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until this afternoon, the final vote on CISPA was supposed to be tomorrow. Then, abruptly, it was moved up today—and the House voted in favor of its passage with a vote of 248-168. But that's not even the worst part.
The vote followed the debate on amendments, several of which were passed. Among them was an absolutely terrible change (pdf and embedded below—scroll to amendment #6) to the definition of what the government can do with shared information, put forth by Rep. Quayle. Astonishingly, it was described as limiting the government's power, even though it in fact expands it by adding more items to the list of acceptable purposes for which shared information can be used. Even more astonishingly, it passed with a near-unanimous vote. The CISPA that was just approved by the House is much worse than the CISPA being discussed as recently as this morning.
Previously, CISPA allowed the government to use information for "cybersecurity" or "national security" purposes. Those purposes have not been limited or removed. Instead, three more valid uses have been added: investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity crime, protection of individuals, and protection of children. Cybersecurity crime is defined as any crime involving network disruption or hacking, plus any violation of the CFAA.
Basically this means CISPA can no longer be called a cybersecurity bill at all. The government would be able to search information it collects under CISPA for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as they can claim someone committed a "cybersecurity crime". Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all. Moreover, the government could do whatever it wants with the data as long as it can claim that someone was in danger of bodily harm, or that children were somehow threatened—again, notwithstanding absolutely any other law that would normally limit the government's power.
Somehow, incredibly, this was described as limiting CISPA, but it accomplishes the exact opposite. This is very, very bad.
There were some good amendments adopted too—clarifying some definitions, including the fact that merely violating a TOS does not constitute unauthorized network access—but frankly none of them matter in the light of this change. CISPA is now a completely unsupportable bill that rewrites (and effectively eliminates) all privacy laws for any situation that involves a computer. Far from the defense against malevolent foreign entities that the bill was described as by its authors, it is now an explicit attack on the freedoms of every American.until this afternoon, the final vote on CISPA was supposed to be tomorrow. Then,... more
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By Eric W. Dolan
Thursday, April 26, 2012 18:12 EDT
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) on Thursday compared controversial cyber security legislation to George Orwell’s famous dystopian novel 1984.
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) would authorize Internet companies, such as Internet service providers and social networking sites, to share private online communications and other data about possible attacks with federal agencies.
“This bill would grant the government broad authority to share information between intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and use it for virtually any purpose defined as important to ‘cyber security or national security,’” Johnson said on the House floor. “I know it’s 2012, but it sure feels like 1984 in this House today.”
The legislation is meant to address the growing threat of cyber attacks on U.S. infrastructure. But critics like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation say the bill goes too far and essentially permits mass surveillance.
“If you value liberty, privacy and the Constitution, then you will vote no on CISPA,” Johnson said.
The House passed the bill on Thursday night.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/26/rep-hank-johnson-compares-cispa-to-1984/
Watch video, uploaded to YouTube...
"Thanks for your effort Mr. Johnson, it seems it's All over but the Crying, and BO is asking for four more Years???" =(By Eric W. Dolan
Thursday, April 26, 2012 18:12 EDT
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) on... more
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National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney reveals he believes domestic surveillance has become more expansive under President Obama than President George W. Bush. He estimates the NSA has assembled 20 trillion “transactions” — phone calls, emails and other forms of data — from Americans. This likely includes copies of almost all of the emails sent and received from most people living in the United States. Binney talks about Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and challenges NSA Director Keith Alexander’s assertion that the NSA is not intercepting information about U.S. citizens.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/whistleblower_the_nsa_is_lying_usNational Security Agency whistleblower William Binney reveals he believes domestic... more
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CISPA may become law within DAYS; 112 co-sponsors in Congress now. If it does, you can kiss your privacy goodbye.CISPA may become law within DAYS; 112 co-sponsors in Congress now. If it does, you can... more
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The time to fight back against the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is now. Here's everything you need to know to get started.
The window to stop the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is closing fast. Starting as early as Monday, the House of Representatives will begin debate on the cybersecurity bill, which many rights advocates believe remains one of the most dangerous piece of legislation on the current congressional agenda. Reports indicate that lawmakers will vote on the bill Wednesday, April 25, or Thursday, April 26. That leaves precious little time to convince Members of the House to vote “nay” on CISPA. Here is a quick guide to get your up to speed on the issues surrounding CISPA, and ways you can help fight back.
