February 27th, 2010 by admin

In attesa di un suo nuovo romanzo, parliamo su ThrillerCafé di Micheal Connelly in qualità di curatore di Blue Religion, una raccolta di racconti uscita nei giorni scorsi per Piemme a tema “poliziotti”. Le firme sono varie, qualcuna nota, qualcuna meno: cito T. Jefferson Parker, E. D. Hoch, P. Robinson, P. Guyot, A. Burke, oltre allo stesso Connelly.
Il libro viene presentato così:

Cosa si prova quando si mette un assassino con le spalle al muro? Quando si smaschera un killer insospettabile? Quando si rende finalmente giustizia a una vittima da tempo dimenticata? Le storie raccolte in “Blue Religion” ci fanno entrare nel mondo e nella mente di chi affronta ogni giorno il crimine. Da Harry Bosch, alle prese con un caso che tocca nel vivo il suo ruolo di padre, al poliziotto in pensione che, soffrendo di Alzheimer, si precipita nel cuore della notte sulla scena di un delitto; dai due detective che raccontano qualche trucco del mestiere a un corso di scrittura creativa, all’agente che finisce degradato per non aver obbedito al suo capo corrotto: in tutte le storie, più dell’indagine in sé conta l’aspetto umano, la vita e il carattere di chi conduce quell’indagine e ne è inevitabilmente influenzato. Sono uomini e donne che sulla scrivania, al posto delle foto dei loro cari, hanno le immagini delle vittime i cui assassini sono ancora in libertà, a memento del lavoro mai finito. Sono agenti che per compiere la loro missione si muovono in equilibrio precario sul confine tra legalità e crimine, giustizia e vendetta, bene e male. Rischiando spesso di superarlo.

Personalmente non l’ho letto ancora, ma vi consiglio di dare un’occhiata agli interventi a riguardo su Pegasus Descending, che mi paiono come sempre puntuali e precisi.
Chi volesse esprimere un parere, dica pure qui sotto!

Blue Religion, a cura di Micheal Connelly: acquistalo su IBS!

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February 27th, 2010 by admin

Torna il Premio Garfagnana in Giallo con due sezioni dedicate a Giallisti in erba, per giovani fino a 16 anni compiuti e Giallisti investigatori, ovvero tutti gli scrittori sopra i 16 anni.
I migliori racconti saranno pubblicati in un libro e i vincitori di ciascuna sezione saranno omaggiati con una targa e premi di produzioni artigianali e alimentari della Garfagnana.
La giuria è presieduta da Enrico Luceri (vincitore del Premio Tedeschi) e la scadenza del concorso è posta al 30 agosto 2010.

I racconti iscritti devono appartenere al genere giallo, rientrare nella lunghezza massima di 10 cartelle ed essere ambientati in Garfagnana. La quota di partecipazione è di euro 15,00 per ogni racconto presentato.
Per tutte le informazioni riguardo al concorso, segnalo il bando sul blog di Garfagnana in Giallo.

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February 27th, 2010 by admin

Max Manus, a World War II movie based on the real-life events of resistance fighter Max Manus was the most expensive Norwegian film production to date.

Inevitably, a version of the movie that had been recorded in an empty theater leaked onto the Internet. Producer John M. Jacobsen was furious, vowing to track down the leaker mercilessly.

An investigation controlled by notorious pirate hunter Espen Tøndel and the Simonsen law firm was launched. They later announced that they had tracked down the IP address from where the movie was first uploaded to the Internet.

After the police expressed disinterest, Simonsen went to the courts to force an ISP to reveal the identity of the individual behind the IP address. Much to the disappointment of transparency advocates in Norway, few people know the outcome of that case since it’s being kept a secret. All we know is that one party wasn’t happy with the verdict and the case is now off to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court will have to decide if it’s acceptable for privately owned companies with financial interests in the outcome of a case to be given the power to obtain the identity of an Internet subscriber behind an IP-address, whether or not they committed the alleged offense.

And “whether or not” is a key phrase here. Not only does an IP address alone fail to identify an individual sat at a keyboard, TorrentFreak has been provided with information which indicates that the person the investigators claim to be the first uploader of the movie is actually no such thing.

