Episode: 1130
Title: HPR1130: TGTM Newscast for 11/28/2012
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1130/hpr1130.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 19:30:22

---

.
.
You're listening to Talk Geek 3 News, number 82, record for Wednesday, November 28, 2012.
You're listening to the Tech Only Hacker Public Radio Edition to get the full podcast,
including political, commentary, and other controversial topics.
Please visit www.TalkGeek2Me.us.
Here are the vials statistics for this program. Your feedback matters to me.
Please send your comments to DG at DeepGeek.us.
The webpage for this program is at www.TalkGeek2Me.us.
You can subscribe to me on Identica as the username DeepGeek or you could follow me on Twitter.
My username there is DGTGM, as in DeepGeek Talk Geek2Me.
Hello and good day again. This is Pokey reading for Talk Geek2Me news.
And now, the tech news roundup from rawstory.com by David Ferguson.
Scientists create cartilage using 3D tissue printer.
Scientists at Wake Forest University and North Carolina have developed a tissue printer
that prints cartilage, flexible connective tissue that cushions our bones and joints.
According to the Toronto Star, the printer, which was featured in a study published
in the journal Biofabrication by the Institute of Physics,
is a combination of an inkjet-style printer and an electro-spinning machine.
Study co-author and professor at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Dr. James U,
said that the study, quote, illustrates that a combination of materials and fabrication methods
generates durable implantable constructs.
And, quote, previous attempts to create cartilage found that natural materials resulted in tissue
that wasn't strong enough, but robotically constructed scaffolds made of synthetic polymers,
pivotively expensive and lacked flexibility.
Key to the success of the Wake Forest study is the process of electro-spinning,
in which fibers made of a porous polymer called polycapro-lactone are spun into scaffolds,
which are then studied with cartilage cells called conger sites, taken from the ears of rabbits.
The porousness of the polycapro-lactone fibers allow the conger sites to survive
within the hybrid construction and flourish, maintaining their, quote,
basic biological properties within the printed layered on-strucks.
And, quote, the constructed cartilage has been used in laboratory mice successfully,
or after an average eight weeks, the implanted tissue had developed the, quote,
structures and properties, and, quote, of regular cartilage.
Scientists project that they will be able to use MRIs or other body scans to assess
the needs of individual patients, then use those imaging results,
blueprints to produce custom-made cartilage for implantation.
From Porantfreak.com by Ernesto, anonymous file-sharing darknet ruled illegal by German court.
Court in Hamburg, Germany has granted an injunction against the user of the anonymous
and encrypted file-sharing network RetroShare.
RetroShare users' exchange data through encrypted transfers and the network setup
ensures that the true sender of the file is always obfuscated.
The court, however, has now ruled that RetroShare users who act as an exit node
are liable for the encrypted draft sent by others.
Anonymous file-sharing is booming, whether it's bit torn through a VPN proxy
or other anonymizing services.
People are increasingly looking to hide their identities online.
One application that gained interest earlier this year is RetroShare.
Despite being actively developed for more than half a decade,
its user-based suddenly increased tenfold in just a few months.
The RetroShare network allows people to create a private and encrypted file-sharing network.
Users add friends by exchanging PGPs or to people they trust.
All the communication is encrypted using open SSL
and files that are downloaded from strangers always go through a trust-rend.
In other words, it's a true darknet and virtually impossible to monitor by outsiders.
At least that's the idea.
This week, a Hamburg court ruled against a RetroShare user who passed on
an encrypted transfer that turned out to be a copyrighted music file.
The user in question was not aware of the transfer and merely passed data
in a way similar to how Tor works.
Court, however, ruled that the user in question,
who was identified by the copyright holder, is responsible for passing on the encrypted song.
The judge ordered an injunction against the RetroShare user,
who was now forbidden from transferring the song,
with a maximum penalty of 150,000 euros or a six-month prison term.
Since RetroShare traffic is encrypted,
this means that the user can no longer use the network without being at risk.
The defendant is liable for the infringement of trouble makers!
The court explained in its ruling,
the Hamburg court's decision goes quite far according to some legal experts.
IT lawyer Thomas Stadler, for example, writes on his blog,
that the legal opinion is, quote, white, risky, unquote,
as it puts all users of RetroShare in danger.
