Posts made by raphjd

DOJ Ends Gay Group Ban
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: February 6, 2008 - 3:00 pm ET

(Washington) The Department of Justice has ended a five year old policy of denying an LGBT employee group the same privileges it offers other minority groups.

In 2003 then-Attorney General John Ashcroft told DOJ Pride that it could no longer hold its annual gay pride event on DOJ property.  Ashcroft at the time said that it was Bush administration policy that only events that received a presidential proclamation could be held on government property.

Justice Department workers had celebrated Pride in the Great Hall of DOJ headquarters every June since the mid 1990s when President Bill Clinton first declared a Gay Pride Month.  Bush has declined throughout his presidency to issue a proclamation.

Ashcroft also told the employee organization that it was barred from posting notices of its meetings on DOJ bulletin boards or distribute such messages through the department's e-mail system.

Ashcroft took the action a week after the Rev. Jerry Falwell issued a warning to President Bush and the Republican leadership to stop "catering to gays" or lose the support of Christian conservatives.

The ban on DOJ Pride continued under Alberto Gonzales.

The new Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, now has reversed that decision.

Mukasey has told DOJ Pride that DOJ will give the organization the same rights as all other DOJ employee groups. In a statement to the group Mukasey said that the department will "foster an environment in which diversity is valued, understood and sought."

At the time Ashcroft imposed the ban DOJ Pride had about 200 members.  That is now down to 150 members.

Ashcroft was not alone in clamping down on LGBT federal workers.

Special Counsel Scott Bloch, the man responsible for protecting whistleblowers and investigating complaints of discrimination by federal workers, refused to take on complaints of discrimination based on sexuality.

Bloch's stonewalling complaints of discrimination by LGBT federal workers dates to February 2004 when he ordered references to sexual orientation removed from the Office of the Special Counsel website. Since 1998, when President Bill Clinton issued an executive order prohibiting bias in the civil service, the OSC has taken that to include sexuality.

A month after the references disappeared from the OSC website Bloch said gay workers were no longer protected.

After intense pressure from Federal Globe - the LGBT organization for federal civil servants - and from Democrats on The Hill, the White House said it would honor the Executive Order signed by Clinton that that had been taken as assurance LGBT workers had civil rights protections.

But with Bloch's approval, several union contracts negotiated with various branches of the government removed the list of categories that are protected replacing them with the more nebulous phrase "any class protected by law."

Appearing in May 2005, before the the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs subcommittee on oversight of government management, the federal workforce and the District of Columbia, Bloch said that his interpretation of the Clinton executive order cannot be used to protect gay workers because it does not specifically name LGBT workers.

BTW, B is the best answer.

Upload everything.

You are reading that wrong.

The most wanted list is the list of the torrents that are downloaded the most. It has nothing to do with being the most requested.

There has been a lot of fuss over the new ratio requirements and even before that, so I decided to write this up.  It's not perfect or complete by any means, but it will help you get and keep a decent ratio.

Before I begin, please have a look at the glossary I made for the site;

https://forum.gaytorrent.ru/index.php?topic=562.0

While you are in the Guides/How To's section, please have a read of the other guides there. Many of them will help out quite a lot in getting and keeping a good ratio.

This guide is to show you how to get the best out of the site and get/keep a decent ratio.

The main factor is common sense when doing this.  Don't just blindly follow this guide as it can cause other issues.  {see below}

If everyone follows this guide, torrents will live for a long time and there will be no mad dash to get everything right away.  This will in turn help everyone have a decent ratio and get the stuff they want.

General Practices

1. Limit the amount of active torrents you have to as few as possible.  This will greatly speed up the time it takes to get and send files. Your computer, client and ISP all limit how many active connections you can have.  When you have reached the maximum amount of connections, you are stuck and can't go any faster unless some of those connections drop and are replaced. Depending on your download/upload speed, start off maybe 2 torrents and see if they take up all of your bandwidth.  If they don't, then add another and check again; rinse and repeat.  Not to mention that the more active torrents you have, the more resources your computer will use, limiting what you can do while BTing.

2. Enable Encryption in your client.  While your ISP may not actively target P2P, many others do.  Doing this helps you get data transfered between you and others who are affected, more easily.

3. If you can afford it, get an external hard drive to keep older downloads on.  I have three 1TB external HDs.  Many/most home theater systems support self powered USB 2 external hard drives. Most also support the various mainstream video formats {avi, mpg, divx, etc} as well.  The upside is no more discs cluttering up your house and massive storage to help boost your ratio.

