Month: July 2018

Enlarge / Have you ever seen a more glorious sight? (credit: Chris Wilkinson)

Back in September 2014, Ars Technica’s Andrew Cunningham took on a Herculean challenge in modern computing. Egged on by his coworkers, he used a PowerBook G4 running OS 9.2.2 as his “daily driver” for a couple of days, placing a turn of the century bit of hardware into the present tense. It's no surprise that almost nothing was achieved that week (except for, of course, the excellent article).

I had that story on my mind when, many years later while browsing a local online classifieds site, I stumbled across a gem: a Macintosh IIsi. Even better, the old computer was for sale along with the elusive but much desired Portrait Display, a must-have for the desktop publishing industry of its time. I bought it the very next day.

It took me several days just to get the machine to boot at all, but I kept thinking back to that article. Could I do any better? With much less? Am I that arrogant? Am I a masochist?

Read 61 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

From Roku's victory to Nintendo's worries, read the news roundup for the week ending July 1, 2018

Continue reading ...

Most of us like well-respected people. They’ve usually worked hard to get where they are and have found some way to give back to society.

Unfortunately, even these people might have made a mistake or two in the past. And if those end up on the Internet, they’re hard to erase.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t try of course…

Recently, we stumbled upon a series of DMCA takedown requests which kindly request Google to remove various inconvenient links. While copyright has little to do with it, this route is worth a shot, they likely thought.

The senders have a lot in common. They all note that they’re “well-respected” in the society that they come from and accuse several websites of using their “image and name” to attract attention.

They were also all convicted of fraud, but that’s probably a coincidence.

Take radio talk-show host Warren Ballentine, for example, who describes himself as an artist and motivational speaker. While we would like to link to his Wikipedia page for some background, we’re hesitant to do so, as that’s one of the allegedly offending websites.

“I am a well respected person in the society that I come from, the US, and other parts of the world where I am known as an artist and motivational speaker,” Ballentine wrote to Google.

“However, recently, there are a number of websites that utilize my image and name to attract traction for people go through their content. I want Google to remove such sites from the search. Thanks.”

Unfortunately for Ballentine, Google decided not to honor his request. Perhaps because the content he linked to in the DMCA notice is not infringing on any copyrights?

This means that the various news reports and the Department of Justice’s press release on his conviction for engaging in two mortgage fraud schemes remain online.

Oh, and the aforementioned Wikipedia entry remains unscathed too. And the same applies to various unrelated links to other Warren Ballentines, which were inadvertently included in the takedown requests.

But perhaps the true reason for the notices is to cover up the past? It wouldn’t be the first time that someone tried that, and this failed attempt appears to be part of a series, as we hinted at earlier.

Over the past few weeks, there have been several similarly worded takedown requests from well-respected people who have been convicted of fraud. Such as this one, from tax fraud convict Monica Morgan, and several others from pension fraud convict Chauncey Mayfield, which haven’t gone unnoticed.

According to the information provided to Google, these people submitted the requests themselves. However, since the language is nearly identical, it appears to be a coordinated action.

It’s clear that the DMCA takedown requests all target mentions of their mishaps, as well as other unrelated links that rank well for their name. While this urge may be understandable, copyright law is not any help in this case.

In fact, abusing DMCA notices usually backfires, whether someone’s well-respected or not.

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

Roku says they have succeeded in a company wide effort to distance their streaming devices from the tricky issue of piracy, an issue that has already caused damage when the company's devices were banned for sale in Mexico due to its piracy links.

Roku devices support channels created by third parties that can host the streaming of many kinds of content. These include legal channels such as Netflix and HBO, and also includes channels made by pirates to host pirated content.

In Mexico, it was estimated at one point that 40% of all Roku users used the device to access pirated content, which eventually led to the devices being banned from sale in the country.

With Hollywood also focusing on streaming piracy as its next battlefield in the war against piracy, Roku decided then to take matters into their own hands and take on the pirates who they feel have corrupted their platform. Since then, Roku has set up an in-house anti-piracy team, implemented anti-piracy measures and removed more than 400 piracy related organisations and their associated channels from their platform.

While these actions have caused some collateral damage, Roku is now claiming their efforts have been a success and that now, 99.5% of all "streaming hours" are for legal channels. The same figure is a bit lower in Mexico, 92%, but Roku says even this number will rise in the short term due to their ongoing actions.

Roku's VP of trust engineering, Gary Ellison, says that Roku's anti-piracy actions are ultimately a good move for the company.

"Piracy hurts our business and the industry. We continue to devote considerable resources to fighting piracy by continuously improving our software, tools and detection methods to remove pirates from our platform," says Ellison.

"The data we are releasing today shows the effectiveness of our anti-piracy efforts. It is a top priority to ensure that our platform is closed for pirates and good for consumers."

[via TorrentFreak]