Just another news site
From a subtitle snafu to Microsoft’s new console, read about this and more in our roundup for the week ending June 16, 2019
Continue reading …
From a subtitle snafu to Microsoft's new console, read about this and more in our roundup for the week ending June 16, 2019
ISP Cox Communications recently agreed to identify thousands of business subscribers accused of sharing pirated material. The disclosure, part of the piracy liability lawsuit filed by several music labels, was protested with success by a lone business subscriber. The identities of thousands of other subscribers who didn’t object will be revealed nonetheless.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.
Copyright holders are increasingly taking Internet providers to court, accusing the companies of failing to terminate repeat copyright infringers.
Up until recently, the alleged pirating subscribers have remained anonymous. However, in the case between several music labels and Cox Communications, this position changed.
Without direction from the court, the ISP agreed to reveal the identities of thousands of business subscribers whose connections were repeatedly used to share infringing material. These personal details are not being made public, but names, addresses, and other info will be handed over to the labels.
It’s not clear what the rightsholders intend to do with this information but it’s unlikely to be in the interests of the accused subscribers. This didn’t sit well with one business subscriber, which protested the stipulated order in court.
The “John Doe” company, an unnamed non-profit that provides hospital and medical care facilities, is one of the 2,793 affected business subscribers. The organization didn’t deny the piracy allegations but told the court that the infringements were made over its unsecured network, which is accessible to visitors.
Before accessing this network all visitors had to agree to the terms of service, which specifically prohibited illegal downloading. Apparently, this wasn’t enough.
The company states that revealing its identity to the record labels isn’t going to change anything. There is no record of who accessed the network at the time of the infringements, so tracking down the culprits is impossible.
“Thus, disclosure of John Doe’s subscriber information will not lead to the discovery of the individual(s) who are alleged by Plaintiffs to have engaged in copyright infringement through the misuse of John Doe’s network in violation of the access agreement,” the company informed the court.
Instead, the company argued that disclosure will breach its privacy rights under the Cable Communications Privacy Act. It therefore filed a request to prevent its personal info from being handed over.
The music labels and Cox didn’t respond to this objection and after a thorough review of the arguments, US Magistrate Judge John F. Anderson decided to grant the objection. This means that the company’s information can’t be shared with the labels.
“No response has been filed to this motion and the fourteen-day period for doing so has expired. Having reviewed the motion and supporting declaration, and there being no opposition, it is hereby ORDERED that the motion is granted, and defendant shall not be required to disclose John Doe’s subscriber information to the plaintiffs,” Judge Anderson writes.
It’s unclear why there was no response to the objection, but it’s possible that the music labels and Cox preferred not to draw any more attention to the matter. Sacrificing the details of one subscriber likely outweighs having an extensive review.
After all, there are still 2,792 business subscribers who didn’t object.
Without any further pleadings, it remains unclear what the music companies plan to do with the subscriber information. Perhaps more will become clear once the case progresses.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.
A wryly ironic zombie comedy featuring a katana-wielding Tilda Swinton? Yes please.
Enlarge / Bill Murray, Chloë Sevigny, and Adam Driver star in Director Jim Jarmusch's deadpan take on the zombie genre, The Dead Don't Die. (credit: Focus Features)
With The Dead Don't Die, auteur director Jim Jarmusch puts his unique, deadpan stamp on this staple of the horror genre. As one might expect, Jarmusch's vision is more ironically cerebral than your typical zombie fare and a bit less viscerally horrifying—even when the aforementioned dead are chowing down on their victims' viscera. It's not a perfect film, but it's got Tilda Swinton brandishing a katana with deadly accuracy against the undead. What's not to love?
(Some spoilers below.)
Zombies might seem an odd choice of subject matter for this longtime darling of the Cannes Film Festival crowd. Jarmusch's career took off in 1984 with his first major film, Stranger Than Paradise. Shot entirely in black-and-white (a signature of the director's early work), the film won the Caméra D'Or at Cannes that year and established the director as a rising creative force in arthouse cinema.
Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Eine Mobilfunkinfrastrukturgesellschaft soll schnell Masten errichten, um Funklöcher zu schließen. Das haben die Fraktionsvorstände von SPD und CDU/CSU beschlossen. Der marktwirtschaftlich getriebene Ausbau habe einen Mobilfunk-Flickenteppich geschaffe…
World-premiere demo adds enough new ideas to rekindle my teenaged FFVII interest.
LOS ANGELES—I have not seen or played enough of Final Fantasy VII Remake to confirm exactly how the game will play out when it launches on PlayStation 4 consoles in March 2020. What I can say so far, at least, is that I'm far from a Final Fantasy or JRPG apologist, and yet 1.5 hours with the game's E3 2019 debut has me absolutely excited.
Really, I'm shocked to admit that. Yet familiar elements, new combat, and incredible polish across the presentation and dialogue have me convinced that I'll be a day-one FFVIIR player, no matter how good, weird, or poor the final game turns out to be. Thus, I'm here to talk about why I feel that way—and what remains to be confirmed or explained about this ambitious, murky, "first in an undetermined series" return to Square Enix's glory days.
Once more into the belly of Shinra Corporation. [credit: Square Enix ]
Square Enixr's Monday E3 press conference confirmed a few things about FFVIIR, from the refreshed visuals to the expanded story and its newly recorded, voice-acted dialogue. But first things first: how does it feel to play the darned thing?
Read 23 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Group responsible for safety tampering Triconex malware has expanded, researchers say.