Downloading and ratios:

1. I have only ever heard of a few ISPs that have equal up and down speeds and they cost a lot of money per month. One example I saw recently costs £200 a month vs the normal £30 a month.  The normal ISP practice is for the download speeds to be 4 or 5 times faster than your upload speed.   This means it will take much, much longer to seed back than it will to download the file.

2. If your ratio is in trouble, don't download anything new.  Seed back what you already have taken. I can't tell you how many times I have seen people cry for help about their ratio while downloading several files.  Tsk, Tsk

3. If your ratio is above the ratio requirement, but you want a boost, then set you max download speeds to something below your upload speed.

Don't Yoy-Yo your ratios.  This means, don't build up a high ratio just so you can hit n run torrents for a while.  This has bitten more than a few in the ass.

Uploading/Seeding

1. Keep an eye on your torrents.  If you see a torrent with 50 seeders and 1 leecher, stop it and move on to a torrent that needs help.  This will not only help you get a better ratio, it will also help others get files faster.  There is a downside though.  If everyone looks at the torrents at the same time, then it could lead to the formerly over seeded file becoming under seeded.  This is why I said the main factor in this is common sense.

Some may call this hit n running, but I call this traffic management.

2. Turn off/deselect DHT, Peer Exchange and all that other bullshit in your client.  These allow people to leech from you who aren't members of your tracker, thus sucking up your bandwidth.  DHT is automatically disabled here, but it's not disabled on a lot of sites.

3. DO NOT limit your upload speed to some low bullshit kbps as many have been doing, especially if you are the only seeder.  This will make a lot of people not want to get that file, thus giving you no upload ratio. Not to mention it's F'ing rude.

4. Remember that in a perfect world, it will still take 4 or 5 times longer to seed back than it will to download. There are a lot of factors that can make it take even longer.

5. A good reason to have a bit of a ratio buffer is if your computer dies and you lose stuff.

6. Regularly check to see if the videos you have downloaded in the past are still on the site.  If not, then upload them again as new people will probably want them. If you do this, make sure when you search, make sure you include "including dead" in the search as the seeder may have a connection issue at the moment you looked.

7. DO NOT download a file and rename it just so you can upload it again.  This will get you a warning at the very least. Not to mention it doesn't gain you anything you wouldn't get from seeding the torrent with the original name, as you are seeding either way.

8. If your upload is rejected, the moderator will tell you why.  The main reason for rejected uploads is bad/missing descriptions and/or pictures. Correct whatever it is that the moderator tells you and your upload will be approved.

Amateur section is being discussed now.

Cadinot is not all about Arabs/middle east boys. Many of their videos are completely French boys. I do agree that they have many videos of French speaking Arabs, but they also have many videos of French speaking Africans.

You have to remember, that we can break everything down into it's smallest component category but that would make it a bitch to find anything. So we are a bit leary about creating more categories.

BTW, site feature requests go in the General Discussion section.

There's been 5 cables cut in the last 2 weeks.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/06/cut-four-undersea-cables-shame-on-you-cut-a-fifth-also-shame/

If you would like to discuss this topic, please use this thread;

http://tracker.gaytorrent.ru/forums.php?action=viewtopic&forumid=2&topicid=2690

Any discussion outside that thread will be deleted.

After careful consideration and observing the effects of the minimum ratio being set at .250, we have decided to implement minimum ratios based on the table below.  Some of the factors we have taken into consideration are:

1.  Torrents are not being properly seeded and are becoming ?dead? in a significantly shorter period of time.

2.  We are getting feed back from Uploaders informing us that they can not upload new torrents because too many members are leeching one of their torrents and are not seeding after they have completed the download.  The Uploader is therefore seeding for a longer period of time.

3.  The surprising number of members who support either keeping the old ratio of .350 or raising the ratio even higher.  Looking at the ?Poll? numbers on the ?Home? page, 31% of members fall into that category.  We expected results of 10% to 20%.

4.  Reviewing all the comments in the different ?Forum? issues, we could not find ONE good reason for keeping a low ratio, but many valid arguments for a higher ratio.

Download           Minimum Ratio           Warning period

< 2 GB                     .200                             3 Days (to fix)

< 5 GB                     .300                             5 Days

< 10 GB                     .350                              7 Days

< 25 GB                     .400                              7 Days

< 50 GB                     .450                             10 Days

< 100 GB                     .500                              14 Days

< 250 GB                     .600                              21 Days

< 500 GB                     .700                              28 Days

> 500 GB                     .800                              40 Days

On another forum I belong to I read a thread about a person's cat dieing from Lily pollen, though any part of the Lily plant can kill a cat.

