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Amazon’s Fire tablets are some of the most cheapest tablets worth buying thanks to a combination of decent screens, acceptable performance (for some tasks) and really low starting prices. Normally you can pick up an Amazon Fire tablet for betwee…
Amazon’s Fire tablets are some of the most cheapest tablets worth buying thanks to a combination of decent screens, acceptable performance (for some tasks) and really low starting prices. Normally you can pick up an Amazon Fire tablet for between $50 and $150. From time to time, they go on sale for much less than […]
The post Comparing specs: Amazon Fire 7, Fire HD 8, and Fire 10 tablets appeared first on Liliputing.
Chromebooks come in a variety of shapes and sizes. There are small models, big models, convertible models with 360-degree hinges, and tablets that probably shouldn’t have “book” in the name at all (but do anyway). One thing we haven&…
Chromebooks come in a variety of shapes and sizes. There are small models, big models, convertible models with 360-degree hinges, and tablets that probably shouldn’t have “book” in the name at all (but do anyway). One thing we haven’t seen yet? A dual-screen model. But that could change soon. According to 9to5Google, there’s evidence that […]
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A group of movie companies has named a US army veteran as a pirating user of the popular torrent site YTS. The site hasn’t commented on how the movie companies got access to its user data but the site’s operator stresses that people can take several precautions to increase their privacy.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
In recent years, YTS.mx has become one of the most-used torrent sites, serving millions of visitors every day.
The site can be used without registering an account. However, those who sign up get some extra features, such as an option to bookmark titles. These added benefits can be handy but a few months ago we learned that they also come with risks.
At the start of the year, a group of movie companies filed lawsuits against alleged YTS users. In doing so, they relied on information that appeared to come directly from the YTS user database.
The timing of these lawsuits was interesting. They were filed around the same time the alleged operator of YTS signed a settlement deal with the same movie companies, agreeing to pay a substantial settlement fee.
This remarkable settlement allowed YTS to remain online. The movie companies, including the makers of films such as “Hellboy” and “Rambo: Last Blood,” demanded that the site removed their films, which is indeed what happened.
By targeting YTS users directly the filmmakers were looking for more settlements. Instead of merely targeting an IP-address they had more information too, such as an email address and a download history list, which presumably comes from the YTS database.
In one of these lawsuits, the defendant was recently identified as Mr. Mesot, a Hawaiian army veteran, who’s currently pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Hawaii.
“Upon information and belief, Defendant worked for over 20 years in the United States Army performing technical inspections and maintenance,” the movie companies state, providing more background information.
While the rightsholders already had the man’s email address months ago, they still needed a subpoena to compel Internet provider Charter to give up a name. The ISP shared this information recently which allowed the movie companies to officially name Mr. Mesot as the defendant this month.
In addition to tracking the defendant’s IP-address through public torrent swarms, the amended complaint also shows a copy of user database information, which appears to come from YTS.
“As shown in Exhibit ‘4’, Defendant used the YTS account to download a torrent file associated with the Work Rambo V Last Blood from one or more computing devices under his control on Nov. 30, 2019 at 01:29:50 UTC,” the complaint reads.
YTS has never officially confirmed that it shared user information with the movie companies but based on the provided evidence, it certainly appears that way.
When we reached out to the site last week the operator didn’t have any further details on the alleged handover of data. However, YTS indirectly confirmed it by pointing out that users can wipe their download history and take other privacy precautions.
“As for the user’s privacy, they do not have to confirm their e-mail address,” YTS informed us, noting that the address is only needed to recover a lost password.
“Also, from their profile settings, they have the option to disable their own downloads history, if they wish,” YTS added.
We can confirm it’s entirely possible to sign up for a YTS account with a non-existent email address. Also, there is an option to disable the download history in the profile settings.
“It is very important for any user to use a commercial VPN to download torrents. It is a must. Otherwise, they have a lot of problems,” YTS noted.
While a VPN can indeed help, it can still lead to trouble when movie companies have access to private data. As we reported earlier this year, movie companies also sued a YTS user who was using a VPN.
In any case, signing up with YTS using an easily traceable email address doesn’t sound like a smart move.
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A copy of the amended complaint naming Mr. Mesot as the YTS user who downloaded pirated content is available here (pdf)
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Landscapes that are not too dense and not too sparse comprise a “Goldilocks zone.”
