European Commission accepts Penguin?s proposals to scrap Apple ebook agency agreements
The European Commission has accepted book publisher Penguin?s proposals to scrap all of its existing ebook agency agreements ? including its deal with Apple, most importantly ? and refrain from adopting any similar partnerships for the next five years.
Journalists at Bradley Manning trial report hostile conditions for press
Press line #Manning pic.twitter.com/ftzFBHzLsz? Alexa O’Brien (@carwinb)July 25, 2013
Journalists and bloggers covering closing arguments in the military trial of Wikileaks source Bradley Manning are reporting a far more intense security climate at Ft. Meade today, as compared to the past two months of court proceedings. @carwinb, @kgosztola, @nathanLfuller, and @wikileakstruck have tweeted about armed guards standing behind them as they type into laptops in the designated press area, and extensive physical searches. I visited the trial two weeks ago, and while there were many restrictions I found surprising (no mobile devices allowed in the press room), it wasn’t this bad. Tweets from some of them are below; there are about 40-50 reporters present and not all are tweeting. Internet access is spotty today. Oh, wait; as I type this blog post, I’m now seeing updates that they’re being told they are not allowed to access Twitter. So there’s that.
Closing arguments in Bradley Manning court-martial paint Wikileaks source as glory-seeking traitor
Inside a small courthouse on the Army base in Fort Meade, Maryland, Army prosecutors are presenting closing arguments in their case against Pfc. Bradley Manning, who leaked hundreds of thousands of government documents to Wikileaks
Manning a traitor, not a whistleblower, US prosecutor says
US soldier Bradley Manning betrayed his country by passing secret files to “information anarchists” at WikiLeaks and knew Al-Qaeda would see the documents online, a prosecutor said Thursday in closing arguments
You can now edit Wikipedia on the go, as Wikimedia turns on mobile editing
Wikipedia today announced it is starting to roll out support for editing content on your mobile device. The first version of mobile editing, which requires a Wikimedia account, is available right now.
Google Removed 100 Million ?Pirate? Search Results This Year
In hopes of steering prospective customers away from pirate sites, copyright holders are sending Google millions of DMCA takedown requests.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange running for senate in Australia
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has announced the inauguration of a new WikiLeaks political party and declared his candidacy for a seat in the Australian Senate in national elections to be held later this year. He remains inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he has received asylum for more than a year now, so he can avoid being extradited to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning for accusations of sexual assault. [nytimes.com]
Feds Identify the Young Russians Behind the Top U.S. Cyber Thefts in Last 7 Years
Four Russians and one Ukrainian have been charged with masterminding a massive hacking spree that was responsible for stealing more than 160 million bank card numbers from companies in the U.S. over a seven-year period.
Feds tell major internet companies to decrypt and hand over users’ account passwords
At CNET, Declan McCullagh reports that the U.S. government has demanded that large Internet companies provide them with users’ stored passwords, which are typically encrypted. The move represents “an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed,” he writes. “If the government is able to determine a person’s password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user.” [CNET News]
NSA spying may be harming American tech companies? bottom line
There’s been much speculation that Edward Snowden‘s revelations about the NSA spying program PRISM have damaged U.S. tech companies’ credibility among international clients who were the operation’s primary targets. But Andrea Peterson at the Washington Post writes that “it?s starting to look like the snooping is hitting U.S.-based cloud providers where it really hurts: Their pocketbooks.”
NSA amendment’s thin defeat sparks battle in Congress over privacy, surveillance
Writing about yesterday’s narrow vote in the House to defeat an amendment that would have reined in the NSA’s vast spying of phone communications, Spencer Ackerman at the Guardian says a bipartisan coalition is now working to reset the balance between liberty and security.
Bad News For Reader Privacy: Google News Doesn’t Index HTTPS Sites
In the ongoing effort to encrypt the entire web, news sites are an area of special importance. After all, the articles you choose to read can say a lot about you: how close you’re following a political race, for example, can indicate where you stand on sensitive issues, or give clues about personal connections to the people or organizations being covered.
David Cameron’s favourite censorware is built and maintained by Huawei
UK Prime Minister David Cameron (and his thin-skinned, slandering advisor Claire Perry) have been cynically appealing to the Tory’s reactionary base by promising to purge the British Internet of porn with a Chinese style, opt-out Great Firewall.
Huawei Operates David Cameron?s Internet Porn Filter
According to the BBC, the filtering system promoted by Britain’s prime minister to protect sensitive eyes from the horrors of Internet pornography is run by the controversial Chinese technology company Huawei in partnership with the UK telecoms provider TalkTalk.
No, Mr Cameron, you can’t solve porn with a hackathon
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has called on UK geeks to hold a “hackathon” to help him create a British version of Iran’s “halal Internet” — a network where kids can’t see porn. In his call to action, he implies that the only reason nerds haven’t done this is because they lack the sense of responsibility to have solved this problem (and not, say, because it is a technical nonsense). In a scathing rebuttal, Dr Georgina Voss explains to the hapless PM why a hackathon to end smut is a stupid idea, even by his government’s standards.
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