US piracy accused strikes deal

28 November 2012 Last updated at 07:30 ET

A student facing trial and possible imprisonment in the United States has struck a deal to avoid extradition, the High Court has been told.

Richard O'Dwyer, from Sheffield, is accused of breaking copyright laws.

The US authorities claimed the 24-year-old's TVShack website hosted links to pirated films and TV programmes.

The High Court was told Mr O'Dwyer had signed a "deferred prosecution" agreement which would require him paying a small sum of compensation.

Mr O'Dwyer will travel to the US voluntarily in the next few weeks for the deal to be formally ratified, it is understood.

'Satisfactory outcome'

The Sheffield Hallam student could have faced jail if convicted of the allegations, which were brought following a crackdown by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

A High Court judge was told that Mr O'Dwyer was expected to travel to the US in the next 14 days to complete the agreement, pay a small sum in compensation and give undertakings not to infringe copyright laws again.

Continue reading the main story

It would be very nice for everyone if this was resolved happily before Christmas"

End Quote Sir John Thomas President of the Queen's Bench Division

His extradition application is then expected to return to the High Court so it can formally be disposed of.

Judge Sir John Thomas said: "It would be very nice for everyone if this was resolved happily before Christmas."

Sir John, president of the Queen's Bench Division, said it was a "very satisfactory outcome".

Home Secretary Theresa May approved Mr O'Dwyer's extradition after a court ruling in January.

In May, Mr O'Dwyer was told his appeal against the decision, which was due to take place in July at the High Court, would be delayed.

The High Court heard as a result of the deal struck by Mr O'Dwyer, an appeal would no longer be necessary.

The case was brought by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which claimed the TVShack.net website earned more than $230,000 (£147,000) in advertising revenue.

The US authorities obtained a warrant and seized the domain name in June 2010.

'Copyright cops'

Human rights campaign group Liberty welcomed the proposed settlement of Mr O'Dwyer's case, but warned there was still need for reform of extradition laws.

Isabella Sankey, Liberty's director of policy, said: "This will be a huge relief for Richard, but how appalling that he had to wait so long for the US authorities to make this decision.

"Case after case shows that our extradition arrangements must be overhauled to allow people who have never left these shores to be dealt with here at home," she said.

Loz Kaye, leader of Pirate Party UK, a political party which wants to legalise non-commercial file-sharing, said the deal struck by Mr O'Dwyer showed the US extradition request had been "disproportionate and unnecessary".

"It does not remove the underlying problem, though. The US cannot be allowed to be the copyright cops of the world," he said.

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US military train in cyber-city

28 November 2012 Last updated at 08:24 ET

A miniature "cyber-city" has been created in New Jersey, complete with a bank, hospital, water-tower, train system, power grid and a coffee shop.

The buildings are tiny - fitting into an area 6ft (1.8m) by 8ft - but the underlying computer systems mimic those in the real world.

The aim is to train US government "cyber-warriors" to fend off attacks.

Experts believe attacks on critical infrastructure are likely to become more widespread.

Real-world damage

Developed in response to a challenge from the US military, the NetWars CyberCity was created by security training organisation the Sans Institute.

It will send government hackers on various missions, starting in December.

These will include fending off attacks on the city's power company, hospital, water system and transportation services.

CyberCity director Ed Skoudis said: "We've built over 18 missions, and each of them challenges participants to devise strategies and employ tactics to thwart computer attacks that would cause significant real-world damage."

The missions will typically last between a few hours and a few days.

Lose control

Sans Institute director Eric Bassel said Greater understanding of a city's vulnerabilities could be critical as computer attacks from nation states became increasingly frequent and sophisticated.

"When you lose control of cyberspace, you lose control of the physical world," he said.

"We have seen detailed evidence of foreign nations deep inside the computer networks of our financial services companies, manufacturing companies and critical infrastructure," Mr Bassel added.

Such attacks had been going on for many years, he said, but efforts to fight them off had been limited.

"With NetWars CyberCity we hope to turn the tables by providing our first-line cyber-defenders with the necessary skills and hands-on training to fend off online attacks and regain control of cyberspace," he added.

For security consultant Alan Woodward, such cities perform a vital job.

"Dotted around Salisbury Plain there are loads of deserted villages that the army now uses for training, and this is the cyber-equivalent," he said.

He said such mock-ups would become increasingly sophisticated but would always be limited.

"All it will do is teach you have to defend and respond to a situation but it will never prevent attacks," he said.

