President Barack Obama's administration was expected from day one to be hard on piracy, and now another U.S. official believes China will be a "significant focus" of the Obama administration's anti-piracy experts.
Nominet, a UK-based company responsible for that country's web domain registry and in turn with aiding authorities with internet-based investigations into illicit activities, helped in the closure of around 3,000 websites according to several news outlets. While not a perfect comparison, the news bears a similarity to recent ICE/Department of Justice domain seizures, eliciting fears over censorship and lack of due process from some.
Newzbin2 is introducing a new client in an effort to work around the court-ordered website blocking that recently went into effect for the site. Newzbin2 staff isn’t discussing exactly how the new software client works but it appears to get around BT’s website block using a suite of techniques including encryption.
Just on the heels of the arrest of 5 Anonymous members in the UK on Thursday, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation was granted 40 search warrants in connection with DDoS attacks that occurred against several major US corporations during the past year.
Anti-piracy organisations around Europe probably thought they finally found the solution to piracy by getting court orders to block websites. The technique, in other countries called censoring, seemed so logical, if people can't get to large torrent sites they will download less, resulting in less piracy, and of course more money for them. They couldn't be more wrong.
Just days into 2012, and Anonymous has already made a new enemy. The group hacked the website of the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association this week, following it up with an info dump containing the personal information of 2,500 members.
Hot off a legal victory this summer against usenet index site Newzbin2, the Motion Picture Association has named its next target: another usenet called NZBsRus. The trade organization has fired the first shot, hitting the site with a cease-and-desist. However, the group doesn't plan on staying offline for long.
Co-founder of the Piratebay Gottfrid Svartholm has arrived in Sweden after his extradition by Cambodian authorities
Recently the Chancery Division of the British High Court ordered British ISP O2 to give up customer details related to a slew of IP addresses. Those IP addresses reportedly used BitTorrent clients to download porn created by the British Ben Dover Productions in addition to 12 smaller copyright holders.
If you thought LulzSec was just "in it for the lulz" then you may just be mistaken. It appears LulzSec has teamed up with Anonymous to target governments, banks, and large corporations. What's more, the group is calling for other hackers to unite under this cause which they have coined Operation AntiSec.
Microsoft released a new Xbox 360 update as the console maker continues to look for new ways to combat piracy. The new Xbox Live Dashboard also includes the AP 2.5 anti-piracy checker aimed at preventing pirated game play while redflagging some accounts for future bans.
As pundits, politicians and everyday U.S. citizens discuss the myriad possibilities broached by Senator Patrick Leahy's (D-VT) yet to be adopted PROTECT IP bill and fear the worst, web censorship continues unabated in China. A new scientific report attached some staggering statistics to the Chinese government's far-reaching efforts to block what it perceives as controversial or offensive material available for net denizens.
The United States Department of Justice’s (DOJ) handling of the Wikileaks investigation is drawing criticism not only from Anonymous, a vigilante activist group that has been fighting against censorship involving the leak of US diplomatic cables, but also from an 85 member European Parliament group known as the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.
Google finally unveiled its long-rumored cloud-based music player today, albeit in beta form. "Upload your personal music collection to listen anywhere, keep everything in sync, and forget the hassle of cables and files," boasts the Music Beta website. Marvin L. Berenson, Senior Vice President of BMI, would rather you didn't.
Yesterday, new court documents surfaced in the civil lawsuit against PS3 hacker George “GeoHot” Hotz, which accused him of both fleeing to South America and tampering with hard drive evidence he had been ordered to turn over for examination. Hotz denied those claims on his personal blog in the snarky tone he’s known for, but today official statements from one of Hotz’s attorneys has surfaced further explaining the situation.
Lately, we’ve been seeing several porn-producing movie studios using mass copyright infringement lawsuits in an attempt to get money from alleged file-sharers. One studio, however, is taking a bit of a different approach by giving illegal file-sharers a chance to turn themselves in and pay a reduced fine before a lawsuit is filed.
