Month: November 2016

Freie Elektronen mit Licht statt Glühwendeln: Eine robustere und möglicherweise schnellere Alternative zum Transistor trickst sogar Einstein aus. (Wissenschaft, GreenIT)

In zwei Bundesländern sind Kunden von O2 nun nur noch im E-Plus-Netz unterwegs. Die alte Netzkennung wird dort dauerhaft auf allen Smartphones und Mobiltelefonen zu sehen sein. Doch nicht alle Geräte lassen sich automatisch umstellen. (E-Plus, Telefónica)

Nach der "Weltraumtheorie" kommt nun die Weltraumpraxis. Der Bundesnachrichtendienst will künftig die Erde mit eigenen Satelliten überwachen. (NSA, Datenschutz)

Facebook will es mal wieder besser können als die Netzwerkausrüster und meldet einen Rekord bei der Datenübertragung mit Richtfunk. Damit könnte das Solarflugzeug Aquila an das Internet angebunden werden. (Technologie, Soziales Netz)

Für die Xbox One selbst, aber auch für die Xbox-Apps auf Windows 10 und mobilen Endgeräten hat Microsoft ein Update veröffentlicht. Es bietet viele neue Funktionen, etwa das Erstellen von themenspezifischen Gruppen, die Suche nach Ingame-Begleitern und Hinweise auf die Seltenheit von Erfolgen. (Xbox One, Microsoft)

Ein neuer chinesischer Satellit soll die Navigation mit Hilfe von Röntgenpulsaren testen. Die Genauigkeit soll 5 Kilometer betragen, egal wie weit von der Erde entfernt. (Navigationssystem, GPS)

Die EU-Kommission wirft Google in drei Verfahren Wettbewerbsverstöße vor. Der Internetkonzern bestreitet in allen Fällen, die Konkurrenz zu behindern - so jetzt auch beim mobilen Betriebssystem Android. (Google, Android)

Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has been very active over the past months, targeting uploaders on various sharing sites and services.

This week the anti-piracy group announced that it has scored yet another victory against a frequent copyright infringer in the Netherlands.

The dispute in question deals with a large-scale Usenet uploader, who shared over 1,500 TV shows including episodes of popular series such as Arrow, Blacklist, and Person of Interest.

After he was found out the man, who isn’t named, agreed to pay €7,500 in damages and stop his activities effective immediately. If not, an ex-parte court order requires him to pay an additional penalty of €2,000 per day, up to a maximum of €50,000.

According to court records (pdf), BREIN used the message-id of the NZB files to link the uploads to the defendant. These files were also traced to various posts on NZB spot-sites where the man advertised his uploads.

As usual, BREIN says that the financial situation of the uploader was taken into account to determine a suitable settlement amount. As such, it says more about the pirate’s financial position than the value of the 1,500 TV shows.

Over the past months, the Dutch anti-piracy group has focused heavily on catching individual uploaders, whether through Usenet, BitTorrent, Facebook, or other platforms.

Shortly, BREIN is planning to go after uploaders on a much larger scale to increase the catch-rate. To achieve this, they have already started to monitor IP-addresses of frequent BitTorrent users.

As is common in these type of anti-piracy cases, the settlement money doesn’t go to artists or other rightsholders. Instead, it will be used by BREIN to fund future enforcement campaigns.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Bis Mitte 2017 müssen Telekommunikationsanbieter die Vorratsdatenspeicherung umsetzen. Doch nicht alle wollen die hohen Anforderungen erfüllen. (Vorratsdatenspeicherung, Datenschutz)

One of the biggest file hosting sites still around has reached an unwanted milestone, as the number of DMCA removal requests received by Google tops 50 million.

Since the takedown of file hosting super site Megaupload, the number file hosting sites has dramatically increased. But one of the biggest still around appears to be getting bigger, even as rights-holders are undecided what to do about the site.

4shared has been submitted by the recording industry as one of the most "notorious" piracy sites, and this week, the number of DMCA takedown requests submitted to Google (to remove Google's listing of 4shared pages in its search engine) has topped 50 million.

One possible reason why 4shared hasn't yet been targeted for lawsuits by the likes of the MPAA and RIAA, the movie and music industry's copyright bodies, may be due to the fact that 4shared offers one of the industry's leading anti-piracy tools. The tool, similar to what YouTube offers to its content partners, is available to rights-holders and can automate the takedown (and staying down) of copyright files. But instead, rights-holders have universally opted to use Google's takedown tool, despite the fact that it is much less efficient, and much more work for rights-holders.

Their reluctance to use 4shared's anti-piracy tools may also indicate future plans to sue the site - as any use of 4shared's tools may be seen as a tacit approval of the site's actions, which may hamper any legal arguments should rights-holder opt to go down this route.

[via TorrentFreak]