As with much pre-released material, the content first makes its way on to the Internet via so-called ‘Scene’ groups. The Max Manus movie was first released by a group called KAMERA on a secure site on December 29th 2008 at 14:04:16.

A note the group included with the release reads: “We would recommend everyone to go and watch this movie in your local theater, and even buy the dvd/blu-ray when it hits the stores. This is a great movie, and it definitely deserves it!”

Instead of going after KAMERA, Simonsen are going after a much easier target – a secondary uploader who made his upload to a private BitTorrent tracker just under 3 hours later. Despite all the fuss, to date the movie has been downloaded just 2,800 times from the site it was released on.

Going through intermediaries, a source inside KAMERA confirmed to TorrentFreak they had nothing to do with the BitTorrent release but understandably declined to comment further. A source close to the group said they were disappointed that the movie had escaped onto the wider Internet due to all the publicity it’s received.

The tactic of going for easy targets is nothing new for anti-piracy groups, especially if it grabs some headlines. In 2005, a ‘workprint’ version of Star Wars Episode III leaked onto the Internet, put there by an previously unknown group called VISA. No member of this outfit was ever traced but the admins of EliteTorrents paid dearly for later making the movie available on BitTorrent.

In December 2009, following mountains of bad press and propaganda, Gilberto Sanchez, 47, was arrested at his home in the Bronx on charges of violating copyright law and now faces three years in prison and a $250,000 fine for supposedly being the infamous Wolverine ‘workprint’ leaker. “I’m a scapegoat for this,” he later told the New York Times. “I’m gonna get crucified.”

Few believe that Sanchez was the original uploader of Wolverine and now it appears the mystery person behind the IP address in the Max Manus investigation is not the original uploader either. Whether his or her identity will be made available to the anti-piracy lawyers is now up to the Supreme Court to decide.

While the actual first leakers of pre-release material continue to remain utterly elusive, those who dare to leak onto the wider Internet will continue to shoulder all of the blame, thanks to the inability of anti-piracy groups to investigate any further.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

February 27th, 2010 by admin

When the news got out that the lead investigator in the Pirate Bay case had been ‘rewarded‘ with a job for six months at Warner Bros., one of the plaintiffs in the trial, rumors of corruption and bribes were hard to hold back.

It later became clear that Keyzer had started working for the movie studio before the Pirate Bay investigation was closed, which obviously made things worse and fueled even more conspiracy theories.

Warner Bros. denied these allegations initially and stated that the investigator was not employed or paid by the movie studio while he was still working on the case.

Warner Bros. later retracted this statement and admitted that Jim Keyzer indeed started working for the movie studio before the Pirate Bay investigation was closed. This confession didn’t sit well with the defendants in the Pirate Bay trial who responded by filing several complaints with the police, including an allegation of bribery.

The police looked into the complaints but decided not to investigate the case. “[there is] no reason to believe that a crime has been committed by anyone employed by the police,” the prosecutor’s department stated.

That was the last we heard of Keyzer, who failed to show up at the Pirate Bay trial although he was listed as a witness. It was never a secret that after his six months at Warner Bros. he was welcomed back into the police force, but this week many were surprised to discover that he is now actually heading the IT Crime Unit.

One of the main tasks of Keyzer’s unit is to investigate file-sharing related cases. Obviously this once again fuels rumors that Keyzer is not the most objective officer to fulfill this position, to say the least.

Christian Engstrom, who represents the Pirate Party in the European Parliament, is also baffled by the news and finds it highly suspicious that the movie studios are “allowed to buy their own policemen.”

The appeal of the Pirate Bay trial for which Keyzer supplied evidence is expected to be scheduled this summer.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

February 27th, 2010 by admin

Much like Google, The Pirate Bay and isoHunt are search engines that aim to index information posted on the Internet and make it findable to their users.

Google’s YouTube shows even more similarities to torrent sites as it allows users to submit content, with the only difference being that YouTube actually hosts the uploaded files whereas torrent sites only link to content indirectly through .torrent files.

In the last year, three of the largest torrent sites – The Pirate Bay, Mininova and isoHunt – were all taken to court by copyright holders for assisting in copyright infringement, and all three sites lost their cases to some degree. Strangely enough Google has never said a word about these cases other than to distance themselves from The Pirate Bay team after they were sentenced.

