Month: March 2020

Apple hat ein Reparaturprogramm für die Displays des iPad Air der 3. Generation aufgelegt. Die Bildschirme der Tablets können plötzlich den Dienst versagen. (Apple, Technologie)

Die Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe BVG wollen auf Elektrobusse umsteigen. Das wird erhebliche Mehrausgaben gegenüber Dieselfahrzeugen mit sich bringen und auch die Infrastruktur muss erweitert werden. (BVG, Technologie)

As one of the leading CDN and DDoS protection services, Cloudflare is used by millions of websites across the globe. This includes many pirate sites.

In recent years many copyright holders have complained about Cloudflare’s involvement with these platforms.

Thus far the U.S. company has refused to take any action without a court order. In various legal proceedings, Cloudflare argued that it’s a neutral third-party service that merely caches content. Even when Cloudflare disconnects customers, their associated sites remain operational.

This week Cloudflare published its latest transparency report which makes this stance clear. For example, the company stresses that it doesn’t respond to DMCA notices by removing cached content. Instead, it forwards the notices to the respective customers.

According to Cloudflare, it received only three DMCA notices in 2019 that identified permanently stored content. These were dealt with appropriately. The rest of the notices were passed on to clients.

While this policy isn’t new, the transparency report also highlights a new phenomenon. According to Cloudflare, the company has started to block visitors from Italy accessing 22 domain names, following a local court order.

Cloudflare reports that an Italian court ordered the company to block access to the domains of several copyright-infringing websites. This took place last summer but as far as we know the case remains unreported in the media.

“Pending further litigation, Cloudflare took steps in July 2019 to disable access to those websites to the extent that they used Cloudflare’s services to respond to requests from Italy or used Cloudflare equipment in Italy,” Cloudflare writes.

“The court order included requests related to 131 domains and 15 accounts. Cloudflare took action to geoblock 22 domains that were using our service at the time the order was issued,” the company adds.

The domains in question are not blocked outside of Italy, but which domains are affected by the geo-blocking efforts is unknown. Cloudflare didn’t respond to our request for further details.

We also asked several legal representatives of copyright holders in Italy, but they couldn’t point us to the underlying order either.

There is a related Cloudflare case in Italy which we previously reported on. In a ruling in favor of Italian broadcaster RTI, handed down by the Commercial Court of Rome last June, Cloudflare was ordered to immediately terminate the accounts of several pirate sites. There was, however, no mention of geo-blocking or blocking in general.

TorrentFreak spoke to RTI’s attorney Alessandro La Rosa who says that the pirate sites involved in the RTI case still use the services and infrastructure provided by Cloudflare. He is not aware of any blocking efforts either.

If more details become available on the geoblocking targets we will update this article accordingly.

Italy is not the only country where Cloudflare is taking action against pirate sites. The transparency report also confirms that it reached an agreement with several large manga publishers in Japan, as we reported last month.

“As part of the resolution of a lawsuit in Japan, Cloudflare has come to an agreement with certain Japanese publishers to clear existing cached content and cease caching in Japan for certain websites determined by the Tokyo District Court to be infringing copyright,” Cloudflare writes.

The above shows that while Cloudflare may indeed be a neutral service provider, it can and does take steps to curb copyright infringement on occasion. It remains to be seen whether the two legal issues detailed above are just the start and whether new demands will appear moving forward.

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

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Intel has quietly added two new mini PCs to its NUC lineup… and they’re powered by two previously unannounced processors. The new Intel NUC8i3BEHS packs an Intel Core i3-8140U processor, while the Intel NUC8i5BEHS has a Core i5-8260U chip. Both of these computers are being positioned as part of the Bean Canyon family that first launched […]

The post Intel Bean Canyon Lite NUC mini PC features 15 watt, 8th-gen chips appeared first on Liliputing.

