| |
|
|
| |
|
|
In a win for privacy advocates and pirates, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an IP address alone is not enough to go after someone for alleged copyright infringement. They ruled that being the registered subscriber of an infringing IP address does not create a reasonable inference that the subscriber is also the infringer. The case began back in 2016 and has been playing out in the legal system ever since. The creators of the film "The Cobbler" alleged that Thomas Gonzales had illegally downloaded their movie and sued him for it. Gonzales was a Comcast subscriber and had set up his network with an open Wi-Fi access point. At some point, someone had used his network to download the movie and the film creators captured Gonzales's IP address. The judge stated that in order for a proper case, the copyright owners would need more than just an IP address. |
|
|
|
| |
|
| There are no conversations. |
| |
|
|
|
|
| Edward Felten |
Vigorous enforcement of copyrights themselves is an important part of the picture. But I don't think that expanding the legal definition of copyright outside of actual copyright infringement is the right move. |
| Thomas R. Insel |
Neuroscientists talk a lot about brain circuits. In fact, the word 'circuit' is probably misleading. We do not know where most circuits begin and end. And unlike an electrical circuit, brain connections are heavily reciprocal and recursive, so that a direction of information flow can be inferred but sometimes not proven. |
| Andre Maurois |
If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny. |
| Noah Feldman |
We often imagine that the court serves as a sort of neutral umpire controlling the warring political branches. But this is mostly myth. The justices of the Supreme Court are themselves actors in the struggle for power, and when they intervene, they think carefully about how their decisions will affect the court's own legitimacy and authority. |
| Floyd Abrams |
CBS exhausted the Texas courts. They went from the trial court to the intermediate court to the highest court. |
| Lord Hailsham |
A reasonable doubt is nothing more than a doubt for which reasons can be given. The fact that 1 or 2 men out of 12 differ from the others does not establish that their doubts are reasonable. |
| Aristotle |
Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy. |
| Paul Tillich |
Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone. |
| Anthony Michael Hall |
I would say probably Pirates of Silicon Valley just because I'm proud of the work, playing Gates. |
| Edward Felten |
In making policy designed with copyright in mind, you end up making decisions about whether other important technologies, such as privacy-enhancing or file-search technologies, should be encouraged or discouraged. A collision is happening between creativity and protecting IP. |
|
|
|
|
Man Allegedly Used Change Of Address Form To Move UPS Headquarters To His Apartment (npr.org)
As federal crimes go, this one seems to have been ridiculously easy to pull off. From a report:
Dushaun Henderson-Spruce submitted a U.S. Postal Service change of address form on Oct. 26, 2017, according to court documents. He requested changing a corporation's mailing address from an address in Atlanta to the address of his apartment on Chicago's North Side. The post office duly updated the address, and Henderson-Spruce allegedly began receiving the company's mail -- including checks. It went on for months. Prosecutors say he deposited some $58,000 in checks improperly forwarded to his address.
...
|
| |
|
|
|
On Thursday, US authorities announced the seizure of the largest dark web marketplace AlphaBay. Europol and Dutch police also claimed seizure of Hansa, another popular market. In their dark web investigations, law enforcement have increasingly turned to hacking tools, including the deployment of browser exploits on a mass scale. But tracking down the alleged AlphaBay administrator was much more mundane, officials said. Alexandre Cazes, who US authorities say used the handle alpha02 as administrator of the site, allegedly left his personal email in a welcome message to new AlphaBay members, according to the forfeiture complaint published on Thursday. The news echoes the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, the convicted creator of the original Silk Road, who made a similar security mistake. "In December 2016, law enforcement learned that CAZES' personal email was included in the header of AlphaBay's 'welcome email' to new users in December 2014," the complaint reads. Users received this message on...
This post is a comment.
|
| |
|
|
|
AlphaBay Owner Used Email Address For Both AlphaBay and LinkedIn Profile.