Quote, it ultimately accuses the offender of failing to secure his internet connection
by running RetroShare and allowing other users of the RetroShare network
transfer copyright protected works via his computer, unquote.
Quote, it ultimately accuses the offender of failing to secure his internet connection
by running RetroShare and allowing other users of the RetroShare network
to transfer copyright protected works via his computer,
unquote, dollar rights.
While the ruling is obviously a threat to RetroShare users,
in part it's also a human error by the user in question.
RetroShare derives its security from the fact that all transfers go through,
quote, trusted friends, end quote,
who users themselves add.
In this case, the defendant added the anti-piracy monitoring company as a friend,
which allowed him to be, quote, caught, end quote.
More troubling is the precedent the ruling sets for people who run open wireless networks
as the same issue arises there.
According to this ruling, internet subscribers are responsible for the transfer
that takes place on their networks, making them liable for the copyright infringements of others.
Update, contrary to the US and elsewhere, a previous ruling in Germany
already makes wireless network operators liable for the copyright infringements of others.
Update, Vildeburg, Solmeche law firm, bold torn freak that the ruling is, quote,
not compelling, end quote.
Quote, exchanging data via RetroShare is not illegal as such.
In contrast to many other file sharing websites, access to files to be exchanged
can be restricted to selected friends.
And so these files are not offered to all users of the website.
In such cases, no copyright infringement occurs.
In my view, there is no evidence that copyright protected music has been made available
to the general public.
Although the firm ProMedia's investigations demonstrate that the respondent in this case
offered a file via a file sharing website, these investigations are not conclusive
of the fact that the said file was generally made available to the public.
It is possible that ProMedia posed as a, quote, friend, unquote, of the respondent.
The decision of LG Hamburg is not compelling.
End quote.
From tecturt.com, by Mike Maznick, Google asks people to speak out against ITU's attempt
to take over internet governance from the SpeakUp department.
We've been covering how the UN's International Telecommunications Union, the ITU,
has been moving forward with its plans next month to consider a number of proposals
to take over aspects of internet regulation and governments.
There are, of course, a number of different proposals being submitted by different countries.
The problem, of course, is that the setup of the ITU is not up to the public,
and there are some special interest involved.
Many by countries with oppressive governments looking to use this as a way to gain control
over the internet for the sake of censorship, as well as local,
often state-run or state-associated telcos, using the process to see if they can divert money
from successful internet companies to their own backgrounds.
While the ITU likes to present itself as merely a neutral meeting place for all these proposals,
what's been clear for a while is that the ITU leadership has taken an active role
in encouraging, cultivating, and supporting some of the more egregious proposals.
Some of this is due to the way in which the ITU leadership views the internet.
Some of it is due to an organization that realizes its own mandate as obsolete
and it really serves little purpose anymore.
So it's coping by pretending its mandate is much broader,
by doing so in a way that shows it has little understanding of the internet
other than, quote, something we want a mandate over, end quote.
This seems to be one situation where, in the US, pretty much everyone is aligned against this effort.
Politicians and companies, including telcos, tech companies, service providers, and more,
are all quite worried what an ITU-governed internet would lead to,
mostly funds being diverted from innovative companies to stagnant players
and a much less open internet.
But the US has only one vote in the upcoming WCIT event
where many of these proposals will be reviewed.
ITU-Boss Amadountore pretends that the public has a voice in this process
but ridiculously shut down the public commenting tool on the ITU's website
or telling everyone about it.
Nice trick that, however, if the ITU won't let the public comment,
there's nothing preventing the public from speaking out elsewhere.
This is, after all, one of the amazing wonders of the internet,
which the ITU refuses to understand.
It's a tool of communication and expression.
Along those lines, Google has revamped its, quote, take action and, quote, page
to urge people to speak out about the whole ITU-WCIT process,
which will be getting off on December 3rd.
If you want a simple video that explains what's happening,
the one at WhatIsTheITU.org is really fantastic.
It explains how the internet grew based on an open, bottom-up process
technological experts rather than a closed top-down setup by a large bureaucracy
and we should be concerned when anyone tries to flip that process.
Again, that website is WhatIsTheITU.org
From democracynow.org, judge denies bail request from accused strat-4 hacker Jeremy Hammond.