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Facebook tackles groups glitch

28 November 2012 Last updated at 09:21 ET

Facebook says it is investigating a fault which has seen some of its members re-registered to groups that they had quit.

One administrator of "secret" groups on the network raised concerns that old members would be able to access "highly sensitive" information.

Others have complained of having to leave the groups, one-by-one, again.

Facebook says the glitch would not give access to users' personal details if they were hidden via its settings.

The firm advertises the groups facility as a "private space" where updates, polls and chat messages can be shared between family, co-workers and pupils in a school class.

It adds that a group can be made "secret" to ensure that not only are messages limited to those within it, but that those outside cannot see who else is a member.

"Some users appear to have been re-added to groups that they have left in the past," the firm said in a statement.

"We are investigating the issue."

The problem comes at a time the company is involved in a separate privacy controversy.

It wants to be able to share information between its social network and its other businesses such as recently acquired photo service Instagram, and to stop its members having the right to vote on further changes to its privacy policy.

The move is opposed by campaign groups including the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy.

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Lock firm offering security fix

28 November 2012 Last updated at 09:50 ET

The firm that makes door locks with a well-publicised security vulnerability has said it is offering a fix.

Onity makes locks for hotel rooms around the world, but a hacker revealed in July that a security flaw meant burglars could easily access the code to unlock them.

A series of thefts in hotel rooms in Texas has been traced to a burglar believed to have used the technique.

One security expert said Onity had a "big problem" on its hands.

In a statement to the BBC, the company said: "Immediately following the hacker's public presentation of illegal methods of breaking into hotel rooms, Onity engineers quickly developed both mechanical and technical solutions to address the issue.

"These solutions have been tested and validated by two independent security firms, and are available to customers worldwide. All requests for these solutions have already been fulfilled, or are in the process of being fulfilled."

The company declined to give further details about what these solutions were.

An earlier statement detailed how a mechanical cap could be fitted to the lock, but that statement has since been removed from Onity's website.

It has also offered a more permanent fix that involves an upgraded circuit board or new lock, but these must be fitted at the hotel owners' cost.

Some hotels are simply gluing the holes.

Onity is advising customers concerned about insecure locks to call its helpline, which it said was staffed with specialists "who can immediately help select and implement the best possible solution for that customer's specific property".

Master key

Onity locks are believed to be fitted on about 10 million doors worldwide.

In July security researcher Cody Brocious detailed a method for unlocking them using a digital tool that once inserted into a small hole in the door allowed an intruder to discover the combination for the lock.

The hole is described by the company as a power port although it also contains a chip to allow hotels to control which master keys open which doors.

Alan Woodward, a security consultant, told the BBC that the most widespread means used to secure the doors so far was to seal the hole shut.

"I read in various security forums that Onity said they are working on some form of cap, but more temporary fixes could easily be broken by using a penknife or similar," he said.

"With so many locks installed, it has a big problem on its hands."

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Bungie game details leak online

28 November 2012 Last updated at 11:40 ET

Details of Bungie's first game since quitting the best-selling Halo franchise have been leaked online.

The gaming website IGN has obtained marketing materials revealing it is called Destiny, and aims to create a universe "as deep" as the Star Wars franchise,

The project had been one of publisher Activision's most closely guarded secrets.

It has a 10-year exclusive arrangement with the development studio.

Activision has previously told investors that the game would be "genre-defining" and prove to be one of its two "largest growth opportunities" over coming years, alongside the Call of Duty series.

Following IGN's exclusive, Bungie reproduced one of the images on its own site and confirmed the leak's authenticity.

Sci-fi fight

According to IGN the game will be set 700 years in the future, and feature battles with aliens to protect the "last city on Earth" after the collapse of mankind's efforts to colonise the Solar System.

A screenshot suggests the first title in the expected series will run on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Bungie's most recent releases had only run on Xbox systems.

A decision to build another sci-fi franchise will see Destiny compete with the developer's original series.

Microsoft has said it has plans for at least another two Halo games. Its most recent sequel, Halo 4, was created by its own subsidiary 343 Industries. The series as a whole has generated more than $3.4bn (£2.1bn) in revenues to date.

"You can never have sure bets and the risks involved with creating new IP [intellectual property] are always relatively high, but to have a studio like Bungie involved reduces the risk considerably for Activision due to its incredible track record," Pier Harding-Rolls, head of games research at IHS Screen Digest, told the BBC.

