Episode: 1218
Title: HPR1218: TGTM Newscast for 2013/03/27 DeepGeek and Pokey
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1218/hpr1218.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 21:52:26

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You're listening to TGTM News, number 92, record for Wednesday, March the 27th, 2013.
You're listening to the Tech Only Hacker Public Radio Edition.
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Hello again, everybody.
This is Pokey with the Tech News Roundup.
From eff.org dated March 20th, 2013, by Peter Eckersley and Seth Schoen.
Defend the open web.
Keep DRM out of W3C standards.
There's a new front in the battle against digital rights management or DRM technologies.
These technologies, which supposedly exist to enforce copyright, have never done anything
to get creative people paid.
Instead, by designer by accident, their real effect is to interfere with the innovation,
fair use, competition, interoperability, and our right to own things.
That's why we were appalled to learn that there is a proposal currently before the World
Wide Web Consortium's HTML5 working group to build DRM into the next generation of core
web standards.
The proposal is called encrypted media extensions or EME.
Its adoption would be a calamitous development and must be stopped.
In the past two decades, there has been an ongoing struggle between two views of how internet
technology should work.
One philosophy has been that the web needs to be a universal ecosystem that is based
on open standards and fully implementable on equal terms by anyone, anywhere, without permission
or negotiation.
This is the technological tradition that gave us HTML and HTTP in the first place, and
epoch defining innovations like wikis, search engines, blogs, web mail, applications written
in JavaScript, repurposeable online maps, and 100 million specific websites that this
paragraph is too short to list.
The other view has been represented by corporations that have tried to seize control of the web
with their own proprietary extensions.
It has been represented by technologies like Adobe's Flash, Microsoft's, Silverlight,
and pushes by Apple, phone companies, and others towards highly restrictive new platforms.
These technologies are intended to be available from a single source or to require permissions
for new implementations.
Whenever these technologies have become popular, they have inflicted damage on the open ecosystems
around them.
Websites that depend on Flash or Silverlight typically can't be linked too properly,
can't be indexed, can't be translated by machine, can't be accessed by users with disabilities,
and work on all devices, and pose security and privacy risks to their users.
Platforms and devices that restrict their users inevitably prevent important innovations
and hamper marketplace competition.
The EME proposal suffers from many of these problems because it explicitly abdicates responsibility
on compatibility issues, and let websites require specific proprietary third-party software
or even special hardware and particular operating systems, all referred to under the generic
name, content decryption modules, or CDMs, and none of these specified by EME.
EMEs authors keep saying that what CMDs are and do and where they come from is totally
outside of the scope of EME, and that EME itself can't be thought of as DRM because not
all CMDs are DRM systems, yet if the client can't prove it's running the particular
proprietary thing the site demands and hence doesn't have an approved CDM, it can't render
the site's content.
Previously, this is exactly the reverse of the reason that the World Wide Web Consortium
exists in the first place.
WC3 is there to create comprehensible, publicly implementable standards that will guarantee
interoperability, not to facilitate an explosion of new, mutually incompatible software
and of sites and services that can only be accessed by particular devices or applications.
EME is a proposal to bring exactly that dysfunctional dynamic to HTML5, even risking a return to
the battle days before the web of deliberately limited interoperability.
Because it's clear that the open standards community is extremely suspicious of DRM and
its interoperability consequences, the proposal from Google, Microsoft, and Netflix claims
that, quote, no DRM is added into the HTML5 specification and, quote, by EME.
This is like saying, we're not vampires, but we are going to invite them into your house.
Proponents also seem to claim that the EME is not itself a DRM scheme, but specification
author Mark Watson admitted that, quote, certainly our interest is in cases that most people
would call DRM, end quote, and that implementations would inherently require secrets outside of
the specifications scope.
It's hard to maintain a pretense that EME is about anything but DRM.
The DRM proposals at the WC3 exist for a simple reason.
