Stock Alert (UK): Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is In Stock at The Pi Hut

Stock Alert (UK): Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is In Stock at The Pi Hut

Stock Alert (UK): Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is In Stock at The Pi Hut

Stock Alert (UK): Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is In Stock at The Pi Hut

AmiMoJo writes: Most of the UK companies that took part in the world's biggest ever four-day working week trial have made the policy permanent, research shows. Of the 61 organisations that took part in a six-month UK pilot in 2022, 54 (89%) are still operating the policy a year later, and 31 (51%) have made the change permanent. More than half (55%) of project managers and CEOs said a four-day week -- in which staff worked 100% of their output in 80% of their time -- had a positive impact on their organisation, the report found. For 82% this included positive effects on staff wellbeing, 50% found it reduced staff turnover, while 32% said it improved job recruitment. Nearly half (46%) said working and productivity improved. The report's author, Juliet Schor, professor of sociology at Boston College, said the results showed "real and long lasting" effects. "Physical and mental health, and work-life balance are significantly better than at six months. Burnout and life satisfaction improvements held steady," she said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Four-day Week Made Permanent For Most UK Firms In World's Biggest Trial

The UK has entered a recession after GDP contracted 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2023, the Office for National Statistics said Thursday. This follows a 0.1% GDP decline in Q3. The data shows meager 0.1% growth for the full year, the worst performance since 2009 barring 2020. All main sectors declined in Q4, with manufacturing, construction and wholesale facing the biggest drops, only partially offset by upticks in rentals and hotels. The recession deals a blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's economic pledges ahead of local elections Thursday and the national vote expected this year, potentially widening the lead held by the opposition Labour Party in polls.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

UK Falls Into Recession

The United Kingdom, France and allied countries on Tuesday called for international guidelines for the responsible use of spyware, in an effort to stop the hacking tools from running rampant. From a report: At a conference at London's Lancaster House co-hosted by the British and French government, more than a dozen countries and technology companies signed a declaration saying that "uncontrolled dissemination" of cyber intrusive tools could lead to "unintentional escalation in cyberspace." A 2021 investigation called the Pegasus Project highlighted how spyware tools like the Israeli-made Pegasus software had spread across the world and are being abused in political and corporate hacking campaigns. Despite widespread condemnation, governments' efforts to crack down on malicious hacking software have largely failed -- in part because the tools are popular with many intelligence and security services, including in democratic countries. Among the countries that have signed up to the pledge for international rules guidelines EU members Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Italy and Poland, as well as the United States, United Kingdom and the African Union. On the industry side, Apple, defense firm BAE Systems, Google, Meta and Microsoft signed up. The group of countries and firms hopes to curb the proliferation and unabated use of intrusive cybertools. They called for principles and policy options to balance human rights and security interests, including policies to use spyware in a âoelegal and responsible manner," in line with international law and under strict oversight by authorities.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

UK, France Pitch Rules To Curb Spyware Abuse

For the past few years, regional police forces in the UK have shown a growing interest in cracking down on those involved in the supply of illegal streams.

With regional organized crime units now part of the mix, joint press releases featuring police, the Premier League, Sky, and the Federation Against Copyright Theft, report enforcement action on a fairly regular basis. The importance of protecting copyright holders from criminal groups is the overriding message but for the last 12 months in particular, emphasis has shifted to include those who consume pirated content too.

A see-saw of deterrent messaging warns consumers not to become a victim of crime , through malware, fraud, and identity theft, for example. As that pushes pirates down on one side, the journey back up sees the same people warned of potential convictions for fraud, in this case for obtaining services dishonestly.

Baseless Threats or Genuine Intent?

Recent coordinated amplification of these threats in the tabloids has certainly raised awareness. Unfortunately, however, massive revving of the engine not only came too soon, but has left deterrent messaging with almost nowhere to go. Casual pirates are asking more questions than they did before. That may be considered a plus but, when it comes to weighing up risk, the lack of information weighs in favor of pirates , not against.

