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#41 LJ

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Posted 01 December 2012 - 06:49 PM

At the same time a couple of senators in the US are trying to improve users privacy on the internet.

http://www.washingto...0CjRD_blog.html
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#42 sebberry

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Posted 01 December 2012 - 10:59 PM

I've been reading into this a little bit. There are numerous services that "serious" movie and TV show downloaders are subscribing to. Services that obscure IP addresses, encrypt connections and even services based in Russia that do all the dirty work for you and you simply download from them, known as "Seedboxes".

These are services that people pay money for, anything from $6 to $20+ per month. All this copyright and protection business that the RIAA/MPAA has pushed for is helping to build a fairly significant industry dedicated to bypassing eavesdropping by ISPs and IP monitoring by companies mentioned earlier like Canipre.

I still think that many people place a value of $zero on the content they download illegally, and this is something that the media business will have to deal with.

We're sort of there with services like Netflix, but it has some significant limitations. If one could download 20, 40, etc... TV shows/movies per month for $30 I think it would be a step in the right direction. It would be more espensive than Netflix, but if the content is free of DRM, doesn't require an ongoing subscription to watch and can be watched on any computer or device I think it would appeal to many consumers.

Remember when Napster went legitimate and sold music subscriptions in Canada? Then they went bust, but because the music was protected with DRM, once the service shut down you'd be out of luck for playing the music. Napster's own response? "Burn the music to CD and re-rip to remove the DRM".

Until the media companies can come up with a distribution method that appeals to the masses, there will be continued growth of an underground economy designed to assist in the trading of illegal material. With all the protection methods, the MAFIAA (Music and Film Industry Association of America) are their own worst enemy.

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#43 sebberry

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Posted 13 December 2012 - 09:56 PM

The File Sharing Lawsuits Begin: Thousands Targeted at TekSavvy

Given recent reports that a Montreal-based company has captured data on one million Canadians who it says have engaged in unauthorized file sharing, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before widespread file sharing lawsuits came to Canada. It now appears that those lawsuits are one step closer as TekSavvy, a leading independent ISP, has announced that it has received a motion seeking the names and contact information of thousands of customers (legal documents here). To TekSavvy's credit, the company insists that it will not provide subscriber information without a court order and it has sent notices to affected customers.

[...]


http://www.michaelge.../view/6718/125/

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#44 Mike K.

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Posted 13 December 2012 - 10:06 PM

Luckily:

Voltage could seek actual damages rather than statutory damages, but those would likely be even lower than $100 for the download of a single movie. All of this could lead to clogged courts as Voltage spends thousands of dollars in lawsuits in the hopes of recovering hundreds from alleged copyright infringers.


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#45 sebberry

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Posted 14 December 2012 - 12:21 AM

Hopefully, but Voltage is seeking "aggravated, exemplary and punitive damages in the amount of $10,000.00"

Either way, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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#46 sebberry

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Posted 14 December 2012 - 12:40 AM

I'm starting to wonder...

A few lawsuits here and there, chalk it up to copyright holders defending their copyrights.

A few hundred lawsuits here and there, chalk it up to copyright holders getting peeved at file sharing.

A few thousand lawsuits here and there and I'm starting to wonder if collecting thousands of dollars per infringement is starting to become a new revenue stream for their business model. If they sued for actual damages, I don't believe for one minute that they'd be be going after your average downloader.

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#47 Mike K.

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Posted 14 December 2012 - 11:49 AM

Do you know who it is that they are identifying? I mean if someone is a prolific downloader and shares downloads via p2p software that's one thing. But if they're going after someone who can't stream a certain movie via Netflix, doesn't find it for download via iTunes and has no store to rent it from, will they be chasing these individuals down too?

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#48 ZGsta

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Posted 14 December 2012 - 12:03 PM

The point on this is never to win any court cases, it's to scare people into settling. They get data on tons and tons of people who've downloaded copyrighted material (and yeah Mike, they don't care if it's stuff you can't get legally digitally) and then spam out a bunch of lawsuits offering a 'generous' settlement. And then lots of people just pay the settlement because the prospect of legal costs is so high, and the scare value of the giant number they're claiming as damages.

So yeah, it is a new revenue stream, since almost everyone does this, they just need to subpoena a bunch of names and send out the letters offering a settlement (Ok it's probably not THAT easy, but close, but it's still profitable for them) and they know they'll start seeing revenue coming in.

#49 sebberry

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Posted 14 December 2012 - 12:49 PM

Do you know who it is that they are identifying? I mean if someone is a prolific downloader and shares downloads via p2p software that's one thing. But if they're going after someone who can't stream a certain movie via Netflix, doesn't find it for download via iTunes and has no store to rent it from, will they be chasing these individuals down too?


Comments that I've read both on the Michael Geist blog and other websites seem to state that even single downloads of a movie have been enough to generate a request for identifying information.

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#50 Mike K.

