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Anonymous Attacks MIT
January 23, 2013 by admin
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Anonymous goes after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) website after its president called for an internal investigation into what role it played in the prosecution of web activist Aaron Swartz.
MIT president Rafael Reif revealed the investigation in an email to staff that he sent out after hearing the news about Swartz’s death.
“I want to express very clearly that I and all of us at MIT are extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many. It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy,” he wrote.
“I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT’s involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it.”
Hacktivists from Anonymous defaced two MIT webpages in the wake of the announcement and turned them into memorials for Swartz.
Japan Goes After Online Piracy
Japan will enforce anti-’piracy’ laws that criminalize illegally downloading media files.
The penalties see downloaders running the risk of a two year stay in prison and a fine of up to about $25K, according to a BBC report.
The BBC reports that the enforcement proposal follows a lobbying campaign by the Japanese music
industry, adding that the penalties could apply even if someone has downloaded only a single file. The laws were passed two years ago, but so far have not been implemented.
Local rightsholders will be hoping that from now on the criminal penalties will be enforced, and in spades. They are the kind of sanctions that rightsholders dream of and are much stricter than the three-strikes policy in the US.
Anyone caught uploading is also treated more sternly, and could be jailed for as long as ten years.
Japan has a large market for media material, and its government apparently is bowing to protect the interests of rightsholders.
This past Summer the Japanese government ratified the draconian Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), despite it being rejected elsewhere.
IDL Goes Live
June 5, 2012 by admin
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The Internet has a cluster of superheroes ready to defend it, the Internet Defence League (IDL).
The IDL was set up by protest group Fight for the Future following the recent outbreak of web site blackouts that were launched to protest against legislation like SOPA and PIPA. It offers web sites a way to show that they are always ready to defend the internet against attack.
“The Internet Defense League takes the tactic that killed SOPA and PIPA and turns it into a permanent force for defending the internet, and making it better,” it says on its homepage. “Think of it like the internet’s Emergency Broadcast System, or its bat signal!”
Like those earlier protests, the idea is to get the more informed people, people that are actually operating internet properties, into the debate.
“Internet freedom and individual power are changing the course of history. But entrenched institutions and monopolies want this to stop,” explains the group. “Elected leaders often don’t understand the internet, so they’re easily confused or corrupted.”
Anyone that runs a web site is invited to join, and the idea is to get millions of people involved. Once they have joined the IDL they will be given software code to add to their web sites to show that they are members.
Xoom Tablets To Get Android 4.0
January 27, 2012 by admin
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Motorola Mobility has confirmed the Android Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade to the Xoom Wi-Fi tablet will arrive over-the-air via Wi-Fi to U.S.-based devices on Wednesday.
In addition to faster browser rendering, the free update lets users type via voice and includes a Data Manager tool for monitoring and controlling network data usage, something seen as especially helpful to reviewers of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone running Ice Cream Sandwich, also called Android 4.0.
Motorola called it the first tablet of its kind to receive the upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich, though the update for the Asus Transformer Prime tablet was distributed a week ago, as several bloggers, including Slashgear noticed.
GoDaddy To Drop SOPA Support
Giant domain name registrar GoDaddy.com has yanked its support from the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act after owners of several websites stated they would take their business elsewhere.
Negative feedback about SOPA from a number of customers forced GoDaddy to take a second look at the legislation, said Warren Adelman, Go Daddy’s newly appointed CEO. Go Daddy has concerns about the free speech and Internet security implications of the legislation, but until now, has worked with lawmakers to address those issues, he said.
“It’s clear to us the bill’s not ready in its current form,” Adelman said Friday. “Looking at this over the last 20 hours, we’re not seeing consensus in the Internet community, we’re hearing the feedback from our customers.”
On Thursday, Reddit user selfprodigy said he was pulling 51 domain names from GoDaddy because of the registrar’s support of SOPA. The same day, Ben Huh, CEO of the Cheezburger family of humor websites said said his company would move its 1,000-plus domains off Go Daddy unless it dropped its support for the bill, known as SOPA.
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