July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

EDRi-gram newsletter - Number 7.7, 8 April 2009
by EDRI-gram newsletter 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRi-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 7.7, 8 April 2009 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. EP needs to protect users' rights in the Telecom Package! 2. French National Assembly votes for the three strikes law 3. European Parliament asks for respect of human rights on the Internet 4. Extended copyright term for sound recordings pushed back 5. Behavioural targeting at the European Consumer Summit 6. Second PrivacyOS Conference 7. Phorm - under scrutiny at the European level 8. ISPs asked to block child porn sites on the Internet 9. Big Brother Awards France 2009 10. Recommended Reading 11. Agenda 12. About ============================================================ 1. EP needs to protect users' rights in the Telecom Package! ============================================================ The new developments on the Telecom Package over the last two weeks, with the approval of a new text in the IMCO (Internal Market Committee) of the European Parliament (EP) and the initiation of the trialogue between EU Council, the European Commission and the Parliament in order to reach an agreement on the final text, shows the worst situation for Internet users. Although much of the MEPs seem happy with the new text that allows "simplifying life for telecom users", they seem to forget that other articles are raising much bigger problems for Internet users, especially related to the 3 strikes proposal or to privacy on the Internet. And facing the June 2009 Euro-elections, MEPs need to support the users' rights also for the second reading of the text, which will probably take place during the first week of May. Thus, the much praised Amendment 138 adopted by a large majority of the MEPs in the first instance has been turned up-side-down by the COREPER (Committee of Permanent Representatives), which transformed it from a substantive law provision (an amendment to the directive) into a simple recital and completly change it in a pro-copyright amendment. Thus the new text says "no restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights of end-users, without a prior decision taken by legally competent authorities". By changing the initial text: "judicial authorities", the new text opens the backdoor for the recently adopted 3 strikes law in France and shows the weaknesses of the European Parliament rapporteur, Catherine Trautmann, that gave in to pressure from the UK and France. And this is not the only case where the EP has given in. In relation with the scope of the data breach notification obligation for the providers of telephony and Internet access services, this has been radically limited comparing with the initial text adopted in the first reading by the EP. It seems that the new text already negotiated in the trialogue discussions will apply only for the the data breaches by electronic communication providers, which is a major hold-back taking into consideration that most of the "headlines" data breaches belonged to Government services, banks and online services. The new text just forgets the excellent points made by Article 29 Working Group and the European Data Protection Supervisor, that pushed for a larger constituency for this obligation. Even though the European Parliament's Telecoms Package rapporteur, Catherine Trautmann, and the European Commissioner of Information Society, Viviane Reding had been publicly supportive of the net neutrality principle, it seems that the negotiations might accept an amendment that will not give users "unrestricted rights" of access to the Internet. The new situation prompted a response from several Internet communications companies such as Google, Microsoft and Skype that, gathered as the Voice on the Net Coalition Europe urged "the European decision-makers to adopt principles to allow consumers to access the services, applications and content of their choice on any public network, regardless of the provider that offers them." This move comes also after the announcement of T-Mobile in Germany or Telefonica in Spain to block Skype on iPhones. There is also a glimpse of good news, after it has been decided by the IMCO that "voluntary data retention" clause should to be deleted. It also seems that this compromise amendment will survive the trialogue negotiations. Telecoms package: strengthening users' rights and internet security (31.03.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/058-52901-089-03-1… Distorted amendment 138 tries to present graduated response as legal (2.04.2009) http://www.laquadrature.net/en/distorted-amendment-138-tries-to-present-gra… European Parliament compromises on Internet rights (31.03.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=302&Item… Trautmann deal wraps up Internet limitations (1.04.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=304&Item… Leading Providers of Voice Solutions over the Internet Protest Against Blocking or Degrading of VoIP applications over mobile networks, after T-Mobile announcement (3.04.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/pdf/VON.europe.telecoms.package.pdf Internet rights being written out as Spain blocks Skype (7.04.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=309&Item… EDRi-gram:Data protection authorities support civil society on the Telecom Package (25.02.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.4/data-protection-telecom-package ============================================================ 2. French National Assembly votes for the three strikes law ============================================================ An almost empty National Assembly voted on 2 April 2009 in favour of the extremely controversial law introducing the graduate response system in France, in spite of the fierce opposition from privacy campaigners, individuals, associations and even some French deputies. The poor attendance of the Assembly at the vote is considered by some as one of the reasons for the success of the draft law so strongly pushed by the French Minister of Culture, Christine Albanel. The approved text has undergone some modifications during the discussion in the assembly. One of the voted amendments is apparently amnestying all the Internet users sued for downloading. Actually the text refers only to users accused of counterfeiting in relation to related rights. One of the few victories of the opposition in the National Assembly was the amendment allowing an Internet subscriber whose connection has been cut by Hadopi to stop paying for the respective subscription related to the Internet. A so called Hallyday clause was voted, stipulating that illegal downloading will not be subject to sanction when the author of the downloaded work resides in a tax haven, such as is the case of French artist Johnny Hallyday (hence the name of the clause) who lives now in Switzerland and pays a minimum amount of taxes for the fortune he has earned in France from his works. Differently from the initial text where the sanctioned Internet user had only 7 days to make an appeal to the court, the modified version allows now a period of 30 days for the formulation of an appeal, after the notification date. Rapporteur Franck Riester introduced the proposal that Hadopi applies a label to the legal downloading sites thus favouring the legal offers. The amendment says that the search engines should thus emphasize the authorised sites. Faced with opposition arguments and questions related to whether this would force sites like Google to point out such sites, the rapporteur answered that Google should not be affected and that the proposal was only to create lists of legal sites. The law gives entire freedom to Hadopi authority regarding the sanctions to be taken against infringers. The authority may either cut the connection of the user after three infringements or choose to ask the user to protect the connection against downloading. The measure is to allow an institution, such as a hospital, to keep its Internet connection. Therefore, a physical person may have his connection cut but not an institution. Still, the decision will belong to Hadopi authority which is free to choose the sanction according to the user. On 2 April, the Culture Minister has also confirmed that the Internet users that want to be sure that they will not be considered liable under the Hadopi law, should install filtering software on their computers. This software, approved by Hadopi, will need to communicate with a remote server showing that the software is active at the moment the alleged infringement takes place. Nicolas Maubert, attorney with Gide Loyrette Nouel, has argued that the Hadopi law could be in breach of the protections provided by the French Constitution and therefore might be challenged by the French judicial body. "When a law seems so risky in its application, so unpredictable and random from the technical point of view, it is not a good law and it takes something from Courteline, a little from Kafka and a lot from Alfred Jarry", stated opposition deputy Christian Paul. Also, in view of the recent position of the European Parliament which has voted for guaranteeing the Internet access to all citizens as a fundamental human right, the French law may be is a critical position. However, during the debates in the National Assembly, on 30 March, Christine Albanel, stated that the European Parliament's votes against the graduate response had no legal or political incidence. And even if the point related to the cutting off of the Internet user is solved, Hadopi authority will still have the power to apply fines and other penalties and pass injunctions. French users who frequently download content illegally might soon find themselves severely fined. As last minute news, on 7 April, the Joint Mixed Commission (Commission Mixe Paritaire - CMP), a commission including 7 deputies and 7 senators, supposed to agree upon a compromise text on the draft law before the law is sent for the final vote in the Parliament on 9 April, took its decision. The graduated response mechanism proposed now is that Hadopy authority sends two electronic warnings, followed by a registered letter to the alleged illegal Internet downloaders. In case of non-compliance during a period of a year, the infringers' access will be cut off for 2 months to one year or up to three months in case the user commits to stop the infringement. CMP rejected the amendment which proposed that Internet users sanctioned for alleged illegal downloading should stop paying their subscription. So, besides having their access cut off, they would also continue to pay for a service they will not be able to use. Furthermore, the commission rejected the amendment proposing an amnesty for Internet users prosecuted for illegal downloading before the entering into force of the law. The Commssion has also reduced the present period of 6 months to 4 months from the issuing of a movie in cinema halls to the occurrence on DVDs. In case the text is finally voted by the French Parliament on 9 April, the socialists, who consider the law as "inefficient, useless, technically inapplicable and which will not bring any euro to the creation", will appeal to the Constitutional Council. French pass 'three strikes' file-sharing law (3.04.2009) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/03/french_three_strikes/ How the Assembly modified the Hadopi (only in French, 3.04.2009) http://www.20minutes.fr/article/317785/High-Tech-Comment-l-Assemblee-a-modi… The Criation et Internet law adopted in a quasi empty Assembly (only in French, 2.04.2009) http://www.20minutes.fr/article/317513/High-Tech-La-loi-Creation-et-Interne… Draft law favouring the distribution and protection of the creation on the internet, modified by the National Assembly in first reading (only in French, 2.04.2009) http://www.assembleenationale.org/13/ta/ta0249.asp Hadopi adopted (only in French, 3.04.2009) http://www.ecrans.fr/Hadopi-adoptee,6848.html Hadopi debates: catching up session for the week-end (only in French, 3.04.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/12532-Debats-Hadopi-seance-de-rattrapage-p… Hadopi: The Mixed Joint Commission (CMP) advanced for Tuesday (only in French, 6.04.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/12550-Hadopi-la-Commission-Mixte-Paritaire… Hadopi law: the "double pain" re-established before the final vote (only in French, 8.04.2009) http://www.challenges.fr/actualites/high_tech/20090408.CHA2775/piratage__la… EDRI-gram: France: Three strikes law debated by the General Assembly (25.03.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.6/3-strikes-france-assembly ============================================================ 3. European Parliament asks for respect of human rights on the Internet ============================================================ On 26 March 2009, the European Parliament voted with a large majority to support Lambrinidis report concerning the protection of individual liberties on the Internet, rejecting the amendments proposed by the French Government and the copyright industry. The position of the EP is that "guaranteeing Internet access to all citizens is the same as guaranteeing all citizens access to education" and that "such access must not be refused in punishment by governments or private organizations". The MEPs ask the Member States to "recognise that the Internet can be an extraordinary opportunity to enhance active citizenship and that, in this respect, access to networks and contents is one of the key elements; recommend that this issue be further developed on the basis of the assumption that everyone has a right to participate in the information society and that institutions and stakeholders at all levels have a general responsibility to assist in this development, thus attacking the twin new challenges of e-illiteracy and democratic exclusion in the electronic age." The report adopted by the MEPs acknowledges the necessity of providing safety measures for the protection of Internet users, especially children, due to the risks users may be exposed on the Internet which can be used as a tool for criminals or terrorists. The report proposes actions against cybercriminals but at the same time, asks for a balance between security on the Internet and the guarantee of the fundamental rights of Internet users' privacy. The MEPs call to Member States to protect the "respect for private life, data protection, freedom of speech and association, freedom of press, political expression and participation, non-discrimination and education.(...) Having in view the global character of the Internet, the MEPs recommend that Member States and the European Commission should draw regulations for data protection, security and freedom of speech in order to protect the privacy of Internet users," says the EP recommendation. The EP also urges Member States to take due account of the "importance of anonymity, pseudonymity and control of information flows for privacy and the fact that users should be provided with, and educated about, the means to protect it efficiently, for instance through various available Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs)." The recommandation asks the Member States to identify all entities which use Net Surveillance and to draw up publicly accessible annual reports on Net Surveillance ensuring legality, proportionality and transparency. In the EP's opinion, attention must be paid to "network neutrality, interoperability, the global accessibility of all Internet nodes, and the use of open formats and standards". EP also raises the issue of the Internet users' consent for giving personal information to governments or private companies, drawing the attention on the imbalance of the negotiating power between users and institutions. The MEPs' position is that users should be able to have the right to permanently delete any of their personal details saved on "internet websites or on any third party data storage medium." By rejecting France's amendments to the report, the EP has rejected again the graduate response scheme pushed so hard by France. The EP considers that the IPR enforcement does not need to use "the systematic monitoring and surveillance of all users activities on the Internet" and that the penalties need to be proportionate to the infringements committed. The European Parliament also publicly supports the "Internet Bill of Rights" and the promotion of the "privacy by design" principle. Recomamndation on Security and fundamental freedoms on the Internet (26.03.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/017-52613-082-03-1… EP recommendation on Strengthening security and fundamental freedoms on the Internet (26.03.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2… Lambrinidis report: pro-copyright changes rejected (26.03.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=292&Item… The European Parliament rejects "graduated response"... for the third time (26.03.2009) http://www.laquadrature.net/en/the-european-parliament-rejects-graduated-re… Privacy and Fundamental Freedoms Put to Vote (27.03.2009) http://lavasoft.com/mylavasoft/securitycenter/blog/privacy-and-fundamental-… EDRI-gram: EP wants a better balance between Internet security and privacy rights (11.03.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.5/ep-balance-security-privacy ============================================================ 4. Extended copyright term for sound recordings pushed back ============================================================ The proposal for the extension of the copyright terms for sound recordings was rejected on 27 March 2009 by COREPER, which has the task to negotiate a consensus before the EU Council of Ministers takes votes. To the great disappointment of the recording industry, COREPER rejected the extension of the copyright term as there was no consensus of the Member States on the matter. A sufficient number of states opposed the legislative proposal to constitute a "blocking minority". So, the European Commission's intention to extend the term from the current 50 years to 95 years, although backed by the legal affairs committee in the European Parliament is at least postponed. UK is one of the states having changed its position in this matter, having reservations to the attempts of industry lobbyists to oppose to a related retirement fund for future musicians. The British government stated having voted against the proposal because the "current text did not yet give sufficient benefit for performers." UK would be in favour of a shorter extension of up to 70 years. "It is clear that today's outcome will not kill off the proposals to extend copyright term, but rather that member states need more time to consider that details of the proposal and reach an agreement," said John Denham, British MP, UK secretary of state for innovation. The Featured Artists' Coalition (FAC) considers any extension of the existing rights would only benefit record companies and that at the end of the 50-year period, copyright should automatically transfer from record labels to artists. "Record companies would simply gain another 45 years of ownership, entrenching the terms of record contracts signed in an analogue age," was FAC's statement. The FAC has set up a different set of policies on copyright and intellectual property than that of the music industry lobbying groups and has launched a "Charter for fair play". The Charter states that artists should have the "ultimate ownership of thei music" and that "rights holders should have a fiduciary duty of care to ther originator of those rights and must always explain how any agreement may affect how their work is exploited." The coallition's opinion this will not be achieved by the extension of the copyright term but by a change in the approach of the agreements between artists and the music industry and in the up-dating of the legislation. "So we will campaign for laws, regulations, business practices and policies that protect artists' rights. We will stand up for all artists by engaging with government, music and technology companies, and collection societies. We will argue for fair play and will expose unfair practices," says the Charter. The EU Czech presidency will continue working on the proposal in order to prepare a second reading for a possible agreement in the future. EU governments vote against copyright extension in Brussels (1.04.2009) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2009/04/01/eu-governments-vote-against-copyr… Europe split on music copyright extension (28.03.2009) http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b1f9dd4e-1b0a-11de-8aa3-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=bd2… Every Vote Counts: the EU Copyright Term Extension Battle Heats Up (30.03.2009) http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/03/every-vote-counts-eu-copyright-term-ex… U.K. Biz 'Disappointed' At EU Term Extension Rejection (27.03.2009) http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3ie96e4a3e8c042db2… Pop star union demands new kind of copyright extension (2.04.2009) http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9922 FAC - A charter for fair play in the digital age http://www.featuredartistscoalition.com/our_charter.html EDRi-gram: Extension of copyright term postponed in the European Parliament (25.03.2008) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.6/copyright-extension-delayed ============================================================ 5. Behavioural targeting at the European Consumer Summit ============================================================ The European Commission Directorate - General for Health & Consumers organized the European Consumer Summit on "Consumer Trust in the Digital Market Place" held in Brussels on 1 and 2 April, 2009. The agenda featured policy workshops on 'Consumer challenges and opportunities in the digital world' and 'Consumer advocacy'. Within the first topic, the whole range of consumer concerns in the digital market place considered to be major obstacles to the full take-off of business to consumer e-commerce and possible solutions to create consumer trust were discussed. Thematically, the topic of consumer data collection, profiling and targeting was arching out pointing the heavy reliance on personal information in the digital environment; something which captured policy makers' attention in Europe fairly recently. In a preceding 'Roundtable on Online Data Collection, Targeting and Profiling' hosted by the Directorate-General for Health & Consumers on 31 March experts and stakeholders' input had been generated in order to feed back into the main event. In her key note speech Commissioner Meglena Kuvena observed that "personal data is the new oil of the Internet and the currency of the digital world" - a