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[News] [Rival] Governments Crack Down on Free Speech

  • Subject: [News] [Rival] Governments Crack Down on Free Speech
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:54:03 +0100
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Organization: Netscape / schestowitz.com
  • User-agent: KNode/0.10.4
Report highlights blog censorship

,----[ Quote ]
| Bloggers are now finding themselves prey to censorship from repressive 
| governments as much as journalists in traditional media, a report says. 
`----

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/7047336.stm

They like the principles of free speech, until it's too loud and until it
reveals too much fraud. And there's this older one too, which could lead to
suppression or silencing of UseNet...

RIAA tries to pull plug on Usenet. Seriously.

http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9798715-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Non-'casual' bloggers win legal shield in House

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9798330-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

That's in response to Dubya's attempt to shut up critics that can't afford
defence.

Censoring blogs, various sites, streams, torrent, P2P... what's next? IRC? The
whole Internet and anything that can transmit packets?

An then there's eavesdropping, with censorship-loving companies like AT&T,
which shill for the Establishment (links below).

Phone Companies Refuse to Provide Data on Spy Program (Update1) 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aayJQwEy8Xw4&refer=politics


Related:

AT&T admits it censored other bands

,----[ Quote
| It looks like Pearl Jam isn't the only band that has had its politically 
| charged comments bleeped from concerts streamed from AT&T's Blue Room Web 
| site.  
| 
| [...]
| 
| AT&T quickly apologized for the incident and blamed the company that handles 
| the Webcasting for performances on Blue Room. 
`----

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9759184-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20


AT&T slams Google over open-access wireless proposal

,----[ Quote ]
| AT&T has asked Capitol Hill not to enable an open nationwide wireless 
| spectrum, claiming that Google's lobbying of such a network is a bid by the 
| search giant to obtain broadband airwaves at bargain-basement prices.  
`----

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=B592E3C6-E5F3-4ECA-93C1-3A5A3392024A


,----[ Quote ]
| AT&T announced Thursday that its U-verse Internet Protocol television
| service will now allow subscribers to watch live programming on their PCs.
| 
| [...]
| 
| Access to the new OnTheGo service is limited to computers running the
| Windows XP operating system with Microsoft's Internet Explorer or
| Mozilla's Firefox browser.
`----

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-6169627.html


Microsoft blamed for AT&T TV hiccups 

,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft has a spotty history on the gogglebox. In 1997 it
| spent about $425m to purchase WebTV Networks but failed to
| make the much-hyped phenomenon a success.
`----

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37231


TorrentSpy Traffic Plunges After US Ban

,----[ Quote ]
| The MPAA has caused TorrentSpy, once the most popular BitTorrent site, some 
| serious headaches. After a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to log all user 
| data stored in RAM, they decided to block access to US users, consequently 
| their traffic dropped significantly.   
`----

http://torrentfreak.com/torrentspy-traffic-plunges-after-us-ban-071006/


BitTorrent Admin Monitored by US Government, Forced to Dump Linux

,----[ Quote ]
| Sk0t, an ex-administrator of the EliteTorrents BitTorrent tracker is to have 
| his internet connection forcibly monitored by the US Government. If that 
| wasn’t bad enough, the monitoring software is Windows based - which means he 
| is being forced to ditch Linux - or face being barred from the internet.   
`----

http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-admin-monitored-by-us-government-forced-to-dump-linux/


Is Comcast's BitTorrent filtering violating the law?

,----[ Quote ]
| Assuming that the SYN packet goes through, the three-way handshake is allowed 
| to happen, then the two hosts will be able to begin communicating. Your ISP 
| can still kill the connection later, should they wish to, merely by blocking 
| the transmission of future packets.   
| 
| According to Torrent Freak, Comcast is not doing this. They are instead 
| sending a reset (or RST) packet to the Comcast customer, pretending to be 
| from the host at the end of the BitTorrent connection.   
`----

http://www.cnet.com/8301-13739_1-9769645-46.html


Comcast Cuts Off Heavy Internet Users

,----[ Quote ]
| Customers complain bandwidth limits are secret.
`----

http://consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/08/comcast_ban.html?imw=Y


Torrentspy Disables Searching For US IPs

,----[ Quote
| Torrent indexing site Torrentspy.com appears to have disabled torrent 
| searches for IPs that originate in the United States. 
`----

