ISP Dragged to Court for Refusing to Block The Pirate Bay

Last year a Danish judge sided with IFPI and ordered the ISP Tele2 to block The Pirate Bay. According to the court’s decision, Tele2 was infringing copyright on a grand scale because users were transferring pirated material, copied via the ISP’s routers. The Danish case is not over yet as it’s currently under appeal at the Supreme Court. However, IFPI is already widening its territory in an attempt to score a similar victory in other countries. This March, IFPI set course for Norway and gave the country’s largest Internet provider ‘Telenor’ an ultimatum. IFPI demanded that the ISP block access to The Pirate Bay within 14 days - or get taken to court. “This would be the same as demanding that the postal service should open all letters, and decide which ones should be delivered,” was the response of Telenor’s Ragnar Kårhus at the time, while he stressed that they follow the law and not the demands of the music industry. Telenor thus refused to give into the demands of the music industry, and invited IFPI to file a lawsuit if they deem it necessary. True to form and together with several movie studios, IFPI has now filed a lawsuit against Telenor. Sveinung Golimo, a representative for Norwegian film makers said: “We want to highlight this problem. We do not wish to censor the Internet but we do want the possibility to make a living on what we create.” Apparently, the music and movie industries can’t make a living when Norwegians have access to The Pirate Bay.

Source: http://torrentfreak.com/isp-dragged-to-court-for-refusing-to-block-the-pirate-bay-090617/

U.S. State Department speaks to Twitter over Iran

The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had contacted the social networking service Twitter to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iranians who are disputing their election. Confirmation that the U.S. government had contacted Twitter came as the Obama administration sought to avoid suggestions it was meddling in Iran's internal affairs as the Islamic Republic battled to control deadly street protests over the election result. Twitter and Facebook have been used as a tool by many young people to coordinate protests over the election's outcome. President Barack Obama said earlier on Tuesday he believed "people's voices should be heard and not suppressed" in Iran. Obama, who has sought direct engagement with Iran, also said he did not want to be seen as "meddling" in Iranian internal affairs, given the two countries' rocky history. But his spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama has "deplored and condemned the violence that we've seen, and underscored that the world is seeing in Iran a yearning for change." Twitter Inc said in a blog post it delayed a planned upgrade because of its role as an "important communication tool in Iran." The hour-long maintenance was put back to 5 p.m. EDT/2100 GMT, which corresponds to 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday in Iran.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSWBT01137420090616

MySpace cuts 30% of staff

MySpace is cutting nearly 30 per cent of its staff in a back-to-basics effort that puts its numbers more in line with social networking leader Facebook. The News Corp.-owned social site said layoffs will affect its entire US operations, lowering the total number of staffers to about 1,000 in the country. MySpace claims the cuts are part of its master plan to become a "more innovative, efficient, and entrepreneurial business." The company's News Corp. overlords recently tossed out its co-founder and chief executive Chris DeWolfe in favor of former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta to helm the transformation. "Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company," said Van Natta in a statement. "I understand that these changes are painful for many. They are also necessary for the long-term health and culture of MySpace. Our intent is to return to an environment of innovation that is centered on our user and our product." News Corp.'s new digital chief, Jonathan Miller, added that the site "grew too big considering the realities of today's marketplace." Said realities involve MySpace continuing to lose ground against Facebook, it's more popular social networking rival. According to web traffic-watcher comScore, Facebook surpassed MySpace globally in 2008 and last month eked ahead of MySpace's US numbers for the first time ever. The Palo Alto, California-based Facebook has about 850 employees.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/16/myspace_cuts_30_of_staff/

International Phone Hacking Ring Busted; Stole $55 Million Worth of Calls

Authorities in several countries have helped bust an international phone hacking ring that cracked into thousands of corporate phone networks in the U.S. and elsewhere in order to route calls through the networks at the expense of the hacked companies. Three foreign nationals were indicted in the U.S., according to a document unsealed on Friday, for allegedly hacking into the phone systems, while five Pakistani nationals were arrested in Italy for allegedly financing the scheme and selling access to the hacked networks to other call centers and using the hacked networks to route their own customer calls. The ring had been operating for more than four years and had hacked into phone systems belonging to more than 2,500 corporations in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. According to the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey, which is handling the U.S. case, the ring sold 12 million minutes worth of time on the company networks, valued at more than $55 million in charges. Some of the profits earned from the scheme allegedly helped finance the activities of Islamic fundamentalist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to reports from Italian authorities. And some calls routed illegally through the hacked networks were made to the Middle East and other regions involved in political unrest, suggesting that the hacked networks might have been used by terrorist organizations to thwart eavesdropping and tracking by intelligence agencies. The three foreign nationals indicted in the U.S. are Mahmoud Nusier, 40, Paul Michael Kwan, 27, and Nancy Gomez, 24. All three were arrested in March 2007 in the Philippines, along with four other suspects. The three were indicted in New Jersey, following a years-long FBI investigation into the hacking ring’s activities. Nusier, a Jordanian national, and Kwan and Gomez, both Philippine nationals, were indicted on several counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, unauthorized access to computer systems and possession of unauthorized access devices. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey would not say whether the U.S. had initiated extradition proceedings. The announcement of their indictment coincided with the arrests of the Pakistanis in Italy.

Source: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/international-phone-hacking-ring-busted-stole-55-million-worth-of-calls/