So things just keep getting stranger and stranger online. A bunch of mobile operators are apparently planning to start automatically blocking all mobile ads. Now, for those of you who hate ads online, this might seem like a good thing, but it is not. If you want to disable ads on your own, that should be your call. In fact, as we’ve noted before, we think people on the web have every right to install their own ad blockers, and we find it ridiculous when people argue that ad blocking is some form of “theft.”
But this is different… and this is dangerous.
As the reports make clear, this move has nothing to do with actually protecting the public from malicious or annoying ads… and everything to do with the mobile operators hoping to shake down Google.
The plan – which would be devastating to companies reliant on advertising – is not limited to a single European network. Its apparent aim is to break Google’s hold on advertising.
The FT report says that “an executive at a European carrier confirmed that it and several of its peers are planning to start blocking adverts this year” and will be available as an “opt-in service” however they are also considering applying the technology across their entire mobile networks.
And, the clear plan is to then go to Google and say “give us money or else”:
The unnamed European carrier in the Financial Times article is reportedly planning to target Google and block its ads to force the company into giving up some of its revenue.
Category: Ignorant or unreasonable
Border Force bureaucrats become super-spooks
Australia’s long sleepwalk into a surveillance state continued last week, with the largely-uncontested passage of the suite of bills creating the Australian Border Force (ABF).
As well as telecommunications metadata access, the legislation wrapped the Australian Border Force (ABF) in a protective coating of spook-power.
Last week, Senator Scott Ludlam warned that the ABF – a mash-up of the “border control functions” of the Departments of Immigration and Customs – was being designated a law enforcement agency under the Telecommunications Interception Act.
That means that Australian citizens who haven’t committed a crime, or even travelled overseas, might still be swept up in a metadata request.
However, as an anonymous reader pointed out to Vulture South, the law goes even further than that.
In the digest of legislation needed to create the ABF, it’s also noted that “the Bill gives significant law enforcement powers to all officers of Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP).”
What that means is that the ABF will be able to conduct controlled operations which, under the government’s new national security regime, means the agency now has the power to block reporting of its activities and pursue whistleblowers.
That’s more than a trivial change, since it’s already known that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) has been investigating journalists reporting on asylum-seeker issues to try and uncover their sources.
RIAA Cuts More Jobs, Awards Bonuses to Execs
The RIAA has just submitted its latest tax filing to the IRS, covering the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014. Time for us to see where the music industry’s anti-piracy arm stands.
In previous years the RIAA reported a massive decline in revenue after the record labels cut back on their membership dues, but this trend now appears to have stopped.
Total revenue according to the latest filing is $24.2 million, a slight increase from $24.1 million the year before. Despite the stabilizing income, which mostly comes from the record label’s membership dues, the RIAA continues to trim employees.
Over the past five years the number of employees at the RIAA has been slashed in half, dropping from 117 to just 55.
In its most recent filing the RIAA lists 55 people on the payroll compared to 58 the year before. In total these employees earned $11.7 million of which more than 25% went into the pockets of three top executives.
Interestingly, while more than half of the organization’s workers have been let go, the RIAA’s top employees have enjoyed salary increases year after year, including some healthy bonuses.
UK government quietly rewrites hacking laws to give GCHQ immunity
The UK government has quietly passed new legislation that exempts GCHQ, police, and other intelligence officers from prosecution for hacking into computers and mobile phones.
While major or controversial legislative changes usually go through normal parliamentary process (i.e. democratic debate) before being passed into law, in this case an amendment to the Computer Misuse Act was snuck in under the radar as secondary legislation. According to Privacy International, “It appears no regulators, commissioners responsible for overseeing the intelligence agencies, the Information Commissioner’s Office, industry, NGOs or the public were notified or consulted about the proposed legislative changes… There was no public debate.”
Privacy International also suggests that the change to the law was in direct response to a complaint that it filed last year. In May 2014, Privacy International and seven communications providers filed a complaint with the UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), asserting that GCHQ’s hacking activities were unlawful under the Computer Misuse Act.
