Traces of ricin were found in the martial arts studio of a US man charged in a bizarre plot to send poisoned letters to President Barack Obama and other public officials, the FBI said Tuesday. The letters were intercepted as the nation was still reeling from the Boston Marathon bombings, but the…
Mississippi man arrested in ricin letters investigation
Everett Dutschke was arrested by US marshals at his Tupelo home early Saturday, Tony Carlton the city’s police chief, told Reuters.Agents from the FBI, the Capital Police and an anti-terrorists response team from the Mississippi National Guard, searched the suspect’s home and the premises of a former martial arts studio that Dutschke used to run in the city.Ricin letters have been addressed to the Democratic President Barak Obama, as well as Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican for Mississippi. Earlier they had also been sent to an 80-year-old Mississippi judge, Sadie Holland.Prosecutors dropped charges on Tuesday against Paul Kevin, an Elvis impersonator also from Mississippi, after no incriminating evidence was found after a search of his home.Ricin is made from castor beans and can be deadly to humans if refined into an aerosol form. It is considered a potential terror weapon. … Read More
Brian Williams, Scott Pelley, and Diane Sawyer: the three stooges
How do these anchors do it? How do they lie so consistently, and with such aplomb, day in and day out, without going up in puff of smoke and vanishing? … Read More
EA announces more layoffs rumored to be "in the hundreds"
Job security has likely been a hot topic around the water cooler as of late if you happen to work at Electronic Arts. Just last month, EA handed out a round of pink slips to roughly 170 employees at the company’s Mobile Montreal studio as well as part-time quality assurance… … Read More
UKIP Activist Upload – UKIP Cumbria on BBC Sunday Politics – 21 April 2013
http://www.youtube.com/v/RMAUL0xrl0c?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Read article here: UKIP Activist Upload – UKIP Cumbria on BBC Sunday Politics – 21 April 2013
Fox Censors Cory Doctorow’s “Homeland” Novel From Google
Cory Doctorow’s latest novel Homeland tells the story of an infowar, the suppression of information and the fight against censorship.
The setting of the fictional book is a realistic scenario according to activists, and on a small scale the book itself has now become the center of a censorship row.
Published by Tor Books, Homeland is available for sale in most book stores, but because of its Creative Commons license people are also free to share the book online. After all, obscurity is a much bigger problem than piracy for most authors.
As a result copies of the novel are shared for free on hundreds of sites, and this attracted the attention of a Hollywood studio. For a few weeks none other than 20th Century Fox has been sending DMCA takedown requests to Google for Doctorow’s novel.
Fox’s idea is to make pirated copies of the TV-series Homeland harder to find, but as collateral damage they’re also taking down the novel. Shown below is an example of a typical notice 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 being sent out, and here’s an even bigger list.
All Your Homeland Are Belong to Us!
TorrentFreak confronted Cory Doctorow with these dystopian findings and the author was outraged by the gross abuse of his rights. Without hesitation he called for drastic action to be taken against the head honcho of the content empire.
“I think you can safely say I’m incandescent with rage. BRING ME THE SEVERED HEAD OF RUPERT MURDOCH!” Doctorow says.
To make matters even worse, Fox is not the only party going after Doctorow’s books. His own publisher Tor Books has also sent DMCA takedown notices to Google, in this case for the book “The Rapture of Nerds”.
Creative Commons Who?
When we made this discovery back in February, Doctorow was more understanding. He told us that Tor Books sends out DMCA notices with his authorization, but only in instances where the book is wrapped in DRM, or when there’s another violation.
But, where DMCA notices are sent out mistakes happen.
“I think what I’d like is for Tor to be perfect in only sending out takedowns when there’s a genuine violation, but perfection is a pretty high bar. I’m sorta OK with settling for one mistake in 10 years, especially if it doesn’t happen again,” Doctorow said.
Around the same time Tor Books told TorrentFreak that the takedown was an honest mistake, and that they would tell Google to reinstate the links so that the books could be accessed again.
“Those takedown notices were simply a bureaucratic/administrative mistake. We’re withdrawing them as quickly as possible.,” Tor’s senior editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden said.
However, more than two months later the links in question remain censored on Google, and Tor Books have been unreachable since. All our follow-up questions remained unanswered, most likely swallowed by some overactive spam filter or intercepted by a local spy agency.
Get out the pitchforks!
“We’re withdrawing them as quickly as possible”
Source: Fox Censors Cory Doctorow’s “Homeland” Novel From Google
The Hives lose court case against The Cardigans
Swedish rock band The Hives was told on Tuesday to cough up 18.5 million kronor ($2.9 million) to Sweden’s pop darlings The Cardigans, after losing a court case involving the bands’ joint recording studio. … Read More