reality to be accepted in exchange for free content online. However, well established consumer protection principles, including the applicable data protection regulations, are not fully complied with in the "World Wide Web (...) turning out to be the world 'wild west'." In order to reassert the confidence of the users and consumers, Mrs. Kuneva sees privacy policies as the key to implement fairness and transparency standards as well as meaningful consumer control. Her message to the participants of the roundtable showed determination to enforce existing regulation on the Internet and to regulate where adequate response to consumer concerns on the issue of data collection and profiling is missing. The roundtable proceeded with contributions from industry, lobbies and consumer organizations as well as academics discussing the data collection practices and business models as well as risks and opportunities for consumers. The business model to (co)finance content and free services with online advertisement that incorporates to a varying degree targeted information and personal data is certainly pervasive also beyond gratis offers. It is important however to tell apart the numerous online advertising practices and assess whether and to what extent personal information of users is involved. Companies and industry associations favour good practice principles and self-regulation, and, inevitably, see consumer control implemented with the opt-out mechanism. According to this spectrum, users are empowered individually to control the use of their personal information and collectively through the lever of brand value that would caution companies. Critical interventions raised the need for special protection of sensitive segments such as children and sensitive personal data, a state of fairness in privacy policies and consent generation, and the problem of multi-layered and networked data collection, leaving the user largely unaware of who controls which personal information. Consumer education about online advertising and the meaning of privacy policies and consent emerged as a consensus from the discussion. Member of European Parliament Stavros Lambrinidis, rapporteur of the recent report on strengthening security and fundamental freedoms on the Internet, stressed the necessity to prescribe limits to the 'consent' that can be obtained from users regarding the processing of their personal data in the digital marketplace. As reflected in his report, the imbalance of negotiating power and knowledge between individual users and data processing industry and authorities bears the risk that "Big Brother" will come stealthily and with our "consent". In the progress of the European Consumer Summit behavioral advertisement and its consumer policy implications were prominently raised and wrapped up, asking for: a. the evaluation of different online advertising practices, b. ways to improve consumer control and information, c. the role and robustness of standards and best practices, and d. how the fairness concept can be best transposed from offline to online. In order to keep a channel for discussion open, the Directorate-General for Health & Consumers proposed to set up a privacy blog on its webpage and invited comments. The way forward was not specified and is further complicated by the fact that online consumer data protection is situated at the intersection of the tasks of theree Directorates - General: Health and Consumers, Freedom Security and Justice, and Information Society and Media. In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) examined online behavioral advertisement to some length and published in February 2009 a Staff Report on Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising. Meglena Kuneva, European Consumer Commissioner, Keynote Speech (31.03.2009) http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/09/156&forma… Report with a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on strengthening security and fundamental freedoms on the Internet (25.02.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A6-… FTC Staff Report on Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (12.02.2009), http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/02/behavad.shtm Center for Democracy & Technology, A Guide to Behavioral Advertising, http://www.cdt.org/privacy/targeting/ Center for Democracy & Technology, Threshold Analysis for Online Advertising Practices (28.01.2009) http://cdt.org/press/20090128press.php Internet Governance Forum (IGF), Workshop 83: The Future of Online Privacy: "Online advertising and behavioral targeting" (5.12.2008), http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/Contributions2009/Workshop-Report-IGF-vf.pdf (contribution by Kristina Irion - Central European University) ============================================================ 6. Second PrivacyOS Conference ============================================================ Meetings between researchers from universities with representatives from industry, data protection authorities, standardizers from W3C and ISO and NGOs to discuss privacy challenges and develop privacy infrastructures represent the idea behind the European Privacy Open Space. The second PrivacyOS event was held in Berlin, 1-3 April at the same time as Re:publica. As a PrivacyOS project partner, EDRI participated in conference with a delegation of 4 persons representing its members: Andreas Krisch (Vibe!AT, Austria), Leena Romppainen (Electronic Frontier Finland), Ralf Bendrath (Netzwerk Neue Medien, Germany) and Filip Pospisil (Iuridicum Remedium, Czech Republic). Other EDRI members, such as Metamorphosis (Macedonia) are also partners in this project on their own. A huge number of presentations were packed into the three day period, varying from eGovernment development in Austria and Lithuania to UK database state and from Deep packet inspection to eHealth. The presentations will be available from the PrivacyOS web site in the near future. On the Re:publica side, Stanford Law School professor, founder of Creative Commons and author Lawrence Lessig gave a presentation about copyright issues, illustrating his ideas and urging people to resist the copyright extension being processed in the European Parliament. Due to the events and presentations being on top of each other, it was impossible to attend everything that was interesting, but PrivacyOS was definitely worth going to for the wide variety of topics, forming contacts and remixing ideas. PrivacyOS http://www.privacyos.eu/ Re:publica (1-2.04.2009) http://www.re-publica.de/09/ Reject the Term Extension Directive http://www.edri.org/reject-term-extention-directive Every Vote Counts: the EU Copyright Term Extension Battle Heats Up (03.2009) http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/03/every-vote-counts-eu-copyright-term-ex… Data Retention Austria - Second Attempt - Presentation by Andreas Krisch (1.04.2009) http://www.edri.org/files/Krisch_PrivacyOS_DR_Austria_20090401_03.pdf (contribution by Leena Romppainen- EDRi-member EFFi) ============================================================ 7. Phorm - under scrutiny at the European level ============================================================ On the event on 31 March 2009, the European Commissioner for consumers, Meglena Kuneva, warned on the transparency in the online environment: "We must establish the principles of transparency, clear language, opt-in or opt-out options that are meaningful and easy to use. (...) I am talking about the right to have a stable contract and the right to withdraw." The concern of the Commission is related to Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology experiments such as the profiling and ad-serving system Phorm secret tests performed in UK by BT in 2006 and 2007. In a report issued in March 2009, Free Press advocacy group considers the use of DPI technologies is a threat to the open nature of the Internet. "Improper use of DPI (deep packet inspection) can change the Internet as we know it--turning an open and innovative platform into just another form of pay-for-play media. (...) When a network provider chooses to install DPI equipment, that provider knowingly arms itself with the capacity to monitor and monetize the Internet in ways that threaten to destroy Net Neutrality and the essential open nature of the Internet" says the report. The report concludes that although DPI can help in solving network congestion problems the "technology--the same electronics equipment, in fact--also allows providers to monitor and monetize every use of the Internet, and DPI vendors succeed by developing and marketing this capability." EDRi-member Open Rights Group (ORG) has recently sent a letter to the major websites such as Microsoft, Google, YouTube, Facebook, AOL, Bebo, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay, urging them to opt out the controversial Phorm technology. A petition initiated by the group, signed by about 21 000 people, is asking for the investigation of Phorm and its banning if the system breaches privacy laws. A spokeswoman for Phorm said most of the companies having received the ORG letter were already using the targeted advertising offered by the system and that many of them have proven "their commitment to user privacy as signatories to the IAB UK's interest-based advertising good practice principles". While the UK peers consider that in relation to behavioural targeting, the Information Commissioner's Office, responsible for enforcing EU privacy regulations, had failed in its duty to consumers (as in 2008, ICO accepted Phorm provided it got permission from users if the data collected was used for "value added services."), the UK Government plans however to employ similar technologies to track UK Internet users' behaviour. Viviane Reding, the European Commission's telecoms commissioner who is currently investigating Phorm believes an agreement with the UK government might be possible on this matter. In preparation of eventual regulatory measures, Kuneva's department is initiating an informal investigation of online privacy and data collection. In the meantime, Phorm continues its tests. On 30 March 2009, Phorm officially announced a trial of its technology by Korea Telecom. EU issues ultimatum on internet privacy (31.03.2009) http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9915 Major Websites Are Urged To Reject Phorm Profiling (24.03.2009) http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/19554/major-websites-are-urged-t… Report Warns Against DPI Technology (20.03.2009) http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=1024… EU Extends Deep Packet Inspection Technology Investigation (30.03.2009) http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2009/03/30/eu-extends-deep-packet-inspecti… Deep Packet Inspection - The end of the Internet as we know it? (03.2009) http://www.freepress.net/files/Deep_Packet_Inspection_The_End_of_the_Intern… EDRI-gram: UK Government ignores the European Commission regarding Phorm (25.02.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.4/phorm-uk-ec ============================================================ 8. ISPs asked to block child porn sites on the Internet ============================================================ In Germany, based on the initiative of the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ), the government has had discussions for several months now on how to block child pornography sites hosted on servers outside of the country. The German Government announced on 25 March 2009 a draft law that would cover rights and obligations of telecommunication media content providers and would include the obligation to block access to child pornography sites listed by a government agency. According to BMFSFJ Minister Ursula von der Leyen who has been pushing for some time for an agreement with big ISPs, "The rights of children carry more weight than unhindered mass communication." However, some members of the German Parliament and Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries have shown reservations to a contractual solution considering a regular law should cover the filtering regime as such measures could impact on fundamental rights of citizens. Policies should be put in place in order to deal with the liabilities in cases of errors. The movement is criticised by the industry and non-governmental organisations, which consider that blocking only makes access more difficult but is not able to entirely prevent it. The EDRi-member FITUG (Fvrderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft) Germany has also warned on the fact that, until now, blocking has been useless in fighting child pornography and such measures might lead to blocking sites that have no relation to child pornography as it has happened in other countries. Blocking systems exist now in several European countries. The CIRCAMP system, developed in Norway in 2004, which blocks entry to known child pornography sites by a red stop sign graphic and a message, is used in nine European countries among which the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. In UK, 95% of the main UK ISPs have already adopted a similar service via the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). A system developed by BT, called Cleanfeed, checks IP addresses against the child pornography blocklist created by IWF and blocks users from accessing their content. Malcolm Hutty, president of EuroISPA, representing ISPs from across Europe at the EU, considers the EU plans to block sites will "increase risks to the security, resilience and interoperability of the internet" and also stated: "For technical reasons, blocking simply cannot provide the level of protection that is necessary, and simple morality demands that we take strong collective action to get child pornography removed from the Internet, rather than simply hiding behind national firewalls," he added. All the national plans seem to be in line with the new EU proposal to legally bind all broadband ISPs in Europe to block "access by Internet users to Internet pages containing or disseminating child pornography." With the view to "combating the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography", the proposal for an EU framework decision on prevention and settlement of conflicts of jurisdiction in criminal procedures of 20 January 2009 asks that: "Each Member State shall take the necessary measures to enable the competent judicial or police authorities to order or similarly obtain the blocking of access by internet users to internet pages containing or disseminating child pornography, subject to adequate safeguards." Germany Opts For ISP Filtering Of Child Pornography; NGOs Warn Of Unintended Impact (30.03.2009) http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/03/30/germany-opts-for-isp-filtering-of… Germany Cracks Down on Child Porn Sites But Critics Want More Action (25.03.2009) http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4126813,00.html German Minister Announces Plans for Mandatory Web Filtering (16.01.2009) http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9960/german_minister_announces_plans_for_manda… Germany to implement obligatory block on child porn sites (16.01.2009) http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20090116-16825.html UK.gov to get power to force ISPs to block child porn (2.04.2009) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/02/eu_filtering_framework/ EU proposal for a Council Framework Decision on prevention and settlement of conflicts of jurisdiction in criminal procedures (20.01.2009) http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/09/st05/st05208.en09.pdf EU Proposal Could Force UK ISPs to Block Child Abuse Sites (2.04.2009) http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2009/04/02/eu-proposal-could-force-uk-isps… ============================================================ 9. Big Brother Awards France 2009 ============================================================ The French Big Brother Awards ceremony, or 'Orwell Party', was held this year on Saturday 4 April. The 2009 edition awarded 12 of the 35 nominees, in 6 categories, one of them being the positive 'Voltaire Award'. Armand Mattelart, a renowned professor of Information and Communication Studies, chaired the 2009 jury composed by 10 other members, among them academics, artists, and representatives from French NGOs, including EDRI-member IRIS. Awarding almost one third of the nominees is a sign that the Jury task was hard this year, with the increase of surveillance and social control in France. The French ministry of Interior, Michhle Alliot-Marie, received the lifetime menace award, for her 'immoderate taste for police files', which quantity has increased by 70% in 3 years, as well as for her other 'qualities': her 'novlang' (video-surveillance is now called video-protection by French officials), her 'incitements to denouncement', and her talent to construct the 'internal enemy'. The French ministry of Budget, Eric Woerth, received the State award. The Jury wanted to particularly alert against the centralised database RNCPS to be created, massively interconnecting data from the social sector in view of fraud fighting, using the social security number as identifier. This, of course, reminds the SAFARI project scandal that led to the adoption of the French Data Protection Act in 1978. The award for companies was given to the French mutual insurance system, a not-for-profit organization, for 'its joint activism with private insurance companies in order to access some medical data from the social security administration'. Paris Mayor, Bertrand Delanok, earned the local authorities award for 'his conversion to video-surveillance', after he agreed to contribute to the government efforts in this field, increasing by 4 times the number of cameras in Paris, reaching 1200 of them in public areas. The Novlang award has two ex aequo recipients. The first one is Humabio, an EC funded research project on multimodal biometrics, most notably relying on behavioural biometrics to 'increase freedom of movement'. The second recipient is the family benefits sector of the social security system, for having trained its employee using a method, called IGGACE, which goes even further than a simple lie detector, since it is supposed to detect 'lying intent'. The method was originally developed for the police sector. Not only the jury gave an additional award as a 'special mention', but it also awarded two ex aequo recipients. Fridiric Lefebvre, French MEP and spokesperson of Nicolas Sarkozy's party, certainly deserved his award for his 'incompetence and insistence to control the Internet', including by supporting the French 'three strikes law'. The other recipients is the 'anonymous zealot': having seen the number of individual civil servants who denounced irregular migrants, sometimes in breach of the professional secret, decided to highlight this phenomenon through a generic category. Finally, the Voltaire award or positive prize was given to three ex aequo recipients, actually three coalitions that have been particularly active and gain some success: the coalition against the EDVIGE police file, the coalition of elementary and primary school directors against the central database of children (Base ilhves), and the coalition against the use of biometrics in schools. In addition, another Voltaire prize was awarded, as a 'special mention', to Mireille and Monique, two volunteers who help irregular migrants based in Calais with the hope to reach the UK. This simple humanitarian help is a highly risky activity in France, a country where such help is now criminalized. 2009 Big Brother Awards France (only in French, 05.04.2009) http://bigbrotherawards.eu.org/Les-decorations-promotion-2009.html (Contribution by Meryem Merzouki - EDRi-member IRIS France) ============================================================ 10. Recommended Reading ============================================================ Annual report for 2008 on access to EU documents The most popular area for requests in Justice and Home Affairs. Just over 73% of the documents listed on the Council register are accessible full-text. But, of course, the remaining 27% include many documents concerning measures under discussion. There has been an increase in the number of documents classified as "Restricted", where disclosure would be "disadvantageous" to the interests of the EU or its member states - in 2008 there were 505 "Restricted" documents some 40% of which concerned justice and home affairs (around 200+). http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/apr/eu-council-access-report-for-2008.p… "The Economics of Intellectual Property. Suggestions for Further Research in Developing Countries and Countries with Economies in Transition" The series of papers in this publication were commissioned from renowned international economists from all regions. They review the existing empirical literature on six selected themes relating to the economics of intellectual property, identify the key research questions, point out research gaps and explore possible avenues for future research. http://www.wipo.int/ip-development/en/economics/index.html ============================================================ 11. Agenda ============================================================ 21-23 April 2009, Winchester, UK BILETA 2009 Annual Conference http://www.winchester.ac.uk/?page=9871 23-24 April 2009, Brussels, Belgium The future of intellectual property - Creativity and innovation in the digital era http://www.intellectualproperty-conference.eu 23-24 April 2009, Amsterdam, Netherlands Second European Licensing and Legal Workshop organized by Free Software Foundation Europe http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/2009/news-20090323-01.en.html 22-23 May 2009, Florence, Italy E-privacy: Towards total control Call for papers deadline: 15 April 2009 http://e-privacy.winstonsmith.info/ 23 May 2009, Florence, Italy Big Brother Award Italia 2009 Nominations by 17 April 2009 http://bba.winstonsmith.info/ 11 May 2009, Brussels, Belgium GigaNet is organizing the 2nd international academic workshop on Global Internet Governance: An Interdisciplinary Research Field in Construction. http://giganet.igloogroups.org/publiclibr/giganetcos/2009brusse 13-14 May 2009 Uppsala, Sweden Mashing-up Culture: The Rise of User-generated Content http://www.counter2010.org/workshop_call 19-20 May 2009, Brussels, Belgium European Commission organizes a personal data protection conference to look at new challenges for privacy http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/news/docs/pr_03_03_09_en.pdf 24-28 May 2009, Venice, Italy ICIMP 2009, The Fourth International Conference on Internet Monitoring and Protection http://www.iaria.org/conferences2009/ICIMP09.html 1-4 June 2009, Washington, DC, USA Computers Freedom and Privacy 2009 http://www.cfp2009.org/ 5 June 2009, London, UK The Second Multidisciplinary Workshop on Identity in the Information Society (IDIS 09): "Identity and the Impact of Technology" http://is2.lse.ac.uk/idis/2009/ 28-30 June 2009, Torino, Italy COMMUNIA Conference 2009: Global Science & Economics of Knowledge-Sharing Institutions http://www.communia-project.eu/conf2009 2-3 July 2009, Padova, Italy 3rd FLOSS International Workshop on Free/Libre Open Source Software http://www.decon.unipd.it/personale/curri/manenti/floss/floss09.html 13-16 August 2009, Vierhouten, The Netherlands Hacking at Random http://www.har2009.org/ 23-27 August 2009, Milan, Italy World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and Council: "Libraries create futures: Building on cultural heritage" http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla75/index.htm 10-12 September 2009, Potsdam, Germany 5th ECPR General Conference, Potsdam Section: Protest Politics Panel: The Contentious Politics of Intellectual Property http://www.ecpr.org.uk/potsdam/default.asp 16-18 September 2009, Crete, Greece World Summit on the Knowledge Society WSKS 2009 http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/ 21-23 October 2009, Istanbul, Turkey eChallenges 2009 http://www.echallenges.org/e2009/default.asp 16 October 2009, Bielefeld, Germany 10th German Big Brother Awards Deadline for nominations: 15 July 2009 http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/ 15-18 November 2009, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt UN Internet Governance Forum http://www.intgovforum.org/ ============================================================ 12. About ============================================================ EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 29 members based or with offices in 18 different countries in Europe. European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and visibly on the EDRI website. Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation. http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring - EDRI-gram subscription information subscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: subscribe You will receive an automated e-mail asking to confirm your request. unsubscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: unsubscribe - EDRI-gram in Macedonian EDRI-gram is also available partly in Macedonian, with delay. Translations are provided by Metamorphosis http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/edrigram-mk.php - EDRI-gram in German EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided Andreas Krisch from the EDRI-member VIBE!AT - Austrian Association for Internet Users http://www.unwatched.org/ - Newsletter archive Back issues are available at: http://www.edri.org/edrigram - Help Please ask <edrigram(a)edri.org> if you have any problems with subscribing or unsubscribing. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: Hacker strikes through student's router
