Russia orders bloggers to register with government in attempt to control the internet

Russia: the home shirtless autocrats, vodka and a love of free speech rivaled by only China. The Kremlin is taking another step to squash people speaking their mind online. After building out an infrastructure that allows the government to more easily block sites it finds objectionable, now it’s building a registry of bloggers. A newly approved law requires anyone who authors a blog in the country to “declare their family name and initials and e-mail address.” To make matters worse, if someone’s personal blog has more than 3,000 visitors per-day, they’ll have to put their names on a special list and abide by a particularly onerous set of restrictions — the same set of restrictions that many mass media outlets must obey. If they violate those laws, they’ll be subject to fines or even have their site suspended for a period of time.

So what sort of stuff is off limits for bloggers? Well, first and foremost, they’ll be expected to confirm the authenticity of any information they publish and avoid disclosing people’s personal data. Those rules in particular are aimed at protecting politicians from controversy and smear campaigns. Beyond that there are prohibitions against posting violent or pornographic content and even using obscene language (complete horse shit). And anything the government deems “extremist” or related to terrorism is also off limits.

The obvious goal is to scare bloggers into avoiding posting controversial opinions or information — especially about government authorities. But there is every chance that the new law could fall before Russia’s Constitutional Court, where many expect it will face a stiff challenge. Failing that, there’s a relatively obvious loophole since the legislation only applies to bloggers within the country. Dissidents writing from overseas would be safe from prosecution. However, the government would likely just end up blocking such sites.

Filed under: Internet

Comments

Via: TechDirt, The Verge

Source: Itar Tass, RT

Netflix gets specific about its battle with Comcast and opposition to the TWC merger

In the months since announcing a “mutually beneficial” interconnection agreement, Netflix and Comcast have seen eye to eye on very little. Throw in Comcast’s attempt to swallow up Time Warner Cable and grow even larger, and you have a battleground for the two to air their disagreements. Netflix put its opposition to the merger in writing with its most recent earnings report earlier this week, spurring a response from Comcast, and now a pair of more detailed rebuttals from the streaming company (update: and yet another response from Comcast). One is in a blog post by Vice President of Content Delivery Ken Florance, and another is a letter (PDF) by Vice President of Global Public Policy Christopher Libertelli in response to questions from Senator Al Franken. Both argue that Comcast’s stance that it deserves payment is flawed because, among other reasons Netflix is still the one that must transmit its data to Comcast’s network, where it stops without passing anywhere else.

In Comcast’s version of the events, it’s Netflix that approached it for the deal, cutting out wholesalers and exercising its market power. The cable giant says Netflix could always go back to working with partners that connect their networks to its backbone instead, and that any issues it has with the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger apply to the industry, not that deal. To close things out, its position is that Netflix’s opposition to the merger is all about enhancing its own negotiating power, and has nothing to do with protecting customers.

From the other side of things, it’s completely different, as Florance sees Netflix’s payments to middlemen like Cogent, Level3, XO or Tata is necessary because they actually carry its data over long distances to “every network” on the global internet. In connecting to Comcast, Netflix still has to shoulder the load of moving its data to the various endpoints where their networks connect. That, aside from the fact that Comcast serves as sole gatekeeper to the ability to reach customers using its services. In his letter, Libertelli says “Netflix purchased all available transit capacity into Comcast’s networks from multiple transit providers” and still experienced continually degrading services because Comcast wouldn’t upgrade the connections used by those providers as they requested. Once Netflix paid up, its quality increased, and seeing this as Comcast exercising its market leverage, Netflix opposes expanding that power by letting it combine with TWC.

So what’s next? So far, Netflix is still pushing other ISPs to join its OpenConnect program to connect networks or provide caching for its content without payment, and it could be some time before the government gives us a decision on the merger. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings referenced the possibility of allowing the merger with “significant settlements in there” during the earnings call on Tuesday, but what those could include is unclear. The FCC’s current net neutrality conundrum doesn’t extend to the peering agreements discussed here, but the nature of its trust problem over whether ISPs are responsibly managing their traffic is unquestionably entangled in the same conversation. Right now, Netflix customers on Comcast are definitely experiencing a boost in streaming quality and speeds, but that does little for users on other providers facing congestion and if these two stay at odds, who knows how long their deal will last.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