On June 6, just a few weeks after the complaint was filed, the UK government introduced the new legislation via the Serious Crime Bill that would allow GCHQ, intelligence officers, and the police to hack without criminal liability. The bill passed into law on March 3 this year, and it went into effect on May 3. Privacy International says there was no public debate before the law was enacted, with only a rather one-sided set of stakeholders being consulted (Ministry of Justice, Crown Prosecution Service, Scotland Office, Northern Ireland Office, GCHQ, police, and National Crime Agency).
Despite filing its complaint back way back in 2014, Privacy International wasn’t told about the changes to the Computer Misuse Act until last week—after the new legislation became effective. The UK government is allowed to do this, of course, but it’s a little more underhanded and undemocratic than usual.
School shootings
Jeb Bush: Repeal Obamacare and replace it with APPLE WATCHES
John “Jeb” Bush, younger brother of ex-president George “Dubya” Bush and former Governor of Florida, has found the solution to America’s healthcare problems: his Apple Watch.
At a “town hall” meeting at the Chamber of Commerce in Tempe, Arizona, Jeb said: “I think we should repeal Obamacare,” before pointing at his wristjob, reports Cult of Mac.
“On this device in five years will be applications that will allow me to manage my healthcare in ways that, five years ago, were not even possible,” continued the Republican politician, who many expect to run for the US presidency.
David Doherty, from the doctors-on-the-video-phone service 3G Doctor told El Reg that Bush isn’t alone in thinking that wearables are the holy grail for healthcare, but that Bush misses the point.
“Wearables and Obamacare are incompatible,” Doherty said. “Obamacare is an insurance scheme; if insurance companies know what you are doing through your wearable they will refuse to insure you.”
Maybe confusing a $400 watch and an insurance scheme is a mistake only a man who aspires to be US President can make.
FBI Spied On Activists Because Protecting Corporate Interests Is Roughly Equivalent To Ensuring National Security
That whole thing about the FBI not surveilling people based solely on First Amendment activity? The thing that’s been in all the (FISA) papers (and agency policies)? Yeah, the FBI hasn’t heard of it either.
The FBI breached its own internal rules when it spied on campaigners against the Keystone XL pipeline, failing to get approval before it cultivated informants and opened files on individuals protesting against the construction of the pipeline in Texas, documents reveal.
Internal agency documents show for the first time how FBI agents have been closely monitoring anti-Keystone activists, in violation of guidelines designed to prevent the agency from becoming unduly involved in sensitive political issues.
“Unduly involved” is right. First of all, a majority of what was monitored was First Amendment activity, something no federal intelligence or investigative agency is supposed to be doing. Certainly, there can be law enforcement monitoring of protests as they occur, but there’s no provision in the law that allows the FBI to monitor people solely because of their activism.
Unless, of course, these activists are declared “extremists.” Then all bets (and Constitutional protections) are off.
“Many of these extremists believe the debates over pollution, protection of wildlife, safety, and property rights have been overshadowed by the promise of jobs and cheaper oil prices,” the FBI document states.
“Extremists” are often mentioned in the same breath as “domestic terrorists,” so with a little bit of rebranding, the FBI is now able to surveill people solely for their First Amendment-protected activities. That’s handy and not totally unexpected, given the agency’s long history of eyeballing activists who run contrary to its view on How Things Should Be. At one point, it was uppity blacks and encroaching homosexuals. Now, it’s people who don’t want an oil pipeline running through their neighborhoods.
A Trade Deal Read In Secret By Only A Few (Or Maybe None)
Senate leaders were all smiles Wednesday after they broke a 24-hour impasse and announced they had reached a deal on how to move forward on a fast-track trade negotiating bill. That legislation would give the president expedited authority to enter into a trade agreement with Pacific Rim countries, otherwise known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.
But how senators will vote on this bill depends largely on how they feel about TPP. And there’s one problem.
“I bet that none of my colleagues have read the entire document. I would bet that most of them haven’t even spent a couple hours looking at it,” said Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who has acknowledged he has yet to read every single page of the trade agreement.
