Filed under Hardware, Piracy
Tagged as cisco, Piracy
Two Kansas men have been charged with making $1m in proceeds by buying computer networking gear in China and passing it off as products from Cisco Systems.
Christopher Myers, 40, and Timothy Weatherly, 27, obtained the networking gear from a variety of sources and then slapped phony Cisco labels on them, according to documents filed in federal court in Kansas City. To give the goods the additional air of legitimacy, they put them in purported Cisco boxes and included counterfeit Cisco manuals.
Myers also stands accused of obtaining access to a website containing Cisco’s confidential serial numbers, so the men could affix them to the gear they sold. Prosecutors said the men sold the equipment on eBay and on private websites.
They were charged with one count of conspiracy, 30 counts of trafficking in counterfeit goods and one count of trafficking in counterfeit labels. The government is seeking forfeiture of $1m in proceeds from the alleged crimes. If convicted, the men also face a maximum of fives years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Myers made an initial appearance in court on Thursday.
Security experts have warned that counterfeit networking gear could contain back doors that allow spies to conduct industrial espionage on US companies.
Source: The Register
Did The Pirate Bay really shutter its tracker, as claimed on Tuesday?
The Motion Picture Association doesn’t think so.
Hollywood’s overseas lobbying organization claims OpenBitTorrent, billed as an independent “open tracker project,” was actually established by one of The Pirate Bay’s founders.
“OpenBitTorrent is used for file sharing, and we suspect that it is the Pirate Bay tracker with a new name. It is added by default on all of the torrent tracker files on Pirate Bay,” Monique Wadsted, a Hollywood attorney, told Swedish media.
Wadsted, TorrenFreak notes, said Fredrik Neij, one of the four Pirate Bay co-founders, originally registered the tracker’s domain.
Source: Wired
After discovering the Pirate Bay logo hadn’t been registered with the patent office, a Swedish company took the opportunity to claim it as their own in order to commercially exploit it. After bloodless negotiations, the company now seems prepared to play nice and let their application slide. But they don’t go away empty-handed.
Company spokesman Bengt Wessborg told SR they are happy with their achievement, having secured permission to use the Pirate Bay logo on a new product.
After earlier saying that they were prepared to strike a deal with The Pirate Bay over the logo, that offer appears to have come to pass. Following discussions with Sunde, Sandryds have now backtracked and agreed to de-register the trademark. But they don’t come away empty-handed.
“We have had permission from The Pirate Bay to sell a media player with the logo on,” said Wessborg.
Although the mechanism by which Sandryds achieved this permission was more than a little dubious, admittedly the choice of end-product to display the logo seems the perfect fit.
Source: TorrentFreak
The Pirate Bay has shut down their torrent tracker for good. This is the end of an era, but not the end of piracy. The Pirate Bay is following in the footsteps of other trackers that have been shut down.
Although this may seem like a blow to the pirate community, especially with the iconic Pirate Bay logo being hijacked by a company to sell flash drives, trackerless solutions such as DHT are now becoming more popular.
The never ending piracy arms race continues.
Source: Torrentfreak
Filed under Piracy
Tagged as bittorrent, Piracy
When Sweden’s IPRED legislation came into force on April 1st this year, the country saw a massive 30% drop in Internet traffic. Many attributed this to Internet user fears associated with increased powers of anti-piracy groups. Now, 8 months later, traffic is completely back to normal and on track to exceed pre-IPRED levels.
The introduction of Sweden’s controversial Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) gave rights holders the authority to request personal details of alleged Internet copyright infringers in order that they can be pursued through the legal system.
The legislation came into force on April 1st this year, and the very next day the Netnod Internet Exchange reported a significant drop of 30% in Swedish Internet traffic. This dramatic reduction in data transfers was attributed to file-sharers reigning in their activities on fears of being identified by anti-piracy companies.
In response to the news, Swedish Pirate Party Chairman Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak that most experts believed that the initial “scare effect” would wear off in time. They were absolutely right.
More at: Torrentfreak
Filed under Piracy, Wireless
Tagged as MPAA, Piracy, wifi
The MPAA has successfully shut down an entire town’s municipal WiFi because a single user was found to be downloading a copyrighted movie. Rather than being embarrassed by this gross example of collective punishment (a practice outlawed in the Geneva conventions) against Coshocton, OH, the MPAA’s spokeslizard took the opportunity to cry poor (even though the studios are bringing in record box-office and aftermarket receipts).
More at Boing Boing
