Several women accuse tech pundit Robert Scoble of sexual harassment

“I felt one hand on my breast and his arm reaching around and grabbing my butt.”

Enlarge / Robert Scoble, as seen in 2013. (credit: JD Lasica)

Robert Scoble, a longtime fixture of the Silicon Valley punditocracy, has been publicly accused of sexual harassment and assault by multiple women.

In a public Facebook post on Friday, Scoble wrote that he was "deeply sorry to the people I’ve caused pain to. I know I have behaved in ways that were inappropriate."

"I know that apologies are not enough and that they don’t erase the wrongs of the past or the present," he continued. "The only thing I can do to really make a difference now is to prove, through my future behavior, and my willingness to listen, learn and change, that I want to become part of the solution going forward."

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Deep Down, Games Pirates Love Enemies Like Denuvo

Denuvo is considered to be the most despicable anti-piracy mechanism known to man although lately it’s been almost completely dismantled. But while hardcore pirates celebrate its current demise they’re forgetting one thing. Having a bogeyman and then slapping a fat piratey pie in his face is almost a fun as playing the game.

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

While there are plenty of people who just want content for free, digging through the last 35 years of piracy reveals an interesting trend. One way or another, people have always secretly admired anti-piracy systems, since they simultaneously relish the prospect of one day subverting their barriers.

In the very early 80s, when the first 8-bit home computers became more readily available, finding ways to pirate games was almost as much fun as playing them. Children, with limited pocket money, would pool their resources and buy a single copy of a cassette-based game, hoping to clone it at home with a twin-deck recorder, to share among their fellow investors.

With significant trial and error (and only pre-Internet schoolyard advice and folklore available) copying eventually became easy. Then the ‘evil’ games companies worked out what was going on and decided to do something about it.

Early protection systems, such as ‘Hyper Loaders‘, threw a wrench in the works for a while but along came software like Lerm (with full page ads in the media) to level the playing field. Anything you can do we can do better, those kids rejoiced.

Unsurprisingly, copiers like Lerm also fell victim to pirates, with all self-respecting red beards owning a copy. But then the next waves of anti-piracy systems would come along, ensuring that working out how to pirate games became a time-consuming hobby in itself. But most pirates were kids – what else did they have to do?

With a young and inexperienced mindset, however, it was sometimes easy to fear that like Denuvo a year or two ago, some things might never be copied. Take the 1983 release of International Soccer for the Commodore 64 home computer, for example. That originally came on a cartridge – who could ever copy one of those?

Of course, someone did, dumping it onto cassette tape complete with a modification that had some players sitting in wheelchairs, others on crutches, instead of running around. By today’s standards that’s both technically trivial and rather insensitive, but at the time it represented a pirate double-whammy.

A game that couldn’t be pirated getting pirated onto another format, plus a ridiculous addition that no game company would ever allow to market? To teenage pirates, that was a supremely delicious not to mention rebellious treat.

As the months and years rolled on, new consoles – such as Commodore’s Amiga – brought 3.5″ floppy disc storage and new copy protection mechanisms to the masses. And, as expected, fresh solutions to thwart them came to market. Tools such as X-Copy Pro went down in history and were universally hailed by pirates. Who immediately pirated them, of course.

Today the situation is somewhat different but somehow just the same. Copy protection mechanisms, such as the now-infamous Denuvo, are so complex that no user-operated tool is available to copy the games protected by it. Yet people, driven by a passion for subverting the system and solving technological puzzles, are dedicating thousands of hours to take them apart.

Just recently, Denuvo was well and truly dismantled. Games are now routinely getting cracked in a day, sometimes just hours, and the excitement in the air is palpable. In many ways, this is the same kind of enthusiasm expressed by the relatively naive kid pirates of the 80s. They too were frustrated by copy protection, they too screamed with glee when it fell from grace.

While gaming has always been fun, the sense of achievement – of subverting the system – has always come a close second to actually playing games for those with an enthusiastic pirate streak. Imagine a world where every game could be easily copied by just about anyone. Now compare that to a war of attrition against the dark forces behind 80s Hyper Loaders and the evil Denuvo of today.

In the end, there’s no doubt. Most dedicated pirates, provided they eventually taste victory, will take the warfare option any day, fighting to the end, fighting for victory.

Let’s be honest. Pirates absolutely need a nemesis like Denuvo. Because – quite simply – it’s only half the fun without one.

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

Netflix, Amazon Join Forces with the MPAA to Sue Kodi Box Maker

New media and old media have joined forces to sue a maker of Kodi boxes for mass infringement.Amazon and Netflix have teamed up with the MPAA, a trade group that represents all the major Hollywood studios, to file a lawsuit against the makers of the Ti…



New media and old media have joined forces to sue a maker of Kodi boxes for mass infringement.

