SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and internet censorship laws.

[Magda Hassan]

Leak Exposes Hollywood's Global Anti-Piracy Strategy

• By Ernesto
  
• on December 13, 2014
  

Leaked documents reveal in detail how Hollywood plans to take on piracy in the years to come. One of the top priorities for the MPAA are cyberlockers and illegal streaming sites, with lawsuits planned in the UK, Germany and Canada. Torrent sites are a medium priority, which the MPAA hopes to fight with criminal prosecutions, domain seizures and site blocking.

The Sony Pictures leak has caused major damage to the Hollywood movie studio, but the fallout doesn't end there.
Contained in one of the leaked data batches is a complete overview of the MPAA's global anti-piracy strategy for the years to come.
In an email sent to top executives at the major Hollywood studios earlier this year, one of the MPAA's top executives shared a complete overview of Hollywood's anti-piracy priorities.
The email reveals key areas of focus for the coming years, divided into high, medium and low priority categories, as shown below.
The plan put forward by the MPAA is the ideal strategy. Which elements are to be carried out will mostly depend on the funds made available by the studios.

High priority

For cyberlockers and video streaming sites the MPAA plans to reach out to hosting providers, payment processing companies and advertising networks. These companies are urged not to work with so-called rogue sites.
Part of the plan is to create "legal precedent to shape and expand the law on cyberlockers and their hosting providers," with planned lawsuits in the UK, Germany and Canada.
Cyberlocker strategy

Other top priorities are:
Apps: Making sure that pirate apps are taken down from various App stores. Google's removal of various Pirate Bay apps may be part of this. In addition, the MPAA wants to make apps "unstable" by removing the pirated files they link to.
Payment processors: The MPAA wants to use government influence to put pressure on payment processors, urging them to ban pirate sites. In addition they will approach major players with "specific asks and proposed best practices" to deter piracy.
Site blocking: Expand site blocking efforts in the UK and other countries where it's supported by law. In other countries, including the U.S., the MPAA will investigate whether blockades are an option through existing principles of law.
Domain seizures: The MPAA is slowly moving toward domain seizures of pirate sites. This strategy is being carefully tested against sites selling counterfeit products using trademark arguments.
Site scoring services: Developing a trustworthy site scoring system for pirate sites. This can be used by advertisers to ban rogue sites. In the future this can be expanded to payment processors, domain name registrars, hosting providers and search engines, possibly with help from the government.
Copyright Notices: The MPAA intends to proceed with the development of the UK Copyright Alert System, and double the number of notices for the U.S. version. In addition, the MPAA wants to evaluate whether the U.S. Copyright Alert System can expand to mobile carriers.

Mid and low priority

BitTorrent is categorized as a medium priority. The MPAA wants to emphasize the role of BitTorrent in piracy related apps, such as Popcorn Time. In addition, illegal torrent sites will be subject to site blocking and advertising bans.
BitTorrent strategy

Other medium and low priorities are:
Search: Keep putting pressure on search engines and continue periodic research into its role in facilitating piracy. In addition, the MPAA will support third-party lawsuits against search engines.
Hosting: The MPAA sees Cloudflare as a problem and is developing a strategy of how to deal with the popular hosting provider. Lawsuits against hosting providers are also in the agenda.
Link sites: Apart from potential civil lawsuits in Latin America, linking sites will only be targeted if they become "particularly problematic."
In the email the MPAA's top executive does not consider the above strategies to be "final" or "set in stone". How much the MPAA will be able to carry out with its partners depends on funds being availble, which appears to be a subtle reminder that the studios should keep their payments coming.
"…the attached represents priorities and activities presuming online CP is adequately resourced. Your teams understand that, depending upon how the budget process plays out, we may need to lower priorities and activities for many sources of piracy and/or antipiracy initiatives," the email reads.
The leaked strategy offers a unique insight into Hollywood's strategy against various forms of online infringement.
It exposes several key priorities that were previously unknown. The MPAA's strong focus on domain name seizures for example, or the plans to target cyberlockers with lawsuits in the UK, Germany and Canada.

http://torrentfreak.com/leak-exposes-hol...gy-141212/

[Magda Hassan]

In the wake of a series of humiliating cyberattacks, the imperative in Congress and the White House to do something anything in the name of improving cybersecurity was powerful.

