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5651

Living Room / New bill upgrades unauthorized streaming to a felony

« Last post by wraith808 on August 07, 2013, 10:31 AM »

This is WAY OUT OF CONTROL.

(via Ars)

Two months ago, US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel produced her wishlist of changes to US law. One item in particular caught our interest—the suggestion that the online streaming of copyrighted content be bumped up to a full-scale felony. Late last week, Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced just such a bill.

The text of S. 978 isn't yet available from the official THOMAS system, but Klobuchar's office sent us a copy of the brief bill. Under current law, "reproducing" and "distributing" copyrighted works are felony charges and cover P2P transfers and Web downloads. But streaming is a "public performance" rather than a "distribution"—and holding a public performance without a proper license is not a felony. S. 978 adds "public performance" to the felony list.

Online streamers can now face up to five years in prison and a fine in cases where:

They show 10 or more "public performances" by electronic means in any 180-day period and
The total retail value of those performances tops $2,500 or the cost of licensing such performances is greater than $5,000

More at link

The finest congresspeople money can buy... 

5652

Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

« Last post by wraith808 on August 07, 2013, 10:27 AM »

You might also want to check at getting the book up on http://www.fsand.com/

The owner* is an up-and-up guy, and they pay higher royalties.  Not as big as some of the others, but the more exposure the better, right?

*The owner is Daniel Keys Moran:
- http://en.wikipedia....ki/Daniel_Keys_Moran
- https://plus.google....07286020910913706370

5653

Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2013, 04:44 PM »

I'd say go ahead and create a thread in announce your product.  Just do the big announcement as if this thread wasn't there and add that for a limited time you can get autographed copies and the information.

I'd think that would be highly appropriate. 

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Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2013, 04:05 PM »

Thanks for being so transparent with this... the last time I tried was in the bad old days of submitting manuscripts, and it was a lot more depressing so I didn't really know what to expect. 

5655

Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2013, 03:27 PM »

that contact button still bothers me, though LOL

What do you recommend?

-kyrathaba (August 06, 2013, 02:36 PM)

Truthfully, just a link would probably be enough.  In your links section, link to a contact page, and on that page put whatever information you want and/or a contact form.

5656

Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2013, 02:32 PM »

You've done a good job with your site... that contact button still bothers me, though LOL

5657

Living Room / Re: HTTPS Hackable In 30 Seconds: DHS Alert

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2013, 01:28 PM »

DHS issued an alert?

All of a sudden these guys are working for us again? What's up with that?

-40hz (August 06, 2013, 01:09 PM)

No... note that it was brought up by an independent researcher at Black Hat.  They were reporting something that had been found out by someone else.

5658

Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2013, 12:15 PM »

That's cool!  Congrats!

And keep posting updates... you continue to give me motivation

5659

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2013, 11:02 AM »

You have to WARN people before you do stuff like that!  EYEBLEACH!  NSFW!  NSFAnyone!!!

5660

Living Room / Re: HTTPS Hackable In 30 Seconds: DHS Alert

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2013, 09:07 AM »

From article:

Still, the BREACH exploit vector carries caveats. "Researchers say that attackers must have access to passively monitor the target's Internet traffic," French said. "In most cases, monitoring would have to be done locally on the same network -- and that adds a layer of difficulty for hackers."

So you have to be able to intercept on site, so it's not as bad as it seems... but yeah. 

5661

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2013, 09:06 AM »

But it's kinda moot now. Unless I missed something WHS has been officially discontinued. Microsoft is suggesting its very stripped down "Windows Server Essentials" server as the replacement.

-40hz (August 06, 2013, 08:26 AM)

It's not moot to those people (i.e. me) hit by it.  If they paid me, I wouldn't use it in any iteration.  It's one thing to be hit by something like this in beta software- but that was supposedly production-ready.  Nope.  Nuh uh.  Not even if they swore on their children's lives would I use it again.

5662

Living Room / HTTPS Hackable In 30 Seconds: DHS Alert

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2013, 07:59 AM »

Reported on informationweek.

