Posts made by raphjd

from TorrentFreak.com

Azureus is Dead, Vuze Goes Social

After 5 years, the popular BitTorrent client Azureus is no more. The Vuze team has officially abandoned the Azureus name and the new “social” BitTorrent client is now completely integrated into the Vuze content distribution platform.

The first version of the Java based BitTorrent client Azureus was released in June 2003, and soon became popular among the early adopters of BitTorrent. Over the years, Azureus turned into one of the most feature-rich clients, backed by a dedicated team of developers and an active community.

Things changed in 2006 when Azureus launched the content distribution platform it called ‘Vuze’ (aka Zudeo), backed up by a total of $34 million venture capital. For a while, they kept releasing a no-Vuze version of Azureus (when Vuze/Zudeo was in Beta), but Vuze CEO, Gilles BianRosa told TorrentFreak that this only caused confusion among their users.

“We started to change our name from Azureus to Vuze over a year ago, but we did not make the change in a clear or consistent manner,” Gilles said. “This has caused a great deal of confusion amongst our users. We want to rectify this situation by changing our name to Vuze consistently.”

“Whilst we recognize the strength of the Azureus name and the frog, it is only associated with our original BitTorrent application. As we move towards creating an all-in-one application for finding, playing and sharing great content, that goes beyond the realm of just a BitTorrent client, we wanted to change our name to reflect that, but bring with us the frog who is such a part of our heritage,” Gilles added.

Today {16 June 08}, Vuze comes with a brand new release of their client (v3.1), introducing several new features. One of the most drastic changes is the new social layer that has been added to the client. Vuze users are now able to add friends, share torrents with friends, and give friends a speed boost when you are downloading the same torrent.

The new client also includes a meta-search engine that allows you to search across several popular BitTorrent sites, in addition to content from Vuze.com. The search functionality is completely customizable, so you can add you personal favorite if it’s not already included.

Unfortunately, there will not be a Vuze client available without the Vuze platform integrated. Gilles told TorrentFreak: “We are focusing our efforts on delivering against our vision of creating an all-in-one application that enables users to find, download, play and share in one streamlined application.”

“We have started on a path of creating an all-in-one application that enables users to find, play and share torrents. In particular, we believe that by enabling users to share content and bandwidth through the “Friends” feature we are adding a completely new dimension to peer-to-peer - a new social dimension, or what we call ’social P2P’,” Gilles said.

Azureus is no more, the name change is permanent. On the one hand this is a step forward, as the new interface and functionality will appeal to new users. However, it has also caused quite a heated debate among both developers and users who were happy with the classic UI. Although, it’s a bit hidden, the original interface still remains accessible with the UI switcher. Time will tell if it is the right move.

from TorrentFreak.com

3-Strikes Law to Disconnect French Pirates

Over the past few months, many countries have looked into the possibility of disconnecting file-sharers from the Internet. Today, France is the first to present their new “3-strikes” law, which allows anti-piracy outfits such as IFPI, RIAA and MPAA to police the Internet.

A few weeks after the University of Washington showed that “copyright infringement warnings” are based on reckless tactics, France announces to use these notices to disconnect pirates from the Internet. The warning emails, sent by anti-piracy organizations, often carry the force of law with an ISP, despite being a blind unproven accusation. Lobby groups have pushed for these notices to be all the evidence needed for punishment in some countries, and France is the latest to follow the lobby money, with a 3-strikes law just proposed.

The new legislation will make it possible to disconnect people from the Internet, if they receive more than two copyright infringement warnings. The warnings will be sent out by the ISPs, solely based on data gathered by anti-piracy organizations.

Christine Albanel, the French Minister of Culture presented the new bill today. She hopes the bill will significant reduce online piracy, and is quoted as saying at a press conference: “We know that we are not going to eradicate piracy 100 percent, but we think that we can reduce it significantly.” President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has spoken out in favor of the new legislation before, backed the Minister, and commented: “There is no reason that the Internet should be lawless.”

If the new bill passes, anti-piracy organizations will be in complete control of the Internet subscriptions of French citizens. There will be a new agency that will forward their complaints to ISPs, who will then send out the warning emails. One of the major problems is, however, that the data gathering techniques, as used by IFPI, MPAA and RIAA, are far from accurate.

Interestingly, the French law goes directly against the European Parliament who, this April, condemned state plans to authorize the disconnection of suspected file-sharers from the Internet. European Parliament said that disconnecting petty file-sharers would be “conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness”.

