UK Will Order More ISPs To Block The Pirate Bay

The BPI (British Recorded Music Industry), the voice of the British recorded music bizz, is reported to make desperate efforts of extending its Internet-blocking policy about The Pirate Bay onto other largest broadband providers, including TalkTalk, Virgin Media, Sky, O2, and Orange.

The British Recorded Music Industry outfit officially demanded BT to block access to the “rogue” website known as The Pirate Bay – the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker. This may invoke the MPA against BT case – a well-known and debatable lawsuit which managed to set a precedent in the fight against piracy thanks to the court’s decision to order BT to block access to Newzbin service.

As if it wasn’t enough, now the music industry, with the help of multiple industry trade outfits, wishes that BT would voluntarily restrict access to The Pirate Bay website without court injunction. Meanwhile, if the Internet service provider fails to comply with the requirement, it’s likely that the British Recorded Music Industry would seek justice in the court of law by obtaining the required injunction.

Taking into account the fact that the current censorship system should be extended onto other Internet service providers as well, the anti-piracy outfit has now extended its main objective, that of blacklisting The Pirate Bay BitTorrent tracker, to all of major broadband providers of the United Kingdom. The outfit issued a statement, saying that it is engaging in further dialogue with the Internet service provider BT on this issue. The organization also admitted that it has written to the UK’s other largest broadband providers – Virgin Media, O2, Orange, Sky, and TalkTalk – to ask them to block access to the BitTorrent tracker. Now the outfit is waiting for their responses.

Intel Introduced Doubtful Security Plan

After Chipzilla had bought the worldwide-known insecurity company McAfee, lots of industry experts wondered why, and recently Intel finally released the results of its collaboration.

Intel has developed a security system called Deepsafe. According to the giant, this system will work outside the operating system at the chip level, watching the hardware for signs of malware being active. The system in question is expected to be quite good at tackling rootkit malware attacks, because they also happen outside the operating system. For example, McAfee’s own threat report quoted the statistics which mentioned the number of rootkit infections discovered in the 6 months of this year being up 32% year-on-year.

At the same time, media reports revealed that the industry observers aren’t quite sure that the new idea of the company will make much difference in this field. For instance, Wendy Nather, which works as a security analyst from the 451 Group and is also known as a former IT security director at UBS, explained that Intel has actually had the security modules the new system is based on in their chipset for a while now. The only problem is that venders could not be even bothered to use them, as this demands development where they thought there was not much market interest.

The security system updates would be a bit more disruptive than the current security software patches – in fact, it would be more about changing the foundations of a building from underneath it. As for the first McAfee product based on this security system, it is Deep Defender, and it’ll be out there in the stores in the beginning of 2012. Wendy Nather pointed out that Intel is simply doing the same things as McAfee has already been doing now and moving them into the chipset. As you can understand, this doesn’t sound too exciting.

Meanwhile, the real area in which chip-level security would be very interesting is embedded systems. This is because they are being used virtually everywhere – from smart meters to mobile devices, in which, as you know, a lot of money are being invested in order to secure them. In short words, Deepsafe is a system which softly hints that the technology isn’t actually being targeted at personal computers at all. Instead, it can mean Intel’s move into the mobile market.

Entertainment Industry Will Kill Copyright Law

According to the technology chief of the European Union, the industry’s ways of using copyright legislation as an instrument of punishment will lead to the breakdown of the whole system of copyright, because today artists already get nothing from it.

Neelie Kroes, digital agenda commissioner of the European Union, claimed that creative industries really need to develop new technological methods of distributing copyrighted content instead of fighting against them. She has also pointed out that the existing copyright legislation wasn’t actually rewarding the vast majority of the content creators as it should have been.

During the interview to a local media, Neelie Kroes explained that today when people hear the word “copyright”, they automatically hate what is behind it. She said that although the system should aim at awarding creative people, it is somehow being used as an instrument to “punish and withhold”.

Kroes believes that both Internet distribution and cloud computing can represent a new way of buying, delivering and consuming copyrighted content. Meanwhile, the existing legitimate framework around copyright doesn’t seem to be flexible enough to let the rights owners benefit from it. The entertainment industry has been long moaning about the damage done to the content creators by Internet copyright infringement. At the same time, governments and courts in many countries have reacted by blocking access to online services helping users illegally share copyrighted content, including music, videos, games and software.

