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Danish ISP:s stonewalling Big Entertainment

By on May 30, 2017 in Big Entertainment, Copyright, File Sharing, IPRED

Denmark’s ISPs are collectively putting their foot down and will no longer surrender identifying subscriber information to the copyright industry’s lawyer armies. This follows a ruling in neighboring Norway, where the Supreme Court ruled that ISP Telenor is under no obligation to surrender subscriber identities, observing that the infraction of the copyright distribution monopoly is not nearly a serious enough issue to breach telecommunications privacy. This has the potential to end a long time of copyright industry free reign in Denmark, and will likely create a long series of court cases.

Falkvinge: Danish ISPs stop providing copyright industry with subscriber identities »

Torrentfreak: Danish ISPs Stand Up Against ‘Mafia-Like’ Copyright Trolls »

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War on terror: We are doing it wrong

By on May 29, 2017 in Big Brother, Civil rights, Deep State, Human rights, Intelligence, Police state, Privacy, surveillance, UK, War on Terror

Time and time again it turns out that terrorists have been known to authorities before their attacks.

In the tragic Manchester case, there had been numerous reports on the perpetrator. But these warnings were ignored. (This also happened under PM Theresa Mays watch as UK Secretary of State for the Home Department.)

• Manchester attack: UK authorities missed several opportunities to stop suicide bomber Salman Abedi »
• Manchester Bomber Was Repeatedly Reported to Authorities Over Five Years »
• Manchester attacks: MI5 probes bomber ‘warnings’ »

Despite of this – governments insist that the way to fight terrorism is more mass surveillance, infringing on ordinary, decent peoples right to privacy.

This approach is counterproductive – and will make us all less safe.

Clearly, surveillance should be focused on people we have reason to believe are dangerous to others.

And most of these people can be identified, e.g. by their association with others or after having traveled to places of certain types of war and conflict.

Authorities refusal to take a reasonable approach to this issue raises questions about the real purpose of government surveillance schemes.

/ HAX

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UK to move against end-to-end encryption after general election

By on May 29, 2017 in Big Brother, Cryptography, Deep State, Privacy, UK

Once again there are indications the UK government intends to use the law to lean on encryption. A report in The Sun this week quoted a Conservative minister saying that should the government be re-elected, which polls suggest it will, it will move quickly to compel social media firms to hand over decrypted data.

Techcrunch: Could the UK be about to break end-to-end encryption? »

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G7 Group unite to limit free speech

By on May 26, 2017 in Big Brother, Big Data, Big Government, Censorship, Civil rights, Deep State, Democracy, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Global Politics, Human rights, Internet, Police state, Rule of law, social media

Dear all,

Please take notice that the G7 meeting just decided to beef up censorship and control of the Internet.

If you make censorship possible at all – sooner or later it will be used by sinister minds.

Please – do not limit the freedom of speech. We cannot silence or put people in prison, simply because we do not agree with whatever they are saying. (Unless they are a direct threat to other people’s immediate security. And if so, only after a fair trial respecting fundamental human rights.)

Giving Big Government and Big Data control over the freedom of the word – that must not happen.

/ HAX

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When subtitles attack

By on May 26, 2017 in IT security

Check Point researchers revealed a new attack vector which threatens millions of users worldwide – attack by subtitles. By crafting malicious subtitle files, which are then downloaded by a victim’s media player, attackers can take complete control over any type of device via vulnerabilities found in many popular streaming platforms, including VLC, Kodi (XBMC), Popcorn-Time and strem.io. We estimate there are approximately 200 million video players and streamers that currently run the vulnerable software, making this one of the most widespread, easily accessed and zero-resistance vulnerability reported in recent years.

Checkpoint: Hacked in Translation – from Subtitles to Complete Takeover »

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EU member states pushing for video censorship and cultural protectionism

By on May 26, 2017 in Big Brother, Censorship, Civil rights, EU, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, social media

In the EU, member states are pressing on for censorship of online video:

European Union ministers have approved proposals to make social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube tackle videos with hate speech on their platforms.

The proposals, which would be the first legislation at EU level on the issue, still need to be agreed with the European Parliament before becoming law.

And, under the same scheme, there is a totally unrelated proposal for cultural protectionism:

The proposals also include a quota of 30 per cent of European films and TV shows on video streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

Member states will also be able to require video-sharing platforms to contribute financially to the production of European works in the country where they are established and also where they target audiences.

Daily Mail: EU ministers approve plans to force Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to tackle hate speech videos »

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Open letter to the EU on German »NetzDG «

By on May 24, 2017 in Censorship, Civil rights, Democracy, EU, Free Information, Germany, Rule of law, social media

This bill asks social media companies to take down content, including perfectly legal material, that social media companies like Facebook can arbitrarily label as “hate speech”, “fake news”, “pornographic content”, among other categories. In addition, the draft law de facto imposes filtering of content, despite the fact that such technology cannot understand context and will, therefore, inevitably lead to still more legal content being deleted. The basic aim of the bill is, of course, well-intentioned. However, the way this bill is drafted appoints social media companies as arbiters of legality and “the truth”. Furthermore, this bill breaches EU law, which establishes that all restrictions to fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, must be provided for by law, necessary and proportionate (Article 52 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union). In addition, EU law also prohibits imposing general monitoring obligations on companies. If adopted, this unprecedented law would serve as a bad example for other states, including countries with serious democratic deficits.

EDRi » EU action needed: German NetzDG draft threatens freedom of expression »

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