Stolen a film? MPAA wants to know
source: CNET

One in four online has illegally downloaded a feature film--and it's slicing into box-office and DVD sales, industry group says.

One in four people online has illegally downloaded a feature film--and it's cutting into box-office and DVD sales, the Motion Picture Association of America said in a study released Thursday.

A survey of 3,600 Internet users in eight countries showed that as many as 50 percent had downloaded copyrighted content in the last year. Of those people who have downloaded films, 17 percent said they are going to the movies less often, and 26 percent said they bought fewer DVDs, according to online researcher OTX, which conducted the study in partnership with the MPAA.

The trade group did not have box-office sales figures for 2004. But global movie admissions were down by 4 percent in 2003 to about 1.57 billion, compared with 1.64 billion in 2002, according to research provided by the MPAA. Still, from 1993 to 2004, admissions have gone up 27 percent, by 330 million, and DVD sales and rentals have shot up by 50 percent from 2002 to 2003, the research showed.

The primary concern, the MPAA said, is as broadband Internet connections spread faster to countries around the world, more people will take to illegal downloading. For example, an estimated 98 percent of South Korea's population uses broadband. Nearly 60 percent of the population has reportedly downloaded movies, and one in three say they go to the box office less often, according to the survey.

"It's not hard to imagine as other countries become increasingly broadband based we'll see more of this happen," said Matthew Grossman, a spokesman for the MPAA. There are approximately 29.2 million broadband households in the United States, according to market researcher The Yankee Group.
Also of concern is consumers' attitudes. The study found that 69 percent of those surveyed don't believe downloading movies is a major concern in today's society. Little more than half of people who have already downloaded films online expect to continue to do so, and 17 percent who don't already do it, plan to. Also, 38 percent of those surveyed said it was OK to download a film before it's released in theaters.

For this reason, the MPAA has launched a worldwide campaign to monitor online film-downloading more closely and educate people on the implications of pirating movies. It has created movie trailers to warn people against illegal downloading and making pirated copies of films, among other tactics.
The study was conducted with residents of Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Security hole found in Mozilla browser
Source: CNET News
Developers at the open-source Mozilla Foundation have confirmed that the latest version of their Web browsers have a security flaw that could allows attackers to run existing programs on the Windows XP operating system. The flaw, known as the "shell" exploit, was publicized Wednesday on a security mailing list, along with a link to a fix for the problem. Updated versions of the affected software programs, which include the Mozilla, Firefox and Thunderbird browsers, have been released. Developers said the flaw affected only Windows users, not computers running either the Macintosh or Linux operating systems. Like recent Internet Explorer vulnerabilities, this flaw only allows the attacker the ability to run an existing program and requires that security problems in other applications be exploited to gain further access. The flaw can be used to pass a file extension to the operating system. Windows XP will then run the helper application corresponding to that file extension. The main threat comes from the ability of an attacker to pass parameters to exploit vulnerabilities in a specific helper application, which could give an outsider access to the system. A shell problem could also cause the computer to freeze. The news comes as Microsoft has been dealing with a string of security flaws found in its Internet Explorer browser during the past several weeks. Some researchers had begun recommending that people worried about online security stop using the IE browser altogether.

New Yorkers Have Highest Hourly Wages In The Country
of course, you will be paying four times more for rent than anywhere else
New Yorkers make more money per hour than the rest of the nation, according to new statistics released by the Department of Labor Thursday.

The numbers show the average worker in the metropolitan area makes $23.10 an hour. The nationwide average is $17.41.

According to the report, one in five New Yorkers works in an office or administrative position, making it the most popular job in the area.

The study also shows positions in food preparation and construction under-represented in the area compared to national standards.

According to the report, if you are a New Yorker in the management or legal field, you have one of the highest paying jobs in the area, making an average of $56.44 an hour.

Friday starts off the fifth HOPE
Yep, it's been only two years since the last one and I really didn't plan on attending but I am in NYC this week visiting friends and family. It seems many of the attendies will be at the regular dive bar as always. I will most likely will be getting liquored up and spinning the yarn as usual. I should be getting some footage for the tommEE pickles show also. So email me, cell me or just plain find me. I will be leaving soon.

Los Angeles clamps down on cybercafes
Source: Reuters

Ordinance restricts the hours when minors can visit and requires shops to install video cameras.

Citing problems with truancy and youth violence, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved an ordinance restricting the hours during which minors can visit Internet cafes and requiring the shops to install video cameras for security.

The ordinance targets cybercafes and "PC baangs" that provide five or more computers with Internet access, including those set up specifically for multiplayer PC video games. The cafes would be required to get a police permit to operate. Minors under age 18 would not be permitted in the cafes on school days between 8:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., or after 10 p.m., and patrons would be required to provide identification on request.

The law would take effect in the next two months. In January 2003, City Councilman Dennis Zine called for an investigation into cafes offering Internet access--and in many cases aimed at young video game players--after an incident in which a brawl broke out between rival groups who had been playing the game "Counterstrike."

