MPAA sued by TorrentSpy.com

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AT&T's illegal Internet traffic wiretapping details are public

Wired has published the evidence against AT&T in the class action lawsuit filed by EFF.

The evidence suggests AT&T has installed cable splitters on its backbone optic fibre cables to "copy" Internet traffic.

The evidence shows that not only are splitters in place on AT&T's own network, but even more seriously on the backbone that routes traffic from/to AT&T's peering partners. AT&T is illegally tapping its competitors network traffic effectively allowing whoever is in the receiving end of that data to wiretap all US Internet traffic.

Ingenius AT&T.

Let's see...accomplish in illegal wiretapping, violating peering contracts, violating their own customers' privacy, violating the privacy of AT&T's competitors'.

If I had a peering contract with AT&T, I'd be on the phone with AT&T right about now informing AT&T that all peering agreements with AT&T are void as of 5 minutes ago. I'd cut all peer connections to AT&T (after arranging alternative ones) and then I'd sue AT&T for damages.


The individual court documents are available at:

• Study Group 3, LGX/Splitter Wiring, San Francisco - describes AT&T's planning of installing the cable splitters
  
• SIMS, Splitter Cut-In and Test Procedure - describes the procedures to install the cable splitters
  
• Cut-In and Test Procedure - describes the procedures to install and test the cable splitters
  

-TPP

Lordi wins!

The Finnish entry for the Eurovision song contest by a flamboyant heavy metal band Lordi decimated the competition today.

They received an all-time record number of votes in an Eurovision contest: 292.

Go Finland! :)

-TPP

Trademarking smells?

A Lithunian pizzeria chain Cilija wants to trademark the smell of pizza.

They're claiming the local population associate pizza scent mostly with the restaurant and want to trademark the pizza scent for use in advertising. Since smelloads haven't been invented yet Cilija only plans on mentioning how pizzalicious their food smells. No other restaurant would be able to do that if the trademark is granted to Cilija.

I think the whole thing stinks.

-TPP

Mari-El activists still persecuted in Russia

Vladimir Kozlov, the editor of the Mari newspaper Kudo+Kodu and Chairman of the Mari Council, was denied entry to Finland for attending a seminar of ethnic museum leaders.

The Finnish Embassy in Moscow had granted him a visa, but when Mr. Kozlov tried to leave Russia, the Russian border officials claimed his passport had all of its even numbered pages missing.

One can only guess how the pages went missing after Mr. Kozlov handed the passport to the officials.

Mr. Kozlov was badly beaten in February 2005 by "unknown" assailants. Nobody has been arrested, charged or convicted for his near fatal beating.

-TPP

In Soviet US the Government spies on journalists

Yay for liberty, freedom and illegal wiretaps.

-TPP

In Soviet US the Government spies on you, pt II

USA Today has managed to find out more about NSA's domestic spying program.

Turns out our fearless leader, Chairman George Bush, lied to us again. In his radio address last December he said he'd authorized the NSA to capture international communication between terrorist suspects. He specifically said only international communication, i.e. calls coming in from abroad or going abroad, are spied on, as if that makes spying on your own citizens any better. He also implied that the spying program was only listening in on terrorist suspects.

Either his definition of terrorist suspect is a little vague, and includes every US resident, NSA went outside of their mandate or Bush is lying through his teeth.

As the USA Today information reveals the NSA has been collecting information about EVERY phonecall made in the United States. All calls. Not just international calls or calls made or received by terrorist suspects. Every single call.

With the help of telecommunications companies the NSA has been collecting information about US residents' phonecalls for years. Citing legal implications only QWest has refused to comply with NSA's request to hand over call information. AT&T, Verizon and Bellsouth are happily letting the Government spy on you with no warrants in sight.

When will the Government stop lying to you? After the next election?

