September 2018 – Page 33 – news.buyenne.com

Post-Cody Wilson’s arrest, few know what’s up with his company or legal efforts

Filmmaker who got to know Cody Wilson says his company “can’t last” without him.

AUSTIN, Texas—On the surface, everything appears to be normal at Defense Distributed, the firearms company founded by 3D printed guns activist Cody Wilson. Employees have been reporting to work as usual. Sales of the Ghost Gunner and the related 3D-printed gun files on a USB stick continue. And the Defense Distributed team has been working to fulfill those just like any other week.

But of course, it hasn't been just any other week for the Austin company. On Wednesday, September 19, an arrest warrant was issued for Wilson related to his alleged sexual assault of an unnamed underage girl. And on Friday, September 21, Wilson was arrested in Taipei, Taiwan. He flew to the country roughly two weeks earlier, and the Austin Police Department said that Wilson had skipped his return flight to the US after they believe the man received a tip about the allegations.

So while business at Defense Distributed rolls along at the moment, the company founder likely faces criminal charges upon returning to his home city. And that means Wilson could be effectively out at Defense Distributed.

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Entwicklerstudio: Telltale Games wird wohl geschlossen

Das Episodenabenteuer auf Basis von Stranger Stings wird nie erscheinen, mehr als 200 Entwickler haben ihren Job verloren: Das Entwicklerstudio Telltale Games (The Walking Dead) steht offenbar vor dem Aus. (Telltale, Minecraft)

Ecuador wanted to make Julian Assange a diplomat and send him to Moscow

Reuters: UK’s Foreign Office did not accept diplomatic status, so plan was scuttled.

Last year, Ecuador attempted to deputize WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as one of its own diplomats and send him to Russia, according to a Friday report by Reuters.

Citing an "Ecuadorian government document," which the news agency did not publish, Assange apparently was briefly granted a "special designation" to act as one of its diplomats, a privilege normally granted to the president for political allies. However, that status was then withdrawn when the United Kingdom objected.

The Associated Press reported earlier in the week that newly-leaked documents showed that Assange sought a Russian visa back in 2010. WikiLeaks has vehemently denied that Assange did so.

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Newly discovered letter by Galileo resolves puzzling historical mystery

Letter shows Galileo lightly edited his original words to appease Catholic Church

Renowned astronomer Galileo has been lauded for centuries for his courageous principled stance against the Catholic Church. He argued in favor of the Earth moving around the Sun, rather than vice versa, in direct contradiction to church teachings at the time. But a long-lost letter has been discovered at the Royal Society in London indicating that Galileo tried to soften his initial claims to avoid the church's wrath.

In August, Salvatore Ricciardo, a postdoc in science history at the University of Bergamon in Italy, visited London, searching various British libraries for any handwritten comments on Galileo's works. He was idly flipping through a catalogue at the Royal Society when he came across the letter Galileo wrote to a friend in 1613, outlining his arguments. According to Nature, which first reported the unexpected find, the letter "provides the strongest evidence yet that, at the start of his battle with the religious authorities, Galileo actively engaged in damage control and tried to spread a toned-down version of his claims."

“I thought, ‘I can’t believe that I have discovered the letter that virtually all Galileo scholars thought to be hopelessly lost,’” Ricciardo told Nature. “It seemed even more incredible because the letter was not in an obscure library, but in the Royal Society library.”

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Lieferdienste: Amazon enttarnt Paketdiebe mit fingierten Lieferungen

Wer für Amazon Pakete ausfährt, könnte eine Falle gestellt bekommen. Fahrern der Lieferdienste werden fingierte Lieferungen untergeschoben. Damit sollen einige Langfinger überführt worden sein. (Amazon, Onlineshop)

Onlineshops: Verbraucherzentrale bemängelt hohe Speditionskosten bei Ikea

Auf absurd errechnete Speditionskosten ist die Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen in Stichproben bei mehreren Onlineshops gestoßen. Die Verbraucherschützer bemängeln, dass unter anderem Ikea sehr hohe Kosten für die Lieferung berechnet – ganz glei…

Reddit Gets Tough With Multiple Bans of Piracy Sub-Reddits

Faced with communities that continually flaunt Reddit’s rules on deliberately linking to copyright-infringing content, the site’s admins have banned yet more piracy-focused sub-Reddits. The latest casualties are communities that have systematically posted links to movies, TV shows and software.

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

While the DMCA contains a ‘repeat infringer’ clause, copyright cases filed in the United States are now helping to more accurately define what the term means.