Here's a site that lists some of the plants that can kill dogs;

http://www.angel-litemaltese.com/Poison.htm

Also note that chocolate and onions can kill a dog.  In the UK they estimate that 150 dogs die every year around christmas because of chocolate.

Here is a list from Britishcats.co.uk;

Plants (and Trees) that are Poisonous to Cats

Amaryllis *
Cherry Tree
Common or Cherry Laurel (Prunus Laurocherasus) *
Daffodil *
Delphinium
Dumb canes (Dieffenbachia) *
Elderberry
Elephant's ears (Caladium) *
False Jerusalem Cherry (Solanum Capicastrum) *
Foxglove
Iris
Lily
Lily of the Valley
Mistletoe *
Oak Tree
Oleander
Peach Tree
Philodendron
Poinsettia (Euphorbia Pulcherrima) *
Rhododendrons and Azaleas
Rhubarb *
Spinach *
True Ivies (Hedra) *

• Indicates those commonly found in the house:

NOTE: This is not a complete list.

Torrent sites are banning it, but many Yahoo groups still post them.

German Government - Data Retention is for Terrorists, Not Copyright Infringers

Last year, ZeroPaid reported on the German music industry saying it would sue 1000 file-sharers every month in the year of 2007.

This crackdown on copyright infringement was an attempt to deter file-sharers, making it seem as though one couldn't get away with it in Germany. A new report on Heise Online seems to show a significant setback on the file-sharing crackdown - namely the new resistance to using data retention laws in civil matters.

The Justice Minister of Germany Zypries said in an interview for Focus Magazine, "Connection information can assist in the prosecution of terrorists and organized criminals but cannot be used to help the music industry pursue its rights under civil law" Ouch. Not good news for the IFPI when they were jumping for joy earlier over the new laws. A Google translation of an earlier report showed a chairman of the German arm of the IFPI saying that it would be contradictory for the government to not hand over all the information over to them for copyright legal pursuits.

The data retention laws would have all internet service providers retain all the information that goes through their networks for six months starting on January of this year. It's little wonder why the record labels would want to have access to that information.

It may not be too far fetched to believe that the German record labels will simply give up after being told 'no', but for now, it looks as though the record labels will have to go back to their old tactics which is probably similar to some of the questionable information gathering techniques employed by their US counterparts.

The article below is dated 9 Jan 08.

Wants to make sure that no consumer is being blocked from using legal software like BitTorrent.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was asked a number of questions yesterday at the ongoing Consumer Electronics Show(CES) and none was more anticipated by yours truly than what his plans are to address Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent traffic.

"Sure, we're going to investigate and make sure that no consumer is going to be blocked," he said.

The FCC's response will be an important test of its support for net neutrality, which the agency has a broadly stated policy supporting, but has yet to enforce the principle with ISPs. It does say ISPs have an exception for "reasonable traffic management." Comcast has said the practice of BiTorrent throttling falls under this exception.

"The question is going to arise: Are they reasonable network practices?" Martin said Tuesday. "When they have reasonable network practices, they should disclose those and make those public."

What Comcast has yet to acknowledge though is that even under the guise of "traffic management" it is essentially playing de facto gatekeeper of content by inhibiting people's ability to share large files which BitTorrent is so adept at handling. For independent film producers for example, this means that sharing your work with others online will be more difficult than it would be otherwise.

NOTE: The title of this article is the title of the thread.

EU's Top Court: 'ISPs Don't Have to Name File-Sharers'

European Court of Justice ends dispute between a Spanish music copyright group and a Spanish ISP.

In a big blow to copyright groups' attempts in fighting online piracy, the European Court of Justice ruled today that in civil cases member countries can refuse to provide the names of suspected illegal file-sharers.

The case is an important one because it reaffirms the fact that under EU laws ISPs are required to only give up the names of subscribers in criminal cases and not civil ones.

"Community law does not require the member states, in order to ensure the effective protection of copyright, to lay down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings," the court said in a statement.

The case is centered around a dispute between the Spanish music copyright holders association Promusicae and the Spanish ISP Telefonica.

Promusicae wanted Telefonica to disclose the names of individuals who illegally shared copyrighted music using the KaZaA P2P file-sharing program so that it could start civil cases against them.

"There are several community directives whose purpose is that the member states should ensure, especially in the information society, effective protection of industrial property, in particular copyright," the court said.