Despite this attempt at demarcation, three Google employees are now in a very similar position as the aforementioned torrent site operators. An Italian court just handed out suspended jail sentences to three Google employees for ‘allowing’ users to upload a video that invaded the privacy of a third person.

The three employees were not aware of the upload before they were notified by the police, but they made it possible, much like they make it possible to upload copyrighted content. The similarities with torrent search engines are striking.

It is needless to say that Google is not amused by the court ruling. While the company kept its mouth shut in response to the legal actions surrounding the torrent search engines, they now speak of an attack on “the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built.”

“Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming,” Google’s Matt Sucherman wrote in a blog post yesterday.

This response from Google does indeed seem logical, and we can easily apply the same reasoning to sites that index and host .torrent files. The operators of torrent sites and video sites can’t possibly verify and screen the content of all uploaded files. This is something the site’s users should be held accountable for.

This doesn’t mean of course that the site’s operators should ignore the law. The Pirate Bay for example has always been very responsive to requests from the police concerning illegal material linked to by the site. IsoHunt goes even further as it actively works together with copyright holders and Mininova even allowed copyright holders to prevent infringing torrents from being re-uploaded in the future.

According to Google such policies should be good enough to operate a site like YouTube without running into legal trouble.

“European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy,” Sucherman writes.

So here we have Google in a similar position as most torrent sites are in. Although the Italian verdict is outrageous the obvious upside is that unlike the torrent sites, Google has the financial power to successfully fight the verdict. According to former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde, Google got what it deserved.

“It’s good that someone takes on Google for a change. Let them take the heat for once – and let them make sure that other sites that they’ve previously had no problem filtering, that basically do the same as them, don’t end up in this shit the next time,” Sunde told TorrentFreak.

“I think it’s good that time has finally caught up Google. Maybe now we have a level playing field here. They have to take the fight as well. Previously they only said nice things about how important the Internet was, and then ignored all of the things going on. Even supporting them – China for instance,” he added.

“A big player like Google has the financial muscles to fight this thing. And we all know that Italy is just full of rules made by Berlusconi, for Berlusconi,” Sunde said, adding, “That fascist needs to go.”

Google has indeed committed itself, and said it “will vigorously appeal this decision.” The whole case revolves around the question of whether or not the operators of media portals and search engines should be held accountable for the actions of their users.

In recent months Italian courts have clearly answered positively to this question. They have opened the door for a nationwide block of file-sharing sites and with yesterday’s decision file and video hosting sites are not safe any longer either. So the next question is, can Google secure a safe haven for torrent sites?

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

February 27th, 2010 by admin

Earlier this month it was celebrations all round for the operators of Aussie ISP iiNet, as they successfully defended a Hollywood movie studio legal onslaught directed by AFACT, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft.

Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network took iiNet to court, claiming that the ISP did nothing to stop its customers from sharing copyright media via BitTorrent and was therefore liable for their infringements.

Judge Justice Dennis Cowdroy disagreed, and handed a huge victory to iiNet.

Today marked the deadline for AFACT to appeal the decision and as expected, they did just that.

In a statement the anti-piracy group said there were good grounds to appeal a judgment which it is dramatically claiming has left an “unworkable environment for content creators and content providers and represents a serious threat to Australia’s digital economy.”

AFACT boss Neil Gane said the judgment conflicted with established copyright law in Australia.

“The court found large scale copyright infringements, that iiNet knew they were
occurring, that iiNet had the contractual and technical capacity to stop them and iiNet did nothing about them,” he said. “In line with previous case law, this would have amounted to authorization of copyright infringement.”

Gane went on to state that the ruling rendered so-called ’safe harbor’ provisions of copyright ineffective. “If this decision stands, the ISPs have all the protection without any of the responsibility,” he said.

AFACT’s appeal, filed with the Fedral Court today, consists of 15 areas where they believe Justice Cowdroy got it wrong. An analysis of the appeal grounds can be found here.

Chief of iiNet, Michael Malone, said Justice Cowdroy’s judgment was unequivocal and the company is confident the Court will stand by its original ruling, noting that more legal proceedings will not provide a solution.