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/27/1541244&from=rss


Comcast Throttles BitTorrent Traffic, Seeding Impossible

,----[ Quote ]
| Over the past weeks more and more Comcast users started to notice that their 
| BitTorrent transfers were cut off. Most users report a significant decrease 
| in download speeds, and even worse, they are unable to seed their downloads. 
| A nightmare for people who want to keep up a positive ratio at private 
| trackers and for the speed of BitTorrent transfers in general.    
| 
| [...]
| 
| Last year we had a discussion whether traffic shaping is good or bad, and 
| ISPs made it pretty clear that they do not like P2P applications like 
| BitTorrent. One of the ISPs that joined our discussions said: “The fact is, 
| P2P is (from my point of view) a plague - a cancer, that will consume all the 
| bandwidth that I can provide. It’s an insatiable appetite.”, and another one 
| stated: “P2P applications can cripple a network, they’re like leaches. Just 
| because you pay 49.99 for a 1.5-3.0mbps connection doesn’t mean your entitled 
| to use whatever protocols you wish on your ISP’s network without them 
| provisioning it to make the network experience good for all users involved.”        
`----

http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-throttles-bittorrent-traffic-seeding-impossible/


Anti-Piracy Company Wants to Sell Patents to Protect P2P

,----[ Quote ]
| Recently we reported that anti-piracy company Viralg is selling the patents 
| to its technology on eBay for $1,000,000. Most people didn’t think it was 
| value for money but Viralg have been in touch and they have a new idea - 
| selling the patents to P2P’ers to help prevent some future anti-P2P 
| technology.    
`----

http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-company-wants-to-sell-patents-to-protect-p2p-070927/


Studies: music industry overstating threat of P2P piracy

,----[ Quote ]
| Or perhaps it's not all that amazing. A more likely explanation is 
| that the numbers aren't even right. As Canadian law professor Michael 
| Geist showed a few weeks ago, claims about piracy rates can be wildly
| variable and downright fictional. High numbers are often used to 
| support legal threats or calls for Congressional action, as in the 
| MRT case. MRT has a lot to gain by overstating the threat of 
| streamripping and, so far, has not showed its numbers. Both MRT 
| and NPD agree, though, that P2P is hardly the music industry's 
| biggest problem.
`----

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070531-studies-music-industry-overstating-threat-of-p2p-piracy.html


File sharing could threaten personal and national security

,----[ Quote ]
| A recent government report says that the old adage "buyer beware" now
| even applies to those who are not technically buying anything at all.
| Despite the reputation of "free" downloads, much of the illegal file
| sharing done on the internet comes at a steep price: personal and
| national security.
`----

http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6424471&partner=eb&spacedesc=news


The European Parliament approves new, stricter anti-piracy directive 

,----[ Quote ]
| The European Parliament voted yes on the new controversial directive
| Ipred 2 which concludes that all kinds of infringement of the 
| intellectual copyrights will be considered criminal. The directive 
| is actually stricter than that and even criminalizes attempts of
| infringing on copyrights. In theory this means that basically all
| video sites, P2P developers and other services used to spread
| material around the web is criminal.
`----

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,6197.html


Russian music site down, sister site up

,----[ Quote ]
| Allofmp3 has been cast as the epitome of Russia's shoddy copyright 
| enforcement and repeatedly held up by U.S. trade negotiators as 
| imperiling Moscow's WTO bid.
| 
| But a sister site has quietly emerged from the wings.
`----

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070703/ap_on_hi_te/russia_music_downloads


AllOfMP3 Shut Down by Russian Government

,----[ Quote ]
| AllOfMp3, the popular online music store, has been shut down by the
|  Russian government. Pressure from the United States, and a refusal 
| to enter the World Trade Organisation (WTO) convinced the Kremlin to 
| take the website down for good.
`----

http://torrentfreak.com/allofmp3-shut-down-by-russian-government/


File-sharing 'graveyard' still filling up

,----[ Quote ]
| Now a new battle is heating up. The search engine TorrentSpy is accused 
| in a lawsuit filed last year by the Motion Picture Association of 
| America (MPAA) of allegedly helping users locate pirated movies online. 
`----

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6194001.html

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