US Threatened To Blacklist Spain For Not Implementing Site Blocking Law

United States government interference in Spain’s intellectual property laws had long been suspected, but it was revelations from Wikileaks that finally confirmed the depth of its involvement.

More than 100 leaked cables showed that the US had helped draft new Spanish copyright legislation and had heavily influenced the decisions of both the government and opposition.

Now, another diplomatic leak has revealed how the US voiced its anger towards outgoing President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero last month upon realizing that his government was unlikely to pass the US-drafted Sinde (site blocking) Law before leaving office.

In a letter dated December 12th and sent by US Ambassador Alan D. Solomont to the Spanish Prime Minister’s office, the US expressed “deep concern” over the failure to implement the SOPA-style censorship law.

“The government has unfortunately failed to finish the job for political reasons, to the detriment of the reputation and economy of Spain,” read the letter obtained by El Pais.

Racing against the clock in the final days of the government, Solomont had one last push.

“I encourage the Government of Spain to implement the Sinde Law immediately to safeguard the reputation of Spain as an innovative country that does what it says it will, and as a country that breeds confidence,” he wrote.

But along with the pleas came the stick.

In the letter, which was also sent to Minister of Culture Ángeles González-Sinde after whom the law is named, Solomont noted that Spain is already on the Special 301, the annual report prepared by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) detailing ‘trade barriers’ based on intellectual property issues.

Solomont’s threat was that should Spain not pass the Sinde Law (described by some as the Spanish SOPA) then the country would be degraded further and placed on the Priority Watch List. This serious step would mean that Spain was in breach of trade agreements and could be subjected to a range of “retaliatory actions”.

In the event Zapatero’s government left office without passing the law, but the incoming Partido Popular (People’s Party) were quickly pressured by the US to take the necessary action.

In another media leak it’s now been revealed that American Chamber of Commerce in Spain chief Jaime Malet wrote a cautionary letter to incoming Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy. He warned of the potential flight of foreign investment from Spain and urged him to take action on the protection of intellectual property once in office.

“[The law's] lack of approval before the elections has been a blow to the country’s seriousness in this matter of such importance,” said Malet, while urging Rajoy to “to retrieve the consensus reached.”

Rajoy’s government quickly responded and fully implemented the legislation within 10 days of taking office.

American Police Refused To Hand Over Hackers To France

While the American government requires that UK citizens are dragged into one of their courts to face sixty-year sentences, it looks like it is not even reluctant to hand over one of its own hackers over to a more sensible French court.

The US cyclist Floyd Landis had a go at cracking the PCs of the anti-doping lab that found him cheating during Tour de France 6 years ago. He was charged by the court in Paris, which heard how he and his former coach refused to show up in court. In addition, they both were helped by the government of the United States that refused to co-operate against the US hackers.

It turned out that Landis was similar to a UK hacker looking for UFOs or an Australian who published secret tapes of the US helicopter pilots who laughed as they gun down Reuters journalists. Anyway, the authorities seem to be reluctant to hand over American sporting heroes when they do the same sort of thing.

In fact, the French did have enough evidence to convict both Landis and Baker after a Trojan horse spy program was used 6 years ago to poke into the lab's servers to extract data about Landis' file, several months after he tested positive. After this, Landis admitted that he took drugs in his career. Meanwhile, the police explained that they couldn’t turn up who exactly ordered the hacking, thanks to the American authorities sitting on their hands. The data received during the hack was later used in an unsuccessful appeal to sports authorities. It was supposed to prove that Landis was clean and that the lab work was actually faulty. The court decided that Landis' role was limited to the knowledge that he had about the fraudulent origin of the laboratory data used by him and his defense team. The court also ruled that Landis knew that these lab results were really accurate, because he would admit 4 years later that he had taken drugs since 2002.

While Landis didn’t comment the trial, Baker insisted that the charges weren’t true. He said that he had nothing to do with any hacking and as far as he knew, the lab papers he received while serving as an expert consultant to the legal team were received in a legal way. He believes that everything is part of a plot to protect the laboratory, which appears to be a national French institution. As a result, they were both given a year's suspended sentences, which means that there’s probably nothing to worry about unless they ever commit another crime in this country again.

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.

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. 

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.

The Pirate Bay Sued By Finnish Record Labels

The largest BitTorrent tracker site in the world The Pirate Bay has been sued again. Now the plaintiffs are more than twenty record labels from Finland, desperately attempting to halt piracy in their country. The petition to block The Pirate Bay was sent by the country's Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Center on behalf of the IFPI.

Finnish pro-copyright outfit, which claims its goal is to ensure favorable operational conditions for the recording industry in the country, represents 23 record labels that launched a lawsuit at the Helsinki District Court. Like other similar outfits, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in Finland required the court to order telecommunications company called Elisa to deny access to a popular Swedish site providing Internet users with access to copyrighted content like music, films, and other material. The representative of the IFPI claimed that a legitimate online market can’t develop in country if infringing services like The Pirate Bay are allowed to go on with their operations.

In response, the Internet service provider argued that it doesn't condone piracy in the Internet, and refused to block access to The Pirate Bay unless the court orders it to do so.

Founded 8 years ago, the BitTorrent tracker allows millions of people to share copyrighted content through BitTorrent technology, or P2P links offered on the website. Two years ago, the website founders were fined and sentenced to prison for copyright infringement, but The Pirate Bay is still operational. However, the members of the service are still being pursued.

