TorrentFreak Email Update

Take Action to Protect Your Privacy on The Internet

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 03:15 AM PST

Two years ago, websites including Google, Wikipedia, Reddit and the one you’re reading now, took drastic action to protect the Internet. In an inspiring show of collective defiance, hundreds of websites went dark to protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act, a rising piece of legislation with the potential to increase censorship and hamper innovation.

Sparked and guided by Aaron Swartz, the end result of the movement was nothing short of ground-breaking. The unity shown on January 18, 2012, led to Congress backing down and forcing some of the world’s most powerful copyright-focused companies into retreat. SOPA was done, but an even bigger issue was just around the corner.

Revelations by Edward Snowden, that unveiled a shocking level of mass surveillance being carried out by the U.S. government and its allies, caused turmoil around the world. Their plan was to become the all-seeing all-knowing eye, spying on communications everywhere and sucking up mind-boggling quantities of electronic data both on-and-offline.

These authorities now routinely spy on the Internet, telephone calls and other communication channels used by their very own citizens, undermining the basic level of privacy people believed would be upheld by their own democratically elected governments. The mantra that those who have nothing to hide have nothing to worry about holds no water, as entities including the NSA and GCHQ systematically spy wherever they like, whether their targets are suspected of crimes or not.

But today is a special day. Thousands of websites, this one included, will join together to demand progress towards restoring our right to privacy and the reigning in of mass surveillance. Two years after the historic SOPA protests, The Day We Fight Back has arrived.

Today’s anti-surveillance web protest, held in memory of hacktivist Aaron Swartz, is being headed up by a coalition including Demand Progress, Access, EFF, and sites such as Reddit, Mozilla and BoingBoing. It provides an unprecedented opportunity to fight back against the greatest invasion of privacy the world has ever known.

“Today the greatest threat to a free Internet, and broader free society, is the National Security Agency’s mass spying regime,” says David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress.

“If Aaron were alive he’d be on the front lines, fighting back against these practices that undermine our ability to engage with each other as genuinely free human beings.”

While Aaron is tragically no longer with us, all Internet users concerned about the activities of the NSA can step up to the front lines and fight back with a few clicks.

1. Visit TheDayWeFightBack.org
2. Sign up to indicate that you’ll participate and receive updates.
3. Install widgets on websites encouraging its visitors to fight back against surveillance.
4. Use the social media tools on the site to announce your participation.
5. Develop memes, tools, websites, and do whatever else you can to participate — and encourage others to do the same.

While a large proportion of Internet users have been blind-sided by the revelations of the past year, being monitored is something that those connected to the file-sharing scene have become aware of for a decade or more. Privacy solutions have existed for some time but it took the launch of the Pirate Party-affiliated Relakks VPN service in 2006 to really boost the awareness of encrypted communications in the file-sharing space. Today, privacy companies including Private Internet Access will join the protests.

Many hundreds of thousands – millions – of file-sharers and other privacy conscious individuals currently and routinely encrypt their communications in order to mitigate the effects of online spying. But while that’s a good day-to-day solution, more needs to be done.

Fighting back requires people to contact politicians and lawmakers and urge them to engage on the issues of cyber surveillance and other dangers to the free Internet. But be warned. Unlike the fight against SOPA this battle won’t be over in a month or two. The Day We Fight Back will go on for much, much longer.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.

IIPA: Canada is a Magnet for “Rogue” Sites and Persistent Pirates

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 08:48 AM PST

The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has just published its latest submission to the U.S. Government, providing an overview of countries it believes should better protect the interests of the copyright industry.

The IIPA, which includes a wide range of copyright groups including the MPAA, RIAA, BSA and ESA, has listed its complaints against a whole host of countries. As in previous years, Canada was discussed in detail with the recommendation to put it on the 2014 Special 301 ‘watch list’.

One of the main grievances against Canada is that the country offers a home to many sites which the copyright industries label as “rogue” businesses. This includes the recently shut down isoHunt.com as well as other popular torrent sites such as torrentz.eu and kickass.to.

“Even after the shuttering of Isohunt, Canada is still the home to some of the world's most popular Internet sites dedicated to piracy, including torrentz.eu and kickass.to, which garnered rankings of third and second place, respectively, on one of the most widely accessed listings of the world's most popular illicit BitTorrent sites,” IIPA writes.

The copyright holders further mention the linking sites cuevana.tv, free-tv-video-online.me, and solarmovie.so as having Canadian connections, as well as the smaller torrent sites fenopy.se and monova.org. Without proper enforcement action against them, Canada remains very attractive to these allegedly infringing sites, they claim.

“It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Canada remains a magnet for sites whose well-understood raison d'être is to facilitate and enable massive unauthorized downloading of pirated versions of feature films, TV shows, recorded music, entertainment software, and other copyright materials,” IIPA writes.

“The largest of these Canadian-hosted sites attract scores of millions of unique visitors every month, and their corrosive effects on legitimate markets are felt worldwide,” they add.

The United States should encourage Canada to take action against these sites, the industry groups recommend. Without proper action the country will not just remain a safe haven for infringing websites, but also a breeding ground for new generations of Internet pirates.

According to the IIPA, current policies have resulted in widespread piracy among Canadian Internet users, with instances twice as frequent as in the United States.

“In this environment, it is not surprising that Canadians continue to demonstrate a formidable propensity to patronize illegal online sources of copyright material, thus stunting the availability and growth of legal alternatives,” IIPA writes.

“A report released in September 2012 found that, on a per-capita basis, Canadians download more unauthorized music than residents of any other country, and two-and-one-half times as much as Americans,” the groups add.

“Canadians continue to demonstrate a formidable propensity to patronize illegal online sources of copyright material, thus stunting the availability and growth of legal alternatives.”

The industry groups further recommend that Internet providers should partner with copyright holders to tackle the ongoing piracy problems. While some ISPs already forward infringement notices to their customers, they note that repeated infringers go unpunished.

Due to this “glaring weakness” the current copyright infringement warnings sent out by some ISPs are not believed to be very effective.

“Although more and more notices of infringement are sent by right holders and forwarded by service providers to their customers each year, the providers do not even correlate the notices with individual subscribers to know which are repeat infringers,” IIPA writes.

“To treat the first-time violator identically with the serial offender jeopardizes any deterrent effect the notices might otherwise achieve,” they add.

The groups recommend that the U.S. Government urges Canada to implement “strong legal incentives” for local ISPs to take action against these persistent pirates by teaming up with copyright holders.

The above is just the tip of the iceberg for Canada. Among other things, the groups also call for stronger border protections and hefty jail sentences for copyright infringers.

This is not the first time that Canada has been called out on copyright. Based on similar recommendations the U.S. Government has placed its northern neighbor on the intellectual property watch-list for several years in a row.

The IIPA’s full 2014 Special 301 recommendation report is available here. This also includes assessments from more than two dozen other countries, including Argentina, Brazil, China, Italy, Russia, Spain and Switzerland.

^{Photo: Sébastien Launay}

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.