Protection By Foxy Proxy And MAFIAAFire

As you already know, there is a comprehensive list of methods to circumvent the website filtering suggested by the United States, and some of them go way beyond circumventing kinds of censorship as suggested by the proposed legislation. Actually, it will be very interesting to see how the suggested services respond to those supporting online censorship. Today industry observers agree that it will be very difficult to stop already existing ways to fight DNS censorship. It will be considered very impressive if broadband providers find a way to stop all the methods of bypassing the website filtering.

Meanwhile, aside from the methods of protecting from the censoring legislation by your own means, there are ready-made solutions provided by the others in form of the software designed particularly for accessing censored websites.

Foxy Proxy

Foxy Proxy is a simple add-on for FireFox that everyone can download and install. After obtaining a huge list of simple proxies residing outside of the United States, you will have much better chances to access the site blocked by the American government or corporate interests.

The advantage of this ready solution is that it’s extremely easy to install – being able to access censored online service is merely a click away. In other words, it becomes a fast fix with minimal effort if you have access to an impressive list of proxies. However, the reliability of the add-on is no guarantee. Considering the technological aspect of this plugin, it is not 100% secure, because you only rely on one proxy. In addition, you won’t be able to use this add-on for all kinds of web traffic, and it is confined to FireFox only.

MAFIAAFire

This simple plugin for FireFox and Chrome has been widely discussed in the Internet before. You can easily download and install the add-on, and if a website you are trying to access has had its domain seized, you will be redirected to an alternate domain (if it has any) and still access the service.

The plugin is really very easy to install and then it will be maintained for you through updates. On the other hand, it uses DNS servers that can also be blocked. You should keep in mind that the tool depends on the assumption that there’s an alternative domain name used in the first place for access. In other words, if no alternate domain exists, you won’t be able to access the original website in this fashion. 

School Teacher Will Sue HADOPI

A 54-year-old school teacher in France appeared to be one of the first users to be disconnected from the web under HADOPI legislation. However, he has no idea how to download illegal copies of copyrighted content, saying that he became the victim of Wi-Fi hacking.

The industry observers are tired to insist that the “three-strikes” legislation, which is quickly developed throughout the world, involves false accusations. In other words, there is probability that people who don’t download illegal content will find themselves cut off the web because the system is guilty until proven innocent.

So, the story with a teacher becomes one of the most predictable ones that the media have covered all year. A 54-year-old school teacher turned out to be disconnected from the Internet because his IP address was used by someone else to infringe copyright. The problem is that the teacher himself has never downloaded copyrighted content on the Internet. That’s why he’s planning to fight HADOPI, which only began issuing these notifications back in October of last year. According to the media reports, the teacher is even ready to take this issue to the European Justice court.

Meanwhile, the sad part of the issue is that the teacher is fighting HADOPI at great expense. Aside from having to fight the court charges, he’ll have to move from the countryside at his own expense if the problem be escalated to going to the European court.

Now the question is how this happened at the first place. Apparently, the teacher’s Wi-Fi connection was hacked. When he had received the second wrongful accusation, he took steps to secure the connection, but failed to do so, as the hackers still succeeded in breaking in to his Wi-Fi connection and his IP address was registered downloading the illegal copy of the movie “Iron Man 2”. In the meantime, the teacher is being accused of downloading that film though he has no idea how it is done.

The story came as no surprise, because with such a highly publicized new policy and outfit, Internet users were bound to cover their tracks by breaking in to someone else’s Wi-Fi connection in order to use their IP address to avoid detection. As the result, innocent citizens will get disconnected, while those responsible keep doing the same. It seems that the teacher won’t be the last target.

Google Cautioned Against Internet Filtering

Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Google Inc. has warned House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet that even the proposed measures of fighting copyright infringement are inefficient, because even if Internet service providers blocked domains of infringing services through DNS interference, they will still be reachable via its IP address or other means like browser plug-in software.

A couple days ago the House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet held another hearing on protecting copyright, during which the search engine giant Google provided some words of caution for legislators.

The backdrop for the event is again the controversial COICA legislation, renewed a week ago by a few Congressmen from the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. During the hearing, Kent Walker, Senior Vice President for Google, claimed that the government should aim at the worst foreign services without targeting legitimate businesses. Nevertheless, pro-copyright outfits like the MPAA and RIAA keep repeating the same nonsense about “notorious websites” and the necessity of taking action against them. In the meantime, Kent Walker argues that American current legislation is quite capable of addressing the problem of services subject to US jurisdiction, and therefore doesn’t need any further causes of action. He believes that extra enforcement tools should only be used for targeting the services residing outside the US, engaged in commercial infringement.

