VERY,VERY HOT READS, I Would Read The News In This Thread This Thead Is To post Any Thing Ye Want About The News,,NEWS WAS MOVED,READ MY FIRST POS...

 Denver Broncos fans are willing to do just about anything to get tickets to Sunday's AFC Championship game

They're offering to pay thousands of dollars or to trade wedding photography, a fly fishing trip - even a diamond engagement ring. But a Fort Collins physician has come up with perhaps the strangest ticket-trade offer of all.

"The offer is a full service vasectomy," says Dr. Steven Broman of Associates in Family Medicine, "which includes pre-op and post-op visits, all the lab tests and things that go along with that, for two Broncos tickets. Anywhere in the stadium is fine."

Broman came up with the idea after seeing what other fans were offering on the Internet. "There's plumbers, electricians, landscapers - that's all great," says Broman. "I don't do plumbing. This (vasectomies) is the kind of plumbing I do."

Broman says the 20-minute procedure is practically painless and his vasectomy patients have all been satisfied with the results. "Everybody knows that once you have it done you don't have the stress, you don't have concerns about unwanted pregnancies, you don't have to deal with those kinds of issues and so virility goes up."

Broman is a dedicated Broncos fan who has a John Elway screensaver on his laptop and a pair of seats from the old Mile High Stadium outside his office door. "If you live in Colorado you've got to follow the Broncos," he says.

Anyone interested in accepting Broman's offer can contact him at his office: 970-484-1757

 

Is your firewall spying on you?

Zone Alarm gets rumbled

By Paul Hales, in Jerusalem: Sunday 22 January 2006, 12:39
IT’S OBVIOUS, REALLY, that the best way of penetrating users' PCs to see what they get up to online would be to become a Firewall maker.

Like, when I wanted a Firewall and was too tight to pay for one, I turned to Checkpoint’s little freebie Zone Alarm. It sits there between you and the Internet and lets you know when someone’s trying to sneak in through your backdoor or when a program you’re running tries to connect to the Web for no apparent reason. When you’re as techie as me – not very – you just have to trust it.

Of course, Checkpoint’s an Israeli company and as a foreign journalist working in Israel you know the hyperactive security services here would like to keep tabs on you. And you know that they do. It has been confirmed to me by a security sources here that mobile phone conversations I have had have been listened to – and in circumstances which I won’t reveal, the contents of a call I have been involved in have actually been relayed back to me.

It’s part of the game – like the airport interrogation, or the surreptitious copying of your notepad while you’re off having a body search. You know what goes on but you have a job to do and just get on with it – hoping that what you get up to in the legitimate pursuit of your business won’t upset anyone to the extent that they’ll come break your door down and cart you off somewhere.

Now, the handsomely-named Mr Cringely has revealed that a colleague of his at Infoworld noticed that Zone Alarm 6.0 was sneakily sending off data to four different servers. Cringely says that Zone Labs (acquired by Checkpoint in March of 2004) at first denied the activity for a couple of months before deciding the software had a "bug" even though, as he points out, "the instructions to contact the servers were set out in the program’s XML code."

The company says it will fix the "bug" soon. In the meantime you can work around it by adding:
# Block access to ZoneLabs Server
127.0.0.1 zonelabs.com
to your Windows host file.

The "bug" seems to be present in the retail version of Zone Alarm, so there’s no telling what the freebie gets up to. We called Checkpoint here in Israel to find out, but were referred to a US spokeszoner. Trouble is they’ll all be in bed there on this sunny Sunday morning. µ
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29157

 

i want ye to watch this,funny as hell.
jets drag racing

Freaking Hilarious X-Box 360 Commercial
This commercial won some kind of award (it's in German).

Two 747's race around an airport to see who finishes first. HILARIOUS!
http://forums.winxpcentral.com/showthread.php?t=16199

- Google Video.com
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4933318503062049442

 

wow thats a little much dont u think? well a kid in my geography class sais that his computer pulls out so much juice that he has to keep it in a freezer! go figure hes a computer nerd ^_^

 

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DRM is a complete lie

Opinion It has never protected a single thing

By Charlie Demerjian: Monday 23 January 2006, 01:15
DRM IS A LIE. When an agenda driven DRM infection peddler gets on a soapbox and blathers about how it is necessary to protect the BMW payments of a producer who leeches off the talented, rest assured, they are lying to you. DRM has absolutely nothing to do with protecting content, it is about protecting the wallets of major corporations. The funny thing is they aren't protecting it from you, they are protecting it from each other.

Let's look at the shattering success of every DRM solution to date. Every single one has failed. The score card is hundreds if not thousands against, zero for. Name me one song, movie or software title that is DRM infected that has not found it's way to the net within a week of release, usually long before release. There are none. To protect content, DRM is an abject and total failure, and will continue to be.


It also hurts the user - there is no DRM infection that in any way benefits the consumer. It costs more to develop, costs to license, makes hardware more expensive and complex, and screws the user under legitimate uses. It has a negative value to the consumer.

So, it makes content less attractive, less playable, and is legally dubious, so why is the industry hell bent on infecting everything from your prophylactics to your computers? Simple, they want a bigger slice of the pie, and DRM is the way to get it. No, not bigger profit margins, the greedy bastards already do that with each format change, DRM infections are about edging each other out.