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Posted 14 December 2012 - 02:54 PM

I still find it hard to believe that any of these small cases would end up in court let alone a guilty verdict at the hands of a judge. Unless the plaintiff can prove that Joe Smith downloaded a copyrighted movie and not Joe Smith's cousin when he was visiting for a week, their case is all bark and no bite. IMO this is shaping up to be another photo radar fiasco.

To actually go to "court" they'll need a local lawyer residing wherever the defendant resides to file papers and justify before a judge why the case has merit. Small claims court (<$25,000) doesn't even allow cases to move forward unless a judge has vetted the case in the presence of both parties and sees wrongdoing together with some semblance of reasonable proof indicating that the wrongdoing was at the hands of the defendant and definitively only at the hands of the defendant. Lacking enough evidence the judge will dismiss the suit before it even reaches court, or the judge may make a verdict right then and there and order a penalty to be paid that is reasonable given the unique circumstance (i.e. no judge would make a fool out of himself and order someone who has downloaded the odd movie with no intent on commercial redistribution or commercial usage to pay anywhere near $500 let alone $5,000).

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#51 Mike K.

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Posted 25 June 2013 - 12:39 PM

For those who like to immediately discount conspiracy theories and radio shows like Coast to Coast as being nothing more than an avenue for nutbars to express themselves, the NSA surveillance of Internet exchanges has been discussed at length on C2C and similar media years before Snowden revealed NSA documents and awakened the world to the surveillance capabilities of the American government.

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#52 rjag

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Posted 25 June 2013 - 01:16 PM

Funny how Snowden is making waves when we've had monitoring for years already. There was Carnivore by the FBI and of course the big one was Echelon used by Canada, USA, UK, Aus and NZ....

The basic lesson here as we move forward is if you don't want someone monitoring you then don't use electronic devices.

However one of the simplest and foolproof ways to bypass this is to create a gmail account and share the p/w with the person you are communicating with. To send a message, log in through a proxy and write a draft but don't send and your partner will log in and review the draft and change the draft to say their piece etc and the message never gets sent

#53 AllseeingEye

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Posted 25 June 2013 - 01:20 PM

I continue to be surprised that some other people continue to be sceptical that internet surveillance occurs, or at least of the degree to which the activity occurs: of course it occurs and is engaged in not only by national government intelligence agencies, the US (probably) foremost above all, but also by private corporations for various commercial business intelligence reasons.

Ask yourself this: where did the commercialized internet as we know it today originate? Technologically it evolved out of what was known 45 years ago as the ARPANET - what was the ARPANET? Why it was a US-government sponsored and developed system of distributed interface message processors (we call them routers today), developed in the late 1960's that was specifically designed to permit secure, high speed, encrypted communication between elements of the US government, the military and certain institutions of higher learning such as UCLA and the University of Utah among others. It was formally declared operational by ~ 1975 and by the early 1980's was split off among various US military server-nodes. Given that many routine trace route operations today show hops through Virginia-based servers I would be shocked if surveillance wasn't happening because what is Virginia - it is the heart of the American intelligence establishment.

Whether you agree or not with what Snowden has done, absolutely nothing of what was revealed should come as a surprise to anyone. With only 3 months' exposure to the NSA systems it would be a highly dubious assumption to speculate that he was anywhere close to knowing the true scale and scope and power of NSA capabilities. And it is hardly the exclusive domain of US intelligence; clearly China, Russia, the UK and other major world powers all have systems, platforms and programs in place for web-directed and based intelligence-gathering purposes. None should come as any surprise. Just for fun Google "Echelon" to discover but one example of the degree of US-UK-Canada-Australia-New Zealand electronic intelligence eavesdropping and cooperation.

#54 Mike K.

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Posted 25 June 2013 - 01:27 PM

However one of the simplest and foolproof ways to bypass this is to create a gmail account and share the p/w with the person you are communicating with. To send a message, log in through a proxy and write a draft but don't send and your partner will log in and review the draft and change the draft to say their piece etc and the message never gets sent.


By virtue of creating the draft you are sending the content between yourself, the NSA, and Google, and so is the person on the other end by accessing the draft. Proxy servers may give people piece of mind but they pose absolutely no obstacle to Internet security professionals.

Btw, just for fun check out the traceroute for VibrantVictoria:

1 1 0 0 8.9.232.73 xe-5-3-0.edge3.dallas1.level3.net
2 0 0 0 4.69.145.141 ae-3-80.edge4.dallas3.level3.net
3 3 3 3 77.67.71.221 xe-8-1-2.dal33.ip4.tinet.net
4 39 39 39 89.149.184.221 xe-4-3-0.nyc32.ip4.tinet.net
5 38 38 38 173.241.129.158 db-transit-gw.ip4.tinet.net
6 39 39 39 64.20.32.214 -
7 40 39 39 66.45.240.18 -


db-transit-gw.ip4.tinet.net = major Internet pipeline that touches through either Washington, DC (US central intelligence hot bed) or Denver (upcoming US central intelligence hot bed) or both.