EU digital agenda commissioner announced that she is going to overcome the entertainment industry’s failure to agree on pan-EU licensing deals. Neelie Kroes highlighted that she doesn’t like the way countries like the United Kingdom tax e-books more highly than they do real books. At the same time, she said, while all this enforcement is continuing, 97.5% of content creators earn less than $1,300 a month from the existing copyright system.

Meanwhile, Kroes didn’t provide any definitive suggestions about what would replace the existing system. The only audible thing she said was that the industries which advocate new business models are supposed to get a fairer crack of the whip.

Steam Credit Card Data Compromised

Valve’s download service Steam has been hacked, and security experts suspect that as a result, credit card data could be stolen. The company admitted that the intruders managed to hack a Steam database, which contains a lot of sensitive information, including user names, hashed and salted passwords, as well as information about the members’ game purchases, email addresses, and even encrypted credit card data.

However, there is still no precise evidence that could suggest that encrypted credit card numbers, as well as personally identifying data, were stolen by the intruders. They also can’t prove that the protection on the credit card numbers or passwords was broken. Still, everything may be revealed later, because the investigation is only in its early days.

The company’s statement read that Steam forums had been defaced on the 6th of November. Valve started to investigate the issue immediately after it figured out that the intrusion went beyond the forums. The company warned that punters are supposed to closely watch their credit card activity along with statements in order to make sure that the intruders haven’t found their way to use the data. Valve announced that there were not many forum accounts hacked. However, the company decided to ensure that all its members are protected, so all forum users will now need to change their passwords after they log in to the forums next time.

Thus far there haven’t been compromised Steam accounts revealed. This is supposed to mean that Valve wasn’t going to force a change of Steam account passwords as well. This is because those are different from forum passwords.

UK MPAA Pressuring ISPs To Block File-Sharing Services

Recently, BT – one of the largest broadband providers in the country – has been forced to block the famous file-sharing site Newzbin2. However, the story doesn’t seem to be coming to an end with the court ruling: while the service keeps struggling by developing more and more way to circumvent the ban, two other UK’s Internet service providers, Virgin Media and TalkTalk, feel the pressure from the UK’s Motion Picture Association to block the news site as well.

Just a week ago MPA, a large movie industry watchdog, has sent TalkTalk and Virgin Media letters saying that the outfit would obtain the court orders demanding to impose the block and asked such an order would be opposed in some way, according to the local media reports.

As for the recipients of the letters, both of the Internet service providers admitted that they will comply to such blocking order if the court rules so. In the interview regarding this issue, Virgin Media explained that the company believed such deterrents should be accompanied by really compelling legal alternatives, like their agreement with the largest online streaming service Spotify that provided their consumers access to the copyrighted material at the reasonable price. As for TalkTalk, this broadband provider was noticed to fight against the introduction of the UK’s copyright legislation (Digital Economy Act), which imposed very strict anti-piracy rules.

This decision followed the story of the BPI (the British Phonographic Industry) demanding BT to prevent its subscribers from accessing the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay, pointing at the Newzbin2 ruling as a precedent.

Usenet Service Lost Legal Battle

Dutch anti-piracy outfit named BREIN represents multiple members of the entertainment industry. Recently it has won a two-year battle against the company News Service, whose main activity is reselling Usenet services to multiple providers.

Despite all its attempts and appeals to go on with their operations, the company was recently forced by court order to cease its activity and delete all violating material from their site. News Service has published a statement, saying that they didn’t see how it could comply with the court’s order. As a result, in the end of October the company began interlocutory proceedings, within which News Service asked the summary Judge to order pro-copyright outfit to cease the execution of the court decision. However, recently they’ve learned that the summary Judge has denied the claims of the company. Consequently, News Service is now forced to cease its activity with immediate effect. Nevertheless, the administration of the online service has announced that the portal will continue to appeal the court’s order. In the meantime, some industry observers believe that this struggle may be futile.

