Archive for April, 2010

A recently published paper found that it is relatively easy to expose BitTorrent's biggest content providers. The researchers were able to identify 70% of the initial seeds of publicly available torrent files that were uploaded to The Pirate Bay, something that might peek the interest of the entertainment industry. Full story

EFF will be attending PrivacyCamp SF on Friday May 7th after the end of the Web 2.0 Expo, and we hope you will join us. The topic of the day will be Privacy and Social Networks. This first annual PrivacyCamp in San Francisco will be a day-long user-generated "unconference" of engineers, privacy advocates, professors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and social network users that will focus ... Full story

Following the joint signing of an IFPI / Bulgarian Interior Ministry memorandum declaring a crackdown on piracy, the head of the Computer Crimes Department appeared on TV and said that the country's two largest BitTorrent sites will be closed down. Both Zamunda.net and Arena.bg are currently in the spotlight but it is feared more could join them in the future. Full story

The Federal Trade Commission has announced that it has completed its first investigation under the "blog-ola" rules it adopted last year, which require bloggers and other social media posters who receive a free or discounted product or service to disclose the freebie in their reviews or commentary about the product or service, or face the possibility of an FTC enforcement action.  See "Guides Concerning the Use ... Full story

The U.S. government has released its annual Special 301 report in which it purports to identify those countries with inadequate intellectual property laws.  Given the recent history and the way in which the list is developed, it will come as no surprise that the U.S. is again implausibly claiming that Canada is among the worst of the worst.  As a starting point, it should ... Full story

The IFPI, the global RIAA, this week released its annual Recording Industry in Numbers report that tracks global record sales.  In its release, it chose to target two countries - Canada and Spain - for declining sales and linked those declines to copyright law.  As it no doubt intended, the IFPI release succeeded in generating media coverage, including two Globe and Mail stories (... Full story

Ok, actually no Hitler at all, but a usefully cynical video:-) Full story

We're excited to report a great response to our inaugural Defcon 18 Getaway Contest since we announced it two weeks ago. Seventy-one participants have raised over $1900 so far! Registration is still open, and the contest is still very much up for grabs! Current first place team Holy Handgrenades is sitting pretty at $575, with individual contestants Evan Keiser at ... Full story

Social networking companies don't have it easy. Advertisers covet their users' data, and in a niche that often seems to lack a clear business model, selling (or otherwise leveraging) that data is a tremendously tempting opportunity. But most users simply don't want to share as much information with marketers or other "partners" as corporations would like them to. So it's no surprise that some companies ... Full story

Last year The Pirate Bay lost its case in The Netherlands with a court ruling that the site must cease its activities in the country. Despite this decision the site is still accessible in The Netherlands, but anti-piracy group BREIN isn't sitting still. According to information received by TorrentFreak, they are now taking action to force an ISP to start blocking the site. Full story