Security experts are warning website operators to test whether their HTTPS traffic is vulnerable to a new crypto attack that can be used to grab sensitive information.
The so-called BREACH attack -- short for Browser Reconnaissance and Exfiltration via Adaptive Compression of Hypertext -- was detailed in a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "BREACH vulnerability in compressed HTTPS" advisory, issued Friday, which warned that "a sophisticated attacker may be able to derive plaintext secrets from the ciphertext in an HTTPS stream." All versions of the transport layer security (TLS) and secure sockets layer (SSL) protocols are vulnerable.

Full details of the vulnerability were first unveiled Thursday at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas by Salesforce.com lead product security engineer Angelo Prado, Square application security engineer Neal Harris, and Salesforce.com lead security engineer Yoel Gluck. Their man-in-the-middle HTTPS crypto attack involves watching "the size of the cipher text received by the browser while triggering a number of strategically crafted requests to a target site," according to exploit details provided by Prado to DHS. "To recover a particular secret in an HTTPS response body, the attacker guesses character by character, sending a pair of requests for each guess. The correct guess will result in a smaller HTTPS response," he said.

more at link.

5663

Living Room / Re: Apple vs. Samsung Goes NUCLEAR!

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2013, 07:44 AM »

^ Totally agreed!  Excellent summation and analysis! 

5664

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2013, 11:29 PM »

Is that for the WHS version, the new version, or both? I've never had occasion to play with it ... But I've got all my VMs on an 8 disk hardware RAID5 array.

-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2013, 10:31 PM)

It was for the WHS version.

5665

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2013, 07:48 PM »

oh yeah...never used the pool feature in Windows server.

-40hz (August 05, 2013, 06:48 PM)

I did... and I lived to regret it.  I wouldn't trust it after that incident if they paid me to.

5666

Living Room / Re: BREAKING: Half of TOR sites compromised, including TORMail.

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2013, 07:47 PM »

I guess I'm cynical.

I don't see the revelation as an oversight or screw up.

I think a very pointed message is being sent to the cyber-counterculture and digital separatists.

The message is: We own your ass, kiddies. And we can collect on it any time we feel like.

-40hz (August 05, 2013, 06:55 PM)

That's not the cynical part.  The cynical part is that they're playing games within games.  They already have your traffic... those that go to something else, now we have you specifically.  And then also to let the whistleblowers know that Snowden was lucky.  All of the ways you think that you have to cover up your tracks... we have them covered.  And we're watching.

5667

Living Room / Re: BREAKING: Half of TOR sites compromised, including TORMail.

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2013, 05:16 PM »

And in the I'm-not-surprised department:

Researchers say Tor-targeted malware phoned home to NSA

I still say that what I'm surprised about is that it was this easy to track.  Unlike what people may thing, this isn't a good sign.

And I'm not the only one that thinks so.  From the article:

The use of a hard-coded IP address traceable back to the NSA is either a strange and epic screw-up on the part of someone associated with the agency (possibly a contractor at SAIC) or an intentional calling card as some analyzing the attack have suggested. One poster on Cryptocloud's discussion board wrote, "It's psyops—a fear campaign... They want to scare folks off Tor, scare folks off all privacy services."

And a very cynical, very devious comment:

Considering the target was suspected to be outside the US, the NSA would be the correct spying agency to use. They and the FBI refer things back and forth all the time. They also have all the hardware required to do this kind of thing.

Making everyone think twice about using a more secure system is a nasty psyop move. But if you have access to the raw traffic data, watching how the stream of packets from a single IP changes over time can be a good way to flag individuals as "suspect" and move to deeper surveillance techniques. If this announcement made you change your behavior, you're now a suspect. Congrats.

And another very devious angle:

Whistleblowers are NSA's (and its friends) biggest threats. This will cause potential whistleblowers shying away from leaking (not all whistleblowers are ready to forsake anonymity.) I often suspect there are even more damaging stuff waiting to be leaked than what has been leaked so far.

5668

Living Room / Re: Where/how do you mostly watch movies/videos?

