Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde has a new privacy-oriented startup. Today he launches the domain registration service Njalla, which offers site owners full anonymity, shielding them from the prying eyes of outsiders. “Think of us as your friendly drunk (but responsibly so) straw person that takes the blame for your expressions.”
Torrentfreak: Pirate Bay Founder Launches Anonymous Domain Registration Service »
The current proposal, which proposes even more obligations on video-sharing platforms, is horribly contradictory and unclear. It does contain, however, a reasonable amount of comedy, which is an innovation for the EU institutions. For example, this legislation on “audiovisual” content covers, on the basis of Parliament compromise amendments, “a set of moving images”, which would cover, for example, an animated GIF. (…)
On a more serious note, the proposal requires badly defined video-sharing platforms to take measures to protect children from content that would harm their “physical, mental or moral development” (“moral” added by the Parliament to various new parts of the Directive). This involves measures to restrict (undefined) legal content.
EDRi on the EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD): AVMS Directive – censorship by coercive comedy confusion »
Mirai, the botnet that threatened the Internet as we knew it last year with record-setting denial-of-service attacks, is facing an existential threat of its own: A competing botnet known as Hajime has infected at least 10,000 home routers, network-connected cameras, and other so-called Internet of Things devices.
Ars Technica: Vigilante botnet infects IoT devices before blackhats can hijack them »
In a speech Thursday at a Washington DC think tank, CIA Director Michael Pompeo called the whistleblower site WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service” and said news organizations that reveal the government’s crimes are “enemies” of the United States. (…)
Referring to WikiLeaks’ founder, Pompeo declared that “Julian Assange has no First Amendment freedoms.” (…)
In his remarks, Pompeo said, “We have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now.”
WSWS: CIA Director calls WikiLeaks an “enemy,” says Assange has “no First Amendment freedoms” »
Update, also read:
Techcrunch: Hypocritical CIA Director Goes On Rant About Wikileaks, Free Speech »
The Intercept: Trump’s CIA Director Pompeo, Targeting WikiLeaks, Explicitly Threatens Speech and Press Freedoms »
Reuters: Hacker documents show NSA tools for breaching global money transfer system »
Documents and computer files released by hackers provide a blueprint for how the U.S. National Security Agency likely used weaknesses in commercially available software to gain access to the global system for transferring money between banks, a review of the data showed.
On Friday, a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers released documents and files indicating NSA had accessed the SWIFT money-transfer system through service providers in the Middle East and Latin America. That release was the latest in a series of disclosures by the group in recent months.
Told you so.
Below, video from the hearings on NSA and mass surveillance in the European Parliament, 24 September 2013 – where Europol and many others try to steer clear of the SWIFT issue. (Some translation problems during a few minutes in the video, but it soon gets better.)
Facebook says it has targeted 30,000 fake accounts linked to France ahead of the country’s presidential election, as part of a worldwide effort against misinformation.
The company said Thursday it’s trying to “reduce the spread of material generated through inauthentic activity, including spam, misinformation, or other deceptive content that is often shared by creators of fake accounts.”
It said its efforts “enabled us to take action” against the French accounts and that it is removing sites with the highest traffic.
ABC News: Facebook targets 30,000 fake France accounts before election »
Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies today, CIA Director Mike Pompeo went off on WikiLeaks. Pompeo is pretty mad about that whole Vault 7 hacking tools data dump, it looks like. “WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service,” he declared Thursday. I think he means that it’s a hostile intelligence service!
Techcrunch: The CIA is really, really mad at WikiLeaks »
German Member of the European Parliament Julia Reda has published an open-letter signed by UK MEP Lucy Anderson, raising alarm at the fact that the W3C is on the brink of finalising a DRM standard for web video, which — thanks to crazy laws protecting DRM — will leave users at risk of unreported security vulnerabilities, and also prevent third parties from adapting browsers for the needs of disabled people, archivists, and the wider public.
Boingboing » MEP to Commission: World Wide Web Consortium’s DRM is a danger to Europeans »
French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has become the latest high-profile European politician to threaten U.S. tech companies over their use of end-to-end encryption, and for how digital platforms enable the spread of terrorist propaganda online.
Techcrunch: French presidential candidate Macron talks tough on tech firms over terrorism »
Once again, a senseless terror attack.
Once again, politicians are telling us that we must stand up for a free and open society.
Of course we must. But do they?
Western democracy is slowly being hollowed out. It’s getting ever more secretive and less transparent. Power is being centralized and is moving further away from the people. It is getting ever more difficult to participate in and to scrutinize the decision-making process. Free citizens are being reduced to subordinates.
Civil and human rights are being eroded – e.g. when it comes to the rule of law and the right to privacy.
Free speech is being curbed, the Internet is being censored and people are being told what to think. The so-called fake news is being fought by trying to limit free information instead of giving people more, different sources.
Of course, terrorists and religious fanatics are very real threats to a free and open society. But so are our politicians.
/ HAX