Enlarge / Power Lines in Page, Arizona (credit: IIP Photo Archive)
In a new troubling escalation, hackers behind at least two potentially fatal intrusions on industrial facilities have expanded their activities to probing dozens of power grids in the US and elsewhere, researchers with security firm Dragos reported Friday.
The group, now dubbed Xenotime by Dragos, quickly gained international attention in 2017 when researchers from Dragos and the Mandiant division of security firm FireEye independently reported Xenotime had recently triggered a dangerous operational outage at a critical-infrastructure site in the Middle East. Researchers from Dragos have labeled the group the world's most dangerous cyber threat ever since.
The most alarming thing about this attack was its use of never-before-seen malware that targeted the facility’s safety processes. Such safety instrumented systems are a combination of hardware and software that many critical infrastructure sites use to prevent unsafe conditions from arising. When gas fuel pressures or reactor temperatures rise to potentially unsafe thresholds, for instance, an SIS will automatically close valves or initiate cooling processes to prevent health- or life-threatening accidents.
Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments
An annual survey carried out in Finland has revealed interesting attitudes towards piracy. The majority of respondents believe that any form of piracy is unacceptable, with only 3% completely in favor. Overall, just 6% of Finns admit to streaming movies or TV shows from illegal sources.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.
Trying to persuade the public to consume content online legally is a battle that’s been waged by the entertainment industries for close to 20 years.
The advent of high-quality legal offers has made that task much easier in recent times but piracy levels continue to cause problems in many countries around the world. In Finland, however, the trend appears to be a downwards one.
An annual survey carried out by market research company Taloustutkimus Oy reveals that the majority of citizens are against piracy, with 58% of the population believing it’s not acceptable in any form. That figure falls just 11% when considering unauthorized downloading for personal use.
The most common form of illicit consumption was found to be streaming from illegal services, with 9% of respondents admitting that they do so. That’s down from the 12% returned in a similar study carried out last year.
Interestingly, just six percent of respondents admitted to accessing unlicensed movies or TV shows from illegal online services. That’s down from 7 percent in 2018.
Anti-piracy group TTVK, which published a summary of the study, says that illicit downloading has dropped overall.
“Although illegal downloads are still the most common among the youngest age group [15-24], downloading has still dropped significantly,” TTVK notes.
“According to the survey, 13% of people under 25 say that unauthorized downloading of Internet-based material is acceptable for their own use, but only nine percent of the age group themselves or a member of the family report doing this.
“In 2015, the corresponding figure was 29%, so the consumption of Finnish entertainment seems to have moved more and more to legal channels as streaming services became more common.”
As ‘pirate’ streaming services have developed, many have presented themselves with impressive Netflix-style interfaces. Popcorn Time was perhaps the most famous front-runner but now there are dozens of sites and apps that to the untrained eye are indistinguishable from legal sites.
The study found that around a third of respondents have difficulty distinguishing between legal and illegal sites. Fortunately, close to six out of ten (57%) say they can do so easily, even if the rest remain unsure.
For Finns, some clarity is available by visiting Laillisetpalvelut.fi, a portal designed to help consumers find legal resources. However, the study found that awareness is weak, with only 6% of respondents having knowledge of the resource.
In general terms, 84% of respondents regard copyright as an important issue, with just 3% believing it’s completely unnecessary. TTVK will also be pleased that 83% respondents feel that that copyright organizations are necessary, with 79% feeling they “are on the right track”.
“In addition, Finns are very much in agreement that creative workers should receive compensation for the work they do, depending on how much of their works are utilized,” TTVK notes, referencing 91% of respondents.
The full results of the 2019 survey can be viewed here, 2018 survey here.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.
Ein spezieller Passwortschutz der Antiviren-Software AVG hat den Passwortspeicher des Firefox-Browser beschädigt. Nutzer hatten deshalb zwischenzeitlich ihre Zugangsdaten verloren. Diese können aber wiederhergestellt werden. (Firefox, Browser)
Der vor allem für seine teils obskuren Produkte bekannte Online-Versandhandel Thinkgeek stellt seinen Betrieb ein. Eine kleine Auswahl der Produkte soll weiter bei der Muttergesellschaft Gamestop erhältlich sein. (Gamestop, Onlineshop)
Der vor allem für seine teils obskuren Produkte bekannte Online-Versandhandel Thinkgeek stellt seinen Betrieb ein. Eine kleine Auswahl der Produkte soll weiter bei der Muttergesellschaft Gamestop erhältlich sein. (Gamestop, Onlineshop) Der Hersteller Yubico muss einige seiner Sticks zur Zwei-Faktor Authentifizierung wegen Sicherheitslücken zurückziehen und bei Kunden austauschen. Kurioserweise nur jene mit einer besonderen Zertifizierungen der US-Regierung. (Yubikey, Sicherheitslücke…
Der Hersteller Yubico muss einige seiner Sticks zur Zwei-Faktor Authentifizierung wegen Sicherheitslücken zurückziehen und bei Kunden austauschen. Kurioserweise nur jene mit einer besonderen Zertifizierungen der US-Regierung. (Yubikey, Sicherheitslücke) 
Eine Mobilfunkinfrastrukturgesellschaft soll schnell Masten errichten, um Funklöcher zu schließen. Das haben die Fraktionsvorstände von SPD und CDU/CSU beschlossen. Der marktwirtschaftlich getriebene Ausbau habe einen Mobilfunk-Flickenteppich geschaffen. (
Ein spezieller Passwortschutz der Antiviren-Software AVG hat den Passwortspeicher des Firefox-Browser beschädigt. Nutzer hatten deshalb zwischenzeitlich ihre Zugangsdaten verloren. Diese können aber wiederhergestellt werden. (
You must be logged in to post a comment.