What CISPA is
CISPA, officially known as H.R. 3523, is a cybersecurity bill currently in the House of Representatives that makes it easier for the government to share classified “cyber threat intelligence” with private companies, and for private companies to share information with the government. Neither side is required to share anything, but the bill makes it legal for them to do so.
The stated goal is to better protect both the government and the private sector from “cyber threats.”
CISPA was co-authored by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D-MD). It currently has 112 co-sponsors in the House.
One of the best things you can do to help fight CISPA is to actually read it; don’t worry, it’s really short. Read all the bills, amendments, and “discussion drafts” of CISPA here.
(Links to bills here: http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/cispa-vote-coming-next-week-how-to-fight-back-now/ )
Talking points
The first key to convincing Congress, or even the people you know, to oppose CISPA is to know what you’re talking about. These are the primary concerns with the bill, which you should include in any letter, email, or phone conversation you have with your representative, or anyone else you want to convert to the anti-CISPA camp:
• CISPA effectively allows the federal government and corporations to “spy” on citizens. One of the main problems with CISPA is that its intentionally broad language gives corporations both the ability and incentive to share almost any type of information they like with the federal government. It also allows the government to use the information in an almost unlimited fashion.
Yes, the bill does contain limitations on the types of information that may be shared (namely: data related to “cyber threats” or “national security”), but the ambiguities of these terms render these limits completely meaningless. Because of this, private communication, like email or messages sent privately through social networks, could be considered fair game. And nothing in the bill requires companies to strip shared information of personally identifiable details — something other cybersecurity bills mandate.
• Information shared under CISPA could be used for almost any purpose. Despite what CISPA supporters want you to believe, the legislation effectively provides no limits for the types of information that may be shared under the bill. As mentioned above, this is because the bill uses overly broad language to define the relevant terms.
• CISPA could put your data in the hands of the military — and out of reach of public oversight. According to the bill, all information will flow into the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which will then pass on the data to other parts of the government. This could mean organizations like the National Security Agency (NSA), which is a military organization, and thus has practically no civilian oversight. Traditionally, the DHS — a civilian organization that is subject to public oversight — handles the government’s cybersecurity operations. CISPA could change all that.
• If a company mishandles your data, it is nearly impossible to sue them and win. CISPA gives explicit immunity to companies who hand over data to the government, as long as that data is used from some cybersecurity or national security purpose. It also overrides all other laws pertaining to privacy and the sharing of individuals’ information. If, however, you (somehow) discover that your information was shared or used improperly, successfully winning a lawsuit against the company responsible is nearly impossible. That’s because, under CISPA, a company must willfully engage in an “act or omission” that was made:
(I) Intentionally to achieve a wrongful purpose;
(II) knowingly without legal or factual justification; and
(III) in disregard of a known or obvious risk that is so great as to make it highly probable that the harm of the act or omission will outweigh the benefit.
That’s right — the company must meet all of those criteria to be liable, not just one of them.
So, these are the primary complaints. But if you want to truly educate yourself on this bill, I suggest checking out all of these links:
• Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) CISPA resource page
• Chart comparing CISPA to other cybersecurity legislation (pdf)
• Electronic Frontier Foundation’s infographic on CISPA
• Groups opposing CISPA
• Groups supporting CISPA
Other CISPA notes:
• Opposing this legislation is not the same thing as opposing greater protections against cyber attacks. The problem with CISPA is how it could be abused or misinterpreted — not necessarily with its stated goal of protecting all of us against cyberattacks. The CDT supports the PRECISE Act (H.R. 3674), an alternative cybersecurity bill, which you can read about here.
• Please, do not compare CISPA to SOPA. These two bills have almost nothing to do with each other, save the fact that they are related to the Internet, and a lot of people are against CISPA , as they were with SOPA. Drawing parallels between CISPA and SOPA only muddles the anti-CISPA message, and gives supporters an entirely irrelevant reason to disregard what you have to say about the bill.The time to fight back against the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act... more
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It’s quite sad for me to say that over 3 million businesses in the United States represented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, not to mention 800+ other major corporations (see below list), all have shown their support for the disturbing legislation known as CISPA, or the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.
This long list includes corporations like Google, Facebook, AT&T, Verizon, Microsoft, IBM, Boeing, Intel, the Financial Services Roundtable, Lockheed Martin, Qualcomm, Northrop Grumman, VeriSign, Symantec, Oracle, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the Internet Security Alliance, the information Technology Industry Council, the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance, Cyber, the Space & Intelligence Association, CTIA – the Wireless Association, the Business Roundtable and more (all of which are listed below).