But he added that the publisher was unlikely to be happy about the way news of its game had become available.

"I don't think any company that wants to manage and control the promotion of their material would want to see it leaked through the back door," he said. "But a lot of leaks do go on in the industry.

"I'm sure we'll see a lot more of it at E3 [games conference] in June where games like this can be shown in a satisfying way."

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Nokia seeks Blackberry sales bans

28 November 2012 Last updated at 15:30 ET

Nokia has asked courts in the US, UK and Canada to block sales of rival Blackberry smartphones.

It follows a patent dispute between the Finnish company and Blackberry's parent, Research In Motion (RIM).

Nokia says an earlier ruling means RIM is not allowed to produce devices that offer a common type of wi-fi connectivity until it agrees to pay licence fees.

RIM said it would respond to Nokia "in due course".

"Research In Motion has worked hard to develop its leading-edge Blackberry technology and has built an industry-leading intellectual property portfolio of its own," it said in a statement - a possible signal that it might counter sue.

The clash is the latest in a series of legal distractions for the Canadian company at a time it is preparing to launch an operating system that could determine its survival.

Share drop

Nokia's action comes two months after an arbitration ruling by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce in Sweden.

The organisation had been asked to act as an arbitrator in a dispute over RIM's use of handsets and tablets featuring wireless local area network (WLAN) connections to the internet. All of RIM's current products use it.

RIM had argued that an earlier licensing deal with Nokia meant it should not have to pay a separate fee for the technologies. However, the tribunal disagreed.

After news of Nokia's latest action was revealed by Computerworld magazine, RIM's shares fell more than 10% in after-hours trading. They later recovered the lost ground when the Nasdaq stock market re-opened.

When contacted by the BBC, Nokia confirmed it had taken action "with the aim of ending RIM's breach of contract", adding it would also continue to pursue a separate case against RIM in Germany involving antenna, email and navigation technologies.

Nokia noted it had licensed its intellectual property rights to more than 40 other companies. The revenue from such deals helps justify its current $11.8bn (£7.4bn) market valuation.

Patent wars

RIM is also fighting several other patent lawsuits at this time.

They include a dispute with Washington-based patent portfolio owner SoftVault Systems, which alleges RIM has infringed its anti-piracy DRM (digital rights management) technologies.

RIM is also involved in a case against California-based Lochner, which is suing a number of big-name tech firms over the way their devices play videos streamed over the internet.

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RIM chief executive Thorsten Heins talks through the Blackberry 10 system

RIM has itself sued others in the past over patents, including Motorola - before the handset division was bought by Google - and the instant message software Kik,

However, the timing of the clash with a big-player like Nokia could be particularly troubling as it comes less than three months before RIM plans to release its first Blackberry 10 handsets.

"RIM has had a tough time losing market segment to other smartphones. And the future of the business is now going to be based on the success of its new operating system, which itself has been delayed," said UK-based patent attorney Andrew Alton, from Urquhart-Dykes & Lord, who has previously acted for Apple.

"Anything else that diverts attention from getting that out there and products shipped and bought is going to be detrimental for the business."

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Internet 'cut off across Syria'

29 November 2012 Last updated at 11:22 ET

The internet and mobile phone systems have been cut off in Syria, a monitoring firm has said.

Internet monitoring firm Renesys said the country's connection protocols were unreachable, "effectively removing the country from the internet".

Local reports suggested that the internet had been down since early afternoon, and that telephone lines were only working intermittently.

The Syrian government has previously cut off access during major operations.

Renesys, a US-based firm which tracks internet connectivity worldwide, said on its blog: "In the global routing table, all 84 of Syria's IP address blocks have become unreachable."

According to its systems, access was disconnected at 12:26pm local time (10:26 GMT).

Another US firm, Akamai, also confirmed it was unable to connect with Syria's internet.

Activists were using satellite phones to make contact with the outside world, Reuters reported.

Psiphon, a Canadian company that produces advanced computer systems for circumventing censorship systems, told the BBC that its monitoring showed the number of people connecting from within Syria had "started to dive" from around midday local time.

Psiphon's system - which requires specialised software - has throughout November been seeing 13-15,000 log-ins per day.

However, at the time of the reported outage, none of its users were able to get online.

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US piracy crackdown delayed again

29 November 2012 Last updated at 04:48 ET

Plans for a US piracy crackdown have been delayed, with the group co-ordinating the programme blaming Hurricane Sandy.

