analyst Greg Day.

"For example, many people still use what they think is a smart technique of switching out some of those characters for numbers, for example changing an A into a 4. But that's a very commonly known technique." BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click | Keeping secrets from web spies Linked by shanmuga Wednesday, 14th February 2007 8:52PM



Keeping secrets from web spies
BBC Click's Dan Simmons

By Dan Simmons
Reporter, BBC Click Online

Picking a password is a tricky business. And the temptation is to go for something that is easy to remember like our partner's birthday, a pet's name, or a film star.


Online bank login screen, BBC

Passwords: Your comments

The trouble is, given just a few attempts it also makes it pretty easy to crack.

"Hackers today will often use a dictionary style attack. This means they can very quickly use all of the words in the dictionary as well as common celebrity or sports names," explained McAfee security analyst Greg Day.

"For example, many people still use what they think is a smart technique of switching out some of those characters for numbers, for example changing an A into a 4. But that's a very commonly known technique."

"I think what worries us more these days is we use online communities, like MySpace or Bebo, to meet and chat with other people, and people are so willing to hand over this information - favourite film star, etc. As a password stealer I only need to chat to you for a few minutes and I can probably commonly guess your password."

The ideal password is used for one site only, it uses letters in both upper and lower case, numbers, and other characters. Something like this: EAJst9s74*$D!2 - but the problem is that it is just not easy to remember.

Password storage

In fact, with the average number of passwords estimated to be around 20 per person, and that number growing at 20% each year, it is no wonder that many of us cannot keep track of the one we might need.

So if we are not to lapse into using the same password for all our accounts - we need a safe place to store them - somewhere we can access wherever we are.


You can go and use internet search tools like Google and you'll find lots of free tools that allow you to listen in to someone else's PC
Greg Day, McAfee

One answer is to lock them up online. There are many choices available but a new service from BoxKnox is specifically designed to store passwords, offering encrypted storage, at no cost, while protecting anonymity.

You do not need to leave any personal details - just set a username and password. Of course this is a password you really do not want to forget.

But complicated passwords, securely stored, do not mean you are safe.

Gloved hand taking cash from safe, BBC
Identity theft can mean your bank accounts gets rifled

To fully protect yourself you need to be aware of how hackers might try to gain access to your accounts.

"Nowadays it's become incredibly easy for anybody to set up and use something like a keylogger," said Mr Day.

"You can go and use internet search tools like Google and you'll find lots of free tools that allow you to listen in to someone else's PC."

Keyloggers record every keystroke we make and send it on to the hacker. And although they can be used for legitimate tracking - like checking what your children do online - they can be used to spy on anyone.

It took me five minutes to find and download one such program. I then got our security expert to see if he could find out what I'd been up to.

He very quickly established that I'd been to Hotmail, and could easily identify my username and password, date of birth, postcode.

"You'd be amazed," he said, "at what an attacker could do with that."

Criminal activity

Many keyloggers and spyware programs take screenshots of the sites you visit and can copy files from your PC.

These may include any passwords you have asked your computer to remember for you to speed up logging in. These are held as cookies on your machine.

Keyloggers are not illegal to own. It is how they are used which can be criminal.

Computer keyboard, Eyewire
Keylogging has been around almost as long as computer keyboards

Last month keylogging software found its way onto hundreds of PCs belonging to account holders at Sweden's largest Bank, Nordea.

In the biggest heist of customer accounts on record more than $1m (£513,000) was stolen.

The Metropolitan Police say thousands of customers in the UK have also been hit by this software.

So what can we do to protect ourselves: firstly - a well configured and up-to-date anti-virus programme should pick most of this type of spyware - especially if it is trying to use our internet connection to send out information.

There are many to choose from, some of which are free. We were using McAfee's Security Suite 2006 but it failed to pick up the keylogger while we were offline.

It is not clear why, but its labs say the software would normally warn users they are being tracked.

Of course one way to beat keyloggers is to not touch the keyboard at all when logging in.

There are several USB devices you can use to automatically log on. We used the Codemeter USB device which holds all my login names and passwords.

Codemeter USB device

It automatically detects when I need them and fills in the necessary boxes for me. I do not have to remember all my passwords which are encrypted on the key.

I just need to remember one master password to make it work - and I must make sure I do not leave the USB device behind.

And the security industry is starting to look at more pre-emptive ways to protect us - before any spyware can get in.

"The security industry has turned to a proactive approach," explained Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer at security firm Finjan.

"We no longer need to wait for anti-virus updates in order to find out if something is bad. You can actually analyse it as you run the program, see what it is about to do, and make a decision based on that."

Finjan's internet-browser tool auditions or dry-runs the pagelinks before we click on them to check for any nasty surprises.

It claims this live testing of links has never been beaten by hackers. It is making this software available to the public to download at no cost from next month.

Ditching passwords

But let us face it, most of us are simply too lazy to go the extra mile to protect ourselves, which is why some of the biggest names in banking want to ditch the traditional password altogether.

