Month: March 2017

In a blow to privacy advocates across the United States, the House of Representatives voted Tuesday to grant Internet service providers permission to sell subscribers’ browsing histories to third parties.

The bill repeals broadband privacy rules adopted last year by the Federal Communications Commission under the Obama administration, which required ISPs to obtain consumer consent before using their data for advertising or marketing purposes.

The House of Representatives voted 215-205 in favor of overturning the regulations after the Senate voted to revoke the rules last week. President Donald Trump’s signature is needed before it can go into law but with the White House giving its full support, that’s a given.

“The Administration strongly supports House passage of S.J.Res. 34, which would nullify the Federal Communications Commission’s final rule titled ‘Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunication Services’,” the White House said in a statement yesterday.

“If S.J.Res. 34 were presented to the President, his advisors would recommend that he sign the bill into law.”

If that happens, the US will free up the country’s Internet service providers to compete in the online advertising market with platform giants such as Google and Facebook. Of course, that will come at the expense of subscribers’ privacy, whose every browsing move online can be subjected to some level of scrutiny.

While supporters say that scrapping the regulations will mean that all Internet companies will operate on a level playing field when it comes to privacy protection, critics say that ISPs should be held to a higher level of accountability.

Whereas consumers have a choice over which information can be shared with websites, browsing history via an ISP is total, potentially exposing sensitive issues concerning health, finances, or even sexual preferences.

With this in mind, it’s no surprise that US Internet users are beginning to realize that everything they do online could soon be exposed to third-parties intent on invading their privacy in the interests of commerce. Predictably, questions are being raised over what can be done to mitigate the threat.

Aside from cutting the cord entirely, there’s only one practical way to hinder ISPs, and that’s through the use of some form of encryption. Importantly, visitors to basic HTTP websites will have no browsing protection whatsoever. Those using HTTPS can assume that although ISPs will still know which URLs they’ve visited, content exchanged will be cloaked.

Of course, for those looking for a more workable solution, VPNs – Virtual Private Networks – can provide a much greater level of encrypted protection, especially among providers who promise to keep no logs.

As a result, various providers, including blackVPN, ExpressVPN, LiquidVPN, StrongVPN and Torguard, have weighed in on the debate via social media. NordVPN have also spoken out against the bill in the press, and Private Internet Access even took out a full page ad in the New York Times this week.

It’s now becoming clear that while it was once a somewhat niche activity, VPN use could now be about to hit the mainstream.

Taking a look at Google Trends results for the search term ‘VPN’, we can see that interest across the United States is now double what it was back in 2012. The significant surge to the right of the chart is likely attributable to the past few weeks of debate surrounding the repeal of broadband privacy rules.

While most VPN providers have been campaigning against the changes, there can be no doubt that the signing of the bill into law will be extremely good for business. As seen from the above, record numbers of people are learning about VPNs and there’s even encouragement coming in from people at the very top of Internet commerce.

Following the vote yesterday, Twitter general counsel Vijaya Gadde took to her company’s platform to‏ suggest that citizens should take steps to protect their privacy.

Her tweet, which was later attributed to her own opinion and not company policy, was retweeted by Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey.

It will be interesting to see how the new rules will affect VPN uptake longer term when the fuss around the debate this month has died down. Nevertheless, there seems little doubt that VPN use will rise to some extent and that could be bad news for copyright holders seeking to enforce their rights online.

In addition to stopping ISPs from spying on users’ browsing histories, a good VPN also prevents users being monitored online when using BitTorrent. A further handy side-effect is that they also render site-blocking efforts useless.

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

Medion bietet ein umfangreiches Smart-Home-System an, das sich durch unkomplizierte Einrichtung und einfache Bedienung auszeichnen soll. Golem.de hat die Bausteine installiert und das System getestet - und ist dabei auf eine konstruktionsbedingte Schwäche gestoßen, die Mehrkosten verursacht. Ein Test von Tobias Költzsch (Medion, IoT)

Nach offenbar langen Verhandlungen ist jetzt der Quellcode der Research-Unix-Editionen 8, 9 und 10 erhältlich. Der Besitzer erlaubt die Nutzung im privaten Bereich, gibt die Rechte an dem Sourcecode aber nicht ab. (Open Source, Urheberrecht)

Die Supermarktkette Kaufland stockt einen ihrer Smartphone-Tarife auf. Der mittlere Tarif erhält mehr ungedrosseltes Datenvolumen, ohne dass es eine Preiserhöhung gibt. Die Neuerung steht bald auch Bestandskunden zur Verfügung. (Mobilfunktarif, Telefónica)

Bislang können Nutzer von Tinder nur mit einer App auf Partnersuche gehen. Das soll sich ändern: Eine Desktopversion für den Browser ist geplant - interessant ist das wohl vor allem für Partnersuchende, die gerne chatten. (Soziales Netz, Internet)

Pirate movie streaming sites and services continue to gain popularity, with 123movies at the forefront of this trend.

However, growth doesn’t always come easy. Over the past week the site has been suffering significant downtime, for unknown reasons. The site eventually returned during the weekend on the domain 123movieshd.to, but that wasn’t the end of the upheaval.

Yesterday the site switched to a new home, first renaming itself to Memovies, only to switch to Gomovies a few hours later.

While the site’s operators are staying quiet on the exact reason for the downtime, a site representative told TorrentFreak that GoMovies.to will be the site’s official domain, at least for the time being.

When asked about the reason for the name change, the representative said that it is in part to set itself apart from the many fake sites and proxies that appeared online recently.

The operators grew tired of the many fake sites that ranked very high in search engines with the 123movies brand. With the change, GoMovies will try to regain momentum.

The old 123movies.is and 123movies.to domain names are now linking to the new GoMovies one, and the site also confirmed the surprising brand change on its official Twitter account.

“We’re back at GoMovies.to – This is our Official Domain – new Home for 123Movies users. Old data remains the same. Please spread.”

123movies / Gomovies on Twitter

While GoMovies has a new domain name and logo, the rest of the site is pretty much intact. In fact, most of the references to 123movies are still present on the site, even in the site title and the FAQ section.

Although the turbulent week with several days of downtime remains largely unexplained, the site representative hopes that they will remain on the new domain for a while. However, we were told that it’s possible that they will have to change again in the future.

In addition to the site’s millions of users, 123movies / GoMovies developments are also being closely watched by copyright holders, who see the site as one of their main targets.

Hollywood previously reported the site to the U.S. Government’s Trade Representative, labeling it one of the most “notorious” pirate markets, and the site is blocked by UK ISPs as well. Last week, the US Ambassador to Vietnam turned up the pressure by urging a local minister to prosecute the site’s operators, who allegedly reside there.

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

Tesla hat einen neuen großen Anteilseigner: Der chinesische Internetkonzern Tencent investiert knapp 1,8 Milliarden US-Dollar in Tesla. Das Geld wird für die Produktion des Elektroautos Model 3 benötigt. (Tesla, Elektroauto)

Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Der Klassiker Planescape Torment bekommt eine Enhanced Edition. Spieler sollen darin mit überarbeiteter Nutzerführung und zeitgemäßen Auflösungen ein im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes "unsterbliches" Abenteuer erleben. (Rollenspiel, Games)

Der Browser Vivaldi hat ein Update erhalten. Mit der Version 1.8 wird die Verlaufsfunktion erheblich erweitert. Etliche Werkzeuge helfen bei der Suche im Verlauf, um schnell und bequem das Passende zu finden. (Vivaldi, Browser)