A federal judge has rejected a request by lawyers for accused hacker Jeremy Hammond
to release the imprisoned activist into house arrest.
Hammond is accused of being a member of the hacker group anonymous
and has been charged with hacking into the computers of the private intelligence firm strat-4.
The whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks has continued to release the strat-4 documents
which number in the millions.
Hammond's supporters say the documents shed light on how the private intelligence firm monitors activists
and spies for corporate clients.
Jeremy Hammond has been held without bail or trial for more than eight months.
His lawyers argued Tuesday the accused hacker would be unable to review the troves
of digitized evidence released to the case from jail.
But their request for his release was denied.
Jeremy Hammond's supporters Sue Crabtree defended his alleged actions.
Sue Crabtree, quote,
The media calls Jeremy a hacker, a member of anonymous.
The courts and those pursuing his prosecution call him a criminal.
But we call Jeremy a hero.
We ask what crimes has Jeremy admitted that haven't equally exposed the very crimes of the state prosecuting him.
And again, we say exposing the crimes of the state is not a crime.
End quote from eff.org by Trevor Tim.
Homeland Security wants to more than double its predator drone fleet inside the US
despite safety and privacy concerns.
Despite renewed criticism from both parties in Congress that domestic drones pose a privacy danger to US citizens
and a report from its own inspector general recommending to stop buying them.
The Department of Homeland Security, DHS, has indicated it wants to more than double its fleet of predator drones
used to fly surveillance missions inside the United States.
Yesterday, California watch ordered that DHS signed a contract that could be worth as much as $433 million
with general automics for the purchase of up to 14 additional predator drones to fly near the border of Mexico and Canada.
Congress would still need to appropriate the funds.
But if they did, DHS drone fleet would increase to 24.
While many people may think the US only flies predator drones overseas,
DHS has already spent $250 million over the last six years on 10 surveillance predators of its own.
Customs and border protection, CBP, a division of DHS, uses the unmanned drones inside the US
to patrol the borders with surveillance equipment like video cameras, infrared cameras, heat sensors, and radar.
They say the drones are vital to the fight to stop illegal immigrants.
But as EFF reported in June, the DHS inspector general issued a report
faulty DHS for wasting time, money, and resources using drones that were ineffective and lacked oversight.
The inspector general chastised the agency for buying two drones last year despite knowing these problems
and recommending they cease buying them until the problems could be fixed.
Perhaps worse, the DHS is also flying predator drone missions on behalf of a diverse group of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies
for missions beyond immigration issues.
We know they have lent the drones out to the County Sheriff's Department in North Dakota and the Texas Rangers, among others.
But unfortunately, we don't know the full extent of the DHS lending program.
DHS, as is their custom, is keeping that information secret.
In response last month, EFF sued DHS under the Freedom of Information Act, demanding answers about how and why it loans out its predator drones
to other law enforcement agencies across the country.
EFF's lawsuit asks for the records and logs of CBP drone flights conducted in conjunction with other agencies.
These drones pose a multitude of privacy concerns to all Americans.
As the Congressional Research Service, Congress's non-partisan research arm, detailed in this comprehensive report on domestic drones and the Fourth Amendment, link in the show notes.
The report explains drones can be equipped with, among other capabilities, facial recognition technology, fake cell phone towers to intercept phone calls, texts, and GPS locations, and in a few years will even be able to see through walls.
Despite these concerns, DHS has not publicly issued any privacy rules to make sure drones do not spy on U.S. residents in border states going about their daily lives.
In fact, at a congressional hearing on the subject, DHS refused to send anyone to testify, leading both parties to criticize their absence.
This is even more troubling, given DHS is also leading the push to get local police agencies to purchase their own drones by handing out $4 million to agencies to, quote, facilitate and accelerate and, quote, their use.
The FAA estimates as many as 30,000 drones could be flying over U.S. territory by the end of the decade.
The booming drone industry, which has announced a PR campaign in an attempt to tamp down the public privacy concerns, is quick to point out that these police drones, which cost anywhere from under $100,000 to $1 million, are smaller than predators and do not have the same flight time.
So police could not be able to surveil Americans for hours or days at a time like predator drones could, yet the technology advances rapidly and becomes cheaper every year.
Smaller drones will soon be able to fly for an extended time period as well.
