Month: June 2018

Die Top500-Liste wird wieder von einem amerikanischen Supercomputer angeführt, auch der dritte Platz geht an die USA. Chinas Tianhe-2A schafft es trotz Aufrüstung nicht auf's Treppchen. Auffällig ist, dass viele der schnellsten Rechner auf Intel/Nvidia-Hardware setzen. (Supercomputer, IBM)

Der Vermieter Lime bietet in Paris und Zürich kleine Roller mit Elektromotorunterstützung an. Die Tretroller werden per Smartphone-App ausgeliehen und können überall stehen gelassen werden. In den USA hat dies Ärger verursacht. (Elektrofahrrad, Technologie)

Volkswagen hat seinen Elektrorennwagen I.D. R beim US-Bergrennen Pikes Peak antreten lassen und den ersten Platz gewonnen - vor allen anderen Fahrzeugen mit Verbrennungsmotor. (VW, Technologie)

Anyone familiar with the annual leak of awards season movies onto the Internet will recognize the watermarks used to identify the purpose of a copy.

The “For Your Consideration” watermarks are perhaps the most widely recognized additions to DVD screeners, notifying the viewer that the copy was originally provided for the scrutiny of Oscars and similar voters.

Other watermarks, with “Property of Studio XYZ here” splashed across the screen, serve a similar purpose.

While these watermarks are designed to ensure that any leaks result in heavily defaced ‘pirate’ copies, other less visible watermarks can be used by studios to track a leak back to its original source, including back to a single person. These provide a deterrent but in the event a copy is diverted or stolen, they do nothing to stop a leak that has already happened.

In the case of pirate streams of live events, such as TV and sports programs made available online via websites and illicit IPTV services, watermarks have the ability to help anti-piracy efforts much closer to real-time.

Since pirate streams are often captured from consumer decoders, a watermark denoting which subscriber account is being used can be embedded into the video. Once the mark is identified and matched with a customer device, the stream can be cut off at its source by the broadcaster.

Watermark hashcodes during the Mayweather v McGregor fight

While it is possible to remove these codes, doing so isn’t always straightforward. Systems can place the watermark in any place at any time, meaning that some always slip through the net. However, others are more easily dealt with, as a report from security company Irdeto reveals.

“So-called ‘HashCode removal tools’ work in near real-time to strip away any kind of visual marks from a video feed. This ranges from unique fingerprints right down to the broadcaster’s on-screen logo that’s so familiar on many channels, both helping pirates to cover their tracks,” the company explains.

“These tools are so smart, they take a sample of the surrounding pixels and re-use them to replace the visual marks, so the viewer of the pirate stream barely notices any disturbance in the picture.”

Irdeto says that its work with TV companies has revealed an uptick in the use of such tools in recent months. That’s partially down to how readily available they are.

“Research by Irdeto’s anti-piracy team found HashCode removal tools openly on sale via popular selling platforms like eBay and Alibaba for less than US$2,000,” the company reveals.

Remove watermarks automatically

“These devices fall into a legal grey-area. They don’t actively ENABLE piracy, but they do help pirates to mask their identity. This means the sellers don’t even need to be shy about describing exactly what their products can achieve,” Irdeto notes.

Indeed, some companies are happy to publish demonstrations on YouTube showing their systems in action, complete with before-and-after videos supplemented by behind the scenes action.

Live watermark removal in action

While these devices have their uses, Irdeto says they cannot tackle the most sophisticated watermarking systems that use covert methods.

“A unique User ID is still inserted into the stream and persists through different screen-capture and transformation techniques, but because the pirates can’t see the watermarks, they have a hard time obscuring them,” Irdeto explains.

While both overt and covert watermarking has its uses, to date they haven’t managed to prevent the major IPTV ‘wholesalers’ from putting together packages consisting of thousands of pirated TV channels from most major broadcasters worldwide.