The controversial bill will come before parliament this autumn, and if it passes, the new legislation will become effective on January 1st, 2009.

from TorrentFreak.com

Swedes To Be Wiretapped, Despite Protests

Despite public protests both online and on the streets of Stockholm, the Swedish parliament has voted in favor of a new “wiretapping” law which invades the privacy of its citizens by allowing the government to monitor web traffic and phone calls, without the need for court orders or similar authorization.

On Wednesday evening the Swedish parliament voted yes to a bill that allows FRA, National Defense Radio Agency, to monitor all phone traffic and e-mail traffic in the name of national security. Unlike the police, FRA can listen in on anyone for any purpose without a court order, bringing the level of personal integrity in Sweden to an all-time-low.

The bill was passed after it was debated in parliament, with 143 votes in favor, 138 opposed and 1 representative abstaining. Before the debate the situation was crystal clear. The four party government alliance would win the vote if all party members voted in favor of the bill, but with the seven seat majority the government currently holds, only four representatives had to vote against the party line in order for the bill to fail.

With all the editorials and statements regarding integrity, copyright and online-rights published during the last months by members of these parties, surely there would be four members of the parties that would follow their convictions rather than the party line? In fact, there were four representatives who have been crystal clear in these kinds of issues: Birgitta Ohlsson (Liberal Party), Karl Sigfrid (Moderate Party), Annie Johansson and Fredrick Federley (both Centre Party). They have profiled themselves on these issues and in some cases even campaigned on them. Surely, Fredrick Federley couldn’t let down his everyone of his voters?

Things proved more complex.

Leading up to Tuesday’s debate, the bill had been heavily criticized by journalists, pirates, lawyers, bloggers, all political parties’ youth organizations - as well as the head of the Swedish intelligence agency Säpo. Rick Falkvinge of The Pirate Party was one of the voices that spoke most strongly against the bill. Also, all of the four daily newspapers’ senior political editors were heavily opposed. Rumours had begun circulating that Karl Sigfrid was indeed going to vote against the bill while Fredrick Federley wrote an ambivalent blog post that indicated where this was heading.

The debate was intense with defense minister Sten Tolgfors of the Moderate Party showing his arrogance, ignorance and lack of understanding time and again (if the bill was not passed, he said, parliament would be risking the lives of Swedish UN troops in Afghanistan).

Towards the end of the debate, Fredrick Federley was on the speakers list. He pulled off a tear-filled act (including sentimentalities about his mother) in which he said he had to follow his conviction but at the same time didn’t want to let his party down. He motioned for the bill to be sent back to parliament’s defense committee for expanding the safeguards of individual rights. This was a carefully orchestrated piece of political theater designed to keep the government alliance together while at the same time allow the Centre Party (which until yesterday held high integrity and online rights) not to lose face. At this time, Federley knew that the bill was being reworked on an initiative from the Liberal Party to a new version that had a new authority controlling the controllers.

The original vote was due to be held on Wednesday morning and following an initiative from The Pirate Party, a crowd of hundreds was gathered in front of parliament to protest the bill and try to convince representatives to vote against it. The crowd was a mixture of pirates, the journalists’ union, the political parties’ youth organizations and worried citizens. Following the debate on Tuesday, the morning vote only considered if the bill should be sent back for revision and the vote was in favor.

In a farce of democracy, it was announced that the bill was to be revised in record time and a new vote be taken later in the evening. “I think the law needs to be re-written. It is not enough to create a few checks and balances … It is the law itself there is something wrong with,” Anders Eriksson, former Chief of Swedish intelligence agency Säpo, told Swedish radio before the vote.

By now, Fredrick Federley and Annie Johansson of the Centre Party had put themselves in a position where they could show to their voters that they had “improved” the bill while at the same time they could vote for the revised version to the happiness and joy of their party colleagues. So, what about the other possible nay-sayers?

According to the buzz on the blogs, Karl Sigfrid of the Moderate Party had decided to vote against the bill and was taken into a party meeting where 30 representatives from the Moderate Party along with party leader and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt were on a speech list, bashing him one after the other until he couldn’t take it anymore.

And the remaining? Birgitta Ohlsson of the Liberal Party was as lame as her Centre Party counterparts: She abstained her vote, according to an interview in Dagens Nyheter “with respect to my liberal consciousness and to my voters but also to my party colleagues”.

