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Sergey Aleynikov, an ex-Goldman-Sachs programmer, spent a year in prison for downloading source code of the firm’s high-speed trading software before his sentence was overturned in February. Today the court explained why — downloading computer code doesn’t constitute stealing under the US National Stolen Property Act. The 2nd Circuit Appeals Court ruled that since computer code cannot be physically obtained, it doesn’t fit the legal description of a stolen good.
US Appeals Court Rules Computer Code Is Not ‘Property’ And Can’t Be Stolen
Kim Dotcom: US Military Had 15,634 Megaupload Accounts
In recent weeks the battle has continued to save the data stored at the now-defunct site Megaupload. Contrary to the image painted by the entertainment industries, untold numbers of people used the file-hosting service for completely legitimate sharing. Today we can reveal that not only did people at the Senate, Department of Homeland Security, FBI and NASA hold Megaupload accounts, so did more than 15,600 members of the US Military. Ever since Megaupload was dismantled in January there have been concerns about data being held on the site’s servers.Major ISPs agree to "six strikes" copyright enforcement plan
American Internet users, get ready for three strikes "six strikes."
This just in from the “All international travelers are suspected terrorists” department: In response to questions (see the video at approx. 37:00-38:30) from members of a House Homeland Security subcommittee during a hearing yesterday, DHS Deputy Counter-Terrorism Coordinator John Cohen said that, as part of the Orwellianly-named “Secure Communities” program, local police will soon be receiving the result of a check of DHS international travel logs, automatically, for every person arrested anywhere in the US for even a minor offense. Local police will be able to run checks of travel records for “nonoffenders” — innocent people — as well. According to one report : Under the forthcoming plan, authorities will be able to instantly pull up an offender’s or nonoffender’s immigration records and biometric markers, he said.
Papers, Please! » Blog Archive » All US police to get access to international travel records?
Government And Privacy In The New Millenium January 2003 Panopticon : a word from the early 18th century. An idea from the mind of Jeremy Bentham, English civic philosopher and designer of prisons. An idea that has become central to American life in the 21st Century.
Panopticon: Government And Privacy In The New Millenium
After Historic Protest, Members of Congress Abandon PIPA and SOPA in Droves
Yesterday, in the largest online protest in Internet history, more than 115,000 websites altered millions of web pages to stand in opposition to SOPA and PIPA, the Internet blacklist bills. Some sites — Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing, Craigslist and others — completely shut down for the day, replacing their sites with material to educate the public about the bill’s dangers. Others, like Google and Mozilla, sent users to a petition or action center to express their concerns to Congress. While the final results are still being tabulated, EFF alone helped users send over 1,000,000 emails to Congress, and countless more came from other organizations. Web traffic briefly brought down the Senate website. 162 million people visited Wikipedia and eight million looked up their representatives’ phone numbers.
The Author of SOPA Is a Copyright Violator
US Congressman and poor-toupee-color-chooser Lamar Smith is the guy who authored the Stop Online Piracy Act . SOPA, as I'm sure you know, is the shady bill that will introduce way harsher penalties for companies and individuals caught violating copyright laws online (including making the unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime which you could actually go to jail for). If the bill passes, it will destroy the internet and, ultimately, turn the world into Mad Max (for more info, go here ).
Protect IP Act Senate whip count - OpenCongress Wiki
From OpenCongress Wiki This page is an OpenCongress community project. We are seeking to get each U.S. senator on-record with their position on the Protect IP Act of 2011 (known as "whipping the vote" in DC-speak). By forcing votes out into the open, the public has a greater opportunity to give their senators feedback before the vote. You can help by selecting a senator below and contacting them by phone or email (via OpenCongress' Contact Congress feature).
<img class="image-full" title="_wikipedialogo_bwb" height="230" alt="_wikipedialogo_bwb" hspace="10" src="/images_blogs/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/23/_wikipedialogo_bwb.jpg" vspace="5" border="0" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px; WIDTH: 238px; HEIGHT: 230px" /> Bingo! It’s the Pentagon, according to Catherine McRae Hockmuth over at Ares . She describes a program, Wiki Scanner , that tracks anonymous Wikipedia edits:
Guess Which Gov Agency Edits the Most Wiki Pages | Danger Room
MMI Research Ltd v Cellxion Ltd & Ors [2009] EWHC 418 (Pat) (11 March 2009)
Figure 1 shows the VBTS in a neighbouring cell to the target mobile. ii) the CRO point. i) The prior presentation of the R&S GA-090 machine to T-Mobile, Vodafone and E-Plus in Munich in December 1996. ii) The prior supply of R&S's GA-900 machine and/or its instruction manuals to a number of third parties before the priority date. iii) The prior demonstration of MMI's GSM-X device: a) to Mr Munoz of the Spanish company Cifra at the Institute of Directors on 23 rd February 1999; b) to various government agencies in March 1999 in Australia and New Zealand; and c) to GCHQ on 22 April 1999.The Repression Strengthened Us!
One wrong move, forgetting to take your hat off, the interruption of a phone ringing notwithstanding — after a spell, a trip to the bank to pay the light bill — alongside men carrying machine guns — does get to feel normal. Such a transit of mind is a testimony to the human ability to adapt, yes? — and I am reminded of a marvelous tale that dear friend Francis Huxley tells. It was the 1950s, and he was called to transport a Native of the Brazilian Xingu tribe to Sao Paulo for emergency medical treatment.EPIC Sues DHS Over Covert Surveillance of Facebook and Twitter EPIC has filed a Freedom of information Act lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security to force disclosure of the details of the agency's social network monitoring program. In news reports and a Federal Register notice , the DHS has stated that it will routinely monitor the public postings of users on Twitter and Facebook. The agency plans to create fictitious user accounts and scan posts of users for key terms.
EPIC Sues DHS Over Covert Surveillance of Facebook and Twitter
Are You Being Tracked? 8 Ways Your Privacy Is Being Eroded Online and Off | Media
December 28, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list:Secret subpoenas * information requests of the kind the Department of Justice sent Twitter are apparently not unusual. In fact, other tech companies may also have received similar WikiLeaks-related requests. But what is unusual in this story is that Twitter resisted. Which raises an interesting question: Assuming that Twitter was not the only company to have been served a secret subpoena order, why was it the only company that fought back? The answer might lie in the figure leading Twitter’s legal efforts, Alexander Macgillivray (right), an incredibly mild mannered (really) but sharp-as-a-tack cyber law expert. Twitter’s general counsel comes out of Harvard’s prestigious Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the cyber law powerhouse that has churned out some of the leading Internet legal thinkers.