Here is the problem, every DRM infection is unique, patented, copyrighted, copywronged, and DMCAd ad nauseum, They protect their code in every way possible, and make it so you have to get their approval to use it. This is all done under the guise of protecting content, but that is a lie. If you are going to steal content, do you think violating another copyright on the DRM mechanism will make you lose more sleep? Not a chance.

If you are a rival company though, you can't really violate such things and get away with it for long, Sony, MS and most people swiping GPLd code are proof of that. So, you have to license it to play ball, or at least play music and movies. That is the true nature of DRM infections, to keep other big greedy companies out.

So, say you are a big immoral record company that see walking wallets, aka customers, as not giving you enough of their hard earned money, some have the gall to buy from other big greedy immoral companies. Bastards! What do you do? Make sure they have a hard time playing things from the other guys.

Let's take a good example of this, the first few generations of Sony's DRM infected failures of an almost MP3 player. Sony decided that its proprietary ATRAC format was better than MP3, and technically it could be, but that is irrelevant. They didn't support MP3s out of the box, but would do a one way conversion if you wanted to put your MP3s on the Walkman. Taking them off was a bit curious though.

Also, if you wanted to buy music, you could go to the wonderful (sarcasm people, sarcasm) Sony connect store, and buy almost anything that Sony licensed artists made. If you wanted a song by a Warner artist, well, tough. Stepping into the land of make believe for a minute, imagine that Time-Warner made digital music players, and lets pretend they have an encoding system and DRM infection called HURT-SCAM. You can buy a TW player and download any HURT-SCAM song, curiously this meant only titles from a Warner artist. If you have a Sony player, it doesn't support HURT-SCAM, and TW players don't support ATRAC.

Now, if this hypothetical TW player wanted to play ATRAC, they could reverse engineer it, and get bitten by the same DMCA laws they bought so many Congresspeople to implement, and the same is true for Sony wanting to implement HURT-SCAM. (Please note, I am not intoning that these companies buy government, remember this is make believe. The US governmental system is immune to such things, just ask them.). Basically, both sides have to license their bitter rivals before they can interoperate.

Now, lets step back into the land of reality. You have ATRAC, FairPlay (har har), Real, WMA, and a host of other DRM infections, and none can play any of the others. If you have a player that can do one, chances are that it can't do any of the others, almost like the license terms preclude it, but it would take someone much more cynical than I to say that. You have enough walled gardens to last a lifetime, and each one is filled with greedy execs trying to wrap their mind around how much money this will bring them. The stakes are high, they each want it all, and want all the others to go away, there is no middle ground.

The enforcement mechanism is quite simply the DRM infection Without DRM, the other guys could invade their garden and do thing that might benefit the user, I mean take away the profits they feel are rightfully theirs. In the mean time every piece of media thus 'protected' is available for download. DRM has done, is doing and will do nothing to stop piracy.

Basically, you and I are the innocent bystanders in this drive by shooting called DRM. The big companies are at war, and we are the casualties. So, they have to send their flying monkeys to sue single moms, 12 year olds and octogenarians to make it appear that they are doing what they say. Bull, they are lying. The sad part is that the public, and worse yet, the governments are listening to them.

The misinformation campaign seems to have sunk in, people don't even question that DRM is about protecting content any more, even though it has never done so. It hurts the users, and hurts the companies making it, but they have their eyes on the big prize. DRM infections are the only way to keep their rivals at bay, lobbing a few bullets at the users is a low price to pay for that. µ

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29161

 

ISPs vs Big Four record labels

p2p news / p2pnet: "If industry rumblings are correct, the recording industry may be preparing a legal assault against ISPs," says Paul Resnikoff in Digital Music News.

"Multiple industry sources to Digital Music News have pointed to the possibility, and recent comments by IFPI chairman John Kennedy correlate with the chatter," he declares.

Internet service providers, "may soon find themselves in court unless they cave in to record label demands that ISPs become cartel cops, acting against customers believed to be using the p2p networks," p2pnet suggested last Friday, referring to remarks in the latest IFPI disinformation piece..

Members of the Big Four record label cartel said they needed, "support for Digital Rights Management" as the, "key enabler of digital music services allowing new and flexible uses by consumers," as well as, "more cooperation from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in protecting music from piracy on their networks".

The observation came from Kennedy in the most recent IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industries) puff piece. In it, "It's been a year since I asked for (the ISPs') cooperation, and I've effectively had zero response," he says.

Supporting the contention that ISPs might soon join their customers as victims of EMI, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and Sony BMG, was the Financial Times which also had Kennedy calling for, "ISPs to monitor and limit access to users that trade files illegally, while leaving the door open to litigation if negotiations are unsuccessful".

But Resnikoff spells it out.

The MPAA and RIAA have been, "diligently pursuing lawsuits against individual file-sharers, and the RIAA alone has targeted 16,000 swappers," he says. "Still, those efforts have failed to reverse record levels of piracy, and they are yet to revive a sagging physical CD sector. That lack of progress could be creating pressure to target the ISPs, who are supplying users with the pipes necessary to share files ad nauseam.

"A Supreme Court victory [Grokster vs MGM] is nothing to sneeze at, though the opponent was a relative lightweight compared to the internet access industry. While their affect on the overall music industry has been profound, P2P companies are essentially minor league players in terms of overall earnings. Revenues mainly come from low-CPM banners, and most companies are forced to deliver spyware and adware just to keep the lights on. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) – which represented Grokster and Morpheus in the case – is certainly a formidable opponent, but still one that the RIAA could defeat. Overall, the P2P industry simply has less weight to throw around, and file-sharing companies have a shelf life of only a few years at best."