All of HSBCs customers in Hong Kong are already using a token or fob system - which offers up a constantly changing number that forms part of their online password access.

It is being trialled by some banks in the UK, but may prove too expensive to roll out millions of customers, some of whom may not want to use them.

An alternative being considered by HSBC and the Alliance and Leicester bank in the UK would have us run an application on our mobile phones generating a second pass code - again changing each time we log in.

If, we can be persuaded to use them - the ever-changing password may be the key to keeping our secrets - secret.

Have you had your password stolen or hacked? Can there ever be a system which is convenient but cannot be compromised?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/6345629.stm

 

THIS IS VERY HOT IF USING A ROUTER


Drive-by Web attack could hit home routers
Posted by l33tdawg on Thursday, February 15, 2007 - 04:34 AM (Reads: 12)
Source: Computer World (Australia)


If you haven't changed the default password on your home router, do so now. That's what researchers at Symantec and Indiana University are saying, after publishing the results of tests that show how attackers could take over your home router using malicious JavaScript code. For the attack to work, the bad guys would need a couple of things to go their way. First, the victim would have to visit a malicious Web site that served up the JavaScript. Second, the victim's router would have to still use the default password that it's pre-configured with it out of the box. In tests, the researchers were able to do things like change firmware and redirect a D-Link Systems Inc. DI-524 wireless router to look up Web sites from a DNS (Domain Name System) server of their choosing. They describe these attacks in a paper, authored by Sid Stamm and Markus Jakobsson of Indiana University, and Symantec's Zulfikar Ramzan.


Drive-by Web attack could hit home routers
Researchers say it is possible to take over many consumer routers using malicious JavaScript code
Robert McMillan (IDG News Service) 15/02/2007 14:05:25


If you haven't changed the default password on your home router, do so now.

That's what researchers at Symantec and Indiana University are saying, after publishing the results of tests that show how attackers could take over your home router using malicious JavaScript code.

For the attack to work, the bad guys would need a couple of things to go their way. First, the victim would have to visit a malicious Web site that served up the JavaScript. Second, the victim's router would have to still use the default password that it's pre-configured with it out of the box.

In tests, the researchers were able to do things like change firmware and redirect a D-Link Systems Inc. DI-524 wireless router to look up Web sites from a DNS (Domain Name System) server of their choosing. They describe these attacks in a paper, authored by Sid Stamm and Markus Jakobsson of Indiana University, and Symantec's Zulfikar Ramzan.

"By visiting a malicious Web page, a person can inadvertently open up his router for attack," the researchers write. "A Web site can attack home routers from the inside and mount sophisticated... attacks that may result in denial of service, malware infection, or identity theft."

Once the router has been compromised, victims can be redirected to fraudulent Web sites, the researchers say. So instead of downloading legitimate Microsoft software updates, for example, they could be tricked into downloading malware. Instead of online banking, they could be giving up sensitive information to phishers.

At the heart of the problem is the fact that consumer routers ship with simple, well-known default passwords, like "admin," which could be exploited by attackers.

"Owners of home routers who set a moderately secure password -- one that is non-default and non-trivial to guess -- are immune to router manipulation via JavaScript," the paper states.

The researchers blame router makers for shipping products with "poorly secure default settings."

Vendors like D-Link and Cisco Systems Inc. are aware of the problem. "It's a concern to us," said Karen Sohl, a spokeswoman with Cisco's Linksys group. "We've shipped about 30 million routers and we want those 30 million customers to understand why it's so important to change [the default password]."

Both Cisco and D-Link said they've taken steps to avoid this type of security problem. Over the past few years they've introduced step-by-step "wizard" software to configure their routers, and these products always suggest that the user come up with a unique password.

The problem is that the routers still work if the password is left as default. And that's not likely to change anytime soon, according to Michael Scott, D-Link's technical media manager.

Users wouldn't buy routers that forced them to enter unique passwords, he said. "That would only result in returned products, and then they would buy one of our competitors products," he said.

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1934725963;fp;16;fpid;1

 

FREE....VIDEO TO MPEG..........Freesky video to MPEG is designed to meet all your needs of convert video file to MPEG Format. It is a powerful batch Video converter supporting nearly all video format, including AVI, MPEG, ASF/WMV, DivX. With it, you can easily convert AVI, Divx, XviD, MPEG I/II, VCD, SVCD, DVD, VOB, DAT, ASF/WMV to MPEG format. The very user-firenldy and easy-to-use interface lets you easily preview video files and batch convert .....(free).....GO THERE!


Freesky video to MPEG
Freesky video to MPEG is designed to meet all your needs of convert video file to MPEG Format. It is a powerful batch Video converter supporting nearly all video format, including AVI, MPEG, ASF/WMV, DivX. With it, you can easily convert AVI, Divx, XviD, MPEG I/II, VCD, SVCD, DVD, VOB, DAT, ASF/WMV to MPEG format. The very user-firenldy and easy-to-use interface lets you easily preview video files and batch convert.