So what this means is everything you read on this website and everything you submit travels through Internet infrastructure located in Washington, DC, Denver, Dallas and New York City.

And below is the TC:

1 0 0 0 8.9.232.73 xe-5-3-0.edge3.dallas1.level3.net
2 34 34 34 4.69.145.254 vlan90.csw4.dallas1.level3.net
3 34 34 34 4.69.151.162 ae-91-91.ebr1.dallas1.level3.net
4 34 34 34 4.69.151.117 ae-14-14.ebr2.chicago2.level3.net
5 34 34 34 4.69.132.113 ae-1-100.ebr1.chicago2.level3.net
6 36 34 34 4.69.140.189 ae-6-6.ebr1.chicago1.level3.net
7 34 34 34 4.69.151.109 ae-1-9.bar1.toronto1.level3.net
8 34 34 34 4.69.200.234 ae-1-13.edge1.toronto2.level3.net
9 37 38 39 4.59.183.162 peer-1-netw.edge1.toronto2.level3.net
10 42 40 42 216.187.114.150 10ge.xe-1-3-0.tor-20p1ops-dis-1.peer1.net
11 42 40 50 216.187.113.68 10ge.tor-20p1a-xe3-1.peer1.net


VicNews.com

TraceRoute from Network-Tools.com to 208.80.56.11 [vicnews.com]
Hop (ms) (ms) (ms) IP Address Host name
1 1 0 0 206.123.64.42 -
2 0 0 0 173.219.246.92 173-219-246-92-link.sta.suddenlink.net
3 8 0 0 66.76.104.14 66-76-104-14.ukwn.suddenlink.net
4 24 19 19 69.28.172.38 tge7-1.fr4.atl1.llnw.net (Atlanta)
5 38 38 38 69.28.172.34 tge1-2.fr4.iad.llnw.net (Washington, DC)
6 38 38 38 69.28.156.186 ve7.fr4.iad5.llnw.net (Washington, DC)
7 38 38 38 69.28.156.42 -
8 38 38 39 208.80.56.11 208-80-56-11.clickability.com


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#55 zinkerled

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Posted 25 June 2013 - 02:11 PM

The power of surveillance isn't in finding things out, it's in convincing people that they are always being watched. I believe therefore that this program was leaked intentionally by the US government. If I'm right Snowden will be allowed to 'escape' to a third country and never be prosecuted. The end result is exactly what the government wanted: people afraid to discuss and organize against governments and their corporate partners for fear of being audited or added to secret lists.

#56 lanforod

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Posted 25 June 2013 - 02:26 PM

However one of the simplest and foolproof ways to bypass this is to create a gmail account and share the p/w with the person you are communicating with. To send a message, log in through a proxy and write a draft but don't send and your partner will log in and review the draft and change the draft to say their piece etc and the message never gets sent


General Petraeus case - they found him out on doing exactly that. Gotta do it better like this - use your own hosted email server, and only access the draft using Tor.

#57 sebberry

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Posted 25 June 2013 - 02:32 PM

For those who like to immediately discount conspiracy theories and radio shows like Coast to Coast as being nothing more than an avenue for nutbars to express themselves


Or perhaps CNN has taken a page out of Coast to Coast's book and has rebranded itself as the "Conspiracy News Network"


We've known about this sort of surveillance for years. 2002 brought us the AT&T "Secret room" where the NSA was splitting fiber optic cables in order to intercept data at the telco level.

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#58 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 25 June 2013 - 02:40 PM

I'm rarely the guy to say "... if you aren't doing anything wrong...", but in this case, I'm 99% sure that they don't nearly have the physical manpower to sift through all the data and detect anything short of me speaking directly with Al Quaeda.

ie. 99.996% of Americans don't have to worry about their privacy, their e-mails are not being looked at. Or looked at by a human.
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#59 Mike K.

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Posted 25 June 2013 - 04:35 PM

^yup, that's right.

Except here's the thing. If you ever do find yourself on the hot seat they'll pull up the data they've collected on you in an effort to use it against you or to find something to give them the grounds to search your home, etc. We know full well law enforcement will go to extreme lengths to prove someone's guilt, even though the individual may be as guilty of a crime as the neighbour's cat.

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#60 spanky123

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Posted 25 June 2013 - 06:52 PM

You would be amazed at the power of data mining technologies these days and how information is correlated and tracked. Google knows your sexual orientation and the make, model and colour of the car you drive. Paypal knows what you are going to buy tomorrow and how you are going to pay for it. Facebook and LinkedIn know your long lost friends and business contacts and where you know them from even though you long forgot.

Some analyst isn't sitting in Washington tracking down everyone who types the word bomb into google, but visit the wrong websites, travel to the wrong countries or engage in the wrong communities such that it matches a profile on an NSA or CSIS computer and every detail of your personal life is going to be flagged along with that of your family, friends and associates.

Now that may be a price you are willing to pay for protection from the bogeyman but of course no system is perfect and there will be a few people who become false positives and have to deal with that forever. The good of the many outweighs the good of the few!

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