City officials told the council Wednesday they had identified 30 cybercafes in the city, more than half of them in the San Fernando Valley, the city's northern region. A report found that 86 percent of people arrested at cybercafes were juveniles, and 93 percent of the arrests were for truancy or curfew violations. Story Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from Fifth HOPE sched
I wonder why El_jefe is not speaking
Phone Losers of America

The PLA was created in 1994 as a general hacker/phreaker group. They eventually started PLA Magazine which in its lifetime released 46 issues (the most recent being a few months ago). The PLA has done many things over the years, including pulling pranks, operating numerous voice bridges, running their own forums etc. This panel will involve a discussion of the history of the PLA, what they are up to now, and the future. There will also be some videos and sound files presented along with a few "how-to" presentations.
Friday 2300
Area "B"

Now I know what TiVos I want to hack
Digital Video Makes Inroads With Police
source: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A TiVo-style digital video system makes it easier for officers to record law breakers and avoid frivolous lawsuits, while saving them valuable storage space unlike bulky analog tapes.
The Tyler Police Department in East Texas outfitted its 60 patrol cars with systems that take a steady stream of video. It includes a special ``pre-event'' feature that automatically goes back and saves the minute of footage before an officer hits the record button to mark the video.
``Now that I've got them on video, I figure, 'Let's go to court, I'd be happy to play them for you,''' Tyler police officer John Weavers said.
Tyler, a city of about 83,000 people some 90 miles east of Dallas, is one of seven police departments using a digital video system from IBM's Global Services division and Coban Research and Technologies Inc., a small private company near Houston.
Police in Yakima, Wash., were the first, outfitting 35 marked patrol cars about a year ago. Tyler, which had been testing the system for months, went live with the digital video in early June.
The departments who use the systems say digital is better than analog video tapes in just about every way -- they save money over the long term, are more likely to catch criminals in the act, and do a better job of protecting officers from frivolous lawsuits and citizens from unfair or abusive treatment.
``It's really just an emerging technology. What's happening is that you have a lot of departments migrating from analog to digital video for reasons of storage, management of the video, for more consistent quality,'' said David Hinojosa, a marketing vice president at Coban.
The systems cost from $7,000 to $10,000 per car, about the same as traditional analog video systems. With analog, however, there's the added expense of storing hundreds or thousands of video tapes taken during domestic disputes, traffic violations and drug busts.
Tyler police said they expect to save about $50,000 a year in labor, management and supply costs with the new system.
``Any time you have absolute, concrete evidence that an incident happened as the officer says, that's a good thing,'' said Charley Wilkison, political and legislative director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas. The lobbying group represents more than 100 police unions across the state.
An added bonus for officers is that information, from driver's license data to satellite GPS coordinates, can be tagged to the video, making it easy to search from officers' desktop computers.
And since it's searchable, police don't have to wade through hours of video tape cassettes to find a particular incident.
The video is saved to a high capacity computer server, eliminating the need for a staff of clerical workers and a separate storage room to file and retrieve stacks of video tapes.
In the year since the system was deployed in Yakima, it has proven especially effective in protecting police from lawsuits and complaints against officers, Capt. Jeff Schneider said.
``They tend not to go to court a whole lot once the defense looks at the video tape,'' he said.
The system really paid off last year when Yakima police used the pre-event to capture a person running away from where a killing had occurred.
``We had an officer just patrolling town, and he was able to catch a suspect fleeing the scene of a murder we didn't even know had occurred yet,'' Schneider said.
When a call went out about the slaying minutes later, the officer was able to get footage of the suspect, who was about 300 feet away when he was recorded trying to leave the area. The man was later charged with the murder.
In Tyler, Weavers said he enjoys the system's convenience and ease of use.
When he starts his daily patrols, he takes a black metal disk drive about the size of a slice of bread and plugs it into a machine anchored to the floorboard of his cruiser.
At the end of his shift, Weavers takes the drive to a computer station at the office, and in a few minutes downloads the day's videos onto the central computer. He marks as evidence videos he wants to preserve. Those not marked are automatically deleted in 90 days.
Tyler police aren't stopping with digital video. While still months away, the next step is to add a wireless Internet network that will allow department headquarters to watch the streaming videos in real time, Sgt. John Bausell said.
``I think they're about to explode in the market,'' Bausell said of the video systems. ``You're going to start seeing it pretty widespread.''
------
On the Net:
Coban Research and Technologies Inc.: cobantech.com