Besides, Google’s Senior Vice President pointed out that defining what exactly constitutes a “notorious website” isn’t that simple task, because an overbroad definition would ensnare millions of popular American sites letting users to sell products or upload material. Meanwhile, there are a lot of sites that are responsible and promptly respond to takedown notices and comply with the DMCA. Those websites shouldn’t be deemed rogue and be pursued.

Talking about using the DNS system to fight illegal activity, Google’s representative pointed out that such effort must be properly weighed against its limited efficiency and implications for core US values like innovation and fundamental freedom. In fact, when discussed, it appears that the largest real threat to US content industry that the COICA is supposed to protect is the reluctance by American rights owners to develop new innovative services the customers need so much.

Individual Senator Opposed Internet Censorship Bill

An Oregon Democrat, Senator Ron Wyden, believes that COICA can’t be considered the “right medicine” for tackling copyright infringement in the Internet. He therefore argued that the Bill, if not done correctly, can damage US innovation, US jobs, and a secure Internet.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat, definitely became a today’s hero for many after he had vowed to block the current version of the controversial COICA legislation. While the Bill’s sponsors announce that the new law would provide the Department of Justice with the instruments to trace and close down infringing sites, Senator Wyden believes it is the wrong way to address the problem.

At Senate Subcommittee meeting on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness Senator Wyden said that deploying this bill to fight copyright infringement in the Internet is the same as using a bunker-busting cluster bomb for precision-guided missile. He warned the Senate that if they don’t think the Bill through carefully, it can cause damage to the country’s innovation, jobs, and a secure web.

In fact, an individual Senator is able to place a hold on pending legislation. Besides, he can even block a roll call vote by engaging in debate and rejecting to yield the floor. All these will mean that the Bill is dead until the next Congress convenes at the very least. Meanwhile, Senator Wyden was only recently reelected for a 4th term, so he’ll be around for another 6 years.

President and CEO of the CCIA (Computer and Communications Industry Association), Ed Black, agrees with Ron Wyden, saying at the hearing that he believes the significance of this legislation should be well thought through. Really, it will be hard to persuade other countries to stop “information discrimination” if the US has similar policies of its own. Ed Black says that the Association members report about 40 governments being currently engaged in wide censorship of the Internet. Sometimes the motivation for it is obvious, or is disclosed, but such cases are rare. Usually, the processes and reasons for online censorship are opaque. In fact, only few states try to justify blocking online content or services, with restrictions designed in a transparent manner.

Hopefully, everyone will take a moment and keep their ears open to what Senator Wyden is saying in his opposition to the COICA.

Cyber Bully Victims Hit With Depression

SAN FRANCISCO—School children bullied online face a high risk of being hit with real-world depression, according to a study released Tuesday by the US National Institutes of Health.

The "cyber bullying" findings deviated from studies of real-world bullying that indicated children who were bullies as well as being victims of the behavior were most likely to feel depressed, according to researchers.

"Notably, cyber victims reported higher depression than cyber bullies or bully-victims, which was not found in any other form of bullying," the study authors wrote in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

"Unlike traditional bullying...cyber victims may not see or identify their harasser; as such, cyber victims may be more likely to feel isolated, dehumanized or helpless at the time of the attack."

While traditional bullying involves face-to-face abuse such as taunts or physical violence, cyber bullying comes in the form of hurtful gestures in online formats such as email, text messages, chat rooms, social networks.

The study data was gleaned from US school students grades six through 10.

Google Pitching Online Music Service To Labels--Billboard

SAN FRANCISCO, California, United States—Internet search powerhouse Google is trying to put together an online music service that would take on Apple's market-ruling iTunes, according to a report at Billboard.com.

Google is courting record labels for a service that would let people download songs in digital format or store music in the Internet "cloud" for streaming to online devices, according to unnamed sources cited by Billboard.

Google is reportedly proposing charging annual subscriptions of about $25 to let people store music online and then stream or download tunes to Internet-linked gadgets as desired, Billboard said.

Google is seeking to have the service include letting customers listen once to any song all the way through before limiting them to a 30-second sample of the song, according to Billboard.

The service would reportedly have aspects of Lala.com, an online music website bought by Apple in December and closed early this year.

Lala boasted a playlist of more than eight million tunes and hosted users' digital music collections on the Web, allowing access from varied locations in what it described as "music in the clouds."