Main features:
Supports AVI(DivX, XviD, MPEG4...), MPEG1-2, MP4, VCD(.DAT), ASF/WMV formats.
Support MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4 video format.
Support MPEG layer1, layer2, layer3 audio format.
Support Batch convert.
Support large video file, even large then 2GB.
All supported formats to DVD, SVCD, VCD format.
NTSC/PAL setting option.
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High audio quality.
Support no sound avi files.
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Very User-friendly interface and easy to use.
Optimized for Intel Pentium 3 and Pentium 4 processors and AMD Athlon.
System Requirements:
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# Intel Pentium II 350MHz or above.
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Click here to download Freesky Vidto to MPEG!
http://www.freeskyvideo.com/software/ourproducts/FreeskyVideotoMPEG.exe

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http://www.freeskyvideo.com/FreeskyVideotoMPEG.html

 

Microsoft IntelliPoint Mouse Software 6.1
Author: Microsoft Corp.
Date: 2007-02-19
Size: 6.45 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP/2K

64 bit version also available

IntelliPoint software enables you to customize the unique features of your Microsoft® mouse. You can reassign mouse buttons to perform commands, shortcuts, and application-specific functions. You can also modify mouse settings, such as pointer speed and updated horizontal scrolling.

DOWNLOAD HERE
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2216.html

 

FREE,HIDDEN UTILITIES XP.......... Hidden Utilities XP allows access to nearly 100 hidden utilities that are not normally accessible to the average user. System information, diagnostics, repair tools and more in both Windows and Command Line utilities are now easily opened. Hidden Utilities XP includes easy access to 53 Windows tools and 43 Command Line utilities.....(free).....GO THERE!

DOWNLOAD HERE
http://camtech2000.net/Pages/hidden_utilities.htm

 

FREE,EIGHT KILLER THUNDERBIRD EXTENSIONS..........Like its sibling Firefox, the beauty of the open source Thunderbird email client is its extensibility. File messages in a flash, customize keyboard shortcuts, weed out duplicate messages automatically, supercharge the search field and more with these 8 must-have enhancements for Thunderbird .....(free).....GO THERE!

DOWNLOAD HERE
http://lifehacker.com/software/thun...ight-killer-thunderbird-extensions-234350.php

 

FREE,FILE HAMSTER..........Automatically create incremental backups whenever a file is modified. FileHamster provides real-time backup and archiving of your files while you work. It enables you to monitor specific files on your hard drive and automatically create incremental backups whenever those files are modified. It also enables you to store notes about the changes that have been made, allowing you to quickly locate a specific revision or provide a detailed account of the work you've done on a project.....(free).....GO THERE!

DOWNLOAD HERE
http://www.mogware.com/FileHamster/

 

Girl Scout cookies on MySpace




p2pnet.net news:- Here's something new for MySpace: Girl Scout entrepreneurs using it to promote cookies : )

"Welcome to the official MySpace page for Girl Scout Cookies!" - it says, going on:

Girl Scout Cookies are an icon of American culture. They're also the backbone of the Girl Scout Cookie Program, the leading entrepreneurial program for girls. Proceeds from your purchase support Girl Scouts in your community.

To find cookies in your area go to GirlScoutCookies.org

Who I'd like to meet:

Leaders, council staff, parents, and anyone who enjoys delicious Girl Scout Cookies and wants to support Girl Scouts in their community. The purpose of the Girl Scout Cookie Program's MySpace page is to help Girl Scouts throughout the United States and its territories by raising interest in the cookie program among adult online social networkers who support Girl Scout programs and share the values of the Girl Scouts' mission - to build girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place! Girl Scouts of the USA thoroughly reviews each friend request and comment to make sure the author shares our values, however linking from this page does not constitute or imply the endorsement, recommendation or favor of the Girl Scouts of the USA.

It's a whole lot better than being shangahai-ed by Hollywood copyright cops.

http://p2pnet.net/story/11367

Also See:
shangahai-ed - MPAA corrupts US Scouts, October 31, 2006

MPAA corrupts US Scouts

p2pnet.net News Special:- "Funny thing," said Rafael Venegas in a comment post to a p2pnet.net story highlighting the fact Hollywood has conned its way into the Boy Scout movement.

"You put two USA lawyers in opposing sides of any infringement lawsuit and they can't agree on how to interpret the law and its frequently contradictory jurisprudence. They can't even agree on what infringement is.

"And someone expects some kids in China to have knowledge of IP law'?"

Under discussion was the fact that in Hong Kong, Boy Scouts now have to toe the Hollywood line by 'earning' Intellectual Property merit badges.

Reads like a spoof, doesn't it? But sadly, it isn't because a new crime has come into being, and it's sweeping the world.

It's mind-rape, corporate child molestation of the worst kind, and perpetrating it with not only impunity, but implicit encouragement from parents, are the entertainment and software cartels who are invading schools and other institutions to teach our children right from wrong, good from bad and what's fair and what isn't.

Hollywood, traditionally one of the most corrupt places on earth, and the equally tainted music and software companies prating to our kids about right and wrong? It's like Jack the Ripper branching into cosmetic surgery.