“It is more than disappointing and frustrating that the studios have chosen this unproductive path,” Mr Malone said in a statement. “This legal case has not stopped one illegal download and further legal appeals will not stop piracy.

“The studios themselves admitted during the court hearings that making content freely and cheaply available online was an effective way to combat piracy. People are crying out to access the studios materials, so much so some are prepared to steal it. A more effective approach would be for the studios to make their content more readily and cheaply available online,” notes Malone.

Upon losing the original trial, AFACT was ordered to pay iiNet’s legal costs, revealed to be $5.7 million ($5.08 million USD). Earlier this week AFACT said it will return to court in order to avoid paying some of the costs.

The appeal hearing for the original case is likely be held this year and according to iiNet’s Michael Malone, it should take up significantly fewer days than first time around.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

February 25th, 2010 by admin

L’ombra del falco è il thriller d’esordio di Pierluigi Porazzi, edito da Marsilio, un romanzo teso con protagonista un serial killer inquietante.
Questa la sintesi:
Alla sola vista dell’ombra del falco, le possibili vittime si immobilizzano o fuggono terrorizzate. Anche se sono venuti al mondo, sanno già che è un predatore, è un’informazione conservata nel loro DNA. E allo stesso modo in cui il rapace sconvolge la vita delle sue prede, così un predatore di uomini sconvolge una tranquilla cittadina della provincia friulana. Il cadevere sventrato di una ragazza viene rinvenuto in una discarica. A distanza di pochi giorni, alla questura arriva una busta: all’interno una lettera e un DVD, con cui l’assassino lancia la sua sfida alla polizia, e in particolare all’ex agente Alex Nero, che viene richiamato in servizio per cercare di catturare il serial killer. La via per arrivare alla soluzione del caso sarà tortuosa e costellata di pericoli, fino alla sconvolgente rivelazione finale.

L’ombra del falco, di Pierluigi Porazzi: acquistalo su IBS!

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February 25th, 2010 by admin

A poco più di un anno dalla scomparsa di Donald Westlake, esce per Alacràn Soldi sporchi, libro inedito della serie Parker firmata con il noto pseudonimo di Richard Stark.
In quest’avventura Parker deve recuperare il malloppo di una rapina finita male. In “Nessuno corre per sempre”, assieme a due complici, aveva rubato un mucchio di soldi in transito da una banca all’altra, ma inseguiti dalla polizia avevano dovuto abbandonare il bottino, nascondendolo nella galleria del coro di una chiesa di campagna abbandonata. Persone che operano al di qua e al di là della legge vogliono ora mettere le mani sui soldi. Ma Parker, a bordo di un vecchio furgone Ford con la scritta “Coro del Santo Redentore”, chiaramente non è d’accordo…
Questo è l’ultimo romanzo scritto da Westlake come Stark, e a meno di qualche ristampa di vecchie edizioni, o di qualche inedito precedente, potrebbe essere anche l’ultima volta che leggiamo di Parker, vera icona del genere caper.
Ve lo lasciate scappare?

Ultima corsa, di Richard Stark: acquistalo su IBS!

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February 25th, 2010 by admin

Secondo volume con protagonista Mondino de’ Liuzzi, è da poco uscito per Piemme I discepoli del fuoco, il nuovo thriller storico di Alfredo Colitto che segue il precedente Cuore di ferro.

Siamo a Bologna, nell’autunno 1312. Mondino de’ Liuzzi, medico anatomista, riceve dal podestà l’incarico di chiarire una morte strana e tremenda: un membro del Consiglio degli Anziani è stato rinvenuto carbonizzato in casa sua, tuttavia nella camera niente fa pensare a un incendio. Addirittura, la poltrona sulla quale l’uomo era seduto è quasi integra, mentre il corpo è bruciato in maniera irregolare. I piedi sono sani, un braccio è completamente ustionato, tutto il resto è ridotto in cenere. Mondino fa portare il cadavere nel suo studio per studiarlo. Non riesce a capire come sia morto, ma sul braccio scopre i resti di un tatuaggio: un mostro alato, con la testa di leone e il corpo avvolto nelle spire di un serpente. Il giorno dopo seguente il cadavere sparisce. A distanza di qualche tempo, un frate francescano viene trovato morto nel quartiere dei bordelli. Addosso ha un disegno piuttosto simile al tatuaggio scoperto da Mondino. Indagando sui due decessi, si scopre l’esistenza di una setta di adoratori di Mithra, il dio persiano del sole e del fuoco, venerato anche dai romani con il nome di Sol Invictus. Aiutato da Gerardo da Castelbretone, ex cavaliere templare, Mondino arriva a sapere che setta vuole “salvare” la città per mezzo del fuoco purificatore: un enorme incendio rituale in cui le anime dei morti si riuniranno con Mithra.