Multiple cases involving ISPs Cox, Grande Communications, and their subscribers, appear to be having a knock-on effect on platforms that rely on user-submitted content. No longer as vague as it was, the repeat infringer clause now means that platforms are quicker to take action against persistent pirates.

With its tens of millions of users, Reddit is one such site. All content is submitted by users and while copyright infringements are dealt with following complaints from rightsholders, the site now appears to deal more swiftly with those who continually flout the rules.

As previously reported, Reddit has issued stern warnings to several communities after they were subjected to multiple complaints from rightsholders. It now appears the ban-hammer is being swung with increasing force.

Several sub-Reddits connected to copyright infringing content have recently been banned from Reddit. One of those is FullMoviesOnAnything, a previously 23,000-strong community that posted links to full movies hosted on external sites.

How FullMoviesOnAnything used to look

Following complaints, users are no longer greeted with a large index of links to infringing content. Instead, the sub-Reddit displays the familiar ‘banned’ screen indicating that the community has been shuttered for good.

Permanently banned from Reddit

Another sub-Reddit with a similar name and purpose has also been banned. FullMoviesOnAnything_ (note the underscore) was also nuked, apparently for spam. Like its namesake, however, the community also posted links to copyright-infringing content.

How FullMoviesOnAnything_ used to look

These aren’t the only ‘infringing’ sub-Reddits to be closed in recent times.

TvShowsOnAnything, a nod to its namesake in the movie sector, has also been permanently removed from the site. The same thing happened to /r/fullmoviesonline earlier this year.

While Reddit doesn’t always display precise reasons for a sub-Reddit being banned on each individual landing page, one doesn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that copyright infringement was an issue in the above cases. In other instances, however, the site is more clear.

The ‘banned’ notices on sub-Reddits including /r/fullmovies and /r/crackedsoftware are crystal clear, with a specific note that the sub-Reddit violated the site’s repeat infringer policy and were shut down.

Repeat infringer policy in effect

As highlighted last month, sub-Reddits dealing with piracy-related topics need to be increasingly careful not to break Reddit’s rules. Tight moderation is the key, along with common sense from users.

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

Amazon Alexa: Echo-Lautsprecher können bald über Skype telefonieren

Amazon und Microsoft intensivieren ihre Zusammenarbeit. Das Resultat: Noch in diesem Jahr sollen Kunden mit Hilfe von Echo-Lautsprechern über Alexa auch Skype-Nutzer anrufen können – und angerufen werden. (Amazon Alexa, VoIP)

Games Protected by Latest Version of Denuvo Cracked yet Again

A group of games released recently, and protected by the latest version of Denuvo, has been cracked in record time again, leading to suggestions that other recent AAA titles, such as 'Madden NFL 19' and 'Shadow of the Tomb Raider' could be cracked soon.

Courtesy of CrackWatch, which monitors piracy channels to indicate whether a game has been cracked, a series of new games that appear to use the latest version of Denuvo have been cracked recently, including 'F1 2018' and 'Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age'.

Both games have been cracked within weeks of release (23 days after release for 'Dragon Quest XI', and only 13 days for 'F1 2018').

And in the case of 'Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker', it become a "zero day crack", meaning it was cracked on the day of release.

Denuvo, the anti-tampering tech, has been a thorn in the side of game crackers since it first became widely used a few years ago. It has proved particularly resistance to cracking efforts, with some games staying uncracked for months, even years. But in recent times, cracks have started to appear in Denuvo's armor, and game crackers appears to now have the upper hand.

Denuvo has also been criticized for being resource intensive, taking away precious frames-per-second from already resource hungry games. A recent comparison for the game 'Mass Effect Andromeda' with and without Denuvo protection (the publishers of the game removed Denuvo protection in a recent patch) showed as much as a 12% improvement in average framerate for the game post Denuvo removal. Efforts to contain cracking may lead to further performance issues with Denuvo in the future.

Denuvo has also been upping the pressure on game crackers via other means, with infamous cracked Voksi recently arrested and having his equipment seized.

Denuvo is currently in its 4.9 version, but the developers of Denuvo have rolled out several incremental updates as it tries to stem the piracy tide. It is unknown when Denuvo 5.0 will be released and whether it will add a whole new layer of protection that resets the progress game crackers have made in recent times.

[via Crackwatch]

Wochenrückblick: Alexa wird erweitert und Linus wird brav

Nvidia stellt neue Grafikkarten vor, Audi sein erstes E-Mobil und Amazon haufenweise Alexa-Lauscher. Eine Auszeit nimmt sich derweil Linus Torvalds. (Golem-Wochenrückblick, Instant Messenger)