The big question, then, is whether there’s any real intent behind the stark warnings. Since history has a habit of predicting the future, knowing what has been happening on the enforcement front could prove informative. Two Freedom of Information requests published this week asked two regional police forces to fill in the gaps.

The first, dated December 19, 2023, was directed at Wiltshire Police. It asked the following questions, all related to live sports streaming piracy, for the years 2019 to 2023 inclusive. (Questions edited to remove repetition)

1. How many people were cautioned for viewing illegal streams?
2. ….. were given penalty notices for viewing illegal streams?
3. ….. were arrested for viewing illegal streams?
4. ….. were cautioned for distributing / supplying illegal streaming services?
5. ….. were given penalty notices for distributing / supplying illegal streaming services?
6. ….. were arrested for distributing / supplying illegal streaming services?
7. For questions 4, 5 & 6, how many were supplying illegal streams digitally?
8. For questions 4, 5, & 6, were supplying illegal streams through dodgy boxes/firesticks?

Since any convictions of note are extremely well-publicized for deterrent purposes, ballpark figures are more readily available for distribution-related offenses. Question 7 appears somewhat redundant and only the person who asked the question would know the purpose of number eight.

It would be interesting to know the specific figures for 3, 4 and 5, while the answer to 6 would be much more valuable if placed against the number people actually prosecuted, rather than simply arrested.

No Information Provided, Too Expensive to Process

Of most interest, in our opinion, are the questions relating to those who faced action for simply viewing streams. The answers to those might inform those who remain undecided about the nature of recent warnings. Unfortunately, Wiltshire Police provided nothing of value.

The key points from the Force Disclosure Decision Maker’s response read as follows:

The information that you are requesting is not stored in a way which permits easy retrieval. This is because illegal streaming does not have a specific crime code on our system. Therefore, in order to ascertain whether a caution was given due to illegal sports streaming, we would have to go into each individual occurrence on our system to determine whether this is related to the matter in question.

Under the circumstances I am absolutely confident that to locate, retrieve and extract the information you seek would by far exceed the time obligations upon this authority to comply, and in so doing would exceed the fees limits. This is set at £450 calculated at a flat rate of £25 per hour for those work activities comprising of confirming the information is held, locating it, retrieving it and extracting it.

Ordinarily under our Section 16 duty to provide advice and assistance, we would advise you how to refine your request to a more manageable level. However, due to the difficulties outlined above, I cannot see how this can be achieved in this particular case.

The questions sent to West Yorkshire police were broadly similar. This time, however, the decision to suggest specific keyword searches such as ‘set-top box’, ‘top box piracy’, ‘Kodi’, ‘IPTV’, ‘firestick’, ‘dodgy box’ & ‘internet TV media box’, plus ‘sports streaming’, ‘sports piracy’, ‘illegal streaming’, and ‘football streaming’, may have unintentionally captured other offenses.

“Between 01/01/2019 and 18/12/2023 there were 1,287 crimes recorded based on the offenses and/or keywords provided. In order to provide a response to the full question set would involve a manual review of each crime. At an estimate of 1 minute per record this would take 22 hours to provide. In addition to this there were 1,939 arrests for the aforementioned offenses taking a further 65 hours at 2 minutes each,” the response reads.

“Unfortunately, West Yorkshire Police are unable to provide you with the information requested.”

Yorkshire Police note that a revised request may be considered but even then, reasons exist for not providing the requested information.

“We may be able to provide you with information based on crimes classified as an offense under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and specifically related to illegal streaming. Please note however any information held is subject to exemptions under the Freedom of information Act,” the rejection notice adds.

It’s worth noting that viewers of illegal streams have been advised of a potential offense under the Fraud Act.