Please take a moment out of your day to either share this article or at least the list of corporations behind this legislation in order to help coordinate a boycott effort.
I believe it would also be beneficial to call them repeatedly (inundating their phone lines can be a major headache), shower them with emails, letters, etc. all in an attempt to get them to back away from CISPA.
Widespread protest efforts were quite successful in bringing down the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), but now we have to keep in mind that many of the corporations who were anti-SOPA are actually pro-CISPA.
This means that the public will have to be engaged to a much more significant degree in order to have an impact even remotely comparable to what we saw in opposition to SOPA and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).
The real reason that corporations who were against SOPA and PIPA but are now behind CISPA is because, unlike the previous legislation, it removes all liability from the corporations and shifts the regulatory pressure away from the company.
SOPA actually required private corporations to keep tabs on all of their user activity and made them liable for their users and their activities.
CISPA, on the other hand, shifts that responsibility away from the private corporations completely and hands that role over to a government entity.
This makes it so corporations are protected from lawsuits from a user who has their private information given to the government under CISPA.
Now I’m sure you can see why companies like Google (which protested SOPA in a quite visible manner) and Facebook (which also voiced opposition to SOPA) are champing at the bit to get behind CISPA.
“CISPA would allow ISPs, social networking sites and anyone else handling Internet communications to monitor users and pass information to the government without any judicial oversight,” according to the Activism Director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Rainey Reitman. “The language of this bill is dangerously vague, so that personal online activity — from the mundane to the intimate — could be implicated.”
What exactly does “dangerously vague” mean, you ask? Well, the EFF has done a fantastic job of explaining exactly what they mean.
CISPA would allow “access to any information regarding a ‘cyber threat’ is granted to the government, privacy security agencies and private companies.”
CISPA’s definition of a “cyber threat” is as follows:
Efforts to disrupt or destroy government or private systems or networks.
Theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information.
In this context, misappropriation means “wrongful borrowing” and intellectual property means anything protected by a copyright including programs like Photoshop and Microsoft Office, MP3s, television shows and movies, and absolutely anything in between.
The purposefully vague language of CISPA leaves room for abuse in the following ways (according to this informative infographic from the EFF):
The government, private security agencies (think HB Gary and many more), and private companies (which are already being brought into the fold) acting in “good faith” actually means maybe you did it (whatever it allegedly may be).
These entities can share “cyber threat information” which, in reality, is your personal information with other private companies, private security agencies and government entities.
They can do this all with total anonymity, meaning that they don’t have to tell you what they’re doing or if they’re sending your information to someone or even who they are sending it to.
It also gives these entities immunity to legal action, which means that you can’t take action against any of them, even if they made a mistake with your information.
The EFF graphic aptly sums it up by saying, “Privacy policy? LOL.”
More: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/04/800-major-corporations-and-us-chamber.htmlIt’s quite sad for me to say that over 3 million businesses in the United States... more
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By Stephanie Whiteside / current.com
The latest concern over government intrusion into electronic privacy comes in the form of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011, or CISPA, which is nearing a vote in the House of Representatives.
CISPA is designed to facilitate communication between private entities and the government around cybersecurity and national security, allowing the sharing of information to combat threats to national security. But opponents are concerned that the bill is so broadly worded it could have unintended consequences for privacy.
By Stephanie Whiteside / current.com
The latest concern over government intrusion... more
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Congress is rolling out the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and related legislation in a set of votes next week under the banner of “Cybersecurity Week.”
“Stop Cyber Spying Week” is the ACLU and other rights organizations' response to the legislation, which would allow online companies to share information collected about you to the government.
The companies that’d be sending the information to the government, predictably, aren’t opposing CISPA with the same vigor as they did SOPA. Nevertheless, the ACLU and others hope to be able to replicate the online activism that led to SOPA’s demise.
CISPA’s supporters assert the program is for “voluntary” information sharing between private companies and the government’s security apparatus. These companies collect a lot of private information from their consumers, and the government, it would seem, would simply want access to this information for national security purposes.
This “voluntary” information sharing program comes in the wake of a recent rules change at the National Counterterrorism Center that allows the government to hold records collected on you for five years, ten times the previous 180 day limit, whether or not you’re the target of an investigation or suspected of anything criminal at all. It could explain why the NSA’s latest “surveillance hub” is a $2 billion, 1,000,000 square foot project.
