Month: January 2019

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China baut sein Eisenbahnsystem aus: Auf einer neuen Strecke, die im Laufe dieses Jahres fertig wird, sollen Hochgeschwindigkeitszüge mit über 300 km/h automatisiert fahren. (Verkehr, Technologie)

Wer steckt hinter dem Leak persönlicher Daten von Politikern und Promis? Die aufwendige Aufbereitung der Daten lässt eine Nutzung für politische Kampagnen vermuten. Doch ein Youtuber soll dahinter stecken, der lediglich Aufmerksamkeit wollte. Ein Bericht von Friedhelm Greis (Deutscher Bundestag, Spam)

Das Tesla Model 3 kann jetzt auch diesseits des Atlantiks konfiguriert und bestellt werden. Vorerst gibt es das Elektroauto allerdings nur in Ländern mit Rechtsverkehr. (Tesla Model 3, Technologie)

Hola is a very well-known brand in the VPN and proxy space but the company has been roundly criticized for the manner in which its free core product operates.

While traditional VPN services use encrypted servers to relay customer traffic and tend to focus on privacy, Hola’s free model is based on utilizing the resources and bandwidth of its users. During December, Trend Micro published a scathing report, describing Hola as an “unsafe VPN”.

Hola fired back, stating that its free service isn’t designed for privacy or anonymity but agreeing that users’ bandwidth is utilized by Luminati Networks, the company behind Hola. But while controversial, it’s clear that Luminati is keen to protect its business model.

In a patent infringement lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of Texas which has largely flown under the radar, Luminati Networks Ltd is suing BI Science Inc., the company behind another so-called “residential proxy network” known as GeoSurf.

Both parties are based in Israel but Luminati claims the Court has jurisdiction, in part due to some GeoSurf users having residential IP addresses in Texas.

Luminati claims ownership over a number of patents, as listed on its website, which protect methods for “fetching content over the Internet through the use of intermediary tunneling devices.”

“Luminati permits its business customers to utilize its residential proxy network to access data over the Internet using residential IP addresses from various localities as required by the customers,” the suit reads.

“These residential IP addresses provide businesses with a number of advantages. For example, Luminati’s customers may use this network to anonymously compare prices leading to more transparency and lower prices for consumers. Luminati’s customers may also use residential proxy addresses to test their web sites from any city in the world.”

The lawsuit provides details of Luminati’s investor shareholders, whose representatives were given access to confidential information about the service in May 2015, including “trade secrets and know how.”

It’s claimed that these representatives, who previously founded BI Science in 2009, went on to introduce their own residential proxy service under the GeoSurf brand in July 2017, “having estimated that switching to a residential proxy service from a server-based service could dramatically reduce BI Science’s ongoing server costs and provide BI Science with new revenue streams from this capability.”

It’s further alleged that three former Luminati employees, who were under confidentiality and non-compete agreements with the company, went on to join BI Science “within months” of leaving Luminati.

“Upon information and belief, BI Science hired these former Luminati salespeople for the purposes of selling BI Science’s competing ‘Geosurf’ residential proxy service,” the suit notes, adding that Luminati lost customers as a result.

“Luminati has suffered damage because of the infringing activities of BI Science, its officers, agents, servants, employees, associates, partners, and other persons who are in active concert or participation therewith, and Luminati will continue to suffer irreparable harm for which there is no adequate remedy at law unless BI Science’s infringing activities are preliminarily and permanently enjoined by this Court,” Luminati adds.

The two patents allegedly being infringed upon by GeoSurf are also the subject of dispute in another suit filed in July against UAB Tesonet, the company behind residential proxy service Oxylabs.

While fairly complex from a technical perspective, the Luminati v BI Science lawsuit here (pdf) provides a broad yet useful overview of how so-called “residential” or “community” type proxy services operate.

The take-home for the privacy-aware is that these peer-to-peer proxy-based products should never be confused with what most people consider to be a strong, encrypted, privacy-focused VPN service.

There is a very good reason why Hola-style “community” services are mostly free to the home user, so consumers are strongly advised to study the small print before signing up to any service, to be absolutely sure of what they’re getting into.

If becoming part of a network that utilizes and monetizes your Internet connection behind the scenes sounds attractive, then “community” services are perfect for you. If not, a few dollars, euros, or pounds per month spent with a reputable company is a far superior option.