But only the most cynical observers thought the results would be this bad.
The legislation the House passed on Friday morning is a thinly disguised surveillance bill that would give companies pathways they don't need to share user data related to cyberthreats with the government while allowing the government to use that information for any purpose, with almost no privacy protections.
Because Speaker of the House Paul Ryan slipped the provision into the massive government omnibus spending bill that had to pass or else the entire government would have shut down it was doomed to become law. (This post has been updated to reflect the vote, which was 316 to 113.)
The text of the bill now known as the Cybersecurity Act of 2015, formerly known as CISA wasn't released until shortly after midnight Wednesday morning, giving members of Congress essentially no time to do anything about it.
The bill removes a restriction on direct information sharing with the National Security Agency and the Pentagon; eliminates a restriction on the government's use of that information for surveillance activities; allows law enforcement to use the information to prosecute any and all crimes; and leaves it up to the individual agencies to scrub personally identifying information when they feel like it.
"If someone hacks a health insurance company like Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and they get scared and hand over all the medical records that were exposed in the hack, the NSA could share those records with the DEA, who could use them in ongoing investigations that have nothing to do with cybersecurity or terrorism," wrote Evan Greer, campaign director for Fight for the Future, a digital rights advocacy group.
The House Homeland Security Committee chaired by Rep. McCaul, R-Texas, had proposed a series of privacy protections from a previous House version of the cyber bill, but they were stricken from the new version that emerged from the Speaker's office.
"The bill is all the worst parts" of the different cybersecurity bills negotiated in recent months, Nathan White, senior legislative manager for Access Now, told The Intercept. "It was negotiated in secret. … It's a sneaky process they've used."
Because of the last-minute timing, members of Congress "are not even going to know what they're passing," White said. "We don't have time to get an informed vote, they're pulling a fast one on the Senate."
And the White House is reportedly on board. According to a leaked document published by Dustin Volz of Reuters, titled "Summary administration priorities for CISA", the White House's priorities line up with the new version of the bill despite the fact that the administration threatened a veto over very similar legislation in 2013.
According to several technologists, information sharing isn't a real solution to preventing cyberattacks. The best defense is better cyber hygiene. "When you've got an epidemic, the answer is you should be washing your hands every time you use the bathroom. It's just not a sexy thing to say," Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The Intercept last January following President Obama's State of the Union address, which focused heavily on cybersecurity.
Some opposition to the new bill has emerged among digital rights-supporting lawmakers and organizations, both Democratic and Republican. But they face off against the immensely powerful intelligence committees in the House and the Senate, congressional leadership, and the White House.
"Members of Congress are intentionally kept in dark so we don't have time to rally opposition to particular measures," Libertarian-leaning Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., wrote on Twitter.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., warned that the bill would "accomplish little more than increased unwarranted surveillance of U.S. persons, sharing private information with prosecutors and feeding the NSA dragnet."
"This cybersecurity' bill was a bad bill when it passed the Senate and it is an even worse bill today," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. "Americans deserve policies that protect both their security and their liberty. This bill fails on both counts. Cybersecurity experts say CISA will do little to prevent major hacks and privacy advocates know that this bill lacks real, meaningful privacy protections," Wyden wrote in a press release.
Overall, there was never much hope among the conservative groups. "We certainly would have liked more time to bring this issue to the attention of libertarians and conservatives. Unfortunately, the way the final bill was conferenced keeping Chairman McCaul out of any substantive discussions and disregarding many of his concerns around the reconciliation process moved it quicker than we anticipated," wrote Ryan Hagemann of the Niskanen Center in an email to The Intercept.


https://theintercept.com/2015/12/18/last...rsecurity/

[Michael Barwell]

EXPLOITATION OF MILLIMETER WAVES FOR THROUGH-WALL SURVEILLANCE DURING MILITARY OPERATIONS IN URBAN TERRAIN - http://marshallthomas.org/uploads/millim..._radar.pdf

Don't forget Ranger-R type systems. They use it to watch you in the shower, and apophenically schiz 'train' people/harrass & traumatize people. Cyber- is just such a small part of SS diahorrea.