They are an attempt to appease Hollywood, which has been angry about the internet for almost
as long as the web has existed, and has always demanded that it be given elaborate technical
infrastructure to control how its audience's computer's function.
The perception is that Hollywood will never allow movies onto the web if it can't
and come for them with DRM restrictions.
But the threat that Hollywood could take its toys and go home is illusory.
Every film that Hollywood releases is already available for those who really want to pirate
a copy.
Which volumes of music are sold by iTunes, Amazon, Magnetune, and dozens of other sites
without the need for DRM?
Streaming services like Netflix and Spotify have succeeded because they are more convenient
than piratical alternatives, not because DRM does anything to enhance their economics.
The only logically coherent reason for Hollywood to demand DRM is that the movie studios want
veto controls over how mainstream technologies are designed.
Movie studios have used DRM to enforce arbitrary restrictions on products, including preventing
fast forwarding and implementing regional playback controls, and created complicated
and expensive, quote-unquote, compliance regimes for compliant technology companies that
give small consortia of media and big tech companies a veto right on innovation.
All too often, technology companies have raced against each other to build restrictive
tangleware that suits Hollywood's whims, selling out their users in the process.
But open web standards are an antidote to that dynamic, and it would be a terrible mistake
for the web community to leave the door open for Hollywood's gangrenous anti-technology
culture to interfere with W3C standards.
It would undermine the very purposes for which HTML5 exists, to build open ecosystem alternatives
to all the functionality that is missing in previous web standards without the problems
of device limitations, platform incompatibility, and non-transparency that were created by
platforms like Flash.
HTML5 was supposed to be better than Flash, and excluding DRM is exactly what would make
it better.
Take action to stop web DRM.
There are links to this story on the eff.org website.
If you do a search for the title of the story, defend open web, keep DRM out of W3C standards.
You'll find that, or you can look for the link in the show notes.
From Democracy Now, dated 319 2013, Hacker, who revealed AT&T security flaw, gets 3.5 years
in prison.
A hacker who leaked email addresses from an AT&T web server to a journalist in an effort
to expose the company's security vulnerabilities has been sentenced to 3.5 years in prison.
27-year-old Andrew Ornheimer, nicknamed Weave, found a flaw in AT&T's server in 2010 that
allowed him to gather 114,000 email addresses of iPad users.
He gave the information to the website Gawker, which posted a redacted version.
After a federal probe, Ornheimer was convicted of identity theft and conspiracy to access
a computer without authorization.
On top of the prison term, he has been ordered to undergo 3 years of supervised release
and pay more than $73,000 in restitution to AT&T.
He was charged under the controversial Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the same law used
by federal prosecutors to target the late cyber activist Aaron Schwartz, who committed
suicide in January just weeks before his trial for downloading a trove of academic articles.
Last week, Reuters social media editor Matthew Keys was indicted under the same law.
Keys is accused of providing login information to the Hacker group anonymous that allowed
them to alter the text of a headline on the website of the Los Angeles Times.
Keys who is 26 could face up to 25 years in prison.
From TechDirt.com by Mike Maznick, dated Wednesday, March 20, 2013, MIT and Aaron Schwartz's
lawyers argue over releasing evidence.
From the who's hiding what department?
Last Friday, Aaron Schwartz's lawyers asked the court that had been overseeing his case
to lift a protective order on materials submitted during discovery, which Schwartz's
family and lawyers say will help to show how bogus the case against him was, and which
they've hinted will show how MIT went way too far in trying to help the prosecutors go
after Schwartz.
According to exchanges between Schwartz's lawyer, Elliott Peters and MIT staff, including
MIT President Rafael Rief, MIT has argued that such documents should not be revealed
because, A, it might violate the privacy of MIT employees, and B, because MIT never intended
the info to be public.
Peters discovered this after a reporter for the Wall Street Journal forwarded him the
following statement from MIT, quote, the decision to lift the protective order rests with
the judge who put it in place.
Schwartz provided by MIT and the Schwartz case included individual names and information
regarding MIT employees.
It is MIT policy and practice to protect employee privacy.
