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      RIAA Urges NTIA to Keep .US Domain WHOIS Info Public to Deter Online Piracy

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Wednesday, 26 July, 2023 - 19:47 · 3 minutes

    .us domain name Historically, the domain name WHOIS system has been an important tool to track down the operators of pirate sites and services.

    While WHOIS data is not always accurate, it is still helpful in holding site operators accountable, at least when the information is available for access.

    In recent years, access to domain registration information has often been restricted. This change is in large part the result of EU General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ), a privacy law that limits the availability of personal information in public databases.

    In response to the law, domain name oversight body ICANN implemented a measure to restrict access to personal WHOIS data for gTLDs, unless explicit permission is granted. This was a welcome privacy upgrade for many domain registrants, but anti-piracy groups were not happy .

    .US WHOIS Restrictions

    Copyright holders have complained about the stricter privacy rules but were pleased to see that these didn’t apply universally. The .US ccTLD, for example, which falls under the oversight of the United States Department of Commerce’s NTIA , remains publicly accessible.

    Public access helps enforcement efforts but also has some drawbacks. Since anyone can access the private details of domain registrants anonymously, the information can be used to spam, phish, or dox people.

    To reduce the potential for abuse, NTIA and its contractor GoDaddy are proposing to limit anonymous access to .US registrant data and make information seekers accountable too.

    “In response to concerns about the potential for abuse of usTLD registrant data, NTIA is considering a proposal from its Contractor to create an Accountable WHOIS Gateway System to provide public access to usTLD registrant information,” NTIA noted.

    “The System would require those seeking access to the usTLD registration data to provide their name, an email address, and to accept the Terms of Service (TOS).”

    NTIA summary

    RIAA Opposes WHOIS Shield

    Earlier this year, NTIA asked the public for input on this proposal. As expected, that triggered opposition from various parties including the music industry’s anti-piracy watchdog, RIAA.

    In response to the proposal, RIAA points out that EU privacy regulation and proxy registration services for many top-level domains have made it virtually impossible to obtain accurate registrant data for anti-piracy purposes.

    The .US TLD is a rare exception, which is also apparent in the abuse numbers. Pirate sites tend to avoid .US domain names, presumably because WHOIS data is publicly available.

    “We have seen much less copyright infringement on sites with .us domains than on those in the gTLD space,” RIAA writes.

    This statement is backed up by figures showing that copyright infringement through .US domain names is trending down in recent years, while it has increased on .COM domain names.

    riaa domain infringement

    WHOIS data is not only important to catch pirates, RIAA writes. It can also be helpful to other investigators, including law enforcement agencies, who also deal with online harms.

    At the same time, RIAA suggests that the harm faced by registrants is minimal. At least, the organization is not aware of any concrete examples where public .US WHOIS information has caused any problems.

    “[W]hile we have heard of anecdotal evidence of harm to registrants generally, we don’t know of any documented, verifiable, widespread, pervasive harm to .us registrants caused by publicly available registrant data.”

    Why Change?

    NTIA doesn’t propose to make it entirely impossible for rightsholders and other interested parties to obtain WHOIS data. Instead, it wants to hold WHOIS data seekers accountable, by asking them for their information as well.

    This shouldn’t prevent RIAA and other rightsholders from accessing WHOIS records, but the RIAA sees no reason to change the status quo.

    “Given the steep rise of cyber problems since the WHOIS data for gTLDs was masked, and the challenges such masking has caused to those combatting those problems, we don’t understand why .us would change its current policies.

    “Accordingly, the current system of access to usTLD domain name registration data should remain unchanged, and we do not support efforts to create unnecessary gates around registrant data,” RIAA adds.

    If NTIA decides to block unlimited and anonymous access to WHOIS data, RIAA notes that copyright holders should be granted free and immediate access. In addition, WHOIS data should be vetted through ‘know-your-customer’ requirements, while corporate domain registrations should remain publicly accessible.

    A copy of RIAA’s full response to the NTIA’s proposal was published this week and is available here (pdf)

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      WHO “deeply frustrated” by lack of US transparency on COVID origin data

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 3 March, 2023 - 19:43

    WHO's COVID-19 technical lead, Maria Van Kerkhove, looks on during a press conference at the World Health Organization's headquarters in Geneva, on December 14, 2022.