The controversial "six strikes" system, where illegal downloaders are sent a series of letters, was originally due to go live in 2011.

The storm has "seriously affected our final testing schedules", said the Center for Copyright Information.

The letters will now be sent in the early part of 2013, it said.

The CCI, which was set up to co-ordinate the programme, said in a statement: "Due to unexpected factors largely stemming from Hurricane Sandy which have seriously affected our final testing schedules, CCI anticipates that the participating ISPs will begin sending alerts under the Copyright Alert System in the early part of 2013, rather than by the end of the year.

"We need to be sure that all of i's are dotted and t's crossed before any company begins sending alerts."

Five of the US's major internet service providers - Verizon, Time Warner, Cablevision, Comcast and AT&T - have agreed to take part in the scheme.

It is expected that all the ISPs would begin sending letters on the same day.

If the letter campaign fails, more punitive measures may be introduced.

These include bandwidth throttling, pop-up warnings and restricted browsing, so that repeated infringers trying to access certain websites will be redirected to an educational page.

News site TorrentFreak's editor Ernesto van der Sar explained how he thought the scheme would work.

Continue reading the main story

• France was one of the first to introduce a "three strikes" system
• In Japan illegal downloaders face up to two years in prison or fines of up to £16,000
• New Zealand claims that piracy has halved since it introduced a "three strikes" rule. No-one has yet appeared before its Copyright Tribunal
• The UK plans to introduce a letter-writing campaign next year. Meanwhile copyright owners are seeking court orders to force ISPs to blocks sites such as The Pirate Bay
• Similar blocks have been instigated in the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Ireland and Finland

"I don't expect millions of letters will be sent and the main target will be casual downloaders because it is relatively easy for heavy users to find ways of getting around it by using things such as virtual private network," he said.

He is not convinced that the threatened punishments will be widespread.

"I don't think there will be many people punished by this. The aim is to educate people and if they can reduce illegal downloads by even 10% that will have been a success.

"I'm sure the copyright holders would want to go all the way but the ISPs are reluctant and so they have come to this agreement."

Running parallel with attempts to educate the public, the US content industry is also putting pressure on search engines to have piracy results pushed down their search results.

There is also a campaign to prevent cyberlocker services such as MegaUpload using PayPal, Mastercard and other payment methods to finance themselves.

The US has also seen many mass legal actions against pirates, although some of these cases are coming unravelled as judges rule that IP addresses are not sufficient evidence to prosecute, while others question the law firms' motives in pursuing such cases.

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3D printer 'could use Moon rocks'

29 November 2012 Last updated at 09:05 ET

Future Moon colonists should be able to use lunar rocks to create tools or spare parts, according to a study.

US researchers have used a 3D printer to make small objects out of melted simulated lunar rocks.

They say the technique could help future missions to minimise the weight and the expense of carrying materials into space as a digital file would be enough.

But one expert says such a printer would have to be extremely precise.

In 2010, Nasa asked a team from Washington State University to see whether it was possible to use lunar rocks for 3D printing.

It supplied the researchers with simulated Moon rocks, or lunar regolith simulant, containing silicon, aluminium, calcium, iron and magnesium oxides.

Many hundreds of kilograms of Moon rocks were collected during Nasa missions, but the scientists did not use them because they are considered a national treasure in the US.

Lunar regolith simulant is commonly used for research purposes at Nasa.

"It sounds like science fiction, but now it's really possible," said Prof Amit Bandyopadhyay, the lead author of the study, published in the Rapid Prototyping Journal.

His team created simple 3D shapes by sending a digital file or scan to a printer which then built the items layer by layer out of melted lunar regolith, fed via a carefully controlled nozzle to form a shape. The process is known as "additive manufacturing".

A laser was used to melt the material.

"As long as you can have additive manufacturing set up, you may be able to scoop up and print whatever you want. It's not that far-fetched," said Prof Bandyopadhyay.

The research demonstrates the latest advances in 3D printing technology, which is already in use in medicine, fashion, car manufacturing and other industries.

Sophisticated

But Prof Colin Pillinger, the scientist behind the ill-fated Beagle-2 mission to Mars, said the printer would have to be really precise to be able to fabricate complex parts that usually make up the body of a spacecraft.

"It would be nice if you could do that but I'm not sure it would work - it depends whether it is a simple mechanical component or something more complex," Prof Pillinger, who now works at the Planetary and Space Sciences department at the Open University, told BBC News.