Amazon and Netflix have teamed up with the MPAA, a trade group that represents all the major Hollywood studios, to file a lawsuit against the makers of the TickBox device.

The media companies claim that the TickBox device, which is an Android box that runs the popular Kodi software, and marketed as a device that can replace the user's Amazon, Netflix or Hulu subscriptions, is being sold as nothing less than an easy way to access pirated content.

Kodi powered media boxes have become increasingly powerful thanks the versatility of the open source Kodi software. The software allows access to a huge array of third-party plug-ins, but some of these plug-ins have been known to allow access to pirated content. Some have taken advantage of this and sells pre-packaged Android boxes with Kodi and piracy plug-ins installed, selling these boxes (widely, but perhaps inaccurately known as Kodi boxes) to users looking for a easy and cheap way to access content (some not aware that the content provided is not authorised).

The makers of these Kodi boxes, however, claim that they have done nothing wrong by packaging plug-ins made by others, and that no content is ever hosted by themselves, and that no content is ever downloaded (as content is streamed).

The makers of the Kodi software have tried to distance themselves from the piracy controversy, going as far as threatening legal action against piracy plug-in makers and Kodi box sellers that include these piracy plug-ins.

But up until now, Hollywood have yet to take serious legal action against Kodi box makers, and the likes of Netflix and Amazon have never involved themselves in this kind of legal action, even though these companies are also now studios, producing their own content.

In their lawsuit, the MPAA alleges that the TickBox allowed users to easily find movies that have not even been released on home video yet. The MPAA claim that a member's movie, 20th Fox's 'War for the Planet of the Apes', was easily found via TickBox's "In Theaters" section, a section devoted to helping users find movies that are still playing in theaters.

TickBox's makers are unlikely to respond to the lawsuit, but their own official website makes the claim that the box is "100% legal". The FAQ on their website also users of the box will be able to "see almost every movie and TV series ever made" and that they will "never [need to] pay to watch any of them".

[via Arstechnica]

MP3 Stream Rippers Are Not Illegal Sites, EFF Tells US Government

The music industry is doing its best to shutter YouTube converter sites and the RIAA recently reported several of them to the US Government. This didn’t sit well with digital rights group EFF, who wrote a reply stressing that the music group is twisting the law, as stream ripping sites are not by definition illegal.

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

Free music is easy to find nowadays. Just head over to YouTube and you can find millions of tracks including many of the most recent releases.

While some artists happily share their work, the major record labels don’t want tracks to leak outside YouTube’s ecosystem. For this reason, they want YouTube to MP3 rippers shut down.

Earlier this month, the RIAA sent its overview of “notorious markets” to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), highlighting several of these sites and asking for help.

“The overall popularity of these sites and the staggering volume of traffic it attracts evidences the enormous damage being inflicted on the U.S. record industry,” the RIAA wrote, calling out Mp3juices.cc, Convert2mp3.net, Savefrom.net, Ytmp3.cc, Convertmp3.io, Flvto.biz, and 2conv.com as the most popular offenders.

This position is shared by many other music industry groups. They see stream ripping as the largest piracy threat online. After shutting down YouTube-MP3, they hope to topple other sites as well, ideally with the backing of the US Government.

However, not everyone shares the belief that stream ripping equals copyright infringement.

In a rebuttal, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) informs the USTR that the RIAA is trying to twist the law in its favor. Not all stream ripping sites are facilitating copyright infringement by definition, the EFF argues.

“RIAA’s discussion of ‘stream-ripping’ websites misstates copyright law. Websites that simply allow users to extract the audio track from a user-selected online video are not ‘illegal sites’ and are not liable for copyright infringement, unless they engage in additional conduct that meets the definition of infringement,” the EFF writes.

Flvto

While some people may use these sites to ‘pirate’ tracks there are also legitimate purposes, the digital rights group notes. Some creators specifically allow others to download and modify their work, for example, and in other cases ripping can be seen as fair use.

“There exists a vast and growing volume of online video that is licensed for free downloading and modification, or contains audio tracks that are not subject to copyright,” the EFF stresses.

“Moreover, many audio extractions qualify as non-infringing fair uses under copyright. Providing a service that is capable of extracting audio tracks for these lawful purposes is itself lawful, even if some users infringe.”

The fact that these sites generate revenue from advertising doesn’t make them illegal either. While there are some issues that could make a site liable, such as distributing infringing content to third parties, the EFF argues that many of the sites identified by the RIAA are not clearly involved in such activities.