The Register is reporting that Alexandre Cazes, the 25-year-old Canadian running the dark web site AlphaBay, was using a hotmail address easily connected to him via his Linkdin profile to administer the site. From the report: "[A]ccording to U.S. prosecutors, he used his real email address, albeit a Hotmail address -- Pimp_Alex_91@hotmail.com -- as the administrator password for the marketplace software. As a result, every new user received a welcome email from that address when they signed up to the site, and everyone using its password recovery tool also received an email from that address. However, rather than carefully set up and then abandon that email address, it turns out that Alexandre Cazes -- Pimp Alex --...
|
| |
|
|
|
California Bans Default Passwords on Any Internet-Connected Device (engadget.com)
In less than two years, anything that can connect to the internet will come with a unique password -- that is, if it's produced or sold in California. From a report:
The "Information Privacy: Connected Devices" bill that comes into effect on January 1, 2020, effectively bans pre-installed and hard-coded default passwords. It only took the authorities about two weeks to approve the proposal made by the state senate. The new regulation mandates device manufacturers to either create a unique password for each device at the time of production or require the user to create one when they interact with the device f...
|
| |
|
|
|
Alleged Owners of Mugshots.com Have Been Arrested For Extortion
The alleged owners of Mugshots.com have been charged and arrested. These four men Sahar Sarid, Kishore Vidya Bhavnanie, Thomas Keesee, and David Usdan only removed a person's mugshot from the site if this individual paid a "de-publishing" fee, according to the California Attorney General on Wednesday. That's apparently considered extortion. On top of that, they also face charges of money laundering, and identity theft.
If you read a lot of articles about crime, then you're probably already familiar with the site (which is stil...
|
| |
|
|
|
Spotify Hit With $1.6 Billion Copyright Lawsuit
The Wixen Music Publishing company, which administers song compositions by Tom Petty, Dan Auerbach, Rivers Cuomo, Stevie Nicks, Neil Young, and others, has hit Spotify with a copyright lawsuit seeking $1.6 billion in damages. The publishing company filed the lawsuit on December 29, alleging the streaming giant is using Petty's "Free Fallin" and tens of thousands of other songs without license or compensation. SPIN reports:
Back in September, Wixen objected to a $43 million settlement Spotify had arranged over another class action lawsuit brought by David Lowery (of Cracker and Camper van Beethoven) and Melissa Ferrick, stating it was "procedu...
|
| |
|
|
|
How Facebook Figures Out Everyone You've Ever Met
"I deleted Facebook after it recommended as People You May Know a man who was defense counsel on one of my cases. We had only communicated through my work email, which is not connected to my Facebook, which convinced me Facebook was scanning my work email," an attorney told Gizmodo. Kashmir Hill, a reporter at the news outlet, who recently documented how Facebook figured out a connection between her and a family member she did not know existed, shares several more instances others have reported and explains how Facebook gathers information. She reports:
Behind the Facebook profile you've built for yourself is another one, a shadow profile,...
|
| |
|
|
|
Mickey’s Headed to the Public Domain! But Will He Go Quietly?
http://copyright.nova.edu/mickey-public-domain/
In a little more than four years from now, the twenty year extension given to existing copyrights by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act will expire. Since copyright terms last through the end of the calendar year in which they first obtained copyright protection, 1 works will start going into the public domain as of January 1, 2019. As noted in a previous blog post, at the latest hearings before Congress on revisions to the Copyright Act, not one Representative and not one witness invited to testify put forth the proposition that copyright terms should be extended yet aga...
|
| |
|
|
|
Stephen Hawking Warns That AI and 'Superhumans' Could Wipe Humanity; Says There's No God in Posthumous Book
Stephen Hawking says artificial intelligence will eventually become so advanced it will "outperform humans." The renowned physicist who died in March warns of both rises in advanced artificial intelligence and genetically-enhanced "superhumans" in a book published Tuesday. Hawking also weighed in on god, and aliens. From a report:
According to an excerpt of the book "Brief Answers to the Big Questions" published by the U.K.'s Sunday Times, Hawking wrote AI could prove "huge" to humanity so long as restrictions are in place to control how quickly it grows. "While primitive forms of a...
|
| |
|
|
|
Hacker Allegedly Steals $7.4 Million in Ethereum with Incredibly Simple Trick
Someone tricked would be investors during an ethereum ICO into sending their cryptocurrency to the wrong address.
A hacker has allegedly just stolen around $7.4 million dollars worth of ether, the cryptocurrency that underpins the app platform ethereum, by tricking victims into sending money to the wrong address during an Initial Coin Offering, or ICO. This is according to a company called Coindash that says its investors were sending their funds to a hacker.
...
|
| |