With these consistently available for just a few dollars, euros, or pounds per month, the cat and mouse game will continue.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Die junge Generation kann sich meist nur 10 bis 15 Minuten konzentrieren. Für sie will RTL anspruchsvolle kurze Inhalte als Streaming anbieten. (RTL, Amazon)

Online censorship has always been a hot topic and with the EU’s proposed “upload filters” hitting the headlines, it’s at the top of the agenda once again.

The fear of losing the ability to share ‘memes’ plays well on social media. Similarly, many journalists happily use ‘censorship’ in their headlines as, apparently, the fate of the Internet is at stake.

A common theme is that, if the plans are implemented, powerful corporations may soon decide whether you can share something online – fair use or not. While to a degree this fear is warranted, it’s also nothing new.

The ‘censorship machines’ are already up and running as we speak.

YouTube, to give an example, regularly takes down videos for dubious reasons. Some are pulled manually after rightsholders file complaints, while many more are targeted by YouTube’s automated piracy filters.

It’s not clear how many ‘memes’ are killed in the process, but what many people describe as the ‘censorship’ that will ‘destroy the Internet,’ is already fully operational on the largest video sharing platform of all.

But the problem goes even further. Aside from copyright issues, YouTube also demonetizes certain accounts because their content isn’t advertiser-friendly. There is still free speech, to a certain degree, but not all speech can be monetized.

Mind you, this policy is not forced by the EU. It’s regular business practice on the same platform where people are currently sharing their EU censorship warnings. Let that sink in for a minute…

Meme killers

These issues are not limited to YouTube of course. Many other sites have automated filters or approve questionable takedowns.

This week, for example, Twitter removed a video of a cheering kid, because the World Cup was playing on a TV in the background. Also, accounts – including prominent ones – are frequently suspended for alleged copyright infringements which may be fair use.

Similarly, Facebook is known to police its network for possibly infringing content. Like YouTube and others, they use automated filters to spot possibly infringing content, which it takes down before asking questions.

Given the above, there is some irony to the fact that sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are the main venues used by people protesting the EU’s looming censorship machines.

Yes, the EU plans will force smaller companies to spend money on anti-piracy measures, above and beyond what they do now. They will potentially increase liability and uncertainty for startups too. That’s a legitimate concern. But censorship machines are nothing new.

If we use the same rhetoric seen in various “upload filter” protests, the Internet is already being ‘destroyed’ by the Twitters, Facebooks, and YouTubes of this world.

In the current climate, many large platforms will resort to filtering tools or other measures to stop copyright infringements. Their aim is to protect rightsholders, which is understandable, but unfortunately, that can also lead to collateral damage.

The good news is that YouTube, or Facebook, or Twitter, are not the Internet. The Internet will be totally fine. If history has shown us anything, it’s that clever people will come up with new ways to defeat censorship attempts.

While it may sound alien to many, there are alternatives for all these platforms – alternatives that people can host and control themselves. Not to pirate, but to ensure that people can share their legal work without having to worry about overzealous censorship machines.

The real question is, perhaps, if the broader public will ever be ready for these kinds of tools.

Twenty years ago the Internet was a place where a lot of people built stuff, but today it’s mostly a place to consume. There are still plenty of creators and contributors, but these mostly rely on large platforms over which they have no control themselves.

These platforms are convenient, have a broad audience, and even allow some people to make a living. However, they also have power and control over what people are allowed to do and share, memes included. And many (ab)use that power, whether the EU tells them to or not.

Instead of resorting to Twitter activism and YouTube outrage people can also take matters into their own hands, of course, but that would require some work…

Perhaps someone can start a campaign for that?

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Der Protest wandert vom Netz auf die Straße: Auf einer Demo gegen das Leistungsschutzrecht und Uploadfilter forderten der IT-Verband Bitkom, der Verein Digitalcourage und mehrere Parteien einen Stopp der Pläne. (Leistungsschutzrecht, Urheberrecht)

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From AT&T's new streaming product to a counter-bid to Disney's Fox bid, read the news roundup for the week ending June 24, 2018

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