Hunting in savanna-like landscapes may have helped give rise to planning circuits in the brain. Rife with obstacles and occlusions, terrestrial environments gave prey spaces to hide and predators cover for sneak attacks.
There's a pivotal scene in the 2012 film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey when Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins, and a company of dwarves are chased by orcs through a classic New Zealand landscape. For Northwestern University neuroscientist and engineer Malcolm MacIver, the scene is an excellent example of the kind of patchy landscape—dotted with trees, bushes, boxers, and rolling knolls—that may have shaped the evolution of higher intelligence in humans, compared to their aquatic ancestors. Specifically, it falls within a "Goldilocks zone"—not too sparse, and not too dense—that favors strategic thinking and planning ahead, leading to the development of "planning" circuitry in the human brain, according to MacIver's most recent paper, published in Nature Communications.
This latest paper builds on earlier research. Back in 2017, MacIver and several colleagues published a paper advancing an unusual hypothesis: those ancient creatures who first crawled out of the water onto land may have done so because they figured out there was an "informational benefit" from seeing through air, as opposed to water. Eyes can see much farther in air, and that increased visual range could lead them to food sources near the shore. MacIver and his primary co-author, paleontologist Lars Schmitz of the Claremont Colleges, argued that this in turn drove the evolutionary selection of rudimentary limbs, enabling the first animals to move from the water onto land.
That hypothesis grew out of his research on the black ghost knifefish of South America, which is a nocturnal hunter that generates electrical currents in the water to sense its environment. After building a robotic version of the knifefish, with its own electrosensory system, he found that the volume of space in which it could detect prey (in this case, water fleas) was about the same as for a fish that relies on vision to hunt water fleas. The critical factor turned out to be that water absorbs and scatters light, limiting how far that light can travel: typically 10 centimeters to 2 meters, compared to the 25 to 100 kilometers light can travel in air.
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With the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic taking its toll on the global economy, it’s not clear whether Amazon Prime Day will happen this year. But Amazon is offering discounts on most of its first-party hardware products today. You can pick up a…
With the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic taking its toll on the global economy, it’s not clear whether Amazon Prime Day will happen this year. But Amazon is offering discounts on most of its first-party hardware products today. You can pick up a Fire tablet for as little as $35, a Fire TV Stick 4K for […]
The post Daily Deals (7-20-2020) appeared first on Liliputing.
Every booster still undergoes detailed inspections between launches.
A Falcon 9 rocket launches on Monday carrying the Anasis 2 satellite into orbit. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ]
5:45pm ET Monday Update: After waiting 30 minutes for a stray shower to clear the launch pad, a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off successfully on Monday, carrying a Korean communications satellite into space. The first stage then executed a successful landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
SpaceX has now successfully landed 57 of the 97 rockets it has launched.
Original post: SpaceX will attempt to launch a South Korean military communications satellite on Monday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The Anasis 2 mission has a nearly four-hour launch window, running from 5pm ET (21:00 UTC) to 8:55pm (00:55 UTC Tuesday).
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1,1 Million Barrel Rohöl befinden sich vor der Küste Jemens auf einem Öltanker mit dem Namen FSO Safer, der unterzugehen droht
Viele Touristen orientieren sich bei Suche nach Hotels an den vergebenen Sternen. Doch auf Google war die Vergabe nicht immer nachvollziehbar. (Google, Suchmaschine)
Viele Touristen orientieren sich bei Suche nach Hotels an den vergebenen Sternen. Doch auf Google war die Vergabe nicht immer nachvollziehbar. (Google, Suchmaschine) The PineBook Pro is a laptop with a 14.1 inch full HD display, a Rockchip RK3399 processor, and 4GB of RAM. Designed to run GNU/Linux software rather than Windows or Chrome OS, the PineBook Pro went up for pre-order for $200 last summer, shipped last …
The PineBook Pro is a laptop with a 14.1 inch full HD display, a Rockchip RK3399 processor, and 4GB of RAM. Designed to run GNU/Linux software rather than Windows or Chrome OS, the PineBook Pro went up for pre-order for $200 last summer, shipped last fall, and has been kind of hard to get your […]
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Einen Kabelnetz-Zugang, der zum Mietvertrag gehört, wird man bisher nicht los. Das soll nun der Bundesgerichtshof ändern. (Kabelnetz, Internet)
Einen Kabelnetz-Zugang, der zum Mietvertrag gehört, wird man bisher nicht los. Das soll nun der Bundesgerichtshof ändern. (
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