SOPA was roundly criticized for letting media companies and the government team up to shut down websites accused of copyright infringement without due process. CISPA, on the other hand, merely formalizes the relationship between the government’s security apparatus and the private companies we willingly share our private information with. But CISPA erodes the right to due process as well. After all, who needs a warrant when the sharing is voluntary?
http://reason.com/blog/2012/04/16/civil-libertarians-launch-campaign-againCongress is rolling out the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and... more
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In the wake of SOPA and PIPA, there is yet another terrifying bill on the table. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (or CISPA for short) which is currently being discussed by Congress.
In Washington, Congress is discussing the best way to avert the ongoing cyberattacks and some legislators have put forward a new act which, if it passes Congress, will allow the government access to personal correspondence of any person of their choosing.
Much like the Big Brother tactics in the United Kingdom recently, this bill will likely cause an outcry of condemnation and criticism, as happened with the deceased SOPA and PIPA bills.
The title of this controversial act is H.R. 3523 and it has been dubbed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (or CISPA for short). It is feared that CISPA is far worse than SOPA and PIPA in its possible effects on the Internet.
While this paper has been created under the guise of being a necessary weapon in the U.S. war against cyberattacks, the wording of the paper is vague and broad. It is thought that the act could allow Congress to circumvent existing exemptions to online privacy laws and would allow the monitoring and censorship of any user and also stop online communications which they deem disruptive to the government or to private parties.
Critics say that CISPA would give any federal entity that claims it is threatened by online interactions the ability to take action against the "perpetrator". Unlike the SOPA and PIPA acts which were eventually discarded after a successful online campaign, widespread recognition of what the latest proposed law will do has yet to surface to the same degree.
Kendall Burman of the Center for Democracy and Technology tells RT:
“We have a number of concerns with something like this bill that creates sort of a vast hole in the privacy law to allow government to receive these kinds of information.”
She states that the bill, as it stands, allows the U.S. government to involve itself in any online correspondence if it believes there is reason to suspect cyber crime.
As with other recent attempts at Internet censorship that have been discussed in Congress, the wording within the CISPA allows the government to interpret the law so broadly, that any online communication or interaction could then be suspect, and monitored without the knowledge of the parties concerned.
The CDT in a press release last month warned that CISPA allows Internet Service Providers to “funnel private communications and related information back to the government without adequate privacy protections and controls. The bill does not specify which agencies ISPs could disclose customer data to, but the structure and incentives in the bill raise a very real possibility that the National Security Agency or the DOD’s Cybercommand would be the primary recipient.”
CISPA has also been condemned by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online advocacy group. They say that “It effectively creates a ‘cybersecurity'’ exemption to all existing laws. There are almost no restrictions on what can be collected and how it can be used, provided a company can claim it was motivated by ‘cybersecurity purposes'.” ...
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http://digitaljournal.com/article/322396In the wake of SOPA and PIPA, there is yet another terrifying bill on the table. The... more
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On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet. Dozens of countries, including Russia and China, are pushing hard to reach this goal by year’s end. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last June, his goal and that of his allies is to establish "international control over the Internet" through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a treaty-based organization under U.N. auspices.
If successful, these new regulatory proposals would upend the Internet’s flourishing regime, which has been in place since 1988. That year, delegates from 114 countries gathered in Australia to agree to a treaty that set the stage for dramatic liberalization of international telecommunications. This insulated the Internet from economic and technical regulation and quickly became the greatest deregulatory success story of all time.
Since the Net’s inception, engineers, academics, user groups and others have convened in bottom-up nongovernmental organizations to keep it operating and thriving through what is known as a "multi-stakeholder" governance model. This consensus-driven private-sector approach has been the key to the Net’s phenomenal success.
In 1995, shortly after it was privatized, only 16 million people used the Internet world-wide. By 2011, more than two billion were online—and that number is growing by as much as half a million every day. This explosive growth is the direct result of governments generally keeping their hands off the Internet sphere.
Net access, especially through mobile devices, is improving the human condition more quickly—and more fundamentally—than any other technology in history. Nowhere is this more true than in the developing world, where unfettered Internet technologies are expanding economies and raising living standards.