When the FRA bill version 1.01 was brought back into the chamber on Wednesday evening, the outcome could only go one way. The Government parties along with PM Fredrik Reinfeldt had decided that this bill should go through and with the internal critics effectively silenced the bill was voted through, plunging Sweden into DDR era lack of privacy. How the bill is compatible with Human Rights (The right to respect privacy, family, home and correspondence) will be decided later in the court of the European Union where a number of opposition representatives will bring it to be tried.

The only liberal voting according to her ideology rather than her party line was Camilla Lindberg of the Liberal Party. In an editorial in today’s Expressen she explains why: “My loyalty is with my voters. And with myself and my conviction. I couldn’t get myself to vote in favour of the bill, regardless of the arguments from my colleagues and the last-minutes improvements. […] If the surveillance poses a threat for integrity and freedom without having a proved positive effect, I can’t support such a bill.”

Welcome to 1984….

from TorrentFreak.com

Joss Stone: Piracy is Brilliant, Music Should be Shared

They are quite rare events but on occasion, artists actually encourage fans to share their music online. Singer Joss Stone has no problem doing so at all. In fact, after a recent concert in Argentina she said that piracy is “brilliant”.

Joss Stone, who won a Grammy last year, loves music, but hates the the music industry. In a recent interview she said that - unlike herself - most artists are brainwashed by the industry, and she encouraged people to share her music.

After the show a reporter asked her what she thinks of piracy, and people who download her songs off the Internet. Her response baffled the reporter, as she simply told him: “I think it’s great…” There was an awkward silence for a few seconds, the reporter probably expected to hear something else from her. “Great?,” he said.

“Yeah, I love it. I think it’s brilliant and I’ll tell you why,” Stone continued. “Music should be shared. […] The only part about music that I dislike is the business that is attached to it. Now, if music is free, then there is no business, there is just music. So, I like it, I think that we should share.”

“It’s ok, if one person buys it, it’s totally cool, burn it up, share it with your friends, I don’t care. I don’t care how you hear it as long as you hear it. As long as you come to my show, and have a great time listening to the live show it’s totally cool. I don’t mind. I’m happy that they hear it.”

Stone went on to say that most artists have probably been “brainwashed” by the record labels, when they discourage their fans from downloading music. Of course, Stone is not the only artist who actually wants people to share their work. Last year rapper 50 Cent made some positive remarks about filesharing, and Nine Inch Nails takes it even further, as they upload their music onto BitTorrent sites themselves.

These artists are spot on, in fact, several studies have shown that artists actually benefit from filesharing. The more music people share, the more CDs they buy and the more concerts they visit.

from TorrentFreak.com

UK Government “Holds a Gun to the Head” of ISPs Over P2P

The British government appears to be running out of patience with ISPs as they struggle to come to an agreement with the music industry on P2P music piracy. One ‘top-level’ ISP executive says “The British government just put a gun to our head.” Major ISPs are now in “serious” talks with the music industry.

Recently we reported on the agreement between UK ISP Virgin Media and the British Phonographic Industry to start sending out warnings to Virgin’s subscribers who the BPI accuse of uploading copyright music. Now, according to a Digital Music News report, the British government has started urgently applying pressure to prominent ISPs to find a solution to the ‘problem’ of file-sharing. The pressure includes a threat to bring in new laws, should ISPs and the music industry not come to a solution of their own.

The government previously set a deadline of April 2009 for the parties to reach an agreement but according to sources, pressure is intensifying to deal with the issue sooner. A “top-level executive” gave an indication of the level of pressure stating: “The British government just put a gun to our head.”

According to what DMN describe as “top-level” and other “executive” sources, the music industry and major ISPs including BT, Carphone Warehouse, Tiscali and Virgin Media are now involved in “serious negotiations” over how to deal with what they perceive to be a serious threat to their business model.

Andy Burnham, Culture Secretary and Labour Member of Parliament is said to be playing a prominent role after tough comments earlier in the year: “Let me make it absolutely clear: this is a change of tone from the government,” Burnham told the FT. “It’s definitely serious legislative intent.”

At the London Calling event last week - billed as ‘the UK’s premier international music business event’ - sources confirmed meetings between the music industry and ISPs. It’s believed that ISPs are being negotiated with individually, rather than as a group. “All of the ISPs are at the table meeting with the rights holders, but it’s not a roundtable,” said a source.

