35 Jahre Springen: Super Mario World bleibt ein Jump-and-Run-Meilenstein

Super Mario World erschien 1990, ich konnte damals stundenlang in das Spiel eintauchen – und bin nun frisch losgesprungen. Von Benedikt Plass-Fleßenkämper (Super Mario, Nintendo)

Super Mario World erschien 1990, ich konnte damals stundenlang in das Spiel eintauchen - und bin nun frisch losgesprungen. Von Benedikt Plass-Fleßenkämper (Super Mario, Nintendo)

Publishing Giants Escalate War on ‘Shadow Libraries’ With Broad Cloudflare Subpoena

Major academic publishers, including Elsevier and Springer Nature, are trying to unmask the operators of several shadow libraries including Anna’s Archive, Z-Library and Libgen. They’re also targeting SLUM, a third-party uptime monitor for these unofficial libraries. A DMCA subpoena, issued by a D.C. federal court, requires Cloudflare to hand over identifying user data for possible legal action.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

booksOnline piracy is a constant headache for copyright holders; one that’s particularly difficult to shake.

Academic publishers are also grappling with this issue and have recently ramped up their enforcement actions.

One key strategy is to issue takedown notices to intermediaries, including the billions of requests sent to Google. Publishers have also obtained site blocking orders in several countries and, when possible, they go after the infringing sites directly.

Publishers Seek to Unmask Shadow Libraries

In a new filing at a D.C. federal court, a coalition of academic publishers is seeking to unmask pirate site operators for potential legal action. The group includes the American Chemical Society, Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Taylor & Francis Group.

The companies requested a DMCA subpoena and that was swiftly issued by a court clerk. The subpoena is directed at internet infrastructure company Cloudflare, compelling it to hand over all identifying information the company has related to various shadow library domains, as well as other sites.

The targeted domains, all presumably Cloudflare users, include those related to the major shadow libraries, such as 1lib.sk, annas-archive.org, annas-archive.se, libgen.gl, libgen.la, libgenesis.co, z-lib.fm, z-lib.fo, z-lib.gd, z-lib.gl and sci-hub.vkif.top.

domains

The paperwork clarifies that the subpoena is sought to “obtain the identity of alleged infringers” and that the information obtained will be used to protect the publishers’ “rights under the U.S. Copyright Act”.

As is typical with DMCA subpoenas, Cloudflare is asked to produce all relevant information it has on file. This includes names, physical addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, and any billing or account records.

More Targets, Including Uptime Monitor SLUM

The subpoena also lists other domains including collegepdf.com, dl4all.org, ebookmass.com, letmeread.net, and limetorrents.lol, which all allegedly linked to pirated books.

While many of these domains indeed appear to link to specific infringing works, the same can’t be said for the open-slum.org domain. This site is better known as SLUM, the Shadow Library Uptime Monitor.

As the name suggests, SLUM provides a status overview of various Shadow Library domains and relevant hyperlinks. However, as far as we can see, it doesn’t link to any specific infringing content.

slum

In fact, the site itself states that its goal is to provide neutral technical status monitoring and historical analysis. It does not host, mirror, or distribute any copyrighted material.

slum dmca

The publishers, however, appear to see it as an infringing service. In their subpoena evidence, they mention that it “redirects to https://annas-archive.org”, a term that suggests automatic forwarding. However, at the time of writing, the site merely contains a standard hyperlink to the website, which is a crucial distinction.

Publishers ask Cloudflare to Disable Access

DMCA subpoenas are not reviewed by a judge but signed off by a court clerk, in this case a day after the request was filed. The subpoena orders Cloudflare to provide the requested information by August 21.

Cloudflare can also object to the disclosure, but that’s not typically what it does. Nor is it likely to comply with additional requests the publishers made when they first alerted the company about these domains.

Before requesting the DMCA subpoena, the publishers notified Cloudflare through a takedown notice, asking the company to disable access to the domains.