I discepoli del fuoco, di Alfredo Colitto: acquistalo su IBS!

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February 25th, 2010 by admin

The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act was one of the last pieces of legislation passed by President Bush back in 2008. The purpose of the act is to toughen current anti-piracy measures.

Among other things the act calls for harsher punishments, the creation of a dedicated FBI anti-piracy unit and a copyright czar who reports directly to the White House. Last year President Obama appointed Victoria Espinel as the new copyright czar and she is now going full steam ahead with the new anti-piracy plans.

For these new plans Espinel is now looking for comments and input from the United States public. Although this might come across as an open and transparent process, the czar already seems to have made up her mind, indicated by the leading nature of the questions.

Yesterday a request for written submissions from the public went out and the copyright czar wants answers to two basic questions, answers that may or may not be used for the development of the new anti-piracy plans. Let’s take a look at what the Government is asking.

In the request we read that the first question the public should respond to is “regarding the costs to the U.S. economy resulting from intellectual property violations, and the threats to public health and safety created by infringement.”

The second part deals with “detailed recommendations from the public regarding the objectives and content of the Joint Strategic Plan and other specific recommendations for improving the Government’s intellectual property enforcement efforts.”

To summarize, the copyright czar wants the public to come up with examples and ideas detailing how piracy affects society and how it should be combated. Unfortunately the request seems to indicate that it is already concluded that piracy has a negative impact and that tougher measures are needed.

It is not too late of course to prove the opposite and voice our concerns. Let’s elaborate a little on the two questions.

The first question is an easy one. Although piracy might hurt some parts of the entertainment industry there is no objective and conclusive report that proves how it negatively effects the entire industry, let alone the United States economy as a whole.

One of the most authoritative reports on the economic and cultural consequences of file-sharing on the music, movie and games industries was published last year. The report, which was commissioned by the government, estimated that file-sharing has a positive effect on the Dutch economy. While it was recognized that the entertainment industry suffers some losses, these don’t outweigh the positive effects of file-sharing.

Other academic publications mainly show that music piracy has no, or a positive effect on actual sales. The more people download through illegal channels, the more they tend to pay for music. This indicates that music fans do want to pay for music but that they download in addition, which could be due to the lack of unlimited download services.

The second question posed by the czar deals with the enforcement side of copyright infringement. One of the main questions here is how to deter people from downloading files illegally.

Again we’d like to start off with pointing to the Dutch report mentioned earlier. In the report it was concluded that measures to combat piracy should not be implemented before the entertainment industries have come up with sufficient legal online alternatives. This suggests that the entertainment industries are in part causing piracy by failing to offer decent competitive DRM-free products.

Furthermore, it is very doubtful that harsher punishments and stricter enforcement will have any effect. Last year the RIAA won two major lawsuits against individual file-sharers and this hasn’t changed the attitude or behavior of the average file-sharer at all. If anything, tougher enforcement will drive piracy underground, motivating the public to hide their identities online.

The bottom line is that the enforcement question is irrelevant. Technology will always stay ahead of any new type of legislation. The new three-strikes law in France for example can be easily circumvented and the same will be true for other measures. Much more can be done by focusing on the core of the problem, that is, taking away the incentive to download illegally.

The issues we have briefly touched on here are just the tip of the iceberg, and we assume that our readers can easily list many more. If so, please take this opportunity to have your voices heard. The US Pirate Party, who alerted us about this public consultation, has a mailing form which you can use, but regular email works fine too. For those who plan to comment we would advise to include as many credible references as possible.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.