MIT provided the documents under the express understanding that they would be protected
from disclosure, which is the purpose of the protective order.
Given this, we are concerned about any public release of information about individual
MIT employees.
We will seek to protect their privacy.
At the same time, MIT is eager to share important facts about the actions in the Aaron Schwartz
matter with the public.
Professor Howe Abelson has been charged by President Rafael Rief with conducting an analysis
that will be made public in the coming weeks, end quote.
Peters quite reasonably found this statement to be absurd, especially the part about MIT
claiming that it provided documents in the belief that they would be kept secret.
As Peters noted in response, this was obviously untrue.
Quote, this statement is an insult to my intelligence.
The documents were provided to the government before any protective order was entered and
directly contrary to this statement with the express understanding that they would be
used in a criminal prosecution, which would lead to a public trial.
At which time, the documents would be offered into evidence and the witnesses would testify
in public.
MIT never could have expected these materials not to become public, and I find this statement
to be shockingly misleading and insincere.
And quote, around this same time, the congressional investigation into Schwartz's prosecution required
the same information.
Given that, Schwartz's legal team met with the DOJ to discuss releasing the documents
currently under protective order, they agreed to redact certain personal information, phone
numbers, emails, home addresses, social security numbers, birthdays, as well as the names
of four people who were questioned during the investigation, but who, quote, were not actively
involved in either the government's or any institution's investigation and, quote, into
Schwartz.
However, where the conversations broke down was overredacting the names and info of
just about everyone else, law enforcement, MIT employees, and JSTOR employees.
Schwartz's lawyer argues that this information should be public, and if the case had gone
forward, would have been public.
Criminal proceedings in our nation's courts are presumptively public.
As described above, the circumstances in this case have changed dramatically, perhaps
most obviously, with Mr. Schwartz's death.
There is no longer a case to prosecute, and thus no danger that disclosure will impede
a fair trial.
Mr. Schwartz's tragic death has also led to an increase in public interest in both the
details of the investigation and prosecution and the reasonableness of prosecutions under
the CFAA, generally.
In its discussions with Mr. Schwartz's counsel about modifying the protective order, the
government has not to date asserted any reliance interest based on the protective order.
Even if it were to assert such an interest, any government reliance on the protective
order's terms is tempered by the fact that it is a blanket order and therefore inherently
over-inclusive.
As the district explained in Boulger, modifications of such a blanket order is not unusual, ID
at 54.
As a result, the only interest left to be balanced against the significant public interest
in access to unredacted documents is the alleged privacy interest of the government employees
and third-party individuals named in the discovery materials.
For the reasons discussed below, those interests are minimal and are overcome by the public interest
in the disclosure of these documents.
The further note that hiding the names of those actually responsible will make the congressional
investigation into what happened much more difficult.
Second, the information was provided initially without any expectation that this info would
be kept private, so to ask for it to be kept private now makes little sense.
In fact, they note that most of the people named, who the government and MIT wish to redact,
or likely potential witnesses, had the trial been able to move forward.
Consequently, MIT and J. Store cannot now claim any reliance interest on behalf of their
employees and the continued privacy of their emails.
At the time, they produced the emails that issued to the government.
They further point out that most of the names in question are already public and highlight
press accounts and previous releases of documents in the case that specifically name, quote,
MIT employees Dave Newman, Paul Acosta, Ellen Duranzo, and Walpert, Mike Hallsale, and Mark
Silas, and J. Store employee Brian Larson, identifies their positions and quotes their email
communications and quote, given that this is already public, it seems odd to further seek
to redact their participation.
The argument in the other direction is that the attention this case has received means
that the names of such folks might lead to threats, but Schwartz's lawyers say that
there has been no evidence presented of any threat to MIT or J. Store employees.
And even if there was, that wouldn't necessitate blocking out info on all such employees.
Separately, his lawyers point out that redacting law enforcement officials' names makes even
less sense given that they are public employees.
