Two months after FBI debacle, Tor Project still can’t get an answer from CMU

Ars Q&A: We sit down with Tor Project’s new executive director, Shari Steele.

Proof of connection: the site check.torproject.org will show you if you're connected via Tor. (credit: Tor)

Shari Steele, Executive Director of the Tor Project (credit: EFF)

It's been quite a few months for the Tor Project. Last November, project co-founder and director Roger Dingledine accused the FBI of paying Carnegie Mellon computer security researchers at least $1 million to de-anonymize Tor users and reveal their IP addresses as part of a large criminal investigation.

The FBI dismissed things, but the investigation in question is a very high-profile matter focused on members of the Silk Road online-drug marketplace. One of the IP addresses revealed belonged to Brian Farrell, an alleged Silk Road 2 lieutenant. An early filing in Farrell's case, first reported by Vice Motherboard, said that a "university-based research institute" aided government efforts to unmask Farrell.

That document fit with Ars reporting from January 2015, when a Homeland Security search warrant affidavit stated that from January to July 2014, a “source of information” provided law enforcement “with particular IP addresses” that accessed the vendor-side of Silk Road 2. By July 2015, the Tor Project managed to discover and shut down this sustained attack. But the Tor Project further concluded that the attack resembled a technique described by a team of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) researchers who a few weeks earlier had canceled a security conference presentation on a low-cost way to deanonymize Tor users. The Tor officials went on to warn that an intelligence agency from a global adversary also might have been able to capitalize on the vulnerability.

Read 59 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Rückschlag für Half-Life 3?: Marc Laidlaw verlässt Valve

Kommt Half-Life 3 noch? Seit Jahren warten Fans der Serie auf eine verlässliche Antwort von Valve. Die Kündigung eines langjährigen Mitarbeiters löst jetzt neue Spekulationen über die Zukunft des Half-Life-Universums aus. (Half-Life 3, Half-Life)

Kommt Half-Life 3 noch? Seit Jahren warten Fans der Serie auf eine verlässliche Antwort von Valve. Die Kündigung eines langjährigen Mitarbeiters löst jetzt neue Spekulationen über die Zukunft des Half-Life-Universums aus. (Half-Life 3, Half-Life)

NSA und BND in Bad Aibling: Geheimdienstkooperation läuft wieder reibungslos

Die Operation Eikonal geht offenbar in die Verlängerung: NSA und BND arbeiten Medienberichten zufolge wieder gemeinsam an der Überwachung des Internets. Die NSA gibt jetzt Begründungen für die von ihnen übermittelten Selektoren. (BND, Internet)

Die Operation Eikonal geht offenbar in die Verlängerung: NSA und BND arbeiten Medienberichten zufolge wieder gemeinsam an der Überwachung des Internets. Die NSA gibt jetzt Begründungen für die von ihnen übermittelten Selektoren. (BND, Internet)

Lenovo-Chef kritisiert Microsoft: “Das kostenfreie Windows-10-Update war ein Fehler”

Lenovos Chef ist kein Fan von Microsofts kostenfreiem Windows-10-Update. Dem Softwareunternehmen sei es damit nicht gelungen, den PC-Markt wiederzubeleben. Um dennoch auf diesem Markt aktiv zu bleiben, will Lenovo auf Convertibles setzen – und sichere …

Lenovos Chef ist kein Fan von Microsofts kostenfreiem Windows-10-Update. Dem Softwareunternehmen sei es damit nicht gelungen, den PC-Markt wiederzubeleben. Um dennoch auf diesem Markt aktiv zu bleiben, will Lenovo auf Convertibles setzen - und sichere Software programmieren. (Lenovo, Microsoft)

Iranian State TV Broadcasts Movie From Pirate Site

Piracy is rampant in many countries around the world, but an example that reached us from Iran recently is one of the most blatant displays we’ve seen recently. Iranian state TV showed a movie to its viewers that clearly originated from a pirate website, which ironically is blocked by the Iranian Government.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

iribIn Iran IRIB TV3 is one of the channels operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.

It’s often dubbed the youth channel as a lot of its programming attracts a younger audience, including sports events and foreign movies and TV-shows.

Perhaps in line with this philosophy, the television channel broadcasted the 2013 Hong Kong film “Saving General Yang” a few days ago. Not a regular copy though, but a pirated one.

Several Iranian viewers noticed that aside from the IRIB TV3 logo in the top right corner, there was another ‘watermark’ at the bottom. This read Tinymoviez.co, which is a popular site in Iran where people can download pirated copies of movies and TV-shows.

This oddity was picked up in the local media, which shared screenshots of the unusual sight.

Tinymoviez on Iranian national TV (credit)

iribpirate

Ironically, the Tinymoviez website and other Persian pirate sites such as Ganool are censored by the Iranian Government because they contain nudity. However, just like many citizens, Iran’s state TV appears to have found a backdoor.

IRIB TV3 is not the only channel to show pirated movies. According to the Iranian Student News Agency this is quite common as pirate watermarks also appeared elsewhere on movies such as Django Unchained, Tower Heist, and Jack the Giant Slayer.

In addition, TV broadcasters often use music from popular TV-shows such as Game of Thrones and Dexter on their own footage, reportedly without authorization.

Ganool.com mark on The Tower Heist broadcast (credit)

heist

But there’s more.

Apparently Iranian State TV isn’t limiting its pirate broadcasts to movies and TV-shows. They also broadcasted a soccer match, recorded from Al Jazeera, which prompted FIFA to threaten them with legal action.