Noise over the VOIP subject again, from CNET
WASHINGTON--The political debate over how to regulate Internet phone calls is showing early signs of dividing along traditional partisan lines.
At a House of Representatives subcommittee panel hearing Wednesday, the Republican chairman struck a more cautious tone than his Democratic counterparts over what federal rules should apply to voice over Internet Protocol technology. News.context
What's new:
Congress is taking a serious look at VoIP regulation for the first time, with a hearing Wednesday, and a bill introduced Tuesday that would submit Net phone providers to many of the same rules that apply to traditional voice carriers.
Bottom line:
Critics of regulation say these rules will hamper VoIP's growth. Supporters say such laws make sense because, as Rep. Ed Markey puts it, the need for consumer protections won't vanish "simply because a voice call travels in packets rather than dedicated circuits."
More stories on this topic
"We will never know VoIP's tremendous potential if we saddle it with unwarranted government regulation," Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in his opening remarks at one of the first hearings to address VoIP regulation. Upton, who chairs the House telecommunications subcommittee, warned that "VoIP providers should not be regulated like common carriers."
The senior Democrat on the subcommittee, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, was not nearly as laissez-faire. Markey said the need for "consumer privacy rules, billing protections, fraud protections" and affordable residential service "does not disappear simply because a voice call travels in packets rather than dedicated circuits."
Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, the top Democrat on the full committee, went even further. He criticized as "quite troubling" an FCC ruling in February that said voice communications flowing entirely over the Internet--such as Skype and Pulver.com's Free World Dialup--are not subject to traditional phone regulations. "I would like to take this opportunity to remind the FCC that it is a creature of the Congress, and the Congress has never intended that voice services be deregulated at the whim of the FCC," Dingell said.
Wednesday's hearing comes as Congress is taking a serious look at VoIP regulation for the first time, with a bill introduced Tuesday that would submit Internet phone providers to many of the same rules that apply to traditional voice carriers.
VoIP providers are hoping to secure protection from state governments eyeing VoIP as a potentially lucrative revenue source, while the FBI and Justice Department are lobbying to extend telephone-wiretapping laws to the nascent technology. In addition, the IRS and Treasury Department said on Friday that they are considering applying an existing 3 percent excise tax to VoIP services.
About 2.8 million people make phone calls over their broadband connection, a figure that includes about 2.2 million cable customers using circuit-switched technology and about 600,000 VoIP subscribers. Corporations are gravitating toward VoIP even faster than consumers, with as many as one in 10 business calls that once traveled over the traditional voice network now being completed entirely over the Internet.
"I think there's a more traditional wing of the (Democratic) party that thinks VoIP is very similar to regular phone service and should be treated in similar ways," said Robert Atkinson, vice president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
"Then there are folks who look at VoIP as more of an Internet application and think it should be treated as we treat the Internet," Atkinson said. "As a general rule, you could say that New Democrats are in the latter camp. Republicans who are more deregulatory in nature are also in that camp." Atkinson's group is part of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, which popularized the term "New Democrat" and was once chaired by Bill Clinton, when he was governor of Arkansas.
City versus country...
The split between politicians who favor less regulation of VoIP and those who prefer more is not strictly a partisan divide. "I don't see this issue falling under partisan shot-taking," Rep. Upton said in a telephone interview after the hearing. "The technology is moving pretty fast, and we're going to stay up with it and get it deployed."
Another political component is the universal service taxes and access fee regulations that apply to traditional phone lines. Because they subsidize Americans who live in rural areas by charging urban subscribers more for phone service, the programs enjoy strong bipartisan support from politicians representing states with more rural populations. "Splits are not party-based...when it comes to telecommunications. Often it comes down to parochial issues." -- Adam Thierer,
Cato Institute
"The deregulatory effort for VoIP has been led by mostly Republicans, and that includes Republicans at the FCC," said Adam Thierer, director of telecommunications studies at the Cato Institute. But, Thierer cautioned, many "splits are not party-based but geography-based when it comes to telecommunications. It's often a rural-versus-urban or suburban issue. Often it comes down to parochial interests."
In the FCC's February ruling that VoIP providers lauded as a "watershed event" for the industry, the two Democratic commissioners were the ones who argued that the ruling was too deregulatory. Commissioner Michael Copps opposed the decision, and Jonathan Adelstein said he partially dissented. Copps said the FCC's vote in favor of Pulver.com creates unreasonable "challenges for law enforcement and has implications for universal service and public safety."
Complicating the legislative outlook for VoIP are the different types of products that exist. Vonage, for instance, sells VoIP service that links with the existing telephone network--and is therefore most likely to be the target of regulations such as regulations dealing with enhanced 911 (E911) and disabled access, as well as access charges and universal service taxes. VoIP providers such as Free World Dialup, and instant-messaging applications, do not fall into the same category and should expect to experience different regulatory treatment.
So far, each of the three bills in Congress that address VoIP prohibits state governments from taxing and regulating companies that provide Internet telephone service. But the details vary: The two most deregulatory bills, introduced at around the same time in early April, are both backed entirely by Republicans. The House bill's co-sponsors include Rep. Chris Cox, R-Calif., a prominent foe of Internet taxes and the fourth-most-senior House Republican.
The third bill, called the Advanced Internet Communications Services Act, is the only one with bipartisan support. It is also the most regulatory, saying that the FCC "shall by regulation" require VoIP companies to offer E911 service and disabled access, in addition to paying universal service and related taxes.

Well, it didn't take hackers long to do the inevitable... xp sp2 cracking

EVEN THOUGH Microsoft has not yet released service pack 2 for Windows XP, word reaches the INQ that its anti-piracy features have already been cracked open.

Microsoft has claimed that it's introduced features in SP2 which mean that illegal users of stolen or cracked activation codes won't be able to upgrade the OS, which is due for release in August of this year.
However, sources in the community are claiming that there's already a keygen for service pack 2 out in the wild that will bypass the security arrangements.