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Aussie Pirate Party To Shake Up Politics Down Under
2009 has been a disastrous year for several well-established torrent sites, with The Pirate Bay and Mininova losing in court against the entertainment industries. Not completely unrelated, this year has been a very successful one for the political Pirate Party movement. The Pirate Party currently holds two seats in the European Parliament thanks to the massive support from Swedish voters.
Continue reading »The Pirate Bay goes magnetic
The Pirate Bay — or the latest rev after unsuccessful entertainment industry efforts to close it down — has changed it ways. It’s decided trackers are passé and that “magnet links”are where’s at. Magnets, invented by Gordon Mohr , allow websites to link to content on p2p networks, p2pnet posted in 2004, going on: “If you’ve installed a p2p app that works with Magnets , clicking a link will trigger a download within the application and it’ll start automatically.” uTorrent and Vuze are examples.
Continue reading »Madoff’s Coders Charged With Aiding Massive Ponzi Scheme
Two programmers who worked for convicted fraudster Bernard Madoff have been arrested and charged with providing technical support for the massive Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of an estimated $65 billion. Jerome O’Hara, 46, and George Perez, 43, were arrested Friday morning and charged with conspiracy for falsifying books and records for Madoff’s broker-dealer and investment businesses. “The computer codes and random algorithms they allegedly designed served to deceive investors and regulators and concealed Madoff’s crimes,” federal prosecutor Preet Bharara said in a statement.
Continue reading »Blu-ray discs get Managed Copy; hardware support nonexistent
“Managed copy” has been slouching its way toward our living rooms for years now, but the technology that can make backup copies of films will finally come to all Blu-ray discs on December 4, 2009 . Unfortunately, no Blu-ray player yet has the ability to make one of these copies, rendering the whole scheme pretty pointless until consumers purchase the new players (available at some point in 2010) that are capable of contacting an authorization server over the Internet, verifying that this particular disc is allowed to make a copy, making the copy, then slathering the whole thing in a heavy marinade of DRM. Oh, and no one said that these managed copies have to be free, either.
Continue reading »Spain won’t disconnect illegal file sharers
Rejects Mandy and Sarko approaches Spain doesn’t plan on unplugging internet users accused of illegal file-sharing, despite strong government support for “three-strikes” disconnection laws in the UK and France.…
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