The bill passed the U.S. Senate: it looks like your ISP will be allowed to just sell your browsing history. While the bill still needs to pass the House (the lower legislature in the U.S.) and the President’s signature, it seems increasingly likely to unfortunately do so. This doesn’t just mean that your privacy is commercialized – it also means that search-and-seizure is: the Police will be able to just buy your browsing history from your ISP, bypassing any privacy protections completely.
Quotes
EU to ISP:s: Scan and censor everything
Under the extreme rules proposed by the Commission in the Copyright Directive, uploads to the internet would need to be scanned to assess if any photo, video or text that is being uploaded can be “identified” based on information provided by copyright holders. This would block, for example, memes that include copyrighted images or videos, parody, quotation and other perfectly harmless activities.
In order to encourage internet companies to monitor and delete information as thoroughly as possible, it is also proposed that their legal liability for uploads would be increased.
EDRi: EU moves one step closer to the world’s worst internet filtering law »
Decrypt, or else…
Falkvinge:
An appeals court has denied the appeal of a person who is jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt files. The man has not been charged with anything, but was ordered to hand over the unencrypted contents on police assertion of what the contents were. When this can result in lifetime imprisonment under “contempt of court”, the United States has effectively outlawed file-level encryption – without even going through Congress.
Falkvinge: With appeals ruling, the United States has effectively outlawed file encryption »
Ars Technica: Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal »
Facebook, Twitter asked to help Pakistani government to sentence people to death
Pakistan has asked Facebook and Twitter to help identify Pakistanis suspected of blasphemy so it can prosecute them or pursue their extradition.
Under the country’s strict blasphemy laws, anyone found to have insulted Islam or the prophet Muhammad can be sentenced to death.
The Guardian: Pakistan asks Facebook and Twitter to help identify blasphemers »
Assange investigation held up by translation issues
A hold-up translating a key document is delaying a decision by Swedish prosecutors over whether to continue their investigation of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange on allegations of sexual assault.
The Swedish prosecutors said they would make a decision when they receive a full translation of the interview conducted with Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in November.
The prosecutors received the report from Ecuadorian authorities on January 5, and said that it is “almost completed.”
RT » Lost in translation: Swedish prosecutors explain bizarre delay in Assange investigation »
Stop the EU censorship machine!
EDRi has signed a joint open letter together with 27 other civil society organisations expressing concerns about European Commission’s copyright proposal. The proposal requires internet platforms to use automated upload filtering technologies. This obligation would impact negatively on free speech and democracy by building a system where citizens will face internet platforms blocking the upload of their content, even if it is a perfectly legal use of copyrighted content.
EDRi: Civil society urges EU institutions to stop the “censorship machine” in the copyright proposal »
Also, read » Copyright Directive: Lead MEP partly deletes the “censorship machine” »
Tim Berners-Lee on the future of the web
TBL:s three points of interest:
• We’ve lost control of our personal data
• It’s too easy for misinformation to spread on the web
• Political advertising online needs transparency and understanding
The Guardian » Tim Berners-Lee: I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it »
Wikileaks on CIA / Vault 7
“Year Zero” introduces the scope and direction of the CIA’s global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of “zero day” weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones. (…)
These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Wiebo, Confide and Cloackman by hacking the “smart” phones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.
Wikileaks » Vault 7: CIA Hacking Tools Revealed »
In defence of hacktivism
What is hacktivism (also spelled “hactivism” by some)? Simply stated, it is the subversive use of computers and computer networks to promote a political or social agenda.
Techcrunch: The dramatic rise in hacktivism »
TPB – ISP:s fight back
Swedish ISP Bredbandsbolaget has begun blocking The Pirate Bay but it will not give up the fight. The provider says that in order to ensure that private players “do not have the last word regarding content that should be accessible on the Internet,” it will be forced to fight any new blocking demands. Meanwhile, several of the blocked domains appear to be linking to legal sites.
Torrentfreak: ISP Blocks Pirate Bay But Vows to Fight Future Blocking Demands »