BREIN is an anti-piracy group having many years of experience behind it and is particularly good at hunting BitTorrent tracker websites, but it has never claimed a hunt on Usenet services before. This is considered the first major win of the anti-piracy outfit against a Usenet provider. In addition, this victory could easily set a precedent and encourage BREIN to close down other large newsgroups. For example, two of the most important newsgroups, Astraweb and Giganews, are already worried about being not that cautious in this area of activity. Indeed, BREIN’s focus may simply switch to them.

Search Site Accused Google Of Antitrust

Product search online service called Foundem has said that Google was directly targeting household name search websites via Google Panda, with the algorithm being central to ongoing antitrust cases. The website kicked off the antitrust investigation of EC against Google after it monitored their website drop down the page rankings upon introduction of Universal Search four years ago.

After the website first presented the case against the search giant, both sides of the Atlantic launched an official investigation, which has centered around the company’s leveraging of its dominance, 95% of the European market, to favor its lucrative forays into other things like maps and product search. Today, with an ongoing high profile investigation carried out by the Federal Trade Commission in the United States, Foundem thinks that the search giant is close to facing retribution from the watchdogs upon flouting anticompetitive legislation with Panda.

Foundem owners have put the case for the search giant’s abuse of its dominant position to both the European Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. They claim that Google has upped its attack on rival services by using Panda update to its search algorithm. The service founders hope the European Commission will understand the urgency of these issues and come to a decision soon, hopefully finding the search giant guilty of abusing its dominant position in both search and search advertising. Indeed, Foundem has some compelling evidence, aimed to prove that Google has abused its position while moving into product search, and now it is trying to stop Google from sending rival companies spiraling down search rankings. This past September Google boss was called before the Senate in order to discuss antitrust allegations.

The plaintiffs claim that the search giant needs to clearly disclose when it inserts its own services into its own search results. They also want Google to stop discriminating in favor of its own services. However, the European Commission can only apply a 10% fine in the best course of action, while the money doesn’t matter here, because the fine of this size is undoubtedly insignificant to Google. Instead, the innovative businesses crushed by the engine’s tactics are looking forward to a set of remedies able to stop Google’s anticompetitive behavior.

Pirate Party Banned From Gaming Exhibition

Despite having booked and paid for their booth at Gamex, Sweden’s largest gaming exhibition, the Pirate Party have been excluded from the action this week. The party, who say they were nagged for 2 to 3 months to book for the event, were this week informed they were too controversial and no longer welcome.

Running from the 3rd to 6th November, Gamex is Sweden’s biggest gaming show. All the big names in interactive entertainment are there showing off their wares, including giants such as Activision, Electronic Arts, Microsoft and Nintendo.

One group that will not be there, however, are the Swedish Pirate Party.

“The Pirate Party would have been in place inside the show, but now we will not be,” says Pirate Party leader Anna Troberg. “We are simply no longer welcome.”

Troberg says that after the sales people from the exhibition pursued the party for months to participate, they decided to book and pay for a booth. Not only that, the party also agreed to a package of advertising and hotel rooms.

As can be seen from the photograph below of pre-event billboard advertising, everything was in place for the party to participate.

But earlier this week, just before the event was due to start, the Pirate Party received some surprise news.

“On Tuesday afternoon, I called a representative of the show with a few simple practical questions, but she seemed generally stressed out and said something vague about the show and not wanting any problems before she hung up,” says Troberg.

“I thought it was a bit strange, but in the afternoon, the pieces fell into place when the fair manager, Bear Wengse, phoned me and kindly, but firmly, announced that the Pirate Party was no longer welcome at the fair.”

Wengse informed Troberg that the exhibition is a meeting place and not a venue for political conflict and the party’s presence could cause problems, particularly since some of their work “could be perceived as criminal.”

Troberg countered that as a political party they only want to change certain laws democratically, and that can not be considered a crime. Nevertheless, the ban stood.

There isn’t a complete ban on politics at the event, though. The Swedish Social Democratic Youth League (SSU) are being allowed to appear – even though they too support the decriminalization of non-commercial file sharing.

However, the SSU probably fly a little more easily under the radars of some of the more prominent entertainment industry exhibitors at Gamex – Warner, Sony and Disney as prime examples. There’s no proof that these companies objected to the Pirate Party’s presence, but the party’s support for their arch-enemy – The Pirate Bay – won’t have gone unnoticed.