For example, Lockheed Martin has developed a drone that weighs only 13.2 pounds well within the FAA's domestic weight limits, and can be recharged by a laser on the ground, allowing it to remain in the air indefinitely.
Several members of Congress have commendably introduced hills that would protect the privacy of Americans and increase transparency surrounding their use.
These members, who voted for increased drone use in February, but have recently expressed second thoughts, should all DHS representatives before Congress to explain their position.
The American people deserve answers about to whom Homeland Security is loaning its drones, how DHS plans on protecting Americans privacy, and why they even need any more, given they are misusing the drones they already have.
Other headlines in the news, to read these stories, please follow the links in the show notes.
Reformed to require war and private online messages up for vote, but down on privacy.
Post blatant security hole from AT&T, face five years in jail.
40 years ago, the Supreme Court effectively banned software patents.
Remember that?
Police raid.
Police raid.
Nine-year-old pirate bay girl.
Confiscate Winnie the Pooh laptop.
Production and editorial selection is done by DeepGeek.
Views of the story authors reflect their own opinions, and not necessarily those of talk geek to me news.
News from Techter, Rostory.com, and AllGov.com, used under arranged permission.
News from torrentfreak.com, S-A-C-S-I-S.org.Z-A, and E-F-F.org, are used under permission of the Creative Commons by Attribution License.
News from W.L. Central and Democracy Nano, are used under permission of the Creative Commons by Attribution non-commercial no-derivative license.
News from R-H-RealityCheck.org, is used under permission of the Creative Commons by Attribution SharaLike License.
News sources retain their respective opi rights.
Speaking for myself here, I just want to say thank you to DeepGeek to letting me help out with talk geek to me news.
Think TGTM is important because DeepGeek highlights stories on issues that don't normally see the light of day.
Don't always agree with the things that are said in the stories or the opinions expressed by the writers, but I've always felt that it's important to see another person's side of an issue before you make up your mind about it.
There's so much propaganda in our media these days that if it were up to them we wouldn't be allowed to make up our mind.
Our society has become so partisan that we're not even allowed to debate issues with our good friends who may have different opinions than us.
We believe that a free and open form of discussion is important for society.
We believe that the internet is the appropriate place for that.
And I commend DeepGeek and talk to me news for being a source of topics that we normally wouldn't even realize exist.
Because of talk geek to me news, we have a place to discover these topics.
And because of the internet and our internet communities, we have places to discuss them.
Mankind the world over seems to be in a quagmire these days.
We're so partisan, so at each other's throats that we don't even want to listen to someone else's opinion on a topic because we may disagree with them on a different topic.
I think the only way we're ever going to get out of this is by looking at issues that the media and the governments don't want us to look at because they want us to distract.
We need to discuss these things and side how to deal with them.
The world, our society and our communities are made up of great people who we talk to each and every day because of corrupt leadership and ineffectual news organizations.
We look like cats and dogs fighting from a 10,000 foot view.
It's time we put a stop to our bickering.
It's time we listen, respect elites, other opinions.
And it's time to identify and correct the real problems in our world.
Talk geek to me news may be doing a small part, but it's doing its part.
And for that I'm grateful.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Talk Geek to Me.
Here are the vials statistics for this program.
Your feedback matters to me. Please send your comments to dg at deepgeek.us.
The web page for this program is at www.talkgeektoMe.us.
You can subscribe to me on identical as the username deepgeek or you could follow me on Twitter.
My username there is dgtgtm as in deepgeek talk geek to me.
This episode of Talk Geek to Me is licensed under the creative comments attribution share like 3.0 on poor license.
This license allows commercial reuse of the work as well as allowing you to modify the work as long as you share alike the same rights you have received under this license.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Talk Geek to Me.
You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio does our work.
We are a community podcast network that releases shows every weekday Monday through Friday.
Today's show, like all our shows, was contributed by a HBR listener by yourself.
If you ever consider recording a podcast, then visit our website to find out how easy it really is.
Hacker Public Radio was founded by the digital.parent and the economical and computer club.
HBR is funded by the binary revolution at binref.com or binref projects are crowd-responsive by lunar pages.
From shared hosting to custom private clouds, go to lunarpages.com for all your hosting needs.
Unless otherwise stasis, today's show is released on the creative comments, attribution, share alike, he does our license.