by Audie Murphy 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On 11/8/05 5:49 PM, "poncenby smythe" <smythe(a)poncenby.plus.com> wrote: >> >> For the record, Tor developers (and many at the EFF) are indeed of >> many reasons people have claimed that developing anonymity is bad. We >> think about them a lot, and right now, we don't think that they're >> correct. In fact, we discuss many of them in the abuse faq, the main >> faq, and the "Challenges" paper. >> >> In case anybody cares. >> > > I believe(and hope) a great many people care about this. > Does anyone know of other papers written on the subject of 'abuse' of > anonymous systems? I am not aware of such a study. I'm not certain about the usefulness of such a study. For 100s of years my ancestors have attempted to obtain the maximum privacy possible, whether in Europe or the U.S. Frankly, we have moved away from heavily populated areas, not because we were avoiding people, but because we wanted to retreat to a private place, where we could have private conversations. Privacy is not a new desire. Once the Roman Church was outlawed in Britain, Catholics just went underground and used secret means of communicating. Witness the so-called secret societies that have existed over the centuries. Freemasonry is but one example. In most dictatorships, Freemasons are repressed and the society is driven underground. Hitler outlawed the Freemasons. The Soviet Union drove them underground. However, in both cases Freemasons continued to communicate via private channels with secret handshakes, etc. I don't mean to be long-winded, but many worthy causes have required private communications. So, I suppose, there ARE studies over the millennia that demonstrate the need for privacy. Early Christians worshipped and used private communication channels. Of course, EFF web site demonstrates what is at issue in areas of the world where governments are trying to prohibit private communication - places like China. > at the moment I personally feel that Tor is affording people with > questionable intentions an extremely robust and simple to use method > to conceal their identity. I have not read the 'challenges' paper > but is it correct to think tor developers justify (if that is the > right word) their developments by believing that if miscreants did > not use Tor they would simply move onto another similar mechanism for > conducting their business. > or would taking the tor network down cause any kind of disruption? > > impossible questions.... The questions are very difficult, but not impossible, IMHO. In the U.S., we have decided long ago that individuals would have as much individual freedom, as long as the exercise thereof would not abridge anyone else's freedom, health, property or safety. Privacy is evolved from individual rights. Therefore, IMHO, individuals can be held responsible for nefarious deeds, but not the mechanism that allowed the crime - whether that be firearm, or privacy service. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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EDRi-gram newsletter - Number 7.7, 8 April 2009
by EDRI-gram newsletter 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRi-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 7.7, 8 April 2009 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. EP needs to protect users' rights in the Telecom Package! 2. French National Assembly votes for the three strikes law 3. European Parliament asks for respect of human rights on the Internet 4. Extended copyright term for sound recordings pushed back 5. Behavioural targeting at the European Consumer Summit 6. Second PrivacyOS Conference 7. Phorm - under scrutiny at the European level 8. ISPs asked to block child porn sites on the Internet 9. Big Brother Awards France 2009 10. Recommended Reading 11. Agenda 12. About ============================================================ 1. EP needs to protect users' rights in the Telecom Package! ============================================================ The new developments on the Telecom Package over the last two weeks, with the approval of a new text in the IMCO (Internal Market Committee) of the European Parliament (EP) and the initiation of the trialogue between EU Council, the European Commission and the Parliament in order to reach an agreement on the final text, shows the worst situation for Internet users. Although much of the MEPs seem happy with the new text that allows "simplifying life for telecom users", they seem to forget that other articles are raising much bigger problems for Internet users, especially related to the 3 strikes proposal or to privacy on the Internet. And facing the June 2009 Euro-elections, MEPs need to support the users' rights also for the second reading of the text, which will probably take place during the first week of May. Thus, the much praised Amendment 138 adopted by a large majority of the MEPs in the first instance has been turned up-side-down by the COREPER (Committee of Permanent Representatives), which transformed it from a substantive law provision (an amendment to the directive) into a simple recital and completly change it in a pro-copyright amendment. Thus the new text says "no restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights of end-users, without a prior decision taken by legally competent authorities". By changing the initial text: "judicial authorities", the new text opens the backdoor for the recently adopted 3 strikes law in France and shows the weaknesses of the European Parliament rapporteur, Catherine Trautmann, that gave in to pressure from the UK and France. And this is not the only case where the EP has given in. In relation with the scope of the data breach notification obligation for the providers of telephony and Internet access services, this has been radically limited comparing with the initial text adopted in the first reading by the EP. It seems that the new text already negotiated in the trialogue discussions will apply only for the the data breaches by electronic communication providers, which is a major hold-back taking into consideration that most of the "headlines" data breaches belonged to Government services, banks and online services. The new text just forgets the excellent points made by Article 29 Working Group and the European Data Protection Supervisor, that pushed for a larger constituency for this obligation. Even though the European Parliament's Telecoms Package rapporteur, Catherine Trautmann, and the European Commissioner of Information Society, Viviane Reding had been publicly supportive of the net neutrality principle, it seems that the negotiations might accept an amendment that will not give users "unrestricted rights" of access to the Internet. The new situation prompted a response from several Internet communications companies such as Google, Microsoft and Skype that, gathered as the Voice on the Net Coalition Europe urged "the European decision-makers to adopt principles to allow consumers to access the services, applications and content of their choice on any public network, regardless of the provider that offers them." This move comes also after the announcement of T-Mobile in Germany or Telefonica in Spain to block Skype on iPhones. There is also a glimpse of good news, after it has been decided by the IMCO that "voluntary data retention" clause should to be deleted. It also seems that this compromise amendment will survive the trialogue negotiations. Telecoms package: strengthening users' rights and internet security (31.03.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/058-52901-089-03-1… Distorted amendment 138 tries to present graduated response as legal (2.04.2009) http://www.laquadrature.net/en/distorted-amendment-138-tries-to-present-gra… European Parliament compromises on Internet rights (31.03.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=302&Item… Trautmann deal wraps up Internet limitations (1.04.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=304&Item… Leading Providers of Voice Solutions over the Internet Protest Against Blocking or Degrading of VoIP applications over mobile networks, after T-Mobile announcement (3.04.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/pdf/VON.europe.telecoms.package.pdf Internet rights being written out as Spain blocks Skype (7.04.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=309&Item… EDRi-gram:Data protection authorities support civil society on the Telecom Package (25.02.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.4/data-protection-telecom-package ============================================================ 2. French National Assembly votes for the three strikes law ============================================================ An almost empty National Assembly voted on 2 April 2009 in favour of the extremely controversial law introducing the graduate response system in France, in spite of the fierce opposition from privacy campaigners, individuals, associations and even some French deputies. The poor attendance of the Assembly at the vote is considered by some as one of the reasons for the success of the draft law so strongly pushed by the French Minister of Culture, Christine Albanel. The approved text has undergone some modifications during the discussion in the assembly. One of the voted amendments is apparently amnestying all the Internet users sued for downloading. Actually the text refers only to users accused of counterfeiting in relation to related rights. One of the few victories of the opposition in the National Assembly was the amendment allowing an Internet subscriber whose connection has been cut by Hadopi to stop paying for the respective subscription related to the Internet. A so called Hallyday clause was voted, stipulating that illegal downloading will not be subject to sanction when the author of the downloaded work resides in a tax haven, such as is the case of French artist Johnny Hallyday (hence the name of the clause) who lives now in Switzerland and pays a minimum amount of taxes for the fortune he has earned in France from his works. Differently from the initial text where the sanctioned Internet user had only 7 days to make an appeal to the court, the modified version allows now a period of 30 days for the formulation of an appeal, after the notification date. Rapporteur Franck Riester introduced the proposal that Hadopi applies a label to the legal downloading sites thus favouring the legal offers. The amendment says that the search engines should thus emphasize the authorised sites. Faced with opposition arguments and questions related to whether this would force sites like Google to point out such sites, the rapporteur answered that Google should not be affected and that the proposal was only to create lists of legal sites. The law gives entire freedom to Hadopi authority regarding the sanctions to be taken against infringers. The authority may either cut the connection of the user after three infringements or choose to ask the user to protect the connection against downloading. The measure is to allow an institution, such as a hospital, to keep its Internet connection. Therefore, a physical person may have his connection cut but not an institution. Still, the decision will belong to Hadopi authority which is free to choose the sanction according to the user. On 2 April, the Culture Minister has also confirmed that the Internet users that want to be sure that they will not be considered liable under the Hadopi law, should install filtering software on their computers. This software, approved by Hadopi, will need to communicate with a remote server showing that the software is active at the moment the alleged infringement takes place. Nicolas Maubert, attorney with Gide Loyrette Nouel, has argued that the Hadopi law could be in breach of the protections provided by the French Constitution and therefore might be challenged by the French judicial body. "When a law seems so risky in its application, so unpredictable and random from the technical point of view, it is not a good law and it takes something from Courteline, a little from Kafka and a lot from Alfred Jarry", stated opposition deputy Christian Paul. Also, in view of the recent position of the European Parliament which has voted for guaranteeing the Internet access to all citizens as a fundamental human right, the French law may be is a critical position. However, during the debates in the National Assembly, on 30 March, Christine Albanel, stated that the European Parliament's votes against the graduate response had no legal or political incidence. And even if the point related to the cutting off of the Internet user is solved, Hadopi authority will still have the power to apply fines and other penalties and pass injunctions. French users who frequently download content illegally might soon find themselves severely fined. As last minute news, on 7 April, the Joint Mixed Commission (Commission Mixe Paritaire - CMP), a commission including 7 deputies and 7 senators, supposed to agree upon a compromise text on the draft law before the law is sent for the final vote in the Parliament on 9 April, took its decision. The graduated response mechanism proposed now is that Hadopy authority sends two electronic warnings, followed by a registered letter to the alleged illegal Internet downloaders. In case of non-compliance during a period of a year, the infringers' access will be cut off for 2 months to one year or up to three months in case the user commits to stop the infringement. CMP rejected the amendment which proposed that Internet users sanctioned for alleged illegal downloading should stop paying their subscription. So, besides having their access cut off, they would also continue to pay for a service they will not be able to use. Furthermore, the commission rejected the amendment proposing an amnesty for Internet users prosecuted for illegal downloading before the entering into force of the law. The Commssion has also reduced the present period of 6 months to 4 months from the issuing of a movie in cinema halls to the occurrence on DVDs. In case the text is finally voted by the French Parliament on 9 April, the socialists, who consider the law as "inefficient, useless, technically inapplicable and which will not bring any euro to the creation", will appeal to the Constitutional Council. French pass 'three strikes' file-sharing law (3.04.2009) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/03/french_three_strikes/ How the Assembly modified the Hadopi (only in French, 3.04.2009) http://www.20minutes.fr/article/317785/High-Tech-Comment-l-Assemblee-a-modi… The Criation et Internet law adopted in a quasi empty Assembly (only in French, 2.04.2009) http://www.20minutes.fr/article/317513/High-Tech-La-loi-Creation-et-Interne… Draft law favouring the distribution and protection of the creation on the internet, modified by the National Assembly in first reading (only in French, 2.04.2009) http://www.assembleenationale.org/13/ta/ta0249.asp Hadopi adopted (only in French, 3.04.2009) http://www.ecrans.fr/Hadopi-adoptee,6848.html Hadopi debates: catching up session for the week-end (only in French, 3.04.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/12532-Debats-Hadopi-seance-de-rattrapage-p… Hadopi: The Mixed Joint Commission (CMP) advanced for Tuesday (only in French, 6.04.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/12550-Hadopi-la-Commission-Mixte-Paritaire… Hadopi law: the "double pain" re-established before the final vote (only in French, 8.04.2009) http://www.challenges.fr/actualites/high_tech/20090408.CHA2775/piratage__la… EDRI-gram: France: Three strikes law debated by the General Assembly (25.03.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.6/3-strikes-france-assembly ============================================================ 3. European Parliament asks for respect of human rights on the Internet ============================================================ On 26 March 2009, the European Parliament voted with a large majority to support Lambrinidis report concerning the protection of individual liberties on the Internet, rejecting the amendments proposed by the French Government and the copyright industry. The position of the EP is that "guaranteeing Internet access to all citizens is the same as guaranteeing all citizens access to education" and that "such access must not be refused in punishment by governments or private organizations". The MEPs ask the Member States to "recognise that the Internet can be an extraordinary opportunity to enhance active citizenship and that, in this respect, access to networks and contents is one of the key elements; recommend that this issue be further developed on the basis of the assumption that everyone has a right to participate in the information society and that institutions and stakeholders at all levels have a general responsibility to assist in this development, thus attacking the twin new challenges of e-illiteracy and democratic exclusion in the electronic age." The report adopted by the MEPs acknowledges the necessity of providing safety measures for the protection of Internet users, especially children, due to the risks users may be exposed on the Internet which can be used as a tool for criminals or terrorists. The report proposes actions against cybercriminals but at the same time, asks for a balance between security on the Internet and the guarantee of the fundamental rights of Internet users' privacy. The MEPs call to Member States to protect the "respect for private life, data protection, freedom of speech and association, freedom of press, political expression and participation, non-discrimination and education.(...) Having in view the global character of the Internet, the MEPs recommend that Member States and the European Commission should draw regulations for data protection, security and freedom of speech in order to protect the privacy of Internet users," says the EP recommendation. The EP also urges Member States to take due account of the "importance of anonymity, pseudonymity and control of information flows for privacy and the fact that users should be provided with, and educated about, the means to protect it efficiently, for instance through various available Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs)." The recommandation asks the Member States to identify all entities which use Net Surveillance and to draw up publicly accessible annual reports on Net Surveillance ensuring legality, proportionality and transparency. In the EP's opinion, attention must be paid to "network neutrality, interoperability, the global accessibility of all Internet nodes, and the use of open formats and standards". EP also raises the issue of the Internet users' consent for giving personal information to governments or private companies, drawing the attention on the imbalance of the negotiating power between users and institutions. The MEPs' position is that users should be able to have the right to permanently delete any of their personal details saved on "internet websites or on any third party data storage medium." By rejecting France's amendments to the report, the EP has rejected again the graduate response scheme pushed so hard by France. The EP considers that the IPR enforcement does not need to use "the systematic monitoring and surveillance of all users activities on the Internet" and that the penalties need to be proportionate to the infringements committed. The European Parliament also publicly supports the "Internet Bill of Rights" and the promotion of the "privacy by design" principle. Recomamndation on Security and fundamental freedoms on the Internet (26.03.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/017-52613-082-03-1… EP recommendation on Strengthening security and fundamental freedoms on the Internet (26.03.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2… Lambrinidis report: pro-copyright changes rejected (26.03.