Farmers who live far from markets are now able to find buyers for their crops through their Internet-connected mobile devices without assuming the risks and expenses of traveling with their goods. Worried parents are able to go online to locate medicine for their sick children. And proponents of political freedom are better able to share information and organize support to break down the walls of tyranny.
The Internet has also been a net job creator. A recent McKinsey study found that for every job disrupted by Internet connectivity, 2.6 new jobs are created. It is no coincidence that these wonderful developments blossomed as the Internet migrated further away from government control.
Today, however, Russia, China and their allies within the 193 member states of the ITU want to renegotiate the 1988 treaty to expand its reach into previously unregulated areas. Reading even a partial list of proposals that could be codified into international law next December at a conference in Dubai is chilling:
• Subject cyber security and data privacy to international control;
• Allow foreign phone companies to charge fees for "international" Internet traffic, perhaps even on a "per-click" basis for certain Web destinations, with the goal of generating revenue for state-owned phone companies and government treasuries;
• Impose unprecedented economic regulations such as mandates for rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated traffic-swapping agreements known as "peering."
• Establish for the first time ITU dominion over important functions of multi-stakeholder Internet governance entities such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit entity that coordinates the .com and .org Web addresses of the world;
• Subsume under intergovernmental control many functions of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Society and other multi-stakeholder groups that establish the engineering and technical standards that allow the Internet to work;
• Regulate international mobile roaming rates and practices.
Many countries in the developing world, including India and Brazil, are particularly intrigued by these ideas. Even though Internet-based technologies are improving billions of lives everywhere, some governments feel excluded and want more control.
And let’s face it, strong-arm regimes are threatened by popular outcries for political freedom that are empowered by unfettered Internet connectivity. They have formed impressive coalitions, and their efforts have progressed significantly....
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=18658On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new... more
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"On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet. Dozens of countries, including Russia and China, are pushing hard to reach this goal by year's end. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last June, his goal and that of his allies is to establish "international control over the Internet" through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a treaty-based organization under U.N. auspices.""On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new... more
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A new law gives police stronger powers to track what Canadians do online, but raises concern from the privacy watchdog about "warrantless access to personal information."
The Conservative government says the draft law it unveiled on Tuesday aims at hunting down pedophiles or other criminals by giving police, the country’s spy agency and the Competition Bureau increased access to customer data from Internet service providers.
Law enforcers will no longer need a warrant to ask internet providers to hand over "identifying information" such as names, addresses, email addresses, unlisted phone numbers and IP addresses.
Ottawa says it is simply modernizing its crime-fighting tools and notes that that similar laws are already in place in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
But Chantal Bernier, the assistant privacy commissioner of Canada, said the bill raised serious concerns.
"There is an outstanding issue that to us remains of concern and that is that it still allows warrantless access to personal information ... and it’s not framed either in terms of suspicions of criminal activity or in the context of a criminal investigation," Bernier told Reuters.
"It’s wide open and so it could impact on any law-abiding Canadian," she said.
The government named the bill "protecting children from internet predators act", framing it as a new tool to end frustrating delays police face when they seek to track suspects’ online activities.
The opposition New Democrats and other critics say a warrant should be required, otherwise authorities can abuse their new powers and snoop on anyone without any oversight or justification.
The opposition is vigorously fighting the bill, but the Conservatives have a majority in the House of Commons, so are likely to get the bill passed in one form or another.
Public Safety Minister responded to critics in Parliament on Tuesday by saying that people "can either stand with us or with the child pornographers."...
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http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=18602A new law gives police stronger powers to track what Canadians do online, but raises... more
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The raid that ravaged Megaupload was just the start. A powerful trade group that lists the biggest names in the entertainment biz as its members has called-out dozens of countries in their latest report and is insisting on sanctions against them.
The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has submitted its annual watch list to the Office of the US Trade Representative, and in it they single out Canada, China, Russia and India — as well as over 30 other countries — for allegedly failing to do all they can to protect the intellectual property rights of American entertainers.
The review, the 2012 Special 301 Report, was filed with the USTR last week and warns the federal office that numerous nations allegedly “deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights or that deny fair and equitable market access to US persons who rely on intellectual property protection.”
As a response for these allegations, the IIPA suggests that the trade office take actions that range from increasing prosecution sentences for search engine operators, create legal incentives for cooperating Internet Service Providers and, in some cases, force foreign ISPs to block users access to questionable site altogether.The raid that ravaged Megaupload was just the start. A powerful trade group that lists... more
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Patent Troll Claims Ownership of Interactive Web – And Might Win
Copyrights and Patents
The mother of all patent troll trials unfolds in Texas where Google, Amazon and Adobe are fighting a patent claiming ownership over online video, image rotation and search auto-complete. We explain and start a series.