"If you break your car on a motorway and have to replace your wheel, and you just print one it's a mechanical component, but if it's something more sophisticated like an electrical component to run your car, it's a different story.

"Of course, if you don't have to take a wheel to the Moon its great, but if it's not a mechanical part that breaks but something more sophisticated than I'm not sure it would work."

However, David Woods, author of How Apollo Flew to the Moon, was more positive.

"The important thing to consider is that the Earth has a very deep gravity well so anything you can make in situ on the Moon will save an awful lot of energy and therefore money," he said.

"So it's better to be able to live off the land. That's why scientists are so interested in water at poles, and the fact Moon dust works well with microwaves and could theoretically be used to make a paved surface if you created roads.

"Such technologies are untested but they do open up the possibility of future colonisation of the Moon, even if only for scientific purposes."

But putting the theory into practice may be some way off. A project to put astronauts back on the Moon by 2020 was cancelled by President Obama on cost grounds, though Nasa still has longer-term plans for a lunar return.

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Newzbin2 piracy site shuts down

29 November 2012 Last updated at 09:17 ET

Newzbin2, once one of the web's most popular sites offering links to pirated content, has decided to close.

It comes 15 months after a UK court ordered internet service providers to block the site, and amid global pressure from copyright holders.

Internet rights groups said the move was "pointless" in stopping piracy.

In a statement, Newzbin2's owners said it had struggled to cover costs because payment providers had "understandably lost their nerve".

"Newzbin2 was always hoped to be a viable underground commercial venture," the site said.

"The figures just don't stack up."

The Creative Coalition Campaign, which represents groups such as the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and record industry body the BPI, welcomed the announcement.

"This is great news," chairwoman Christine Payne said.

"Pirate websites should not be allowed to trade as this undermines the ability of legitimate businesses to recoup their considerable investment and threatens jobs in the creative sector."

Heavily sued

Newzbin2 was the follow-up site to the original Newzbin1, which was sued by the MPA, leaving it with massive debts.

The site was taken over by a group of hackers known as Team R Dogs who resurrected the site as Newzbin2.

In July 2011, a court ruling meant the site had to be blocked to users in the UK.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

All our payment providers dropped out or started running scared"

End Quote Newzbin2 statement

It attempted various techniques to circumvent the ban, but users began to head elsewhere.

"Newzbin1 was said to have had 700,000 registered users," the site's statement said.

"In fact that was the total number of people who ever signed up in the history of Newzbin from 2000 onwards.

"Only a fraction were active, loads of people dropped out and went to other sites."

'Running scared'

The administrators defended their record on tackling piracy, saying they had been willing to comply with requests to remove pirated content - but that copyright holders had never sent them a "single complaint".

"The tragedy is this: unlike Newzbin1 we are 100% DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] compliant," the statement said.

Continue reading the main story

Block parties

Efforts to stem online piracy have in recent times focused on cutting off the public's access to websites offering links to download content.

Groups like the BPI - which represents the UK music industry - have used the courts to make internet service providers (ISPs), who typically resist such moves, block websites.

Aside from Newzbin2, this year has seen The Pirate Bay blocked by all of the UK's major ISPs, a controversial move among campaigners who believe that such censorship is ineffective.

Following the block, The Pirate Bay's traffic plummeted. However, other data has suggested the overall level of piracy has not dropped.

Beyond blocking sites, copyright holders have also called for measures to make the likes of Google give preferential treatment to search results containing legal downloads.

"We have acted on every DMCA notice we received without stalling or playing games: if there was a DMCA complaint the report was gone. Period."

As well as providing a free service listing download links, the site also offered a premium subscription option with various perks.

However, the site said not enough members had been paying, and that for those that had, the services the site had used to receive the money had been backing out.

"All our payment providers dropped out or started running scared," the site said.

It added that accepting Bitcoin - an electronic, hard-to-track currency - had not been an option because it was "just too hard for 90% of people".

The Open Rights Group, which campaigns for an open internet, said Newzbin's closure should not be taken as a sign that blocking sites was effective.

"Newzbin were rightly pursued through the courts and found to be encouraging infringement," said Jim Killock, the group's executive director.

"That is the right approach. However, censorship and block orders are disturbing and we think unnecessary given the success in tackling the businesses and payment mechanisms involved.

"Web blocking is a blunt instrument and is a dangerous practice. We wish copyright owners the best in enforcing their rights and building their businesses, but urge them not to resort to further requests for censorship."

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