Against that, "ISPs are multi-billion dollar corporations that dwarf the recording industry in terms of legal firing power, spending ability, and political clout," says Digital Music News, adding:

"If the recording industry was actually able to win a battle against the access providers, the effects would be momentous," says Digital Music News.

"Overnight, an industry would change, and ISPs would lose a critical component of their subscriber relationship. But if the ISPs prevailed, then the door could close on any future cooperation. While collective P2P licensing plans are unthinkable in major label quarters currently, they could become more attractive in a few years. The basic concept - which some access executives are reportedly open-minded to – would include a small surcharge on ISP monthly charges in exchange for unlimited file-sharing. These surcharges would then be redistributed to content creators, publishers, and labels. The details of implementing such a plan are more than intimidating, but ISPs will be less likely to entertain the possibility following a drawn-out legal battle. After all, olive branches are less meaningful after an aggressive swordfight, and ISPs will probably be resentful after pouring millions into a distracting legal defense. Perhaps that is thinking too far ahead, but a defeat at the hands of the access industry could have severe and far-reaching implications for an already-battered recording industry."
http://p2pnet.net/story/7703

 

Kama Sutra Worm Gets Nasty
worm A potentially destructive new computer worm disguised as pornographic videos and other material is steadily infecting thousands of victims each hour with payload designed to destroy documents and files on victim machines. The worm appears programmed to do three things: spread, disable security software and overwrite certain files.

Kama Sutra Worm Gets Nasty

A potentially destructive new computer worm disguised as pornographic videos and other material is steadily infecting thousands of victims each hour with payload designed to destroy documents and files on victim machines.

This particular nastygram has earned different monikers from various antivirus vendors -- including "W32/Nyxem-D" (Sophos and F-Secure), "Tearac.A" (Panda Software), and "W32.Blackmal.E@mm" -- but the catchiest name I've seen so far is "Kama Sutra," taken from one of the e-mail worm's variable enticing subject lines.

The worm appears programmed to do three things: spread, disable security software and overwrite certain files. According to analysis from F-Secure, on the third day of each month the worm will overwrite the contents of certain files on infected machines, including Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint files, as well as Adobe PDF documents and compressed ZIP and RAR archives, among other file formats.

The worm also notifies a specific Web site each time it infects a new machine, increasing the number on a Web based counter with each visit. Security Fix isn't publishing the link to the counter for obvious reasons (if everyone who read this started visiting the link its accuracy for measuring the true spread of the worm would quickly decrease.) Just know that as of 12:30 a.m. ET on Sunday the counter showed 539,261 victims, up from 522,684 5:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, an average of about 2,500 new victims per hour.

Capture

As always, be extremely careful about clicking on attachments or links that arrive in e-mail or instant message, even if they appear to have been sent by someone you know. If you got hit with this worm and your antivirus software can't get rid of it, try the free removal tool for this worm from Symantec.
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/01/kama_sutra_worm.html

 

Harder-to-Detect Oracle Rootkit on the Way
Kick-Ass... man, what a month this is going to be.

A security expert working on a new version of an Oracle database rootkit says the programs are easy to create and could soon be as common as those that target operating systems like Windows.

Alexander Kornbrust, of Red Database Security GmbH, told eWEEK that he is developing Version 2.0 of a rootkit program he first unveiled in April 2005. The new version, which Kornbrust hopes to unveil at the Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas in July, will be harder to detect on Oracle systems using standard administrative tools. Kornbrust claims his rootkits are not hacking tools but are designed to underscore weaknesses in databases from Oracle, Microsoft and others that make it easy to hide malicious activity.

Harder-to-Detect Oracle Rootkit on the Way
By Paul F. Roberts
January 23, 2006

Be the first to comment on this article


A security expert working on a new version of an Oracle database rootkit says the programs are easy to create and could soon be as common as those that target operating systems like Windows.

Alexander Kornbrust, of Red Database Security GmbH, told eWEEK that he is developing Version 2.0 of a rootkit program he first unveiled in April 2005. The new version, which Kornbrust hopes to unveil at the Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas in July, will be harder to detect on Oracle systems using standard administrative tools. Kornbrust claims his rootkits are not hacking tools but are designed to underscore weaknesses in databases from Oracle, Microsoft and others that make it easy to hide malicious activity.


Kornbrust first introduced a proof-of-concept Oracle rootkit last April, at the Black Hat Conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands. That version modified Oracle database dictionaries, sometimes referred to as "views," to disguise the presence of malicious accounts, database processes and so on.

PointerWhen is a rootkit not a rootkit? Click here to read more.

The new version of the database rootkit will modify the computer memory used to run Oracle. Administrators could detect the first version of the rootkit by noting changes in the size of the data dictionaries that had been modified. The new version will allow attackers to disguise malicious elements without modifying the database views, Kornbrust said.

Also, evidence of the hack will disappear whenever the database is restarted, Kornbrust said.

eWEEK.com Special Report: The Rise of Rootkits

Unlike operating system rootkits such as Back Orifice, Hacker Defender and FU, database rootkits are platform-independent and can run on any operating system, Kornbrust said.