TYLER, Texas — The city of Tyler, Texas, is better known as the nation’s “rose capital” than as a hotspot of the technology industry. It’s a quiet, conservative city of about 100,000, full of wide streets and big trucks.
This week, though, Tyler is the site of a remarkable battle over the history of the World Wide Web — a trial that could affect the future of e-commerce. The federal courthouse downtown is packed to the brim with dozens of lawyers, representing the world’s biggest internet companies, including Yahoo, Amazon, Google and YouTube.
A succession of pioneers of the early web — including the web’s father, Tim Berners-Lee himself — have flown in from around the world to denounce two software patents they believe threaten the future of web innovation. East Texas has transformed itself into something of a haven for patent suits over the past several years, but by any standard, the trial now underway is an extraordinary circus of dark suits.
How did all the trouble start?
Michael Doyle, a low-profile Chicago biologist, claims that it was actually he and two co-inventors who invented — and patented — the “interactive web” before anyone else, while they were employed by the University of California back in 1993. Doyle argues that a program he created at the UC’s San Francisco campus, which allowed doctors to view embryos over the nascent World Wide Web, was the first program that allowed users to interact with images inside of a web browser window. The defendants hotly contest that, saying that it was programs like Pei-Yuan Wei’s pioneering Viola that first offered this functionality.
Today, Doyle and his lawyers say he’s owed royalty payments for the use of a stunning array of modern web technologies. Watching online video, having a “search suggestion” pop up in a search bar, or even rotating an image of a sweater you might want to buy on an online shopping site — all are said to infringe on the idea-space of Doyle and his company, Eolas Technologies.
To those who follow high-profile tech litigation, the name Eolas may sound familiar. The company sued Microsoft back in 1999, winning a $521 million jury verdict in 2003 that shook the tech world. While that verdict was overturned on appeal, Microsoft ultimately settled rather than re-try the case. The full settlement amount wasn’t disclosed, but the University of California revealed that its cut was $30.4 million; since an Eolas lawyer at one point described UC’s take as 25 percent, minus expenses, it suggests the company got well over $100 million from that case.
The Microsoft verdict got the attention of tech community in a big way. Eolas was denounced in some quarters as a “patent troll” — the company has never launched its own web browser, or any commercially successful technology that’s well known, for that matter.
Groups that felt the impact of the patent started to take action. The W3C, the global web standards group, contacted the patent office directly, sending a letter signed by Berners-Lee warning that unless the Eolas patent was invalidated it would cause the “disruption of global web standards” and cause “substantial economic and technical damage to the operation of the World Wide Web.”
But while the PTO initially rejected the Eolas patent claims in reexams, Doyle and his lawyers were dogged in insisting they had the right to some kind of patent claim. The office ultimately reversed course — a fact now being trumpeted to an East Texas jury by Eolas’ lawyers.
Eolas’ lawyers have actually used the struggle against the patent to bolster their claim that it’s an important invention. Mike McKool, the lead lawyer for Eolas, told the jury during opening statements that tech companies have been attacking the patent ever since 1995 — when it was still three years away from issuing.
Eolas Becomes Texan to Pursue a New Suit
By the time Eolas settled its case against Microsoft in 2007, the business of “patent trolling” had begun to coalesce around a few popular venues, most notably the small towns of East Texas.
While the Microsoft suit was underway, the company applied for a second patent, which it received on Oct. 6, 2009. The same day, Eolas filed suit — in East Texas — against more than 20 big companies, including Apple, Playboy, Perot Systems, Blockbuster, Citigroup, eBay, and Frito-Lay — all for using the “interactive web.”
Most of those companies settled; eight remain as defendants. In addition to the internet companies mentioned above, GoDaddy, JC Penney, Staples, and CDW Corp are in the case. In documents filed last month, Eolas lawyers said they will seek damages of more than $600 million against those eight companies, with more than half of it coming from Google and Yahoo.Next post
Patent Troll Claims Ownership of Interactive Web – And Might Win... more
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Iran blocked Tor handshakes using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) in January 2011 and September 2011. Bluecoat tested out a Tor handshake filter in Syria in June 2011. China has been harvesting and blocking IP addresses for both public Tor relays and private Tor bridges for years.