“We hereby give notice of these activities and demand that you take expeditious action to disable access to the material described above, thereby preventing the illegal reproduction and distribution of this content via your company’s services,” they wrote.

Cloudflare doesn’t host the sites in question but is known to provide services to some, though its CDN for example. Since these domains are still online using Cloudflare, that request was not immediately honored.

The subpoena is a separate process, and Cloudflare is known to respond to these. Whether the information the publishers will receive will help to identify the site owners is another question. After all, pirate site operators tend to take steps to hide their identities.

A copy of the DMCA subpoena signed by a clerk at the federal court in D.C is available here (pdf 1, 2, 3)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

(g+) Debian 13 im Test: Architektur entrümpelt, Optionen erweitert, Pakete moderner

Debian ist mit mehr als 30 Jahren eine der ältesten Linux-Distributionen. Die neue Version Trixie bringt einige Neuheiten, auch unter der Haube. Ein Test von Erik Bärwaldt (Debian, OpenJDK)

Debian ist mit mehr als 30 Jahren eine der ältesten Linux-Distributionen. Die neue Version Trixie bringt einige Neuheiten, auch unter der Haube. Ein Test von Erik Bärwaldt (Debian, OpenJDK)

Anzeige: Cloud-Administration im E-Learning-Lernpfad

Cloud-Plattformen wie Azure und Microsoft 365 erfordern fundierte Kenntnisse in Identitätsmanagement, Netzwerken und Sicherheit. Dieser Lernpfad vermittelt in 31 Stunden alles zur Administration komplexer Microsoft-Umgebungen. (Golem Karrierewelt, Inte…

Cloud-Plattformen wie Azure und Microsoft 365 erfordern fundierte Kenntnisse in Identitätsmanagement, Netzwerken und Sicherheit. Dieser Lernpfad vermittelt in 31 Stunden alles zur Administration komplexer Microsoft-Umgebungen. (Golem Karrierewelt, Internet)

James Lovell, the steady astronaut who brought Apollo 13 home safely, has died

Lovell was the first person to fly to the Moon twice.

James Lovell, a member of humanity's first trip to the moon and commander of NASA's ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, has died at the age of 97.

Lovell's death on Thursday was announced by the space agency.

"NASA sends its condolences to the family of Capt. Jim Lovell, whose life and work inspired millions of people across the decades," said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy in a statement on Friday. "Jim's character and steadfast courage helped our nation reach the moon and turned a potential tragedy into a success from which we learned an enormous amount. We mourn his passing even as we celebrate his achievements."

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For giant carnivorous dinosaurs, big size didn’t mean a big bite

The biomechanics of dinosaur skulls say T. rex was the king of bite force.

When a Spinosaurus attacked a T. rex in Jurassic Park III, both giant carnivores tried to finish the fight with one powerful bite of their bone-crushing jaws. The Spinosaurus won, because when the movie was being made back in the early 2000s,  fossil discoveries suggested it was the largest carnivorous dinosaur that ever lived. But new research provides evidence that size and weight didn’t always create a powerful bite.

“The Spinosaurus and the T. rex didn’t live at the same time at the same continent, but if they did, I don’t really see the Spinosaurus winning,” says Andre Rowe, a paleobiologist at the University of Bristol. He led a study analyzing the biomechanics of skulls belonging to the largest carnivorous dinosaurs. Based on his findings, T. rex was most likely was the apex predator we’ve always believed it to be. The story of other giant carnivorous dinosaurs, though, was a bit more complicated.

Staring down the giants

“Of the giant carnivore dinosaurs, T. rex is the one we know the most about because it has a pretty good fossil record,” Rowe says. There are many complete skulls which have already been scanned and analyzed, and this is how we know the T. rex had an extremely high bite force—one of the highest known in the animal kingdom. We have far fewer fossil records of other giant carnivores like Spinosaurus or Allosaurus, so we assumed they were similar to T. rex.

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