The database rootkits are part of a larger project to port malicious code from operating systems to enterprise database environments, he said. Applications like Oracle and Microsoft's SQL Server have become so sophisticated that they are, in effect, operating systems in their own right, he said.

"Things like creating users, processes and jobs used to be part of the operating system. But now every database has similar commands to the operating system. You can kill processes, create users and so on," he said.

PointerLarry Seltzer claims some rootkits are worse than others. Click here to read his column.

Unlike operating systems, however, many enterprise databases do not have robust security features that could detect rogue accounts or suspicious activity, he said.

For example, tools that Oracle database administrators use to monitor user accounts just present information from the same data dictionaries that would be modified by the rootkit, Kornbrust said.

Traditional network security tools also aren't effective. "[Security] tools from the operating system world don't work in the database world," he said.

At the same time, database and network security staff often move in different circles, experts say.

"Security guys are used to dealing with packets on the network," said Shlomo Kramer, CEO of Imperva, a database security company in Foster City, Calif. "The assumption is the security guys don't know anything about databases."

However, malicious hackers and organized online criminal groups are figuring out that databases like Oracle and SQL are vulnerable to attack, Kornbrust said.

"I personally think that bad guys have better knowledge of how to exploit [database holes] than the good guys," he said.

Recent events like the Oracle "Voyager" show that malicious code writers are getting savvy about targeting enterprise databases, Kramer said.

"It's not about the infrastructure; it's about the data," Kramer said.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1914465,00.asp

 

Sony may offer standalone 200CD changer for Media Center PCs
Posted by Dan Bell on 23 January 2006 - 20:57 - Source: ehomeupgrade

We already heard about the Sony 200 CD changer that is a component in the Sony XL 1 Media Center PC. What's cool about this changer is that it can read and play the Cd's and the word on the street is you can load it up and it will rip all 200 to the hard disc unattended! Not only that, you can place some blanks in there and it will burn TV shows etc., to the blanks and free up disc space. But, this doesn't do anybody any good that likes to piece together their own rigs. Well, somebody got smart and asked at the CES about the chance of a standalone model and got us some good news!

According to Jason Alinen (user name, soundintegration on Remotetly Cool), he spoke with someone from Sony at CES who said that they would be offering their DVD changer on a standalone basis when the XL2 lauches:

From his post: "I spoke with some of the Sony people at CES this year and they mentioned that their CD/DVD changer will be available for purchase seperately for any MCE PC when the XL2 is launched. They said the cost would be around $600 or so. It uses firewire so as long as the dell mce has firewire you should be good to go."

This is definitely good news and at $600 I'd buy one for sure if it really worked and could in fact mass rip my CDs for me. It's such a pain having to rip them one by one right now and being able to do big batch jobs would be tremendously helpful. (Of course watch out for resistence from the RIAA on this product as I doubt they want you to be able to easily rip 200 CDs at once).

Well, the price is right and this will become a hot commodity if it pans out. In addition, if it sells well, hopefully it will spawn some competition from other vendors/manufacturers.
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12986

 

TVMyPod iPod's pre-loaded DVDs questions DMCA & Fair Use
Posted by Seán Byrne on 24 January 2006 - 00:00 - Source: Yahoo News - Technology

So far, it seems quite clear that selling any device with preloaded copyrighted games, music or movies may be against the law if not accompanied by a license or without authorisation of the copyright holders. A clear example is a shop that sold modded Xbox's with its HDD filled with preloaded games. Well TVMyPod, a tiny Massachusetts company is selling iPods that come preloaded with movies and TV programs from DVDs of the user's choice. While this may signal a legal issue, apparently the consumer must purchase the DVDs they want transferred. TVMyPod then does the transfer process, puts the iPod back in its original packaging and delivers this along with the DVDs to the consumer.

As the company currently only charges the consumer for cost of the iPod and DVDs and the consumer gets all the DVDs they paid for to have transferred to the iPod, the company claims it is legal under the fair use provisions of the US Copyright Act. Apparently, even though it is illegal to bypass the CSS encryption system on DVDs under the DMCA, the company claims their process does not involve DeCSS. Later on the company aims to allow existing iPod owners to send in their iPod to have further content to be transferred. Thanks to both Hypnosis4U2NV and mickrick for letting us know about the following news:

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - A tiny Massachusetts company named TVMyPod is selling iPods that come with movies and TV programs already loaded on them, a practice that raises questions of legality as it addresses consumer demand for convenience and portability.

Customers choose any content currently available on a DVD and which iPod they want. TVMyPod then puts the content on the player and ships the original DVDs along with the iPod restored to its original packaging.

TVMyPod co-founder Vijay Raghavan said most people don't have the time or the technology to convert DVDs into the iPod's required format, which is what gave him and his business partner the idea to start the service.

While connecting a DVD player up to a capture device does not involve breaking the CSS encryption, either the capture device would need to get around the Macrovision copy protection or the DVD player would need to be modified in some way to disable Macrovision. In either case, this still involves circumventing this copy protection which can run into problems with the DMCA.

Even if there was no copy protection to get around, the former MP3.com once had a service where a consumer could access MP3 versions of their CDs if they let a tool on MP3.com to authenticate their discs. Unfortunately, the company got into legal issues and had to withdraw the service even though they only offered MP3 version of what ever the consumer had physical versions of on CD.