Apple has not disclosed its plans for Lala but there has been speculation that it may adapt its technology to create a Web-hosted music subscription service of some kind.

Lala launched in 2006 as an online vision of a vintage San Francisco record store where people tipped each other off to artists, shopped for CDs, and traded used ones.

Hackers Pick Up Where Facebook Privacy Leaves Off

LAS VEGAS--Hackers are weighing in on the Facebook privacy controversy with creations that help people strengthen privacy or empty profile pages at the world's leading social networking service.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) technology fellow Chris Conley showed off an arsenal of such applications at the infamous DefCon gathering, which kicked off Friday in Las Vegas.

"They are needed because people don't have control of their privacy and don't really understand," Conley said after the presentation.

"They give people options."

A program written by Conley displays pictures, posts, or other profile data being accessed by applications at Facebook accounts. People can then see what personal information programs are gleaning from their pages.

News stories about privacy control issues at Facebook may slip people's minds by the time they sit down at their computers, but Conley's application grabs their attention with a winning subject -- themselves.

"People love to hear about themselves, that is the thing that Facebook is great at," said Ceren Ercen, who worked briefly for the California company and wore a T-shirt bearing the words "Disgruntled Facebook ex-employee."

"People don't have the attention spans to carry over concerns they have to actual Facebook usage." Ercen added that during her brief stint at Facebook she had "serious problems" regarding the privacy of users and that she wasn't alone.

Applications shared by Conley included a software tool that helps people change Facebook privacy settings using simple color coding to demystify the process.

Other programs let people pack-up Facebook profile data in order to take it elsewhere or stop the social-networking service getting automated feedback about where members go elsewhere on the Internet.

"The long-term goal is they should become obsolete because Facebook has addressed this in some way," Conley said. "We would like Facebook to be doing this."

Conley's application, available online, at dotrights.org has been used by 150,000 people.

"I think people don't see the real potential damage of their information going out the door," a DefCon veteran who asked not to be named said after attending Conley's presentation.

Facebook this week launched a Web page devoted to staying safe on the Internet.

The "Safety Page" highlights news and initiatives focused on ways people can keep data secure at the social-networking community.

The new page augments a virtual Safety Center that Facebook introduced in April and was based on a "security page" that boasted more than 2.2 million "fans."

The number of people using Facebook recently topped the 500 million mark, meaning one in every 14 people on the planet has now signed up to the social network.

The launch of the Safety Page came in the wake of demands by the ACLU and other privacy activists and governments that Facebook give users more control over the use of their personal data.

A coalition of privacy groups, in an open letter to Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg last month, welcomed the social network's recent overhaul of its privacy controls but said additional steps were needed.

YouTube Extends Automatic Video Captioning

WASHINGTON – YouTube, in a significant development for millions of deaf Internet users, extended automatic caption capability Thursday to all English-language videos on the video-sharing website.

YouTube users have been able to manually add captions to videos since 2008 and in November of last year the site began offering machine-generated captions for about a dozen partner channels.

Hiroto Tokusei, a YouTube product manager, said in a blog post on Thursday that the automatic caption, or auto-caption, feature was now being expanded to all videos on the site in English.

Auto-captioning uses speech-to-text technology to generate subtitles.

"Making video easily accessible is something we're working hard to address at YouTube," said Tokusei, citing studies that predict that over 700 million people worldwide will suffer from hearing impairment by 2015.

The auto-captioning feature will make YouTube videos "more accessible to people who have hearing disabilities or who speak different languages," the YouTube project manager said.

While the auto-caption feature currently only works for videos where English is spoken, Tokusei said users can use Google's automatic translation service to simultaneously translate the captions into 50 other languages.

Auto-captioning in more languages will be added "in the months to come."

The YouTube project manager noted that auto-captioning is not yet perfect and a "clearly spoken audio track" without background noise is needed to create quality captions.

Video owners do have the capability, however, of downloading auto-generated captions, improving their accuracy and then uploading a new version.

One of the chief advocates for captioning capability at YouTube has been Vint Cerf, the Google vice president who has been described as the "Father of the Internet."

Cerf, who is hearing impaired and has been wearing hearing aids since the age of 13, made a personal appearance at the unveiling of the YouTube auto-caption features at Google's Washington offices in November.

Veoh Filing For Bankruptcy Protection

WASHINGTON - Video website Veoh, which has been locked in a two-year legal battle with Vivendi's Universal Music Group over copyright infringement, is filing for bankruptcy protection, its founder announced.

