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Friday, July 29, 2011
I wonder when we'll see this in the U.S.: Pakistan tries to ban encryption
Pakistan has a new Telecoms Law going into effect, which requires widespread monitoring of internet usage. In response, new reports are saying that the country is banning encryption, including VPNs, because it would interfere with the ability of ISPs to monitor internet usage.
via yro.slashdot.org
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House panel approves broadened ISP snooping bill
Internet providers would be forced to keep logs of their customers' activities for one year--in case police want to review them in the future--under legislation that a U.S. House of Representatives committee approved today.
The 19 to 10 vote represents a victory for conservative Republicans, who made data retention their first major technology initiative after last fall's elections, and the Justice Department officials who have quietly lobbied for the sweeping new requirements, a development first reported by CNET.
House Judiciary committee prepares to vote on sweeping data retention mandate.
(Credit: U.S. House of Representatives)A last-minute rewrite of the bill expands the information that commercial Internet providers are required to store to include customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses, some committee members suggested. By a 7-16 vote, the panel rejected an amendment that would have clarified that only IP addresses must be stored.
It represents "a data bank of every digital act by every American" that would "let us find out where every single American visited Web sites," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, who led Democratic opposition to the bill.
Lofgren said the data retention requirements are easily avoided because they only apply to "commercial" providers. Criminals would simply go to libraries or Starbucks coffeehouses and use the Web anonymously, she said, while law-abiding Americans would have their activities recorded.
To make it politically difficult to oppose, proponents of the data retention requirements dubbed the bill the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011, even though the mandatory logs would be accessible to police investigating any crime and perhaps attorneys litigating civil disputes in divorce, insurance fraud, and other cases as well.
"The bill is mislabeled," said Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the panel. "This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It's creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes."
ISP snooping time line
In events that were first reported by CNET, Justice Department officials have been lobbying to require Internet providers to track of what Americans are doing online. Here's the time line:
June 2005: Justice Department officials quietly propose data retention rules.
December 2005: European Parliament votes for data retention of up to two years.
April 2006: Data retention proposals surface in Colorado and the U.S. Congress.
April 2006: Attorney General Gonzales says data retention "must be addressed."
April 2006: Rep. DeGette proposes data retention amendment.
May 2006: Rep. Sensenbrenner drafts data retention legislation--but backs away from it two days later.
May 2006: Gonzales and FBI Director Mueller meet with Internet and telecommunications companies.
February 2009: Two data retention bills target ISPs, hotels, coffee shops
February 2009: Copyright holders would benefit from data retention
January 2011: Justice Department calls for mandatory data retention
February 2011: White House undecided on data retention
May 2011: Wireless providers exempted from Rep. Smith's bill
July 2011: National Sheriffs' Association endorses data retention
Supporters of the measure characterized it as something that would aid law enforcement in investigating Internet crimes. Not enacting it "would keep our law enforcement officials in the dark ages," said its primary sponsor, House Judiciary chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas).
"Both Democratic and Republican administrations have called for data retention for over a decade," said Smith, who noted that groups including the National Sheriffs' Association, the Major County Sheriffs' Association, and the Fraternal Order of Police have endorsed the concept.
For a while, it seemed like opposition from a handful of conservative members of Congress, coupled with Democrats concerned about civil liberties, would derail the bill.
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican and previous chairman of the House Judiciary committee, had criticized it at a hearing earlier this month, and again in the voting session that began yesterday and continued through this morning.
"I oppose this bill," said Sensenbrenner. "It can be amended, but I don't think it can be fixed... It poses numerous risks that well outweigh any benefits, and I'm not convinced it will contribute in a significant way to protecting children."
So did Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who has made privacy a signature issue and introduced a geolocation bill last month after trying to curb the use of airport body-scanners two years ago.
The original version of the bill, introduced in May, required Internet providers to "retain for a period of at least 18 months the temporarily assigned network addresses the service assigns to each account, unless that address is transmitted by radio communication." The wireless exemption appeared to be the result of lobbying from major carriers, but drew the ire of the Justice Department, which says it didn't go far enough, and was removed in a revised draft.
