- DE - BKA kämpft gegen Internet-Kinderpornografie +/-
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(Heise) Den Fahndern dürfte der Atem gestockt haben: Bei der Durchsuchung einer Wohnung in Rheinland-Pfalz fanden sie Ende September Bilder vom sexuellen Missbrauch eines vier Monate alten Säuglings. 'Operation Marcy', einer der weltweit größten Schläge gegen Kinderpornografie mit 530 Festnahmen allein in Deutschland, hat den Experten auch die Radikalisierung der Szene gezeigt. "Die Bilder werden härter, die Tathandlungen gravierender", sagt BKA-Fahnder Holger Kind. "Vor allem die missbrauchten Mädchen sind immer jünger", sagt Dieter Schiffels, der beim Bundeskriminalamt die Zentralstelle Kinderpornografie leitet. Ein Grund für die Entwicklung ist die massenhafte Verbreitung von Digitalkameras. Damit kann jeder relativ leicht kriminelle Bilder ins Netz stellen. Das Entdeckungsrisiko im Fotolabor fällt weg.
- DE - Kreditkartenfirmen wollen angeblich Geschäfte mit Kinderpornohändlern unterbinden +/-
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(Telepolis) Wie die Firmen VISA, American Express und Diners Club mit der Frage der Kinderpornographie umgehen oder zukünftig umgehen wollen, lässt sich nun auch im Netz bei Akte 03 nachlesen. Empört sind natürlich alle drei, und genauso natürlich wollen sie das Geschäft mit der verbotenen Ware unterbinden, was sie allerdings schon länger ankündigen. Doch wie das konkret gehen soll, das verraten sie nicht. Nur die Firma VISA nennt wenigstens ein paar Einzelheiten. siehe AKTE und Kreditkartenfirm drehen den Geldhahn zu (SAT1). Statement from Visa International siehe auch Stellungnahme von American Express, Diners Club International
- DE - Statement from Visa International regarding SAT1 investigation into child pornography +/-
(SAT1) Visa deplores child pornography and does not allow the use of our products in association with this activity in any way. We take all allegations of the misuse of our products very seriously and will investigate thoroughly where required. Visa actively monitors the Internet to make sure our products are not accepted at these sites. We will work with our Members to terminate a merchant’s acceptance privileges on a regional and/or global basis if we determine they are engaged in this kind of activity. Visa is also taking an active position against child pornography and is working to identify child pornographers and put them permanently out of business. To that end, we continue to work with regional, national and international police forces to enforce our activity. In early 2002, Visa hired an international consulting firm to identify child pornography sites that accept Visa. This organisation, InteCap, are considered a leader in the area and use the best technology available to "spider" through around one million internet pages per day. What sets this company apart from others is their ability to quickly identify an online child pornographer who uses the Visa acceptance mark. Child pornographers will no longer be able to hide by moving from site to site, because we’ll find them and work with our Members to close them down.
- EU - Electronic evidence project results +/-
(Europa) Fighting cybercrime is not easy. The EU Cyber Tools On-Line Search for Evidence (CTOSE) project, supported by the Commission's Information Society Technologies (IST) programme, has developed a methodology that identifies, secures, integrates and presents electronic evidence. It enables anyone from system administrators, information technology security staff and computer incident investigators, to police and law-enforcement agencies to follow consistent and standardised procedures when investigating computer incidents using 'computer forensic tools'. The methodology ensures all electronic evidence is legally and properly gathered and preserved, acting as uncontaminated and compelling proof that a crime or fraud has been committed to company management, industrial tribunals, or civil or criminal courts.
- PL - Porn website spells trouble for Polish girls +/-
(Sapa-DPA) Two 14-year-old Polish schoolgirls are facing a family court and disciplinary action at school after they owned up to having launched a pornographic website featuring the faces of schoolmates pasted on the naked bodies of porn models. The photos were also captioned with obscene comments.
- US - Mother charged with supplying daughters to porn producer +/-
(AP) A woman was charged with providing her two preteen daughters to a 48-year-old man who featured them in a child-sex video that turned up on a computer in Japan. The case began with a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about a digital video found on the hard drive of a computer seized in Japan.
