The eDonkey network, also known as eDonkey2000 network or eD2k, has suffered a severe blow after seven of it's servers were shut down last week, following orders by German courts. This represents about a third of eDonkey's capabilities.

"Similar injunctions have been issued against eDonkey-linked servers in France and the Netherlands." Excerpt from techPowerUp!.

Once again, the fight against software piracy overlooks some legitimate uses that were in motion. In this case, I can name the distribution site for six-men tablebases, a chess tool that requires such a big amount of disk space that it couldn't be found anywhere else.

The internet has been compared to the wild west when it comes to security. When a virus infection spreads, you have to buy yourself an antivirus. If someone gets your credit card number it's because you didn't take sufficient precautions. It's always you, you, you. I remember the comparison being made in quite revealing terms; in the old days it was required of you to have a gun and to know how to use it, in order to protect your life and your property. In the days of the internet it's assumed that you have an equivalent virtual gun.

All this ranting has it's origins on this story (PC World):

"A Seattle man has been sentenced to two years in prison for selling computers and cameras on eBay but never actually delivering the goods."

I wouldn't even call it "news", the fact that something that should be commonplace hits the tabloids is what qualifies as one.

Until now, us ebayers (an internet buyers in general) felt every purchase was like playing the roulette, now that there's a sheriff in town we know there's something else apart from our shooting skills to keep thieves at bay.

 

Sienna Miller may not be dating pal Rhys Ifans (short for iTunesFanatic), but she is deeply involved with all things Simpsons, Apu, and the Earth (America's Plaything) all of whom are banding together to fight Global Warming. Read on!

Eli El (40) of Blue Island, Illinois, USA., was sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years of supervision for participating in an organized online software distribution conspiracy.

El pleaded guilty in May to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement for his participation in the distribution of approximately 20,000 copyright works over the Internet through the warez networks.

El gained privileged access to a number of warez file servers, where he was authorized to upload pirated software. In return for uploading pirated software files to these warez FTP sites, El obtained authorization to download other pirated software, games, and movies that had been uploaded to those sites by other members of the warez scene. In the case of one particular site known as "The Ether Net," El and his coconspirators distributed or caused the distribution of approximately 20,000 individual copyrighted works over the Internet.

This is another example of DRM and anti-piracy measures gone awry:

"Over the past weekend, some owners of legitimate copies of Windows had their copies of Windows invalidated by Microsoft, while users of pirated copies were unaffected."

The people at apcmag report about a failure of Microsoft's WGA servers that mistook legitimate Vista and XP copies for pirated ones. The solution given wasn't swift or completely satisfactory, either:

"Microsoft engineers eventually managed to fix the problem around 19 hours after reports of it first surfaced, but not before it had to warn users on its forum that swearing wasn't acceptable."

Anybody who also thinks they weren't in the best scenario for telling people what is and what isn't acceptable, please raise their hands.

Most of you should have already noticed that Mobile-Review.com, the popular Russian website is down from the past 5 days because of a DDoS attack supposedly by Apple fan boys after the iPhone review was published on the site. The site gets upto 200,000 uniques per day and serves upto 700,000 pages exceeding a bandwidth of 500GB.

Eldar Murtazin, the Editor-in-Chief of Mobile-Review.com posted an open letter today talking about the attack. Here is an excerpt from the letter:

"The attackers hope that by crushing Mobile-Review.com, they wonÙt let our visitors get unbiased information on events in the mobile industry, read independent reviews and share their opinions on forums. In light of the fact that similar attacks can be performed by individuals or small groups of people, we regard this incident as an attempt to impose censorship in the Internet.

When the first attack was unfolding, the Editor-in-Chief of Mobile-Review.com received an anonymous message on his Internet-pager, which read that fans of Apple were behind the attack, as this was a sort of revenge forthe iPhone and the treatment it got over at Mobile-Review.com. Possibly, it is true, however there is a chance that the message was sent in order to put us off the track. It is not a secret that we release “burning”, critical articles that many donÙt like."

Murtazin also announced a reward of US$10,000 to any individual or group of individuals who can provide documented information on the mastermind of this attack. You can send all reports to eldar (at) mobile-review (dot) com.

 

Now that V for Vendetta and From Hell have been adapted for the big screen (Watchmen on the way) there's only Miracleman left and I don't think the litigation process over the character's copyright will be over soon. Miller (Sin City, 300) doesn't have much left, neither. Ronin comes to mind, but his other main works portrait Batman and Daredevil (Elektra) which have already had their cinema interpretation (several in the case of the Bat).

It was a matter of time before Hollywood turned it's attention to the third Big Name in the comic industry: Neil Gaiman. Stardust (August 10) and Beowulf (November 16) are almost here. Just the beginning, Sandman and Death await their turn. I can imagine the casting for Death, particularly, as being the cause for rivers of ink (or bits in the Internet forums).

 

The young Harry Potter cast has recently admitted to drinking, smoking, partying, as well staring in wizard movies that draw worship from our Lord and Savior. Read on!

 

According to this article, me may some day need "printing rooms" to avoid the dangers this vice poses for us non-printing citizens:

"An investigation of dozens of laser printers revealed that almost 30 per cent emit potentially dangerous levels of particles into the air.

These ultra-fine particles were capable of infiltrating the lungs and causing lasting damage on the scale of inhaled cigarette smoke, said researcher Professor Lidia Morawska of the Queensland University of Technology."

And yes, they mention cancer, too. It's curious how some investigations take so long to come into effect. The relationship between brain tumors and cell phones was investigated ages ago, and both them and laser printers have been popular for more or less the same amount of time.

 

Sexual aid Jessica Alba says that she loves playing with super hero Sue Storm on the Wii, and loves playing as Sue Storm on film, and as soon as she gets the hang of quantum physics, she'll enjoy playing opposite Sue Storm in the theater production of Sense and Sensibility.