The mobile exemption represents a new twist in the debate over data retention requirements, which has been simmering since the Justice Department pushed the topic in 2005, a development that was first reported by CNET. Proposals publicly surfaced in the U.S. Congress the following year, and President Bush's attorney general, Alberto Gonzales said it's an issue that "must be addressed." So, eventually, did FBI director Robert Mueller.
In January 2011, CNET was the first to report that the Obama Justice Department was following suit. Jason Weinstein, the deputy assistant attorney general for the criminal division, warned that wireless providers must be included because "when this information is not stored, it may be impossible for law enforcement to collect essential evidence."
Smith introduced a broadly similar bill in 2007, without the wireless exemption, calling it a necessary anti-cybercrime measure. "The legislation introduced today will give law enforcement the tools it needs to find and prosecute criminals," he said in a statement at the time.
"Retention" vs. "preservation"
At the moment, Internet service providers typically discard any log file that's no longer required for business reasons such as network monitoring, fraud prevention, or billing disputes. Companies do, however, alter that general rule when contacted by police performing an investigation--a practice called data preservation.A 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act regulates data preservation. It requires Internet providers to retain any "record" in their possession for 90 days "upon the request of a governmental entity."
Because Internet addresses remain a relatively scarce commodity, ISPs tend to allocate them to customers from a pool based on whether a computer is in use at the time. (Two standard techniques used are the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet.)
In addition, an existing law called the Protect Our Children Act of 2008 requires any Internet provider who "obtains actual knowledge" of possible child pornography transmissions to "make a report of such facts or circumstances." Companies that knowingly fail to comply can be fined up to $150,000 for the first offense and up to $300,000 for each subsequent offense.
via news.cnet.com
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Waiting for…
Baby is now seven days past due date. Thinking of naming him Godot.
via twitter.com
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Senators want to renew secret warrantless wiretaps
A group of Senators is meeting in secret today, while most people are focused on the "debt ceiling" issue, in order to try to rush through a renewal of the FISA Amendments Act, which expressly and unconstitutionally allowed warrantless wiretapping in the U.S. The law isn't set to expire until next year, but some feel that the debt ceiling crisis is a good distraction to pass the extension without having to debate the issue in public. The meeting is being held in secret, but it's not classified, so people can demand to know how their Senator voted.
via yro.slashdot.org
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Thursday, July 28, 2011
String-quartet tribute to Pearl Jam's "Better Man"
via youtube.com
It sounds gorgeous.
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Regarding "British ISP ordered to block links to pirate site": "This is what the IWF has always been for."
I've endured half a decade of being told I'm a tinfoil-hat-wearing maniac for suggesting that the IWF—already in a strange, anti-competitive position of being a private charity endorsed by government and given special legal privileges—is a slippery slope and that technology based on its list would eventually be used at a judicial level to block other sites.
It required lobby groups to step up the pressure in the courts. We've seen that over the past few years. It required an Act to consolidate the views of these lobby groups and set the legislative view of Internet censorship. That was the DEA. Next comes implementation.
Abusing children is wrong and the law has a duty to stop it.
Censoring zeroes and ones does not stop children being abused, but it does provide a framework for censorship.
The IWF list's implementation has not stopped any child abuse, but it has sat as the foundation stone for the Great Firewall of the UK.
Every one of you geeks who works for an ISP which has caved into government pressure to implement the list should be ashamed. You are the problem.
via yro.slashdot.org
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British ISP ordered to block links to pirate site
A UK High Court judge has ruled that BT must block access to a website which provides links to pirated movies. Justice Arnold ruled that BT must use its blocking technology CleanFeed—which is currently used to prevent access to websites featuring child sexual abuse—to block Newzbin 2. "Currently CleanFeed is dealing with a small, rural road in Scotland," ISPA council member James Blessing told BBC Radio 4's PM programme. "Trying to put Newzbin and other sites into the same blocking technology would be a bit like shutting down the M1. It is not designed to do that." Digital rights organisation the Open Rights Group said the result could set a "dangerous" precedent: "Website blocking is pointless and dangerous. These judgements won't work to stop infringement or boost creative industries. And there are serious risks of legitimate content being blocked and service slowdown. If the goal is boosting creators' ability to make money from their work then we need to abandon these technologically naive measures, focus on genuine market reforms, and satisfy unmet consumer demand," said ORG campaigner Peter Bradwell.
via yro.slashdot.org
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Get a load of this Murdoch guy!