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=292&Item… The European Parliament rejects "graduated response"... for the third time (26.03.2009) http://www.laquadrature.net/en/the-european-parliament-rejects-graduated-re… Privacy and Fundamental Freedoms Put to Vote (27.03.2009) http://lavasoft.com/mylavasoft/securitycenter/blog/privacy-and-fundamental-… EDRI-gram: EP wants a better balance between Internet security and privacy rights (11.03.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.5/ep-balance-security-privacy ============================================================ 4. Extended copyright term for sound recordings pushed back ============================================================ The proposal for the extension of the copyright terms for sound recordings was rejected on 27 March 2009 by COREPER, which has the task to negotiate a consensus before the EU Council of Ministers takes votes. To the great disappointment of the recording industry, COREPER rejected the extension of the copyright term as there was no consensus of the Member States on the matter. A sufficient number of states opposed the legislative proposal to constitute a "blocking minority". So, the European Commission's intention to extend the term from the current 50 years to 95 years, although backed by the legal affairs committee in the European Parliament is at least postponed. UK is one of the states having changed its position in this matter, having reservations to the attempts of industry lobbyists to oppose to a related retirement fund for future musicians. The British government stated having voted against the proposal because the "current text did not yet give sufficient benefit for performers." UK would be in favour of a shorter extension of up to 70 years. "It is clear that today's outcome will not kill off the proposals to extend copyright term, but rather that member states need more time to consider that details of the proposal and reach an agreement," said John Denham, British MP, UK secretary of state for innovation. The Featured Artists' Coalition (FAC) considers any extension of the existing rights would only benefit record companies and that at the end of the 50-year period, copyright should automatically transfer from record labels to artists. "Record companies would simply gain another 45 years of ownership, entrenching the terms of record contracts signed in an analogue age," was FAC's statement. The FAC has set up a different set of policies on copyright and intellectual property than that of the music industry lobbying groups and has launched a "Charter for fair play". The Charter states that artists should have the "ultimate ownership of thei music" and that "rights holders should have a fiduciary duty of care to ther originator of those rights and must always explain how any agreement may affect how their work is exploited." The coallition's opinion this will not be achieved by the extension of the copyright term but by a change in the approach of the agreements between artists and the music industry and in the up-dating of the legislation. "So we will campaign for laws, regulations, business practices and policies that protect artists' rights. We will stand up for all artists by engaging with government, music and technology companies, and collection societies. We will argue for fair play and will expose unfair practices," says the Charter. The EU Czech presidency will continue working on the proposal in order to prepare a second reading for a possible agreement in the future. EU governments vote against copyright extension in Brussels (1.04.2009) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2009/04/01/eu-governments-vote-against-copyr… Europe split on music copyright extension (28.03.2009) http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b1f9dd4e-1b0a-11de-8aa3-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=bd2… Every Vote Counts: the EU Copyright Term Extension Battle Heats Up (30.03.2009) http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/03/every-vote-counts-eu-copyright-term-ex… U.K. Biz 'Disappointed' At EU Term Extension Rejection (27.03.2009) http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3ie96e4a3e8c042db2… Pop star union demands new kind of copyright extension (2.04.2009) http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9922 FAC - A charter for fair play in the digital age http://www.featuredartistscoalition.com/our_charter.html EDRi-gram: Extension of copyright term postponed in the European Parliament (25.03.2008) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.6/copyright-extension-delayed ============================================================ 5. Behavioural targeting at the European Consumer Summit ============================================================ The European Commission Directorate - General for Health & Consumers organized the European Consumer Summit on "Consumer Trust in the Digital Market Place" held in Brussels on 1 and 2 April, 2009. The agenda featured policy workshops on 'Consumer challenges and opportunities in the digital world' and 'Consumer advocacy'. Within the first topic, the whole range of consumer concerns in the digital market place considered to be major obstacles to the full take-off of business to consumer e-commerce and possible solutions to create consumer trust were discussed. Thematically, the topic of consumer data collection, profiling and targeting was arching out pointing the heavy reliance on personal information in the digital environment; something which captured policy makers' attention in Europe fairly recently. In a preceding 'Roundtable on Online Data Collection, Targeting and Profiling' hosted by the Directorate-General for Health & Consumers on 31 March experts and stakeholders' input had been generated in order to feed back into the main event. In her key note speech Commissioner Meglena Kuvena observed that "personal data is the new oil of the Internet and the currency of the digital world" - a reality to be accepted in exchange for free content online. However, well established consumer protection principles, including the applicable data protection regulations, are not fully complied with in the "World Wide Web (...) turning out to be the world 'wild west'." In order to reassert the confidence of the users and consumers, Mrs. Kuneva sees privacy policies as the key to implement fairness and transparency standards as well as meaningful consumer control. Her message to the participants of the roundtable showed determination to enforce existing regulation on the Internet and to regulate where adequate response to consumer concerns on the issue of data collection and profiling is missing. The roundtable proceeded with contributions from industry, lobbies and consumer organizations as well as academics discussing the data collection practices and business models as well as risks and opportunities for consumers. The business model to (co)finance content and free services with online advertisement that incorporates to a varying degree targeted information and personal data is certainly pervasive also beyond gratis offers. It is important however to tell apart the numerous online advertising practices and assess whether and to what extent personal information of users is involved. Companies and industry associations favour good practice principles and self-regulation, and, inevitably, see consumer control implemented with the opt-out mechanism. According to this spectrum, users are empowered individually to control the use of their personal information and collectively through the lever of brand value that would caution companies. Critical interventions raised the need for special protection of sensitive segments such as children and sensitive personal data, a state of fairness in privacy policies and consent generation, and the problem of multi-layered and networked data collection, leaving the user largely unaware of who controls which personal information. Consumer education about online advertising and the meaning of privacy policies and consent emerged as a consensus from the discussion. Member of European Parliament Stavros Lambrinidis, rapporteur of the recent report on strengthening security and fundamental freedoms on the Internet, stressed the necessity to prescribe limits to the 'consent' that can be obtained from users regarding the processing of their personal data in the digital marketplace. As reflected in his report, the imbalance of negotiating power and knowledge between individual users and data processing industry and authorities bears the risk that "Big Brother" will come stealthily and with our "consent". In the progress of the European Consumer Summit behavioral advertisement and its consumer policy implications were prominently raised and wrapped up, asking for: a. the evaluation of different online advertising practices, b. ways to improve consumer control and information, c. the role and robustness of standards and best practices, and d. how the fairness concept can be best transposed from offline to online. In order to keep a channel for discussion open, the Directorate-General for Health & Consumers proposed to set up a privacy blog on its webpage and invited comments. The way forward was not specified and is further complicated by the fact that online consumer data protection is situated at the intersection of the tasks of theree Directorates - General: Health and Consumers, Freedom Security and Justice, and Information Society and Media. In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) examined online behavioral advertisement to some length and published in February 2009 a Staff Report on Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising. Meglena Kuneva, European Consumer Commissioner, Keynote Speech (31.03.2009) http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/09/156&forma… Report with a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on strengthening security and fundamental freedoms on the Internet (25.02.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A6-… FTC Staff Report on Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (12.02.2009), http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/02/behavad.shtm Center for Democracy & Technology, A Guide to Behavioral Advertising, http://www.cdt.org/privacy/targeting/ Center for Democracy & Technology, Threshold Analysis for Online Advertising Practices (28.01.2009) http://cdt.org/press/20090128press.php Internet Governance Forum (IGF), Workshop 83: The Future of Online Privacy: "Online advertising and behavioral targeting" (5.12.2008), http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/Contributions2009/Workshop-Report-IGF-vf.pdf (contribution by Kristina Irion - Central European University) ============================================================ 6. Second PrivacyOS Conference ============================================================ Meetings between researchers from universities with representatives from industry, data protection authorities, standardizers from W3C and ISO and NGOs to discuss privacy challenges and develop privacy infrastructures represent the idea behind the European Privacy Open Space. The second PrivacyOS event was held in Berlin, 1-3 April at the same time as Re:publica. As a PrivacyOS project partner, EDRI participated in conference with a delegation of 4 persons representing its members: Andreas Krisch (Vibe!AT, Austria), Leena Romppainen (Electronic Frontier Finland), Ralf Bendrath (Netzwerk Neue Medien, Germany) and Filip Pospisil (Iuridicum Remedium, Czech Republic). Other EDRI members, such as Metamorphosis (Macedonia) are also partners in this project on their own. A huge number of presentations were packed into the three day period, varying from eGovernment development in Austria and Lithuania to UK database state and from Deep packet inspection to eHealth. The presentations will be available from the PrivacyOS web site in the near future. On the Re:publica side, Stanford Law School professor, founder of Creative Commons and author Lawrence Lessig gave a presentation about copyright issues, illustrating his ideas and urging people to resist the copyright extension being processed in the European Parliament. Due to the events and presentations being on top of each other, it was impossible to attend everything that was interesting, but PrivacyOS was definitely worth going to for the wide variety of topics, forming contacts and remixing ideas. PrivacyOS http://www.privacyos.eu/ Re:publica (1-2.04.2009) http://www.re-publica.de/09/ Reject the Term Extension Directive http://www.edri.org/reject-term-extention-directive Every Vote Counts: the EU Copyright Term Extension Battle Heats Up (03.2009) http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/03/every-vote-counts-eu-copyright-term-ex… Data Retention Austria - Second Attempt - Presentation by Andreas Krisch (1.04.2009) http://www.edri.org/files/Krisch_PrivacyOS_DR_Austria_20090401_03.pdf (contribution by Leena Romppainen- EDRi-member EFFi) ============================================================ 7. Phorm - under scrutiny at the European level ============================================================ On the event on 31 March 2009, the European Commissioner for consumers, Meglena Kuneva, warned on the transparency in the online environment: "We must establish the principles of transparency, clear language, opt-in or opt-out options that are meaningful and easy to use. (...) I am talking about the right to have a stable contract and the right to withdraw." The concern of the Commission is related to Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology experiments such as the profiling and ad-serving system Phorm secret tests performed in UK by BT in 2006 and 2007. In a report issued in March 2009, Free Press advocacy group considers the use of DPI technologies is a threat to the open nature of the Internet. "Improper use of DPI (deep packet inspection) can change the Internet as we know it--turning an open and innovative platform into just another form of pay-for-play media. (...) When a network provider chooses to install DPI equipment, that provider knowingly arms itself with the capacity to monitor and monetize the Internet in ways that threaten to destroy Net Neutrality and the essential open nature of the Internet" says the report. The report concludes that although DPI can help in solving network congestion problems the "technology--the same electronics equipment, in fact--also allows providers to monitor and monetize every use of the Internet, and DPI vendors succeed by developing and marketing this capability." EDRi-member Open Rights Group (ORG) has recently sent a letter to the major websites such as Microsoft, Google, YouTube, Facebook, AOL, Bebo, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay, urging them to opt out the controversial Phorm technology. A petition initiated by the group, signed by about 21 000 people, is asking for the investigation of Phorm and its banning if the system breaches privacy laws. A spokeswoman for Phorm said most of the companies having received the ORG letter were already using the targeted advertising offered by the system and that many of them have proven "their commitment to user privacy as signatories to the IAB UK's interest-based advertising good practice principles". While the UK peers consider that in relation to behavioural targeting, the Information Commissioner's Office, responsible for enforcing EU privacy regulations, had failed in its duty to consumers (as in 2008, ICO accepted Phorm provided it got permission from users if the data collected was used for "value added services."), the UK Government plans however to employ similar technologies to track UK Internet users' behaviour. Viviane Reding, the European Commission's telecoms commissioner who is currently investigating Phorm believes an agreement with the UK government might be possible on this matter. In preparation of eventual regulatory measures, Kuneva's department is initiating an informal investigation of online privacy and data collection. In the meantime, Phorm continues its tests. On 30 March 2009, Phorm officially announced a trial of its technology by Korea Telecom. EU issues ultimatum on internet privacy (31.03.2009) http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9915 Major Websites Are Urged To Reject Phorm Profiling (24.03.2009) http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/19554/major-websites-are-urged-t… Report Warns Against DPI Technology (20.03.2009) http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=1024… EU Extends Deep Packet Inspection Technology Investigation (30.03.2009) http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2009/03/30/eu-extends-deep-packet-inspecti… Deep Packet Inspection - The end of the Internet as we know it? (03.2009) http://www.freepress.net/files/Deep_Packet_Inspection_The_End_of_the_Intern… EDRI-gram: UK Government ignores the European Commission regarding Phorm (25.02.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.4/phorm-uk-ec ============================================================ 8. ISPs asked to block child porn sites on the Internet ============================================================ In Germany, based on the initiative of the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ), the government has had discussions for several months now on how to block child pornography sites hosted on servers outside of the country. The German Government announced on 25 March 2009 a draft law that would cover rights and obligations of telecommunication media content providers and would include the obligation to block access to child pornography sites listed by a government agency. According to BMFSFJ Minister Ursula von der Leyen who has been pushing for some time for an agreement with big ISPs, "The rights of children carry more weight than unhindered mass communication." However, some members of the German Parliament and Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries have shown reservations to a contractual solution considering a regular law should cover the filtering regime as such measures could impact on fundamental rights of citizens. Policies should be put in place in order to deal with the liabilities in cases of errors. The movement is criticised by the industry and non-governmental organisations, which consider that blocking only makes access more difficult but is not able to entirely prevent it. The EDRi-member FITUG (Fvrderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft) Germany has also warned on the fact that, until now, blocking has been useless in fighting child pornography and such measures might lead to blocking sites that have no relation to child pornography as it has happened in other countries. Blocking systems exist now in several European countries. The CIRCAMP system, developed in Norway in 2004, which blocks entry to known child pornography sites by a red stop sign graphic and a message, is used in nine European countries among which the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. In UK, 95% of the main UK ISPs have already adopted a similar service via the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). A system developed by BT, called Cleanfeed, checks IP addresses against the child pornography blocklist created by IWF and blocks users from accessing their content. Malcolm Hutty, president of EuroISPA, representing ISPs from across Europe at the EU, considers the EU plans to block sites will "increase risks to the security, resilience and interoperability of the internet" and also stated: "For technical reasons, blocking simply cannot provide the level of protection that is necessary, and simple morality demands that we take strong collective action to get child pornography removed from the Internet, rather than simply hiding behind national firewalls," he added. All the national plans seem to be in line with the new EU proposal to legally bind all broadband ISPs in Europe to block "access by Internet users to Internet pages containing or disseminating child pornography." With the view to "combating the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography", the proposal for an EU framework decision on prevention and settlement of conflicts of jurisdiction in criminal procedures of 20 January 2009 asks that: "Each Member State shall take the necessary measures to enable the competent judicial or police authorities to order or similarly obtain the blocking of access by internet users to internet pages containing or disseminating child pornography, subject to adequate safeguards." Germany Opts For ISP Filtering Of Child Pornography; NGOs Warn Of Unintended Impact (30.03.2009) http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/03/30/germany-opts-for-isp-filtering-of… Germany Cracks Down on Child Porn Sites But Critics Want More Action (25.03.2009) http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4126813,00.html German Minister Announces Plans for Mandatory Web Filtering (16.01.2009) http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9960/german_minister_announces_plans_for_manda… Germany to implement obligatory block on child porn sites (16.01.2009) http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20090116-16825.html UK.gov to get power to force ISPs to block child porn (2.04.2009) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/02/eu_filtering_framework/ EU proposal for a Council Framework Decision on prevention and settlement of conflicts of jurisdiction in criminal procedures (20.01.2009) http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/09/st05/st05208.en09.pdf EU Proposal Could Force UK ISPs to Block Child Abuse Sites (2.04.2009) http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2009/04/02/eu-proposal-could-force-uk-isps… ============================================================ 9. Big Brother Awards France 2009 ============================================================ The French Big Brother Awards ceremony, or 'Orwell Party', was held this year on Saturday 4 April. The 2009 edition awarded 12 of the 35 nominees, in 6 categories, one of them being the positive 'Voltaire Award'. Armand Mattelart, a renowned professor of Information and Communication Studies, chaired the 2009 jury composed by 10 other members, among them academics, artists, and representatives from French NGOs, including EDRI-member IRIS. Awarding almost one third of the nominees is a sign that the Jury task was hard this year, with the increase of surveillance and social control in France. The French ministry of Interior, Michhle Alliot-Marie, received the lifetime menace award, for her 'immoderate taste for police files', which quantity has increased by 70% in 3 years, as well as for her other 'qualities': her 'novlang' (video-surveillance is now called video-protection by French officials), her 'incitements to denouncement', and her talent to construct the 'internal enemy'. The French ministry of Budget, Eric Woerth, received the State award. The Jury wanted to particularly alert against the centralised database RNCPS to be created, massively interconnecting data from the social sector in view of fraud fighting, using the social security number as identifier. This, of course, reminds the SAFARI project scandal that led to the adoption of the French Data Protection Act in 1978. The award for companies was given to the French mutual insurance system, a not-for-profit organization, for 'its joint activism with private insurance companies in order to access some medical data from the social security administration'. Paris Mayor, Bertrand Delanok, earned the local authorities award for 'his conversion to video-surveillance', after he agreed to contribute to the government efforts in this field, increasing by 4 times the number of cameras in Paris, reaching 1200 of them in public areas. The Novlang award has two ex aequo recipients. The first one is Humabio, an EC funded research project on multimodal biometrics, most notably relying on behavioural biometrics to 'increase freedom of movement'. The second recipient is the family benefits sector of the social security system, for having trained its employee using a method, called IGGACE, which goes even further than a simple lie detector, since it is supposed to detect 'lying intent'. The method was originally developed for the police sector. Not only the jury gave an additional award as a 'special mention', but it also awarded two ex aequo recipients. Fridiric Lefebvre, French MEP and spokesperson of Nicolas Sarkozy's party, certainly deserved his award for his 'incompetence and insistence to control the Internet', including by supporting the French 'three strikes law'. The other recipients is the 'anonymous zealot': having seen the number of individual civil servants who denounced irregular migrants, sometimes in breach of the professional secret, decided to highlight this phenomenon through a generic category. Finally, the Voltaire award or positive prize was given to three ex aequo recipients, actually three coalitions that have been particularly active and gain some success: the coalition against the EDVIGE police file, the coalition of elementary and primary school directors against the central database of children (Base ilhves), and the coalition against the use of biometrics in schools. In addition, another Voltaire prize was awarded, as a 'special mention', to Mireille and Monique, two volunteers who help irregular migrants based in Calais with the hope to reach the UK. This simple humanitarian help is a highly risky activity in France, a country where such help is now criminalized. 