"The distraction of the legal battles, and the challenges of the broader macro-economic climate have led to our Chapter 7 bankruptcy," Dmitry Shapiro, founder and chief executive of Veoh Networks Inc., said in a blog post.

"While we made every effort to convince (UMG) that we were not their enemy and had not infringed on their content, they pursued a relentless war of attrition against us in federal court," Shapiro said.

"We eventually prevailed in a decisive summary judgment that has set an important precedent for the entire industry.

"Unfortunately, great vision, a passionate team, tens of millions of users, millions in revenues and victory in court were not enough," Shapiro added.

The southern California-based Veoh launched in September 2005 as a platform for professional video content and user-generated video like that offered by Google's YouTube or France's Daily Motion.

Veoh's partners include ABC, CBS, ESPN and Warner Brothers.

Shapiro said Veoh's audience had grown to more than 28 million users per month and investors had put 70 million dollars into the company.

Veoh's investors include Shelter Capital, Spark Capital, Michael Eisner's Tornante Co., Goldman Sachs and Time Warner Inc. among others, according to its website.

Veoh's demise comes eight months after that of another online video portal, Joost, which was launched by the creators of Skype, the popular Web telephony service.

Cyber crooks targets banks, social networks

SAN FRANCISCO—An annual security report released Tuesday by technology titan Cisco warns that banks and online social networks are prime targets for increasingly sophisticated cyber crooks.

"Criminals have been taking note of the large crowds in social-networking sites. They steal them with various techniques," said Cisco security researcher Scott Olechowski.

Tactics used to get into social-networking profiles include hacking password databases at vulnerable online services and then exploiting the fact that many people use one password for multiple accounts.

Cisco estimates that a Koobface computer worm, named as a play on social networking hot spot "Facebook," has infected more than three million computers since it first appeared in 2008.

Koobface is malicious code that steals social networking account credentials, logs into profiles and sends "friends" messages along the lines of wanting to share scintillating online videos.

Links enclosed in the messages lead to bobby-trapped Web pages that trick visitors into infecting their machines with copies of the worm.

Crooks sometimes set up fake profiles and then finagle their ways into people's online social circles and entice them to opening computer files tainted with malicious code.

Money-making tricks can be as simple as hackers using social-networking profiles to pretend to be friends in desperate straits that ask to be wired money to get out of trouble in a far-away places.

Social networks are also targeted by hackers out to control or disrupt political discourse.

Business computers can wind up infected because one of every 50 "clicks" in the workplace is to social-networking websites, according to Cisco.

"The blending of social media for business and pleasure increases the potential for network security troubles, and people, not technology, can often be the source," said Cisco fellow Patrick Peterson.

"Without proper cognizance of security threats, our natural inclination to trust our 'friends' can result in exposing ourselves, home computers and corporate networks to malware," he said.

Cyber criminals can mine profiles for names and email addresses of business executives or accounting department members to "spear phish," target strategically placed workers with scams.

The potential for workplace computers to be infected through a social-networking attack is all the more disturbing given the rise of a computer Trojan named Zeus crafted to digitally loot money from banks.

Once in computers, Zeus can swipe information and alter what is seen in Web browsers so that people tending to online banking see correct balances on screen while accounts are actually being emptied by cyber thieves.

"Zeus is sold on a retail basis by criminals to criminals," Olechowski said, putting the price at $700.

Gangs have used Zeus to steal "$400,000 to $1.5 million a shot," he added. Cisco predicts Zeus will be a growing bane in 2010.

Spam remains a tried-and-true method for tricking people into downloading malware or buying specious products, such as fake medicine.

Cisco's report estimates that the amount of spam worldwide next year will rise 30 to 40 percent above 2009 levels.

While US and European countries shut down spam-spewing networks of "zombie" computers infected with malicious code and commandeered by criminals, more are being created in developing countries, according to the California-based firm.

Brazil this year dethroned the United States as the country producing the most spam, according to Cisco. The amount of spam coming from Vietnam and India has also soared.

"In the World Cup of spam, Brazil beat the US for the first time. We are starting to see emerging economies represent the bulk of spam globally," Olechowski said.

Cyber criminals are taking advantage of improved broadband Internet and computer access in developing countries where people may still have lessons to learn about Internet security.

Increasing spam in developing countries is a symptom of a greater problem, according to Cisco senior security researcher Henry Stern.

"This means that there is a greater rate of compromised machines, which means there will be more banking Trojans and other malware," Stern said.

Cisco created a Global Adversary Resource Market Share (ARMS) Race index, which estimates that between five and ten percent of the world's personal computers are "compromised" by malicious software.