Current CEO of British Music Rights and former pop star Feargal Sharkey said he was optimistic at the discussions between the music industry and ISPs: “At this moment, I am completely optimistic. Three months ago these guys wouldn’t even get into the same room.”

It’s unclear what could happen if the music industry and ISPs fail to reach an agreement, as Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has already stepped back from a government implemented ‘3 strikes and you’re out’ policy.

For their part, ISPs are only too aware of the profit they make from file-sharers. If the latest reports are to be believed, around 6 million Brits use their internet connection for file-sharing. Alienating them could be a huge strategic error.

From TorrentFreak.com

MPAA Says It Doesn’t Need Evidence to Convict Pirates

Only a few weeks ago, a University of Washington study showed showed how inaccurate the MPAA and RIAA’s evidence gathering techniques are. Now, instead of improving their pirate chasing tactics, the MPAA simply claims they don’t need any evidence to bankrupt “alleged” copyright infringers.

Threat Level reports that the MPAA now argues that it has the right to demand up to $150,000 in damages per illegally downloaded file, without having to proof that someone actually downloaded that file.

Yes we know, this doesn’t make sense at all. Luckily, MPAA lawyer Marie van Uitert explains why copyright holders should be able to claim thousands of dollars without having to proove that a copyright infringement actually took place. In a brief submitted this Friday, as part of the ongoing “making available” debate in the Jammie Thomas case, Van Uitert writes:

“It is often very difficult, and in some cases, impossible, to provide such direct proof when confronting modern forms of copyright infringement, whether over P2P networks or otherwise; understandably, copyright infringers typically do not keep records of infringement.”

So, the MPAA is basically saying that is is too hard to come up with solid evidence, and because of this, they should not have to proove anything. Makes perfect sense doesn’t it? The MPAA wrote the brief in response to a request from a federal Judge last month, who called for a briefing on the claim that having files stored in “shared folders” infringes copyright.

The MPAA of course argues that keeping files in a “shared folder” does equal distribution, and they also make the argument that filesharers authorize others to download these files. Luckily there were also briefs submitted by the EFF, and several professors who argued against this. It is now up to the Judge to decide who’s right and wrong.

Check the home page.

Heinz ran a tv ad that had 2 men kissing {a small peck on the lips} for 1 week before pulling it after receiving 200 complaints in the UK.

The ad was run on ITV and even if all 200 complaints were from the same night, that's 1 complaint per 30,000 viewers.

You can send them an email by going to hXXp://www.heinz.com/corporate_contact.aspx and filling out the form.

I will no longer be buying any of their products, because they are more concerned with the opinions of bigots over the millions of their gay customers worldwide.

Here's the google page for the topic;  hXXp://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=heinz+pulls+tv+ad&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

@ rckazz

If you are having problems, then why haven't you posted in the MAC thread in the support section asking for help?  You have been a member for 47 weeks and this is your first post on the site; old and new forums. How can we help you if you don't ask for it?!

Your download rights were taken away 2 months ago and now you are here saying that you haven't gotten any help.  I looked at the helpdesk requests and you didn't even post anything there asking for help.

We have a moderator that uses MAC and he always checks the MAC support thread.

Looking at your account, I see that you were able to keep your ratio right at the danger zone until your download rights were finally taken on 16 April 08.  I also see that there are torrents that you could have seeded back and gotten your download rights back.

You also have a total seed bonus of 58.875 and you never traded any in.  So that means that you only seeded for 5 days of the 47 weeks you have been a member.  That does not help maintain a decent ratio.

++++

The OP question in this thread was not asking how to fix the issue, he wanted to know if we would boost his ratio so he could download again.

JonClub has a total seed bonus of 13.000, meaning he seeded for only 26 hours out of the 40 weeks he has been a member. He too could be seeding torrents back to raise his ratio.

He only has 3 posts on the site and again, this is the first mention of having a problem.  His only post outside this thread was to request porn.  He made no helpdesk requests.

++++

I stand by my tag line.

I am more than willing to help those who help themselves.  However, in both cases in this thread, neither of you helped yourselves because you didn't seed back or ask for help.

It looks like one of Cadinot's films.

The reason he was not charged with writing viruses, is because Japan apparently doesn't have a law against it.

That might change because of this case, but who knows.

From Zeropaid.com;

Japanese Man Behind P2P Virus Receives Suspended Sentence

Gets no jail time despite the fact that the virus deleted movie and music files on PCs using the Winny P2P file-sharing network.