2009 Big Brother Awards France (only in French, 05.04.2009) http://bigbrotherawards.eu.org/Les-decorations-promotion-2009.html (Contribution by Meryem Merzouki - EDRi-member IRIS France) ============================================================ 10. Recommended Reading ============================================================ Annual report for 2008 on access to EU documents The most popular area for requests in Justice and Home Affairs. Just over 73% of the documents listed on the Council register are accessible full-text. But, of course, the remaining 27% include many documents concerning measures under discussion. There has been an increase in the number of documents classified as "Restricted", where disclosure would be "disadvantageous" to the interests of the EU or its member states - in 2008 there were 505 "Restricted" documents some 40% of which concerned justice and home affairs (around 200+). http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/apr/eu-council-access-report-for-2008.p… "The Economics of Intellectual Property. Suggestions for Further Research in Developing Countries and Countries with Economies in Transition" The series of papers in this publication were commissioned from renowned international economists from all regions. They review the existing empirical literature on six selected themes relating to the economics of intellectual property, identify the key research questions, point out research gaps and explore possible avenues for future research. http://www.wipo.int/ip-development/en/economics/index.html ============================================================ 11. Agenda ============================================================ 21-23 April 2009, Winchester, UK BILETA 2009 Annual Conference http://www.winchester.ac.uk/?page=9871 23-24 April 2009, Brussels, Belgium The future of intellectual property - Creativity and innovation in the digital era http://www.intellectualproperty-conference.eu 23-24 April 2009, Amsterdam, Netherlands Second European Licensing and Legal Workshop organized by Free Software Foundation Europe http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/2009/news-20090323-01.en.html 22-23 May 2009, Florence, Italy E-privacy: Towards total control Call for papers deadline: 15 April 2009 http://e-privacy.winstonsmith.info/ 23 May 2009, Florence, Italy Big Brother Award Italia 2009 Nominations by 17 April 2009 http://bba.winstonsmith.info/ 11 May 2009, Brussels, Belgium GigaNet is organizing the 2nd international academic workshop on Global Internet Governance: An Interdisciplinary Research Field in Construction. http://giganet.igloogroups.org/publiclibr/giganetcos/2009brusse 13-14 May 2009 Uppsala, Sweden Mashing-up Culture: The Rise of User-generated Content http://www.counter2010.org/workshop_call 19-20 May 2009, Brussels, Belgium European Commission organizes a personal data protection conference to look at new challenges for privacy http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/news/docs/pr_03_03_09_en.pdf 24-28 May 2009, Venice, Italy ICIMP 2009, The Fourth International Conference on Internet Monitoring and Protection http://www.iaria.org/conferences2009/ICIMP09.html 1-4 June 2009, Washington, DC, USA Computers Freedom and Privacy 2009 http://www.cfp2009.org/ 5 June 2009, London, UK The Second Multidisciplinary Workshop on Identity in the Information Society (IDIS 09): "Identity and the Impact of Technology" http://is2.lse.ac.uk/idis/2009/ 28-30 June 2009, Torino, Italy COMMUNIA Conference 2009: Global Science & Economics of Knowledge-Sharing Institutions http://www.communia-project.eu/conf2009 2-3 July 2009, Padova, Italy 3rd FLOSS International Workshop on Free/Libre Open Source Software http://www.decon.unipd.it/personale/curri/manenti/floss/floss09.html 13-16 August 2009, Vierhouten, The Netherlands Hacking at Random http://www.har2009.org/ 23-27 August 2009, Milan, Italy World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and Council: "Libraries create futures: Building on cultural heritage" http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla75/index.htm 10-12 September 2009, Potsdam, Germany 5th ECPR General Conference, Potsdam Section: Protest Politics Panel: The Contentious Politics of Intellectual Property http://www.ecpr.org.uk/potsdam/default.asp 16-18 September 2009, Crete, Greece World Summit on the Knowledge Society WSKS 2009 http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/ 21-23 October 2009, Istanbul, Turkey eChallenges 2009 http://www.echallenges.org/e2009/default.asp 16 October 2009, Bielefeld, Germany 10th German Big Brother Awards Deadline for nominations: 15 July 2009 http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/ 15-18 November 2009, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt UN Internet Governance Forum http://www.intgovforum.org/ ============================================================ 12. About ============================================================ EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 29 members based or with offices in 18 different countries in Europe. European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and visibly on the EDRI website. Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. 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Translations are provided Andreas Krisch from the EDRI-member VIBE!AT - Austrian Association for Internet Users http://www.unwatched.org/ - Newsletter archive Back issues are available at: http://www.edri.org/edrigram - Help Please ask <edrigram(a)edri.org> if you have any problems with subscribing or unsubscribing. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Why I do not want to work at Google
by Kragen Javier Sitaker 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Google has an orientation that is opposed to my agenda. I joined the internet in 1992. It was a pretty decentralized place, and any person on it could set up an online service accessible to any other person on it; but you pretty much had to write your service in C (less of a security worry at the time) and it was easy to get in trouble by bogging down the DECStation you shared with fifty other people. So it was such a hassle that there were only a few dozen online services, plus a few thousand FTP sites. As an example, there were no public porn sites, although there was lots of porn. A few years later, when the internet hit mainstream, it was a decentralizing force; server-centric Novell LANs and mainframe-terminal networks gave way to workstation networks, where anybody at the company, or anybody with an ISP account, could set up a web server on their personal workstation with a little trouble. I started running my own mail and web server when I moved to Ohio in 1997, and Ibve been running one ever since, first alone and later with half a dozen friends. Until 2001 it was on dialup, which was fine, although obviously there are limits on how much traffic I could cope with. But this rosy picture is complicated by centralizing forces. Apple wants to relegate websites to second-class status on their popular computers, and exercises viewpoint censorship on what b appsb they allow in their b app storeb. Google wants you to keep your mail in Gmail instead of on your home computer (if you kept your mail on your home computer, youbd keep your backups on your friendsb home computers), and theybll delete your account with no recourse if you admit youbre only 10. Microsoft wonbt let you run unsigned device drivers on your own computer any more. Facebook wants to know every web page you visit, anywhere on the internet, and log that information permanently for later analysis. And email from our little mail server automatically gets dropped into the spam box on Gmail these days. Not sure why. Apparently our domain has a b bad reputationb, but even finding that out required an inside connection; no way to find out more. I imagine a different future, where if Alice wants to talk to Bob and Bob wants to talk to Alice, therebs no unaccountable intermediary that can interfere with their communication, whether theybre speaking text, or video, or 3-D models, or simulation. If Alicebs email gets marked as spam, Bob ought to be able to find out why b and fix it! I imagine a future where every human being can participate in creating the culture they live in, without needing permission from anybody, and without fearing repercussions. Webre a lot closer to that world today than we were in 1992, and the evidence suggests that it is to that that we owe the collapse of oppressive regimes throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa; the revelation and destruction of the nascent government-funded slander campaign against Glenn Greenwald and other WikiLeaks supporters; and the public discovery of the CIAbs b extraordinary renditionb flights. If we successfully beat back the global menaces of governmental corruption, global warming, overfishing, and terrorism, it will be because we were able to collaborate and organize more effectively around the world by means of this new medium. Google, of course, wants to solve these problems too. But it has a different, less-democratic approach in mind. While of course the company contains an enormous diversity of opinion internally, their approach publicly has been somewhat paternalistic, and their engineering culture is organized around big centralized solutions; warehouse-scale computing, as the title of Barroso and HC6lzlebs excellent book puts it. Googlebs undemocratic orientation sometimes leads them to impose policies at odds with my vision of the future. Their b real namesb policy on Google+ is one example; it makes it likely that only people who feel they have no repercussions to fear from anyone, ever, will write there. There has been quite a [backlash][], but they do not appear to be interested in compromising. [backlash]: http://my.nameis.me/ A rather shocking view of the depth of some Googlersb commitment to centralized computing can be found in [Steven Levybs recent article][Skype]. After thinking about it for a while, I realized they were right factually, if not normatively: peer-to-peer overlay networks are [inherently inefficient][] on todaybs residential internet. [Skype]: http://www.stevenlevy.com/index.php/05/10/why-google-does-not-own-skype (Why Google does not own Skype, 2011-05-10, by Steven Levy) [inherently inefficient]: http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2011-August/000935.html (b Peer-to-peer overlay networks are a bad idea on a DSL-based internetb, by me, 2011-08-18.) I believe that warehouse-scale client-server computing will, in the end, undermine the kind of democratic freedom of communication that we need to deal with todaybs global menaces. Itbs more practical than peer-to-peer computing at the moment, but that pendulum has swung back and forth several times over the decades. (Some of my friends were among the first employees of a hot cloud-computing startup, in 1964, called Tymshare.) The proper response to the current impracticality of decentralized computing is not to sigh and build centralized systems. The proper response is to build the systems to *make decentralized computing practical again*. Google is not institutionally opposed to this; theybve funded substantial and important work on it. Nevertheless, because of their overall orientation toward centralized solutions with undemocratically-imposed policies, I believe working there would be a further distraction from that goal. Worse, with every advance that companies like Google and Apple make, the higher is the bar that decentralized systems must leap to achieve real adoption. Ibm not making much progress on that. My friends Len Sassaman (who committed suicide in the first few days of July), Bram Cohen, Jacob Appelbaum, and Zooko ObWhielacronx have made substantial contributions. But I donbt think Ibd make *more* progress at Google, and I might make *negative* progress. So thatbs why I donbt want to work at Google. -- To unsubscribe: http://lists.canonical.org/mailman/listinfo/kragen-tol ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: Hacker strikes through student's router
by Audie Murphy 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On 11/8/05 5:49 PM, "poncenby smythe" <smythe(a)poncenby.plus.com> wrote: >> >> For the record, Tor developers (and many at the EFF) are indeed of >> many reasons people have claimed that developing anonymity is bad. We >> think about them a lot, and right now, we don't think that they're >> correct. In fact, we discuss many of them in the abuse faq, the main >> faq, and the "Challenges" paper. >> >> In case anybody cares. >> > > I believe(and hope) a great many people care about this. > Does anyone know of other papers written on the subject of 'abuse' of > anonymous systems? I am not aware of such a study. I'm not certain about the usefulness of such a study. For 100s of years my ancestors have attempted to obtain the maximum privacy possible, whether in Europe or the U.S. Frankly, we have moved away from heavily populated areas, not because we were avoiding people, but because we wanted to retreat to a private place, where we could have private conversations. Privacy is not a new desire. Once the Roman Church was outlawed in Britain, Catholics just went underground and used secret means of communicating. Witness the so-called secret societies that have existed over the centuries. Freemasonry is but one example. In most dictatorships, Freemasons are repressed and the society is driven underground. Hitler outlawed the Freemasons. The Soviet Union drove them underground. However, in both cases Freemasons continued to communicate via private channels with secret handshakes, etc. I don't mean to be long-winded, but many worthy causes have required private communications. So, I suppose, there ARE studies over the millennia that demonstrate the need for privacy. Early Christians worshipped and used private communication channels. Of course, EFF web site demonstrates what is at issue in areas of the world where governments are trying to prohibit private communication - places like China. > at the moment I personally feel that Tor is affording people with > questionable intentions an extremely robust and simple to use method > to conceal their identity. I have not read the 'challenges' paper > but is it correct to think tor developers justify (if that is the > right word) their developments by believing that if miscreants did > not use Tor they would simply move onto another similar mechanism for > conducting their business. > or would taking the tor network down cause any kind of disruption? > > impossible questions.... The questions are very difficult, but not impossible, IMHO. In the U.S., we have decided long ago that individuals would have as much individual freedom, as long as the exercise thereof would not abridge anyone else's freedom, health, property or safety. Privacy is evolved from individual rights. Therefore, IMHO, individuals can be held responsible for nefarious deeds, but not the mechanism that allowed the crime - whether that be firearm, or privacy service. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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Why I do not want to work at Google
by Kragen Javier Sitaker 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Google has an orientation that is opposed to my agenda. I joined the internet in 1992. It was a pretty decentralized place, and any person on it could set up an online service accessible to any other person on it; but you pretty much had to write your service in C (less of a security worry at the time) and it was easy to get in trouble by bogging down the DECStation you shared with fifty other people. So it was such a hassle that there were only a few dozen online services, plus a few thousand FTP sites. As an example, there were no public porn sites, although there was lots of porn. A few years later, when the internet hit mainstream, it was a decentralizing force; server-centric Novell LANs and mainframe-terminal networks gave way to workstation networks, where anybody at the company, or anybody with an ISP account, could set up a web server on their personal workstation with a little trouble. I started running my own mail and web server when I moved to Ohio in 1997, and Ibve been running one ever since, first alone and later with half a dozen friends. Until 2001 it was on dialup, which was fine, although obviously there are limits on how much traffic I could cope with. But this rosy picture is complicated by centralizing forces. Apple wants to relegate websites to second-class status on their popular computers, and exercises viewpoint censorship on what b appsb they allow in their b app storeb. Google wants you to keep your mail in Gmail instead of on your home computer (if you kept your mail on your home computer, youbd keep your backups on your friendsb home computers), and theybll delete your account with no recourse if you admit youbre only 10. Microsoft wonbt let you run unsigned device drivers on your own computer any more. Facebook wants to know every web page you visit, anywhere on the internet, and log that information permanently for later analysis. And email from our little mail server automatically gets dropped into the spam box on Gmail these days. Not sure why. Apparently our domain has a b bad reputationb, but even finding that out required an inside connection; no way to find out more. I imagine a different future, where if Alice wants to talk to Bob and Bob wants to talk to Alice, therebs no unaccountable intermediary that can interfere with their communication, whether theybre speaking text, or video, or 3-D models, or simulation. If Alicebs email gets marked as spam, Bob ought to be able to find out why b and fix it! I imagine a future where every human being can participate in creating the culture they live in, without needing permission from anybody, and without fearing repercussions. Webre a lot closer to that world today than we were in 1992, and the evidence suggests that it is to that that we owe the collapse of oppressive regimes throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa; the revelation and destruction of the nascent government-funded slander campaign against Glenn Greenwald and other WikiLeaks supporters; and the public discovery of the CIAbs b extraordinary renditionb flights. If we successfully beat back the global menaces of governmental corruption, global warming, overfishing, and terrorism, it will be because we were able to collaborate and organize more effectively around the world by means of this new medium. Google, of course, wants to solve these problems too. But it has a different, less-democratic approach in mind. While of course the company contains an enormous diversity of opinion internally, their approach publicly has been somewhat paternalistic, and their engineering culture is organized around big centralized solutions; warehouse-scale computing, as the title of Barroso and HC6lzlebs excellent book puts it. Googlebs undemocratic orientation sometimes leads them to impose policies at odds with my vision of the future. Their b real namesb policy on Google+ is one example; it makes it likely that only people who feel they have no repercussions to fear from anyone, ever, will write there. There has been quite a [backlash][], but they do not appear to be interested in compromising. [backlash]: http://my.nameis.me/ A rather shocking view of the depth of some Googlersb commitment to centralized computing can be found in [Steven Levybs recent article][Skype]. After thinking about it for a while, I realized they were right factually, if not normatively: peer-to-peer overlay networks are [inherently inefficient][] on todaybs residential internet. [Skype]: http://www.stevenlevy.com/index.php/05/10/why-google-does-not-own-skype (Why Google does not own Skype, 2011-05-10, by Steven Levy) [inherently inefficient]: http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2011-August/000935.html (b Peer-to-peer overlay networks are a bad idea on a DSL-based internetb, by me, 2011-08-18.) I believe that warehouse-scale client-server computing will, in the end, undermine the kind of democratic freedom of communication that we need to deal with todaybs global menaces. Itbs more practical than peer-to-peer computing at the moment, but that pendulum has swung back and forth several times over the decades. (Some of my friends were among the first employees of a hot cloud-computing startup, in 1964, called Tymshare.) The proper response to the current impracticality of decentralized computing is not to sigh and build centralized systems. The proper response is to build the systems to *make decentralized computing practical again*. Google is not institutionally opposed to this; theybve funded substantial and important work on it. Nevertheless, because of their overall orientation toward centralized solutions with undemocratically-imposed policies, I believe working there would be a further distraction from that goal. Worse, with every advance that companies like Google and Apple make, the higher is the bar that decentralized systems must leap to achieve real adoption. Ibm not making much progress on that. My friends Len Sassaman (who committed suicide in the first few days of July), Bram Cohen, Jacob Appelbaum, and Zooko ObWhielacronx have made substantial contributions. But I donbt think Ibd make *more* progress at Google, and I might make *negative* progress. So thatbs why I donbt want to work at Google. -- To unsubscribe: http://lists.canonical.org/mailman/listinfo/kragen-tol ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper
by Ray Dillinger 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Okay.... I'm going to summarize this protocol as I understand it. I'm filling in some operational details that aren't in the paper by supplementing what you wrote with what my own "design sense" tells me are critical missing bits or "obvious" methodologies for use. First, people spend computer power creating a pool of coins to use as money. Each coin is a proof-of-work meeting whatever criteria were in effect for money at the time it was created. The time of creation (and therefore the criteria) is checkable later because people can see the emergence of this particular coin in the transaction chain and track it through all its "consensus view" spends. (more later on coin creation tied to adding a link). When a coin is spent, the buyer and seller digitally sign a (blinded) transaction record, and broadcast it to a bunch of nodes whose purpose is keeping track of consensus regarding coin ownership. If someone double spends, then the transaction record can be unblinded revealing the identity of the cheater. This is done via a fairly standard cut- and-choose algorithm where the buyer responds to several challenges with secret shares, and the seller then asks him to "unblind" and checks all but one, verifying that they do contain secret shares any two of which are sufficient to identify the buyer. In this case the seller accepts the unblinded spend record as "probably" containing a valid secret share. The nodes keeping track of consensus regarding coin ownership are in a loop where they are all trying to "add a link" to the longest chain they've so far recieved. They have a pool of reported transactions which they've not yet seen in a "consensus" signed chain. I'm going to call this pool "A". They attempt to add a link to the chain by moving everything from pool A into a pool "L" and using a CPU- intensive digital signature algorithm to sign the chain including the new block L. This results in a chain extended by a block containing all the transaction records they had in pool L, plus the node's digital signature. While they do this, new transaction records continue to arrive and go into pool A again for the next cycle of work. They may also recieve chains as long as the one they're trying to extend while they work, in which the last few "links" are links that are *not* in common with the chain on which they're working. These they ignore. (? Do they ignore them? Under what circumstances would these become necessary to ever look at again, bearing in mind that any longer chain based on them will include them?) But if they recieve a _longer_ chain while working, they immediately check all the transactions in the new links to make sure it contains no double spends and that the "work factors" of all new links are appropriate. If it contains a double spend, then they create a "transaction" which is a proof of double spending, add it to their pool A, broadcast it, and continue work. If one of the "new" links has an inappropriate work factor (ie, someone didn't put enough CPU into it for it to be "licit" according to the rules) a new "transaction" which is a proof of the protocol violation by the link-creating node is created, broadcast, and added to pool A, and the chain is rejected. In the case of no double spends and appropriate work factors for all links not yet seen, they accept the new chain as consensus. If the new chain is accepted, then they give up on adding their current link, dump all the transactions from pool L back into pool A (along with transactions they've recieved or created since starting work), eliminate from pool A those transaction records which are already part of a link in the new chain, and start work again trying to extend the new chain. If they complete work on a chain extended with their new link, they broadcast it and immediately start work on another new link with all the transactions that have accumulated in pool A since they began work. Do I understand it correctly? Biggest Technical Problem: Is there a mechanism to make sure that the "chain" does not consist solely of links added by just the 3 or 4 fastest nodes? 'Cause a broadcast transaction record could easily miss those 3 or 4 nodes and if it does, and those nodes continue to dominate the chain, the transaction might never get added. To remedy this, you need to either ensure provable propagation of transactions, or vary the work factor for a node depending on how many links have been added since that node's most recent link. Unfortunately, both measures can be defeated by sock puppets. This is probably the worst problem with your protocol as it stands right now; you need some central point to control the identities (keys) of the nodes and prevent people from making new sock puppets. Provable propagation would mean that When Bob accepts a new chain from Alice, he needs to make sure that Alice has (or gets) all transactions in his "A" and "L" pools. He sends them, and Alice sends back a signed hash to prove she got them. Once Alice has recieved this block of transactions, if any subsequent chains including a link added by Alice do not include those transactions at or before that link, then Bob should be able to publish the block he sent Alice, along with her signature, in a transaction as proof that Alice violated protocol. Sock puppets defeat this because Alice just signs subsequent chains using a new key, pretending to be a different node. If we go with varying the work factor depending on how many new links there are, then we're right back to domination by the 3 or 4 fastest nodes, except now they're joined by 600 or so sock puppets which they use to avoid the work factor penalty. If we solve the sock-puppet issue, or accept that there's a central point controlling the generation of new keys, then generation of coins should be tied to the act of successfully adding a block to the "consensus" chain. This is simple to do; creation of a coin is a transaction, it gets added along with all the other transactions in the block. But you can only create one coin per link, and of course if your version of the chain isn't the one that gets accepted, then in the "accepted" view you don't have the coin and can't spend it. This gives the people maintaining the consensus database a reason to spend CPU cycles, especially since the variance in work factor by number of links added since their own last link (outlined above) guarantees that everyone, not just the 3 or 4 fastest nodes, occasionally gets the opportunity to create a coin. Also, the work requirement for adding a link to the chain should vary (again exponentially) with the number of links added to that chain in the previous week, causing the rate of coin generation (and therefore inflation) to be strictly controlled. You need coin aggregation for this to scale. There needs to be a "provable" transaction where someone retires ten single coins and creates a new coin with denomination ten, etc. This is not too hard, using the same infrastructure you've already got; it simply becomes part of the chain, and when the chain is accepted consensus, then everybody can see that it happened. Bear --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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[>Htech] WT: FBI up for private screens
by Premise Checker 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

WT: FBI up for private screens By Guy Taylor THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published March 26, 2004 _________________________________________________________________ The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are developing a database that will allow private companies to submit lists of individuals to be screened for a connection to terrorism, the FBI Terrorist Screening Center Director Donna A. Bucella told legislators yesterday. The database "will eventually allow private-sector entities, such as operators of critical infrastructure facilities or organizers of large events, to submit a list of persons associated with those events to the U.S. government to be screened for any nexus to terrorism," Miss Bucella said at a joint hearing of the House Judiciary and Homeland Security subcommittees. The screening center oversees the master database of known and suspected terrorists, which became operational in December. That database, created by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, was developed to ensure investigators, screeners and agents work off a unified set of antiterrorist information. In his opening statement for the hearing, Rep. Christopher Cox, California Republican and chairman of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, said the screening center's support is "particularly important to our nation's first responders, our border protection officials, and the consular officers who adjudicate hundreds of visa applications every day." However, Mr. Cox also raised concerns about the need for the watch list not to violate the privacy of Americans. "To be the right solution, the TSC must not come at the price of the civil rights or First Amendment freedoms of American citizens," he said. Civil liberties groups say federal law-enforcement and intelligence officials are keeping the terror watch lists so secret by that mistakes are inevitable. Mrs. Bucella said a process to address "misidentification issues" is in place. "We recognize that with all of these capabilities also comes the responsibility to ensure that we continue to protect our civil liberties," she said. "Procedures are in place to review and promptly adjust or delete erroneous or outdated domestic terrorism information." After the deadly hijackings of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration attempted to stem confusion caused by the existence of multiple terrorist watch lists by establishing a joint FBI-CIA Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), consolidating more than a dozen previous lists, including the State Department's TIPOFF database of more than 110,000 known and suspected terrorists. In September, a few days after the two-year anniversary of the hijackings that killed about 3,000 people, officials announced the creation of the TSC to consolidate watch lists and provide round-the-clock operation support for federal screeners across the country and around the world. Mrs. Bucella outlined several successes since the TSC became operational in September, including the establishment of a consolidated 24-hour call center that law-enforcement authorities can call to determine whether an individual in question is a suspected terrorist. After a positive or negative match, "we help coordinate operation support as to how the person should be handled," Mrs. Bucella said. The system has fielded 2,000 calls since its inception. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/PMYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -----BEGIN TRANSHUMANTECH SIGNATURE----- Post message: transhumantech(a)yahoogroups.com Subscribe: transhumantech-subscribe(a)yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: transhumantech-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com List owner: transhumantech-owner(a)yahoogroups.com List home: http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/transhumantech/ -----END TRANSHUMANTECH SIGNATURE----- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transhumantech/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: transhumantech-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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Re: Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper
by Ray Dillinger 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Okay.... I'm going to summarize this protocol as I understand it. I'm filling in some operational details that aren't in the paper by supplementing what you wrote with what my own "design sense" tells me are critical missing bits or "obvious" methodologies for use. First, people spend computer power creating a pool of coins to use as money. Each coin is a proof-of-work meeting whatever criteria were in effect for money at the time it was created. The time of creation (and therefore the criteria) is checkable later because people can see the emergence of this particular coin in the transaction chain and track it through all its "consensus view" spends. (more later on coin creation tied to adding a link). When a coin is spent, the buyer and seller digitally sign a (blinded) transaction record, and broadcast it to a bunch of nodes whose purpose is keeping track of consensus regarding coin ownership. If someone double spends, then the transaction record can be unblinded revealing the identity of the cheater. This is done via a fairly standard cut- and-choose algorithm where the buyer responds to several challenges with secret shares, and the seller then asks him to "unblind" and checks all but one, verifying that they do contain secret shares any two of which are sufficient to identify the buyer. In this case the seller accepts the unblinded spend record as "probably" containing a valid secret share. The nodes keeping track of consensus regarding coin ownership are in a loop where they are all trying to "add a link" to the longest chain they've so far recieved. They have a pool of reported transactions which they've not yet seen in a "consensus" signed chain. I'm going to call this pool "A". They attempt to add a link to the chain by moving everything from pool A into a pool "L" and using a CPU- intensive digital signature algorithm to sign the chain including the new block L. This results in a chain extended by a block containing all the transaction records they had in pool L, plus the node's digital signature. While they do this, new transaction records continue to arrive and go into pool A again for the next cycle of work. They may also recieve chains as long as the one they're trying to extend while they work, in which the last few "links" are links that are *not* in common with the chain on which they're working. These they ignore. (? Do they ignore them? Under what circumstances would these become necessary to ever look at again, bearing in mind that any longer chain based on them will include them?) But if they recieve a _longer_ chain while working, they immediately check all the transactions in the new links to make sure it contains no double spends and that the "work factors" of all new links are appropriate. If it contains a double spend, then they create a "transaction" which is a proof of double spending, add it to their pool A, broadcast it, and continue work. If one of the "new" links has an inappropriate work factor (ie, someone didn't put enough CPU into it for it to be "licit" according to the rules) a new "transaction" which is a proof of the protocol violation by the link-creating node is created, broadcast, and added to pool A, and the chain is rejected. In the case of no double spends and appropriate work factors for all links not yet seen, they accept the new chain as consensus. If the new chain is accepted, then they give up on adding their current link, dump all the transactions from pool L back into pool A (along with transactions they've recieved or created since starting work), eliminate from pool A those transaction records which are already part of a link in the new chain, and start work again trying to extend the new chain. If they complete work on a chain extended with their new link, they broadcast it and immediately start work on another new link with all the transactions that have accumulated in pool A since they began work. Do I understand it correctly? Biggest Technical Problem: Is there a mechanism to make sure that the "chain" does not consist solely of links added by just the 3 or 4 fastest nodes? 'Cause a broadcast transaction record could easily miss those 3 or 4 nodes and if it does, and those nodes continue to dominate the chain, the transaction might never get added. To remedy this, you need to either ensure provable propagation of transactions, or vary the work factor for a node depending on how many links have been added since that node's most recent link. Unfortunately, both measures can be defeated by sock puppets. This is probably the worst problem with your protocol as it stands right now; you need some central point to control the identities (keys) of the nodes and prevent people from making new sock puppets. Provable propagation would mean that When Bob accepts a new chain from Alice, he needs to make sure that Alice has (or gets) all transactions in his "A" and "L" pools. He sends them, and Alice sends back a signed hash to prove she got them. Once Alice has recieved this block of transactions, if any subsequent chains including a link added by Alice do not include those transactions at or before that link, then Bob should be able to publish the block he sent Alice, along with her signature, in a transaction as proof that Alice violated protocol. Sock puppets defeat this because Alice just signs subsequent chains using a new key, pretending to be a different node. If we go with varying the work factor depending on how many new links there are, then we're right back to domination by the 3 or 4 fastest nodes, except now they're joined by 600 or so sock puppets which they use to avoid the work factor penalty. If we solve the sock-puppet issue, or accept that there's a central point controlling the generation of new keys, then generation of coins should be tied to the act of successfully adding a block to the "consensus" chain. This is simple to do; creation of a coin is a transaction, it gets added along with all the other transactions in the block. But you can only create one coin per link, and of course if your version of the chain isn't the one that gets accepted, then in the "accepted" view you don't have the coin and can't spend it. This gives the people maintaining the consensus database a reason to spend CPU cycles, especially since the variance in work factor by number of links added since their own last link (outlined above) guarantees that everyone, not just the 3 or 4 fastest nodes, occasionally gets the opportunity to create a coin. Also, the work requirement for adding a link to the chain should vary (again exponentially) with the number of links added to that chain in the previous week, causing the rate of coin generation (and therefore inflation) to be strictly controlled. You need coin aggregation for this to scale. There needs to be a "provable" transaction where someone retires ten single coins and creates a new coin with denomination ten, etc. This is not too hard, using the same infrastructure you've already got; it simply becomes part of the chain, and when the chain is accepted consensus, then everybody can see that it happened. Bear --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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EDRi-gram newsletter - Number 10.3, 15 February 2012
