Month: April 2017

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Rasante 200 Hz für Spieler von Dota, Battlefield oder Dirt Rally und mehr Übersicht durch das 21:9-Format: AOC macht mit seinem neuen, gebogenen Monitor der Agon-Reihe vieles richtig. Leider müssen Nutzer vor dem Zocken aber stets eine schwere Entscheidung treffen. Ein Test von Michael Wieczorek (Display, USB 3.0)

Endlich will die Bundesnetzagentur gegen zu niedrige Datenraten vorgehen. Jetzt wird festgelegt, wie groß die Abweichung sein kann, damit sie einen Vertragsverstoß darstellt, der Bußgeld kostet. (Provider, DSL)

Denuvo hat im Falle von Mass Effect Andromeda lediglich rund zehn Tage gehalten. Andere aktuelle Titel wie Nier Automata verwenden offenbar eine aktuellere Version der Anti-Tamper-Software und wurden bislang nicht geknackt. (Denuvo, DRM)

Nach jahrelanger Entwicklung beendet Canonical die Arbeit an dem konvergenten Ubuntu-Desktop Unity 8. Damit enden auch die Smartphone-Ambitionen für Ubuntu. Das Unternehmen wendet sich nun vorrangig der Cloud und dem Internet der Dinge zu. (Ubuntu, Mark Shuttleworth)

Windows 10 sammelt Nutzerdaten. Erstmals hat Microsoft sehr detailliert darüber Auskunft gegeben. Mit dem aktuellen Creators Update für Windows 10 erhalten Anwender mehr Einstellungsoptionen, um das Sammeln der Daten zu verringern. (Windows 10, Microsoft)

Amazon has toughened up its anti-piracy policy in relation to media players loaded with piracy software, with the online retailer going as far as destroying any stock it has of these players in their warehouses.

Streaming media players have become extremely popular in recent times, with many vendors selling generic (usually Android based) media player boxes loaded with the popular open source media platform Kodi. Some less scrupulous vendors have also added additional third party add-ons for Kodi, add-ons that enable these boxes to easily stream pirated content.

Pirated content include everything from the latest movies and TV shows, and even live streaming of popular sporting events.

For their part, the makers of Kodi makes clear they have no association with these third party add-ons, and has even vowed to take legal action against makers of such plug-ins.

And now it seems Amazon is doing their part as well, by updating their seller's agreement to specifically address the issue of media players.

"Products offered for sale on Amazon should not promote, suggest the facilitation of, or actively enable the infringement of or unauthorized access to digital media or other protected content. Any streaming media player or other device that violates this policy is prohibited from sale on Amazon," Amazon's updated policy reads.

Taking the hardest line of action possible, any such products caught in any one of Amazon's fulfillment centers will be destroyed on sight.

"If you [the seller] sell these products, we may immediately suspend or terminate your selling privileges and destroy inventory in our fulfillment centers without reimbursement. In addition, if we determine that your account has been used to engage in fraud or other illegal activity, remittances and payments may be withheld or forfeited," the policy continues.

The move may be an attempt by Amazon to preempt future legal action, with the MPAA already suggesting that "solutions" are being sought specifically in relation to the illegal use of Kodi in media players.

At the time of writing, such media players are still widely available on Amazon via third party sellers.

[via TorrentFreak]

Bioware will mit Update 1.05 für Mass Effect Andromeda das Inventar vergrößern und die Reisen im All verkürzen. Auch bei der Grafik und den Animationen von Augen und Lippenbewegungen wollen die Entwickler noch heute nachbessern. (Mass Effect Andromeda, Adventure)

Das neue Quake Champions ähnelt stark dem indirekten Vorgänger Quake 3 Arena: blutig, explosiv, schnell - wären da nicht die besagten Helden und die modernere Technik. Wir fühlten uns sofort wie damals, wenngleich etwas weniger treffsicher. Ein Bericht von Marc Sauter (Quake, Steam)

The City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) is a specialist unit dedicated to the reduction of all IP-related crime, including actions against pirate sites and their operators, sellers of Kodi-type devices, and those who counterfeit luxury goods.

While at times the unit is able to take down infrastructure, it appears to have a broader strategy of disruption, making life difficult for those committing infringement in the hope that they give up or move on.

In recent years, PIPCU has been putting a lot of effort into having domains taken down or suspended. Sometimes it achieves this after applying pressure to pirate site operators, for example, but the majority of takedowns are actioned via voluntary agreements with industry players.

This week, PIPCU announced that it will begin collaborating with the International Anti Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC) to take down websites in association with the IACC’s ‘RogueBlock‘ program.

RogueBlock was launched in January 2012 following rights-holder negotiations with the payment industry to develop a strategy for dealing with so-called ‘rogue’ websites. It began by focusing on sites selling counterfeits but in 2015 was expanded to deal with cyberlocker-type sites.

With MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, MoneyGram, American Express, Discover, PULSE, Diners Club and Western Union as members, the program focuses on disrupting revenue streams, such as payments for fake items or subscriptions to file-hosting sites that fail to comply with the requirements of the DMCA.

Since the program began, it claims to have terminated more than 5,300 accounts connected to a claimed 200,000 websites. Now it has a new ally in PIPCU, which will augment the program with its own Operation Ashiko, an initiative aimed at seizing allegedly infringing website domains.

“Since its inception Operation Ashiko has suspended in excess of 20,000 websites by working with our industry partners,” PIPCU says.

“This creates a safer environment for consumers to purchase genuine goods and disrupts the funding of criminals committing intellectual property crime.”

This partnership is an extension of similar industry and voluntary agreements currently gathering momentum in both Europe and the United States. Freed from the shackles of expensive and formal legal action, industry players and police now work together in order to disrupt piracy in all its forms, hitting website infrastructure and revenue collection mechanisms.

While supporters in the creative industries see such programs as nimble and effective in the fight against IP crime, critics such as the EFF are concerned by the lack of transparency and accountability.

“If a website is wrongly listed by the IACC in its RogueBlock program, thereby becoming a target for blocking by the City of London Police and the payment processors, there is no readily accessible pathway to have its inclusion reviewed and, if necessary, reversed,” the EFF says.

“This opens up much scope for websites to be wrongly listed for anti-competitive or political reasons, or simply by mistake.”

The EFF says that it would prefer that action against sites was backed up by enforcement through legal channels. However, as the group points out, that could prove complex due to the multi-jurisdictional nature of the Internet.

“The latest expansion of the program to facilitate the takedown of domains threatens to compound these problems, particularly if the City of London Police apply it against websites that are not globally infringing, or if private domain registries or registrars join the program and begin to act on claims of infringement directly,” it concludes.

While PIPCU will certainly bring something to the table, domain suspensions in the UK don’t always go smoothly. Registrars have previously declined to work with the unit to suspend torrent site domains and in 2014 it was revealed that out of 70 similar requests, just five were granted.

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