As a general rule in America, if you have a blog/website that allows people to comment or otherwise post something, you can’t be sued for what they post. Makes sense in a way. If someone who owns a copywrited picture contacts you and proves that someone posted a copywrited picture on your site, you are supposed to take it down. Everyone is happy.
Well, the courts have just added a new dimension to this. If you are irresponsible and let anyone post anything without you moderating it, you are still in the clear. If you try to be responsible and moderate posts, the courts decided that you can be sued.
I’m completely in support of copy write law. People ought to be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor. It would be difficult to enforce a copy write if you had to search every web site everyday to search for copy write violations.
With that said, what is the harm of an innocent post, particularly where the standard is that once you are notified, you take it down? We own a small business and understand the law regarding copy writes. One of the standards of enforcement is that you have to mark your product in some way to inform people that your item is protected by a registered copy write.
If there is no making on a picture being used on your blog, it seems to me that the owner of the picture has no expectation that his picture won’t be used on someone’s blog.
This ruling seems like an attempt to hamper the free exchange of ideas on the web.
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Phishing. Phishing is the attempt to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money), often for malicious reasons, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
We’ve all heard about it and sadly some of us fall for it every day. Well, there is a new way in which phishing is being used. For the most part phishing works in a random way. They send out a lot of posts and hope someone responds. Now they are targeting specific people and specific groups in an attempt to damage them.
In a somewhat humorous gesture, the computer geeks call this new method spearphishing and they are targeting internet freedom groups. The phishermen are incredibly persistent and clever, changing tactics and being creative in their tactics.
Clickbait is one of the more popular phishing methods and the headlines are tailored to what they believe you might be interested in. Political headlines that will please the left or the right are popular. If they think you hate Trump, you might see something like, “Porn star Jessica Drake claims Donald Trump offered her $10G, use of his private jet for sex,” If you love sensationalism, you might get, “Reality show mom wants to hire a hooker for her autistic son.”
So far, it’s not that difficult to prevent. The lesson here is that hackers are using their techniques to target specific groups and ideas. Learn and use readily available security measures as spelled out in this article.
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DHS is collecting information on the social media history of immigrants. It’s hard to get worked up about extra security, particularly when it’s related to publicly available information. And that includes US citizens who communicate with the immigrants. The comments on this article raise some interesting points. …
Disclaimer: I haven’t tried this system personally. I’m not sure that there is anything out there that isn’t “crackable” by our government overlords. The fact that it was used by Greenwald and Snowden for so long lends credence that it did work. Even if they can’t crack it, doesn’t mean that they can’t recognize that you are using it. It might draw attention to you because they can’t read it. …
This is a great case of knowledge would be good if people were really aware of the problem and the solution. We all want security on the internet. A solution has been created. Some internet providers haven’t updated to the new security protocols, so now there is a hold on starting the new security. If we were aware of who hasn’t, we could vote with our wallets.…
I lot of folks continue to use Google’s Gmail. Despite supporting Google, oftentimes the advantages of a somewhat anonymous email address is deemed valuable. If you are going to use it, make it safer.
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In our never ending quest to defund Google by not using it, we continue this week to find alternatives to Google Maps. We usually concentrate on finding alternatives that are “just as good”. Today, we actually found something that is uniquely better. For those who actually like to travel via topo maps, BackCountry Navigator is a great “off the grid” map application!…
Couple of thoughts came to mind when I read this. The first was thinking that Apple was pretty clever to do such a thing. The other was thinking what kind of evil bastards would do this to a loyal customer base. Coming on the 50 BILLION dollar loss in stock value after the release of the IPhone 8, I hope they fail completely. Corporations should have to pay for bad decisions.…
This article is more “information” than “knowledge”. Freedom lovers need to know what is all out there and what their goals/values are. Although the article is written for business, it lists the biggest platforms out there.…
Andrew "Bunnie" Huang and Edward Snowden have designed a hardware device that attaches to an iPhone and monitors it for malicious surveillance activities, even in instances where the phone's operating system has been compromised. They call it an Introspection Engine, and their use model is a journalist who is concerned about government surveillance. This looks like fantastic work, and they have a working prototype. Of course, this does nothing to stop all the legitimate surveillance that happens over a cell phone: location tracking, records of who you talk to, and so on.
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