by EDRI-gram newsletter 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRi-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 10.3, 15 February 2012 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. European Anti-ACTA protests from 11 February 2. European Commission discusses tactical, partial retreat on ACTA 3. European Commission "Roadmap" for review of the IPR Enforcement Directive 4. Hadopi takes the final steps towards cutting Internet access 5. Two Strikes in Germany? 6. Software-hardware bundling not accepted in France 7. UK: 3 million checks on criminal records in 2011 8. RFID - a dangerous fashion trend highlighted on German streets by FoeBuD 9. Irish ISP puts its customers' personal data at risk 10. EU DP Regulation Proposal: The French CNIL defends its turf 11. Recommended Action 12. Recommended Reading 13. Agenda 14. About ============================================================ 1. European Anti-ACTA protests of 11 February ============================================================ Several tens of thousands of citizens from an estimated 200 cities in Europe went out in the streets on a cold 11 February 2012, in a massive pan-european protest against ACTA and to support digital civil rights. Several EDRI members and observers have reported for the EDRi-gram on what happened in their countries. The biggest turnout was in Germany, where 100 000 protesters flooded the streets to demonstrate against the ACTA agreement. These massive protests in spite of sub-zero temperature have caught the attention of not only politicians but also media and the wider public completely by surprise. A day before, the German government backed down in face of this wave of online protest and postponed the signing of ACTA until the decision of the European Parliament. The demonstrations were organized entirely in a decentralized manner via the Internet. The participants were mostly very young and took part in a demonstration for the first time. In Berlin 10 000 people took the streets against ACTA, in Munich even 16 000. Never before have so many people protested for reforming copyright legislation and against overshooting surveillance of the digital realm. Because of the protests, ACTA became the main topic in the news in Germany and has remained so ever since. For the first time, these protests have ignited a wider debate on how the outdated copyright law can be adapted to the requirements of the digital age. Therefore, EDRi-member Digitale Gesellschaft e.V. demanded: "We must reform copyright but must not cement it with ACTA." In the capital of Bulgaria approx 6-8 000 people showed up in one of the largest demonstration since 1997, shouting slogans against ACTA and for Internet freedom. In some cases the local police did not allow the participants in Sofia to wear the Guy Fawkes - or "V" - masks and even asked for purchase proof for the laptops people brought at the event, to "make sure they were not stolen". Since the Austrian government signed ACTA on 26 January, a broad movement against the treaty has formed. It consists of activists in and around the EDRi member VIBE!AT, a group of former Pirate Party members who started their own initiative (netzfreiheit.org) political parties and representatives (the Greens, MEP Ehrenhauser and the Pirate Party) and Anonymous. Together, these different groups have dominated the public perception of ACTA. The efforts included: concentrated press releases to push the story out of the tech departments, press conferences held by ACTA opponents and discussions in independent media formats. The action peaked on 11 February when all over Austria close to 10 000 people took to the streets to protest against ACTA. Around 5 000 Romanians gathered in over 20 major cities, most of them in Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest, to demonstrate against ACTA. They were also chanting for Internet freedom and against surveillance. There are several national online petitions gathering more than 40 000 signatures asking for ACTA not to be ratified by the European Parliament or the national Parliament. After the publication of the information that the Czech Republic had signed ACTA, EDRi-member Iuridicum Remedium published a Czech translation of the campaign "Call your MPs" (EDRi). The media began to seriously inform about ACTA and the first debate about the agreement was held on 2 February. On 6 February the Czech government office issued a statement that the Czech Republic had stopped the ratification of ACTA, but that didn't stop several Czech cities to join the demonstration against ACTA on 11 February 2012. Around a thousand Hungarians gathered in Budapest for the country's first ACTA protest, with smaller rallies held in Szikesfihervar, Szeged and Pics. The demonstrations were organized by the Pirate Party movements and generated substantial media coverage. Close to a thousand Hungarians gathered in Budapest for the the nation's first ACTA protest, with smaller rallies also held in Szikesfihervar, Szeged and Pics. The demonstrations were organized by the Hungarian Anonymous Group, Occupy Budapest and the Pirate Party movement. In Finland about 400 people attended the anti-ACTA demonstration on 11 February in the streets of Helsinki. The demonstrations helped raise media attention, especially because earlier coverage on ACTA was very low. The Finnish Parliament is expected to discuss ACTA in Autumn 2012. Protesters also demonstrated against ACTA in The Netherlands. People in various cities, including Amsterdam and Rotterdam, faced the cold and expressed their discontent with ACTA. In Amsterdam some 250 people gathered in Dam Square where there were some improvised speeches. MEP Marietje Schaake visited the demonstration. Halfway in the afternoon, about half of the demonstrators made an improvised march through the city. In Brussels, around 300 people protested in the city centre shouting slogans against ACTA and rolling out a huge banner: "ACTA: Sharing culture is a now crime - Thank you EU!" Participants included local politicians, representatives from several Belgian NGOs (such as Constant, datapanik and Nurpa), international NGO AccessNow.org, press people and many Anonymous masks. Around 500 protesters also gathered in central London outside the offices of rights holder representative groups to protest against ACTA. There are several online petitions against ACTA gathering milllions ofore than 40 000 signatures (the Access global petition has almost 400 000 and the Avaaz petition has over 2 million signatures already). Pictures from demonstrations on 11.02.2012 Sofia http://www.dnevnik.bg/photos/2012/02/11/1764407_fotogaleriia_protestut_sres… Austria http://fotos.stopp-acta.at/ Czech Republic http://www.rozhlas.cz/zpravy/spolecnost/_galerie/1017187?type=image&pozice=1 Germany http://netzpolitik.org/2012/bilder-von-berliner-anti-acta-demo/ Romania http://www.facebook.com/spune.nu.acta?sk=photos Bruxelles https://secure.flickr.com/photos/hermapix/sets/72157629276115405/ Hungary http://bit.ly/xlAkEa Finland http://www.flickr.com/photos/charris87/sets/72157629270109515/ Several European cities http://www.numerama.com/magazine/21630-manif-anti-acta-les-meilleures-photo… Videos from demonstrations on 11.02.2012 Sofia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y59XxJoStA Austria http://youtu.be/ViXKnH_Vnu8 Bucharest http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2st38pe5CQ Czech Republic http://www.stopacta.cz/videa.html Hungary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Hscb-HGPc Amsterdam http://www.youtube.com/user/koelkast30 Helsinki http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0CdQIDbujI National platforms against ACTA Austria http://stopp-acta.at Czech Republic http://www.stopacta.cz Romania http://www.stopacta.ro UK http://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/stopacta Global petition against ACTA and map of protests https://www.accessnow.org/policy-activism/press-blog/acta-protest-feb-11 Aaavaz Petition: ACTA: The new threat to the net https://secure.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet_spread/ (contributions by several EDRi members and observers) ============================================================ 2. European Commission discusses tactical, partial retreat on ACTA ============================================================ At the meeting of the heads of cabinet of the European Commission on Monday of this week, Commissioner De Gucht's representative announced that a referral of ACTA to the Court of Justice of the European Union is currently being considered. The minutes of the meeting, which have been obtained by EDRi, say that the head of cabinet described the "strong mobilisation" against the Agreement by "certain NGOs and movements active on the Internet" and stated that a referral of the Agreement to the Court of Justice is being considered. It is noteworthy that the suggestion is only to check the compatibility of ACTA with primary EU law. Such a referral, depending on how it is framed, risks being quite vague and may not lead to a comprehensive response. However, any broadly favourable response from the Court would most certainly be used to push through the Agreement, on the basis that the ruling "proves" that there is no problem. The head of cabinet added that it is necessary to instigate a period of reflection on how the EU should position itself on this issue and to make an effort to go beyond the argument that growth in the digital economy is only possible with adequate protection of intellectual property. The Secretary General of the Commission closed the discussion by saying the Commission would return to the dossier in due course, after a "period of thorough reflection." This brief exchange of views exposes a number of interesting points. Firstly, the Commission, and Commissioner De Gucht in particular, were clearly profoundly impressed by the weekend's demonstrations, contrary to the Commission's public statements. Secondly, the Commission now has sufficient doubts regarding the legality of the Agreement, again contrary to the Commission's public statements, that a request for confirmation of legality from the European Union's highest court is being seriously considered. Finally, the comments of the Secretary General clearly show that she sees a need for the Commission to think again. Bearing in mind the extreme credibility problems of the European Commission on this dossier, any hint that such a referral is a delaying tactic, to wait until the furore surrounding the Agreement has died down, will further inflame the tensions around ACTA. The Commission must finally recognise the breadth of serious criticism of ACTA, from thirteen members of the Sakharov Network of winners of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, from the European Data Protection Supervisor, from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, from the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression (in his general comments on privatised online enforcement), from the group of European Academics and the European Economic and Social Committee. It may be comfortable to caricature critics of ACTA as ill-informed anti-IPR activists. As with many comfortable assumptions, it is wrong, it is insulting and it is counterproductive. EDRi will write to the European Commission in order to warn of the dangers of being perceived to be manipulating the decision-making process by sending a weakly framed question to the Court of Justice or claiming that this will give a comprehensive answer to critics' concerns. The Commission needs to draw the consequences of the need for "thorough reflection" and use all legal and research options at its disposal to address the problem of the likely incompatibility of ACTA with primary and secondary European Union law. This needs to be done in a comprehensive manner. Furthermore, if the Commission does indeed want "a period of thorough reflection," it should also undertake a thorough impact assessment, in order to study the possible impact of ACTA, regardless of the legality of the Agreement. By adopting ACTA, a decision would be made to make it impossible to reform key aspects of the 2004 IPR Enforcement before reviewing their impact and to export those measures to other countries, a decision would be made to encourage the Internet companies abroad to police their networks and potentially use this power to restrict access to markets, a decision is being made to impose disproportionate rules on damages and impose a grossly unsatisfactory set of criteria for imposing criminal sanctions for infringements. It is time for a full and independent impact assessment. Why would the Commission reject this request? Perhaps this is the one time that the phrase "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" actually makes sense. If all of this is done, we will find ourselves in about two years in the position we should be in already - with a legal proposal, backed up with an impact assessment that can be discussed on its merits. Sakharov Prize winners: Online Freedoms threatened by another step towards treaty's adoption (15.12.2011) http://en.rsf.org/union-europeenne-online-freedoms-threatened-by-15-12-2011… EDPS: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: EDPS warns about its potential incompatibility with EU data protection regime (22.02.2010) http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/EDPS/… OSCE media representative urges European Parliament to reassess ACTA to safeguard freedom of expression (14.02.2012) http://www.osce.org/fom/88154 UN Special Rapporteur - Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue (16.05.2011) http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/17session/A.HRC.17.27_e… Academics' Opinion on ACTA (11.02.2011) http://www.iri.uni-hannover.de/tl_files/pdf/ACTA_opinion_110211_DH2.pdf Economic and Social Committee on IPR Strategy (12.01.2012) https://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/EESC_on_IPR_Strategy IPR Enforcement Directive http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32004L0048R%280… (Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi) ============================================================ 3. European Commission "Roadmap" for review of the IPR Enforcement Directive ============================================================ The European Commission recently published a "roadmap" to the review of the Directive on Intellectual Property Enforcement (2004/48/EC). As it is becoming traditional, the Commission neatly mixes up all kinds of infringements, from dangerous fake medicines to illegal downloads and seeks a "one size fits all" solution. In addition, the previously published implementation report graphically describes the breakdown in the credibility and perceived legitimacy of copyright in the digital environment (referring, for example, to "ubiquitous" infringements). Faced with the unquestionable failure (hence the calls for a review) of the existing "one size fits" all legal framework and the seemingly obvious need to reform the legal framework for copyright, the approach is to plough forward with increased enforcement, as well as increased involvement of the private sector in practical law enforcement. A non-committal statement that "measures aimed at promoting the legal offer" is made but not expanded upon. Interestingly, the "road map" explains that the current Directive's definition of "commercial scale" needs to be clarified, in order to ensure that individual consumers are not targeted. This is quite significant, because the definition is significantly narrower than the one in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). This raises a fundamental question - how can the EU be so confident that ACTA's definition of "commercial scale" will not lead to disproportionate criminalisation of end-users, when it believes that a more precise definition risks leading to disproportionate measures against citizens in civil law? It is also somewhat surprising to note that no problem has been identified regarding the provision of personal data by Internet intermediaries - despite the widespread of abuse of both process and data, particularly in the UK and Germany. The focus instead is on developing the tools for obtaining "evidence" from intermediaries. It must be pointed out, of course, that much of what is in the IPR Enforcement Directive is proposed in ACTA. As a result, as long as the European Commission harbours hopes of being able to ratify that agreement, it will consider itself to be prevented from making or even considering any significant changes or improvements to this Directive. Roadmap on IPRED (01.2012) http://ec.europa.eu/governance/impact/planned_ia/docs/2011_markt_006_review… ACTA http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/11/st12/st12196.en11.pdf IPR Enforcement Directive Implementation Report (22.12.2010) http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2010:0779:FIN:EN:… (Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi) ============================================================ 4. Hadopi takes the final steps towards cutting Internet access ============================================================ French authority Hadopi announced on 13 February 2012 that its Commission for the Protection of Rights had sent the first complaints to court against Internet users for illegal downloading of files as the last stage in its three-strike system. Since November 2010, more than 800 000 French Internet users have received e-mail alerts that they were suspected of illegal downloading of copyrighted material. Out of these, about 45 000 considered recidivists received a letter of warning and after six months around 165 seem to have been convened by the Commission on the Protection of Rights to be sent to court for a decision to have their Internet connection cut. Although a precise number has not been revealed, a Hadopi spokesperson stated the cases had been sent to the prosecutors all over France, according to the residence places of the accused Internet users. The Prosecutor's Office will process cases and decide whether to take them to court which may apply a maximum fine of 1 500 euro and a 1 month suspension of the Internet service. The offence that the Internet users are being accused is of not implementing a system to "secure" their Internet connection or not having made efforts to make such as system operates properly. Hadopi produces as proof of the offence only the proceedings drafted by the assigned agents on the basis of the findings provided by the company hired by the rightsholders. The law allows for a speedy simplified procedure for Hadopi where there is no need to hear the defendant and through which the court may apply sanctions if "it comes out from the judicial investigation that the facts the user is accused of, are simple and proven." The ministry of justice has even issued a letter asking the prosecutor offices to avoid, except for particular cases, a more detailed investigation because the proofs provided by Hadopi are enough to prove the offence. "This is the myth of the pedagogical Hadopi that slumps. All those who wanted to make you believe that Hadopi was a device meant only to sensitize young Internet users on copyright, are now facing their own contradictions" said Aurilie Filippetti, in charge of culture for the presidential candidate Frangois Hollande's campaign. Hadopi transmits its first cases to court! (only in French, 13.02.2012) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/21634-hadopi-transmet-ses-premiers-dossier… Internet users sent to court by Hadopi (only in French, 13.02.2012) http://www.lepoint.fr/chroniqueurs-du-point/emmanuel-berretta/exclusif-les-… Hadopi: the first cases sent to court. But how many? (only in French, 13.02.2012) http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/hadopi-les-premiers-dossiers-transmis-a-la-j… EDRi-gram: French Internet users on the verge of being disconnected (5.10.2011) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number9.19/hadopi-report-france-18-months ============================================================ 5. Two Strikes in Germany? ============================================================ On 3 February 2012, the German Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) published a comparative study on graduated response systems in Europe which have been established to fight against copyright infringements on the Internet. The study looked at the situation in France, UK and Ireland. Regarding the Hadopi system in France, the study found that one of the main results and successes is the drop by 31% of peer-to-peer between April 2010 and April 2011, thus completely ignoring the rising use of streaming and VPN in France. Even though the study admits that illegal filesharing has "not caused any serious collapse in the turnover of the industry" (p. 61), the Ministry recommends the introduction of a "two strikes" or "pre-litigation" model for Germany. According to the study, this model should be based on a combination of "educational notifications" and the disclosure of information to rightsholders. The Secretary of State Hans-Joachim Otto considered the study a valuable basis for the future discussions regarding online piracy. However, cutting off users from the Internet has been ruled out. As significant grounds for concern were already well known (it is widely understood to have been mainly written by media lobbyists and rightsholders), EDRi-member Digitale Gesellschaft published a shadow report. It pointed out that existing models raise significant and fundamental data protection problems. For instance, the Irish voluntary three-strikes system is currently experiencing legal difficulties due to such concern and numerous complaints to the data protection authority. In Ireland, hundreds of notifications were received by innocent users. The shadow report also highlighted the high costs for the French state compared to the almost non-existing benefits for the economy. The shadow report concluded that all efforts and means should be focused on the creation of attractive offers instead of repressive measures and recommended a general reform of outdated copyright laws. Shadow report of the Digital Gesellschaft (only in German, 02.2012) http://digitalegesellschaft.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/schattenbericht-d… Long version of the BMWi study (only in German, 01.2012) http://www.bmwi.de/BMWi/Redaktion/PDF/Publikationen/Technologie-und-Innovat… (Contribution by Kirsten Fielder - EDRi) ============================================================ 6. Software-hardware bundling not accepted in France ============================================================ The giant Lenovo computer hardware manufacturer that sold computers with Windows OS included suffered a defeat in a French court of Aix-en-Provence in a case introduced by a French customer. This is another case in a long line of defeats in France for companies that sell computers who include mandatory unwanted software licences in their products' sales. The case was brought to court in 2007 by Mr. Pitrus who decided to buy a Lenovo laptop. As the laptop was not offered for sale without a Windows Vista license and as he was using GNU-Linux, Mr. Pitrus rejected the Windows Vista End User License Agreement (EULA) and contacted Lenovo to obtain a refund. His request being denied, he brought the case to court. After a first negative ruling in the court of Tarascon, the French Court of Cassation reversed the judgment in a decisive ruling in November 2010 and sent back the case to a court in Aix-en-Provence. The final judgement obliged Lenovo to pay the plaintiff 120 euro as a refund for the software, but also 800 euro for personal damages and 1000 euro for legal expenses. The judge insisted on the distinction between hardware and software and rejected Lenovo's argument that the sale in question was that of "complex products made of an assembly of indispensable components for the definition of a product as desired by the manufacturer". The company even compared the sale of the computer which cannot operate without the software to that of a car which cannot run without wheels. The judge explained that the hardware is the object of a sale contract giving the owner full right over it after having paid for it. On the other hand, the supply of software is the provision of a service which gives only the right to usage of the software (fact which is actually stipulated in the licence of the software). Moreover, joking over the comparison made by Lenovo with the car and wheels, he considered that a better comparison would be that of selling a car with a driver included. This is a real victory and this significant decision is a positive precedent as the legal ground of the ruling was European directive 2005/29/CE on unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market, which could be used again as legal argument in similar cases in all EU countries. Hardware-software bundling crumbles in France (6.02.2012) http://no.more.racketware.info/news/hardware-software-bundling-crumbles-fra… Condemnation of Lenovo, symbol of computer and software bundled sale (only in French, 6.02.2012) http://non.aux.racketiciels.info/nouvelles/condamnation-lenovo-symbole-vent… Court's Decision (only in French, 9.01.2012) http://www.cuifavocats.com/IMG/pdf/20120109_JproxAixEnProvence_PetruscLevov… Pitrus vs. Lenovo: the supply of unsolicited software is a unfair commercial practice (only in French, 6.02.2012) http://www.cuifavocats.com/Petrus-c-Lenovo-la-fourniture-de List of similar French cases (only in French) http://non.aux.racketiciels.info/documentation/droit/#jugements-proximite-e… ============================================================ 7. UK: 3 million checks on criminal records in 2011 ============================================================ UK Privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch has recently revealed that almost 3 million Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks were carried out in England and Wales in 2011 by almost 4000 registered bodies. The figures basically say that 1 in 17 Britons was checked and that a large number of organizations had access to the individuals' private data without the knowledge of the individuals in question. Big Brother Watch said the figures were "a sad indictment of a country that has lost all sight of proportion and has substituted common sense for a piece of paper". CRB checks were meant to protect children from coming into contact with dangerous adults but the reality is that any person with or without a conviction or a simple caution which has nothing to do with children, based on a CRB check, may be considered as a dangerous criminal. And an even more worrying aspect is that the system has proven wrong time and again leading to perfectly innocent people being considered sex offenders and losing their jobs. In 2010, Big Brother Watch already revealed the inaccuracies and inefficiencies of the CRB system (which should be entirely reliable) which have been adding up to an average of 7 errors a day since 2004. On 9 February 2012, High Court judge Kenneth Parker suggested that the CRB system was disproportionate and not compatible with the right to private life stipulated by the European Convention on Human Rights and that the issue fully deserved to be considered by the Court of Appeal. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg stated the system would be scaled back and the Protection of Freedoms Bill included plans to ease Criminal Records Bureau checks. Regarding the respective changes, Home Office minister Lord Henley stated: "What we are trying to do is create a system that will provide the necessary safeguards but does not make parents feel that their children are automatically safe - parents must still have the duty of looking after their children by warning them of potential dangers," adding at the same time that schools and other organisations would be allowed to insist on CRB checks. 3 Million Background Checks in 2011 (10.02.2012) http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2012/02/3-million-background-checks-… The Grim Consequences of CRB Mistakes (22.04.2010) http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2010/04/the-grim-consequences-of-crb… CRB checks 'near 3m' says Big Brother Watch (10.02.2012) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16970424 Student in legal challenge to criminal record of GMP warning for stealing bikes when he was aged 11 (9.02.2012) http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1485057_student-in-legal… ============================================================ 8. RFID - a dangerous fashion trend highlighted on German streets by FoeBuD ============================================================ On 11 January 2012, EDRi member FoeBuD staged an event on a shopping street in Bielefeld, Germany, to raise awareness about RFID tags ("spy chips") in clothing. FoeBuD played an important role in putting this issue on the political agenda in 2003, when major German retailer Metro AG conducted RFID field trials in a model supermarket, dubbed "Future Store". While RFID roll-outs in supermarkets have not occurred as quickly as expected at that time (probably due in part to the concerns raised by privacy advocates), recently the fashion industry seems to have taken a lead in introducing RFID in goods sold to and carried by consumers. RFID ("Radio Frequency Identification") tags are tiny chips with an antenna, whish respond to a radio signal by transmitting back some previously stored data including their unique serial number. Because every single chip can be recognised by this ID, an RFID tag is not just a contactless product bar code - it allows every individual item to be identified. This makes RFID a very interesting technology for retail logistics. But an RFID tag on a highly personal item (such as a piece of clothing) could identify its owner if the owner's personal data somehow becomes available - if the owner makes a payment with a card, for example. The owner's data does not need to be stored on the chip itself, it could be related to the chip's ID via an external database. Personal tracking becomes a distinct possibility, indeed a patent for this has been granted in the US. RFID data transmissions cannot be seen or heard, so FoeBuD looked for a way to visualise the threat to any passer-by on a regular shopping street. An RFID reader was connected to a portable computer and projector, which beamed any RFID data that was read onto a "speech bubble"-shaped banner. Suddenly it was there for anyone to see that RFID-tagged clothes are effectively announcing an identity to every "interested" party reading the device at a distance of up to 10 metres (approximately, and depending on the type of RFID chip and reader). At this event, FoeBuD targeted local fashion company Gerry Weber and Italian fashion brand Peuterey (which had received a German Big Brother Award from FoeBuD in 2011 for introducing RFID in a particularly secretive way). Gerry Weber had actually been in contact with FoeBuD about their RFID roll-out, but had ultimately chosen not to implement a fundamental requirement: that the RFID tags be detached from every item at the point of sale, without the customer having to ask for this. The FoeBuD activists had alerted Gerry Weber about their action and were met by the company's CIO and RFID project leader, and later by the company's owner Gerhard Weber himself, who regrettably did not show a lot of understanding towards the activists' concerns. But at least it is possible to tear off Gerry Weber's RFID tags. In contrast, Peuterey does not give any in-store information to its customers, and their RFID tags are sown in beneath a label imprinted "do not remove this label". FoeBuD's event and their demand that all RFID tags be removed or permanently disabled at the point of sale were covered by the regional TV and by newspapers across Germany. The group hopes to keep the momentum going. FoeBuD's coverage about their action, with pictures (only in German, 01.2012) http://www.foebud.org/rfid/wdr-sendung-markt-kleidungsstuecke-mit-rfid-schn… Coverage by regional public TV station WDR (only in German, 16.01.2012) http://www.wdr.de/tv/markt/sendungsbeitraege/2012/0116/01_rfid-chips.jsp Privacy advocates discover RFID chips in clothing (only in German, 16.01.2012) http://www.zeit.de/digital/datenschutz/2012-01/foebud-rfid-gerry-weber Why RFID tags are a danger to consumers (only in German, 18.01.2012) http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/2.220/rfid-aufkleber-als-schnueffelchips… BigBrotherAward 2011 to Peuterey (English summary, full speech in German) https://www.bigbrotherawards.de/2011/.tec BigBrotherAward 2003 to Metro (available in English and German) https://www.bigbrotherawards.de/2003/.cop Report on Metro's "Future Store" and 2003/04 RFID scandal: http://www.spychips.com/metro/overview.html US patent 7,076,441 on "Identification and tracking of persons using RFID-tagged items in store environments" http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/ne… (Contribution by Sebastian Lisken, EDRi member FoeBuD - Germany) ============================================================ 9. Irish ISP puts its customers' personal data at risk ============================================================ Personal data of more than 6 800 current and former customers of Eircom's (biggest Irish ISP) mobile divisions may be at risk after three unencrypted laptops have been stolen, two from the company offices in Parkwest Dublin during 28 December 2011 - 2 January 2012 and one from an employee's home on 19 December 2011. Eircom stated that most of the data involved were personal data including name, address and telephone numbers, but in some cases passport, driving licence numbers or utility bills and for about 550 customers the data on one of the laptops included financial information such as bank accounts, debit and credit card information. Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes considers the breach as one of the most serious ones and said that Eircom had put its customers at risk of identity theft. He also criticised the company for the delay in announcing people of the thefts that would have given them the opportunity to protect themselves. "Our normal delay in getting reports in is 24 to 48 hours which is our guideline for reports of such incidents. So I find it very surprising to hear that reason being given by Eircom," said Hawkes as a reaction to Eircom's statement that the delay in reporting came from the fact that the company had tried to find out what data had been breached. Furthermore, as Hawkes said, Eircom as a telecom company was supposed to have higher protection standards and therefore it was "very surprising that in two separate incidents Eircom laptops were not encrypted." His conclusion is that "telecommunications companies have a huge amount of data on all of us and should be subject to more stringent requirements." Eircom stated the incidents had been immediately reported to the police, two separate investigations were ongoing and that there was no evidence that the lost data has been used by a third party. "Eircom treats privacy and protection of all data extremely seriously and we have taken the following pro-active measures to address the situation. As a precautionary step, we have contacted the Irish Banking Federation, who has notified their members of the potential risk to data for affected eMobile and Meteor customers." The company also stated it would contact by telephone those customers whose financial data was potentially at risk, and would send letters to all affected customers to notify them of the breach. The fact that the laptops in question were unencrypted was considered as inexcusable and according to data protection consultant Daragh O'Brien the delay in alerting the commissioner's office suggested faulty prevention and detection policies in Eircom. Information security consultant Brian Honan also said that companies were obliged, under various laws, to ensure the proper security of information such as card payment information. According to Eircom, a review of the group's encryption policy is in progress "to ensure all computers and laptops are compliant with the group's encryption policy." Eircom customer data breached (10.02.2012) http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0210/breaking9.html Press Release - eircom Group Statement on Laptop Theft http://pressroom.eircom.net/press_releases/article/eircom_Group_Statement_o… Eircom slammed for laptop and data loss (13.02.2012) http://www.scmagazineuk.com/eircom-slammed-for-laptop-and-data-loss/article… ============================================================ 10. ENDitorial: EU DP Regulation Proposal: The French CNIL defends its turf ============================================================ The French CNIL was one of the first national Data Protection Authority (DPA) to react to the publication, by the European Commission, of its Data Protection Framework Proposal on 25 January 2012. In a very negative press release published the day after, while quickly welcoming "substantial improvements that were expected and necessary", the CNIL develops surprising arguments to justify its particular concern, namely that "the defence of data protection" would be "driven apart from citizens". CNIL's anger is directed at Article 51 provision, defining the competent DPA. This article provides that the competent supervisory authority shall be the one "of main establishment of the data controller or processor". When examining CNIL's arguments, one might wonder whether it has carefully and entirely read the proposed Regulation before showing such a reaction. This impression is even strengthened when learning about CNIL's intense lobbying towards the French Parliament and Government, which need to provide their opinion during the EC proposal discussion process. Actually, the European Affairs Commission of the French National Assembly has already adopted a resolution in line with the CNIL's opinion, and the Constitutional Laws Commission of the French Senate is currently conducting hearings (inviting inter alia French EDRi- ember IRIS to provide its views on 14 January), before adopting its own resolution on the proposed EC Data Protection Framework (this French Parliament quick process is determined by next Presidential elections, meaning that the Parliament will have to stop its work early March 2012). Arguments put forward by the CNIL could easily be refuted, especially since some of them are based on a wrong or partial interpretation of the proposed Regulation. The CNIL claims that the provision "will reduce the national DPAs role to that of a mailbox"; "will deprive widely the citizens of the protection offered by their national authority"; "will constitute a real regression of citizens' rights", which "would finally be less protected than consumer rights" given that consumer laws allows for the competence of the consumer's jurisdiction. Interestingly enough, the CNIL gives as example "a web user having a problem with a social network which main establishment is in another member state". Furthermore, the CNIL fears that the provision will lead to "forum shopping" practices by companies when they decide on their country of main establishment, a situation that would end not only in "dumbing down" of citizens' data protection, but also in putting at risk the French economy! Finally, the CNIL "considers that the proposed scheme leads to a centralization of the regulation of privacy in the hands of a limited number of authorities", and that "the European Commission will also benefit from an important normative power". It is true that the EC will play an important role, that could be balanced through improving the powers, independence and processing of the European Data Protection Board (Chapter VII of the Regulation) and the national Supervisory Authorities (Chapter VI) as well as, of course, the substantive provisions of the data protection principles themselves, as EDRI pointed out in its initial comments and will detail further in the process. However, the CNIL seems to ignore the difference between a Regulation and a Directive! The very reason for the EC choice for the former is indeed the fact that a Regulation goes far beyond simply harmonizing the national laws, to rather impose the same law to all Member States, requiring in addition that same independence and powers be allowed to all national DPAs. Given this new situation, why a French citizen would be less protected by, say, the German DPA than by the CNIL? Especially since, even currently, French citizens and privacy defenders would have appreciated to see the CNIL taking the position of other Member States DPAs on some particular issues. Moreover, through the European Data Protection Board proceedings, European citizens could only benefit from the emulation among DPAs: they will have to be accountable to and controlled by each other. The national DPA would certainly not be "reduced to a mailbox" in this game, since its role will be essential here, and is guaranteed by provisions of Articles 55-56 and 66. Moreover, Article 73-75 provides for better democratic control and recourses not only by citizens, but also by non profit associations such as privacy watchdogs or human rights organizations acting in their names. The example provided by CNIL of a social network as the data controller and processor is particularly misleading and perverse: as a matter of fact, while Article 51 provision only concerns companies established in the EU, many French Members of Parliaments already interpreted this example as the future impossibility for the CNIL to impose penalty on major US companies, such as Facebook (or Google which it already sanctioned). Furthermore, the "forum shopping" risk is ridiculous: who on earth could reasonably think that a company will choose its country of main establishment according to data protection law (which, again, will in addition be the same in all EU countries), rather than on the basis of taxation and labour laws and practices?! Who on earth could reasonably think that French economy would be put at risk by the CNIL's "superpowers"?! Many other counter-arguments can be found in the text of the proposed Regulation itself (such as the provided exceptions in Articles 80-83 and other provisions as well). The fact is that, rather than raising sound arguments towards improving the current proposal (and this is indeed much needed), the CNIL currently seems to only be busy defending its turf. Ungloriously. CNIL - Draft EU Regulation on data protection: the defense of data protection driven apart from citizens (31.01.2012 original in French on 26.01.2012) http://www.cnil.fr/english/news-and-events/news/article/draft-eu-regulation… CNIL - Draft EU regulation: the CNIL welcomes the French Parliament commitment (only in French, 08.02.2012) http://www.cnil.fr/la-cnil/actualite/article/article/projet-de-reglement-eu… French National Assembly - EU Affairs Commission Resolution on Draft EU DP Framework (only in French, 07.02.2012) http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/13/propositions/pion4227.asp French Senate - Oral Question and public discussion on privacy and data protection (only in French, 08.02.2012) http://www.senat.fr/seances/s201202/s20120208/s20120208_mono.html#Niv1_SOM3 EDRi - Initial Comments On The Proposal For A Data Protection Regulation (27.01.2012) http://www.edri.org/CommentsDPR (Contribution by Meryem Marzouki, EDRI-member IRIS - France) ============================================================ 11. Recommended Action ============================================================ Petition: Support the establishment of a common European OpenData license within the review of the Public Sector Information re-use Directive Deadline: 1 March 2012 Available in Spanish and English http://actuable.es/peticiones/say-to-neeliekroeseu-we-want-single-opendata-… ============================================================ 12. Recommended Reading ============================================================ EDRi papers: DRM - The strange, broken world of the digital rights management http://www.edri.org/files/2012EDRiPapers/DRM.pdf ACTA Survival Guide For Website Owners (7.02.2012) http://www.edri.org/ACTAhowto 10 European Commission Myths About ACTA (8.02.2012) http://www.edri.org/commission_myths Sharing: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age - By Philippe Aigrain (3.02.2012) http://www.laquadrature.net/en/sharing-culture-and-the-economy-in-the-inter… ============================================================ 13. Agenda ============================================================ 25 February 2012, Szeged, Hungary Copyright and Human Rights in the Information Age: Conflict or Harmonious Coexistence http://www.juris.u-szeged.hu/english/news/conference-on-copyright 7 March 2012, Amsterdam, Netherlands Big Brother Awards Netherlands 2012 https://www.bigbrotherawards.nl/ 16 March 2012, Rotterdam, Netherlands EPSIplatform Conference: Taking government data re-use to the next level! http://epsiplatform.eventbrite.com/ 30 March - 1 April 2012, Berlin, Germany Wikimedia Chapters Meeting 2012 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2012 13 April 2012, Biefeld, Germany Big Brother Awards Germany http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/ 16-18 April 2012, Cambridge, UK Cambridge 2012: Innovation and Impact - Openly Collaborating to Enhance Education OER12 and the OCW Consortium's Global Conference http://conference.ocwconsortium.org/index.php/2012/uk 2-4 May 2012, Berlin, Germany Re:Publica 2012: ACTION! http://re-publica.de/12/en 14-15 June 2012, Stockholm, Sweden EuroDIG 2012 http://www.eurodig.org/ 20-22 June 2012, Paris, France 2012 World Open Educational Resources Congress http://www.unesco.org/webworld/en/oer 2-6 July 2012, Budapest, Hungary Policies and Practices in Access to Digital Archives: Towards a New Research and Policy Agenda http://www.summer.ceu.hu/sites/default/files/course_files/Policies-and-Prac… 9-10 July 2012, Barcelona, Spain 8th International Conference on Internet Law & Politics: Challenges and Opportunities of Online Entertainment http://edcp.uoc.edu/symposia/idp2012/cfp/?lang=en 11-13 July 2012, Vigo, Spain The 12th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS 2012) http://petsymposium.org/2012/ 12-14 September 2012, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium Building Institutions for Sustainable Scientific, Cultural and genetic Resources Commons. http://biogov.uclouvain.be/iasc/index.php 7-10 October 2012, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2012 Amsterdam Privacy Confernece http://www.ivir.nl/news/CallforPapersAPC2012.pdf ============================================================ 14. About ============================================================ EDRi-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRi has 28 members based or with offices in 18 different countries in Europe. European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the EDRi-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and are visible on the EDRi website. Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation. http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring http://flattr.com/thing/417077/edri-on-Flattr - EDRI-gram subscription information subscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: subscribe You will receive an automated e-mail asking to confirm your request. Unsubscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: unsubscribe - EDRI-gram in Macedonian EDRI-gram is also available partly in Macedonian, with delay. Translations are provided by Metamorphosis http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/edri/2.html - EDRI-gram in German EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided Andreas Krisch from the EDRI-member VIBE!AT - Austrian Association for Internet Users http://www.unwatched.org/ - Newsletter archive Back issues are available at: http://www.edri.org/edrigram - Help Please ask <edrigram(a)edri.org> if you have any problems with subscribing or unsubscribing. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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