Hypnosis4U2NV add the following: This is very interesting because on one end the companies have the DMCA on their side and on the other we have the Fair Use rights which allow us to make legal copies of media we legally own.. The problem that I see with this service is that despite what the co-founder Vijay Raghavan says about not decrypting the DVD's that are loaded onto the iPods, we all know that practically all DVD's shipped already contain CSS encryption and we need software (DeCSS) to decrypt the protection to allow for a successful copy.. So is it legal for the corporate suits or the consumer? Maybe both? Maybe none?

mickrick also added: An excellent venture and hopefully one that will avoid persecution from the ca$h-hungry MPAA. This is one idea I would like to see taking off big time globally.
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12987

 

France sees some of the toughest antipiracy laws yet drafted
Posted by Seán Byrne on 24 January 2006 - 01:04 - Source: Wired News - Technology

Just when France appeared like it was going to help consumers out by aiming to legalise online file sharing, some of the toughest anti-piracy laws yet have just been drafted in France that could put downloaders of copyright infringing content to jail and force certain software makers to add anti-piracy technology to its products for distribution within France. If software such as file sharing tools does not guard against unauthorised file sharing, the software makers could be held liable if users use its software for copyright infringement.

When it comes to unauthorised copying or downloading, users could face up to three years in jail and up to €300,000 in fines. To help curb unauthorised file sharing, ISPs may be required to disconnect accounts that are suspected of copyright infringement. The proposal aims to make France comply with the EUCD, however this proposal goes well beyond the EUCD's original version of criminalising copyright infringement. Vivendi Universal, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Société des Auteurs et des Compositeurs de Musique all helped draft the text used in this proposal.

Unfortunately, this legislation proposal causes a serious problem for software developers as they would need to make sure their software complies with the anti-piracy enforcement where necessary just to make their software available in France, one of many EU countries. As a result, it will cost software makers more to deliver software to France if it means they have to fork out on extra costs on developing, implementing and testing these extra anti-piracy measures.

PARIS -- France may be about to introduce the most draconian anti-piracy laws yet.

Internet downloaders could face jail sentences and software makers may be required to add anti-copying technology to products distributed in France under draft legislation that's expected to go to a vote this week.

A last minute fight over the bill broke out late Wednesday, when an amendment was introduced that would legalize peer-to-peer downloads instead of criminalizing them. The amendment is not final, however, and the bill's original intent is expected to be restored.

The so-called emergency legislation would require software makers to include digital-rights management, or DRM, software in their products, according to a draft (.pdf) of the proposed legislation seen by Wired News. Software makers could be liable if their software is used for illicit purposes -- whether the software was designed for peer-to-peer networks or office intranets.

What makes this proposal interesting is that it contradicts a recent bill proposed that would require the removal of copy protection restrictions if enforced. One purpose is to allow consumers to play music purchased from music download stores on any MP3 player and not just the ones the shop will authorise, such as remove the restriction iTunes has where its purchased music can only be played back on an iPod.

Feel free to discuss about file sharing and its legal issues on our Music Download, Peer to Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues forum.
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12988

 

this one is for everyone who has had time warner cable !!

http://www.twcsettlement.com/claim.php3

 

MPAA finds itself accused of piracy

By John Horn, Times Staff Writer

PARK CITY, Utah — The Motion Picture Assn. of America, the leader in the global fight against movie piracy, is being accused of unlawfully making a bootleg copy of a documentary that takes a critical look at the MPAA's film ratings system.

The MPAA admitted Monday that it had duplicated "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" without the filmmaker's permission after director Kirby Dick submitted his movie in November for an MPAA rating. The Hollywood trade organization said that it did not break copyright law, insisting that the dispute is part of a Dick-orchestrated "publicity stunt" to boost the film's profile.

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Scheduled to debut at the Sundance Film Festival on Wednesday night, "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" examines what Dick believes are the MPAA's stricter standards for rating explicit depictions of sex than for gruesome violence. Dick also explores whether independent films are rated more harshly than studio films, whether scenes of gay sex are restricted more than scenes of straight sex, and why the 10 members of the MPAA's ratings board operate without any public accountability.

Michael Donaldson, a lawyer representing Dick, has written the MPAA demanding that it "immediately return all copies" of the film in its possession, and explain who approved the making of the copy and who within the MPAA has looked at the reproduction.

Dick said he was "very upset and troubled" to discover during a recent conversation with an MPAA lawyer that the MPAA had copied the film from a digital version he submitted Nov. 29 for a rating. ("This Film Is Not Yet Rated" was rated NC-17 for "some graphic sexual content," a rating upheld after Dick appealed.) The MPAA's copy of Dick's film was viewed by Dan Glickman, the MPAA's new president, the MPAA said.

The filmmaker said that when he asked MPAA lawyer Greg Goeckner what right his organization had to make the copy, Goeckner told him that Dick and his crew had potentially invaded the privacy of the MPAA's movie raters.

"We made a copy of Kirby's movie because it had implications for our employees," said Kori Bernards, the MPAA's vice president for corporate communications. She said Dick spied on the members of the MPAA's Classification and Rating Administration, including going through their garbage and following them as they drove their children to school.

"We were concerned about the raters and their families," Bernards said. She said the MPAA's copy of "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" is "locked away," and is not being copied or distributed.

The standard the MPAA is using for itself appears to be at odds with what the organization sets out for others: "Manufacturing, selling, distributing or making copies of motion pictures without the consent of the copyright owners is illegal," the MPAA's website says. "Movie pirates are thieves, plain and simple…. ALL forms of piracy are illegal and carry serious legal consequences."