In Hong Kong, kids are also copyright spies, and behind this terrible reality is Hollywood's MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) in its MPA guise.

And now it's come to America.

The MPAA proudly announces it's scammed the Los Angeles Area Boy Scouts of America into a, "new education program".

The Big Six studios, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, want to, "help raise awareness about the value of copyrights among the over 52,000 young people involved in Boy Scout programs in the greater Los Angeles area," they say.

"The curriculum is part of an ongoing effort to educate kids about copyright protection and change attitudes towards intellectual property theft.

Troops will, "choose from a number of activities" to qualify for a "Respect Copyrights" patch.

"Activities include creating a public service announcement that demonstrates the importance of copyright protection or visiting a movie studio to learn about the people, time and costs required to make a movie and others," says the MPAA.

And the studios actually managed to get Victor Zuniga, Los Angeles Area Council Public Relations Director for the Boy Scouts of America, to issue a statement endorsing the debacle without the slightest trace of shame.

"We are excited to work with the MPAA to provide this new educational opportunity to our more than 52,000 young people who participate in our programs including: Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Venturing and Learning for Life, and are working to expand the program to include all Boy Scout councils within the Southern California area," the MPAA hacksters have him saying.

There are all kinds of examples of cartel invasions of our classrooms as they pollute the minds of our children with their disgusting, self-serving corporate junk, imposing standards designed to do only one thing: turn them into mindless consumers.

"The Respect Copyrights patch is a fun way for young kids to learn more about the what goes into making movies while garnering a deep appreciation."

There's no reason whatsoever for a child to know the slightest thing about intellectual property law, and to claim they need IP instruction is not merely farcical, it's obscene.

The right and proper action for LA parents who love their kids to take is to make a huge fuss. Write to their local newspaper, call the local radio and TV stations, organize a concerned parents' group.

Want to go camping? Camp on Victor Zuniga's front lawn.

And they'd be doing it not ony for their own child, but for every child in America and everywhere else in the world because one thing is for sure: the people who run the Hollywood and other cartels won't stop with LA, and nor will they stop with the Scouts.

"I can't help but think back (way too long ago) to the alternate version of the Boy Scout Oath we sometimes joked around with," says Bill Evans dryly:

On my honor I will do my best,
To take what they give me,
And steal the rest.

Next it'll be the Girl Guides and Sparks. Then the Sea cadets, Navy cadets, Air cadets, and ..........

Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it. All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.

~ George Orwell, 1984

===============

UPDATE:

I'm a former girl scout who enjoyed learning archery, survival skills, and self-defense, while my male peers mastered cooking and sewing, and I well remember the mania I had for collecting merit badges," says a post on sivacracy.net, from whence the pic came. "According to the article, there are no plans to develop a similar program in the United States, but I designed some nifty badges just in case the American scouting leadership has a change of heart.

(Thanks for the above, Masha)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10183

 

RIAA: the same tired song

p2pnet.net news:- The Big 4 Organized Music cartel's RIAA and the Georgia police recently stormed the Aphilliates Music Group studios and arrested DJ Drama and DJ Cannon.

AllHipHop.com said the raid ended in the arrests of 28-year-old Tyree 'DJ Drama' Simmons and 27-year-old Donald Cannon, also known as DJ Don Cannon.

"The Fulton County Swat Team, with assistance from Clayton County Police, entered the label's offices and studios at 147 Walker Street in the early evening hours," said the story.

"DJ Drama and DJ Don Cannon were charged with racketeering and are being held at the Fulton County jail without bond."

Behind the raid was Warner Music (US), EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG's (Japan and Germany) RIAA and according to RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy, the raid was undertaken, "only at the behest of Atlanta law enforcement," says the The New York Times.

However, Lamy's statement notwithstanding, the chances of the Atlanta police acting independently in this would be close to zero. Meanwhile, the NYT says:

Late in the afternoon of Jan. 16, a SWAT team from the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, backed up by officers from the Clayton County Sheriff's Office and the local police department, along with a few drug-sniffing dogs, burst into a unmarked recording studio on a short, quiet street in an industrial neighborhood near the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The officers entered with their guns drawn; the local police chief said later that they were 'prepared for the worst.' They had come to serve a warrant for the arrest of the studio's owners on the grounds that they had violated the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, or RICO, a charge often used to lock up people who make a business of selling drugs or breaking people's arms to extort money. The officers confiscated recording equipment, cars, computers and bank statements along with more than 25,000 music CDs. Two of the three owners of the studio, Tyree Simmons, who is 28, and Donald Cannon, who is 27, were arrested and held overnight in the Fulton County jail. Eight employees, mostly interns from local colleges, were briefly detained as well.

Later that night, a reporter for the local Fox TV station, Stacey Elgin, delivered a report on the raid from the darkened street in front of the studio. She announced that the owners of the studio, known professionally as DJ Drama and DJ Don Cannon, were arrested for making 'illegal CDs.' The report cut to an interview with Matthew Kilgo, an official with the Recording Industry Association of America, who was involved in the raid. The R.I.A.A., a trade and lobbying group that represents the major American record labels, works closely with the Department of Justice and local police departments to crack down on illegal downloading and music piracy, which most record-company executives see as a dire threat to their business.