"Such protection cannot, however, affect the requirements of the protection of personal data. The directives on the protection of personal data also allow the member states to provide for exceptions to the obligation to guarantee the confidentiality of traffic data," the court added.

Civil proceedings are cheaper than criminal proceedings which typically require a higher burden of proof.

EU rules do not preclude the possibility for EU countries of laying down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings, it said.

"However, it does not compel the member states to lay down such an obligation," the court said.

European Union countries can refuse to disclose names of file sharers on the Internet in civil cases, the EU's top court said on Tuesday in a blow to copyright holders trying to fight digital piracy.

According to a statement by the court:

Community law does not require the member states, in order to ensure the effective protection of copyright, to lay down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings.

There are several community directives whose purpose is that the member states should ensure, especially in the information society, effective protection of industrial property, in particular copyright.

EU rules do not preclude the possibility for EU countries of laying down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings.

However, it does not compel the member states to lay down such an obligation.

Civil proceedings are apparently cheaper than criminal ones which usually require a much higher burden of proof by the plaintiffs and therefore will certainly make it tougher for copyright groups to go after suspected illegal file-sharers.

Damaged Undersea Cables Prompt Egypt to Ask File-Sharers to Take it Easy

Egyptian users of P2P and file-sharing services are being asked to help out after two of three cables that carry Internet traffic deep under the Mediterranean Sea snapped, disrupting service Thursday across a wide swath of Asia and the Middle Eas

The cables lie undersea just north of the Egyptian port of Alexandria, but repairs could take a week once workers arrive at the site, and engineers were scrambling to reroute traffic to satellites and to other cables.

"Two of our cables are affected; everyone will go onto a third cable," ministry spokesman Mohammed Taymur told AFP. "But that will not be enough bandwidth. The cable will be overloaded and no one will be able to get access" unless people honour the ministry request.

"People should know how to use the Internet because people who download music and films are going to affect businesses who have more important things to do," he said.

I'm not a hardcore techie, so I'm just repeating what I've seen on the news pages and other sites about it.

I'm sure for most users, it would be the death of their computer because they would have no idea how to fix it.

From the articles on it, someone is using it to get a swarm of attack bots to do DoS {Denial of Service} attacks.

Other than the original person{s}, no one is purposely sending it out. It uses your various contact lists to propagate itself.

This is why everyone needs to get and keep updated their anti virus software and firewalls.

There was a relatively short lived trojan of the same name last spring that killed the zero sector of your hard drive making it completely unusable as it wiped out the firmware.

If you ever get an email with the title "you have recieved a postcard from {insert name}" DO NOT open it. Microsoft classes this as the most destructive virus/trojan to date.

This is not to be confused with the "virtual card for you" hoax from last summer.

Please see this site for more info;

hXXp://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/postcard.asp

No, I actually like the song.

My point is about the hypocrisy of the BBC ruling/decision.

If the word was nigger, paki, cunt, kike, etc, they would not have even attempted to bleep the word out, the song would have been banned outright. They also would not have backed down to the pressure of the public on the issue.

hXXp://news.uk.msn.com/ledger-story.aspx

Hate group targets Ledger

Members of Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas plan to picket the funeral of actor Heath Ledger with signs claiming the actor died and is in Hell because he played a gay character in Brokeback Mountain.

The church website displays a bulletin that reads: "Heath Ledger thought it was great fun defying God Almighty and His plain word; to wit: God Hates Fags! & Fag-Enablers! Ergo, God hates the sordid, tacky bucket of slime seasoned with vomit known as 'Brokeback Moutain' Heath Ledger is now in Hell, and has begin serving his eternal sentence there."

Westboro Baptist Church, is not affiliated with a larger denomination and is made up mostly of Fred Phelps' extended family members. Phelps and his church gained national attention when they protested at the funeral of Matthew Shephard with signs that read "No Fags in Heaven" and "God Hates Fags."

Recently the radical church group has been known for picketing the funerals of soldiers who perished in Iraq. Last year a Baltimore jury awarded the father of a Marine whose funeral was targeted by Fred Phelps' group nearly $11m in damages.

The funeral protests have lead 22 US states, including Illinois, to enact or propose laws to limit the rights of protesters at funerals.

Westboro Baptist Church is also known to condemn Muslims, Roman Catholics and Jews.

Louis Theroux's BBC documentary America's Most Hated Family followed the activities of the Westboro Baptist Church last year.

According to the latest news, he had at least 6 different types of prescription sleeping pills in his system and at high doses too.

It's still being treated as accidental and not suicide.