Donaldson said in an interview that the MPAA previously had promised in writing that it would not copy the film, but an e-mail exchange does not completely support that claim.

Donaldson added that while he is not planning at this time to sue the MPAA for copyright infringement, he reserved the possibility of filing a lawsuit later. "It's my practice and style to wait and see what they do, go over all of our options, and then make a decision," he said.

Dick, who was nominated for an Academy Award for 2004's documentary feature "Twist of Faith," said in an interview that his film crew acted appropriately in tracking down and identifying the anonymous members of the movie ratings board. But even if he didn't "follow all the rules," Dick said, "I don't know how that allows somebody else to break the law."

Bernards said the MPAA has made copies of other films submitted for ratings, but did not identify any by name.

When Dick submitted his film for a rating, he asked in an e-mail for assurances that "no copies would be made of any part or all of the film," according to a copy of the e-mail exchange.

In a reply e-mail, an MPAA representative did not specifically say the organization wouldn't copy the film, but did say "the confidentiality of your film ... is our first priority. Please feel assure (sic) that your film is in good hands."

The MPAA's Bernards, who said Glickman was unavailable for comment, said the organization was operating lawfully when it copied Dick's movie without his or his producer's authorization. "The courts recognize that parties are entitled to make a copy of a work for use as evidence in possible future proceedings," she said.

The MPAA has not brought any legal actions against Dick, but did call the police when the movie raters complained about being stalked and were worried about their safety. The raters had no idea they were being followed as part of a documentary.

Donaldson said he was unaware of any legal cases that supported the MPAA's position.

One expert on intellectual property and copyright law said that while he was unfamiliar with any cases specifically addressing the issue, the MPAA's argument might work.

"You can't make a copy as a general matter, but you can if you meet several tests," said Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School. It helps the MPAA, Lemley said, that it is not selling the copy of "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" for commercial gain.

Dick "is right to say you can't make a single copy unless you have a legitimate defense," Lemley said. "But it seems that in this case, [the MPAA] may have a legitimate defense."

http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/qtakes/cl-et-mpaa24jan24,0,288862.story

 

Europe release groups raided

p2p news / p2pnet: More than 30 people have been arrested following attacks on release groups in Europe.

The raids, in Germany, Austria, Holland, Poland and the Czech Republic, were organized by the Hollywood-owned German version of the MPAA, the German Federation Against Copyright Theft (GVU).

"Rumors of the bust began circulating online today, as members attempted to warn each other," says Slyck.

"According to warning notices online, the following top providers have, for all intents and purposes, been eliminated; RELOADED, KNIGHTS, TFCiSO, Cinemaniacs, German-Friend, ParadieseBeach and Klapsmuehle. In addition, the leader of RELOADED was reported as arrested during the raids. The GVU confirmed the following release groups were eliminated; Unreality, DRAGON, Laboratory, Heaven, code talk, GTR, ECP, TRCD, AOS, MRM, SITH, GWL, Cine VCD, AHE, Cinemaniacs.

In 2004 the GVU boasted the names of thousands of users of “illegal Internet piracy” sites were being examined by German police.

Between 8,000 and 20,000 people were "unmasked," said Agence France Presse at the time.

"The pursuit of top providers is a primary concern to the entertainment industry, as the proliferation of pirated material often begins with these organizations," says Slyck. "From these FTP sources, pirated material (especially movies) trickle down to the Newsgroups, IRC, BitTorrent and finally P2P networks. Initially, these raids may place a damper on spread of pirated material, however the allure of public recognition is simply too great for many to avoid. With time, their role in the online warez community will most likely be replaced."

GVU, short for Gesellschaft zur Verletzung von Urheberrechtsverletzungen eV, says it's, "embedded in a worldwide network ... with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) as the umbrella organization".

In 2003, it's pseudo cops were involved in the shut down the p2p Unreality file share server.

"Its statutes ... stipulate that it conduct its own investigations to the extent permitted by the law," it says on its site. "This takes place before any official inquiry, to substantiate initial suspicions that may lead to a preliminary inquiry."

Also See:
Slyck - Major Piracy Bust Against Top Providers, January 24, 2006
thousands - Big German file share probe, December 13, 2005
Unreality - German enforcers raid file share op, October 21, 2003

(Tuesday 24th January 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/7714

 

US top spam-relaying country

p2p news / p2pnet: America leads the world ----- as the Number One spam-relaying country.

So says UK security firm Sophos in its 2006 Dirty Dozen for the last quarter of 2005.

But, "although the United States still heads up the chart, it has made significant reductions, and for the first time accounts for less than a quarter of all spam relayed," says the company.

Meanwhile, the level of non-English language spam is, "continuing to increase, with the vast majority now being relayed by 'zombie' computers hijacked by Trojan horses, worms and viruses under the control of hackers," says Sophos, going on:

"Sizeable increases are also happening in 'pump-and-dump' stock spam, designed to artificially inflate stock prices before spammers sell shares at considerable profit."

The bad news is, "the contribution of China is up by seven percentage points since October 2005, as the spam economy takes off over there," says Sophos spokesman Graham Cluley. "Further bad news - and perhaps more of a surprise - is the continued rise in the percentage of spam from France, which has gone from 1.2% a year ago, to 3.5% in October 2005, to 5%."