Because, as Brown explained, even if a member of Congress were to hunker down and pore over a draft trade agreement hundreds of pages long, filled with technical jargon and confusing cross-references –- what good would it do? Just sitting down and reading the agreement isn’t going to make its content sink in.
For any senator who wants to study the draft TPP language, it has been made available in the basement of the Capitol, inside a secure, soundproof room. There, lawmakers surrender their cellphones and other mobile devices. Any notes taken inside the room must be left in the room.
Only aides with high-level security clearances can accompany lawmakers. Members of Congress can’t ask outside industry experts or lawyers to analyze the language. They can’t talk to the public about what they read. And Brown says there’s no computer inside the secret room to look something up when there’s confusion. You just consult the USTR official.
“There is more access in most cases to CIA and Defense Department and Iran sanctions documents — better access to congressional staff and others — than for this trade agreement,” said Brown.
Okay, Who’s Gonna Go Argue That The Nun Threatened National Security?
Anybody?
<crickets>
Somebody’s gotta go do it, guys. Oral argument’s coming up in the Sixth Circuit….No, we can’t just dismiss the charges.
Yes, you have to do it with a straight face.
<crickets>
C’mon. I need a volunteer here.
<crickets>
Okay, then I’m just gonna pick somebody…. <scans room, everyone avoids eye contact> Jeff. You were late today, so you can handle this one. Yep. It’s all you, buddy. Have fun. Break a leg.
I assume something like that happened earlier this year in connection with the case of Sister Megan Rice, the 85-year-old peace-activist nun who led a daring commando raid on the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex at Oak Ridge, and by “daring commando raid” I mean they used bolt cutters on the fence and walked in without anybody noticing. See “Government Bravely Prosecutes Nun for Embarrassing It,” Lowering the Bar (Feb. 10, 2014).
And when they got to the heart of this place where we store all our weapons-grade uranium, which I again stress that they did without being noticed, they put up some banners, sang songs, and prayed. To be fair to the government, I should point out that they also threw some blood on the building and chipped some pieces off the corner of it with a hammer. Your typical terrorist stuff. When guards eventually arrived, they surrendered peacefully. The only effect on the facility was that the government shut the place down for 15 days while it tried to figure out
who to blame forhow to address the obvious lack of security.
MPAA Complained So We Seized Your Funds, PayPal Says
For several years PayPal has been trying to limit how much business it does with sites involved with copyright infringement. Unsurprisingly torrent sites are high up on the payment processors “do not touch” list.
For that reason it is quite rare to see PayPal offered as a donation method on the majority of public sites as these are spotted quite quickly and often shut down. It’s unclear whether PayPal does its own ‘scouting’ but the company is known to act upon complaints from copyright holders as part of the developing global “Follow the Money” anti-piracy strategy.
This week Andrew Sampson, the software developer behind new torrent search engine ‘Strike‘, discovered that when you have powerful enemies, bad things can happen.
With no advertising on the site, Sampson added his personal PayPal account in case anyone wanted to donate. Quickly coming to the conclusion that was probably a bad idea, Sampson removed the button and carried on as before. One month later PayPal contacted him with bad news.
“We are contacting you as we have received a report that your website https://getstrike.net is currently infringing upon the intellectual property of Motion Picture Association of America, Inc.,” PayPal began.
“Such infringement also violates PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy. Therefore your account has been permanently limited.”
It isn’t clear why PayPal waited for a month after donations were removed from Strike to close Sampson’s six-year-old account but the coder believes that his public profile (he doesn’t hide his real identity) may have led to his issues.
“It seems someone at the MPAA realized I took donations using PayPal from some of my other LEGAL open source projects (like https://github.com/Codeusa/Borderless-Gaming) and was able to get the email of my account,” the dev told TF.
While Sampson had regularly been receiving donations from users of his other open source projects, he says he only received $200 from users of Strike, a small proportion of the $2,500 in his personal account when PayPal shut it down.