Comments

Source: Netflix Blog, Netflix Response to Senator Franken

​Having trouble spending your digital currency? Get a Bitcoin debit card

For all its advantages, Bitcoin has one major drawback: it’s rather hard to spend. While the digital currency has legs in online marketplaces like Overstock and Square Market, few brick and mortar stores are equipped to trade in Bitcoin. Special ATMs help a little, but there has to be a better way. Xapo, a crypto coin storage vault, thinks it’s found one: the Bitcoin debit card. Xapo’s card promises to work exactly like your bank’s plastic — authorizing transactions by checking the requested charge against your account balance in real time. If the sale is approved, Xapo automatically sells a comparable amount of Bitcoin from the user’s wallet to cover the purchase. Xapo says the card should be an improvement on the Bitcoin pre-paid cards that already exist, which require the user to manually refill their plastic before hitting the town.

“You can use it anywhere you would pay with MasterCard,” Xapo founder Wences Casares told CoinDesk. “It makes it very, very easy for you to access your coins.” The card will be available in two versions: a free, digital card for use at online retailers that don’t normally accept Bitcoin and a $15 (one time fee) physical card that can be used anywhere. The company is offering sign ups now, with card shipping this summer. Interested? Check out the company’s pre-order page at the source link below.

Filed under: Misc

Comments

Via: CoinDesk

Source: Xapo

Amazon is setting up a US delivery network to ship your orders faster

Amazon isn’t waiting for the advent of courier drones to ship your orders faster than usual: the Wall Street Journal reports that the e-commerce giant has been testing its own US delivery network in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Described in job listings as Last Mile, the initiative is meant to outperform established shippers like FedEx and UPS. These companies are increasing costs, can’t always meet capacity and are “impeding innovation in delivery services,” Amazon says in one job description.

Such efforts aren’t completely new for Amazon. The company is already testing its own delivery network in the UK, and went so far as to invest in a local parcel service. Even the US strategy reportedly began years ago. However, the WSJ understands that an American delivery network is now a much higher priority in light of last year’s holiday shipping meltdown — Amazon would rather not have to compensate angry customers time and time again.

It may also try to offer what existing courier services can’t. While the firm isn’t commenting on its plans, a self-run delivery system would let it deliver orders both on the same day and outside of normal hours. Don’t be surprised if it’s eventually possible to order from Amazon in the morning and get your goods that evening.

Filed under: Internet, Amazon

Comments

Source: Wall Street Journal, Amazon Jobs

China wages war on internet porn and rumor-mongering (again)

If you’re a porn connoisseur or troll in China, chances are your year hasn’t been great so far. Some 110 Chinese porn websites and 3,300 social accounts on services like Sina Weibo and WeChat have gone dark since January as part of the government’s new Cleaning The Web 2014 campaign, and that crackdown shows little sign of stopping. It’s not just porn that’s being hunted, either — this rigmarole is just as much about clamping down on odious internet rumors as it is about rooting out NSFW pics and slash fiction.

It’s no surprise to see China take aim at the lewd and lascivious: pornography has always been illegal in China, and the online variety has been verboten since 2002. Of course, that protracted battle rages on because previous efforts never fully eradicated all that pesky porn. And how could they have? That’s like the one essential rule of the online age: where there’s a connection, there’s a way. China’s high-level logic seems clear (if perhaps wrongheaded): a document from the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications obtained by state-run news agency Xinhua maintains that porn “does great harm to minors and the social ethos.” It seems damned near impossible that the Chinese government could ever fully excise porn from the web, but it’s still serious about trying. After all, the creator of the country’s biggest porn site will spend the rest of his life behind bars and web giant Sina just lost its online publication license after being caught up this recent content clease.

Meanwhile, China’s disdain for irresponsible online rumor-mongering came to a head last year when a court decided people should be charged with defamation if their rumors were viewed or shared enough times. We’ve already seen the effects of China’s war on those internet rumors, too. Just last week a blogger named Qin Zuihui was sentenced to three years in prison for what state-run broadcaster CCTV referred to as “slander” and “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” on Sina Weibo (a.k.a. China’s Twitter). He was apparently a professional troll of sorts, posting false news and collecting payment for smearing his clients’ rivals. Utterly shady? Sure. Worth a few years in prison? Very, very debatable. It seems awfully unlikely that he’ll be the last mischief-maker that’ll get ensnared by the law, either — the Cleaning The Web campaign is apparently set to run through November.

Comments

Source: Xinhua