Kilgo works in the R.I.A.A.'s Atlanta office, and in the weeks before the raid, the local police chief said, R.I.A.A. investigators helped the police collect evidence and conduct surveillance at the studio. Kilgo consulted with the R.I.A.A.'s national headquarters in advance of the raid, and after the raid, a team of men wearing R.I.A.A. jackets was responsible for boxing the CDs and carting them to a warehouse for examination.

NYT reporter Samantha M. Shapiro is clearly shocked by this horrific incident.

She goes on:

But Drama and Cannon's studio was not a bootlegging plant; it was a place where successful new hip-hop CDs were regularly produced and distributed. Drama and Cannon are part of a well-regarded D.J. collective called the Aphilliates. Although their business almost certainly violated federal copyright law, as well as a Georgia state law that requires CDs to be labeled with the name and address of the producers, they were not simply stealing from the major labels; they were part of an alternative distribution system that the mainstream record industry uses to promote and market hip-hop artists. Drama and Cannon have in recent years been paid by the same companies that paid Kilgo to help arrest them.

But thuggish practices are an essential part and parcel of the Big 4's copyright protection inventory. And nor do RIAA "investigators" necessarily wait for support from legitimate police officers. In fact, RIAA pseudo-cops are quite capable of doing their own thing.

Fom a distance it, "looked like classic LAPD, DEA or FBI work, right down to the black 'raid' vests the unit members wore," said Ben Sullivan in an LA Weekly story. He went on:

The fact that their yellow stenciled lettering read "RIAA" instead of something from an official law-enforcement agency was lost on 55-year-old parking-lot attendant Ceasar Borrayo.

The Recording Industry Association of America is taking it to the streets.

Even as it suffers setbacks in the courtroom, the RIAA has over the last 18 months built up a national staff of ex-cops to crack down on people making and selling illegal CDs in the hood.

The result has been a growing number of scenes like the one played out in Silver Lake just before Christmas, during an industry blitz to combat music piracy.

Borrayo attends to a parking lot next to the landmark El 7 Mares fish-taco stand on Sunset Boulevard. To supplement his buck-a-car income, he began, in 2003, selling records and videos from a makeshift stand in front of the lot.

In a good week, Borrayo said, he might unload five or 10 albums and a couple DVDs at $5 apiece. Paying a distributor about half that up-front, he thought he'd lucked into a nice side business.

The RIAA saw it differently. Figuring the discs were bootlegs, a four-man RIAA squad descended on his stand a few days before Christmas and persuaded the 4-foot-11 Borrayo to hand over voluntarily a total of 78 discs. It wasn't a tough sell.

"They said they were police from the recording industry or something, and next time they'd take me away in handcuffs," he said through an interpreter. Borrayo says he has no way of knowing if the records, with titles like Como Te Extraño Vol. IV — Musica de los 70's y 80's, are illegal, but he thought better of arguing the point.

The RIAA acknowledges it all - except the notion that its staff presents itself as police. Yes, they may all be ex-P.D. Yes, they wear cop-style clothes and carry official-looking IDs. But if they leave people like Borrayo with the impression that they're actual law enforcement, that's a mistake.

It might also be said that Drama and Cannon were lucky.. Because the entertainment catrtels have succeeded in having the act of counterfeiting music or movies CDs or DVDs, events which have only a commercial effect, to the level of major crime on a par with robbery or murder. And people have been seriously wounded and literally killed for it.

In Malaya, a 20-year-old man who'd been selling VCDs was shot and critically wounded by police.

Shot for trying to sell a CD, even if it was probably counterfeit? But at least he survived, unlike Ousmane Zango who was killed by New York city police when they raided a warehouse trying to "crack down on pirated CDs".

Corporate music cartel use of police and other agencies funded by tax-payers is now routine around the world.

Drama and Cannon and counterfeiters are, however, far from being the only ones persecuted by the Big 4. Some 20,000 American families, and a significant number of young children, are being villified as "thieves" guilty of the "crime" of sharing music with each other online.

The same thing is happening in virtually every developed country around the world as part of the labels' massive, carefully orchestrated scheme to gain control of how, and by whom, music is distributed online.

Warner et al claim files shared equal sales lost, something they've never been able to back up with solid evidence. In fact, to the contrary, The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis, an authoritative US study by Felix Oberholzer and Koleman Strumpf, flatly states:

"Downloads have an effect on sales that is statistically indistinguishable from zero."

Moreover, "Our estimates are inconsistent with claims that file sharing is the primary reason for the decline in music sales during our study period."