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Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Beating the shit out of a man, especially on the day a family member committed suicide, is much more than a "regrettable situation."
via youtube.com
And to any Facebook friends who might happen to click through, no, I do not apologize for the title. The vulgarity that we associate with the word "shit" is absolutely and entirely appropriate for what the police did.
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In the next fourteen months, government-granted monopolies on certain drugs will expire.
The cost of prescription medicines used by millions of people every day is about to plummet.
The next 14 months will bring generic versions of seven of the world's 20 best-selling drugs, including the top two: cholesterol fighter Lipitor and blood thinner Plavix.
The magnitude of this wave of expiring drugs patents is unprecedented. Between now and 2016, blockbusters with about $255 billion in global annual sales will go off patent, notes EvaluatePharma Ltd., a London research firm. Generic competition will decimate sales of the brand-name drugs and slash the cost to patients and companies that provide health benefits.
Top drugs getting generic competition by September 2012 are taken by millions every day: Lipitor alone is taken by about 4.3 million Americans and Plavix by 1.4 million. Generic versions of big-selling drugs for blood pressure, asthma, diabetes, depression, high triglycerides, HIV and bipolar disorder also are coming by then.
The flood of generics will continue for the next decade or so, as about 120 brand-name prescription drugs lose market exclusivity, according to prescription benefits manager Medco Health Solutions Inc.
via google.com
Which means the free market will be given a chance to work. (Not that the big pharmaceutical companies want this; they've been in bed with the government for decades.)
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Sunday, July 24, 2011
Oasis – "Columbia"
via youtube.com
Oasis's best unknown song. How this wasn't issued as a single from Definitely Maybe is something I'll never be able to understand. It's one hell of a rock song, certainly up there for Oasis with "Lord Don't Slow Me Down" and "Fuckin' in the Bushes," and it's got a grind that never stops once it starts. It's ’90s rock with late-’80s distortion and it would've been a smash hit. It's a shame no one knows it.
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Saturday, July 23, 2011
PayPal joins London police effort
PayPal has joined a music copyright association and the City of London police department's bid to financially starve websites deemed "illegal." When presented with sufficient evidence of unlicensed downloading from a site, the United Kingdom's PayPal branch "will require the retailer to submit proof of licensing for the music offered by the retailer," said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's latest press release.
via yro.slashdot.org
There are two marriages or joining of forces that should make anyone run very fast and very far: Christianity & Nationalism, and Business & Government.
A few Slashdotters point out that this move is likely another way the big labels are trying to crush independent music in Britain, but user erroneous has the best take, in my opinion.
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Friday, July 22, 2011
Massachusetts plans to keep track of where your car has been
Massachusetts wants to establish a database with the information gathered by license plate scanners installed in police cars. The scanners will scan license plates of every car the police vehicle passes and transmit that information (along with the location) to a database that will be made available to various government agencies. The data wil be kept indefinitely.
I can't even come up with a full-on bullshit reason with which Massachusetts can justify instituting this.
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Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Verizon tells customer to get a lawyer and a subpoena to get an itemized bill
I've noticed in the last couple years that major telcos have really ramped up their customer service. I've had very positive exchanges with folks at Sprint and AT&T -- two companies, which used to have reputations for horrible customer service. Sprint, in particular, appears to have made it abundantly clear to customer service agents that they should bend over backwards to help customers. Apparently, Verizon has gone in a different direction. A woman, who called Verizon to try to find out about the $4.19 she was being charged for six local calls, was told by Verizon reps that the only way it would provide her an itemized bill was to get a lawyer and have the lawyer get a subpoena to force Verizon to disclose the information.
Instead, the woman went to court (by herself) and a judge told Verizon to hand over the itemized bill info.