- US - Tech Ignorance Leads to Wrong Conviction +/-
(AP) Computer administrator Bret McDanel discovered a security flaw in his company's software. He warned his managers. They ignored his pleas. So he quit and fired off thousands of e-mails alerting customers to the problem. The vulnerability at Tornado Development finally got fixed. But McDanel was charged and convicted of causing damage under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. McDanel, 30, maintains he was merely a whistleblower doing the right thing. More remarkable is that prosecutors now agree. Earlier this month, after McDanel served his sentence of 16 months in a federal lockup, they asked an appeals court to reverse his conviction.
- EU - 199 Amendments to the Fourtou Report on IPR Enforcement Directive +/-
(European Parliament) Janelly Fourtou's Draft Report on this Directive. see also Law Professors criticise IPR Enforcement Directive. Proposal for a Directive on measures and procedures to ensure the enforcement of intellectual property rights COM(2003) 46
- EU - Neue Urheberrechtsrichtlinie in der Sackgasse +/-
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(Heise) Die umstrittene EU-Richtlinie zur Durchsetzung der Interessen der Verwerter geistigen Eigentums ist im Europaparlament schon bei der ersten Beratung im zuständigen Rechtsausschuss auf massive Hindernisse gestoßen. Die Abgeordneten haben die stattliche Zahl von 199 Änderungsanträgen zu dem Konstrukt eingebracht, mit dem die Kommission die Schadensersatzforderungen bei Urheberrechtsverstößen drastisch erhöhen und zahlreiche neue Auskunftsansprüche zur Erleichterung der Strafverfolgung -- vor allem bei Internetprovidern -- schaffen will. Die Parlamentsberichterstatterin Janelly Fourtou hatte zwar bereits kürzlich ein Kompromisspapier vorgelegt. Dieses hat die Vorschläge der Kommission in weiten Teilen jedoch sogar noch verschärft und beispielsweise ins Spiel gebracht, Rechtsverstöße im privaten Bereich als schwere Straftat zu behandeln.
- EU - Software patents - important victory in Europe but not a final one +/-
(NewsForge) On September 24 I received dreadful news: that the European Parliament had voted in favor of software patents. It had approved the directive on 'computer-implemented inventions.' On September 25 I heard the real news, from Hartmut Pilch of FFII, who has studied the directive and its loopholes more carefully than anyone else. He reported that the amendments adopted by the parliament had closed all the loopholes. The vote was actually a victory for the free software community. We lobbied against the megacorporations in a national (or you could say multinational) legislature, and we won.
- NZ - New law restricts parallel importing of movies +/-
(New Zealand) Legislation banning parallel importing of new films, DVDs, VHS videos and video CDs for commercial use was passed in Parliament. The Copyright (Parallel Importation of Films and Onus of Proof) Amendment Act was intended to address the effects of parallel importing and copyright piracy on the creative industries.
- UK - Consultation on EU Directive on enforcement of intellectual property rights +/-
(UK Patent Office) Consultation on the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on measures and procedures to ensure the enforcement of intellectual property rights COM(2003) 46.
- US - EFF's RIAA Subpoena Database: Aggregate Data +/-
(bIPlog) Wendy Seltzer sends the latest from EFF:There are now 1633 subpoenas in EFF's RIAA subpoena database, all from the D.C. District Court through October 1. The RIAA has filed at least 200 more through Oct. 21, for which the court has entered captions but not yet posted subpoena documents. We are also looking to begin searching other district courts, as we know there have been some subpoenas filed outside DC.
- US - Copyright included in trade negotiations +/-
(Toronto Star) by Michael Geist. In recent months, the world has been witness to a new priority in trade discussions - copyright. Although traditionally treated by many countries as a cultural issue not subject to negotiation, stronger copyright protections are now often included at the insistence of the United States. The move toward including copyright within trade negotiations deserves close scrutiny as it has significant ramifications for national copyright policy.
- US - Feds to Fight Digital TV Piracy +/-
(Reuters) The Federal Communications Commission will likely adopt rules that will allow programmers to attach a code to digital broadcasts that will in most cases bar consumers from sending copies of popular shows around the world. The approval, expected as early as next week, would be another step along the long road to the higher-quality, crisper digital signals, which have been slowed because of worries about piracy, high-priced equipment and limited available programming. see also CDT report on the broadcast flag.
- US - RIAA Croons a New Warning Tune +/-
(Reuters) Recording industry investigators have begun asking suspected Internet song swappers to settle copyright-infringement charges before taking them to court. The Recording Industry Association of America, which is waging a legal campaign against Internet users who copy its songs online, said it had contacted some 204 suspected infringers with settlement offers this week.