Ever since the 2018 disclosure of the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities that left many modern computer processors open to side-channel, speculative execution attacks, researchers have been discovering similar flaws. Spectre and Meltdown affected Intel chips more than AMD or ARM processors. But a team of researchers have disclosed a new vulnerability specifically affecting AMD processors. […]

The post “Take A Way” vulnerability said to affect most recent AMD processors appeared first on Liliputing.

Menschen in Deutschland finden die Einführung von digitalen Gesundheitsdiensten zwar gut, nutzen wollen sie allerdings nur wenige, das zeigt eine Umfrage. Beim Datenschutz sind sich die Befragten jedoch einig. (Telematik, Studie)

Neben einem Schlüssel setzen Toyota, Hyundai und Kia bei einigen Modellen auf eine RFID-basierte Wegfahrsperre. Diese konnten Sicherheitsforscher jedoch einfach umgehen. Die Autos seien wieder so unsicher, wie in den 80ern. (Toyota, RFID)

Reddit user Darkspliver, a member of the Jehovah’s Witness community, was recently targeted by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society with claims that his postings infringed their copyrights.

The case drew the attention of the EFF which mounted a defense on the user’s behalf, claiming that the subpoena against Reddit was invalid since Darkspliver’s use of Jehovah’s Witness material were covered under fair use. The court agreed.

“Our client shared comments and concerns about the Watch Tower organization — something they have every right to do,” said EFF Staff Attorney Alex Moss this week. “We are glad that Darkspilver is safe from unmasking, and that a judge saw the important free speech and fair use issues at play here.”

While the identity of Darkspliver is now safe, the religious organization now has a fresh target. According to documents obtained by TorrentFreak, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania has obtained a DMCA subpoena that requires Google to reveal the personal details of a YouTube user who uploaded Jehovah’s Witness sermons to the video platform.

The subpoena targets an account called ‘JW Apostate’ which advertised itself as a place for “leaking Watch Tower videos”.

At least initially, the channel had many videos listed for viewing but the DMCA subpoena application lists just five.

“Watch Tower conducted a good-faith fair use analysis of numerous infringing posts on the account at issue,” the application filed at a New York court reads. “This content infringes copyrights held by Watch Tower.”

Watch Tower informed the court that it had fulfilled all the requirements for obtaining a subpoena and its sole purpose is to “obtain the identity of an alleged infringer or infringers” so that copyrighted content can be protected.

The allegedly-infringing YouTube channel listed a Reddit account for correspondence so on discovering the application, TorrentFreak contacted the associated user for comment. Very shortly after, the Reddit account, YouTube channel and all of its videos were deleted, leaving nothing in their wake.

A day later, District Judge Cathy Seibel signed off on the Watch Tower request and ordered the clerk of the court to issue the subpoena against Google LLC.

“This matter comes before the Court upon the ex parte application of movant Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania along with the Declaration of Paul D. Polidoro, Esq. and supporting documents for the signing of a Subpoena directing Google, LLC to produce the identity of entities or persons believed to be infringing on the copyright of Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania,” the order reads.

“Having considered the Declaration and all documents submitted in support of the instant application, the Court finds good reason to issue an order directing the clerk to issue said subpoena.”

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society is no stranger when it comes to DMCA subpoena applications or indeed Judge Seibel. The religious group has attempted to obtain several subpoenas in New York courts against Facebook and YouTube users, filing around 60 applications overall since June 2017.

Considering that the aim of most Christian-based religions is to spread the word as widely as possible around the world, it appears that those at the top of the Jehovah’s Witness group would prefer to control access to their information much more tightly.

The application, proposed DMCA subpoena, and order granting subpoena can be found here (1,2,3 pdf)

Image credit: Pixabay

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

Mit zwei Sicherheitslücken in AMD-Prozessoren seit 2011 sollen sich Speicherverwürfelung aushebeln und Daten auslesen lassen. AMD kritisiert die Forschungsergebnisse jedoch als nichts Neues. (AMD, Prozessor)