It is a basic matter of fair business practice that a consumer should be able to contact a utility about a charge on a bill and learn what the charge is for and learn that the charge was correctly applied. The only verification that Verizon's witness could offer that a charge like [the customer's] $4.19 measured use charge was accurate and billed correctly was her faith in the accuracy of Verizon's computer system. The only way that Verizon would offer any information about a past charge in response to a consumer inquiry was to require that customer to hire a lawyer and subpoena their own usage information. By no reasonable standard could this be considered reasonable customer service.The judge has also suggested Verizon should be fined $1,000 for its failure here, and that suggestion will be reviewed by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.
via techdirt.com
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Wednesday, July 13, 2011
EdIII's take on the arrest of the woman who refused the TSA's patting down her children
She wasn't arrested for a refusing a patdown. She was arrested for being belligerent.
That still does not make the TSA policy any less clear or enforced. Once you hand over your driver's license and boarding pass and you pass through the little gate inside the checkpoint, you have passed the point of no return.
According to the law, and TSA policy, you cannot refuse to complete the screening process. Note: I said complete the process. You do have the right to say that you will not subject yourself to A, B, or C, but there is no going backwards. You have to make a choice.
Failure to comply and attempts to leave the screening area—even to leave the airport—are offenses that can allow you to be arrested. I know this personally. I did choose the pat down and crotch grab instead of the 3D porno-image machine.
Note: I wholly disagree with the practice, but the fact they charged her with disorderly conduct is because they did not want to charge her with the other offense.
That is strategic on the part of the TSA. If she had been arrested for failure to comply with the screening or leaving quietly, there could be a court case. The TSA could be forced to hand over data under subpoena. They could lose and precedence would be established. When this case goes to trial she will be surprised that the screening measures will have practically nothing to do with her case, and the judge will more than likely not allow it to be presented as evidence, nor will the judge allow the TSA to be forced to hand over data and anything, and the whole thing might have everything to do with disorderly conduct. Basically, her court case will be about her behavior, and the airport and TSA will be irrelevant.
It's the same reason the IRS will usually choose to settle instead of going full on in court if they think they even have the smallest chance of losing. It is to deny the citizenry precedence in law to allow us to fight them effectively through the courts.
Don't be fooled because of the way she was charged. What caused the whole situation is that she did not want pornographic (that which can be considered obscene) images of her children and did not want her children touched and groped by another person. She had no choices her according to TSA policy and was backed into a corner. Golly jee willickers, I can't possibly understand why she blew her top and got arrested for "disorderly conduct"! You back anybody into a corner with zero options and that is what you get. Especially when they feel their children are being harmed.
via it.slashdot.org
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Woman arrested for refusing TSA's searching her children
A Tennessee mother was arrested for refusing to allow TSA screening clerks to subject her child to a body scan or patdown. This comes in the wake of a promise by the TSA Administrator to make repeated attempts at non-phyiscal screening of children, after which another video of a child patdown surfaced. This event may signify a tipping point in the public's willingness to tolerate invasive and inappropriate security procedures at airports.
via it.slashdot.org
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furbo.org · The Rise and Fall of the Independent Developer
I'm old enough to remember a time before the Internet. I know what it's like to develop software both with and without a worldwide network.
Little has changed with the process of software development since the 1980s. Of course there have been improvements in our tools and techniques, but the basic act of creating software products is much the same. What has changed dramatically in the past thirty years is how we distribute our creations.
In the days where software was distributed on magnetic media, such as reels of tape, cassettes, or floppy disks, it cost a lot of money to get the product to a customer. As a result, large companies and software publishers were the only ones with the financial resources to get these applications into a retail channel. There were very few independent software developers. Those who did exist were very small operations.
Then along came the Internet and everything changed. Distribution was suddenly cheap.
I remember a conversation with my good friend Cabel Sasser a few years ago. He and I were reminiscing about our first foray into online distribution and were surprised that we had the same initial reaction: "Holy crap! We can put our software on the Internet and people will actually buy it!"
Many other developers had this same experience and began leaving large companies to work on their own. Making a good living while having the freedom to work on their passion was a great life.