And as Sharon Thompson, a lawyer working with the Santagelos, a New York family being victimized by the labels, states equally bluntly:

The problem the RIAA now faces is of its own making: it helped to create the Genie and let it out of the bottle. It appears that the RIAA was focused on making its own mp3s available for free downloading in order to promote the music and artists it wanted to promote, in the hopes it would entice people to go out and spend $15 or $20 per CD. Well, the only hit the RIAA cares about is the one it's taking in its own pockets, so now it's ruthlessly going after the people who, so it claims in its often baseless allegations, are doing the very thing the industry in effect trained them to do.

Meanwhile, has the raid done anythihg to stop mixtapes being made?

"Drama's arrest shook up mixtape D.J.'s and promoters across the country. But even in the days immediately following the raid, D.J.'s continued to release tapes - some with hastily added tracks on which rappers cursed the R.I.A.A. - and major labels continued to e-mail them new tracks," says the NYT.

"Some in the industry speculated that things would have to change, that mixtapes would either move further underground or become legitimate licensed products. But no one I spoke with thought the arrest would permanently damage Drama's career. In fact, Julia Beverly, the editor of Ozone, a Southern hip-hop magazine, suggested that it was more likely to improve his image and album sales. 'Really, this takes him to a gangsta level,' she said. 'It gives him a little something extra. It's messed up, but if someone goes to jail or dies, it elevates his status and just makes him more of a star than he was before. That’s the way the entertainment industry works in general. So, having cops at your door with M-16's at your head, and MTV News reporting on the raid, calling you the biggest D.J. in the world? You can't pay for that type of look'."

The effect is similar to that achieved by the RIAA sue 'em all campaign in the first place. It's served to heavily publicize the p2p networks file sharing which until the RIAA came along, wasn't widely known.

And have the RIAA attacks on its own customers resulted in any kind of reduction in file sharing? Not in the least. In fact, it's continuing to rise.

Slashdot Slashdot it! s

Also See:
recently stormed - Blogs vs Mainstream Media, January 30, 2007
AllHipHop.com - DJ Drama's Aphilliates Music Group Raided, 50,000 CD's Confiscated, January 16, 2007
The New York Times- Hip-Hop Outlaw (Industry Version), Februaryy 18, 2007
shot and critically wounded - Shot Penang 'pirate CD' victim, January 15, 2005
Ousmane Zango - Shot Penang 'pirate CD' victim, January 16, 2005
to the contrary - File sharing: zero effect on downloads, February 12, 2007
LA Weekly - Music Industry Puts Troops in the Streets, January 8, 2004
equally bluntly - 'It chills my soul', February 14, 2007
continuing to rise - P2p file sharing contained: RIAA, June 13, 2006
http://p2pnet.net/story/11369

 

Fedora and Ubuntu to incorporate Kernel-based virtualization

2/19/2007 1:59:18 PM, by Ryan Paul

The latest release of the Linux kernel, 2.6.20, includes integrated virtualization capabilities with the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM). The KVM kernel module, the development of which was largely sponsored by start-up tech company Qumranet, leverages x86 virtualization extensions included in various Intel and AMD processors. Several distributions, including Ubuntu and Fedora, are already preparing to include the KVM kernel module in upcoming releases.

KVM provides support for "full" virtualization, which means that, like VMware, it uses simulated hardware to allow users to run unmodified versions of other operating systems simultaneously. It can take advantage of processors that support either Intel's VT extensions or AMD's SVM extensions, and it uses a modified version of Qemu in userspace. Like the Xen virtualization system, KVM also has paravirtualization support, but it is still highly experimental. Modern paravirtualization technologies enable modified guest operating systems to direct system calls to a hypervisor rather than emitting machine instructions that are interpreted by a virtualized hardware layer. The recent addition of paravirtualization support to KVM, which uses an ad-hoc hypercall API, has improved performance by 30 percent in some contexts.

Since paravirtualization only works with guest operating systems modified to interact with a hypervisor, proprietary operating systems traditionally haven't been supported by open source paravirtualization technologies. A technical collaboration roadmap recently released by Microsoft and Novell reveals that the two companies are collaborating to bring support for Xen's hypervisor to Microsoft's upcoming Windows Server release, meaning that Xen will eventually be able to run Windows Server as a guest operating system with full paravirtualization capabilities. The KVM developers plan to use the same paravirtualization interfaces already used by Xen and VMware. Such compatibility could eventually make it possible for Windows Server to run paravirtualized in KVM.

Since KVM is now officially supported by the Linux kernel, the module will be available in some upcoming Linux distribution releases. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Product Management Director Joel Berman has stated that KVM is being packaged for Fedora, but Red Hat will not include KVM in the upcoming release of Red Hat's commercial distribution for enterprises, which already includes Xen. Ubuntu developers have also built a KVM package for Feisty Fawn, the upcoming Ubuntu release.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070219-8880.html

 

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http://ashimonovits.brinkster.net/TubeMe.html

 

RIAA appeals attorneys' fees award

2/22/2007 10:19:33 AM, by Eric Bangeman

The cartel of record companies in Capitol v. Foster have filed a motion for reconsideration of US District Court Judge Lee R. West's decision to award the defendant Debbie Foster attorneys' fees. In it, the plaintiffs lay out their disagreement with the judge's reasoning while taking time to point out that the fees awarded far exceed any damages they could have recovered should their suit have been successful.