Lack of Access to Information

That the requests were unsuccessful doesn’t come as an especially big surprise. We’ve had our own narrow requests rejected in the past, and we’ve seen other requests handled in the same way. What does seem remarkable is that scant police resources are being deployed to tackle a very specific type of crime, as part of a national campaign that has government support, yet readily accessible figures are simply unavailable.

That raises the question of whether deterrent and enforcement measures undergo evaluation for efficacy within the force, or if rightsholders supply that information for the guidance of the police. If that’s the case, even in part, history shows that the problem is perpetual, rarely improves for very long, and only responds to changes in the market that are non-reliant on force.

Avon & Somerset Police Has Its Own Pirate Website

While trying to determine whether additional FOIA requests had been filed with other forces in the UK, something rather bizarre caught our attention.

The website of Avon & Somerset Police is usually available at avonandsomerset.police.uk and indeed still is, as the image below (left) shows.

On the right is the website as it appears on the ‘opcc-maintenance’ subdomain of avonandsomerset.police.uk. The small text on the left, whatever it means, was enlarged by us. That doesn’t look like a standard police-issue font.

More significant concerns appear in search engines where at least hundreds of police URLs containing the ‘rogue’ subdomain now advertise pirate streams of live sporting events.

It’s possible the subdomain started life as a staging area for web development but as the image below shows, the current situation goes way beyond that.

On the left of the image is a small sample of the modified URLs as listed in search engines. In the middle, a small selection of the hundreds or thousands of links claiming to offer pirated live streams. On the right is a screenshot of where people end up after clicking any of the police links containing the subdomain.

Mindful of all the malware stories lately, we progressed no further, even though the Australian Open was apparently on offer. Those visiting that portal via the links in search engines proceed at their own risk; anyone with the nerve to do this to a police website wouldn’t think twice about doing almost anything else, to anyone else, should the opportunity arise.

Avon & Somerset Police have been informed via the regular ‘report a crime’ system, but this may have been going on for quite some time already. There are no URLs listed on the Wayback Machine, but publicly-listed subdomain scans show that the problematic subdomain existed back in the summer of 2020.

The Freedom of Information requests can be found here and here (pdf)

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

The UK government’s Criminal Justice Bill had its first reading in the House of Commons on November 14, 2023, followed by its second reading on November 28.

A Public Bill Committee is now in the process of scrutinizing the Bill “line by line” and if all goes to plan, the Committee will report back to the House by January 30 , in advance of the Bill’s third reading.

The purpose of the Bill is to amend criminal law and, in many respects, it signals positive change. New criminal offenses to prohibit devices used in serious crime, theft, and fraud, such as 3D printer firearms templates, tablet presses, encapsulators, and vehicle concealment compartments, have been reasonably well-received.

Measures against universally despised, SMS spam-and-fraud-enabling SIM farm devices are long overdue, but some believe that criminalizing the homeless for “nuisance” rough sleeping isn’t the type of change Britain needs right now. However, with prison sentences of up to a month on the table, such nuisances can be completely eliminated, in theory for up to a month.

Preventing Online Crime

During the debate on November 28, Home Secretary James Cleverly spoke about the need to tackle fraud in its various forms. Published in June 2023, the government’s fraud strategy revealed that fraud now accounts for over 40% of all reported crime in the UK, with police dedicating just 1% of overall resources to tackle the problem.

“The Criminal Justice Bill contains several new measures to tackle fraudsters and the perpetrators of other serious crimes. We are prohibiting the possession and supply of SIM farms that have no legitimate purpose,” Cleverly said .

On the disparity between police resources deployed and the sheer scale of the fraud problem, Cleverly responded that it’s “not quite as simple as mapping the proportion of crime to the proportion of police officers,” since there’s a need to “upskill investigators so that they can focus on those crime types.”

The Home Secretary added that new tools to fight fraud are also part of the Bill.

“Law enforcement agencies will have extended powers to suspend domain names and IP addresses used for fraudulent purposes or other serious crimes,” Cleverly said.