Instead of solely relying on the characterizations of the RIAA, the US Government should judge these sites independently, in accordance with the law.

“USTR must apply U.S. law as it is, not as particular industry organizations wish it to be. Accordingly, it is inappropriate to describe ‘stream-ripping’ sites as engaging in or facilitating infringement. That logic would discourage U.S. firms from providing many forms of useful, lawful technology that processes or interacts with copyrighted work in digital form, to the detriment of U.S. trade,” the EFF concludes.

It is worth highlighting that most sites the RIAA mentioned specifically advertise themselves as YouTube converters. While this violates YouTube’s Terms of Service, something the streaming platform isn’t happy with, it doesn’t automatically classify them as infringing services.

Ideally, the RIAA and other music industry group would like YouTube to shut down these sites but if that doesn’t happen, more lawsuits may follow in the future. Then, the claims from both sides can be properly tested in court.

The full EFF response is available here (pdf). In addition to the stream ripping comments, the digital rights group also defends CDN providers such as Cloudflare, reverse proxies, and domain registrars from MPAA and RIAA piracy complaints.

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

CO₂ benefits of regrowing forests nothing to shake a stick at

Land use shifts could provide over a third of our needed emissions cuts.

Enlarge (credit: Patrick Shepherd/CIFOR)

It’s a common suggestion that we should just plant trees to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, but this isn’t quite the solution it may seem. Reforestation would roughly make up for the carbon added to the atmosphere by past deforestation, but our burning of fossil fuels is another matter.

Still, that’s no argument to ignore reforestation. There is no silver bullet solution to climate change, and many things like reforestation add up to make meaningful contributions. And reforestation has a host of other benefits, including improving air quality and providing species with habitats.

So how much of a difference could efforts to save and regrow forests—together with conservation of other ecosystems—really do? That’s the question asked by a group led by Bronson Griscom, an ecologist at The Nature Conservancy. By including a broad set of possible reforestation actions, Griscom and his colleagues found a larger opportunity than we'd previously estimated.

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Spieleklassiker: Mafia digital bei GoG erhältlich

Wer bisher den ersten Mafia-Teil mit einem aktuellen Windows-Betriebssystem am PC spielen wollte, benötigte eine spezielle DVD- oder die nicht mehr verfügbare Steam-Version. Bei GoG gibt es nun eine DRM-freie Ausgabe des Spieleklassikers, wenngleich ei…

Wer bisher den ersten Mafia-Teil mit einem aktuellen Windows-Betriebssystem am PC spielen wollte, benötigte eine spezielle DVD- oder die nicht mehr verfügbare Steam-Version. Bei GoG gibt es nun eine DRM-freie Ausgabe des Spieleklassikers, wenngleich einzig in Englisch und ohne die stimmungsvolle 30er-Jahre-Musik. (Mafia, Steam)

Air-Berlin-Insolvenz: Bundesbeamte müssen statt zu fliegen videotelefonieren

Die Air-Berlin-Pleite sorgt gezwungenermaßen für ein Umdenken in der Verwaltung. Statt teurer und nun auch langwieriger Dienstreisen per Zug sollen die Beamten mehr Videokonferenzen abhalten. Unumstritten ist der Einsatz von modernen Kommunikationsmeth…

Die Air-Berlin-Pleite sorgt gezwungenermaßen für ein Umdenken in der Verwaltung. Statt teurer und nun auch langwieriger Dienstreisen per Zug sollen die Beamten mehr Videokonferenzen abhalten. Unumstritten ist der Einsatz von modernen Kommunikationsmethoden jedoch keineswegs. (Videotelefonie, Skype)

From retro sweets to gooey Upside Down cake: Treats for a Stranger Things binge

Ganache, Fluff, and chocolate round out our baked ’80s horror-food extravaganza.

Enlarge / They look like they could use a bite. (credit: Netflix)

I love October. As an avid baker and Halloween reveler, I usually spend the whole month whipping up my favorite fall desserts and packing in as many gnarly sci-fi and horror flicks as possible. It’s just not October without the smell of spiced apples baking in the oven, knife-wielding serial killers, sage and sausage stuffing, flesh-eating zombies, pumpkin bread, and ferocious aliens.

But this year—this October—is extra special. With the upcoming release of the much anticipated second season of Stranger Things, I, along with some folks at Ars, thought we should go a little bigger. I’ve spliced together my two favorite pastimes to create sci-fi inspired treats that can fuel a lengthy, nostalgia-fueled Netflix binge.

I could pull out a themed recipe or two that would provide adequate sustenance for a binge of the entire new season plus a full re-watching of the first season. But this isn’t amateur hour. There’s just so much amazing sci-fi to celebrate.

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