Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category

A court in the northern city of Vinh on today ruled on the appeals by five bloggers – Ho Duc Hoa, Paulus Le Van Son, Nguyen Van Duyet, Thai Van Dung and Tran Minh Nhat - against their long jail terms, upholding the existing sentences for three of them and reducing the sentences of the other two. “Even if the appeal court reduced Son's sentence ... Full story

Reporters Without Borders is relieved to learn that Rovshen Yazmuhamedov (Ровшан Язмухаммедов), a reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Turkmen service, was released yesterday. He had been held since 6 May in the northeastern city of Turkmenabat for reasons that are still unknown. 10.05.13 - RFE/RL correspondent held arbitrarily for past four days Reporters Without Borders calls on the authorities to explain why they have ... Full story

Syria's Internet network has long been kept under close surveillance. Now it turns out that the surveillance has been stepped up. The Telecomix hactivist group has revealed that 34 Blue Coat servers are operating in Syria (WeFC link). The servers are using DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) technology to analyse and control the activities of Syrian Internet users – censuring websites, intercepting emails, obtaining details of ... Full story

In a new lawsuit Voltage Pictures, the company behind The Hurt Locker, say they have not only tracked down a "prolific proponent" of widespread BitTorrent piracy, but have identified him as a practicing attorney based in Portland, Oregon. The defendant, who describes himself as an expert in two martial arts, is said to have infringed copyright in at least 66 different copyright works. The lawsuit ... Full story

In a new lawsuit Voltage Pictures, the company behind The Hurt Locker, say they have not only tracked down a "prolific proponent" of widespread BitTorrent piracy, but have identified him as a practicing attorney based in Portland, Oregon. The defendant, who describes himself as an expert in two martial arts, is said to have infringed copyright in at least 66 different copyright works. The lawsuit ... Full story

Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the sentence of 13 and a half months in prison that an Istanbul magistrate's court passed yesterday on Turkish-Armenian journalist Sevan Nisanyan for posting “insulting” comments about Mohammed in his blog. “Nisanyan's jail sentence is a grave violation of freedom of information and sends a threatening message to fellow journalists and bloggers that is unacceptable,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It ... Full story

Reporters Without Borders is appalled by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov's decision to withdraw the accreditation of 10 journalists who staged a silent protest at a cabinet meeting to draw attention to the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for an attack on two reporters during street demonstrations on 18 May. “The allocation of press accreditation should not be used to ‘cherrypick' journalists and eliminate those who ... Full story

Reporters Without Borders is very disturbed by attempts by Polish government ministers to intimidate the media during the past the days. The media freedom organization condemns the utterly disproportionate and exorbitant damages that transport minister Slawomir Nowak is demanding from the magazine Wprost in a libel suit over an April 2013 story about his friendship with businessmen who often win government contracts and his presence ... Full story

Kim Dotcom has announced that he is the inventor of the so-called two-step authentication system and has a patent to prove it. The Megaupload founder says the security mechanism, which has just been introduced by Twitter, is being used by U.S. companies more than a billion times every week without permission. Dotcom says he doesn't want to sue, but might if the likes of Google ... Full story

To mark the occasion of 20 million URL takedown notices sent to Google by RIAA member companies, the organization has complained that search engines still aren't doing enough to reduce the piracy problem. The RIAA says it is using a bucket to deal with "an ocean of illegal downloading", one in which content is replaced and re-indexed in a never-ending loop. Notice and takedown procedures ... Full story