The top twelve spam relaying countries are:

* United States - 24.5%
* China (inc Hong Kong) - 22.3%
* South Korea - 9.7%
* France - 5.0%
* Canada - 3.0%
* Brazil - 2.6%
* Spain - 2.5%
* Austria - 2.4%
* Taiwan - 2.1%
* Poland - 2.0%
* Japan - 2.0%
* Germany - 1.8%
* Others 20.3%


The fact the dirty dozen is made up of of nations from four different continents, "gives an indication as to the nature of the spam problem," states Cluely.

"Zombie computers - responsible for relaying more than 60% of the world's spam - can allow spammers to escape country-specific legislation, as they no longer have to be located in the same country as the spamming machines they operate."

Also See:
Sophos - US tops stats again, as top spam-relaying countries revealed, January 23, 2006

(Tuesday 24th January 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/7716

 

Fins on cars and pastel colors

p2p view / p2pnet: I am a fan of the Asbury Lanes, a tiny 1950's 16 lane bowling alley that survived, vintage interior intact, by changing its focus to music rather than the sport itself. Asbury Park is a flattened town, once one of the premier shore towns in the US and now victim of 1960's racial unrest, the collapse of the local economy, and a sustained deterioration of its infrastructure caused by neglect. It is the city Bruce Springsteen sings about in "My City of Ruins" and Bruce himself no doubt frequented these lanes in his youth when it was a bowling alley first and foremost. Depite the calamity it is still a rock-and-roll town.

If you look at the outside of the building you would swear that it was shuttered like almost everything else in Asbury Park. Indeed, the lanes are closed most of the day, opening in the late afternoon five days a week for music and bowling. The bowling costs $10 per person for the night, a bargain anywhere. That's OK because this is a rock club first. Rather than enter a club sporting some mock-vintage deco, the inside of the Asbury lanes is original and straight out of the space race/Danish modern era. A time of fins on cars and pastel colors layered between white and chrome.

No, the Asbury Lanes never closed. It has been in operation for over 50 years with the present owners running it since 1961. They witnessed the full descent of this town as the business is located only a block from the water. It survives now playing on the old movie/rock cliché - as the bands perform on a stage built over the middle four lanes bowlers continue to bowl all night on the remaining twelve. Surprisingly, the loud sound of ball striking pin is muted by the lanes sound system and never interrupts the band we came to see.

Predator Dub Assassin is one of the most polished unsigned artists I have heard in a long time. They have the whole package, playing great original songs that are a dead ringer for the roots reggae tunes that are the basis for their sound. Their music is as authentic as the Asbury Lanes and of all the mediocrity I hear on the FM band as I commute to my day job it again makes me wonder aloud who is spinning the vinyl at the local radio stations these days. These guys should be stars.

Before the show I spoke briefly with the band's front man Tim Boyce. I asked him about independent bands and how his group is utilizing the Net. Tim told me he was signed to a label once, but money never seemed to come in. Their latest CD was self produced and they sell it themselves at their shows. He then volunteered the economics for me.

When you are signed to a label you get $0.70 per CD. Break even costs run about $9.00. Tim then told me that the PDubs latest CD cost them (including studio efforts and disc manufacturing) about $2.50 a CD. They sell them for $10, pocketing $7.50 or ten times more than a label would pay them.

As for the Internet, their Website offers three of their tunes online for free. Tim confessed he had concerns about giving everything away for free and so gave away his mixed feeling about file sharing and the P2P applications that foster this activity. The person who managed their site went MIA recently and so the band is looking for someone else to update it regularly for them. A peek at the shows section of their site confirms this as September 2005 is the last performance promoted on it. For those interested, they play at McCann's in another shore town, Belmar, NJ, every Friday night.

Yup, it's tough to be an indie band. While the Net helps empower artists to earn their own revenues from their music, labels still offer the marketing muscle to rise above the white noise of millions of aspiring acts. Like the Whos shouting "We're Here, We're Here" in hopes they are heard from their life-bearing speck on the head of a clover, talent like the PDubs have to find their own mix to be heard over the din of society. Despite a growing fan base it's not easy.

Good luck gentlemen.

Rich Menta - MP3NewsWire

(Tuesday 24th January 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/7711

 

Fake London Olympic Site hosting Keylogger

keysWebsense Security Labs has received reports of a malicious website which is hosting a Trojan horse keylogger. This keylogger is designed to steal end-user information when the user accesses certain online banks and e-commerce websites.

The file name of the code is "logo.wmf." This code attempts to utilize the recent Microsoft® Windows® WMF vulnerability, assuming the user has not applied the recent Windows patch to solve this issue. The code runs, without user-intervention, when the user accesses an infected website. If the code runs, it drops a file called "web.exe" onto the user's machine and runs it. This file is designed to compromise the end-users' confidential information and may also include a Trojan horse backdoor.

The site that hosts the malicious code is located in the UK and was up at the time of this alert. It is difficult to determine if the site's security has been compromised or if it was intentionally setup. The site contains little content, as it simply pulls links from the real London Olympics 2012 website. Websense® - Security Labs Alert: Crimeware: Fake London Olympic Site hosting Keylogger

Websense® Security Labs™ has received reports of a malicious website which is hosting a Trojan horse keylogger. This keylogger is designed to steal end-user information when the user accesses certain online banks and e-commerce websites.