For example, recently the Denmark judge ruled that the website member nicknamed Icenfire should pay over $35,000 in damages for movie upload. The movie in question was Anders Matthesen’s comedy of 2009, “Black balls”, which was released on Blu-ray in the country, but the United States and Canada never saw the movie in the stores. The fine included the cost of the violation itself ($28,000) and associated court costs ($7,500). The individual was singled out by a Danish pro-copyright group, which claimed he was the original uploader. The outfit had raided his home in Denmark back in February, right after the routine analysis revealed the unauthorized upload

UK Providers Worrying About Porn Filter

US government seems to inspire a number of pro-copyright organizations to pressure credit card companies, along with online payment services, to cut off sites like MegaUpload and similar, engaged in file-sharing and streaming. The first move was made towards cutting off Wikileaks, and now the US entertainment industry decided to try and get Mastercard and others to do the same. Critics suggest this can be part of an innovative strategy for the conglomerate organizations.

Reportedly, the Recording Industry Association of America, in cooperation with the Motion Picture Association of America, is discussing with MasterCard and others the option of cutting off file-sharing services and streaming websites. One of the main targets to cut is MegaUpload, a hosting service storing files too large for e-mail.

The representative of RIAA mentioned that MasterCard especially deserved credit for their approach to addressing rogue services engaged in duping consumers. The company is reported to have reached out to the entertainment industry to find out what they think would be a productive cooperation.

While sites like cyberlockers usually offer their services for free, they also provide premium services for increased bandwidth and charge for them. But at the same time MasterCard actually earns profits from different transactions that occur every day. This means that in case systems like Visa, Mastercard, and AmEx cut off their services to cyberlockers and streaming sites, they can simply switch to other payment methods, such as Flattr or any other smaller systems from abroad.

Moreover, a very interesting fact is that there’s very little difference between MegaUpload and YouTube, if you consider that MegaUpload possesses a system for deleting copyrighted content. In fact, MegaUpload already complies with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, just like YouTube. The only thing that separates them is that MegaUpload hosts any kinds of files, while YouTube only streams videos. Meanwhile, both services earn money from files whether infringing or not, but YouTube just manages to create less negative image of itself than MegaUpload.

Considering all this, it becomes clear that the only sides to lose out on this deal would be payment services that agree to cut off file-sharing sites.

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

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.

Forge Partnerships, US Urges

Manila, Philippines — As the nuclear-powered USS George Washington (CVN 73) arrived in Manila on Saturday, the United States underscored the need for all countries to work together and forge partnerships, saying “misunderstanding” is now the biggest threat in the region.

At the same time, amid recent developments at the South China Sea, an American commander emphasized the right of every country to access international waters as he said that prior to USS GW’s coming to Manila after they left Singapore where the warship also made a similar visit, they “operated up and down the South China Sea.”

Capt. David Lausman, USS GW’s commanding officer, however, emphasized they were operating peacefully “in international waters.”

Lausman also said that with US State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton’s remarks made last month that the US had a “national interest” in seeing the territorial disputes over the South China Sea resolved through a "collaborative diplomatic process by all claimants,"

“First of all, all international waters are of prime interest to our country and I would say they're an interest of your country too. We have a very rich culture, in dependence to a very stable maritime environment that we all live on,” said Lausman.

He added the United States “has had a long commitment to the Western Pacific” and it’s no secret that its warships, USS Midway, the Independence, the Kitty Hawk, and now the George Washington have been permanently forward deployed with all of their families in Yukosoka, Japan.

“As such this is a very close area for us, we spend about a 180 days a year at sea so it makes very good sense that we operate in the areas close to our home port, again the South China Sea area, up and down the Pacific,” he added.

Amid all these, Lausman said the biggest security challenge in the region now “is that we all need to work together, we learn from each other, just like when you meet a new neighbor in your neighborhood. The more you know each other, the more relaxed you are, the more you understand, and there's no misunderstanding.”

Lausman said that it is due to lack of communications and misunderstandings that tensions can build. And this misunderstanding, he said, is now the biggest threat in the region.

“We all want to work together. The fact that all our countries have partnerships, because our main goal is to keep the entire Pacific stable and free of terrorists, free from stress, and we can do that by understanding each other,” said Lausman.

“Again, the waters are great, the international waters, they belong to nobody and yet they belong to everybody,” he further stated.

The US warship’s visit comes amid escalating tensions over a territorial dispute in the South China Sea as China recently adopted a harder line on its claims to the area and with the United States getting into the debate.

China, Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia have their respective claims in South China Sea's more than 200 mostly-uninhabited small islands.

Last month, the USS Blue Ridge also made a port call to Manila. 30% Filipinos

Lausman told reporters who were given a tour of the warship, its visit also serves as a “homecoming” to its Filipino sailors, who comprise about 30 percent of the crewmembers.

“As you know from last year, about 30 percent of the crew have direct ties to the Philippines either through aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, great uncles, great grandmothers, etc. and this is really a homecoming of families and cultures, because they are waiting to come back to their homes as well,” Lausman said, noting that during their last port call in Manila in August, 2009, “there was a lot of unique family reunions” and there are some again this year.

When asked how he would rate the Filipinos sailors’ performance onboard, Lausman responded, “We are glad that we have Filipinos on the ship” as he pointed to a group of them on formation behind him during the press briefing.

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