Nevertheless, Troberg is upbeat. She extended thanks to the forces behind the party’s exclusion, the net result of which was more exposure for the party than they would have otherwise achieved at the exhibition, and at much less expense.

Visitors to the show wanting to show their support for the party weren’t disappointed, though. Yesterday the party’s Young Pirate division were outside the event, handing out free T-shirts to be worn inside.

“I find it absolutely hilarious that a gaming fair banned the Pirate Party on the official pretext that ‘our culture is harmful to gaming’,” Rick Falkvinge, founder of the first Pirate Party, told TorrentFreak.

“A decade down the road, people will just shake their heads at that. What else can you do, really?”

Duqu Hackers Moved Operations Abroad

Hackers who developed the latest doomsday virus named Duqu seem to have moved their illegal operations to Belgium. This country, known for being the birthplace of French fries, and also the rudest word in any language, is reported to have become the new headquarters of operations for the software developers who created this malware.

The hackers have begun using a server located in Belgium in order to gather information stolen from the computers infected with the Duqu malware. This started after security experts closed down their operations in India. Thus far, virus called Duqu has nations and security observers in a panic, since it could become another big Internet threat after the Stuxnet virus, which is considered to have infected the nuclear program of Iran.

Worldwide-known security company Symantec claimed that its experts had identified a sample of Duqu virus, which was designed to communicate with a certain server at Combell, the biggest web-hosting organization in Belgium. Symantec explained that the company had already notified Combell that one of their servers had been used for malicious activity. Combell immediately shut down the website.

It was a couple weeks ago that Duqu first surfaced online. It was spotted by experts from the Hungary’s Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security. The scariest part about the virus was that the latter exploited a hole in Windows operating system and had code similar to Stuxnet malware. The industry observers believe that Duqu has been developed to help lay the groundwork for cyber attacks on important infrastructure like pipelines, power plants, or oil refineries.

One of the unnamed Combell employees admitted that the server in question had been running continuously for almost a week. It was leased through the end of October 2012. He also told local media that it looked fishy, as someone tracking the server appeared to be intentionally deleting information that would log details about its communications. Meanwhile, the mail log itself had virtually no entries, which means that the intruders keep deleting information not to leave traces.

Security experts also admit that when the hackers moved to Belgium, they went further and modified the original method used to communicate with the infected machines, which made it harder for the outfits to detect infected equipment based on previous communication patterns.

 

Intelligence Agency Warned Over Hacks

Iain Lobban, a head of the UK’s largest intelligence agency, has recently warned of a rapid increase in cyber attacks that could jeopardize the country’s economic well-being. He emphasized the increasing problem of hacks on the government, pointing at a considerable attack on the Foreign Office this past summer. In addition, Lobban has noted an increase in the number of cyber attempts to steal sensitive information from various government sources and private companies, including attempts at IP theft on some engineering, energy and defense contract companies.

William Hague, Foreign Secretary, also confirmed an “exponential rise” in the number of attacks. He flagged up the country’s tax database as the one very liable to attack. Everyone is stressing concerns over Internet security ahead of a 2-day conference that starts on Tuesday and will focus on the growing problem. The list of participants includes big names like Hilary Clinton, Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia co-founder), Brad Boston (Cisco vice president) and many others.

Cyber concerns have been increasing on a global scale recently, as the world feared of a close relative of the Stuxnet virus, Duqu, being found, despite the fact that some experts believed the two weren’t linked. Security experts keep saying that the government just needs to make sure that defenses are kept up on an individual level, which can help keep up the constant battle of fending off hacker attacks. They point out that there’s never such a thing as a 100% defense, and there’s always a risk. However, the government is able to take defensible steps like educating users on how to prevent their computers from being compromised. Individual users must realize the importance of keeping security update current. They also must ensure their anti virus software is up to date.

The experts believe that Lobban’s warnings of growing cyber-threat are right, as well as constant attempts to steal sensitive data. Therefore, the government should make sure it is properly defended. There are people out there making attempts to hack into systems, and apparently they could wish to harm the country. However, it might be difficult to learn about the attacks – sometimes it’s hard to see that the information was copied and the hack may go unnoticed. That’s why any outfit must work with assuming the worst in this sense and start from there.