Now distribution is going mainstream with the App Store. And it's already begun changing the lives and businesses of independent software developers. On the surface, it all looks good. There are more customers, increased revenues, and many great new products.
But this expanded distribution is also putting our business at risk: There are people in this new market who claim a right to a part of our hard work. Either by patent or copyright infringement, developers are finding this new cost of litigation to be onerous.
The scary part is that these infringements can happen with any part of our products or websites: things that you'd never imagine being a violation of someone else's intellectual property. It feels like coding in a mine field.
From our experience, it's entirely possible that all the revenue for a product can be eaten up by legal fees. After years of pouring your heart and soul into that product, it's devastating. It makes you question why the hell you're in the business. When you can't pay salaries from product sales, there's no point in building it in the first place.
So, just as in the days of magnetic media, the independent developer now finds him- or herself at a point where it is again becoming very expensive to distribute their products to a mass market. This time the retail channel itself is very cheap, but the ancillary costs, both financially and emotionally, are very high.
And, of course, only large companies and publishers can bear these costs. My fear is that It's only a matter of time before developers find the risks and expenses prohibitive and retreat to the safety of a larger organization. We'll be going back to square one.
Over the years many of the top selling apps have been created by independent developers, starting with Steve Dementer and Trism at the App Store launch, and continuing to this day with titles like Tiny Wings by Andreas Illiger.
Losing that kind of talent and innovation to a legal system is the real crime.
via furbo.org
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MIT researchers printing solar cells on sheets of paper
Solar power is a great alternative energy source, but it’s unfortunately a rather expensive one. However, researchers at MIT are working on a new and less-expensive way to make solar cells which involves printing them directly on to fabric or paper.
We’re not talking about any fancy paper or fabrics. The MIT researchers discovered the printing process works on just about any paper, from regular printer paper, to tissue paper, and even to already-printed newspaper. However, printing the cells is not as simple. It must be done in a vacuum-tight room where the special “ink” is deposited on the paper. According to an article by MIT’s David L. Chandler, the process is almost as cheap and as easy as printing a photo on your inkjet.
It’s a much easier method than the current one, which needs super high-temperature liquids at several hundred degrees Celsius to create the cells. The new method uses vapors and lower temperatures at less than 120 degrees Celsius. According to Chandler, these “gentle conditions” are what makes it possible to use untreated paper as the substrate.
The substrate of the current method is usually glass and requires a number of other components that are expensive and result in a heavy, rigid object – and that’s not even taking into account the installation costs. With paper or fabric being used as the new substrate, creating the solar cells is much less expensive. To create the cells, five layers of material have to be deposited on the paper in consecutive passes. Though it might sound complicated, Chandler said the basic process is pretty much the same as the one used to make the shiny silver lining in a bag of potato chips. So, if potato chips bag producers can do it on a large commercial scale for cheap, so can solar-cell printing.
The paper can be folded up, slipped into your pocket, unfolded, and will work as well as it did in the first place. The MIT researchers tested this by folding the printed material into a paper airplane. Professor of Electrical Engineering Vladimir Bulovic said the team has thoroughly tested the robustness of the technology. He said that the low weight of the paper substrate will let them create “scalable solar cells that can reach record-high watts-per-kilogram performance.” This could open up a number of applications. For example, they could be used in remote developing countries where weight is a large factor in how many cells can be delivered. The paper can also easily be applied to a wall or to window shades to make it super easy to install your own solar panels.
via geek.com
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Surprise, surprise! law enforcement still wants mandatory ISP-log retention
Law enforcement representatives are planning to endorse a proposed federal law that would require Internet service providers to store logs about their customers for 18 months. Michael Brown, sheriff in Bedford County, Virginia, and a board member and executive committee member of the National Sheriffs' Association, is planning to argue that a new law is necessary because Internet providers do not store customer records long enough. "The limited data-retention time and lack of uniformity among retention from company to company significantly hinders law enforcement's ability to identify predators when they come across child pornography," according to a copy of Brown's remarks. Any stored logs could, however, be used to prosecute any type of crime.
via yro.slashdot.org
The root password to the U.S. Constitution is "child pornography."
