UK Will Enforce Internet Filtering

Blocking access to websites has been widely discussed in the United States with the PROTECT IP act first proposed this past spring. However, with the Senate approving the legislation, it turned out that the US isn’t the only country discussing the possibility of filtering the web.

Some leaked document, labeled “confidential”, has been posted on Open Rights Group website. The document in question details a proposal by the entertainment industry to pressure UK broadband providers to take part in a voluntary website blocking agreement. Such system is described as an approach to preventing access to online services which are focused upon copyright violation.

Meanwhile, for the public there are many reasons to be concerned, the main one being that the proposal is being discussed behind closed doors. In fact, this is the same as when pro-copyright outfits were trying to push for many controversial provisions in ACTA. This time, everything is being planned behind closed doors as well. However, when Wikileaks published the documents relating to ACTA back in 2008, it caused a major outcry from the public and human rights groups, and the same is expected now with the filtering proposal.

Indeed, according to the leaked document, “voluntary” Great Firewall of Britain will be just the same. Criticisms of the current proposal are all the same as well: was the system so bad that the industry decided to hide it from the public?

In addition, there are more reasons to be concerned. For example, the document, whilst mentioning evidence gathering, “prior warning and liberty”, also notes a turn-around time which is quick enough for “live events”, as well as a balance between swift action and evidence. Anyway, it’s hard to imagine a technical solution enabling Internet service providers to enforce an effective block within the time scale of a “live event”, regardless of the time it takes a court to act.

The Open Rights Group was the first to express concern for this policy, saying that it sets out a dangerous voluntary scheme involving so-called “expedited court procedures” as well as a “balance” between evidence and speed of action. Meanwhile, definitions of which content should be blocked are quite scarce, and there are no references to exactly how filtering would work. In the end, everyone understands that ISPs won’t be able to really prevent Internet users from accessing blocked services, since all it really takes to access them is the right proxy.

American Companies Will Be Forced To Disclose Hacks

Following the well-known recent Sony affair, American companies will be demanded to disclose if they’ve been hacked. That’s the essence of the new legislation currently drafted in Congress.

The idea for new legislation has been suggested by Mary Bono Mack, a Republican from California. All Mary Bono Mack wants is to see companies demanded to provide a basic level of protection for their customers' personal data, and if they fail it, they have to notify the government of the problem.

After Mack had held hearings on data leaks at Sony and Epsilon, a bill was promised to be brought in, specifically designed to protect user personal data. Now, if the proposed legislation gets the votes, it will force US businesses to protect their own consumers by at least requiring reasonable security policies and procedures able to protect information containing personal data. But the most interesting part is that the new law will provide for nationwide notice in case of a hack.

The bill is already circulating through the government. For example, the National Journal has revealed that the Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee has scheduled a hearing for tomorrow to discuss the proposal.

Mary Bono Mack is reported to have had an aggressive timetable for pushing the draft through subcommittee and full committee. The reason for the rush is that punters can’t wait and want something done right now.

According to the new legislation, all companies in the United States would be demanded to erase old or unnecessary information. They would also be required to notify the government no later than 2 days after discovering a data loss. This part of the legislation is supposed to prevent wide-spread situations where outdated databases without protection were still kept on the company network, becoming a soft target for intruders.

However, the bill specifies that the companies wouldn’t have to tell about the breach if it’s "an accident". That promises to be quite interesting to see if the companies try and use this clause as a reason for not publicizing their failures. Finally, the law would provide the FTC with the authority over information protection at non-commercial organizations like universities and charities.

Sony Criticized For Lack Of Cybersecurity

The recent hack at Sony has left customers angry and security experts wondering why the company didn’t make basic fixes to its stricken cybersecurity program.

Late last week the hackers managed to compromise a massive amount of users’ personal data from Sony Pictures’ site using a simple technique. Security experts pointed out that the leak indicated how poorly Sony protected its users’ information: its security was bypassed by a simple attack method. The experts say that any website worth its salt should be able to withstand attacks of this kind. Considering that Lulz Security effortlessly managed to steal a massive amount of personal data of over 1,000,000 Sony users, the hackers must be lining up to give Sony a kicking.

Meanwhile, Sony CEO acknowledged the latest intrusion last Friday, claiming that the company had taken steps to protect against further security breaches. In addition, Sony was reported to retain a team of experts tasked to conduct the forensic analysis of the attack. However, Sony didn’t detail what specific action was taken to prevent future intrusion.

Lulz Security uploaded the stolen data to The Pirate Bay to prove that Sony stored its users’ passwords in a simple text file, which can only be called “disgraceful and insecure”.

Affected users blame Sony for allowing the intruders compromise their personal data, saying that such attitude showed little respect to the customers. Moreover, the company even failed to notify the users about the breach, which occurred several days ago.

Experts of the Cyber Consequences Unit of the United States, a research group engaged in monitoring online threats, were emphatic when asked whether people’s passwords could be stored unencrypted: they simply replied: “Never”. Passwords should always be hashed, so the companies should use some kind of encryption. U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit’s experts, who have been critical of the company’s security earlier, claimed that it needed to revise the methods used to safeguard the users’ personal information. Both Sony customers and security experts recommend the company to press the reset button on their cybersecurity program before another breach happens.

US Government Interested In Swedish Anti-Piracy Efforts

Wikileaks is about to release a cable from the American Embassy in Stockholm, which reveals that the US government was interested in file-sharing issues in Sweden. Actually, the American Embassy was cooperating with the Swedish government in order to reduce file-sharing threats. This cooperation resulted in The Pirate Bay raids in 2006 conducted under the US pressure.

Actually, everybody knew that the American government has been actively participating in copyright enforcement in many other countries throughout the world, Sweden being one of them. The raid on TPB’s servers back in 2006 proved that the United States had threatened to put Sweden on the WTO’s blacklist if they fail to solve The Pirate Bay problem.

However, that was far from the end of the US-Sweden collaboration on this front. Wikileaks is going to publish a US Embassy cable in possession of Swedish Television, proving that the American pressure on Sweden to settle the file-sharing problems went on in the following years. In the cable, dated back 2 years ago, the American Embassy outlined 6 items they wanted to be solved, all of them connected with online copyright violation. Just in a year, 5 of those 6 items were turned into action. Among them were appointment of more copyright police and educational anti-piracy campaigns. As you might have already guessed, The Pirate Bay tracker was mentioned in this cable, too.

It is said in the cable that it was not easy for the US Embassy to get openly involved in piracy issues, as a lot of press coverage was unfavorable towards them. This made Minister of Justice to deny that Sweden was ever under the US pressure in piracy related issues.

Meanwhile, ex-Pirate Bay spokesperson Peter Sunde seems to be surprised about the leaked cable’s content, even though it wasn’t news for him that the US put pressure on the Swedish authorities. He admitted that it was known for a long while that the United States was hiding behind the raid and pressured Sweden. However, it was news to them that they were still doing it.

This cable hasn’t been published by well-known service Wikileaks yet. However, it is expected that they will release it in the near future. This, along with some other cables, can add more insight into the backroom deals connected with file-sharing and copyright infringement.

US Government Interested in Swedish Anti-Piracy Efforts