Early last year I reported how a P2P trojan was making the rounds on Winny, the Japanese P2P file-sharing network. The trojan deleted a wide variety of file types and replaced them with popular comic book character images warning them not to use P2P.

Here's one of the Trojan images. It reads:

"Ah, I see you are using P2P again…if you don't stop in 0.5 seconds, I'm going to kill you."

Here's a few more:

"This is a visit from the prevealant Piro virus! Stop P2P! If you don't I'll tell the police!"

"Even though Kaneko-San was found guilty, you're still using Winny aren't you. I really hate such people!"

"Ugu! It's me, Ayu Tsukimaya! I think I might start destroying downloaded files and P2P software now..."

"Taiyaki, taiyaki, oh I'd liek to eat some...If you don't bring me some, I'll destroy your files...If you don't stop using Winny, I'll expose you to the police....My phone number is XXXXXXXX...."

In any event, the virus was traced back to 24yo Masato Nakatsuji, who was apprehended back in January, making him the first ever virus writer to be arrested in Japan.

Nakatsuji, a graduate student at Osaka Electro-Communication University, was found guilty in Kyoto District Court and sentenced to two years in jail. However, as the sentence is suspended for three years he will not have to serve any time in prison.

Some are questioning the rationale for such a lenient sentence.

"Masato Nakatsuji has been found guilty of copyright infringement rather than for the damage his movie and music-munching malware caused," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "One has to wonder whether if he had been apprehended in another country then he would have been charged with a more conventional cybercrime and might have got a more serious sentence."

Nakatsuji has claimed that he wrote his malware to try and punish people who downloaded copyrighted material from P2P or file-sharing networks.

"If movies and animated films are illegally downloaded, TV networks will stop showing these programmes in the future," Nakatsuji said during the trial, trying to explain his behaviour. "My hobby is to watch recorded TV programmes, so I was trying to stop that."

Perhaps that explains his lenient sentence.

We haven't banned them, so it's the uploaders or lack thereof that is the reason.

Oh lord, it's hard enough to get people to understand BT.  USENET would be  a true nightmare.

Does this have anything to do with DesiLu Productions {Desi Arnes and Lucille Ball's production company}?

@DesiGay:

George bush
and
osama bin laden  ;D

Aren't they a couple already?

hXXp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080515/ap_on_re_us/gay_marriage_4

SAN FRANCISCO - The California Supreme Court has overturned a ban on gay marriage, paving the way for California to become the second state where gay and lesbian residents can marry.

California already offers same-sex couples who register as domestic partners the same legal rights and responsibilities as married spouses, including the right to divorce and to sue for child support. It's therefore unclear what additional relief state lawmakers could offer short of marriage if the court renders the existing ban unconstitutional.

A coalition of religious and social conservative groups is attempting to put a measure on the November ballot that would enshrine California's current laws banning gay marriage in the state constitution.

The Secretary of State is expected to rule by the end of June whether the sponsors gathered enough signature to qualify the marriage amendment, similar to ones enacted in 26 other states.

The cases before the California court were brought by the city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples, Equality California and another gay rights group in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco's monthlong same-sex wedding march that took place at Mayor Gavin Newsom's direction.

The tale of a pair of gay penguins who adopt a chick has once again topped the ‘objectionable’ list in US libraries.

‘And Tango Makes Three’ is a children’s picture book published in 2005 about a family of penguins – with two fathers.

It is the most ‘challenged’ book in public schools and libraries for the second year in a row, according to the American Libraries Association.

The ALA defines a "challenge" as a "formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness."

"The complaints are that young children will believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle that is acceptable. The people complaining, of course, don't agree with that," Judith Krug, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, told AP.

Other books hitting the Top Ten complained about include Maya Angelou's memoir ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,’ in which Angelou writes of being raped as a child; Mark Twain's ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,’ long attacked for racism; and Philip Pullman's ‘The Golden Compass,’ which is widely perceived to be pro-atheism.

Macquarie National News

@F00F:

Dr Gergory House

The character or the actor Hugh Laurie?

Do not use the "Insert Image" button, as that links us to another site.

Instead, download the picture to your computer.  Then click "Additional Options" in the lower left corner.

Where it says "Attachments", click "Browse" and surf to where the picture is on your computer.

When you are finished with your entire post, click "Preview" to make sure it worked right and you have uploaded the correct picture.  If everything is fine, then click "Post".