Although the RIAA is careful to take issue with all of Judge West's conclusions, its primary concern is his ruling on secondary infringement.

Throughout its legal attacks on file sharers, the RIAA has argued that the owners of ISP accounts used to share copyrighted material should be held liable, even if they had no knowledge of the alleged infringement. Judge West called the RIAA's secondary infringement claims "untested and marginal" in his order, a characterization the labels take issue with.

Instead, the plaintiffs argue that if the defendant has "a reason to know" of the infringing activity, she should be held liable. The RIAA also points to Foster's subscriber agreement with Cox Communications, her ISP, which the RIAA says "expressly required" her to keep others using her account from infringing copyrights.

The RIAA also bemoans what it calls the premature end of the discovery process: "Finally, plaintiffs believe that discovery would have revealed substantial other evidence of defendant's knowledge and material assistance in the underlying infringements. For example, the computer may well have been in a common area such that defendant heard music coming from the computer when admitted infringer Amanda Foster was using it," argues the RIAA. That's right... the RIAA is arguing that mere act of listening to music on one's PC is evidence of copyright infringement.

Awarding attorneys' fees to Debbie Foster would do little more than reward the defendant for choosing to "litigate long after this case should have been dismissed," according to the motion. The record labels say that Foster failed to take advantage of the plaintiffs' offers to "end this litigation without paying anything." Instead, she chose to fight the lawsuit vigorously in hopes of clearing her name completely. The RIAA also argues that should the attorneys' fees award stand, it would deter other copyright owners from pursuing infringement claims.

This is an important issue for the RIAA and the stakes are high. Even if the RIAA changes its legal tactics and decides not to press secondary infringement claims in future lawsuits, there are still numerous lawsuits wending their way through the courts where the record labels have used the exact same tactics seen in Capitol v. Foster. The labels recognize this, noting that "defense counsel in other cases like this across the country are already citing the Court's statement, albeit out of context, in an effort to suggest that this Court has found that contributory and vicarious infringement claims in cases like this one are not viable." Should other courts find Judge West's reasoning applicable to their cases, the RIAA is at risk of writing a lot of large checks, drastically tilting the risk-reward equation in the wrong direction for them.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070222-8902.html

 

First look: Photobucket Video Remixer

2/22/2007 2:27:38 PM, by Jacqui Cheng

Yesterday, Adobe and Photobucket announced a partnership that will eventually allow millions of Photobucket users to make use of a new web-based video editing tool developed by Adobe to create their own "remixed" videos. The tool allows users to choose from their own library of uploaded images and videos to splice together—complete with captions, borders, and transitions—or select from any of the publicly-shared content available on Photobucket. The video remixer will be available for free to all Photobucket users in early March, but for now, the tool is available only in a limited beta to Photobucket Pro users. Ars sneaks a peek at the beta to find that it's a very simple, easy-to-use tool, but still has some issues that need to be worked out before public launch.

When a Photobucket Pro user logs into the service, he or she is greeted with the addition of a new button immediately above the library and below the upload box that says "Create Remix." The remixer is a Flash-based tool and requires all users to have the latest Flash plugin installed—version 9.0.28—on their browsers before proceeding. I installed this plugin on both of my browsers, Safari and Firefox for Mac, beforehand, but Photobucket did not agree.

Ultimately, I was unsuccessful in getting the video remixing tool to load on any Mac browser, despite having installed the latest Flash plugin. We can only assume that such browser compatibility problems will be fixed before the public launch of the service.

Under Windows, however, the tool was able to detect the Flash plugin under both IE and Firefox and loaded as expected. I was presented with the option of watching a very simple tutorial on how to use the remixer.

The tool would have been significantly more difficult to use without watching the tutorial, as the interface elements are large, easy-to-find, and self-explanatory. Library elements—both images and videos—load on the right side of the screen with the left side dedicated to the remixed video. The user can then drag-and-drop elements into the video timeline, with the ability to drag-and-drop any number of extras on top of my current section, such as frames or various captioning options.

Video clips can be trimmed or split in the remixing tool without affecting the original source, and an image can be dragged out to occupy nearly any stretch of time that the user desires. There's also the option to add in transitions between clips, although currently the tool only has three possible transitions: fade to black, fade to white, and fade out—which seems to be the same as fade to black. This is obviously a rather boring selection of transitions, and hopefully Photobucket and Adobe will add a few more before the product's official release. The selection of frames is rather cheesy as well, and anyone with a sense of dignity is not likely to use them. So that means that most of us can expect to receive video links from our family members with the gratuitous use of candy cane frames any day now.

Users can also add music to remixed videos, but not their own. When making my (rather bad) video, I was presented with 50 different songs from various artists, ranging from Alice Lee to The Orion Experience to Opus 7. Dragging the music clip anywhere onto my remix area placed it in the appropriate receptacle, which was nice, since I really didn't know or care at the time where that was. Dragging it out was equally simple.