While this blatant unauthorized use is quite a shocker in the west, in Iran it’s less of a problem. The country’s copyright law is set up to protect all copyrighted works produced by Iranians, but not necessarily those by creators from other countries.

Since 2001 Iran has been a member of the WIPO, and has acceded to several WIPO treaties. However, the Iranian Government never signed the WIPO copyright treaty and other international copyright agreements that would make copying of foreign products unlawful.

As a result, broadcasting unlicensed media has become quite common.

While ‘piracy’ appears to be rampant in Iran, there have been similar incidents elsewhere too. A few years ago Netflix accidentally used ‘pirate’ fansubs on the Canadian-American science fiction series Andromeda, for example.

Similarly, Saudi Airlines previously listed a pirated movie in its in-flight entertainment system, where passengers had the option to watch “Killers 2010 BDRiP AC3 XViD-ILOVE.”

Pirates all around.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Tesla’s new firmware improves Autosteer, adds remote parking—of a sort

Version 7.1 will drive into or out of your garage by itself.

An empty driver's seat is no impediment to this Model S driving into or out of your garage now.

It's been a big week for electric vehicles, thanks to CES. Faraday Future made waves, Chevrolet debuted the Bolt, Volkswagen gave us the Budd-e electric camper van, and Arcimoto's SRK turned out to be our surprise of the show. Tesla doesn't do auto shows or CES, but it evidently didn't want to be left out; it's just begun rolling out its latest firmware, version 7.1. The update includes improvements to the Model S' various driver assists and adds a new beta feature that allows the car to drive into or out of one's garage remotely.

According to the firmware release notes posted over at the Tesla Motors Club forums, the improvements to Tesla's adaptive cruise control systems include better traffic awareness, and the Autosteer function has been refined so that it won't exceed the speed limit by more than 5mph (8km/h) on residential streets or roads without a central divider.

The new beta feature is called Summon. This lets a Model S drive or reverse into or out of of a parking space, up to 39 feet (12m). We should caution that Summon can only be used on private property at this point; outside of special permits granted by states for manufacturers to test self-driving vehicles, there are no currently-approved vehicles that the general public can use on the roads to be driven autonomously.

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Pirates Fail to Prevent $38 Billion Box Office Record

Hollywood tends to leave no opportunity unused in its quest to show that online piracy is devastating the movie industry. However, this supposed devastation is not visible at the box office this year. In 2015 worldwide box office grosses surpassed $38 billion, while North American theaters raked in more that $11 billion for the first time in history.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

piratefishToday, watching pirated movies is arguably easier than it has ever been before.

Pirates can choose from hundreds of torrent, streaming and direct download sites, and there are dedicated applications that allow people to stream the latest blockbusters without paying a cent.

Movie industry insiders are doing whatever they can to contain piracy. This appears to be a near impossible task as many unauthorized sites and services are operated by anonymous owners.

As a result the MPAA and other groups warn that hundreds of thousands of jobs are at stake, while the economy is losing billions due to piracy. Illegal downloads, they say, are slowly killing their creative industry.

Interestingly, these stark warnings are not reflected in last year’s box office revenues.

Recent numbers show that the movie industry just broke the magic $11 billion barrier, generating more revenue than ever before at the North American box office. The revenue for 2015 totals $11.3 billion, which is roughly a 9% change compared to last year.

The worldwide grosses also reached an all-time record according to research from Rentrak, which estimates the global grosses at a staggering $38 billion based on data from 25,000 theaters across the globe.

Another sign that business is going well, at least for some, is the increase in the number of tickets that were sold. In 2015 theaters increased their ticket sales by more than 5% in North America.

Of course, the above doesn’t prove that illegal downloads have no effect at all. It could be that the movie industry would make even more money if all pirate sites disappeared overnight, as some studies suggest.

Also, the movie industry isn’t by any means limited to the box office. DVD sales and various streaming platforms impact the bigger picture as well.

That said, piracy has certainly not destroyed the movie business just yet. There are still plenty of people who are going to the movie theater to pay for their entertainment. Perhaps pirates should up their game?

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

CTL launches $199 Chromebook, $349 Windows convertible for education

CTL launches $199 Chromebook, $349 Windows convertible for education

CTL unveiled two new computers for the education market at CES this week. The CTL SB4 Chromebook is a $199 Chrome OS laptop with 4GB of RAM, an 11.6 inch display, and an Intel Bay Trail processor, and the CTL EG2 Rugged Windows Flip 360 Tablet is a Windows notebook with an 11.6 inch notebook […]

CTL launches $199 Chromebook, $349 Windows convertible for education is a post from: Liliputing

CTL launches $199 Chromebook, $349 Windows convertible for education

CTL unveiled two new computers for the education market at CES this week. The CTL SB4 Chromebook is a $199 Chrome OS laptop with 4GB of RAM, an 11.6 inch display, and an Intel Bay Trail processor, and the CTL EG2 Rugged Windows Flip 360 Tablet is a Windows notebook with an 11.6 inch notebook […]

CTL launches $199 Chromebook, $349 Windows convertible for education is a post from: Liliputing

In The Big Book of Madness, you will learn to love losing

Fantasy game hits familiar notes but sings its own dark tune.

Prepare to go mad.

Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games! Check out our complete board gaming coverage right here—and let us know what you think.

"Oh, bugger, we're out of madness."

This is the sanitized version of an oft-heard new phrase in our house. Variations include "I've gone mad" and "you need more madness in your deck!" All of these are often combined with the phrase "we've lost."

Read 35 remaining paragraphs | Comments