Are Pirate Sites Among the Targets?

The Bill sees domain and IP suspensions as a mechanism to fight fraud and other crime that has an online component. Pirate sites aren’t mentioned specifically, but the same also applies to many other illegal operations that currently exist, or might exist in the future.

According to the Bill, investigative agencies would be given new power to apply to the court for a suspension order. These would compel third-party entities, involved in the provision of IP addresses or domain names, to suspend or deny access to them for up to a year.

According to the Bill’s explanatory notes, law enforcement agencies and entities responsible for assigning domain names or IP addresses currently operate under voluntary agreements. These rely on alleged fraudsters violating the terms of service laid down by their providers, at which point domains and/or IP addresses can be suspended for those breaches.

While that works in the UK, overseas providers “do not always recognize” informal requests and demand court orders before any suspensions can take place. The Bill addresses this with the introduction of two new orders, one to suspend IP addresses and one to suspend domain names, to be served against “Regional Internet Registries, Local Internet Registries, or Internet Service Providers.”

According to the government, these orders “can be served internationally, to ensure that any threat originating from outside the UK can be effectively tackled.”

Suspension Orders Target ‘Serious Crime’

The Bill says that an “appropriate officer” may apply for an IP address suspension order. The definition covers police officers, NCA officers, HM Revenue and Customs officers, members of staff of the Financial Conduct Authority, and enforcement officers in the Gambling Commission.

Before a court issues an IP address suspension order, certain conditions must be met. For example, an IP address can only be suspended when it is being used for serious crime.

Crime is defined as conduct which constitutes one or more criminal offenses, or corresponds to conduct which, if it all took place in the United Kingdom, would constitute one or more criminal offenses. The threshold for serious crime is when the offense(s), committed by a person over 18 (or 21 in Scotland and Northern Ireland) with no previous convictions, could reasonably be expected to be sentenced to prison for three years or more.

The majority of the defendants in the recent prosecution of Flawless IPTV had no previous convictions. In 2023, five defendants were sentenced to over 30 years in prison for offenses including conspiracy to defraud and money laundering. Over the last ten years, City of London Police has sent letters to pirate site operators ordering them to shut down or face potential prosecution under the Fraud Act and Serious Crime Act.

Relationship Between IP Address and UK

To show a relationship between the alleged serious crime, an IP address, and the UK, one of several conditions must apply. Most center on the definition of a ‘UK Person’ which broadly covers a person with British citizenship, a person living in the UK, a body incorporated under UK law, or an unincorporated association formed under UK law.

A relationship to the UK is established when a UK Person uses an IP address to commit serious crime, or becomes a victim of serious crime for which the IP address has been used. A relationship can also be established when an IP address is used for crime in connection with unlicensed gambling, or when an IP address is allocated to a device located in the UK.

Using the Flawless case as an example, more than one person used an IP address to commit serious crime, while a UK Person (Premier League) was the victim. Even if the defendants had been located overseas, a relationship could still be established due to the victim’s status as a UK Person.

Reactive and Proactive Suspensions

In respect of domain names, the measures are similar but also include a significant proactive element.

“The domain name conditions also cover instances in which domain names could be used for criminality in the future,” the Bill’s explanatory notes read.

“This is due to the criminal use of domain generation algorithms (DGA) to aid their operations. Once the relevant law enforcement agencies understand the DGA, they can identify domains which could be associated with criminal activity in the future and suspend them before they can be used.”

As previously reported , UK broadcaster Sky is fighting DGAs deployed by IPTV providers who are attempting to circumvent a High Court blocking injunction. While that is a matter under civil law, case law establishes that Sky is a victim of fraud, and a UK Person as defined by the Criminal Justice Bill.

Whether companies like Sky and the Premier League will make use of the provisions in the Bill when it enters into law is unknown. What isn’t in doubt is their determination to use any tool that has the potential to reduce the piracy problem.

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

Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments