What are /r/cyberlaws' favorite Products & Services?

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Interesting comment from /u/jedberg on HN:

>This happens all the time. At reddit we would get requests from law enforcement asking for email addresses and other private information. Luckily in our case we could simply reply that we didn't know, since we didn't require any personal information to sign up and didn't keep IP address logs that long.

>But having been on the other side of the coin, investigating computer crime, I can tell you why it happens. It's really easy to make a request for information, and in most cases, the person you're asking will just willingly give it up even though they don't legally have to, either because they want to be helpful or because they don't know about their legal rights. Even if the evidence can't be used to build a case against the person in court, it can still be used to lead down a path towards finding the person and gathering evidence that is admissible.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9759591

Why? It's already illegal to do this stuff. Why do we need more laws? If the cops aren't going to do something about it currently, they sure as hell aren't going to start because some new law gets passed.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_murders_go_unsolved_each_year

I'm more concerned with that than I care that a bunch of millionaires are only seeing a 38% revenue instead of a 45% one.

Ideally it should be, but encrypted connections cost more resources which is something a charitable foundation doesn't always have.

The EFF HTTPS Everywhere extension will do exactly this: https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

I suggest using SSL whenever possible, there are browser plugins available to make it easier (e.g. HTTPS Everywhere). It makes it much more difficult for them to MITM your connection. They basically have to be a trusted CA and you don't validate certificate signatures.

You've got to be shitting me, HideMyAss? Really?

I love how everyone was wringing their hands over how these guys were badass hackers when they're running around doing shit like this.

Hilarious.

Trojan/virus - definitely can eavesdrop (as it can do whatever wishes since it's in control of computer). Remember Bavarian Skype trojan?

Skype the company - it used to be not feasible due to the protocol, but various governments have been pushing Skype for long time to implement eavesdropping "feature". Though there AFAIK hasn't been any evidence Skype is yet capable of that.

Note that Skype RC4 key expansion algorithm has been reverse-engineered - while it does not allow eavesdropping on conversation content, it allows seeing some of network-related stuff.

Do some investigating yourself. Take the two questions torrentfreak uses and send ExpressVPN an email. Looking through their Terms of Service though gives me this,

> If we receive complaints regarding copyrighted materials such as music and movies being shared over our network, we may filter traffic to see which account is sending it, and then cancel that account. We do not as a matter of ordinary practice store private information about individual user activities on our network, such as emails, chats, VOIP calls, websites visited, etc. However, should we receive a valid request from US law enforcement officials, we may be forced to comply, even with no warning to the user.

A side note, any product that advertises themselves as "#1 best at what we do" is an immediate turn off. I have never used ExpressVPN so I cannot speak for their services but that stands out. If you notice on all the websites listed in the link I previously posted, no such nonsense exists.

As I said, this article is a heavily slanted op-ed. The proposed regulations, while they may be unduly restrictive (especially the caps on licenses), do not make it "illegal to operate at all."

Here's an article actually discussing the regulations in question. Included are links to the actual draft rules.

Both the mayor and the Seattle City Council seem to offering rules to try and bring these services into a system of regulation that is on par with what taxi cabs have to deal with. The article labels this as "anti-competitive" when frankly it just evens the playing ground.

You need to be a bit more descriptive of what you're looking for. Ideally, what do you want the case to say? You've lumped a lot of subject matter together here.

Also, try google scholar. Their search works quite well for court cases, and doesn't require too much specialized knowledge to find what you're looking for.

I'm proud of having added 15-20 sites to the list of supported websites in this great extension. If you want to help out (either if you already know of some sites that has https, but doesn't use it by default, or if you'd like to actively look for them, like I did (I tried to find as many banks as possible)), then you should go here for the very easy instructions on how to create new rulesets that you can send in for inclusion in the next version.

I've been finding the related DMCA threads in regards specifically with NORDVPN server leak and Qbittorrent usage (probably not the cause) for the files Black Widow by Disney Corporation.

No embedded trojans from the media file that was used. Killswitch was always used. No issues with ExpressVPN. Issues with NordVPN starting from 30 days ago but markedly now. Violation for me was 4 days before the email notice upon which I was suspended for 15minutes in the morning from 6:30am-6:45am.

To answer your question as a cultural traveler/gypsy (not morally), Kansas Optimum + Cox Communications, NJ/PA Comcast + Verizon (before Xfinity name change etc), and now TX Spectrum/Charter Communications + ATT (separate ISPs).

I never used Suddenlink but from what I've met irl with senior citizens, I doubt that they will pursue. Suddenlink is a relatively barebones operation compared to Spectrum/Charter/formerly known as TWC Cable + ATT in my zip code.

>"To hide his identity when performing the attack, the FBI claims that Kretsinger used VPN service . In spite of this, activity was traced to an address in Arizona."

Well, they lost my potential business.

For some firearms, there is only one hard part to manufacture, and the rest are available without restriction. So in a sense, there's already a recipe for an assault rifle out there.

Of course, ISP are not necessary. They're actually counter productive to the Internet, since they implement a star topology, while the Internet is designed for a mesh topology (at least theorically).

And you're not alone, other people are also thinking of implementing another Internet:

http://www.zdnet.com/news/hackers-aim-to-launch-internet-satellite-network-moon-mission/6335491

However, the difficulty is that in some, if not most, countries, it is illegal to lay a cable across two different properties (eg. in France), or to send electromagnetic waves across different properties (you have to ensure that your Wifi waves don't go over to the neighbors). To be able to do that, you need to obtain a licence from the state, and few people take the pain to do that. In France, there's only one association (loi de 1901), http://www.fdn.fr/ which did register as an ISP, but they're not laying cables, just renting connectivity from the national operator, just like the other ISPs, at least for the last mile.

That said, even in countries were more freedoms are left, given the current topology of the Internet, you would need quite long-distance connections, because the interconnecting nodes are few and sparse. Eg. in Europe there are only a few of them per country. Extending a fiber optic cable across the country (one per city also), is rather costly.

We'd get a better infrastructure, if it was the cities who established and managed their own networks, and the connections between neighboring cities. We would obtain a meshed internet which would be more resilient, and if most cities are connected to most their neighbors, that would probably have much more capacity.

This seems like a better article. Capping the number of drivers seems like a terrible mistake, considering it's a part-time gig for some drivers.

I don't read the quote (the original one) as a slippery slope like "what's going to happen NEXT?!" kind of thing, rather I see it as warning against staying silent when you see injustice - that not speaking out implicitly condones the action and leaves everybody with less protection even if it doesn't affect you personally. This is a very critical part of human rights that many laypeople gloss over. (Considering the historical context, many people probably did believe that socialists and communists deserve to be persecuted)

As for the modified version - you could argue that OP didn't articulate it very well I suppose - but there is definitely gravity in the idea that we can't tolerate abuses of power simply because those abuses are aimed at unsavory people in society (or outside society). There's a proper way of prosecuting criminals and terrorists, and then there's the way that western governments prefer. We shouldn't be silent to the government stripping away basic privacy rights for everybody just because they trot out the standard excuse of "think of the children and terrorists" and hasn't effected any visible negative consequences onto the average citizen yet.

Another way of articulating a similar idea can be seen in the famous dialogue in A Man for All Seasons, where Robert Bolt makes the point that you must grant even the worst members of society the protection of the law if it is to have any value to the law-abiding citizen. This is not to say that you don't go after them, just that you don't go after them improperly. The ends do not justify the means in justice.

Yup, I'm quite familiar with those cases (wrote a law review note on the subject). Courts have talked about limitations like the ones I mentioned in my first post, but have not actually applied them.

There's a circuit split at the moment. Check out MDY v. Blizzard.

See Wikileaks and Anonymous for one.

Stuxnet, Russia's DDoS attack on Georgia, Estonia's little cyberwar in 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare#Various_case_histories

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=internet+and+international+politics&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

I've got a 10 page research paper to write on roughly the same topic. Good luck!

google translate link

TL;DR: Czech Antipirate Union published full articles on their site originating from other sites without permission.

Orbot is an application that allows mobile phone users to access the web, instant messaging and email without being monitored or blocked by their mobile internet service provider.

I used to do that a lot. In fact I remember seeing the exact same router logs a long time ago and thinking I was being attacked. Staring at logs and trying to google what everything means actually taught me a lot over time. It's not the most efficient way to learn, but if it makes you curious then it sure is easier.

If you're interested in seeing the behind-the-scenes of your network then I'd highly recommend you use Wireshark. It'll tell you a lot more than this will.

Hackaday covered just that - it's called The Pirate Box. Looks like an awesome and quite simple project, although I'd want to expand the storage to >1TB - go for it!

Countries like China, Egypt and Iran are getting more and more censored, it's disconcerning. I am glad that there are VPNs like NordVPN, StrongVPN, ExpressVPN and other that can give you access because this is ridiculous. Other than that, this is becoming a big problem, especially in countries where the Internet in general is very restricted. Soon there will be more countries like China :/

Yeah, I get that. You know, I use NordVPN for my home needs and what I like about it that it doesn't need many resources. But lack of monetary resources really sucks. I guess you'd need to talk to your average Joe supervisor and explain why you need new computers and infrastructure. But why? It works and I think we are secure [sips coffee and eats cold pizza] I hope it goes well for you and your agency.

Seconding VPN. I know StrongVPN has one of those widgets on their site cycling through user reviews, and more than one of them have been about getting around country imposed censors.

They also have a decent knowledge base articles on setting up services, step by step with screenshots and IIRC screencasts too.

Thank you for the link. Interesting, I only wish they had looked into ExpressVPN. I always thought they were one of the better VPN providers.

EDIT: However, their response is almost identical to StrongVPN (in that they'll disconnect any service in which they feel is violating copyright laws). I don't have any issue with the disconnect, that's fine. I'd just like to know that they'll consider my privacy beyond that.

There is more to the story of Joshua Schulte, the CIA recruited hacker now convicted in connection with Wikileaks' 2017 publication of the tools Schulte designed for the US, than in this "LawGrad" or most other second-hand reports. Inner City Press covered the recent trial, after getting it opened to two pool reporters (it was often the only media there), and getting Schulte's civil case unsealed - see the first book about it, "Brutal Kangaroo: WikiLeaks Verdict Against Josh Schulte, and Other Whistleblowers: Convicted of sending the CIA's Vault 7 cyber tools to Wikileaks, Schulte remains in jail under DOJ SAMs. And others?," https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B6742TPV

Here is few news articles:

http://www.geek.com/articles/games/risen-sells-out-on-steam-after-publisher-ran-out-of-activation-keys-20101116/

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Prey-Pc-Game-Steam-Digital,9334.html

link to the decision: http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1530037713191980882

According to this decision, your identity can be subpoenaed just because you accidentally received an email that wasn't intended for you.

And to add to the mess, the current Android kernels can't encrypt the internal memory and have issues with encryted SD cards. However Honeycomb (3.0), while being for tablets, does support it, so the next big milestone for the phones may carry it over.

Sources: 1 [2](

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/02/android-3-0-honeycomb-can-encrypt-all-your-data-needs-a-full/)

It should be possible to get a hash of the original content and run it against the hash of EVERYTHING posted on FJ automatically. Right?

Or something like this: How Google Image search works? Hear it from experts.

Perhaps we could make it a project going and use the Boinc platform to distribute the computing. I mean if The Lord of Oats can get over $100k I'm sure a few people will volunteer to scour FJ for the comics.

>Give us a link to the hotel case, or at least the name of the case so we can go look up one.

On Command Video Corp. v. Columbia Pictures Ind., et al, 777 F.Supp. 787 (N.D. Cal. 1991) (available at http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6496522323472709052&hl=en&as_sdt=2,3)

>Zendiva, having rented out the DVD, has sacrificed all rights to perform it, granting that to the renter in their place.

That's immaterial. You're referring to the same first sale defense that they're trying to rely on. The only problem is that the first sale doctrine only acts as a defense to claims of infringement based on the distribution right. It offers no protection for infringements of the public performance right.

google translate link

The most WTF part:

> This would fulfill the wishes of collector organizations such as OSA and Dilia, which argues that citations are "disposession" of "property of authors", for which they should collect the fees.

Little background:

For a few years, CZ had a law, that you can make a copy for yourself (but not distribute!) while at the same time you had to pay "hidden racketeering tax" whenever you bought HDD, CD, DVD, printer, copier, etc.

The organizations receiving this money (OSA, Dilia, Intergram - think of them like RIAA/MPAA) then split this money mostly to themselves and the rest to some artists by a "random" key.

There is a lot more WTF, e.g. OSA banning some children from singing to president until they pay for "public production", wanting money for each TV/radio that plays in shop/pub (even playing music in your own car counts as "public production" if other people can hear it!).

As an artist you automatically fall under OSA (stupid current law), unless you express explicitly to be under other organization (fortunately there exists one just out of spite - SNA, "Alliance of Independent Authors" who do want anything, just show middle finger to OSA).

It was bad, let's hope it won't get even worse.

well not anymore, they support and recommend OpenVPN over PPTP...
they're also rolling out L2TP/IPSEC

Promoting this project would be a step in the right direction. If consumers had access to good information they might start including reasonable ToS when considering what social media and web services to use.

Isn't that a separate issue though? From an ISPs perspective I don't think there's much of a way to tell the difference between one person using Tor and multiple people using it.

Using Tor and running a relay is almost certainly legal - and even an exit node is probably legal (https://www.torproject.org/eff/tor-legal-faq.html) - so potential problems would be with violating ISP policies (especially complaints resulting from exit node traffic). So the government probably can't prosecute you (at least in most countries it probably can't, and no country has).

I was using PrivateInternetAccess for a few years and it was effective. When my subscription ran out I switched to NordVPN. Worth every penny. Not only does keep the ISP out of my hair, Netflix and other streaming services work perfectly, which means I can get region locked content that's sometimes harder to come by on torrents or I don't want to bother.

Yeah honestly I saw someone say on a different reddit (r/torrents I think?) someone said if you're not paying for your VPN then you're the product, and I kinda live by that. They're more likely to be selling, leaking and/or logging your information anyways whereas the paid ones have more to lose and provide better protection. ExpressVPN is what I use but other top rated ones work just as well in my experience.

The VPN logs were subpoenaed by the government. No company based in the UK or US would be immune to this, it's a legally enforceable request. Simply put, the LulzSec member was a fucking retard for using HideMyAss.

I don't know if it's legal in the US or UK to offer unlogged VPN accounts but AFAIK this is available from various other places in the world. Also, who wouldn't use Tor for something like this anyway. Nubs.

I’m not entirely sure if ThePirateBay is being hosted at PRQ.

I have an account there and actually didn’t hear about this until I received this e-mail earlier today:

> Hi. > > As many of you might have heard in the media there have been a big > police raid around Europe. > The raid was about the usual file-sharing crack-down, which they have > each year, so not directed directly against PRQ or it\'s customers. > PRQ was visited by 5 policemen and a locksmith at 9 AM (CET), they > where not allowed to enter the premises until our legal representative > was present at the office. > When he arrived they (the police) just wanted to know who or whom had > used 2 different IPs during a couple of dates in 2009. > Since we did not have this information (no logging) there was no > information and/or hardware for them to seize. > The police did not enter the datacenter, only the office, so no > servers or network have been touched by them. > No information given or hardware removed. > > So you can all rest easily. > > The only impact it have had, is that we lost some working hours, > which means that we have a little backlog on the tickets. We are > working through the que, expect to be back on track withing 24 hours. > > -- > Periquito AB / PRQ >