    Enlarge / WHO's COVID-19 technical lead, Maria Van Kerkhove, looks on during a press conference at the World Health Organization's headquarters in Geneva, on December 14, 2022. (credit: Getty | FABRICE COFFRINI )

    While the World Health Organization says it's continuing to urge China to share data and cooperate with investigations into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the United Nations' health agency is calling out another country for lack of transparency—the United States.

    WHO officials on Friday said that the US has not shared reports or data from federal agencies that have assessed how the COVID-19 pandemic began. That includes the latest report by the Department of Energy , which determined with "low confidence" that the pandemic likely began due to a laboratory accident.

    "As of right now, we don't have access to those reports or the data that is underlying how those reports were generated," Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, said in a press briefing Friday. "Again, we reiterate, that any agency that has information on this, it remains vital that that information is shared so that scientific debate, that this discussion, can move forward. Without that, we are not able to move forward in our understanding."

    Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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      Stock Alert (US): Raspberry Pi Zero W (w/ headers) is In Stock at Adafruit 100+ units in stock.

      feed.xmpp.earth / RPi_Locator · Friday, 10 February, 2023 - 16:15 edit

    Stock Alert (US): Raspberry Pi Zero W (w/ headers) is In Stock at Adafruit 100+ units in stock.

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      Stock Alert (US): Raspberry Pi Zero W (w/ headers) is In Stock at Adafruit 90 units in stock.

      feed.xmpp.earth / RPi_Locator · Thursday, 9 February, 2023 - 16:55 edit

    Stock Alert (US): Raspberry Pi Zero W (w/ headers) is In Stock at Adafruit 90 units in stock.

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      Stock Alert (US): RPi 4 Model B - 8GB RAM is In Stock at Adafruit 56 units in stock.

      feed.xmpp.earth / RPi_Locator · Wednesday, 8 February, 2023 - 16:28 edit

    Stock Alert (US): RPi 4 Model B - 8GB RAM is In Stock at Adafruit 56 units in stock.

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      Stock Alert (US): RPi 4 Model B - 8GB RAM is In Stock at Adafruit 52 units in stock.

      feed.xmpp.earth / RPi_Locator · Tuesday, 7 February, 2023 - 16:22 edit

    Stock Alert (US): RPi 4 Model B - 8GB RAM is In Stock at Adafruit 52 units in stock.

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      Stock Alert (US): RPi 4 Model B - 8GB RAM is In Stock at Adafruit 94 units in stock.

      feed.xmpp.earth / RPi_Locator · Monday, 6 February, 2023 - 16:16 edit

    Stock Alert (US): RPi 4 Model B - 8GB RAM is In Stock at Adafruit 94 units in stock.

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      US military shoots down Chinese balloon over coastal waters

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Saturday, 4 February, 2023 - 21:27 · 1 minute

    Image of a hand holding a needle to a balloon.

    Enlarge (credit: Andrea Nissotti / EyeEm )

    On Saturday afternoon, US jets intercepted the Chinese surveillance balloon as it was leaving the continental US. Live footage of the event shows contrails of aircraft approaching the balloon, followed by a puff of smoke that may indicate the explosion of some ordnance near the balloon's envelope—a reporter is heard saying "they just shot it" in the video embedded below. The envelope clearly loses structural integrity shortly afterwards as it plunges towards the ocean. Reportedly, the events took place near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

    Shortly afterwards, the US Department of Defense (DOD) released a statement attributed to its Secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, that confirmed the interception was performed by US fighter jets on the order of President Biden. The DOD identifies the hardware as a "high altitude surveillance balloon," and says that the President authorized shooting it down as early as Wednesday. The military, however, determined that this could not be done without posing a risk to US citizens, either due to debris from the balloon itself, or from the ordnance used to destroy it.

    As a result, the military waited until the balloon was far enough offshore to no longer pose a risk to land, but close enough that it would fall within US territorial waters, ensuring that the country would be the first to recover any hardware that survived the plunge into the sea. Secretary Austin also thanked Canada for its assistance in tracking and intercepting the balloon through the countries' cooperative North American defense organization, NORAD.

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      Stock Alert (US): RPi 3 Model A+ - 512MB RAM is In Stock at Chicago Elec. Dist.

      feed.xmpp.earth / RPi_Locator · Thursday, 26 January, 2023 - 18:50 edit

    Stock Alert (US): RPi 3 Model A+ - 512MB RAM is In Stock at Chicago Elec. Dist.