Roger Dingledine and Jacob Appelbaum will talk about how exactly these governments are doing the blocking, both in terms of what signatures they filter in Tor (and how we’ve gotten around the blocking in each case), and what technologies they use to deploy the filters -- including the use of Western technology to operate the surveillance and censorship infrastructure in Tunisia (Smartfilter), Syria (Bluecoat), and other countries. We’ll cover what we’ve learned about the mindset of the censor operators (who in many cases don’t want to block Tor because they use it!), and how we can measure and track the wide-scale censorship in these countries. Last, we’ll explain Tor’s development plans to get ahead of the address harvesting and handshake DPI arms races....
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http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=18110Iran blocked Tor handshakes using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) in January 2011 and... more
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While many sports fans are preparing for Sunday’s Super Bowl by organizing parties and shopping for TVs, the U.S. government is preparing in a different way. Just yesterday, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency seized 307 different domains suspected of violating NFL copyrights. Of those, 16 were suspected of illegal streaming. The rest were allegedly selling counterfeit NFL merchandise....
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http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=18459While many sports fans are preparing for Sunday’s Super Bowl by organizing... more
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By Elizabeth Leafloor | RedIceCreations. com
In a bid to keep its servers out of the hands of global jurisdictions and evade prosecution, WikiLeaks has been allegedly reported as looking into ways to relocate the servers to offshore data centres.
Wikileaks’ servers have been based in many different countries such as France, Iceland and Sweden, and while the authorities have been so far unable to shut them down permanently, obviously they’re a prime target in the seemingly global fight against WikiLeaks and founder Julian Assange.
In an ’exclusive’ by Fox News , unnamed sources "within the hacker community" suggest:
"...Assange’s financial backers have been working behind the scenes on the logistics of moving the servers to international waters.
"Then they can keep running WikiLeaks and nobody can touch them,” one source told FoxNews .com. “If you get a certain distance away from any land, then you’re dealing with maritime law ... They can’t prosecute him under maritime law. He’s safe. He’s not an idiot, he’s actually very smart."
FoxNews suggests a likely location may be the Principality of Sealand.
"... a rusty, World War II-era, former anti-aircraft platform off the coast of England in the North Sea. Based on a 1968 British court ruling that the facility is outside the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, Sealand’s owner has declared the facility a sovereign state, or “micro-nation.”
And while this move has been unconfirmed, it has been widely suspected that housing the servers in international waters will legally keep global authority’s hands off the sensitive information, and keep it online....
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http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=18419By Elizabeth Leafloor | RedIceCreations. com
In a bid to keep its servers out of... more
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Computer hackers plan to take the internet beyond the reach of censors by putting their own communication satellites into orbit.
The scheme was outlined at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.
The project’s organisers said the Hackerspace Global Grid will also involve developing a grid of ground stations to track and communicate with the satellites.
Longer term they hope to help put an amateur astronaut on the moon.
Hobbyists have already put a few small satellites into orbit - usually only for brief periods of time - but tracking the devices has proved difficult for low-budget projects.
The hacker activist Nick Farr first put out calls for people to contribute to the project in August. He said that the increasing threat of internet censorship had motivated the project.
"The first goal is an uncensorable internet in space. Let’s take the internet out of the control of terrestrial entities," Mr Farr said....
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http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=18093Computer hackers plan to take the internet beyond the reach of censors by putting... more
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Global Internet censorship is here. SOPA and PIPA have been stopped (at least for now) in the United States, but a treaty known as ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is far worse than either of them. ACTA was quietly signed by Barack Obama back on October 1st, 2011 and most Americans have never even heard of it. But it could mean the end of the Internet as we know it. This new treaty gives foreign governments and copyright owners incredibly broad powers. If you are alleged to have violated a copyright, your website can be shut down without a trial and police may even show up at your door to take you to prison. It doesn't even have to be someone in the United States that is accusing you. It could just be a foreign government or a copyright owner halfway across the world that alleges that you have violated a copyright. It doesn't matter. So far, the U.S., the EU and seven other nations have signed on to ACTA, and the number of participants is expected to continue to grow. The "powers that be" are obsessed with getting Internet censorship one way or another. The open and free Internet that you and I have been enjoying for all these years is about to change, and not for the better.Global Internet censorship is here. SOPA and PIPA have been stopped (at least for... more
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