-TPP

Jeanson James Ancheta goes to jail for 57 months

Jeanson James Ancheta has been sentenced to 57 month prison sentence for his botmaster activities. He ran a zombie network that was used to attack several DOD computers, which is probably why he's in the slammer for such a long time.

He was basically selling timeshares on his zombie network to whoever had a need for a DDOS, hack-by-proxy or spam activities.

-TPP

My PGR3 Tournament elimination round 1 race video

Here's the video capture of the race. Lots of bumping going on. The first few corners are just impossible.

It was close, but I made a bunch of mistakes that cost me the race, including the big crash at the end.

-TPP

PGR3 Tournament elimination round 1 completed

7 racers showed up for the 3-lap race. I came in 6th and got eliminated.

Here's how the race went from my perspective.

I started at last place on the inside. I went into the first corner taking an inside lane and then cars just started coming in from all directions. I'm sure I hit my fair share of cars as well. I use the in-car view when racing, so visibility is pretty bad. I don't even know how I ended up on the 3rd place after the 2nd corner.

I approach the 4th corner side by side with the 2nd place car. He is slightly in front so I slow down to take the line behind him. The 4th place car catches up on me, bumps me, then starts swerving and falls behind. I'm in the third place and stay there until midway through the second lap.

I scrape an inside wall on a chicane, and the 4th place car gets ahead of me and I fall back to 4th. The 5th place car is WAY back. The race is pretty much in the bag at this point.

That all changed in the first corner of the final lap, however. The 2nd place car screws up the corner pretty badly and I basically get stuck behind him while the 5th place car catches up on us and overtakes me.

We race right at each others' bumpers until the 3rd last corner where I'm feeling pretty good at my chances of overtaking these two guys. Bad idea...

I go into the corner with way too much speed and collide with the 3rd place car. The 4th place car somehow manages to avoid the brunt of the crash. The 6th place car catches up on us and overtakes me to come in 5th. I finish 6th.

Thankfully my boneheaded move didn't affect the race results as the 3rd and 4th place cars end up finishing at those positions.

I'll post videos of the race later. Here's The Crash footage as an appetizer:

The Crash from Sackamonjaro's viewpoint

It's a good one! :)

-TPP

PGR3 Tournament elimination races tonight

I'll be racing at 12:20am tonight.

All the races are broadcast in PGR3's Gotham TV Tournament Channel. If you own PGR3, tune in and watch me make a complete fool out of myself racing against all these pros.

-TPP

The Mad Finn as a pro-gamer?

Bizarre Creations, Global Gaming League, Inc. and Microsoft are running a worldwide tournament in Project Gotham Racing 3 (PGR3), a racing game for the XBox 360.

Top 64 qualifiers in each of the three regions - North America, Europe and Asia - make it to the elimination rounds for their region. There're four elimination rounds using a bracket of 64 competitors. Top 4 racers in each elimination race move onto the next round. The top 4 racers of each region are going to the Finals run at the Lamborghini factory in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy.

The qualifying was run using a Lamborghini Gallardo on Tokyo Nishigushi Short track. Unlimited amount of laps, best lap time counts.

The qualifying ended last night and I made it to the top 64 in North America!! My best lap time was 53.62 secs in 43rd position with the last qualifier having a time o 53.67 secs. Overall I came in at 149th position of 9,397 total competitors.

I've always been good at racing and sports games, but I never imagined I'd be able to compete as evenly as I did with the very best of PGR3. Some of the top qualifiers do this sort of thing professionally and they're freakishly talented.

Before the tournament begun I thought I'd have a small chance in making the top 64, if some of the top racers wouldn't participate. But everyone turned up, and the competition was simply fierce, especially in Europe. Not in my wildest dreams did I think I'd make it as high as top 50 among all these great racers.

The elimination rounds begin this Thursday evening and continue every evening until this Sunday. Let's see what happens. I don't think I'll make it very far. I'll be lucky, if I make it through the first round.

But it's been an absolute blast so far. I can't wait till the real competition starts.

-TPP