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

While uploading infringing content is generally considered illegal in many countries around the world, downloading and streaming can be different matters.

Specifically outlawed in the EU, laws on streaming are less obvious in other regions due to a lack of clarification and relevant test cases. In some countries, downloading is often considered to sit in a legal gray area due to private copying exceptions and blank media levies. In Japan, there’s a significant loophole for some content.

While downloading music and movies is illegal, Japan’s Copyright Act doesn’t offer the same protection for still images, meaning that photographs and the country’s treasured manga material can be obtained at will.

However, according to Mainichi sources familiar with government planning, changes are already in the pipeline. The Agency for Cultural Affairs is reportedly mulling the criminalization of copyrighted image downloading, when the downloader knows that the content they’re obtaining is pirated.

In common with a law introduced in 2012, penalties for downloading manga and other static images could be as steep as two years in prison with fines of up to two million yen (US$17,729) plus the potential for damages awards.

Interestingly, it’s claimed that the new rules will apply to people who download images to their devices but not to those who simply view images on piracy sites. The complication here is that for images to be viewed on a device, they have to be downloaded, so even people who view sites are technically downloading pirated images.

There are similar arguments made for and against the legality of streaming video in some regions, with some believing that streaming is different to downloading since a copy isn’t retained. However, content still has to be presented to a device in order for it to be viewed, so it could be argued that a copy is being downloaded.

According to the unnamed sources, the new restrictions are being incorporated into draft revisions of the Copyright Act by a panel of the copyright subcommittee of the Council for Cultural Affairs. Indications suggest that the draft will be made available for public comments.

Laws that attempt to criminalize downloading are often seen as somewhat ineffective. While there is always the message of deterrence, proving that someone has downloaded copyright-infringing manga, for example, is a difficult task.

While illegal uploads (using BitTorrent, for example) are very easy to track, downloads from the kinds of hosting or linking sites that tend to offer manga are not, so it’s far from clear how anyone could be prosecuted, without gaining access to private machines and pirated content collections.

That being said, Japan intends to criminalize platforms too. In October 2018 it was revealed that operators of sites that link to copyright-infringing content could face prison terms of up to five years if they knowingly link to pirated content and refuse to respond to takedowns requests.

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

While uploading infringing content is generally considered illegal in many countries around the world, downloading and streaming can be different matters.

Specifically outlawed in the EU, laws on streaming are less obvious in other regions due to a lack of clarification and relevant test cases. In some countries, downloading is often considered to sit in a legal gray area due to private copying exceptions and blank media levies. In Japan, there’s a significant loophole for some content.

While downloading music and movies is illegal, Japan’s Copyright Act doesn’t offer the same protection for still images, meaning that photographs and the country’s treasured manga material can be obtained at will.

However, according to Mainichi sources familiar with government planning, changes are already in the pipeline. The Agency for Cultural Affairs is reportedly mulling the criminalization of copyrighted image downloading, when the downloader knows that the content they’re obtaining is pirated.

In common with a law introduced in 2012, penalties for downloading manga and other static images could be as steep as two years in prison with fines of up to two million yen (US$17,729) plus the potential for damages awards.

Interestingly, it’s claimed that the new rules will apply to people who download images to their devices but not to those who simply view images on piracy sites. The complication here is that for images to be viewed on a device, they have to be downloaded, so even people who view sites are technically downloading pirated images.

There are similar arguments made for and against the legality of streaming video in some regions, with some believing that streaming is different to downloading since a copy isn’t retained. However, content still has to be presented to a device in order for it to be viewed, so it could be argued that a copy is being downloaded.

According to the unnamed sources, the new restrictions are being incorporated into draft revisions of the Copyright Act by a panel of the copyright subcommittee of the Council for Cultural Affairs. Indications suggest that the draft will be made available for public comments.

Laws that attempt to criminalize downloading are often seen as somewhat ineffective. While there is always the message of deterrence, proving that someone has downloaded copyright-infringing manga, for example, is a difficult task.

While illegal uploads (using BitTorrent, for example) are very easy to track, downloads from the kinds of hosting or linking sites that tend to offer manga are not, so it’s far from clear how anyone could be prosecuted, without gaining access to private machines and pirated content collections.

That being said, Japan intends to criminalize platforms too. In October 2018 it was revealed that operators of sites that link to copyright-infringing content could face prison terms of up to five years if they knowingly link to pirated content and refuse to respond to takedowns requests.

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