Month: July 2020

Rocket Report: SpaceX seeks 20km hop license, why Rocket Lab funder left

“You’ve got to sort of work out where that line is for you.”

Rocket leaves a trail a of flame as it pierces the sky.

Enlarge / The mighty "Dominator" Atlas V 541 goes supersonic with our newest Mars rover. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann)

Welcome to Edition 3.10 of the Rocket Report! Now that Mars Perseverance is safely on its way to the Red Planet, we're happy to congratulate space agencies in the UAE, China, and the United States on successful launches to Mars this summer. It's great to go three-for-three in the 2020 launch window. In February, we'll see how many safely reach their final destination.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below. Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, perhaps a little snark, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Virgin Galactic unveils look of interior cabin. Virgin Galactic has released the first images of what the interior of its VSS Unity spacecraft will look like. The design shows a seating capacity for up to six passengers who will fly on board the rocket-powered space plane, crest at an altitude above 80km, and experience a few minutes of weightlessness. The company says it plans for one or two more powered tests, followed by final test flights from New Mexico, before commencing a full commercial service for passengers.

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IBM completes successful field trials on Fully Homomorphic Encryption

FHE allows computation of still-encrypted data, without sharing the secrets.

Promotional image provided by IBM.

Enlarge / We're already accustomed to data being encrypted while at-rest or in-flight—FHE offers the possibility of doing computations on it as well, without ever actually decrypting it. (credit: IBM)

Yesterday, Ars spoke with IBM Senior Research Scientist Flavio Bergamaschi about the company's recent successful field trials of Fully Homomorphic Encryption. We suspect many of you will have the same questions that we did—beginning with "what is Fully Homomorphic Encryption?"

FHE is a type of encryption that allows direct mathematical operations on the encrypted data. Upon decryption, the results will be correct. For example, you might encrypt 2, 3, and 7 and send the three encrypted values to a third party. If you then ask the third party to add the first and second values, then multiply the result by the third value and return the result to you, you can then decrypt that result—and get 35.

You don't ever have to share a key with the third party doing the computation; the data remains encrypted with a key the third party never received. So, while the third party performed the operations you asked it to, it never knew the values of either the inputs or the output. You can also ask the third party to perform mathematical or logical operations of the encrypted data with non-encrypted data—for example, in pseudocode, FHE_decrypt(FHE_encrypt(2) * 5) equals 10.

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Sono Motors: Wie der E-Autohersteller durch die Krise kommen will

Die Crowdfunding-Kampagne kam zur richtigen Zeit. Mit dem Geld hat das Elektroauto-Startup Sono Motors die Coronakrise bisher gut überstanden. Ein Bericht von Werner Pluta (Elektromobilität, Technologie)

Die Crowdfunding-Kampagne kam zur richtigen Zeit. Mit dem Geld hat das Elektroauto-Startup Sono Motors die Coronakrise bisher gut überstanden. Ein Bericht von Werner Pluta (Elektromobilität, Technologie)

Boeing 747: Ende einer Ära

Der amerikanische Konzern lässt die Produktion des Flugzeugklassikers 2022 auslaufen

Der amerikanische Konzern lässt die Produktion des Flugzeugklassikers 2022 auslaufen

APK Download Site Must Pay $150,000 For Offering Pirate Streaming Apps

Several movie companies, including the makers of “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” and “London Has Fallen,” have scored a significant victory in a Hawaii court. The order, which was issued against the initial recommendation of a magistrate judge, requires the foreign operator of an APK download site to pay $150,000 in piracy damages.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

showboxLast year, a group of movie companies filed a lawsuit against the operators of various websites that promoted and distributed so-called pirate apps.

These apps, including ‘Showbox’ and ‘Popcorn Time,’ enable users to stream pirated movies via torrents and direct sources.

Movie Companies Sue Pirate App Distributers

The movie companies, including those behind “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” “London Has Fallen,” and “Hunter Killer” filed a complaint at a U.S. District Court in Hawaii accusing these sites of facilitating massive piracy.

“The Defendants misleadingly promote the Show Box app as a legitimate means for viewing content to the public, who eagerly install the Show Box app to watch copyright protected content, thereby leading to profit for the Defendants,” the 58-page complaint read.

In the months that followed the movie companies signed several consent judgments with the defendants. While none of these were the original app developers, they indeed distributed the software and took the blame for their actions.

Not all defendants replied, however. Vietnamese man Nghi Phan Nhat, who allegedly operated the APK download portal ‘apkmirrordownload.com,’ was served but never responded in court. The pirate apps had disappeared from the site but the movie companies wanted more.

Last September, they requested $150,000 in statutory damages. In addition, they asked for an injunction ordering third-party services such as hosting companies and domain registrars to stop doing business with the site.

Magistrate Judge Argues That Court Doesn’t Have Jurisdiction

Initially, this request wasn’t well received. Hawaii’s Magistrate Judge Kenneth Mansfield advised the court to deny it. There wasn’t sufficient evidence that the defendant purposefully directed activities at the US, he argued, which is a requirement for the court to have jurisdiction.

The movie companies’ attorney, Kerry Culpepper, opposed this recommendation, with success. The district court rejected the findings and recommendations, concluding that the court has personal jurisdiction over the Vietnamese man.

The operator used the services of US companies such as Namesilo and CloudFlare, for example, and also had a DMCA policy page, which specifically refers to US law.

“The display of this policy on the APK Site shows that Nhat was aware of, and attempted to invoke the protections of, potentially applicable United States law,” the Hawaii District Court wrote (pdf).

$150,000 Piracy Damages is Appropriate After All

Earlier this month the Court ruled that a default judgment is appropriate (pdf), awarding the requested $150,000 in statutory damages. That represents $30,000 per movie title. In addition, it granted over $10,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs.

default judgment

The movie companies didn’t get everything they asked for, however. The district court denied an injunction that would prevent Cloudflare and Namesilo from offering services to the site.

“The Court finds that the request for Namesilo and CloudFlare to stop ‘facilitating access’ to Defendant Nhat’s domain and websites that ‘engaged in the distribution and promotion of the Show Box app’ is overly broad,” the court wrote in its earlier order.

The last request would have been futile anyway as apkmirrordownload.com is no longer online. Whether the movie companies will indeed get their damages from the operator is also uncertain.

This case is important in respect of future cases against foreign site operators. As the lawsuit against the YouTube rippers Flvto.biz and 2conv.com has also shown, courts have been divided over when and under what circumstances foreign sites can be held liable in the US.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.