The file name of the code is "logo.wmf." This code attempts to utilize the recent Microsoft® Windows® WMF vulnerability, assuming the user has not applied the recent Windows patch to solve this issue. The code runs, without user-intervention, when the user accesses an infected website. If the code runs, it drops a file called "web.exe" onto the user's machine and runs it. This file is designed to compromise the end-users' confidential information and may also include a Trojan horse backdoor.

The site that hosts the malicious code is located in the UK and was up at the time of this alert. It is difficult to determine if the site's security has been compromised or if it was intentionally setup. The site contains little content, as it simply pulls links from the real London Olympics 2012 website.
http://www.websensesecuritylabs.com/alerts/alert.php?AlertID=404

 

Half million PCs infected by email virus

virusA mass mailing computer virus that is coded to delete files on February 3 may have spread to more than 500,000 servers, if evidence from a Web counter can be trusted.

Known as the Blackmal.E or Nyxem.E virus, the program travels as an attachment to e-mail messages with suggestive subject lines such as "School girl fantasies gone bad" and "Re: Sex Video". The virus will completely compromise systems whose users open the attachment, attempting to disable security software and making extensive changes to the registry. Half-million PCs infected by e-mail virus


Half-million PCs infected by e-mail virus
Published: 2006-01-23

A mass-mailing computer virus that is coded to delete files on February 3 may have spread to more than 500,000 servers, if evidence from a Web counter can be trusted.

Known as the Blackmal.E or Nyxem.E virus, the program travels as an attachment to e-mail messages with suggestive subject lines such as "School girl fantasies gone bad" and "Re: Sex Video". The virus will completely compromise systems whose users open the attachment, attempting to disable security software and making extensive changes to the registry.

The virus will increment a Web counter hosted at Internet service provider RCN. The counter, which can be accessed via a Web address, surpassed 500,000 this weekend, according to antivirus firm F-Secure. The counter may not be accurate, as it could have started above zero and logs any browser that also goes to the Web address, counting observers as well as compromised PCs in a sort of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle for the Internet.

The number falls short of the largest documented infection to date--the MSBlast, or Blaster, worm--which spread to at least 25 million computers, according to data gathered by Microsoft.

Computers that remain infected on February 3 will have a eleven types of data deleted from the hard drive, including any Word, Excel, PowerPoint or PDF documents. However, a similar threat posed by the Sober virus, which was supposed to download additional functionality on January 5, largely failed to happen. Because the Blackmal virus does not rely on external Web sites, however, it's unlikely that it will be as easily hobbled.
http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/113?ref=rss

 

MPAA admits to unauthorized movie copying

1/24/2006 11:52:04 AM, by Eric Bangeman

What happens when an organization that is best known for inveighing against the unauthorized copying of movies gets caught doing exactly that? The Motion Picture Association of America was caught with its pants down, admitting to making unauthorized copies of the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated in advance of this week's Sundance Film Festival.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated looks at the motion picture ratings system created and run by the MPAA. Director Kirby Dick submitted the film for rating in November. After receiving the movie, the MPAA subsequently made copies without Dick's permission. Dick had specifically requested in an e-mail that the MPAA not make copies of the movie. The MPAA responded by saying that "the confidentiality of your film is our first priority."

Dick later learned that the MPAA made copies of the film to distribute them to its employees, despite the MPAA's stance on unauthorized copying. Ah, there's nothing like the smell of hypocrisy in the morning-apparently the prohibition against copying films without the copyright owner's consent doesn't apply to the MPAA. A lawyer for the MPAA justified the organization's apparent hypocrisy by saying that Dick had invaded the privacy of some MPAA staffers, which justified the MPAA's actions.

"We made a copy of Kirby's movie because it had implications for our employees," said Kori Bernards, the MPAA's vice president for corporate communications. She said Dick spied on the members of the MPAA's Classification and Rating Administration, including going through their garbage and following them as they drove their children to school.

A little background: This Film looks at how the rating system functions, specifically at how some types of content are treated differently by the MPAA. Dick feels that the MPAA is full of—surprise—double standards, especially when it comes to how they treat graphic violence vs. sexual content, heterosexual vs. homosexual sex, and big-studio vs. independent films. As part of the documentary's creation, Dick trailed and identified some of the previously anonymous members of the ratings board. Dick's conduct became a cause for concern for both the MPAA and its employees, leading to their calling the police on some occasions.

According to Mark Lemley, a professor at the Stanford Law School, the MPAA may have been within its rights to make copies of the film. Given that the MPAA's intent isn't financial gain and that the whole situation may rise above the level of trading barbs through the media into legal action, making a copy may be justified. Personally, I can't see any justification for an organization such as the MPAA ignoring a directive from a copyright owner, but IANAL. A "digital version" of the movie was submitted for screening, according to Dick's attorney, Michael Donaldson. If that digital version turns out to be a DVD, the MPAA could also find itself in hot water for violating the DMCA. Oh, the irony! Either way, the MPAA can't be happy about being put into a position where they are forced to justify the same actions they decry when undertaken by a consumer.

It's difficult to see how This Film Is Not Yet Rated—which ended up with an NC-17 rating for graphic sexual content—is being harmed. If nothing else, Dick is reaping a bountiful crop of free publicity on the eve of the Sundance Film Festival. The MPAA's decision to make copies of the film without the copyright-holder's permission reinforces the documentary's message that the MPAA's actions often reek of self-interest and hypocrisy.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060124-6036.html