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How is this different from armed robbery?
Earlier this month, police in Oakland County, Michigan raided a medical marijuana dispensary in the town of Oak Park. The deputies came in with guns drawn and bulletproof vests, with at least one wearing a mask.
They made no arrests, but they did clean the place out. The confiscated all of the dispensary’s cash on hand and—in a particularly thuggish touch—also took all of the cash from the wallets and purses of employees and patients. In this update, police officials say the raid was the result of street dealers telling police they were buying marijuana from the dispensary. I suppose we’ll see in time if that’s true, and if it is, if the dispensary was actually aware that it was selling to dealers. But at first blush, the claim sounds like a pretty good way for street dealers to put a legitimate competitor out of business.
Under Michigan’s asset forfeiture law, 80 percent of the cash the deputies seized will go directly to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department. The other 20 percent goes to the local prosecutor. Medical marijuana is legal under Michigan law but is of course still illegal under federal law. And apparently there’s some debate about the legality of dispensaries. All of which means this particular dispensary will have a hard time proving it earned the seized cash legitimately. I doubt the patients and employees will get their cash back, either. The cost of challenging the seizure is likely several times more than the amount of money most people carry on their person.
There’s been some talk in the Michigan legislature about reforming the state’s asset forfeiture laws, but there’s been no action so far. Last February, a former prosecutor described the Michigan forfeiture law to the Detroit News this way:
“It’s a money grab, pure and simple; a sneaky way of getting a penalty on something prosecutors can’t prove. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.”
via theagitator.com
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Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Why I want Google+ instead of Facebook, as explained by tomhudson
- The biggie: It's not Facebook.
- Circles: Share stuff with people you've put into different circles rather than with (everyone / friends / friends of friends).
- Circles again: View posts from all your circles or just one—say, all your Slashdot friends.
- Privacy settings: a lot more control than Facebook.
- Already a much better interface. None of that "wall" crapola.
via slashdot.org
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Thursday, July 7, 2011
[B]eing a liar and an irresponsible adult should not be enough to convict a person of murder.
Postings on social media sites suggest people think the justice system let two-year-old Caylee Anthony down because a Florida jury didn't convict Caylee's mother, Casey, for her death.
Those are emotional postings—a sentiment we understand but with which we must disagree.
When our outrage over a child's possible homicide overrides our constitutional requirement that the state prove allegations against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt, we become a vigilante society.
Everyone recognizes the tragedy of a toddler's death, even the twelve jurors who found Casey Anthony not guilty Tuesday afternoon. But according to an alternate juror in the trial, Russell Huekler, the state didn't even prove whether Caylee was a victim of homicide.
"There was so much reasonable doubt," Huekler said, on "Good Morning America" Wednesday. "The prosecution did not present the evidence to show that Caylee had been murdered. They did not show a motive. Finally, they did not show how Caylee had died."
Caylee's body had six months to decompose between the time of her disappearance and the time her body was discovered. That made it nearly impossible for the state to prove how Caylee died, according to statements from prosecutors after the verdict.
Twelve people sat in the courtroom each day hearing all of the evidence against Casey Anthony. They were best qualified to decide whether she was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. A jury of Anthony's peers judged her to be not guilty, which is a far cry from innocent.
Casey Anthony is obviously a liar. The jury found her guilty of four misdemeanor counts of lying to police. The public has good reason to question Casey Anthony's character in light of her bar-hopping and partying lifestyle in the months after Caylee's June 18, 2008, disappearance.
But being a liar and an irresponsible adult should not be enough to convict a person of murder.
Most of America became fixated on this case because of the real-life drama, but brief reports on the each day’s proceedings were mere glimpses into the complex legal wranglings.
The sensational events surrounding Casey Anthony's trial took center stage in news coverage. Even the tabloid TV shows covered the trial and its circus-like sideshows, such as the fistfight that erupted in the line of people waiting to get into the courthouse to watch the trial and the turmoil over whether Casey was a victim of incest.