Days after this motion was filed, MIT, quote, unquote, responded by agreeing to release
the documents itself, but with those same redactions requested by the DOJ.
MIT President Reef has tried to spin this as being, quote,
in the spirit of openness balanced with responsibility.
End quote.
Of course, that doesn't make much sense.
The DOJ has already agreed that this is the same level of information should be released.
So MIT isn't doing anything here other than make it appear falsely, as if it was making
some concession towards openness.
On top of that, MIT has said it will not release this info until its overall investigation
is over.
Not surprisingly, Schwartz's family is not particularly impressed by all of this.
In a statement provided to us by Schwartz's girlfriend, Taryn Steinbrickner-Cuffman,
notes that this is misleading not just because MIT isn't doing anything new here, but also
in that this isn't MIT's decision at all, quote,
I welcome President Reef's commitment to transparency.
However, this announcement is misleading.
MIT does not get to decide in what form the evidence is released publicly.
The judge does.
MIT has already given this evidence to the courts, at which point it gave up proprietary
control over the evidence.
President Reef's decision simply foreshadows the inevitability that the judge will release
at least this much of the evidence.
It sets a low bar, but does not decide the matter.
The redacted documents MIT is releasing only tell one part of the story.
Huge amounts of information would still be hidden beneath the protective order.
Information that MIT's investigators themselves will not have access to unless the protective
order is lifted.
If MIT is really committed to transparency and having a full complete investigation, they
need to join the call with Aaron's lawyers to lift the protective order, end quote.
Similarly, Aaron Schwartz's father, Robert Schwartz, noted that this is not a concession
by MIT, and that MIT already gave up its rights to these documents, so trying to control
how they are disseminated makes little sense.
Quote, it is not a change in MIT's position.
MIT could have no expectation of privacy or security since the evidence was given to
the government with the understanding that it was evidence in a public trial, end quote,
said Robert Schwartz, Aaron's father, quote, they understood when they gave these documents
to the government that they had no right to privacy or security.
MIT should release all internal communications related to this case, whether or not they
were provided to the government, including all internal communications they had related
to how they handled it, and decided not to ask the government to drop the case, end quote.
Steinbrickner Kaufman also pointed out that quote, if MIT wishes to protect these people's
privacy, MIT should not have become involved in the criminal trial to begin with.
They made a calculated decision, not to nip this case in the butt.
They don't get to avoid the consequences now after Aaron's death, end quote.
For links to many of the filings and communications in this case, please see tecturt.com, there'll
be a link in the show notes.
On torrentfreak.com, by Andy, dated March 18, 2013, RapidShare prepares to mass-delete
free user data over five gigabytes.
RapidShare has announced a business model change that is causing panic among its non-premium
users.
After offering unlimited storage space to customers using its free service, the Swiss
Base File Hostar is about to implement tough new limits.
This Wednesday, all free customers will be limited to just five gigabytes of free storage
if they choose not to pay for a premium account.
All excess files still hosted will be deleted forever April 3rd.
In today's super-connected world, we no longer have to store data solely on our desktop
machines.
We can now dump it into the cloud and access it seamlessly from any of our devices no
matter where we are.
It's convenience on a grand scale, but one that brings new concerns on the flip side,
a lack of control over our own data.
In the wake of the mega upload fiasco, today we bring news of another event with the potential
to chip away further still at internet users confidence in remote storage.
RapidShare is one of the best-known brands in the file sharing space.
In recent times, the company has gone to extreme lengths to update its image and has undertaken
a number of business model modifications in order to turn its back on the people who
might use its services to infringe copyright.
Nevertheless, the service has remained popular, not least because it offers unlimited
storage space to both free and paid users.
As a result, many people choose RapidShare to host their personal backups.
However, the company has delivered a surprise announcement that will largely put an end to
the unlimited free party.
This is how it works.
If you have a free account at RapidShare with currently unlimited storage, from this Wednesday,
you will only be allowed to store a total of five gigabytes.