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2013, 02:51 PM »

1. WDTV Live/Media Computer from NAS to TV Screen
2. Netflix/VUDU/UltraViolet/Hulu from XBox/Roku/SmartTV to TV Screen
3. Cable to a TV screen
4. Blu-Ray to a TV Screen
5. DVD to TV screen
6. Movie Theater (I just like the experience)
7. Drive-in (Ditto)

My reasonings are:
For 1,2,&3 -  It's convenient.  Don't have to put anything in.  Though they go from least DRM to most
For 4 - 3D Movies.  Can't do that other than Blu-Ray right now
For 5 - You'd have to see my DVD collection.  And I haven't put them all on my server so far... still not enough disk space at 6 TB for all of them.
For 6 & 7 - the experience.  The Drive-in is actually better (cost and experience wise) in the fall, allergies and such keep me away in the spring and summer.  But nothing beats that screen... IMAX especially.

5669

Living Room / Re: Apple vs. Samsung Goes NUCLEAR!

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2013, 01:00 PM »

Oh, I'm not denying that.  It's sort of like the whole Snowden/Russia bit... the Russians did the right thing, but it was really the only move they had left it this point.  So, in the end, does that really count as the right thing?

5670

Living Room / Re: Apple vs. Samsung Goes NUCLEAR!

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2013, 12:25 PM »

I was at first a bit Skeptical and Cynical about the decision by the Obama Administration to interfere with the process but I did some other reading and found this great break down of the whole dispute

http://appleinsider....n-against-apple-inc- in-pictures

and honestly I think they actually did the right thing. It looks a lot like Samsung is double dipping and not following FRAND terms.

I've been reading this elsewhere too... had to look up what FRAND meant.  So is it possible that this wasn't political... it might have that appearance, but perhaps it's also just the right thing to do?

5671

Living Room / Re: Apple vs. Samsung Goes NUCLEAR!

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2013, 11:58 AM »

I like the first comment... if it happened before, then it's not unprecedented.  

5672

Living Room / Re: BREAKING: Half of TOR sites compromised, including TORMail.

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2013, 10:00 AM »

governments will deliberately act stupider than they are in order to encourage such activities and identify those involved in it.

-40hz (August 05, 2013, 05:56 AM)

That's been going on for a while.  Back in the 80s, you might have legitimately been able to say that they had not kept up, and weren't effective.  That's what the MO was- to use that perception to hide their proficiency and scout their opposition.  They've become surprisingly blatant and/or lazy as of late.  An operation like this shouldn't have been revealed.  I'm not sure if everyone is catching up, and it's becoming harder, or if it's truly that they think there's no need to hide.  If it's the first, then that's a start.  If it's the latter... well, then I hope that pride is going before the fall.  But it's really looking like they're right... and that they can come in from the cold.

5673

Developer's Corner / Re: Nerdy Data - source code search engine

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2013, 07:56 AM »

Need to search?

http://code.ohloh.net/

Done.

-Renegade (August 05, 2013, 04:55 AM)

That is the best link that I've been given in a long time.  Thanks Ren! 

5674

Living Room / Re: BREAKING: Half of TOR sites compromised, including TORMail.

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2013, 07:55 AM »

Still, it looks like a hosts/clients compromised, and not the protocol itself, which is a consolation, if small.

-Renegade (August 05, 2013, 12:46 AM)

A chain is only as strong as the weakest link.  So instead of trying to cut the strongest... you go after the weakest.  People are always the weakest link.  It's not even the hosts/clients that they compromised- but the people being stupid mixing secure and non-secure browsing.  All for a bit of javascript.

5675

Living Room / Re: BREAKING: Half of TOR sites compromised, including TORMail.

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2013, 07:53 AM »

They didn't used to. It took them a real long while. Slashdot used to be pretty snarky about "you clueless newbie, set up Tor instead". Well, if they bust the Tor network, then that advice won't work so well!

These are "low tech" actions - "arrest website/node owner, blah blah". So whether the "right people" showed up in the "right departments", all this stuff is accelerating.

-TaoPhoenix (August 04, 2013, 10:58 PM)

I can tell you, with a certainty, when they were being snarky, they were being played.  This isn't a recent development.  It's just a recently known development.