Casey Anthony's attorney chided the media Tuesday for its sensationalized reporting, and perhaps he was correct. Many of the talking heads clearly sided with the prosecution, and some journalists' emotions compromised their objective reporting.
In the end, circumstantial evidence wasn't enough to convict the twenty-five-year-old mother of the victim.
We still hope for justice for Caylee Anthony, but justice should not come at the compromise of constitutional principles of being proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
via jconline.com
Finally, some level-headed commentary.
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Man falls behind on payments, mortgage company has home trashed
Imagine coming back to your home after being away a few weeks and finding the locks changed and the home trashed. That's what happened to Chris Boudreau of Brooksville.
Boudreau showed us the home, which was stripped bare.
Walking through the living room, he tells us "I used to have a couch, a sofa, a couple of end tables, a TV, DVD player, tapes and cabinet... but they are now gone."
It happened after 21 Mortgage Corporation in Knoxville, which is Boudreau's lender, hired a local company to do the job. The mortgage company spokesperson refused to talk to us, but we talked to Boudreau's attorney, Tom Altman.
According to Altman, the woman from the mortgage company told him Florida is a "self help state," and that's why they are allowed to do this. However, Altman explained he was holding the mortgage and Florida is not a self help state. He says he told the woman Florida has strict mortgage foreclosure laws and they were being violated by the company.
But the Hernando Sheriff's Office apparently has no interest in enforcing those laws... or burglary, breaking and entering and trespassing, either. They say it is a civil matter, even though everything from the house was taken or thrown in the dumpster. The wedding dress belonging to Boudreau's wife was even cut to shreds.
"When she saw what happened, she actually went into in the dumpster trying to go through the stuff," Boudreau says. "She was crying her eyes out."
Boudreau's attorney says the Hernando Sheriff's Office is flat wrong.
"Although Boudreau had fallen behind a bit in his mortgage, there were no foreclosure proceedings in effect," Altman says. "That means the people who trashed bordures home and took his possessions should be arrested and prosecuted like common criminals."
Boudreau says he just wants to get his stuff back. However, that seems unlikely and it appears Boudreau will have to sue to be compensated for his losses.
via wtsp.com
Don't cross the banks.
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Media companies create copyright-enforcement framework
An anonymous reader quotes an article from Ars Technica:American Internet users, get ready for three strikes^W^W "six strikes." Major U.S. Internet providers—including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner Cable—have just signed on to a voluntary agreement with the movie and music businesses to crack down on online copyright infringers. But they will protect subscriber privacy and they won't filter or monitor their own networks for infringement. And after the sixth "strike," you won't necessarily be "out."It's not suspicious at all that most of the ISPs signing on for this are owned by or own media companies.
via yro.slashdot.org
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Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Law professors vs. the PROTECT IP Act
Along with ninety (and counting) other Internet law and IP law professors, David Post of the Volokh Conspiracy law blog has drafted and signed a letter in opposition to Senator Leahy's PROTECT IP Act. Quoting: "The Act would allow the government to break the Internet addressing system. It requires Internet service providers, and operators of Internet name servers, to refuse to recognize Internet domains that a court considers 'dedicated to infringing activities.' But rather than wait until a Web site is actually judged infringing before imposing the equivalent of an Internet death penalty, the Act would allow courts to order any Internet service provider to stop recognizing the site even on a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction issued the same day the complaint is filed. Courts could issue such an order even if the owner of that domain name was never given notice that a case against it had been filed at all."
via yro.slashdot.org
As usual, Slashdot's comments are great on this topic. This post by one paulsnx2 is excellent.
Posted via email from PARKXVI | Comment »
U.S., UK targeting piracy websites outside their borders
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency is going after piracy websites even if they aren't hosted in the U.S., by targeting those with .net and .com domain names, which are managed by U.S. company Verisign. Meanwhile, a lawyer suggests even that [kind of connection] isn't needed to take a site to court in the UK, saying as long as the content is directed at UK users, that's connection enough to ensure jurisdiction.
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Woot.
Posted via email from PARKXVI | Comment »
Saturday, July 2, 2011
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