If you do nothing, then all your files stored at RapidShare over the five gigabyte limit
will be deleted on April 3rd.
Just to be crystal clear, if you currently have twenty gigabytes of files, fifteen gigabytes
will be deleted.
Quote, if you exceed your storage space limit, you will receive a warning email that files
will be deleted and, quote, RapidShare warns.
Quote, if you don't add storage space within the next twenty-four hours or delete some
of your files, we will delete files.
This happens at midnight twenty-four hundred hours CET and, quote, however, if free users
want to, quote, add storage space and, quote, i.e. give RapidShare some money, they can
keep their files.
For 9.99 euros for thirty days, or 99.99 euros per year, users can have two hundred fifty
gigabytes of storage space.
The five hundred gigabyte storage account costs you nineteen point ninety-nine euros per
thirty days, or one hundred ninety-nine point ninety-nine per year.
So what happens when users want to store more than five hundred gigabytes?
Tornfreak was told that a user asked RapidShare how much it would cost to host around two
terabytes of file and was given a price of a hundred twenty euros, one hundred fifty
five dollars per month.
For less money, anyone can buy a real live hard drive, not just once, but every single
month.
While RapidShare is, of course, free to change its business model whenever it pleases,
doing so on such short notice is a real wake-up call.
The announcement of the new model was issued on March 12 and customers initially thought
they only had until March 20 to pay up or have all files over five gigabyte limit deleted
the next day.
RapidShare have since confirmed an extension to April 3.
It's also worth noting that free users may only personally download five gigabytes of
data each day, so anyone with a large amount of files stored on RapidShare needs to get
a move on in order to retrieve them all before the deadline.
Needless to say, some paying customers are also unhappy with the changes and have been
asking RapidShare for refunds.
The company is processing those, but reportedly charging an administration fee of fifteen
euros.
RapidShare has adjusted its business model several times in the last few months and each
time the changes appear to have resulted in less traffic for the site, the latest tactic
isn't likely to reverse the trend.
At the time of publication, RapidShare had not responded to torrent freaks request
for comment.
Please see the link on the website to torrentfreak.com for some related links in a chart showing
just how drastically torrent freak has affected its own business plan in the last couple of
months.
A couple years even.
From techdirt.com by Mike Maznick dated Wednesday March 20, 2013.
Will people trust Google's new notekeeping service after reader shutdown?
From the Not Sure I Will department.
Interesting bit of timing here, as Google has announced a new service called Google Keep,
which is a way of taking and keeping track of personal notes for your own use.
It's basically an ever note competitor.
I use a variety of Google products and normally this might not interest me, but I'm seriously
having doubts about bothering following the abrupt shutdown of Google reader.
Is it worth trusting data to a service that might be killed abruptly?
It seems fairly bizarre to violate users' trust so much, and then days later ask for it
right back.
Obviously, this doesn't apply to all services, but something that may become integral to the
way someone works is something that people need to have confidence will remain in business
for a while.
In the past, people assumed that Google products would stay around because it's Google, and
Google is so big.
But with their recent actions, they've now definitely raised serious questions, and
a quick look around Twitter shows that I'm not alone in asking the question.
Almost everyone talking about this new service is asking why should we trust it not to be
shut down?
Google may have thought they were just killing off one product, but the ripple effects
from shutting down Google reader continue to spread.
Please see the links in the show notes detector.com for some links to some more related articles
if you have interest in this.
Other items in the news, to read these stories, follow the links in the show notes.
Free speech activists oppose Iceland's proposed online pornography ban.
Staffed and produced by the TGTM News Team, editorial selection by DeepGeek, views of the
story authors reflect their own opinions and not necessarily those of TGTM News or its
readers.
News from TechDirt.com, eventatimes.org, magiMcNeil.wordpress.com, and olgov.com, used under
arranged permission.
News from torrentfreak.com, and DFF.org, used under permission of the Creative Commons
by Attribution License.
News from Democracy Now, used under permission of the Creative Commons by Attribution
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News sources retain their respective copyrights.
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