- AOL Quietly Combats Pop-Up Spam Messages +/-
(AP) Even more annoying than junk e-mail are all the spam messages that "pop up" through a little-used feature in Windows. As part of its spam-fighting efforts, America Online has been turning off that feature for its customers without telling them. Nonetheless, AOL's action worries some security experts. "They are trying to do the right thing ... but you sort of feel dirty after you hear it," said Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer for Counterpane Internet Security Inc. "It's a very dangerous precedent in having companies go into your computer and turn things on and off." "From there," he added, "it's easy to turn off competitors' services." Pop-up spam differs from pop-up ads in that no Web browser or Web site visit is required. Instead, these ads take advantage of a messaging function built into many Windows operating systems.
- Hotmail promises better spam-catching +/-
(CNET News.com) Microsoft is upgrading Hotmail services with a white list checks incoming mail against a list of addresses that the account holder has already approved. The white list, in its purest form, is considered one of the more draconian anti-spam methods, because mail that doesn't match the list does not get delivered. see also Yahoo adds e-mail features to flush out spam (IDG). An internal Yahoo survey among its e-mail service users found that, given a choice between cleaning toilets and weeding out spam, 77 percent of respondents would choose the former. The provider of Internet content and services is adding five new weapons to its anti-spam arsenal, including the scanning of every attachment arriving or leaving a user's inbox to check for viruses. This new service scans all attachments for viruses, blocking infected attachments from being downloaded, sent or forwarded.
- Outlook 2003 fights the spam battle +/-
(AnchorDesk) The best new feature in Outlook is the junk-mail filter, which in my informal testing has done an exceptional job of ridding my inbox of spam. I like it enough that I've uninstalled the rest of my anti-spam arsenal. When set in "high" blocking mode, the Outlook filter has been something like 95 percent effective in sending spam to my junk-mail folder instead of my inbox. More importantly, the filter is 100 percent effective in blocking pornographic spam containing pictures.
- UK - How spammers are targeting blogs +/-
(BBC) Technology analyst Bill Thompson has been getting lots of comments on his weblogs, unfortunately most of the want to sell him Viagra. He has been 'flyblogged'.
- US - Spam making users wary of e-mail +/-
(Reuters) The billions of "spam" messages that cross the Internet daily are beginning to erode users' faith in e-mail communications. Half of all Internet users say spam has made them less trusting of all e-mail in general, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found, while one in four say they now use e-mail less because of spam. see full report Spam: How it is hurting email and degrading life on the Internet. see also Parents are very anxious about their children being exposed to inappropriate content through spam and Part 8: The implications of these findings. In nearly every measure we tested, pornography soared to the top as the most offensive, objectionable, destructive type of spam. Among TRAC’s collection of personal anecdotes about spam, pornographic email was the most frequent and most vilified type of spam addressed. (Many went on to condemn pornography in pop-ups as well as in unsolicited email.) Some noteworthy particulars: Internet users deplore that pornography is so uncontrollable, imposing itself unannounced and explicitly. Women and parents particularly hate pornography. Porn degrades the Internet experience on a very personal level and even makes many Internet users miserable. So extreme was the reaction to pornography that eliminating it alone among all unsolicited email would go a long way toward softening spam’s negative impact on Internet users.
- Broadband: The new threat to voice +/-
(ITU) According to Ovum Consulting, traditional telephony which has been declining because of increasing mobile penetration, has been served another hit - from broadband. Delivered via xDSL and cable modems, it is now the fastest-growing telecoms service across the developed world. Since broadband allows both voice and Internet-access traffic to be carried simultaneously over a single copper pair, many households are likely to dispose of the second fixed line. There is also a danger that heavy mobile users could abandon their only fixed line once they get broadband.
- Flirting, pornography and bad language ? how staff use IM +/-
(Silicon) Workers admit to using instant messaging (IM) in the office for sharing pornography, gossiping and flirting, using abusive language and swapping music and video files. A survey of 200 people at UK companies found firms are risking lawsuits, virus infections and a drop in productivity as staff turn to IM because of the increased monitoring of email and telephone usage in the workplace
- UK - Typical child porn user is white male IT pro +/-
(Register) The typical British consumer of child pornography, is a white male professional, probably working in IT. An survey of 200 child porn suspects caught by the Thames Valley police in Operation Viola revealed that every one was male and no-one came from an ethnic minority.