Time to preview my remix! Users can preview their new creations at any point during the process without committing to saving it, which causes the background of the Flash-based app to blur and show a little pop-up preview in the foreground. During the previews of my two different remixes, the borders that I had dropped onto my movie were not displaying—probably a good thing, but those who like their borders will probably not be happy with that bug.

Once a masterpiece has been created, users can hit the "Publish" button, which processes the video for a few seconds and then brings the user to a new page to view the finished product. What's nice about this is that there is a button here that allows the user to go back and edit the remix if he or she so desires at a later date. My video was published without the cheesy borders here as well. From this page, users can then copy the URL to the movie for linking purposes, grab HTML embedding code for inclusion it on a web page or blog, or code for forum use. The video is saved as a Flash SWF file to Photobucket's site, so users who want to save it as some other format are out of luck while using this tool. The remix also gets saved to the user's library for access later.


Overall, Photobucket's new video remixer is easy to use but only contains the simplest functionality that one could expect from web-based tools meant for the masses. Even desktop apps such as Apple's iMovie—once considered as simple as it could get—offer a lot more options than Photobucket in terms of editing capabilities, transitions, and other tools. That said, Photobucket's remixer does eliminate the need for any type of dedicated video editing software—or nearly any software at all, aside from a browser and a Flash plugin—making the process extremely simple for average users. Is this a feature that we expect many of Ars' readers to make use of? Probably not. But those we know and love might. Hopefully Photobucket and Adobe will get their browser/Flash detection worked out within the next couple of weeks so that the tools will be truly platform and browser agnostic upon launch. A few more of those ugly frames and transitions could help, too.

[b]GO HERE TO SEE MORE INFO,LIKE THE PIXS THAT ARE POSTED[/b]
[url]http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070222-8905.html[/url]

 

Forget party schools: The RIAA lists the top piracy schools in the US
2/22/2007 9:37:05 AM, by Jacqui Cheng

Ohio University, Purdue University, and the University of Nebraska have made it to the top of a list, but it may not be something the universities want to brag about. The RIAA recently named the top 25 music-pirating schools in the country, an act that involved sending over 14,500 copyright infringement notices (so far) during the 2006-2007 school year. This was nearly triple the number of notices sent during the 2005-2006 school year, according to the RIAA. The group says, however, that they are taking advantage of new software tools to improve the tracking of illegal file sharing, which may be part of the reason why the numbers have skyrocketed.

The list also includes schools such as Howard University, Boston University, Arizona State University, and Syracuse University—interestingly, no west coast universities appeared to make the top 25 list. Purdue's main rival, Indiana University, did in fact make the list, but with a mere 353 notices compared to Purdue's 1,068. The list, the RIAA says, does not necessarily indicate which universities are the worst offenders, just the universities who have received the most notices.

Not all schools react the same way to the copyright notices, however, and some appear to take it more seriously than others. Michigan State University forces two-time offenders to watch an anti-piracy DVD by the RIAA, and three-time offenders could face suspension for a semester. Ohio University requires two-time offenders to face suspension, probation, or possibly a homework assignment on the topic (much worse than suspension). Among the most aggressive, the University of Tennessee turns off Internet connections for second-time offenders until they physically take their computers to a lab where their music-sharing programs are deleted for them.

Purdue, on the other hand (my not-so-proud alma mater for today), seems to be taking the "don't worry, be happy" approach to sitting pretty at the number two spot. The school almost never even notifies the students—of copyright infringement, or much of anything, in my experience. Purdue spokesman Steve Tally told the Associated Press, "In a sense, the (complaint) letter is asking us to pursue an investigation and as the service provider we don't see that as our role." This attitude expresses either extreme pompousness on Purdue's part or extreme ignorance. Is that not the whole reason why the RIAA cannot pursue potential infringers individually? The students are currently allowed to hide behind the ISP—in this case, the university—with the understanding that the ISP will investigate infringement accusations. If Purdue and any other schools who express this attitude don't feel the need to investigate, then they put themselves at risk of being sued by the RIAA.

Without further ado, the list:

1. Ohio University - 1,287
2. Purdue University - 1,068
3. University of Nebraska at Lincoln - 1,002
4. University of Tennessee at Knoxville - 959
5. University of South Carolina - 914
6. University of Massachusetts at Amherst - 897
7. Michigan State University - 753
8. Howard University - 572
9. North Carolina State University - 550
10. University of Wisconsin at Madison - 513
11. University of South Florida - 490
12. Syracuse University - 488
13. Northern Illinois University - 487
14. University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire - 473
15. Boston University - 470
16. Northern Michigan University - 457
17. Kent State University - 424
18. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - 400
19. University of Texas at Austin - 371
20. North Dakota State University - 360
21. Indiana University - 353
22. Western Kentucky University - 353
23. Seton Hall University - 338
24. Arizona State University - 336
25. Marshall University - 331
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070222-8900.html

 

Most of those schools suck at basketball and football. Instead of being on the practice field,they're spending all their time on the pc, LOL